Editor -- How ironic that you may be denied entry into Canada because you got caught in the United States smoking cannabis, that was probably smuggled in from Canada ("Going to Canada? Check your past," Feb. 23). Maybe stories like this will open more eyes to this country's failed war on (some) drugs. We continue to jail people because we're mad at them, not scared of them, then continue to hold that grudge forever by permanently putting it on their record. David Garrison San Francisco [end]
State Law Requires It For Medical Marijuana Users, But Privacy Is A Key Issue El Dorado County supervisors have directed the Public Health Department to seek a cost-effective way to implement a medical marijuana identification card program required by state law. The card is intended to allow patients with a physician's recommendation to use marijuana for medical purposes to readily identify themselves to law enforcement officials. The program is required under state Senate Bill 420, passed in 2003 to clarify Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative approved by California voters allowing medical use of marijuana. [continues 731 words]
Dear Editor, Regarding your Feb. 15 editorial ("Strife Over FAFSA Aid Provision Remains Symbolic"), the actual number of students stripped of financial aid due to drug offenses is 189,065. To obtain state-by-state numbers, Students for Sensible Drug Policy teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union and sued the U.S. Department of Education, after their Freedom of Information Act request was denied. I encourage you to check out their Web site. The number of students impacted is hardly symbolic. [continues 218 words]
The situation that led to the resignation of an Oak Bay police constable will not lead to any new instruction for officers. "This was a unique situation that would not require any additional training," said police chief Ben Andersen. Const. Rochelle Eveleigh was disciplined last spring for allegedly alerting a suspect that he was the target of an investigation. Eveleigh has stated she is resigning from the force. In 2001, the RCMP Island District Drug Section alerted the Oak Bay police that a female officer had released confidential computer information to an unauthorized individual in 2001. [continues 90 words]
Fort Payne Mayor Bill Jordan said he didn't want them in town. Members of a local church congregation said they didn't want them as neighbors. Police Chief David Walker says all he has heard about them is negative. And Sen. Lowell Barron said he didn't want them anywhere in northeast Alabama. But Fort Payne may be getting a methadone clinic, like it or not. "It seems pretty certain that the state is going to let this go through no matter what the citizens of Fort Payne have to say about it," said Jordan. [continues 710 words]
Re: High praise for war on drugs (Jorge Barrera, Feb. 23). John Walters is living a lie when he talks about pot being addictive. No credible medical study to date has found marijuana to be anything but mildly psychologically addictive, and certainly nowhere near as addictive as legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco. When John Walters talks about marijuana addiction, he is referring to the choice that Americans are often given when arrested for possession: face a stiff punishment, often years in jail, or admit to being "addicted" and ask for rehab. Obviously, most opt for "treatment" in order to avoid criminal sanction, which is often harsher than that given to rapists and murderers, and John Walters gets another admitted "addict" to bolster his ridiculous claims. Bob Tessier Winnipeg Must have been the B.C. bud. [end]
Everyone knows the state's corrections system is broken, but no one has the political courage to fix it. It isn't surprising that the drug treatment programs in California prisons are a billion-dollar failure, as the state inspector general reported last week. Their failure has been amply documented for years. What would be surprising is the governor and the Legislature doing anything about it. The inspector general's report is only the latest scathing critique of the corrections system, whose healthcare programs are so dangerous to inmates that they had to be taken over by a federal receiver and whose overcrowding crisis has become so bad that the state may soon be forced to start releasing felons early. The inspector general revealed that the state spends $143 million a year on rehab programs for prisoners that do nothing to help them go straight. [continues 383 words]
Strange Tale Of Cocaine Smuggling, Car Troubles When a New York state trooper stopped a taxi that had zipped through a speed trap in the southbound lanes of Interstate 81, the driver inside told the officer a curious story. The cabbie said he was returning from Canada, where he had driven an agitated, sweating passenger who had abandoned his car in a New York village. It was a bizarrely long and lucrative 300-kilometre trip for the cabbie, who marvelled at his good fortune that September day in 1993. [continues 1472 words]
Village of Hempstead officials teamed up with churches, civic activists and educators yesterday to call for the repeal of New York's Rockefeller drug laws. The Rev. Sedgwick Easley, of Union Baptist Church in Hempstead, said the laws have hurt minority communities such as Hempstead, which recently has seen a spike in crime related to turf wars between youths. The laws, though well intended, have kept many minority men in prison for too long, leaving their children fatherless and creating a cycle of violence, activists said. "We're here to hold politicians' feet to the fire," Easley said at a meeting of more than 100 at the church. [continues 198 words]
Growth Is Faster Than Other States Columbus - Ohio's prison population is expected to grow by 20 percent over the next five years, which would give the state the highest number of inmates in the Midwest, replacing Michigan, according to a national report. With a projected 57,000 inmates by 2011, Ohio's prison population would grow faster than that of any other state its size or larger, according to the Pew Charitable Trust's "Public Safety and Public Spending" report released Wednesday. [continues 338 words]
