The state Senate approved a bill in May that would allow residents to use of medically prescribed marijuana, but it faces a tough fight in the House. If the bill passes, Pennsylvania will join 23 states and the District of Columbia in allowing medical marijuana. As police combat an epidemic of heroin overdoses, fewer people are landing in jail in Pennsylvania for possessing marijuana, a reflection of a change in battle tactics and attitudes about the drug, experts say. "oeThe nation is clearly taking a long, hard look at this. ... There's blowback on the war on drugs," said Tony Gaskew, a former drug agent and director of the University of Pittsburgh's criminal justice program. "oeIs it cost effective? We cannot arrest every person that wants to get high." [continues 744 words]
Shona Banda, a Kansas marijuana advocate, turned herself in to authorities Monday on an arrest warrant with five charges relating to marijuana use. Banda, 37, drew national attention when she lost custody of her son and was accused of three felony and two misdemeanor charges of using marijuana to treat her Crohn's disease. Her son made comments about his mother's marijuana use during an anti-drug program at his school in Garden City. A GoFundMe campaign for Banda's legal fees had collected more than $44,000 in donations as of Monday evening. Care2, an activist website, also created an online petition for her case, which boasted 140,782 signatures as of Monday. [continues 843 words]
A Colorado Court Rules That Businesses Can Fire Employees WHO Use Marijuana During Their Off-Time. The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that businesses can fire employees who use marijuana during their off-time, including those with a legal prescription for medical pot. In a case that has been closely watched by employers in some states that have legalized marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, the Colorado court found that Dish Network lawfully fired a quadriplegic employee and medical marijuana user who failed a drug test. Customer service representative Brandon Coats, 35, used marijuana in his offtime to deal with painful muscle spasms. [continues 868 words]
Residents' Responses Range From Praise to Skepticism Citing disappearing open-air drug markets and new ways narcotics are being sold, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier says she wants her detectives to concentrate on suppliers and not streetcorner busts that have long been a staple of policing across the country. The strategy shift, outlined at a community meeting Thursday, will eliminate most of the plainclothes operations police have used for decades to target outdoor drug sales, magnets for drive-by shootings and other violence. Coming at a tense moment in the nation's relations between police and the public, it could also ease confrontations involving officers not immediately identifiable as law enforcement. It is an admission that some tactics - which were viewed by some critics as heavyhanded even when the crack epidemic sparked record numbers of homicides - no longer make sense amid a decline in fatal shootings and the availability of synthetic narcotics sold over the Internet, through social media and in convenience stores. "Our main goal is the supply," Lanier told about three dozen residents at the community forum in Northeast Washington. "We don't want to focus police efforts on just people who are addicted. We want to be focusing on the people who are bringing the stuff in." In an interview, she added: "Our criminal environment is changing rapidly. We have to keep up." The plan would eliminate District vice squads - each with about 20 detectives and supervisors - and shift higher-level investigations to the centralized Narcotics and Special Investigations Division. [continues 834 words]
When ANKORS team leader Chloe Sage first started delivering harm reduction services at Shambhala Music Festival in 2001, there were a lot of misconceptions about what exactly she was trying to accomplish. "It was a real 'keep your head down' situation. We had a few hundred people come to our booth and say 'wow, I'm glad you're here', but there wasn't a whole lot of understanding about why it was necessary," she said. Their efforts were humble at first - a small educational booth was set up to distribute pamphlets and encourage safe partying. [continues 1246 words]
More people are buying recreational drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine online, partly because it is much cheaper than buying them on the street, where the price of drugs in Australia is more than double the global average. An international survey on drug habits has detected a rapid increase over the past six years in the number of people who buy their drugs online using sites such as Silk Road, whose founder was jailed for life last month. The Global Drug Survey 2015, which was conducted in partnership with global media organisations including Fairfax Media, polled 102,000 people from 50 countries, including 4030 from Australia, about their patterns of drug use. [continues 495 words]
Dark web demand growing Anyone following the Silk Road story could be forgiven for thinking that the online black market's shutdown in October 2013 and the sentencing of its owner to life in prison without parole last week meant the end of online drug sales. Nothing is further from the truth. The results of the latest Global Drug Survey show the number of illicit drug users turning to the dark web the hidden internet accessible with easily-obtained free software is growing. [continues 468 words]
I read with interest Sunday's Editor's Notebook titled, "Drugs may have more positives than we realized" and agree with the editor's comment, "It's an interesting time in science and medicine." However, I sometimes wonder if America is being transformed into an entire nation strung out on mind-altering drugs. Medical marijuana, for example, despite some legitimate medicinal uses, has degenerated into a national farce. People are being encouraged to score marijuana prescriptions not just for the oft-cited maladies like cancer or glaucoma, but for conditions ranging from diarrhea, eczema, bipolar disorder, pimples, incontinence, menopause, genital herpes, AIDS, etc., etc.... and the list goes on and on. In other words, we're being told that smoking pot is good for pretty much everything that ails us. [continues 77 words]
Every day, there's a new report linked to science or medicine, most of which are really interesting. But there's one trend that I find to be fascinating ... illegal drugs finding a useful purpose. This week, the drug in the spotlight is a club drug called Special K. The drug is an anesthetic and animal tranquilizer, which can produce effects from intoxication to delirium. It can also make people unable to move, unable to feel pain, and can cause blackouts, according to AbovetheInfluence.com. [continues 326 words]
As the debate over medical marijuana continues in California and nationally, one bureaucratic step to lessen tensions would be to change its "drug schedule" listing. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration classifies drugs into five "schedules ... depending upon the drug's acceptable medical use and the drug's abuse or dependency potential." Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, "defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence." [continues 288 words]
$7,000 Grant to RCMP to Dispose of 1,200 Kilos of Precursor Chemicals Seized at Port Is a First for Agency B.C.'s Civil Forfeiture office has provided money for the safe destruction of 1,200 kilograms of chemicals used to make ecstasy, chemicals that were discovered recently inside an international shipping container. Agency executive director Phil Tawtel said it was the first time his office has covered the cost of destroying such precursor chemicals. "These chemicals arrived in B.C. via Port Metro Vancouver and the ship came from China," he said. [continues 229 words]
Charges laid after RNC-RCMP team seizes cocaine, marijuana, MDMA and shatter Among a huge amount of illegal drugs seized last week in St. John's by a joint RNC-RCMP drug team is a drug known as "shatter," a derivative of marijuana, but much more toxic. It is believed to be the first significant seizure of shatter in the province and police are warning of the potential dangers of its use. One man has been charged thus far in the operation, known as "Project Titan" by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU-NL). [continues 498 words]
Hells Angels bikers, other gangsters and convicted international smugglers work as longshoremen handling the 1.5 million containers that flow annually through Port Metro Vancouver More than two dozen of the longshoremen unloading container ships on the docks of Metro Vancouver are Hells Angels, their associates, other gangsters or people with serious criminal records, a Vancouver Sun investigation has found. The infiltration of gangsters and criminals into the port workforce is perpetuated by a longtime employment practice that allows existing union members to nominate friends, relatives and associates when new jobs become available. [continues 2762 words]
Hells Angels and others with criminal connections have a long history working at Canada's major ports, a Vancouver Sun investigation has found More than two dozen of the longshoremen unloading container ships on the docks of Metro Vancouver are Hells Angels, their associates, other gangsters or people with serious criminal records, a Vancouver Sun investigation has found. The infiltration of gangsters and criminals into the port workforce is perpetuated by a longtime employment practice that allows existing union members to nominate friends, relatives and associates when new jobs become available. [continues 2094 words]
Senator Criticizes Agency's Response 3 Years After Ucsd Student Nearly Died in Holding Cell Three years ago this week, Daniel Chong made news around the world when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration admitted that its agents accidentally left him in a temporary cell for five days without food or water. The former University of California San Diego engineering student was back in the national headlines Tuesday when U.S. senators grilled the DEA during a Capitol Hill hearing on details about the Chong case and other well-publicized blunders. [continues 931 words]
OSLO - In a country so wary of drug abuse that it limits the sale of aspirin, Pal-Orjan Johansen, a Norwegian researcher, is pushing what would seem a doomed cause: the rehabilitation of LSD. It matters little to him that the psychedelic drug has been banned here and around the world for more than 40 years. Mr. Johansen pitches his effort not as a throwback to the hippie hedonism of the 1960s, but as a battle for human rights and good health. [continues 1229 words]
Beijing Turns Blind Eye to Chemists Whose Drugs Mimic Banned Substances At midnight in a Shanghai laboratory, a Chinese chemist who called himself Terry was eager to close the deal. In the lab itself, a bright yellow liquid whirred around in a flask, an intense smell of fumes leaving a bitter aftertaste. "Let's just be quick," he shouted. "Tell me what you want, how much you want, then we can talk about price, we can talk about shipment." "Terry" is not the only rogue Shanghai chemist looking to make a living from the surging global trade in "legal highs". China has long been the workshop of the world, for everything from iPhones to Christmas tree lights. So it was only a matter of time, perhaps, before it filled the same role for drugs, churning out huge quantities of the synthesised products for recreational use in clubs and streets across the western world. [continues 1069 words]
Ex-Mountie says there's a lot of dirty money involved in real estate purchases and building boom Vancouver is "emerging as a critical money laundering hub" for international criminals, due to a convergence of factors including drug money, international connections, an active port, and a hot real estate market, experts say. International criminals looking to "wash" ill-gotten gains in Vancouver remain a persistent problem, said Kim Marsh, a Vancouver-based financial crime specialist with decades of experience in law enforcement and private investigations. [continues 370 words]
NM Is No. 2 in the U.S. for Overdoses From Heroin, Opioids At the age of 53, barely literate and morbidly obese, Crystal Staggs hardly cut the figure of a drug dealer as she drove her white 13-year-old BMW around Albuquerque. But in June 2012, Staggs, who has a host of medical problems, was cashing in on her access to prescription Oxycodone, selling 245 of the 30-milligram pills for $4,000 to a man she had recently met through a friend. [continues 1201 words]
Shooting Down a Few Anti-Legalization Arguments. "They're talking about opening a weed stand, or whatever, right next to my kids' school," the woman began, reaching for a plastic cup of wine during ArtWalk. "I mean, they're already getting drunk. Now this will make a second thing we're allowing for!" I gently reminded her that both of those things were illegal for minors, but she would have none of it. "Seriously. The parties they go to are beyond," she said, gazing at an out-of-this-world painting on the gallery wall. "From eighth grade on, there is alcohol at most of their socials. That's already happening. So to add another drug that can mess up their minds . . . " [continues 876 words]
