One local woman is working to get an involuntary drug rehabilitation law passed in Alabama. The law, which JoAnn Hendrix is calling Jamie's Law, would provide a means for families to petition the court to order their loved one with a drug problem to be placed in an involuntary drug rehabilitation treatment program. In a paper outlining the objective of Jamie's Law that Hendrix sent to the Governor's office, she describes it as a law that would provide a means of intervening with someone who is unable to recognize their need for treatment due to substance-abuse impairment of their mind. This would be similar to Casey's Law, also known as the Matthew Casey Wethington Act for Substance Abuse Intervention, in Kentucky. [continues 410 words]
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Ryan never imagined he would one day be a snitch. The soft-spoken University of Alabama student was watching a movie with a couple of friends at his off-campus house in Tuscaloosa one evening in late 2012 when a team of plainclothes West Alabama Narcotics Task Force officers knocked on his door. They were there to serve a warrant to search his home, as he had been outed as a drug dealer by a friend and fellow UA student the task force had "turned" and used as a confidential informant. Little did Ryan know, he would soon be turning on his own friends at the university. [continues 1517 words]
Police and prosecutors constantly urge legislatures to give them more power to fight crime. That power comes in the form of laws that are overly broad and unnecessarily punitive. Alabama's chemical endangerment statute is a perfect example. The statute allows police to arrest you and prosecutors to charge you with a felony if your child comes into contact with "drug paraphernalia." So, what exactly constitutes "drug paraphernalia?" Alabama defines "drug paraphernalia" in the broadest way possible as "all equipment, products, and materials of any kind which are used, intended for use, or designed for use, in planting, propagating, cultivating, growing, harvesting, manufacturing, compounding, converting, producing, processing, preparing, testing, analyzing, packaging, repackaging, storing, containing, concealing, injecting, ingesting, inhaling, or otherwise introducing into the human body a controlled substance in violation of the controlled substances laws of this state." [continues 576 words]
Many pieces of legislation may be touted as life-saving, but probably few have greater direct life-saving potential than a law passed in the last session that increases access to a medication that can reverse the deadly effects of a drug overdose. Drug overdoses have increased dramatically in Etowah County in recent years. A great many of the overdose deaths recorded come from the use of heroin or opiate-related drugs such as pain medications. "We're seeing two or three a week," Etowah County Sheriff Todd Entrekin said. [continues 600 words]
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. - A young Huntsville man suffering from a debilitating disease has had surgery to relieve the condition, but still laments that a potential treatment was denied under Alabama law. For Vanderbilt graduate Itamar Shapira his Dec. 19 surgery has not lessened his frustration that CBD oil, a derivative of the marijuana plant, was not available to him. CBD oil, Cannabidiol, is derived from another variety of cannabis plant, which is used for making hemp. A person cannot get high from CBD oil because it has no psychoactive properties. Hemp plants are high in CBD and very low in THC, the substance that makes a marijuana smoker high. Traditional marijuana plants are high in THC, low in CBD. [continues 374 words]
BESSEMER - An autopsy has found that an 18-year-old Brighton woman died in the Bessemer City Jail after a drug overdose. Sheneque Proctor was found dead Nov. 2, less than 24 hours after being arrested on disorderly conduct and other charges after a disturbance at a Bessemer motel. Authorities have said that Proctor struggled with police during the arrest, and that officers used pepper spray on her. Al.com reports that the Jefferson County Coroner's Office found that the cause of her death was complications of overdosing on a combination of drugs. The autopsy states that tests found cocaine, methadone and alprazolam in her system. Alprazolam is used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorders, and anxiety caused by depression. The coroner's report lists the manner of death as accidental. [end]
Students Who Drive to School, Participate in Activities Affected Starting this school year, students in the Tuscaloosa City School System who drive to school or participate in school-based extracurricular activities such as sports or chess club will be subject to random drug and alcohol tests. The system's new drug and alcohol screening policy was approved by the Tuscaloosa City Board of Education Tuesday. The purpose of the preventative policy is to help create and maintain a drug-free environment as well as act as a deterrent to students who may be considering drug or alcohol use. [continues 498 words]
When friends from her Sunday School class knocked on the door of her Vestavia Hills home in the middle of the day last spring, Beverly Mims said she knew something was wrong. "I had felt uneasy that morning, like something was off. My heart skipped a beat when I heard them at the door," Mims said. "They had my husband, Ronnie on the phone and told me he needed to talk to me. But I never dreamed that what he would say was that our son was dead." [continues 1678 words]
I think I have figured out something. Let's combine Josh Moon et al., including Big Brother, and we have a solution for Alabama and America. Legalize pot in America, and Congress will make some important decisions about immigration, the IRS and phony scandals, and even future phony scandals. It might require food because pot makes you hungry, I hear, so the cost of groceries might go up exponentially. Reduce the speed limit to 25 on the Interstate and in Montgomery, because pot makes you sluggish when trying to decide what those yellow things are that hang from poles and wires and have green, yellow and red colors. To a pot user, 25 is like flying an F-22 Raptor with four tires on the Interstate. [continues 127 words]
Gov. Robert Bentley Needs A Plan. He hasn't come right out and said so, but looking at the facts, it's rather obvious. Alabama is the only state in the country to see its unemployment rate climb in the last year. There's a prison overcrowding problem. There's a general fund budget that's likely to result in more state workers being laid off. The state is already short on state troopers and other workers who inspect our food and make sure our waterways are safe. And our courts are backlogged to the point of near shutdown. [continues 775 words]
In the late 1980s, during the age of "Just Say No," Alabama lawmakers passed a bill placing a tax on illegal drugs such as marijuana - complete with a little green stamp to show the tax had been paid. Charles Crumbley, director of the Investigations Division at the State Department of Revenue, said the stamps have never been popular. "We didn't sell a lot because drug dealers really don't want to do that," he said. What they did allow the state to do, however, was add tax penalties onto the list of charges brought against drug dealers. But court rulings took even that ability away from state tax officials. [continues 417 words]
The Vestavia Hills school system will begin a new voluntary drug-testing program for the 2014-2015 school year. The program will include students in the seventh through 12th grades who volunteer to participate. Students and their parents must sign release forms to participate in the program, city and school officials said. The program will cost $40 a year. Vestavia Hills conducts random drug testing for students involved in sports and extracurricular activities. This pilot program takes the current testing approach a step further, officials said. [continues 388 words]
Micheal Hudson, a multi-media specialist for the city of Riviera Beach, Fla., was ordered by Human Resources Director Doretha Perry to take a reasonable suspicion drug test. When Hudson later revoked the city's access to the results of his hair sample drug test, he was fired for refusal to take the test. Hudson then filed a lawsuit in Federal Court alleging that Perry violated his rights under the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by ordering him to submit to the drug tests or risk termination because of alleged bad blood between Hudson and Perry's son, Troy, who also worked for the city. Hudson's direct supervisor and his supervisor did not request that Hudson be tested or suspect Hudson of drug use. [continues 566 words]
A total of 36 1/2 pounds of meth and more than $130,000 was seized in a criminal investigation that ended in six arrests Thursday after an early morning drug raid on two Alabama prisons. The arrests included two inmates and a corrections officer charged with being part of one of the most substantial meth trafficking rings in the state. The investigation, beginning in Feb. 2012 involved the joint efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Alabama Department of Corrections along with the Middle and North District U.S. Attorney Offices. [continues 484 words]
MONTGOMERY - The Alabama Senate voted 34- 0 Tuesday in favor of a medical study that would allow some people with epilepsy to have access to a cannabis-derived medicine. Despite the unanimous vote, the Legislature doesn't appear likely to approve the use of other forms of medical marijuana any time soon. "The regular kind, with the THC, I am not in support of," said Sen. Paul Sanford, R- Huntsville. Sanford is the sponsor of a bill called "Carly's Law" which would set up a five-year study, through the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in which the university would treat some patients who have severe epileptic seizures with cannabidiol, an oil derived from marijuana plants. The oil doesn't have the psychoactive effects people associate with marijuana, Sanford said. [continues 569 words]
MONTGOMERY (AP) - Legislation to require drug testing for some welfare applicants stalled in the Alabama Senate on Tuesday but will be back up for debate on Wednesday. Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh of Anniston got the Senate to adjourn Tuesday afternoon after some Democrats began fighting a Republican backed bill affecting Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Trip Pittman of Daphne, would require drug testing of any welfare applicant with a drug conviction in the past five years. It would have cut off benefits after three failed tests. Pittman acknowledges that he tried marijuana as a young man. He said his bill "is an attempt to get people to get off drugs" and to show taxpayers that the state government is being responsible with public assistance. [end]
Speaker Mike Hubbard Does Not Expect House Version To Go Far In the wake of President Barack Obama's statement that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol, the Alabama State Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill Wednesday that would give justifiable defense for the use of a marijuana- derivative for medicinal purposes Wednesday, according to the Associated Press. Senate Bill 174, named Carly's Law after an Inverness girl diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder, would provide a defense for the use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil to provide relief for debilitating medical conditions, like violent seizures and severe nausea. The bill stipulates the CBD user must be diagnosed by a physician, and that the drug must be likely to provide therapeutic or palliative relief. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Paul Sanford, R-Madison. [continues 462 words]
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - Dustin Chandler said his 2-year-old daughter Carly has three to five seizures each day from a severe neurological condition she has battled since infancy. Prescribed medications have done nothing to help, he said. Her best treatment, he believes, could be a marijuana plant extract called cannabidiol, also known as CBD oil, and there is anecdotal evidence that suggests the oil is effective in treating seizure disorders. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 8-3 to approve a bill aimed at allowing people to possess the oil if they have certain medical conditions. Parents of children with seizure disorders have pressed to make the oil available. Supporting lawmakers said they are hoping to get the bill approved this session but that their biggest hurdle could be political fear about approving anything marijuana-related in an election year. "We've been battling the stigma from the M-word," Chandler said. [end]
MONTGOMERY (AP) - Dustin Chandler said his 2- year-old daughter Carly has three to five seizures each day from a severe neurological condition she has battled since infancy. Prescribed medications have done nothing to help, he said. Her best treatment, he believes, could be a marijuana plant extract called cannabidiol, also known as CBD oil, and there is anecdotal evidence that suggests the oil is effective in treating seizure disorders. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 8- 3 to approve a bill aimed at allowing people to possess the oil if they have certain medical conditions. [continues 66 words]
Medical Necessity Could Be Used As Defense By Those Facing Prosecution An Alabama Senate committee approved a bill Wednesday that its sponsor said would allow Alabamians to take part in clinical trials of a marijuana extract that may have medicinal properties. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Paul Sanford, R-Huntsville, would allow those facing prosecution for possession of the substance, known as cannabidiol, to use medical necessity as a defense. Acceptable uses of cannabidiol would include treatment for pain, seizures and "any other condition that is severe and resistant to conventional medicine." [continues 268 words]
Inside Alabama
