SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Agents have seized 742,684 plants with an estimated street value of more than $2.6 billion, already surpassing last year's season total by 20 percent, authorities said. The state Department of Justice's annual Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, or CAMP, is still a month away from wrapping up operations after the season peak at the end of September. The raids, many in remote, forested terrain, pit agents against often heavily armed guards protecting their marijuana plots. About three weeks ago, a grower was shot dead and a state Fish and Game warden was wounded during a raid on a 22,000-plant pot farm in the hills above Los Gatos. It was the fourth suspect to die in a marijuana raid shootout with authorities in the past three years and the first time a law enforcement officer has been shot in CAMP's 22-year history. [end]
Children in Crosland Moor are playing just yards from a "sickening" drugs den strewn with blood-spattered needles. Youngsters who use the swings and slides at the bottom of May Street can watch gangs of drug addicts roaming the area preparing to use drugs. The addicts, who inject heroin, use a patch of grass near the play park to meet up and administer the evil substance. Colne Valley High pupil Stacey Elson, 15, and a friend were out walking dogs near the park when they stumbled across piles of used needles, swathed with toilet rolls covered in blood and other substances. [continues 153 words]
The headteacher of a Kent school which introduced random drug testing of pupils believes it contributed to an all-time high in GCSE pass rates. The Abbey School in Faversham, which began testing pupils at the beginning of 2004, is believed to be the first in the UK to do so. This year, 40% of pupils achieved five good GCSE passes, compared with 26% last year and 32% the year before. Head Peter Walker said he now hoped to extend drug testing to more pupils. [continues 325 words]
An area eighth-grade student who was banned from playing volleyball because she had missed a mandatory drug test will reportedly be reinstated to the team once she gets a clean result from a drug test she submitted to on Friday. The larger issue of student drug testing in the Alexander Local School District is still raising the hackles of some district parents, however, and a handful of them raised further concerns about the new policy at Thursday's school board meeting. [continues 981 words]
A Port Moody couple was waiting Tuesday to hear from their son, Mathieu James Forand, who is facing a possible death penalty in Taiwan after his arrest Friday on drug-trafficking charges. According to media reports from Vancouver and Taiwan, the 28-year-old English teacher was arrested by police during a drug bust that allegedly involved quantities of cocaine, ecstasy and marijuana found in Forand's Taipei apartment. Drug crimes, under Taiwanese law, are subject to capital punishment, and the prosecution is reportedly seeking the death penalty or 25 years in prison. [continues 324 words]
Police officers raided a rural farm north of Havelock on Tuesday and seized someone's field of dreams -- more than 14,000 marijuana plants with a street value of $14-million. Detective Sergeant Dean Steinke of the Kawartha Combined Forces Drug Unit said it is the largest seizure this year for the unit , which is made up of members from the Drug Enforcement Section of the OPP, Rural Agricultural Crime Team (OPP), Peterborough OPP, Peterborough/Lakefield Police and the Port Hope Police Service. [continues 411 words]
In an effort to bring drug education to parents and the community, Keyser Police Captain Forrest "Buddy" Ellifritz has developed what he calls "Street Drug ID Class." "I developed the class last fall and have given it to Keyser EMS, Burlington Fire and Rescue," said Ellifritz. Ellifritz has been certified by West Virginia Law Enforcement Training Committee as a law enforcement instructor. The class educates on the different drugs and how they effect people. "I explain (law enforcement and rescue) safety precautions, what to do when they encounter people under the influence," said Ellifritz. [continues 261 words]
Health Ministry's Planned Closures Threaten Lives: Critics THE MINISTRY of health is saving dollars when it should be saving lives, protesters charged yesterday during a rally against the closure of one of the city's busiest detox centres. 'Where Am I To Go' "With the detox (centre) that's closing, when I want to quit heroin, where am I going to go?" Penny, 22, said outside the Withdrawal Management Centre at 501 Queen St. W. "A lot of my friends use this facility to get clean, but if they keep closing, a lot more people are going to die from overdosing." [continues 289 words]
Re: Pot bust the biggest ever in Saskatchewan (SP, Aug. 23). Even with inflated estimates of the value of plants seized in recent raids on local cannabis farms, Saskatchewan residents should be wondering why the government and RCMP persist annually in spending billions of taxpayers' dollars to increase the profits of crime and turn more kids onto crystal meth. That will be the outcome of the continued assault on peaceful farmers and seed merchants, and Canadians who prefer a little weed on the weekend rather than a case of beer. [continues 169 words]
To the Editor: I'm writing about "Grant a welcome weapon in war on meth Problem" (Aug. 23, p. 2). When our war on drugs began in 1970, the United States didn't have much of a meth problem. We obviously do today. In 1969, the federal drug enforcement budget was $65 million. Today it's $19.2 billion. (These figures don't include the cost of incarceration nor the state and local costs). The obvious answer to our nation's drug problem is more money since we have only increased our drug war budget by 29,500 percent since 1969. Obviously, we must throw more money down the drug war rat hole in our attempt to nullify the immutable law of supply and demand. Kirk Muse [end]
Re: 'A Cheap Form Of Publicity,' letter to the editor, Aug. 30. Len Rudner, national director of community relations for the Canadian Jewish Congress, doesn't see the connection between Nazi Germany's war of racial hygiene to the American-led war on moral hygiene. I do. For now, we have a softer kind of totalitarianism, but the Nazi progressed in steps too. I was a locomotive engineer at CN Rail when they came for me. I would not convert to the drug-free Puritan ideology of the therapeutic state, so my career was over. Similar to Jews who were prevented from entering certain professions in the past, I will be prevented from being employed in any "safety sensitive" position. [continues 93 words]
To the editor: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (of marijuana), or LEAP, has more than 2,000 members. Members include prison wardens, judges, mayors and former cops. California judge James Gray advocates decriminalizing marijuana. "That would generate $2 billion annually in tax revenues that could be spent on education and drug treatment," he says (Progressive, August 2005). Jack Cole, former policeman and co-founder of LEAP, believes that by legalizing drugs and having them supplied by the government, "organized criminals and world terrorists would be monetarily crippled for many years to come." [continues 112 words]
Over the past few weeks I have been troubled by the headlines from across our country and within our community. Violent crime rates are rising and it is time Prime Minister Paul Martin shows a commitment to protecting Canadian citizens and taking a serious look at the criminal justice policy proposals myself and my fellow Conservative MPs have been proposing to deal with emerging crime issues. It is time that the Liberal government supported the frontline law enforcement officials across our country that serve to protect our rights and freedoms each day. On many occasions over the last parliamentary session, Conservative MPs proposed increased funding for more police officers only to have Liberals vote against the legislation and direct more federal funds to the failed gun registry. [continues 319 words]
