Synthetic Cannabis Has 'Devastating Impact' On Jails, Says Chief Inspector Synthetic cannabis is having a "devastating impact" in British prisons and making it difficult for normal life to continue in some facilities, the chief inspector of prisons has warned. Sold as "spice" and "black mamba", synthetic cannabis has been blamed for deaths, serious illness and episodes of self-harm among prisoners. Some prison officers have reported falling ill from exposure to the fumes. High demand for the compound has fuelled more severe problems in the prison system than officers have faced from any other drug, with prisoners racking up greater debts and suffering worse bullying and violence, Peter Clarke told the Guardian. "Prison staff have told me that the effect on individuals and prisons as a whole is unlike anything they have seen before," said Clarke, who took up the post in February. [continues 674 words]
The reek assaulted the nostrils from a block away. Deep inside the Weed Wednesday - formally 420 Toronto - demonstration at Yonge-Dundas Square, averting a contact high was challenging. Not so bad as that time the Star sent me to Amsterdam, on the paper's expense account, to investigate legal pot use and it took two days to recover from my research before I was fit to file. Wednesday I eased the queasiness by sticking my head inside a chip wagon and inhaling deeply. Rather the smell of oil and grease than grass fumes. [continues 798 words]
A small crowd of redeyed stoners broke off from the sea of thousands Wednesday to follow a scruffy man pulling a cart of mature marijuana plants through Sharon Meadow in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Fabio, as the plant man preferred to be called, and his six strains of pot shrubs were among the scores of crowd-pleasing curiosities for the estimated 10,000-plus throng of revelers celebrating at what has become the global epicenter of the 4/20 marijuana holiday. [continues 514 words]
Steve DeFino is remarkably mellow for a guy with shrapnel still lodged in his body and memories of war on his mind. At the Dab Lounge on Circle Drive near Palmer Park Boulevard, a light haze drifts above the booths, about half of which are occupied on this weekday afternoon. A few dogs roam around, as do some pool balls on the newish table. "A year ago I couldn't do this," DeFino says, sitting on a stool in the back of the place where the arcade machines' bleeps and bloops weave into a soundtrack of '90s R&B. [continues 1931 words]
Butte County voters can reaffirm their support of reasonable medical marijuana cultivation limits this June by voting yes on Measures G and H. Together, these measures strengthen the enforcement of Measure A, which was passed overwhelmingly in 2014. If you supported Measure A, then you will like Measures G and H. Measure G specifically excludes marijuana as a protected crop under the Butte County "right-to-farm" ordinance. This cherished ordinance protects farmers against nuisance claims for conducting agricultural "business as usual." Imagine extending the same protections for the marijuana industry - "business as usual" being all-hours traffic, honey-oil labs, vicious guard dogs, armed sentries, grow lights, tent encampments, dilapidated travel trailers with no septic hookup, incessant generators, tax-free illegal income, etc. The opposition complains that Measure G will stigmatize growers - but their behavior accomplishes that already. Vote yes on G to deny them this undeserved protection. [continues 113 words]
The federal government has made its intention to legalize marijuana pretty clear. If that does happen, we could be seeing more than just cigarette butts littering the ground and that's a problem one Colwood resident has had to face first hand. Maria Klies is heartbroken. After a walk on Sunday, Klies noticed one of her dogs starting to show signs of distress. "At around dinner time I noticed my miniature pinscher had stroke-like systems," she said. Her husband had taken their two dogs for a walk at Taylor Beach in Metchosin earlier in the day. "We go down there everyday," she added. [continues 592 words]
They're back. The marijuana pushers are trying once again to hoodwink Butte County residents by painting a rosy picture for their product. I just read an eight-page insert in the E-R showing the smiling faces of growers and/or users of this product. I believe there is some medicinal value in marijuana and I do not begrudge those who are in pain from cancer or other diseases from using the product. However, growing marijuana often involves individuals or groups who do not play by the rules and are raping the environment with the use of poisonous chemicals that kill wildlife and pollute the land and waterways. [continues 148 words]
Things Looked Bleak When Oil Prices Dropped DeBEQUE, Colo. - When the oil and gas industry tanked and plans for gambling fizzled out, this conservative town of ranchers and roughnecks found salvation in an unlikely place. Weed. "We are going to survive by it," said Darrel Kuhn, who owns the local liquor store, "because we sure as hell can't survive without it." Hemay be right. Colorado's billion-dollar marijuana industry has boosted the economies of many struggling towns. Empire, Trinidad and Parachute have all benefited from infusions of pot money. [continues 692 words]
Our survey on what area residents hope supervisor candidates discuss this election season was open online through the month of March and drew 204 responses. Here are some demographic breakdowns: By age: The 31-50 group was represented by 88 responses; the 51-65 group supplied 73 responses. The rest were divvied up in the remaining three age groups - those 20 and younger had only 4 responses. By household income: Those making more than $100,000 supplied 30 percent of the responses; and it stair-stepped backward from there. Those making $70,000 to $100,000 supplied 42 percent. Those making $25,000 or less had 15 responses. [continues 598 words]
When Donna May's daughter died of an overdose in 2012, a drug that may have saved her life was within arm's reach It's every parent's worst nightmare - watching your child die. Yet that was Donna May's reality on Aug. 21, 2012. That night, May returned home from walking her dogs to find her daughter Jac, a longtime addict, overdosing. "I could hear the normal sounds of an overdose," she said. "The laboured breath. The snoring. The gurgling sounds. I flew upstairs." [continues 1674 words]
DeBEQUE, Colo. - When the oil and gas industry tanked and plans for gambling crapped out, this conservative town of ranchers and roughnecks found salvation in an unlikely place. Weed. "We are going to survive by it," said Darrel Kuhn, who owns the local liquor store, "because we sure as hell can't survive without it." He may be right. Colorado's billion-dollar marijuana industry has boosted the economies of many struggling towns. Empire, Trinidad and Parachute have all benefited from infusions of pot money. But DeBeque, on Colorado's Western Slope, owes its very existence to the cannabis trade. [continues 953 words]
Should police be permitted to use a drug-sniffing dog to roam the hallways of an apartment or condominium complex to search for contraband without getting a warrant from a judge? That is the question confronted by the state supreme court this week in a case called State v. Dennis Kono. Hiding underneath that are several other considerations of importance: should the police's power to search a person's residence be any different depending on whether the residence is an apartment, condominium or free-standing house; and should the search for contraband outweigh any Fourth Amendment rights we have as citizens? [continues 1199 words]
Should police be permitted to use a drug-sniffing dog to roam the hallways of an apartment or condominium complex to search for contraband without getting a warrant from a judge? That is the question confronted by the state supreme court this week in a case called State v. Dennis Kono. Hiding underneath that are several other considerations of importance: should the police's power to search a person's residence be any different depending on whether the residence is an apartment, condominium or free-standing house; and should the search for contraband outweigh any Fourth Amendment rights we have as citizens? [continues 1195 words]
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut marijuana bust has turned into a potential precedent-setting case on whether apartment and condo dwellers have the same rights as house owners when it comes to police using drug-sniffing dogs outside their homes. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday is scheduled to hear arguments in the case of Dennis Kono, who was arrested in 2012 after a police dog deployed without a warrant in a condo building hallway in Berlin smelled marijuana near his door. Berlin police then obtained a search warrant for Kono's condo and found several small marijuana plants, seeds, growing equipment and firearms. [continues 165 words]
Many residents and business owners see such supervised programs as a pragmatic response to long-standing community realities In the alley behind Dave Osborne's hair salon, there's a filthy alcove with a locked gate that does little to stop drug addicts from grabbing a bit of privacy. Mr. Osborne worries about what goes on in there - not about whether people do drugs, because it's clear they do. His fear is that someone will overdose. "If something happens in there and then nobody sees or knows or hears about it, somebody's going to die," he said, standing in his garage off the graffiti-covered laneway near Queen Street West and Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto. [continues 1138 words]
My cousin's mule, Festus, was Humboldt County's most wanted creature on four legs in the summer of 1995. For Festus had eaten close to $60,000 in outdoor cannabis, and a neighbor was prepared to shoot him on sight. So he was dispatched several ridges away to my family's ranch, where he would finish his days among our mares and sheep, a sort of witness protection program. They say good fences make good neighbors, and this is doubly so in marijuana country. [continues 748 words]
Inside Oakland Museum of California's upcoming exhibit on weed - Altered State: Marijuana in California. It's one of the hottest museum exhibits of 2016. Oaklanders, cannabis fans, and museum-goers alike will get an unprecedented, massive museum exhibition on marijuana starting on April 16. Oakland Museum of California is putting the finishing touches this week on Altered State - a big budget, ten-part exhibition in the OMCA Great Hall that also includes a series of live events and pop-up shops through September. [continues 766 words]
No one wants another summer of deaths at music festivals. Not the organisers, the health experts, the government, the festival-goers. Nor the parents left to wonder and worry when their children go to these events. But how to prevent it? The best efforts of police, teams of sniffer dogs and the threat of arrest have failed to make a dent in Australia's love affair with "party drugs". We are many years into the relationship and use has not decreased. Meanwhile, the potency of ecstasy has shot up and new psychoactive substances are coming onto the market, increasing the risks for those taking illicit substances and making it harder for medical personnel to work out the best treatment for sufferers. [continues 414 words]
Of all the conflicts that the United States embarked upon in the past 100 years, President Richard Nixon's war on drugs - launched in June 1971 - was arguably the most futile. The aim was to reduce the illegal trade in drugs by criminalising their production, sale, possession and consumption. An army law enforcement agency equipped with all the resources the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation on earth could muster was enlisted to reinforce this prohibition. However, for all the national treasure expended and the millions of lives lost or blighted, the war has achieved little. Estimates of the size of the US' illicit drug trade are far from precise, but it's estimated that users spend about $100 billion annually, sustaining and enriching large criminal organisations inside and outside the country. [continues 594 words]
Volusia on Thursday became the first county in Central Florida to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. The County Council by a unanimous 7-0 vote gave law officers the discretion to ticket tokers who possess 20 grams of the drug or less. Instead of being arrested and charged with a misdemeanor, violators would be fined $100. "The only thing we learned from the war on drugs is that it didn't work," County Council member Josh Wagner said. "All it did was fill the jails." [continues 574 words]
