Imagine this: You get pulled over by police. Maybe they claim you were seven miles over the speed limit, maybe they say you made an improper lane change. Doesn't matter, because the traffic stop is only a pretext. Using that pretext, they ask permission to search your car for drugs. You give permission and they search. Or you decline permission, but that doesn't matter, either. They make you wait until a drug-sniffing canine can be brought to the scene, then tell you the dog has indicated the presence of drugs - and search anyway. [continues 581 words]
Justice Department Arm Collected Metadata on U.S. Calls to Foreign Countries The Justice Department secretly kept a database of Americans' calls to foreign countries for more than a decade, according to a new court filing and officials familiar with the program. The revelation of another secret government database storing records of Americans' calls came in a filing Thursday in the case of a man accused of conspiring to unlawfully export electronic goods to Iran. A Drug Enforcement Administration official said in the filing that the agency, which is an arm of the Justice Department, has long used administrative subpoenas - not federal court orders - to collect the metadata of U.S. calls to foreign countries "that were determined to have a demonstrated nexus to international drug trafficking and related criminal activities." [continues 616 words]
WASHINGTON - The Justice Department will no longer participate in asset seizures by local police agencies that critics say grab cash and other property from individuals without proving they have done anything wrong. The new policy marks one of the most significant changes to asset forfeiture in decades and will bar the U.S. from participating in some types of seizures that have proven popular among state and local law-enforcement agencies because they provide a windfall of cash to local police. [continues 657 words]
Congress Members, Civil Liberties Groups Among Critics of Property Seizure Practice WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday announced sweeping changes to a federal civil asset forfeiture program that local law enforcement agencies have been able to use to seize property. The asset forfeiture practice has been criticized, including by civil liberties groups and members of Congress, because it enables law enforcement to seize possessions - such as cars and money - without an indictment or evidence that a crime has occurred. [continues 412 words]
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred. Holder's action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs. Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing. [continues 585 words]
A Harsh Critic of Leniency at the Federal Level, She Has Not Been Swayed by Shifting Public Views. WASHINGTON - As the majority of California voters grow comfortable with the idea of pot legalization, their senior senator in Washington is making it clear that she most certainly is not. Dianne Feinstein is emerging as one of Washington's toughest critics of the Obama administration's tolerance for marijuana use. Long a strident supporter of the government's War on Drugs, the 81-year-old Democrat is showing no sign of bowing to the shifting views of constituents in California and colleagues on Capitol Hill. [continues 548 words]
Republican Chuck Grassley and Democrat Dianne Feinstein are united in their opposition to ceding the war on drugs. Last week, they sent a joint letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and one to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing their concerns that the legalization of marijuana in some states is in direct conflict with international conventions. Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, completely agrees. But how to remedy that contention? That's where their agreement ends. Sen. Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Feinstein of California, in their letters to Kerry and Holder, argue that the Obama administration's decision not to interfere with states legalizing recreational marijuana makes it difficult for the United States to then defend "compliance" with the United Nations conventions on narcotics, which say marijuana should be limited to scientific and medical use. [continues 862 words]
Leading at the Ballot Box From Alaska to Washington, D.C., Americans Are Charting a Path to a Saner National Drug Policy The conservative wave of 2014 featured an unlikely, progressive undercurrent: In two states, plus the nation's capital, Americans voted convincingly to pull the plug on marijuana prohibition. Even more striking were the results in California, where voters overwhelmingly passed one of the broadest sentencing reforms in the nation, de-felonizing possession of hard drugs. One week later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD announced an end to arrests for marijuana possession. It's all part of the most significant story in American drug policy since the passage of the 21st Amendment legalized alcohol in 1933: The people of this country are leading a dramatic de-escalation in the War on Drugs. [continues 3718 words]
At a time of partisan gridlock, one issue is attracting attention across the aisle. Drug overdoses in the United States have escalated into a full-fledged public health epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than 16,000 people died after overdosing on opioid pain medications in 2012 - numbers that do not include overdoses caused by illegal substances, like heroin. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder noted that "opiate addiction is an urgent - and growing - public health crisis." Here in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley established a statewide Overdose Prevention Council, and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has been working closely with first responders, health care providers, pharmacists and local governments to create a plan of action. Gov.-elect Larry Hogan has also taken an early stance by pledging to declare a "state of emergency" to combat the spike in heroin-related deaths, which doubled nationwide from 2010 to 2012. [continues 578 words]
Justice Department is attempting to solve a problem that almost no one knew about with a solution that almost no one asked for. The results -- so far, confusion and uncertainty -- have been entirely predictable. The department announced this month that it would permit marijuana legalization on 300 or so Indian reservations in 30 states. The decision has perplexed American Indian leaders, who say that the last thing many tribes want is more lax federal law enforcement. Whatever one may think of legalizing marijuana -- and there are plenty of causes for concern, especially regarding its health effects - -- the way to do it is not to let Attorney General Eric Holder simply pick and choose which federal drug laws he will enforce. Yes, prosecutors have discretion, and it may make sense to use it when a state's voters decide to legalize pot. It makes less sense when local officials not only haven't asked, but also rely on the federal government for law enforcement, as is the case with Indian reservations. [continues 364 words]
LINCOLN, NEB. (AP) - Nebraska and Oklahoma asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Colorado's legalization of marijuana unconstitutional, saying Thursday the drug is being brought from Colorado into the neighboring states. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the states filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to prevent Colorado from enforcing the measure known as Amendment 64, which was approved by voters in 2012. The complaint says the measure runs afoul of federal law and therefore violates the Constitution's supremacy clause, which says federal laws trump state laws. [continues 560 words]
Nebraska, Oklahoma Petition High Court LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Nebraska and Oklahoma on Thursday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to declare Colorado's legalization of marijuana unconstitutional, saying the drug is being brought from Colorado into the neighboring states. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said the states filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to prevent Colorado from enforcing the measure known as Amendment 64, which was approved by voters in 2012. The complaint says the measure runs afoul of federal law and therefore violates the Constitution's supremacy clause, which says federal laws trump state laws. [continues 393 words]
It's impossible to understand the labyrinthine rhyme or reason behind any part of the Goliath spending bill passed by Congress to keep the government running another year. A bill that includes a rider that, for instance, would give Wall Street the same opportunities to be reckless with investments on the government dime like it did back in the early 2000s again sounds like lunacy to me. The riders dealing with cannabis are as strange and bizarre as the Wall Street giveaway, and they send conflicting messages. On the one hand, we have the attempt by Delaware Rep. Andy Harris and Kentucky Rep. Hal Rogers to nullify the District of Columbia's recent approval of cannabis legalization. A law was passed in November, with almost 70 percent of voters approving, that allows District adults to grow, possess and share small amounts of cannabis. [continues 702 words]
ALBANY -- U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed on Monday a $100 million "heroin surge" to combat a sharp rise in heroin addiction and fatal overdoses that some public health officials have characterized as an epidemic. The proposal calls for an additional $100 million emergency appropriation to the federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. The money would help battle drug trafficking and heroin production, would bolster law reinforcement efforts and coordinate intelligence-sharing and drug enforcement efforts among local, state, federal and law enforcement agencies. Schumer said the money would aim to disrupt the heroin pipeline into the Capital Region from New York City and Vermont, which comes across the border from Canada. [continues 868 words]
Both Sides Look to Hand Off Responsibility The Controlled Substances Act, which set up the drug schedules in the early 1970s, explicitly places drug scheduling authority in the hands of the attorney general, and even instructs him or her to "remove any drug or other substance fromthe schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule." The crowning inconsistency of the federal drug control system has always been the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance under federal law, which makes it among the Worst of the Worst drugs as far as the DEA is concerned - literally as bad as heroin, and worse than cocaine! Drug reform advocates have pushed the DEA to change its position for years, citing decades of research on the relative harmlessness of weed compared with other drugs - including alcohol -- but the agency hasn't budged, even as public opinion has rapidly evolved. [continues 410 words]
Both Sides Look to Hand Off Responsibility The Controlled Substances Act, which set up the drug schedules in the early 1970s, explicitly places drug scheduling authority in the hands of the attorney general, and even instructs him or her to "remove any drug or other substance from the schedules if he finds that the drug or other substance does not meet the requirements for inclusion in any schedule." The crowning inconsistency of the federal drug control system has always been the classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance under federal law, which makes it among the Worst of the Worst drugs as far as the DEA is concerned - literally as bad as heroin, and worse than cocaine! Drug reform advocates have pushed the DEA to change its position for years, citing decades of research on the relative harmlessness of weed compared with other drugs - including alcohol -- but the agency hasn't budged, even as public opinion has rapidly evolved. [continues 411 words]
Eric Holder tendered his resignation last week, though he will stay in office until a successor is chosen for the attorney general position. Given congressional inertia on presidential nominees, he could still fill out Obama's term, so I'm not holding my breath. I'll leave his ultimate legacy to others, but on the subject of cannabis, Holder has a mixed record. While he has never advocated for legalization or decriminalization, he is the first attorney general to publicly question whether the federal government should reevaluate its cannabis laws. [continues 759 words]
Interview How Legislature Will Deal With Medical Marijuana, Federal Law Are Hurdles Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes has long been an ardent supporter of legalizing marijuana. He campaigned on not prosecuting marijuana-possession charges and was elected in 2009. Three years later, he campaigned for I-502, the initiative Washington voters eventually approved to allow marijuana for recreational use. Holmes was second in line to buy pot at Seattle's first pot store, Cannabis City, the day it opened. He later apologized for bringing the weed back to his office that afternoon. [continues 725 words]
CHICAGO - America is two nations when it comes to marijuana: in one it's legal, in the other it's not. The result is that people like B. J. Patel are going to jail. The 34-year-old Arizona man may face a decade in prison and deportation following an arrest in 2012. On a trip in a rented U-Haul to move his uncle from California to Ohio, he brought along some marijuana, which is legal for medicinal use in his home state. [continues 1627 words]
Partisan antagonism rules the capital, drowning out most attempts at constructive compromise. But on at least one issue, reasonable lawmakers from both parties strongly agree: reforming the criminal justice system to reduce the prison population and enable former inmates to become more productive members of society. This growing consensus is both surprising and heartening, especially at a time when Congress can't seem to agree on anything else. Listen, for example, to Sen. Rand Paul, a libertarian Republican from Kentucky, and Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey, who have co-sponsored legislation that would seal the records of juvenile offenders and give nonviolent adults a chance to expunge their criminal past. [continues 673 words]
For decades a vast, uncontrolled experiment has been conducted across America. Cannabis -- or "marijuana" -- has been used for thousands of years as a medicine and sacrament. Colonial American landholders were required to grow it, mainly for its fiber, used in cordage for sailing ships. George Washington took it to ease his gout, and Queen Victoria relieved her menstrual cramps with it. Listed in the official U.S. Pharmacopeia, cannabis was available over-the-counter in neighborhood pharmacies. No epidemic madness resulted. [continues 870 words]
In 1996, when he was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Eric Holder urged the D.C. Council to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, which it had abolished in 1994. Two decades later, as an attorney general who has repeatedly criticized "draconian" mandatory minimums and sought to limit their use, he faces resistance from the federal prosecutors he oversees. Holder alluded to that resistance in a speech to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on July 31, saying, "Any suggestion that defendant cooperation is somehow dependent on mandatory minimums is plainly inconsistent with the facts and with history." [continues 571 words]
The New York Times has seen the light. The paper editorialized in favor of an end to the federal ban on marijuana. According to Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance, The Gray Lady has become the first major national newspaper to support legalizing marijuana. The Times did not celebrate marijuana use; it simply addressed the downside of prohibition - 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, with a disproportionate representation of young black men. The editorial also laid out a rational view of marijuana. While research suggests that marijuana can have adverse affects on adolescent brains - - hence the paper's support for a ban on sales to those younger than 21 - it's not as hazardous to health as alcohol and tobacco. The paper also made this commonsense but rare assertion: "Moderate use of marijuana does not appear to pose a risk for otherwise healthy adults." [continues 439 words]
Washington, Colorado Senators Claim Feds Send Conflicting Signals WASHINGTON - After nearly two years of sending conflicting signals on the legalization of marijuana, the Obama administration finds itself under increased pressure from all sides to deliver a consistent message on where it stands. Democratic senators from Washington and Colorado entered the fray Tuesday, releasing a letter sent Monday to White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and Attorney General Eric Holder that complained federal agencies "have taken different approaches that seem to be at odds with one another." [continues 638 words]
Colorado and Washington are blazing the trail, the first states to legalize recreational pot. But one thing remains the same on this new frontier the muddled, sometimes contradictory, stand on marijuana from the Obama administration. The zigs and zags in federal policy are making it more difficult for those states to make legalization work, and have also contributed mightily to California's continuing medical marijuana mess. To be fair, the lack of consistency reflects America's ambivalence about a drug that many have used and a majority now want to legalize, but that many others see as harmful and that federal law still bans. Unfortunately, the administration's pronouncements reflect this inconsistency. [continues 489 words]
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Spurred by the recent Interior Department decision to block the use of federal irrigation water to cultivate marijuana, the four U.S. senators from Washington and Colorado want the White House to direct federal agencies to adopt uniform guidelines impacting recreational pot. In a letter Monday to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the lawmakers said the water ruling conflicts with earlier guidelines issued by the Justice and Treasury departments that seek to enforce the federal ban on marijuana only selectively. [continues 392 words]
As the War on Drugs Ebbs, So, Too, Should the War on Nonviolent Offenders THE NATION'S retreat from a maniacal and misguided mission to arrest and imprison our way out of our illegal drug problem has taken another important step. A federal commission has voted to allow federal inmates serving time on nonviolent drug charges under harsh mandatory-minimum guidelines to petition the courts to reduce their sentences. As many as 46,000 federal felons, some of whom already have spent substantial time in prison, could have their sentences reduced by an average of two years. [continues 501 words]
Lawmakers Press Obama on Stance WASHINGTON - After nearly two years of sending conflicting signals on the legalization of marijuana, the Obama administration finds itself under increased pressure from all sides to deliver a consistent message on where it stands. Democratic senators from Washington state and Colorado entered the fray Tuesday, releasing a letter that complained that federal agencies "have taken different approaches that seem to be at odds with one another." The senators - Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell from Washington state and Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado - cited two decisions this year that have puzzled proponents and opponents alike. [continues 542 words]
The New York Times has seen the light. On Sunday, the paper editorialized in favor of an end to the federal ban on marijuana. According to Tony Newman of the Drug Policy Alliance, the Gray Lady has become the first major national newspaper to support legalizing marijuana. The Times did not celebrate marijuana use; it simply addressed the downside of prohibition - 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012, with a disproportionate representation of young black men. The editorial also laid out a rational view of marijuana. While research suggests that marijuana can have adverse affects on adolescent brains - - hence the paper's support for a ban on sales to those under 21- it's not as hazardous to health as alcohol and tobacco. The paper also made this commonsense but rare assertion: "Moderate use of marijuana does not appear to pose a risk for otherwise healthy adults." [continues 440 words]
Washington - Concerned that federal policies toward marijuana usage in states that have legalized the drug often are "at odds with one another," the four U.S. senators from Colorado and Washington state are asking the White House to intervene and establish "consistent and uniform" guidelines across the administration. In a letter dated Monday, the senators expressed frustration with what they saw as conflicting messages coming from various federal agencies. And they urged Attorney General Eric Holder and Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, to help develop a single policy that would respect the rights of their states to regulate the fledgling industry. [continues 270 words]
Reform of Overly Harsh Prison Sentences Is Both a Just and Practical Step Forward Few would argue at this point that the nation's decades-old war on drugs has been anything but a wretched failure. It has cost uncounted millions of dollars, sent tens of thousands of people to prison (disproportionately African-American) and helped give this country the world's largest incarceration rate - and all without putting a dent in drug use. Slowly, the country is uncoiling itself from this death grip. New York State has relaxed its Rockefeller drug laws, among the nation's harshest, and now Washington is backing away from mandatory minimum sentences, adopted and clung to since the crack cocaine epidemic hit in the 1980s. [continues 395 words]
91% of Those Locked Up Were Racial or Ethnic Minorities The nation's top gun-enforcement agency overwhelmingly targeted racial and ethnic minorities as it expanded its use of controversial drug sting operations, a USA TODAY investigation shows. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has more than quadrupled its use of those stings during the past decade, quietly making them a central part of its attempts to combat gun crime. The operations are designed to produce long prison sentences for suspects enticed by the promise of pocketing as much as $100,000 for robbing a drug stash house that does not actually exist. [continues 833 words]
California and Federal Laws Pave the Way for Research Growing While Advocates Push for Looser Restrictions Green, 20-foot-tall fields of research hemp might be waving in the Davis breeze by next year in a startling breakthrough for California hemp advocates who have been working for decades to grow the plant. The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013, combined with the 2014 federal farm bill, has unlocked the possibility of legally growing the ancient food, fuel and fiber crop. "It's remarkable. I'm quite thrilled," said longtime San Francisco hemp lawyer Patrick Goggin. "We had no idea it would come this fast, to be honest." [continues 865 words]
Good governance is about good stewardship. Government executives always should consider how best to use the government's vast assets, including personnel, money and materials. In this light, continued opposition by the Drug Enforcement Administration to the legalization of cannabis - marijuana - is not only a losing battle but a waste of taxpayer money, particularly when the president, Congress and an increasing number of state legislatures are responding to the will of the people by decriminalizing nonviolent marijuana use and possession. Our federal tax dollars would be better spent by responding to the current widespread increase of heroin use in ways that will prevent continued abuse, reduce harm to users and provide for greater public safety. [continues 666 words]
Once-Certain Support Eroding Within Congress WASHINGTON - For narcotics agents, who often confront hostile situations, Capitol Hill has been a refuge where lawmakers stand ready to salute efforts in the nation's war on drugs. Lately, though, the Drug Enforcement Administration has found itself under attack in Congress as it holds its ground against marijuana legalization while the resolve of longtime political allies, and the White House and Justice Department to which it reports, rapidly fades. "For 13 of the 14 years, I have worked on this issue. When the DEA came to a hearing, committee members jumped over themselves to cheerlead," said Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group. "Now the lawmakers are not just asking tough questions but also getting aggressive with their arguments." [continues 907 words]
Once-Certain Support Eroding Within Congress WASHINGTON - For narcotics agents, who often confront hostile situations, Capitol Hill has been a refuge where lawmakers stand ready to salute efforts in the nation's war on drugs. Lately, though, the Drug Enforcement Administration has found itself under attack in Congress as it holds its ground against marijuana legalization while the resolve of longtime political allies, and the White House and Justice Department to which it reports, rapidly fades. "For 13 of the 14 years, I have worked on this issue. When the DEA came to a hearing, committee members jumped over themselves to cheerlead," said Bill Piper, a lobbyist with the Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalization group. "Now the lawmakers are not just asking tough questions but also getting aggressive with their arguments." [continues 908 words]
Dean Holcomb sits in his Yakima motel room June 27, 2014. Holcomb has been living off and on in motel rooms since he had to sell his home following a raid by law enforcement agents and their seizure of medical marijuna plants from his Lower Valley farm. Holcomb, 58, was convicted of a misdemeanor marijuna possession and will spend six months in prison. He must report to authorities July 3, 2014. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic) Rows of marijuana plants grow at Dean Holcomb's farm in the Lower Valley in August, 2013. The plants, which were intended for medical marijuana use, were seized by federal agents Sept. 24, 2013. (Photo by Dean Holcomb)This cellphone photo shows law enforcement agents hauling off a truckload of marijuana plants from Dean Holcomb's Lower Valley farm on Sept. 24, 2014. (Photo by Dean Holcomb)Dean Holcomb sits in his Yakima motel room June 27, 2014. Holcomb has been living off and on in motel rooms since he had to sell his home following a raid by law enforcement agents and their seizure of medical marijuna plants from his Lower Valley farm. Holcomb, 58, was convicted of a misdemeanor marijuna possession and will spend six months in prison. He must report to authorities July 3, 2014. (GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic)In this Thursday, May 8, 2014 photo, from left, Larry Harvey, Rhonda Firestack-Harvey, and Rolland Gregg stand in the plaza in front of the federal courthouse in Spokane, Wash. The three are charged with growing marijuana at a remote farm near Kettle Falls, Wash. Each face mandatory minimum sentences of at least 10 years in prison after they were caught growing about 70 pot plants on their rural, mountainous property. Medical marijuana advocates have cried foul, arguing the prosecution violates Department of Justice policies announced by Attorney General Eric Holder last year that nonviolent, small-time drug offenders shouldn't face lengthy prison sentences. (AP Photo/Nicholas K. Geranios) Phone: 509-577-7674 Follow me on: By Kate Prengaman / Yakima Herald-Republic [continues 2714 words]
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Closely mirroring its past positions, the Obama administration's 2014 drug policy will focus tightly on curbing heroin use and prescription painkillers abuse while continuing to oppose the legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use. Officials are particularly concerned about preventing fatal overdoses, said Michael Botticelli, acting director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. He outlined the administration's blueprint at a news conference Wednesday at a drug treatment facility in Roanoke. [continues 221 words]
The 2014 federal farm bill coupled with state legislation passed last year means that industrial hemp might be growing in the Golden State soon. But it won't be completely legal yet. Green, twenty-foot-tall fields of research hemp might be waving in the Davis breeze by the next year in a startling breakthrough for California hemp advocates who have been working for decades to grow the plant. The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2013 combined with the 2014 federal farm bill has unlocked the possibility of legally growing the ancient food, fuel, and fiber crop. "It's remarkable. I'm quite thrilled," said longtime San Francisco hemp lawyer Patrick Goggin. "We had no idea it would come this fast, to be honest." [continues 903 words]
Opponents of marijuana-law reform insist that legalization is dangerous-but the biggest threat is to their own bottom line. Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, did several stints in rehab after crashing his car into a barricade on Capitol Hill in 2006, a headline-making event that revealed the then-US congressman for Rhode Island had been abusing prescription drugs, including the painkiller OxyContin. Kennedy went on to make mental health-including substance abuse-a cornerstone of his political agenda, and he is reportedly at work on a memoir about his struggles with addiction and mental illness. In 2013, he also helped found an advocacy group, Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), which has barnstormed the country opposing the growing state and federal efforts to legalize pot. [continues 4143 words]
The Spike in Heroin Use Is a Result of a Crackdown on Abuse of Prescription Painkillers. In Delaware and around the country, heroin is in vogue again. It's a deadly fad. In the last eight months, fatal overdoses from all drugs, including alcohol, have jumped from 12 to 15 a month. Heroin's resurgence is to blame for the rising death count, state officials say. The problem is everywhere, and in all sections of New Castle County, from the Hunter's Run Trailer Park in Bear to the upscale Country Creek community near Newark. Some users died in bedrooms, others on bathroom floors. One was found in a shed behind a home in Chelsea Estates. Another was lying on a driveway in Bear. [continues 1284 words]
Over the last 18 months, The Enquirer has used a team of reporters to cover the heroin problem locally. We joined with Gannett papers in Arizona, Delaware and Vermont for this series on heroin nationally. First of five parts. When it comes to fighting a sharp and frightening influx of heroin, the Cincinnati area is not alone. In Burlington, Vermont, the police chief sees soccer moms hooked on heroin. In Knoxville, Tennessee, addicts desperate for help are waiting six months to get into treatment facilities. [continues 2255 words]
We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal government and states that have gone their separate ways on the failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs. Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that legalized pot for medicinal uses. If the Senate goes along in drawing that line, it will establish a zone of sanity in an otherwise crazed patchwork of federal and state approaches to drug enforcement. [continues 392 words]
Although Legal to Cultivate, Legal Barriers Abound STERLING, Colo. (AP) - Marijuana's square cousin, industrial hemp, has come out of the black market and is now legal for farmers to cultivate, opening up a new lucrative market. That was the idea, anyway. Would-be hemp farmers are having mixed success navigating red tape on everything from seed acquisition to processing the finished plant. It will take years, farmers and regulators agree, before there's a viable market for hemp. Hemp is prized for oils, seeds and fiber, but its production was prohibited for five decades because the plant can be manipulated to enhance a psychoactive chemical, THC, making the drug marijuana. The Farm Bill enacted this year ended decades of required federal permission to raise hemp, but only with state permission and checks to make sure the hemp doesn't contain too much THC. [continues 536 words]
House Vote Shows States Tired of Disjointed Tack We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal government and states that have gone their separate ways on the failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs. Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that legalized pot for medicinal uses. [continues 420 words]
A medical marijuana advocate, however, sees the progression of federal legislation as a ray of hope. A longtime Inland activist was hopeful Friday that a House vote on a bill related to medical marijuana would be a step toward overturning local bans on dispensaries, but city leaders said they doubted that the bill, even if it became law, would affect those bans. An amendment to an appropriations bill blocks the federal government from spending money to prohibit the implementation of state laws authorizing medical marijuana. If the Senate passes the bill and the president signs it into law, states like California would be able to continue their medical marijuana programs, without threats from the federal government. [continues 585 words]
Voters approved medical marijuana in Michigan in 2008, 63 percent to 37 percent - a huge margin for a ballot proposal. But implementing the voter-approved law has been a rocky process, more often ironed out in courts rather than in the Michigan Legislature. Along the way, marijuana has sparked debates over it's role as medicine vs a gateway drug to more illicit substances, and it has become a political football. Legal or not, however, marijuana is also big business. In the Village of Holly, a couple miles from where Pete Trzos opened his Well Greens medical marijuana business in January 2013 and which was promptly shut down by police, a street downtown is named Battle Alley. [continues 1636 words]
Early this morning, by a vote of 219 to 189, the House of Representatives approved an amendment aimed at stopping federal interference with state laws that "authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana." If it is included in the appropriations bill passed by the Senate and signed by the president, the amendment would prohibit the Justice Department, which includes the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), from spending taxpayers' money on dispensary raids or other attempts to stop medical use of marijuana in the 22 states that allow it. [continues 1936 words]
Voters approved medical marijuana in Michigan in 2008, 63 percent to 37 percent -- a huge margin for a ballot proposal. But implementing the voter-approved law has been a rocky process, more often ironed out in courts rather than in the Michigan Legislature. Along the way, marijuana has sparked debates over it's role as medicine vs a gateway drug to more illicit substances, and it has become a political football. Legal or not, however, marijuana is also big business. In the Village of Holly, a couple miles from where Pete Trzos opened his Well Greens medical marijuana business in January 2013 and which was promptly shut down by police, a street downtown is named Battle Alley. [continues 1629 words]
The long-delayed hemp seed arrived at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture in Frankfort about noon Friday, after being released by U.S. Customs in Louisville. The seeds were imported from Italy for as many as eight pilot projects that the Agriculture Department will conduct with universities across the state. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration had seized the seeds and demanded that the state obtain a controlled substance permit to import and plant them. The DEA said that even though the federal Farm Bill that Congress passed earlier this year allows growing hemp for research, the plant, Cannabis sativa, is the same as marijuana even though it has negligible amounts of high-inducing THC. [continues 359 words]
