To the Editor: Why does it fee like Mendocino County is getting left behind in the marijuana industry we helped create. I think it's time the local police and sheriff stop preying on local marijuana growers for the money in confiscating land, homes, vehicles, cash, etc. Which is obviously what's going on, since we hold second place in drug related confiscations in the state, first being L.A. County. Our dollar value of confiscations is not far behind L.A. County and they have multiple millions of residents, where Mendocino County only has a couple hundred thousand residents. [continues 342 words]
PENDLETON, Ind. - An Indiana inmate who died of unknown causes was once accused of being a leader of a drug ring operating out of state prisons. Pendleton Correctional Facility Superintendent Dushan Zatecky said 32-year-old [name redacted], of Crawfordsville, died Monday at St. Vincent's Anderson Regional Hospital. Madison County Coroner Marian Dunnichay told The (Anderson) Herald-Bulletin that an autopsy did not find a medical reason for [name redacted]'s death. She said a toxicology report would take three to four weeks. [continues 216 words]
Palm Beach County's cost for jailing people caught with small amounts of marijuana may be much less than initially estimated, according to revised figures released Monday. Just last week, the county estimated that it cost taxpayers $1.1 million from 2009 to 2015 to jail people whose most serious offense was having a small amount of marijuana. But at the urging of the Sheriff's Office, the county's Criminal Justice Commission on Monday revised its estimate to show that when marijuana is the only charge involved - excluding trespassing and other minor offenses that may coincide with a marijuana charge - the cost drops to about $322,245 from 2009 to 2015. [continues 416 words]
Nashville - North Carolina's Nashville, 45 miles east of Raleigh - has a police chief who is changing the way law enforcement deals with drug addicts, who might ordinarily be arrested and put away. Chief Thomas Bashore has seen the consequences of drug abuse, and he's come to see that conventional law enforcement solutions, meaning arrest and imprisonment, don't seem to come to a constructive end. Addicts go in for a while, come out, get reacquainted with drugs, go back in. [continues 288 words]
For all it's cost him in money and liberty, Canada's voluble "prince of pot," Marc Emery, is still not about to hide his principles - or the light off the joints he sparks - under a bushel. In fact these days, as the federal government prepares to liberalize marijuana laws, are hugely gratifying for the country's best-known pot crusader and have him evangelizing at the same hectic pace. For most of Emery's quarter-century of activism, during which he saw the inside of 34 prisons, jails and institutions, it "looked like progress was moving awful slow for the price one has to pay," he told the Star in a recent interview. [continues 807 words]
The tomato seedlings in the urban garden were sprouting. The basketball court was filled with men in blue, gray, and brown uniforms shooting hoops and doing pushups. Inside, at vocational classes, men learned the art of tailoring a suit while a group of women studied toward their GEDs. In many ways, the South Bay House of Correction has become a microcosm of the country's evolving attitudes toward drug abuse and drug-related crimes. The facility just off Interstate 93 in Boston is a different place compared with the early 1990s, when leaders in Washington passed a stringent crime bill that authorized stiff penalties for drug crimes and nearly doubled the country's prison population. [continues 1055 words]
You might not like President Obama's political philosophy or leadership style, but you have to admit that he is one cool president. If you're unconvinced, consider his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 30. His poise and charm were on full display, and his comedic timing was impeccable. Still, his best joke made me cringe a little: He said that his popularity rating had been rising. In fact, he said, "The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major." [continues 614 words]
You may not like President Obama's political philosophy or leadership style, but you have to admit that he is one cool president. If you're unconvinced, consider his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 30. His poise and charm were on full display, and his comedic timing was impeccable. Still, his best joke made me cringe a little: he said that his popularity rating had been rising. In fact, he said, "The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major." [continues 615 words]
There's a source of strength hidden within our society that most seem to overlook. Many discount this source of strength, focusing on the past rather than potential. However, hidden in plain sight, all through our society, recovering addicts are making society better for all of us. Junkies, druggies, methheads, crackheads, tweakers, smackheads, trippers, whatever you've called them in the past, when they start the process of recovery, they are taking a journey more difficult than most of us will ever understand. [continues 682 words]
Body Cavities Are Used To Smuggle In Drugs And Even Knives, Experts Say The colloquial term for it is "hooping," and it is considered the most common way that contraband drugs enter into Ottawa's jail. Forget about the file hidden in the cake. Getting a banned item such as drugs or weapons into the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre usually involves hiding it in the rectum or, if you're female, another body cavity. But inmates who crave a fix behind bars in Ottawa will soon need to figure out a new way to get illegal items into the jail after the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services announced that full body scanners will be installed in all 26 of Ontario's adult jails. [continues 658 words]
Ten years ago in Los Angeles, Theresa Martinez was finally making progress in her long, painful struggle against drug addiction and the cycle of incarceration it fueled. But in order to continue her methadone program, she needed $200. Homeless, unemployed, and terrified of falling back into heroin addiction, she tried to get the money the only way she knew: selling drugs. Martinez was arrested for a $5 sale of cocaine, a felony that, absent aggravating factors, carried a three-year prison sentence. By global standards that penalty would have been unusual and harsh, especially since she plainly needed help and support - not incarceration. But here in the United States, Martinez faced an even worse fate. California law prescribes sentencing "enhancements" for anyone who has a prior drug-related felony conviction. Martinez was threatened with a nine-year sentence. Anguished, she took a plea deal for six years, bringing her lifetime total to 23 years behind bars, all for drugs. [continues 578 words]
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]
TRENTON - Less than 30 hours after his East State Street businesses were raided by police, Ed Forchion was back at the Joint, rolling a joint and vowing to beat county prosecutors in court. "They just gave me another platform to continue my goal," Forchion told The Trentonian at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, about two hours after his release from jail. "This is exactly what happened in Burlington County. I beat those prosecutors, and I'll beat the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office too. They're on the wrong side of history." [continues 643 words]
Communities should be strengthened by "minimizing the economic and social effects of incarceration," the report's authors write. Nearly 6 percent of children in Maryland have a parent in prison or jail, which makes it more likely that they will struggle academically, live in poverty, and have other social or psychological problems that could plague them for life. These are the findings of a new report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation about the damaging ripple effects of incarceration on families. The report, "A Shared Sentence," provides strong evidence of the unintended consequences of imprisoning convicts, and the costs borne by children, families and communities. [continues 713 words]
SAN DIEGO - Brayan Valle was looking to buy some marijuana. When he reached out to a business associate of his uncle's, a drug connection, Valle became involved in a much more serious - and novel - - offense. Rather than sell him the marijuana, the associate asked for Valle's help to smuggle drugs over the U.S.-Mexico border by drone. The case signals the first drone drug-smuggling seizure along the Southwest border. On Thursday, Valle, now 21, was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in operating the drone remote control and loading up 30 pounds of heroin dropped into a Calexico-area field on April 28. [continues 392 words]
VANCOUVER - Prisoners struggling with opiate addictions in British Columbia jails have gained the same right to medical treatment as people outside the corrections system. B.C. Corrections has implemented a new policy after four men who alleged they were denied opiate replacement therapy launched a charter challenge last month. The men, who are addicted to opiates and range in age from their 20s to late 40s, are now under the care of doctors after a settlement that will also give other prisoners access to timely therapy. [continues 246 words]
A two-day fatality inquiry has been set into the jailhouse death of a former city resident convicted of the April 1992 murder of Darlene Korolak. Derek Brian Upton was 15 years old at the time of the murder but was tried and convicted as an adult for first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison and, under the provisions of the Young Offender Act in force at the time, was eligible for parole after 15 years incarceration. On Christmas Eve 2011, Upton and fellow inmate Nicholas Whynott were found dead in their cells at Drumheller Institute from a suspected drug overdose. [continues 106 words]
WASILLA -- Kellsie Green died in January, six days after she entered the Anchorage jail -- 24 years old, weighing only about 80 pounds and about to embark on the brutal process of detoxing from a 4-gram-a-day heroin habit. Now Green's father is claiming in a civil wrongful death lawsuit filed late last month against the Alaska Department of Corrections that the brief jail sentence he'd hoped would save her life instead led to her death. John Green said his daughter's cellmates at the Anchorage jail told him requests to help Kellsie went mostly ignored even as her condition worsened to the point she could no longer stand, vomited blood and soiled herself. [continues 1265 words]
California can no longer afford the failed experiment of mass incarceration. When the voters approved measures like Proposition 36, which amended "three strikes" laws, and Prop. 47, which reduced penalties for petty theft and drug crimes, they were sending a clear message to Sacramento that trudging on with the same old policies was no longer acceptable. Yet, with $10.6 billion in proposed spending on the state's corrections system, the most ever and equal to $70,000 per prisoner per year, California government seems set to continue overspending on prisons that mostly fail to "correct" those who enter them, while underinvesting in alternatives. [continues 524 words]
City Considering Plan to Allow Medical Marijuana Cultivation COALINGA (AP) - A small city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley is considering a proposal to allow a marijuana cultivation operation at a former prison. The Fresno Bee reported that the Coalinga City Council on Wednesday directed staff to prepare an official ordinance to allow commercial medical marijuana cultivation at Claremont Custody Center. The city will also draft a ballot measure that would allow voters to decide whether to allow medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. [continues 56 words]
