If Congressional Republicans are really intent on getting to the bottom of an ill-conceived sting operation along the border by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, they should call President Felipe Calderon of Mexico as an expert witness. Mr. Calderon has the data showing that the tens of thousands of weapons seized from the Mexican drug cartels in the last four years mostly came from the United States. Three out of five of those guns were battlefield weapons that were outlawed here until the assault weapons ban was allowed to lapse in 2004. To help him stop the bloody mayhem, he is pleading with Washington to re-enact the ban and impose other needed controls. [continues 203 words]
Night court in Manhattan, Monday, 7:30 p.m. For a moment, after the lawyers had finished talking and the judge had murmured the sentence, Felix did not move. He stood in front of the bench, then looked at his lawyer, who nodded and sent him to wait in the pews with the spectators. Felix slid into the second row, the tension heaving from him in a big sigh. For the first time in more than 30 hours, he was not sitting among the arrested in the holding cells. On Sunday morning, he was arrested on a charge of misdemeanor possession of marijuana with a group of other young men gathered on 42nd Street for the National Puerto Rican Day Parade. [continues 652 words]
The Bloomberg administration says that by arresting more than 350,000 people for having small amounts of marijuana since 2002, the police have helped drive down serious crime -- and that the consequences for the people locked up have been minimal. Nearly 90 percent of those arrested on charges of personal possession of marijuana are black or Latino, although its use by young white people is rampant in affluent quarters of the city. Faced with criticism from members of the City Council and the State Legislature, aides to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have emphasized that few of those arrested on pot charges actually end up with criminal convictions because most cases are dismissed and sealed after one year. In effect, they say, the arrest process itself -- which can stretch for 24 hours or more, under squalid conditions in holding pens - -- is the extent of the punishment. [continues 637 words]
Police Say Alleged Harlem Dealer Ran Operation In Low-Key, Corporate Style Law-enforcement officials say they didn't have to look much further than a picture on Ceferino Perez's nightstand to understand him. Among the drugs, $500,000 in cash, jewelry, guns, luxury cars and other booty that investigators said they seized from Mr. Perez and his tightly run Harlem drug operation was a 6-by-8-inch photo: Al Pacino's drug lord character Tony Montana from the movie "Scarface"-with Mr. Perez's face superimposed over the actor's. [continues 417 words]
Atlanta IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker. The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America's "war on drugs," which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders. [continues 659 words]
Friday marks the 40th anniversary of one of the biggest, most expensive, most destructive social policy experiments in American history: The war on drugs. On the morning of June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon, speaking from the Briefing Room of the White House, declared: "America's public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive. I have asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive. This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply, as well as Americans who may be stationed abroad, wherever they are in the world." [continues 380 words]
BILL: On the Internet last Saturday night, I heard an old time radio show, "Dragnet" -- so old that Jack Webb was still doing Sgt. Friday. When they busted a dope pusher, Jack declared, in his most stirring voice, "Another step toward winning the war on drugs!" What was that, 50 years ago? DR. DAVE: I agree it's a meaningless slogan, like declaring war on ice cream. Joe Friday's war on illegal drugs of the 50s and 60s was largely fought on the fringes of society--stomping on the drug addicted and disen-franchised 5 percent. [continues 760 words]
In the wake of several heroin overdoses and fatalities among youths in the region, individuals and local prevention agencies in Yorktown have stepped up efforts to stem this tragic tide. Christina Farrell lost her daughter Gwendolyn Farrell, 21, in March to an apparent heroin overdose. She believes her death was an accident, she said, and stressed that more education needs to happen on how common "casual use" has become and how easy it can be to acquire tainted or fatally potent drugs. [continues 390 words]
It was a Tuesday in March when college student Gwendolyn Farrell texted her parents and older sister to let them know she had gotten a 90 on her math test. The grade was significant, her mother, Christina Farrell, said, because math had always been her most difficult subject. "That represented to me that she was feeling good, feeling proud," said Farrell, of Yorktown. "She wasn't going down the road to destruction." [continues 1672 words]
Justice Ginsburg's Dissent Underscores Her Importance to American Law. What's wrong with the police kicking in the door of an apartment after they smell marijuana drifting from it, if they knock hard, announce who they are and then hear what sounds like evidence being destroyed? Some lower courts have said the answer is pretty much everything, because the police themselves created the pretext for barging in. But the Supreme Court ruled last week that such a warrantless search does not necessarily violate the Fourth Amendment, according to a vague new standard for determining whether the police violated the protection against unreasonable search, or threatened to do so. [continues 347 words]
Galas often feature inspiring testimonials from beneficiaries right before guests are asked to open their checkbooks. When a fund-raiser benefits a drug rehabilitation program, dinner sometimes resembles an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Speakers at Caron Treatment Centers' annual gala Wednesday introduced themselves thus: "Hi, I'm so-and-so, and I'm an alcoholic." Cue crowd: "Hi, so-and-so." The gala at Cipriani 42nd Street raised funds for scholarships to Caron with a special focus on supporting musicians with addiction. [continues 133 words]
Pot Arrests Are Highly Expensive for the Taxpayer, Associated Racial Disparities Are Ghastly, and Just to Ice the Cake, Most of These Arrests Are the Result of Illegal Searches Over the last fifteen years in New York, arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana have exploded. These arrests are extremely expensive for the taxpayer, the associated racial disparities are ghastly, and just to ice the cake, most of these arrests are the result of illegal searches. Now, in a rare show of New York bi-partisanship, legislators in Albany are finally seeking to address the issue. [continues 848 words]
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- After decades of new laws to toughen sentencing for criminals, prosecutors have gained greater leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants and reduce the number of cases that go to trial, often by using the threat of more serious charges with mandatory sentences or other harsher penalties. Some experts say the process has become coercive in many state and federal jurisdictions, forcing defendants to weigh their options based on the relative risks of facing a judge and jury rather than simple matters of guilt or innocence. In effect, prosecutors are giving defendants more reasons to avoid having their day in court. [continues 2732 words]
On a campus as big as UB, there's bound to be some marijuana use. UB NORML rallies supporters to clear the air on this hazy topic. Students may not know that sometimes, marijuana is actually being used for medicinal purposes not just recreational. UB NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) is a club here at UB that recognizes the benefits of marijuana and wants to raise awareness about it. UB NORML is a group of students who support the legalization of marijuana because of the social and economic benefits that it would provide. [continues 476 words]
For the time being, New Yorkers can consider last November's defeat of Proposition 19, a California ballot initiative to legalize and regulate the personal use of marijuana, as none of their business. But as this debate spreads outward from California it will, sooner or later, reach New York. Having started the war on marijuana, the federal government is the enforcer of the status quo - even as opinion polls show the public's desire for change. So, it is up to the states, one-by-one, to replace failed drug war policies with something that makes sense. To see how the future marijuana legalization debate might spread, let's consider the work of professor Everett M. Rogers. [continues 601 words]
What is it about Willie Nelson, weed and the law? It's been a question worth asking since at least 1971, when Mr. Nelson brought together rednecks and hippies at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin with his unique style of country music and his open attitude about marijuana. His eldest daughter, Lana, and his former wife Connie said pot helped tamp down the rage; he had been a mean drunk when alcohol was his drug of choice. Mr. Nelson, 77, is perhaps America's best-known marijuana smoker. He is co-chairman of the advisory board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has been a High Times cover boy and famously smoked a joint on the roof of the White House when Jimmy Carter was president. His disciples include the actor Woody Harrelson and the country crooner Ray Price, his former employer -- each known to have enjoyed a puff now and then. He is the inspiration for Toby Keith's hit song "(I'll Never Smoke) Weed With Willie (Again)," which testifies to the quality of Mr. Nelson's stash. [continues 653 words]
A hip-hop disc jockey fatally shot on Staten Island early Sunday was out buying marijuana in the moments before he was slain, a law-enforcement official with knowledge of the case said. That account came from a friend of Corey McGriff who said he had been chatting on a cellphone call with the victim minutes before Mr. McGriff was shot once in the torso a few doors down from Mr. McGriff's home, the official said. During the conversation, which took place just before 2 a.m., the victim, who was known as DJ Megatron, told his friend he was out trying to buy "weed," the official said. [continues 316 words]
To the Editor: Re "Electric Kool-Aid Marketing Trip" (Op-Ed, March 19): Michael Walker has written an encomium to Augustus Owsley Stanley III, the "LSD millionaire" who figured out how to manufacture the drug in industrial doses in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. Without question, Mr. Stanley was a key figure in the Sixties counterculture and played a large role in the music, art and "Summer of Love" ethos associated with LSD. But virtually every obituary of Mr. Stanley has romanticized his legacy. Consider how many bad trips, suicides and ruined lives that legacy was also responsible for. Cory Franklin Wilmette, Ill., March 19, 2011 [end]
A New Study Reveals That Since 1996 New York City Has Spent From Half a Billion to Over a Billion Dollars Arresting People for Less Than an Ounce of Marijuana. In 2010 New York City spent $75 million arresting people for possessing small amounts of marijuana. Three members of the New York City Council joined advocates and community members on the steps of City Hall today at a press conference organized by the Drug Policy Alliance and the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives. They announced the release of a new report: "$75 Million A Year - The Cost of New York City's Marijuana Arrests." [continues 474 words]
Los Angeles -- NOW that the 1960s are commodified forever as "The Sixties," it is apparently compulsory that their legacy be rendered as purple-hazy hagiography. But that ignores an inconvenient counterintuitive truth: Relatively clear-thinking entrepreneurs created some of the most enduring tropes of the era - not out of whole paisley cloth but from their astute feel for the culture and the marketplace. And no one was better at it than Augustus Owsley Stanley III. Entrepreneur? Mr. Stanley, who was killed in a car accident last Sunday in Australia at the age of 76, is remembered chiefly as a world-class eccentric - his C.V. lists Air Force electronics specialist and ballet dancer - who after ingesting his first dose of LSD in Berkeley in 1964 taught himself how to make his own. In short order, "Owsley acid" became the gold standard of psychedelics. [continues 590 words]
The prescription drug abuse epidemic in New York City is escalating, with the number of prescriptions for oxycodone doubling citywide during the past three years, the city's special narcotics prosecutor testified Tuesday. In 2010, more than 1 million prescriptions for oxycodone-the generic name for an opiate-based pain reliever commonly prescribed as OxyContin-were filled in the five boroughs, Bridget Brennan, the city's special narcotics prosecutor, told the City Council's Public Safety Committee. That equates to one prescription for every eight people in New York City, or 13% of the total population. [continues 604 words]
A Rutgers student with a history of mental illness and substance abuse is being held on charges he murdered his 22-year-old girlfriend in his parents' home in suburban Cranford. The last previous murder in the central New Jersey township of approximately 20,000 residents was in January 2006. [name redacted] was ordered held Monday night on $400,000 bail for allegedly murdering Pamela Schmidt, his girlfriend and a senior at Rutgers University. [name redacted]'s mother, [name2 redacted], said she called police to their Tudor-style home Sunday at around noon after discovering Ms. Schmidt dead in her son's basement bedroom. Authorities said Ms. Schmidt was apparently beaten to death. Police arrested the son that day. [continues 494 words]
Marks Devoted His Life to Change NY's Draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws and Helped Secure Clemency for Prisoners Rotting Away in Prison for Their Roles in Minor Drug Crimes. There are heroes and then there are heroes. My good friend Judge Jerry Marks, a former New York Supreme Court Justice, was a hero's hero. On March 9, he died at age 95. Judge Marks had a long and distinguished career as a New York elected official and jurist. [continues 638 words]
The Nassau County district attorney says she plans to have scores of drug samples from past felony cases retested, a step that comes days after a judge threw out a driving-while-impaired conviction because of questions surrounding the accuracy of county crime lab. Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice now is calling for retesting nearly 3,000 felony drug cases between 2008 and 2010 and a technical review of about 1,000 drunk-driving cases handled by the lab since 2006. Last month, Ms. Rice had suggested reviewing 20% of the drunk-driving cases. [continues 65 words]
To the Editor: Improving drug education and monitoring practices for our troops, while critical, is but a first step to prevent the kind of tragedies your article describes. The Veterans Affairs and Defense Departments must adopt comprehensive overdose prevention policies, including dispensing naloxone - an overdose antidote - directly to service people who are prescribed narcotics and to their families. In this way, we can help save the lives of those who have risked theirs on the battlefield. Narcotic replacement therapies must also be made available to soldiers and veterans who become dependent on painkillers. Medicines like methadone and buprenorphine are the most effective means of treating opioid dependence, but are underused within the V.A., and outright banned from coverage under military insurance - although they could help thousands of veterans and troops today. [continues 66 words]
Authorities arrested 14 alleged gang members who they charged had held their central Harlem community "hostage" by conspiring to turn it into a drug zone using guns, beatings and intimidating fellow members from cooperating with police. Known as the "137th Street Crew," the gang of mostly teenagers was a collaboration between the "2 Mafia Family" and "Goons on Deck" gangs, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. He said the gangs operated on 137th Street between Lenox and Seventh avenues. "The gang over years created an environment where residents lived in a state of fear, waiting for the next gunshot, or the next drug deal or the next act of violence," Mr. Vance said. He said defendants recruited children under 16 to haul guns, transport drugs and participate in shootings, and used young women to "move firearms to reduce the likelihood of guns being detected by authorities." [continues 161 words]
To the Editor: On border trafficking, kudos to Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Bill Owens for wasting more of our tax dollars on the futile war on drugs - $3 billion in taxpayers' money has been spent in 2011 and we have 11 months to go. At that rate, another $37 billion will be wasted this year on trying to stop the flow of drugs into the United States of America. Added to that will be the cost of prosecution and incarceration of the "criminals" who get caught. With only five percent of the world's population, the United States of America has 20 percent of the world prison population, 60 percent of which are drug offenders. [continues 145 words]
To the Editor: Re "Inadequate Fight Against Drugs Hampers Russia's Ability to Curb H.I.V." (Memo From Russia, Jan. 17): Russia could benefit from our experiences in New York City dealing with drug addicts. Twenty-three years ago, I helped create one of the first H.I.V./AIDS prevention and care programs in the United States for injecting drug users. Rather than getting addicts off drugs, our mission was to reduce new infections and help those already infected to take better care of themselves. [continues 73 words]
Marijuana legalization has been raised countless times by politicians, newspapers, hippies and, of course, college newspapers. Again and again it has come up, to the point that it has become somewhat trite - a cliche policy issue that is urgent for no one. But just as a reminder: Marijuana for personal use is still illegal. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has ceased federal prosecution of licensed medical marijuana clinics, ceding enforcement to state control. At the same time, though, Attorney General Eric Holder has said that legalization of marijuana as a commercial product was "off the table." [continues 981 words]
To the Editor: Russian government reluctance to providing methadone treatment or clean needles is only one of the fatal impediments to effectively addressing H.I.V. in Russia ("Inadequate Fight Against Drugs Hampers Russia's Ability to Curb H.I.V.," Memo From Russia, Jan. 17). Access to antiretroviral treatment, despite government promises to make it universally available, continues to be denied to injecting drug users, who are the majority of those infected. A recent study in 19 cities found that in half, medical commissions used questions about drug use as criteria for denying treatment. [continues 142 words]
Dear Editor of the Spectrum, Colin Knoer got an arrow splitting bull's eye (Marijuana Legalization: The NORML Perspective, Jan. 7, 2011) [online version - printed in Wednesday's paper], citizens have contempt for government's message about drugs and the plant cannabis (marijuana) due to their lies, half-truths and propaganda. How many citizens try cannabis and realize it's not nearly as harmful as claimed by government and believe other substances must not be so bad either only to become addicted to hard drugs? Government even classifies cannabis as a Schedule I substance alongside heroin, while meth and cocaine are only Schedule II substances. [continues 65 words]
A New York police officer whose father was killed in the line of duty nearly 30 years ago fired an errant shot on Saturday during a drug raid in the Bronx and wounded a suspect's 76-year-old father, the authorities said. The officer, Andrew McCormack, 37, and other Emergency Service officers accompanied narcotics officers to 1184 Evergreen Avenue about 7 a.m. to execute a warrant for the arrest of Alberto Colon, 41, the police said. They had forced open the door of Apartment 4D when Officer McCormack's weapon discharged one shot, said a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. The round struck Jose Colon, Alberto Colon's father, in the abdomen, and he was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, the authorities said. He was expected to survive. [continues 447 words]
For states that are serious about trimming deficits, out-of-control prison costs are a good place to start cutting. The expenses of housing and caring for more than one million state prison inmates has quadrupled in the last decade from about $12 billion a year to more $52 billion a year. This, in turn, has squeezed budgets for essential programs like education. Governors seeking wisdom on how to proceed could start by looking at what Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican, is trying to accomplish in Indiana. [continues 324 words]
When can the police forcibly enter your home to search for evidence without a warrant? That issue, pivotal to fundamental freedom, was argued last Wednesday before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Kentucky v. King, involves an arrest made on October 13, 2005 during a "buy-bust" operation that was being conducted at an apartment complex by the Lexington-Fayette County Police Department. An undercover informant positioned his truck in a lot adjacent to an apartment building where the drug transactions would take place. [continues 774 words]
To the Editor: Re "Bit by Bit, a Mexican Police Force Is Eradicated" (front page, Jan. 12): As a former police officer who fought in America's domestic "war on drugs" for more than 30 years, and who lost several colleagues gunned down in the line of fire, I have to ask: How many more cops have to die before our politicians realize that drug prohibition doesn't work? In making drugs illegal, we haven't appreciably reduced use. Yet we have inadvertently created a huge black market controlled by cartels and gangs willing to kill anyone -- including cops -- to protect their profits. [continues 89 words]
Last year, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 16.7 million Americans aged 12 or older used marijuana at least once in the month prior to being surveyed. Despite the frequent use of the drug, it remains a Schedule I illegal drug in America. The UB chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) works to dispel the propaganda and misinformation regarding marijuana and hemp. In addition, UB NORML also takes a stance on the legalization of the drug. [continues 630 words]
To the Editor: Re "Salvia Takes a Starring Role" (Dec. 26, 2010): The article on Salvia divinorum was right: "It's not an experience that everyone is eager to repeat, or try." In fact, it's rare, and laws are generally irrelevant to drug choices. Drug experimentation peaks by age 21, especially after 17. Almost all teenagers experiment with illegal substances, notably alcohol and marijuana. Alcohol clearly is the normal sequential "gateway" and crucial in almost all teenage and adult drug abuse and addiction. Heavy youthful alcohol use and use of other drugs go hand in hand. Almost all light drinkers show little interest in other drugs. Minus accurate comparisons with alcohol and proper warning about age, dosage and dangerous combinations of drugs, particularly with alcohol, drug policy is doomed to be irrelevant and incoherent. Jerry Epstein Houston The writer is the president of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas. [end]
Vancouver, British Columbia - When people ask me, an American expat, what it's like living in Canada, I tell them, "It's kind of like living in the States, if the States were on lithium." This is the price of living in the land of "Peace, Order and Good Government." With the notable exceptions of Arcade Fire fans and the Alberta tar sands developers, there's just not a lot of mania to be found north of the border. But for a few weeks last February, all that changed: Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics, and Canada went off its meds. [continues 356 words]
Mexico City - In my country we've been learning under extreme duress to live in a different nation from the one we grew up in. Some 30,000 people have died in Mexico in the last four years in a grotesque carnival of shootouts, beheadings and mutilations; the city of Juarez has emerged as a worldwide symbol of lawlessness and horror; tens of thousands of children have been left orphaned and permanently embittered against the state. But what happened in August and unfolded throughout September and the fall was something else. [continues 398 words]
Marijuana use by young people is on the rise, and officials say conflicting messages about the dangers of marijuana contribute to the increase. The annual Monitoring the Future Survey conducted by the National Institute of Drug Abuse found that use of the drug on a daily basis has increased among eighth-, 10th- and 12th graders. One in 16 high school seniors used marijuana daily or almost daily, and for the second year in a row more 12th graders used marijuana than smoked cigarettes. More than a fifth of the seniors said they had used marijuana within 30 days of the survey while about 19 percent had smoked cigarettes. [continues 83 words]
NYPD To Post Misdemeanor Statistics For Past 10 Years In Response To Allegations That Serious Offenses Were Downgraded The New York Police Department on Monday begins posting data on citywide misdemeanor crime complaints dating back 10 years, partly in response to claims that withholding such statistics indicated it had something to hide, officials said. Academicians and journalists suspicious of the veracity of the NYPD's long-shrinking total of "index crimes"-murders, rapes, robberies, felony assaults, grand larcenies, burglaries and auto thefts-have theorized that the police department is downgrading many of these serious crimes into misdemeanors and thereby artificially dropping the city's crime rate. The index-crime rate for 2010 is expected to register a decline for the 22nd consecutive year. [continues 1226 words]
The whistle-blowing Web site WikiLeaks has not been convicted of a crime. The Justice Department has not even pressed charges over its disclosure of confidential State Department communications. Nonetheless, the financial industry is trying to shut it down. Visa, MasterCard and PayPal announced in the past few weeks that they would not process any transaction intended for WikiLeaks. Earlier this month, Bank of America decided to join the group, arguing that WikiLeaks may be doing things that are "inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments." [continues 332 words]
As the body count in the Mexican drug wars mounts beyond 30,000, federal authorities have tracked more than 60,000 guns in the past four years back across the border to American dealers. Congress, enthralled with the gun lobby, has done nothing about a legal loophole increasingly at the heart of the carnage -- the dealers' freedom to make multiple sales of AK-47s and other battlefield assault rifles without having to report to federal authorities, as the law requires for handgun sales. [continues 280 words]
A look into all things "Operation: Ivy League." Operation Ivy League is over. The dangerous element is removed from campus, and we can spend these last few work-filled, sleepless nights at ease, free from the menace of illegal drugs. Like many of my peers, I've spent the past week obsessively reading articles about the bust. And after reading countless Spectrum updates and snarky Gawker posts, I realized that this grand Columbia scandal was perhaps not so grand at all. [continues 740 words]
After on-campus drug busts, a group of students hope to raise at least $11,000 -- a number they chose because police say they bought this amount worth of drugs from the five students they arrested. Four students have started a project dubbed "Operation Ivy League: The Legit Deal," an effort to reduce substance abuse at Columbia in light of the recent drug arrests. The students -- Wilmer Cerda, SEAS '11, Carmen Marin, SEAS '11, Elizabeth Pino, CC '11, and Slav Sobkov, SEAS '12 -- are selling T-shirts for $15 each, and they plan to use the proceeds to start an anti-drug abuse campaign next semester. They said that they are not yet sure how exactly they will do that, but that they are brainstorming and have been in contact with a few outside organizations. [continues 316 words]
Five Columbia University students have been snared in an undercover drug sting dubbed "Operation Ivy League." They stand accused of selling a menu of narcotics out of fraternity houses and on-campus residences, authorities said Tuesday. Each of the five students in the apparently well-coordinated network allegedly specialized in selling a certain type of drug, authorities said. During a five-month investigation, undercover New York Police Department officers made 31 purchases from the students, totaling nearly $11,000, said Bridget Brennan, the city's special narcotics prosecutor. [continues 381 words]
If a new student-driven proposal passes, Columbia students calling for help in emergencies related to drugs or alcohol will no longer have to fear punishment. The Columbia chapter of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy-an international organization that pushes for reforms in drug policies-is currently circulating a proposal through the student councils that would allow students to ask Columbia University Emergency Medical Services-commonly known as CAVA-for support in drug-related situations without the threat of Dean's Discipline. [continues 472 words]
"Stop right there," barked the officer stationed next to the X-ray machine at the entrance to 1 Police Plaza. "You can't bring that in here." The item in question was a hand-painted sign with a decidedly non-law-enforcement-friendly message. "HELP!" it read in bright green letters. "I NEED MONEY FOR WEED!" Its owner made a sour face and started to protest, but it became clear his efforts would be futile. "Just leave it outside somewhere," the officer shrugged. As the man scurried out to find a suitable stash spot, the officer rolled his eyes. [continues 364 words]
The recent vote defeating California's Proposition 19, legalizing the use of marijuana regrettably prolongs a drug policy that does not work. Low-level users will continue to be targeted rather than the drug cartels and drug lords who run free. Proposition 19 was voted down by a margin of 56 to 44 percent on Nov. 2. The attempt by its supporters to legalize the recreational sale and use of marijuana would have allowed local governments to regulate and tax the commercial production, distribution and sale of marijuana to adults. Sale to minors would have been illegal, as well as use on school premises, in public settings, and in the presence of minors. [continues 551 words]
Marijuana smoking often starts in adolescence - and the timing could not be worse, a new study suggests. Young adults who started using the drug regularly in their early teens performed significantly worse on tests assessing brain function than did subjects who were at least 16 when they started, scientists reported last week. The findings led researchers at McLean Hospital to surmise that the developing teenage brain may be particularly vulnerable to the ill effects of marijuana. "We have to understand that the developing brain is not the same as the adult brain," said Dr. Staci A. Gruber, the paper's senior author and director of cognitive and clinical neuroimaging at McLean, a Harvard-affiliated hospital in Belmont, Mass. [continues 102 words]
Inside New York
