A 27-year-old man who died after a drug stop in Houma Thursday night choked to death after trying to swallow plastic bags of suspected cocaine, marijuana and heroin, according to preliminary results from an autopsy performed Monday. Gary Alford, an investigator with the Terrebonne Coroner's Office, said the autopsy results for Wayne Michael Williams of Houma are not yet final pending toxicology tests that take several weeks to complete. "The primary cause is going to be asphyxiation," Alford said. "His drug levels might be very high if one of those bags broke. So that could be a contributing factor also. We're going to have to wait and see." [continues 431 words]
Terrebonne and Lafourche public schools enroll more than 32,000 students combined, but so far this year, fewer than three dozen have been arrested for bringing drugs onto campuses. Education officials and police readily acknowledge that more students are involved in drugs and that more can always be done to keep them out of schools. But one reason such a relative few arrests are made is that schools -- with teachers and principals and in some cases police constantly on alert -- appeals to common sense, one officer says. [continues 855 words]
I wish to respond to Michael Gorman's Aug. 26 column, "Rethinking this nonsense." As the prosecutor who handled the case in question from its inception, I would begin by counseling Mr. Gorman against trying to analyze a legal proceeding without looking at all of the facts. As a prosecutor, that is what I do for a living, and I have come to learn that there is no one punishment that fits every crime nor one sentence that fits every defendant. [continues 818 words]
The crowing tone of the press release is a pretty good indication that the Lafourche District Attorney's Office took the drug charge against Matthew Zugsberger seriously. "A California man on a self-professed crusade to change Louisiana's marijuana laws instead pled guilty to felony drug charges Monday rather than face a jury of his peers," the release begins. At issue was the case against Zugsberger, who was caught receiving a shipment of more than two pounds of pot. Zugsberger argued that his prescription for use of medical marijuana should be respected in Louisiana even though it was issued in California. The local district attorney disagreed, opting instead to spend more than three years going after a man whose only crime was possessing marijuana. [continues 577 words]
Re: "Huge news in War on Drugs," Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column July 31 in The Times. Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drug offenses at the same rate as minorities. And racially disproportionate incarceration rates are not the only cause for alarm. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Incarcerating non-violent drug offenders with hardened criminals is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in anti-social behavior. [continues 83 words]
With its current focus on the dictatorships in Middle Eastern countries, the United States has largely been ignoring an issue closer to home. Namely, the "War on Drugs" raging in Mexico. In Mexico, the term takes on a more literal definition than in the U.S. In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon called on military forces to handle the growing problem presented by increasingly powerful drug cartels specializing in marijuana and methamphetamine (who have grown so powerful and violent since the '90s that many have labeled them insurgencies). [continues 530 words]
Protesters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Shreveport made their demands clear Wednesday - legalize marijuana and legalize it now. Nearly 100 people turned out in front of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to condemn laws criminalizing marijuana and to ask lawmakers to tax and regulate it instead. Organized by Legalize Louisiana, a statewide organization calling for the legalization of medicinal and recreational marijuana, the march was part of a broader day of protests that included similar events in Lafayette, New Orleans and Monroe. [continues 358 words]
With reference to the upcoming statewide march for rights concerning marijuana, there has been a lot of talk and debate about the "terms of use." There is a bit of a straw man afoot which appears to purport outlandish doomsday scenarios if the state were to decriminalize this rather harmless plant. In discussions with like-minded advocates, I have yet to find any individual who supports legalization without reasonable regulations. There is virtually unanimous agreement that responsible use ought to be enforced, in much the same way alcohol and even cigarettes are regulated in their recreational use. The latter two are examples of legal substances which are not only harmful, but indisputably deadly. [continues 150 words]
In the news release "Busted" on Sept. 16, The Maroon reported Loyola's new policies regarding the enforcement of drug prohibition on campus. "As of fall 2009... students can be arrested by New Orleans Police Department and taken to jail if in possession of narcotics." This policy differs from the past, when Residential Life officials discerned whether violations should be dealt with internally by university disciplinary processes or reported to the police. Now, as Robert Reed noted, "[i]t's really up to the officers to decide what to do." [continues 481 words]
Sulphur, La. -- Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier and law enforcement have made great strides in stopping the illegal prescription drug trafficking from Texas to Louisiana. They are working in conjunction with Texas law enforcement and officials to stop doctor shopping and illegal drug sales. DeRosier spoke to the Sulphur Rotary Club Wednesday about working with Texas to solve the drug problem together. "Millions of pills were coming into Southwest Louisiana from Southeast Texas. There were people from all over the parish who, on occasion, would load up a van of people and go to Texas and go to three or four pain management clinics and come back with 10,000 pills at one time. The Texas legislature started meeting about two weeks ago. It will be finished with its session by mid-May of this year. [continues 501 words]
It's luciferous to lump the relatively safe, extremely popular God-given plant cannabis (marijuana) in with heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs. The effort to continue caging responsible adult humans for using a plant is luciferous. Cannabis was never meant to be prohibited to begin with; that's why God, the ecologician, indicates he created all the seed-bearing plants saying they are all good, on literally the very first page of the Bible (see Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30). Editorializing to perpetuate cannabis prohibition, persecution and extermination is just plain wrong. Stan White Dillon, Col. [end]
Maybe the cost of incarcerating drug offenders has become too great for strapped government budgets to bear. Maybe it's a libertarian impulse -- why should the government tell us what we can shoot, smoke or snort? Maybe it's because the generation that smoked dope and dropped acid on camera at Woodstock is the Establishment now. For whatever reason, a push is under way to call a truce -- surrender, really -- in the war on drugs. But Louisiana's recent experience, which led to the necessary but bizarre decision to outlaw certain bath salts and plant food, raises questions that should stop the drive to legalize. [continues 311 words]
Fewer Small-Time Offenders Are Jailed, Leaving More Time to Fight Serious Crimes. In the squad room of the New Orleans Police Department's 6th District, a large red square is painted on the wall behind the lectern, as if a cop had acted on some Abstract Expressionist impulse. It is a wordless reminder to officers here, one that could serve as a new motto for the city's criminal justice system. "It means, 'We don't arrest squares,' " said Sgt. Yolanda Jenkins, a community outreach specialist. [continues 850 words]
In a move that proponents said will reduce the dockets in Criminal District Court and give police more time to deal with major crimes, the New Orleans City Council voted unanimously Thursday to designate marijuana possession, prostitution and two other relatively minor crimes as municipal offenses, giving police the option to issue a summons rather than make an arrest. If you get picked up for marijuana possession or prostitution in New Orleans, police no longer will have to arrest you and take you to jail. [continues 730 words]
More teenagers these days are smoking marijuana. That troubling word comes out of the most recent Monitoring the Future Survey, which was released earlier this week. One in 16 10th-through 12th-graders are smoking marijuana daily or nearly daily, according to the report. And, for the second straight year, the study found that more 12th-graders had smoked marijuana than had smoked tobacco cigarettes within the past three months. Perhaps even more disturbing than the actual number of kids using marijuana is the indication that more teens look favorably at the drug than has been the case in the past. [continues 324 words]
To the editors: Another reason to legalize cannabis (marijuana) that doesn't get mentioned (Student club supports marijuana reform, Dec. 3, 2010) is because it's biblically correct. God, The Ecologician, indicates he created all the seed-bearing plants saying they are all good, on literally the very first page of the Bible (see Genesis 1:11-12 and 29-30). The only biblical restriction placed on cannabis is to accept it with thankfulness (1 Timothy 4:1-5). What kind of government cages people for using what God says is good? Stan White stanwmtn@colorado.net [end]
If you are anything like me, when you heard that Prop 19 wasn't voted into action over in California you thought to yourselves, "Ah well, that's probably a good thing," and continued updating your Loyola University-specific contingency plan for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. To those of you who were not updating their contingency plans and think that the zombie apocalypse is a dumb idea that will never happen, I would like to say that you have been factored into the "Escape" phase of my plan and I thank you for your selfless contributions on the behalf of the rest of us. [continues 468 words]
Five students are pushing for a greener society but the organization they recently chartered is not necessarily environmentally friendly. Loyola University is now home to the National Organization Reform of Marijuana Laws student organization NORML. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,is an activist group devoted to promoting the reform of marijuana laws. The purpose of NORML is to push the idea that marijuana users are not criminals and to inform people about marijuana and laws that are active, in the making, and planning to be proposed. [continues 265 words]
After reading the letter about the disposal of drugs confiscated by the law, I want to express my desire to see these drugs legalized, taxed and regulated just as liquor is and probably by the same government branch. There is no reason whatsoever to prohibit the use of these drugs. There is a reason to enforce the misbehavior of individuals under the influence of drugs, just as individuals under the influence of alcohol. Now don't give me the sad story about the person that has sunk to such a terrible state that we see occasionally. We see those that are in this same predicament from the use of alcohol. [continues 143 words]
Inside Louisiana
