WALLACE -- Authorities have discovered a 10- to 15-acre pot farm near Wallace, valued in the millions of dollars and considered the area's biggest marijuana raid in recent memory. "I don't recall a bust this big in southeastern North Carolina in my time," said Sheriff Blake Wallace, who worked for the State Bureau of Investigation for 11 years before he became the Duplin County sheriff in 2002. The marijuana recovered Sunday morning, which weighed in at 4,160 pounds, has a street value of about $9.9 million, Wallace said, adding that the numbers were likely to increase as deputies continue their recovery work today. [continues 147 words]
Marc Emery's extradition proceedings have been postponed so prosecutors can sift through a tower of documents "20 feet higher than the Empire State Building" submitted by the Prince of Pot's defence team. Speaking at Friday's preliminary hearing, prosecutors estimated it would take until January to analyze the documents submitted by those fighting to prevent Emery from being extradited to the U.S. for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet. Defence lawyers for Emery, and co-accused Michelle Rainey-Fenkarek and Greg Williams, said it was possible their clients would apply for legal aid. Setting the next hearing date for Oct. 21, Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm granted Emery permission to leave B.C. in the interim to attend pot rallies at Montreal and Calgary. [end]
The fear of being caught stoned in school is the best reason to begin testing Bay State high schoolers, experts argue. Panelists at yesterday's Student Drug Testing Forum said Massachusetts should tackle drug abuse head on as other states are now doing. The testing, they said, should be required for anyone playing sports or taking part in extracurricular activities. "By the time they are bold enough to show up (at school) using drugs, it is already a problem," said Calvina Fay of the Drug Free America Foundation. [continues 205 words]
A grandmother who advocates cooking with cannabis must wait another two months to hear if she must go before the courts again for cultivating the drug. Patricia Tabram, 66, answered bail at Hexham police station, Northumberland, and emerged 90 minutes later after she was re-bailed. The grey-haired pensioner was arrested last week at her home in the quiet village of Humshaugh, near Hexham. Police recovered plants at her home, which they told her needed further analysis. Outside the police station, she said: "Anyone who knows anything about cannabis knows it [the plants] is cannabis, but they said they need proof." [continues 123 words]
Dope gran Patricia Tabram will reveal in court she cooks cannabis for 27 people. Mrs Tabram is due to answer bail at a police station this afternoon. If her case goes to court the 66-year-old, who was arrested in a drugs raid on her home last Friday, may face six months in jail. Defiant Mrs Tabram, who the Chronicle first revealed had cooked with cannabis to relieve her ailments, has been seized again on suspicion of cultivating hash at her home in Humshaugh, Northumberland. [continues 422 words]
UP IN Northumberland, my neck of the woods, the story of cannabis-growing gran Patricia Tabram has popped up again. This, in case you'd forgotten, is the pensioner who says she takes the drug to alleviate the painful symptoms of tinnitus, whiplash and depression. St. Patricia even doles her home-grown dope out to other ailing mates. Often she'll sprinkle it into soup or a stew. Her skunk scones are legendary. Many's the night the elderly of Humshaugh, a sleepy little village near Hexham, giggle their way to bed after sampling a slice of Mrs Tabram's fruit cake. So brisk was her trade that by January this year, police discovered she was in possession of UKP 845 worth of the drug. (Roughly the financial equivalent of what Kate Moss shoves up her nose in an afternoon.) [continues 66 words]
Security measures at Nogales High School were an issue last week at a meeting of the Nogales Unified School District No. 1 board. In a previous session, board member Raul Romero requested a report on what the school was doing to prevent illegal drugs on campus. At the meeting on Monday, Sept. 12, Superintendent Guillermo Zamudio said the head of security for NUSD, George Alarcon would be reporting to him on a daily and weekly basis. "What are we doing to stop the sale of drugs at the school?" Romero asked. "I've spoken to some students and they feel pressured and scared about what's going on." [continues 514 words]
If the War on Pornography is as successful as the War on Drugs, we can look forward to the DVD "Booty & the Beast" being sold on street corners instead of out-of-the-way sex shops. Prohibition doesn't work. Unfortunately, that never stops us from trying. On July 29, Denver's FBI field office, along with the 56 others around the nation, received a message calling for recruits interested in working with a new anti-obscenity squad. The initiative, as reported in The Washington Post, was "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI director Robert Mueller. [continues 564 words]
FRISCO - Like any high school, the pattern of drug use runs the gamut at Summit High. "There is almost always some kind of initial experimentation with alcohol and pot," said Kate Glerup, Summit High School counselor. Glerup says there are kids who simply experiment, then choose not to use drugs or alcohol at all. There are kids who randomly drink or smoke marijuana, mostly at parties, and there are kids who smoke on a daily basis. "And then there are kids who progress quickly and clearly have a problem with drugs and alcohol abuse," she said. [continues 527 words]
Regarding your story "Will Wisconsin Allow Pot as Medicine?" (8/12/05): Allowing this drug for medical purposes is the ethical thing to do. I knew a cancer patient who could have benefited from this drug. The worst part of her disease was watching what chemotherapy did to her. We had heard that marijuana could have helped with nausea and loss of appetite far better than the available drugs, but she never had the benefit of using it. Those who frame the debate otherwise do a disservice to the suffering patients who truly need medical marijuana. This includes proponents of marijuana as a recreational drug, the media who spice up stories with intimations of broader legalization and depiction of counterculture images, and opponents who cling to unsubstantiated theories that the medical use would encourage recreational use. I support state Rep. Gregg Underheim's proposed bill, and am heartened to see this kind of level-headed, ethical action by a political leader. Will Warlick [end]
Investigators cut down and destroyed 7,000 marijuana plants found Wednesday in a Steele County soybean field, denying dealers a potential $190,000 haul from the sale of the plants, authorities said. The discovery was one of the largest in recent years. "You could see them from the road, and eventually what happened was that there were people going out there and harvesting the plants, and that's how we got onto that they were there," said Sgt. Roger Schroeder of the Northfield Police Department and the unit commander of the South Central Drug Investigation Unit. [continues 60 words]
Kota Kinabalu: There have been many cases of dadah addicts arrested but being released without being charged, a seminar on the Role of Women in Combating Dadah here was told. Chairman of Pemadam Kota Kinabalu City, Dr Chua Kim Hing, attributed this to the inability to test blood samples and verify the results speedily. "In accordance with the procedure, a blood sample from anyone suspected of being an addict needs to be tested and confirmed by a government doctor with the use of a special machine. Unfortunately, in Kota Kinabalu, there is only one such machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital," he lamented. [continues 370 words]
"You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourself And Apologise To Your Country And Countrymen Who Come Here To Find A Job And Earn An Income Legally." High Court judge Datuk Abdull Hamid Embong said this to Mardani Hussin, 29, an Indonesian charged with trafficking in 927g of cannabis. "You should also apologise to Malaysians for being involved in dadah," he said. "You entered Malaysia illegally in February 2002 and within eight months you were caught with the drug." In sentencing Mardani to death, Abdull Hamid said there was only one sentence for dadah trafficking. [continues 195 words]
