Skydiver's Grass Gets Greener. despite Having Hands That Cannot Write, Author Has Just Completed Book about His Life Claude Messier gives a whole new meaning to the term "getting high." One of 251 Canadians with an exemption from Health Canada to smoke marijuana for medical purposes - in his case to ease the pain of muscular distrophy - Messier smoked one last joint yesterday before flying to 13,000 feet. Then, strapped onto a parachute instructor twice his size, he threw himself out of the airplane, along with his recently published autobiography, Confessions d'un Paquet d'Os (Confessions of a Bag of Bones). [continues 392 words]
Months-Long London Case Underscores Growing Problem Of Small-Town Dealing LONDON, Ohio -- On an unusually cold night in October, Chester Jackson waited impatiently for his son. A family friend had arrived at the house, someone they'd been expecting. Although snow flurries had been forecast, lightning streaked the sky and the winds were whipping, delaying 22-year-old D.J., who was traveling by bicycle. When he finally made it, the threesome wasted little time getting down to business. D.J. placed a golf-ball-size rock of crack cocaine on the coffee table, used his father's box cutter to chip off pea-size chunks, then handed them to the friend. [continues 2255 words]
Time And Financial Aid Are Needed To Curb Soaring Cultivation, UN Drug Official Says MONTREAL -- Afghanistan has reclaimed the top spot as a world producer of opium, and, despite optimistic signs, it will take several years to erase poppy production, the head of the United Nations drug control agency said yesterday. While it is committed to banning opium cultivation, the Afghan administration led by President Hamid Karzai is still weak and trying to keep up with opiate producers, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. [continues 448 words]
How did I, a mayor of a small town in California, wind up in a tug of war with the Drug Enforcement Agency? This week, I stood in front of Santa Cruz's city hall as a local group that provides medical marijuana went about its weekly task of distributing the drug to the sick and dying. My story begins on the morning of Sept. 5 when approximately 30 men, dressed in military fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, descended on a small cooperative farm run by the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in northern Santa Cruz County, about 65 miles south of San Francisco. They were pulling up organically grown marijuana plants. [continues 674 words]
MONTREAL -- Canadian politicians will be making a major error if they try to legalize cannabis, the head of the United Nations drug control agency warned yesterday. While marijuana does not have the same association with violent crime and severe dependency as harder narcotics, it remains a health hazard and its prohibition is needed in the global effort against drugs and criminality, said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. "Some of our countries are on the verge of making an error which is as significant as when tobacco spread," Mr. Costa said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. [continues 193 words]
To the editor: Kudos to Charles Moore for his excellent column on the Canadian Senate's common-sense alternative to marijuana prohibition (Pot Should Be Legal, The Daily News, Sept. 20). Unlike some of the more hysterical critics of the Senate's groundbreaking recommendations, Moore obviously took the time to read the report. After months of research, the special committee on illegal drugs concluded that marijuana is relatively benign; marijuana prohibition contributes to organized crime; and law-enforcement efforts have little impact on patterns of use. Telling examples of the drug war's failure can be found very close to home. [continues 212 words]
Two of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels are now being led by women, a leading drug investigator said. Special prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos told the newspaper La Jornada that the Arellano Felix cartel in the border town of Tijuana is being led by Enedina Arellano Felix after the arrest of her brother Benjamin and the death of sibling Ramon at the beginning of the year. A similar change in leadership has occurred in a cartel in Colima after the arrests of brothers Luis, Jesus and Adan Amezcua, the prosecutor said. [continues 85 words]
I just don't get the whole legalization of marijuana thing. Aren't we spending billions of dollars trying to get people to stop smoking tobacco? Or is this working and now they need another tax to make up for the shortfall? Why would you legalize something which alters the state of your mind and then hand it out to 16-year-olds, but spend millions of dollars talking them out of smoking cigarettes? Better still, they can't buy cigarettes in the corner store. Hey, that's OK. We're 16, we'll just need to buy marijuana. I'm pretty sure the people coming up with this are already smoking it and just looking for easy access. Maureen Boyce, Cambridge [end]
