Glenn County planning commissioners are in no hurry to approve a medical marijuana ordinance for the unincorporated areas of the county.

They opted to wait on the issue Wednesday to get more information on how Sheriff Larry Jones feels about the proposal.

Planning Director John Linhart said the proposed ordinance would regulate the cultivation and other issues surrounding medical marijuana.

The code would restrict the growing area to a maximum of 100 square feet per parcel, and keep the plants out of neighbors' views.

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Tragic as it was, the death of Thousand Oaks High School senior Griffen Kramer could be the tipping point in this area's fight against heroin.

Word this week from the Los Angeles County coroner's office confirming the drug as the cause of the 18-year-old's death (see related story on page 1) puts an end to any debate and provides another opportunity to address this life-and-death topic.

We're amazed by how many people we've talked to in the past month who had no idea high schoolers were using heroin and no clue about the prevalence of prescription painkillers in the local party scene. Along with this spike in awareness is a desire for action.

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Suspicions Over A Late-night Landing At The Anoka County Airport Set Off An Investigation That Led To Arrests And The Breakup Of A California-to-minnesota Drug Ring.

Federal agents swung open the doors of the Mooney M20 minutes after it taxied to a stop at 3:30 a.m. on the darkened runway at the Anoka County Airport.

Two nervous pilots were in the cockpit, several large hockey bags filled the cabin. But the pungent aroma wasn't sweaty pads and skates.

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JACKSON COUNTY -- A store owner was arrested after undercover narcotics agents went into her business and purchased spice, a synthetic form of marijuana outlawed in the state, Sheriff Mike Byrd said.

Agents with the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County seized three brands of spice Tuesday at Jr.'s Discount Cigarette and Beer on Government Street, Byrd said.

The store's owner, Son Thi Nguyen, 48, of Linda Circle, Ocean Springs, was charged with sale of a controlled substance and possession with intent to distribute.

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Trumpets and trombones blast across a rodeo ring where women in miniskirts dance with men in cowboy hats and gold chains. Some fans try to climb onto the stage while others whoop to the deafening music and sing along to an outlaw ballad about one of the most-wanted criminal suspects in North America, an alleged drug kingpin.

"We take care of El Mayo

"Here no one betrays him...

"We stay tough with AK-47s and bazookas at the neck

"Chopping heads off as they come

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Drug-sniffing dogs searching the Westlake High School campus for illegal narcotics earlier this month caught a scent.

It led them to a teacher's car.

On Dec. 8, Thousand Oaks police issued a citation to Courtney Stockton, a 35-year-old special education teacher, for having less than one ounce of marijuana on school grounds after they found the controlled substance in his vehicle in the staff parking lot, said Capt. Bill Ayub.

Ayub said the amount of marijuana found in Stockton's car is considered small and for personal use.

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15th District Police Officer Wants Justice For Austin 7

A Chicago police officer is seeking the media's help to unravel what he says is a web of deception, created by the Chicago Police Department (CPD), which led to the indictment and subsequent conviction of seven police officers in the 15th Police District on the city's West Side 15 years ago.

T.C. McCoy, an officer in the 15th District, held a news conference Wednesday outside police headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave., decrying a "conspiracy by the Chicago Police Department" to frame these seven police officers, known as the "Austin 7" in what he calls a flawed police corruption investigation.

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PORTER Two LaPorte County woman face drug charges after police said they found hypodermic needles and a container of "clean" urine in their car.

A Chesterton police officer running drug interdiction about 6 p.m. on Interstate 94 stopped a car without a lit license plate just east of the U.S. 20 exit.

The officer said the driver, Krystel Catlin, 27, of LaPorte, was acting nervously and trembling as she said she and two passengers were on their way to visit relatives at a Portage Township residence.

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13 Students Faced Discipline for Marijuana

NEWBURYPORT -- Newburyport High School is following a statewide trend that's seeing drug use on the rise at secondary schools, officials say.

Superintendent Marc Kerble said that since September, officials have conducted 13 student expulsion hearings primarily related to the use or possession of marijuana.

"This should be a concern of not only the School Committee, but a concern of the community," Kerble said at a meeting last night.

Kerble did not have figures readily available on how many hearings resulted in actual expulsion from school, but he spoke of the personal side of the statistic.

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A U.S. Border Patrol agent fired his service weapon at several alleged drug smugglers who were throwing rocks at him and another agent.

The incident happened at around 7 p.m. Monday near the B&M International Bridge in Brownsville, said Border Patrol spokeswoman Rosalinda Huey.

The agents were patrolling when they encountered several people who appeared to be carrying bundles of marijuana, authorities said.

When the agents confronted the individuals, they began throwing rocks at the agents, Huey said.

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EDINBURG - Five Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office employees are no longer employed after an internal investigation.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino announced the four terminations and resignation in a news release Monday morning.

The dismissals come after a round of drug tests at the Sheriff's Office.

Citing privacy concerns, Trevino would not confirm the five employees failed drug tests. Sources familiar with the situation said the deputies had failed their drug tests.

Deputy Amando Guerra resigned amid the internal investigation. Deputy David Ortiz was terminated.

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Sentenced to several years in state prison for a drug conviction, Graciano Castaneda instinctively knew he needed to belong to a group to survive the prison system, which he described as a dangerous society for those that enter alone.

Castaneda, who spent eight year in prison in the 1990s for two drug convictions, had an older brother in the Mexican Mafia, a notorious prison gang.

Later in his life, he would lose the mother of his children to the Mexican Mafia. A high-ranking member of the gang ordered her murder.

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Former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Sam Hurd was arrested last week on federal drug charges for dealing a large amount of drugs in the Chicago,Ill., area. One of Hurd's contacts, who met with informants, was employed at a business in Coppell.

Hurd's contact, who goes by the name of T.L., is a co-conspirator, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to court documents, T.L. was employed at a repair shop in Coppell and conducted deals with informants multiple times in Coppell over a five-month period.

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Criminalizing marijuana because it has no medicinal use is unreasonable and unnecessary government regulation of my fundamental rights to privacy, to liberty and to property secured from unreasonable laws by the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Why is it that the marijuana laws are not recognized by the judiciary as a fundamental rights issue?

Judicial review of the marijuana laws by rational review is deprivation of rights under the color of law.

Michael Dee

Windham, Maine

[end]

Marijuana Use By Hepatitis C Patients Could Be Harmful

It is interesting to see two articles the same day about marijuana. Columnist Neal Peirce wonders why President Obama has backed away from the advocacy of pro-marijuana candidate Obama ["Obama's puzzling silence on pot," Opinion, Dec. 18] and LA Times reporter Anna Gorman highlights the plight of a hepatitis C patient who was rejected for a liver transplant as his condition advanced into liver cancer. ["Medical marijuana adds crimp to liver transplant eligibility," seattletimes.com, Dec. 17.] The rejection was based on his use of approved medical marijuana.

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Petaluma Mayor David Glass says that three months ago he might well have voted for lifting his city's ban on marijuana dispensaries.

He has no doubt medical cannabis helps some and has the support of many more.

But times have changed. When the topic of lifting the ban arose at Monday's City Council meeting, Glass told the audience his views had been tempered by the recent federal crackdown on the state's medical marijuana industry.

"I believe the people want it," Glass said. "I just don't think at this time, in this environment, it's the right thing to do because of the risks that are there."

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How, 40 Years Ago, Sinclair and Company Laid the Groundwork for Today

I'd like to offer my most profound thanks to Amy Cantu and her people at the Ann Arbor District Library for their heroic efforts in dredging up the past and making it live again in the digital age at their new website called freeingjohnsinclair.org, which further includes every page of the underground newspaper known as the Ann Arbor and Detroit Sun in digital form.

The AADL also sponsored two days of events in Ann Arbor celebrating the John Sinclair Freedom Rally of Dec. 10, 1971, including a free concert at the Ark featuring Commander Cody and my own band with special surprise guest Wayne Kramer of the MC-5 joining Jeff Grand on guitar.

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San Diego's medical marijuana collectives have unveiled a proposed ballot initiative that tries to ensure that dispensaries "operate as good, responsible neighbors" and that seeks to mollify City Hall with the promise of fees to cover regulatory costs and new sales taxes to help the city's beleaguered budget. Nice try. But as long as marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and as long as dispensaries throughout the state flagrantly abuse it, this initiative is a waste of effort.

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug defined as having the greatest potential for abuse and no accepted medical use and is against federal law for all purposes. California voters in 1996 approved an initiative legalizing medical marijuana and, for most of the years that followed, the feds largely kept their distance, leaving local authorities to keep the dispensaries reasonably in check.

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This is in response to the Dec. 16 letter, "Mayor's drug attitude sends wrong message," concerning Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio's policies on marijuana use.

Our government, backed by the DuPont Paper Company, engaged in a campaign of misinformation and blatant lies in the 1920s to sway public opinion towards marijuana prohibition. We were told smoking it makes people violent, causes massive surges in crime, and is a gateway to harder, more harmful drugs.

Not only is all of this untrue, the gateway theory has been thoroughly disproved. The crime associated with marijuana use is a direct result of it being illegal, and users being forced to obtain it on the black market. I am not saying, however, that using marijuana will not cause you to use other drugs. But, in the grand scheme, alcohol and tobacco are infinitely more dangerous and harmful than marijuana, and cause tens of thousands of deaths a year, while marijuana use has never been solely attributed to a single death.

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For-Profit Pot a Mistake

In 2000, I voted for the constitutional amendment that allowed marijuana to be used, with a physician's advice, as a treatment option.

Like many people in Colorado, I felt that those people who had a debilitating disease such as M.S., Lou Gehrig's disease, HIV-AIDS or the like should be allowed to use any treatment option that would help to alleviate the effects of those diseases.

I was confident in the knowledge that should a loved one or friend or any other Coloradoan truly need marijuana as a treatment option, they could obtain it by growing their own or through not for-profit care-givers as envisioned in Amendment 20. For seven years that model of not for-profit care-givers and growing your own marijuana worked.

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