The California Supreme Court decided Thursday that the state's medical marijuana law can be used as a defense against criminal charges but does not insulate people from prosecution. The ruling, which left substantial areas unclear, left law enforcement officials free to arrest patients or caregivers who they believe are growing more pot than required for specified medical needs. But the court's ruling said defendants are likewise free to invoke the Compassionate Use Act both before and during trial. The 1996 act decriminalizes possession and cultivation of marijuana for patients and their primary caregivers who use or dispense the drug on the written or oral recommendation or approval of a physician. It does not set out acceptable amounts. [continues 892 words]
A 10-year-old child asks an excellent question: "If drugs are bad and kill people, why do we still have drugs?" ("Students DARE To Think," July 13) It is the lies told by anti-drug programs such as DARE that cause children to question the warnings of parents and teachers. When I was a kid, I was told by my teachers that marijuana was likely to kill you the first time you smoke it. As I grew older, I learned that marijuana has never once caused a death! This caused me to question everything I was ever told about drug use. Until we get real and start telling our kids the truth, programs such as DARE will continue to have little effect on reducing teenage drug use. ADAM WIGGINS, Pasadena [end]
MILL CREEK -- The investigation into an illicit methamphetamine lab explosion June 30 that sent a fireball through a local residence and injured two women has turned into a homicide case. District Attorney Task Force agents said Teresa Hicks, who was burned on 50 percent of her body, when the lab exploded in her kitchen, died Monday at Integris Baptist Burn Center in Oklahoma City. District Attorney Mitch Sperry said late Tuesday Hicks' death changes the focus of the case. "It ups the ante," Sperry said. "It's now a homicide case." [continues 318 words]
DEA Predicts Trouble On Both Sides Of Border Canada would hamper the aggressive U.S. war on drugs by adopting a "lax policy" of decriminalizing possession of marijuana, says the head of drug enforcement in the United States. Asa Hutchinson, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, predicted more Canadian-grown pot would end up south of the border if Justice Minister Martin Cauchon decides to relax Canadian law. "It would probably complicate things somewhat for the U.S.," he said in an interview Wednesday. [continues 447 words]
Dear Sir: The Terrace and District Teachers' Union has a very good point. What makes police officers qualified to teach? And if they have the qualifications to teach, why not have armed police officers teaching political science as well? Police should be out looking for violent criminals and terrorists. We still have dozens of unsolved murders in this province - murders which may not have happeed if police did their job, instead of masquerading as teachers. Also - let's face it - the purpose of having police officers trying to coerce children in any way is to teach them that power comes from the barrel of a gun. And that is just plain wrong. Chuck Beyer Victoria, B.C. [end]
Co-Defendant Will Help Bodenheimer Prosecution Just hours after Ronald Bodenheimer became the first 24th District judge in 20 years to be indicted while in office, his co-defendant turned on him and pleaded guilty, promising to help the government in its investigation. A federal grand jury Wednesday charged both Bodenheimer and Curley Chewning with one count of drug conspiracy and three counts of using a cell phone to commit a crime, framing a business antagonist by planting the prescription painkiller OxyContin in his truck. The charges carry a potential maximum sentence of 32 years in prison and more than $1.75 million in fines for each, although sentencing guidelines usually suggest far less than the maximum. [continues 1110 words]
An off-duty Charlotte-Mecklenburg police sergeant and two other law enforcement officers were killed Wednesday during an air search for marijuana in Eastern North Carolina. Sgt. Anthony Scott Futrell, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police veteran, was flying a single-engine plane when it crashed in Chowan County -- 240 miles northeast of Charlotte -- at about 3:30 p.m., authorities said. The flight was part of a statewide drug eradication program that uses small aircraft from the Civil Air Patrol for surveillance flights, Chowan County Sheriff Fred Spruill said. [continues 366 words]
Study Says Parents, Teachers Are Doing More To Prevent Abuse WASHINGTON - Drug, alcohol and cigarette use among sixth-to 12th-graders is at the lowest level in years, partly because adults are doing more to keep their kids away from illicit substances, according to a survey released Wednesday. Parents and teachers are warning students about drug use and encouraging kids to nurture other interests by joining extracurricular school and religious activities, the 2001-02 Pride Survey said. The percentage of students using any illicit drug -- including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and others -- dropped to 22.3 percent, the lowest level registered by the study since the 1993-94 school year. [continues 217 words]
Valley Officials Deal With Bigger Gardens And Armed Guards. As growers fertilize and manicure thousands of marijuana plants for harvest, sheriff's deputies are scouring remote areas of the Valley where they typically find large, booby-trapped gardens. The season for growing marijuana runs from April through October and it's already proving busy and dangerous. Marijuana gardens have turned into more sophisticated and potentially deadly operations than the small backyard farms of the past. "We've seen a change from the lower-threat level to an extremely dangerous situation," said Lt. Donna Perry of the Tulare County Sheriff's Department. "Times have changed. What we face now are very sophisticated operations." [continues 1070 words]
Two rural Ratliff City women demonstrated early today in front of the courthouse protesting a $10,000 bond that allows a Kingman, Ariz., man freedom pending the outcome of his trial on a drug trafficking charge in Carter County District Court. Angela Cortez said she and her mother, 78-year-old Lois Butler, were calling for an increase in bond in the case charging 54-year-old Jimmy V. Martin with trafficking methamphetamine. "My purpose for being here is I want that bond upped," Cortez said. "His bond when he was arrested was $250,000. It was then reduced to $10,000 and he had been running for a year when they caught him. We (Carter County) taxpayers had to pay for them to extradite him from Arizona back to Ardmore." [continues 611 words]
One can understand the impulse to want to eliminate red tape and get the job done. But a New York Times story detailing a closer-than-ever working relationship between the U.S. military and the FBI in the effort to hunt down suspected al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan nonetheless raises some red flags. The traditionally independent military and civilian law enforcement agencies are cooperating in Pakistan even more than in the drug war, where the lines of authority previously have been blurred. The experiment in cooperation in Pakistan is seen as a possible model for similar anti-terrorist activities in the Philippines, Yemen and elsewhere. [continues 226 words]
The Supreme Court's decision regarding the drug testing of high school students for extracurricular activities will only push children away from activities that could be a lifeline for them. I was a cheerleader in high school who also happened to be an active alcoholic and drug-abuser. I got sober when I was 16, and I have been in recovery now for 15 years. I am afraid to think how much further down my life could have gone if I had been banned from cheerleading or the other extracurricular activities I was involved in. [continues 96 words]
Child In Fair Condition; Paralyzed On Right Side Ten-year-old Tevin Montrel Davis had just finished riding bikes with his friends Monday night when he joined his father on the front steps of their West Baltimore rowhouse shortly after 9. Moments later, a group of men began arguing on the street corner in a familiar scene of drug trafficking - one that neighbors say they see all too often. Then came the shots. As gunfire rang out and four men ran toward a Jeep Cherokee parked close to where the children had been playing, Tevin was shot in the neck. He was listed in fair condition yesterday at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, where he was paralyzed on his right side. It could take a week to determine whether Tevin's paralysis is permanent, his parents said yesterday. [continues 802 words]
Hagerstown City Police Chief Arthur Smith Initiated The Investigation After Five Bottles Of Methadone With Hagerstown Treatment State officials investigating The Hagerstown Treatment Center's operating procedures have found the methadone clinic to be in compliance with regulations, according to the Maryland Office of Health and Mental Hygiene. Spokesman J.B. Hanson said investigators visited the 217 E. Antietam St. clinic last week and thoroughly evaluated its records and procedures. The investigation was prompted by a letter to the Office of Health and Mental Hygiene by Hagerstown City Police Chief Arthur Smith, Hanson said. [continues 205 words]
Major Was Also Leader in the Civil Air Boone police are mourning the loss of a beloved 24-year veteran killed in an airplane crash Wednesday afternoon as he and two other officers patrolled for marijuana plants in Chowan County. Maj. Robert C. Kennedy, 46, was a trained spotter in the Civil Air Patrol's counternarcotics program. He led the Civil Air Patrol in Boone as squadron commander and was in Edenton to assist a pilot and communications officer on a patrol flight above Chowan County's rural landscape. [continues 505 words]
HARTSELLE -- If you are a student who participates in an extracurricular activity and you are using drugs, the chairman of Hartselle's drug testing committee has a message for you. "It's time to get the word out that we are coming," Susan Hayes said at Monday's committee meeting. Mrs. Hayes, who is assistant principal at Hartselle High School, serves also as chairman of the committee the school board appointed to develop a random drug-testing policy. "If kids are smoking marijuana, maybe they will stop," she said. [continues 212 words]
Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced that he intended to reclassify cannabis as a class C drug Many cannabis campaigners and professionals are disappointed with the announcement and concerned that, although there may appear to be some progression in thought, the results may be negative, There will still be no legal supply routes and no safe place for users to interact socially, as do people who choose to drink alcohol. I cannot see how these changes will help anyone except maybe the police who will save time through not having to arrest and process people caught with small amounts of cannabis. I find the proposals very unclear in the message. [continues 203 words]
A man and a woman who posed as owners of $135,000 seized by narcotics officers pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal conspiracy, mail fraud, embezzlement and money laundering charges. Their co-defendant in the case, suspended Memphis police officer Alandas McGraw, is slated to go to trial Aug. 5. Victor Bowen and Barbara Patrick were charged in a 22-count indictment in May along with McGraw, an officer in the Vice and Narcotics Unit. McGraw had been relieved of duty with pay two months earlier, following a police internal financial audit. [continues 197 words]
This is the fourth in a series about how the disappearance of 54 women from the Vancouver's eastside is touching the lives of local people Val Hughes is considering a cell phone inplant, she said jokingly. Since this series of articles started to appear in the newspaper, her phone has been ringing almost non-stop - most calls being an offer to help the Missing Women's Trust Fund. Following Hughes' plea this weekend for help in finding a large facility for a residential women's detox and rehabilitation centre, she's received several calls and at least two options that are being researched: a 16-acre camp in Maple Ridge and an eight-bedroom home in Pitt Meadows. [continues 365 words]