OROVILLE - A judge has declined to take a woman facing marijuana charges into custody after she was arrested in a new case Tuesday. Daisy Jean Bram was arrested with Jayme Jeff Walsh at their Red Bluff residence Tuesday on suspicion of cultivating marijuana, possessing it for sale and child endangerment. Their three young sons - Thor, Zeus and Invictus - were removed and placed into protective custody. Bram was able to post bail in Tehama County, but Walsh was in custody Thursday. Butte County deputy district attorney Jeff Greeson asked Superior Court Judge James Reilley on Thursday to remand Bram into custody for violating the terms of her release in two pending local cases. [continues 562 words]
Court: Yuma Official Must Give Back Medical Marijuana Seized in 2011 The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the Yuma County Sheriff's Office must give back marijuana that was seized from a California woman who had permission to use the drug for medical purposes. Valerie Okun was stopped in 2011 at a Border Patrol checkpoint near Yuma. Authorities seized marijuana and other contraband from her car. She was cited for violating Arizona drug laws and the case was turned over to Yuma County officials. The charges were dismissed after she showed she was authorized to possess marijuana under California law. [continues 277 words]
SASKATOON - A grieving Saskatoon mother wants the community to join her in demanding the government help parents protect their teenage children from lethal drug addictions. Chantaey Katchmar was 16 when she died from an overdose last July. Her mother, Carla Fenton Katchmar, wonders why the law gives teens the right to refuse treatment that could save their lives when their adolescent brains haven't finished developing and they're incapacitated by a physical disease that's overtaken their rational decision making. [continues 334 words]
Re: 'Marijuana busts in Northumberland spark online debate' by Crystal Crimi, www.northumberlandnews.com/ "For the record, I do not support marijuana. No argument presented, no matter how convincing it may seem, will ever change that. Growing up just a stone's throw from Northumberland in Orono provided enough proof of the drug's dark side to etch those feelings in stone." -- Crystal Crimi I read this article and all I could do was shake my head. Shame on you and your ignorance when you have the power to teach and educate, instead you make the statement above. [continues 296 words]
Re: More Harm Than Good?, Meghan MacIver, Nov. 28. Atira Women's Resource Society is feminist identified, works within an anti-oppression framework and applies harm reduction principles in our day-to-day practice. With the possible exception of our feminist identity, these principles - anti-oppression and harm reduction - are widely embraced in our kind of work and are not unique to Atira. We reject the notion that the consequences of being assaulted or raped rests inside women's heads, to be "fixed" by professionals. We believe women with lived experience and women who reflect the diversity of the women who live with us are best suited to support women victims of violence. We do not refer to our women as "clients." [continues 237 words]
Society Hopes to Build, Run Home for Addicts at Murdo Fraser Park A Vancouver-based non-profit is proposing to build a nine-bed women's addiction recovery house for the North Shore. The Turning Point Recovery Society of B.C. held an information meeting for residents living near the site of the proposed house at the very north tip of Lloyd Ave, past Highway 1 on Monday night. Turning Point, which has run four other recovery houses in Richmond and Vancouver for the last 30 years, is hoping to build and finance the home on land it will lease from the District of North Vancouver, according to Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn chairman of the North Shore Substance Abuse Working Group. [continues 447 words]
A 10-year-old girl was arrested Tuesday after bringing allegedly marijuana to Evans International Elementary School. El Paso County Sheriff's deputies escorted the girl from Evans in handcuffs after getting the call from Falcon District 49 about 2:30 p.m. She was later released to a parent. The girl apparently got the pot from a relative with a medical marijuana card, Sgt. Joe Roybal of the Sheriff's Office said. According to Roybal, less than an ounce of marijuana was allegedly found on the girl who was "showing it to fellow students." [continues 114 words]
Lawsuit Filed Against Shasta County A woman who alleged earlier this year that deputies destroyed more than 200 legally grown marijuana plants on her Round Mountain property is now suing Shasta County. Esmeralda Sanchez Garcia alleges her civil rights were violated between August and October 2011 when deputies with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and other county employees searched her property without warrants and then destroyed 203 plants, as well as unprocessed and processed marijuana, that she said were for medical use for her and several other patients. [continues 459 words]
A warrant to search a house for drugs resulted in a 29-year-old woman being convicted in the Whanganui District Court for administering cannabis through her breast milk to her 3-month-old baby. It is the first time in New Zealand anyone has been charged with and convicted of administering a class C controlled drug, namely cannabis, to a person under the age of 18 years. The search involved a police team and the armed offenders squad. The woman was convicted in the Whanganui District Court last week, after pleading guilty. [continues 356 words]
WATERLOO - A Georgetown mother who lost her only child to drug addiction urged people at a forum Wednesday to lobby hard to increase the availability of a life-saving drug that prevents fatal overdoses. Betty-Lou Kristy told about 100 people attending a forum on overdose prevention that her son, Pete Beattie, would be alive today if he had been given a drug named naloxone - the generic form of the brand-name drug Narcan - which is essentially an antidote used only by doctors and paramedics to revive people from an opioid overdose. [continues 458 words]
New laws to regulate "legal highs" are being welcomed by a Nelson woman who says her son is addicted to a synthetic cannabis product. The laws, announced by Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne yesterday, will see people fined $300 for possessing banned party pills, and dairies barred from selling them. Manufacturers will have to pay a $200,000 application fee and testing costs of up to $2 million to have the substance passed as safe for sale by a regulatory watchdog. [continues 758 words]
A Vancouver woman was shocked to find a toy shaped like a hypodermic needle complete with fake blood in the Halloween section of a Kitsilano drugstore. Wendy Dalton was shopping at her local Shoppers Drug Mart on Broadway this week when she came across a bucket full of what looked like syringes featuring either blue or red liquid and a plunger. She was troubled to see children pretending to shoot up with the plastic novelty pens. Dalton was curious what other people would think, so she bought two pens and began conducting her own poll around her neighbourhood and on the bus. [continues 257 words]
'The House I Live In,' Directed by Eugene Jarecki A call to national conscience, the activist documentary "The House I Live In" is persuasively urgent. Directed with heart by Eugene Jarecki, the movie is an insistently personal and political look at the war on drugs and its thousands of casualties, including those serving hard time for minor offenses. It is, Mr. Jarecki asserts - as he sifts through the data, weighs the evidence and checks in with those on both sides of the law - a war that has led to mass incarcerations characterized by profound racial disparities and that has created another front in the civil rights movement. [continues 827 words]
Four sons of Maria Herrera Magdalena are missing. "Two of my sons disappeared on August 28, 2008, in the state of Guerrero," she said Thursday in a visit to the Rio Grande Valley. "And after two years I again have the same thing happen. Two more sons have disappeared." Herrera Magdalena is part of the Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity that is traveling across the United States to promote bilateral efforts to end the drug violence in Mexico and along the border. [continues 307 words]
A 21-Year-Old Maple Ridge Woman Is Dead After a Night of Partying Another young Maple Ridge person has died from what appears to be a drug overdose after a night of partying. Mounties and the coroner are investigating the sudden death of a 21-year-old woman after emergency services were called to an apartment during the early morning hours of Sunday - after a Saturday-night party. The young woman was found unresponsive and rushed to hospital in serious condition. She died two days later. [continues 416 words]
In honor of Mother's Day on Sunday, Diane Goldstein of North Tustin was busy all week with media interviews to support the Moms United to End the War on Drugs movement. Goldstein, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant with almost 22 years of service, has also been a member of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, since 2010. She lectures across the country and throughout Orange County on behalf of the group, advocating for legislative change in drug laws and the legalization of cannabis. Article Tab: Diane Goldstein of North Tustin, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant who is working to support the Moms United to Stop the War on Drugs movement. Diane Goldstein of North Tustin, a retired Redondo Beach police lieutenant who is working to support the Moms United to Stop the War on Drugs movement. [continues 773 words]
The Ontario Court of Appeal has upheld the absolute discharge of a young woman who brought 34 kilograms of khat into Canada, a leafy substance used as a popular social drug, the way alcohol is, that is legal in many countries. "This is an important ruling because it recognizes that while khat is illegal in Canada there is no empirical evidence that this drug is harmful to the individual or the community at large," said Toronto defence lawyer Mark Halfyard, who argued the appeal. [continues 501 words]
Assemblywoman Norma Torres has it right, and we thank her for paying attention to an issue affecting every single community in California - - drugged driving. We have more people driving "high" on our highways than we do driving drunk. While great strides have been made for decades to reduce drunken driving, virtually nothing has been done to address "drugged driving." With the explosion of domestic marijuana cartels in California selling pot out of storefronts, Californians are largely not surprised to learn that an ever-increasing number of traffic incidents involve people under the influence of marijuana - especially those driving to and from marijuana dispensaries. [continues 575 words]
Thanks to more than half a million dollars in federal funding the Salvation Army will be able to assist women recovering from addiction. Capt. Robert Sessford said he couldn't be happier to be able offer the service in Regina. The Salvation Army Regina Waterston Centre is receiving over $500,000 in Homelessness Partnering Strategy funding to place women taking part in the Regina Drug Treatment Court program in a supportive residential facility. The two years of funding will go toward operating costs and the new women's program. [continues 405 words]
