Four-Part Initiative Seeks To Combat Importation Of Meth While Boosting Prevention And Treatment OKLAHOMA CITY -- Gov. Brad Henry on Monday announced a new drug initiative that lowers the boom on major methamphetamine trafficking while raising levels of prevention and treatment. With legislative approval, Mission MethNet will employ more undercover detectives and lengthen sentences for those convicted of importing a pound or more of meth. The plan also would create a Web-based education program about the dangers of the drug, along with a treatment program specifically for people addicted to meth. [continues 681 words]
A methamphetamine registry that alerts the public about the presence of a previous offender sounds like a good measure of protection but will require the state to do more than just require registration. House Speaker Todd Hiett and Rep. John Nance have announced plans to seek legislation building the online database. They'll offer up a bill when the legislature opens next month. To some extent, the database already exists in another form. Some of the state's court filings are online but it requires the offender's name before one could call up previous charges and dispositions. Cleveland County's filings are online and well-maintained. [continues 262 words]
The names of distributors and manufacturers of methamphetamine may become more easily learned by the public if a bill requiring their names to be entered into an online database becomes law. Monday, House Republican leaders offered legislation creating an online registry designed to further deter meth distributors and manufacturers and protect property owners. The registry, proposed by House Bill 3121, would contain the names of people convicted and sentenced for the crime. House Speaker Todd Hiett, R-Kellyville, said he hopes the Web site would help keep the public safe and discourage continued meth use. [continues 94 words]
A record number of felonies were filed in Oklahoma County in 2005 and officials say it's because of the prevalence of drugs, better law enforcement training and new types of crime. A total of 7,564 felonies were filed by the district attorney's office last year, which is an increase of nearly 400 cases since 2000. District attorney spokeswoman Debra Forshee said prosecutors and police are better trained and know how to cooperate to reap the best results. "They're put out on the street with more on their tool belt than in years past, and I know our office has done a much better job of training our prosecutors," Forshee said. "They know what they're looking for to make a case, and they can tell police what they need." [continues 189 words]
As a society we are out of control when it comes to drugs, legal and illegal, and it appears the abuse of legal medicines, prescription drugs, is increasing to dangerous proportions. This month, a state paper reported the abuse of prescription painkillers is rising and killing more Oklahomans than any other drug. A national story followed with a report that America's teens are smoking and using illicit drugs less, but popping more pain pills. The recent stories reported the following statistics: [continues 299 words]
WALTERS - The widow of a slain trooper filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Tuesday against those who make and/or sell pseudoephedrine. Linda Green claims in the Cotton County lawsuit that drug companies and suppliers -- including Pfizer, Wal-Mart, Walgreen, Dollar General and United Supermarkets -- knew methamphetamine addicts were buying the drug to get high and not to treat a cold. She also charges makers knew how to make the pseudoephedrine tablets without allowing drug addicts to extract the ingredients needed to make methamphetamine. [continues 287 words]
Norma Sapp (Your Views, Dec. 14) wrote that "Many upstanding citizens out there use marijuana. Until they stand up and identify themselves, their lives are in danger because of our laws." Shall the next step in destroying our culture be in selecting the laws we obey? No "upstanding citizens" selectively break laws, especially drug laws! Maybe that's why they don't stand up and identify themselves. Sapp's approach is like the North American Man/Boy Love Association saying many "upstanding citizens out there" are abusing children! Frank Lipsinic Oklahoma City [end]
A Boston man walking cross-country to raise awareness about chronic pain stopped in Oklahoma City last week to talk about treatment options and roadblocks during an OU Medical Center forum. Attorney General Drew Edmondson complained during the forum about law enforcement efforts that restrict doctors from prescribing controlled medication for chronic pain. Dennis Kinch, a chronic pain sufferer and spokesman for the National Pain Foundation, talked during Thursday's forum about the health problems that took away everything he loved. Kinch left Chicago in September on a walking trip along U.S. Highway 66 to raise awareness about chronic pain and options available. [continues 392 words]
An elementary teacher and a youth counselor were charged Wednesday with four drug counts involving marijuana found on their property. [indentity deleted] surrendered to police after a search warrant was served at their property. They were charged with cultivation of marijuana, unlawful possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, possession of drug paraphernalia and failure to obtain a drug tax stamp. Acting on a tip, police searched their house about 8 p.m. Nov. 23. Police found 33 mature marijuana plants -- all taller than 6 feet -- in a backyard shed, said [location deleted] police Maj. Mark Irwin, who heads special investigations. Police also recovered 16 saplings, a half-pound of the drug, growing lights, pipes, growing books and magazines, nine assault rifles and two handguns. [continues 181 words]
A bad traffic stop in June has led to the dismissal of drug trafficking charges against a local man. Special District Judge Sandy Crosslin, on Tuesday, granted a defense motion to suppress evidence gained in the case against Antonio Jerome Parker, 27. Jim Cosby, Parker's attorney, argued that District Attorney Investigator Clint Johnson stopped Parker June 9 in an unmarked vehicle and was not wearing an official uniform. Cosby cited state law that requires traffic stops to be made in marked vehicles by someone wearing a uniform. His motion states the law was written because of imposters posing as officers, and that Tahlequah police, Cherokee County sheriff's deputies, Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers and others were available to make the stop for Johnson, who testified at a hearing that he stopped Parker for speeding. [continues 111 words]
(Editor's Note: This is the first part in a CNHI News Service series on meth use around the country.) - -- Terre Haute, Ind., 2003 At 17 she snorted her first line. By 23, she was shooting up. A mere four years later, Donna Green sits on a hospital bed at a Terre Haute nursing home, where a crayon drawing by her daughter and a poster of The Doors are taped to the wall. Dabbing her eyes with a wad of toilet paper, Green struggles to explain what drug use has done to her life. [continues 1682 words]
The heart shoots meth through the twists and turns of the circulatory system. The drug grabs hold of the nervous system, forcing it to pump out massive amounts of norepinephrine, the chemical that regulates the heart rate. At the same time, meth is barricading off norepinephrine's escape route, holding it hostage in the murky bloodstream. Along with the meth, norepinephrine is pumped through the body's tunnels, caves and slippery slides that are its plumbing -- spiking the heart rate, yet constricting blood vessels. [continues 273 words]
Experts Debate Thousands of Oklahomans with mental illness or drug addiction are incarcerated in Oklahoma because of a system largely favoring punishment over prevention and recovery, speakers said Thursday at an emergency summit in Oklahoma City. $16,842: annual cost to house a prisoner. Hundreds of state leaders and advocates gathered to push for ways to keep nonviolent offenders out of the state's jails and prisons. Speakers advocated early diagnosis and treatment of people with addiction or mental illness at the community level, or quickly after they enter the criminal justice system. They also want more training for police and others who respond to crisis situations. "The majority of individuals who struggle with mental illness are not violent," said Terry Cline, the state's mental health commissioner. He said programs like Oklahoma County's mental health court are a cost-effective alternative to prison. Mental health courts also are in McCurtain County and are planned in Seminole County, and Cline hopes to add 10 more next year, if funded by the state Legislature. Many counties also have drug courts diverting nonviolent drug addicts into treatment. But until more community services are available to prevent, diagnose and treat mental illness and substance abuse, the problem of overcrowded prisons will plague the state, Cline said. "These are Band-Aid approaches," he said. [continues 430 words]
Recent research and public opinion make a strong case for the legalization of medicinal and recreational hemp, or marijuana. Denver residents voted 54 percent in favor of an ordinance decriminalizing city hemp laws, letting citizens possess up to one ounce, according to The Associated Press. This is the latest in a hard-fought battle for changes in federal hemp policy, particularly the Angel Raich case over medical marijuana. Her case went to the Supreme Court in June, back-firing, with the high court saying local and state laws do not trump federal laws. [continues 537 words]
I have a brilliant plan that will save tax dollars, please hippies, increase tax revenue, kidney-punch organized crime and significantly shorten lines at the grocery store. We legalize marijuana, tax the hell out of it and then add a lot of sterility drugs. Every voting demographic can find something to love about this plan. Legal pot: Green Party, Libertarians, many Democrats. Taxing evil: Republicans. Sterility drugs: Me. I estimate that the federal government blows $8 billion or so annually on prosecuting marijuana sales and possession. If Mary Jane were decriminalized, those same tax dollars could be spent on more worthwhile expenditures, like combating poverty or sending a chimpanzee to Titan. [continues 711 words]
While most view prison as a place to put criminals, one man has found hope in his cell. Prison has been a life changing experience for Robert Steven Pearcy. "I deeply feel my time here has given me the opportunity to better my life," Pearcy said. Pearcy is an inmate at the Jess Dunn Correctional Center in Taft, Okla. He pled guilty in Grady County, to endeavoring to manufacture methamphetamine. Reportedly out searching for anhydrous ammonia when the rest of the lab was busted on Nov. 5, 2004, Pearcy was picked up by a trooper while walking south along Hwy. 81 the next day. [continues 230 words]
Alva Schools Will Be Honoring National Red Ribbon October 23 - 31. Red Ribbon Week began in 1985 after the death of Enrique "Kiki" Camerana, a Drug Enforcement Agent, who was close to uncovering the identities of key members of a Mexican drug cartel. Angered by his death and the destruction caused by drugs and alcohol in America, those in his hometown of Calexico, Calif., began wearing red ribbons as a symbol of their commitment to fight the illegal use of drugs. [continues 273 words]
The small-town girl whose challenge to mandatory drug testing in schools went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1998 is now an Ivy League graduate and a political activist working with American Indians. Lindsay Earls was a 16-year-old sophomore at Tecumseh High School when the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf against Tecumseh Public Schools as a means of challenging drug- testing policies in schools nationwide. Show airs tonight Earls' story will be featured on "ACLU Freedom Files," a 10-part television series that addresses civil rights issues and stars ACLU clients, the attorneys who defend them and well-known actors, activists and comedians. [continues 735 words]
If Oklahomans needed any more evidence of the seriousness of substance abuse in the state, it was offered at a recent legislative interim study committee meeting. The state's shockingly high rate of infant mortality and incidence of low birth weight are directly tied to maternal substance abuse, usually the highly addictive and extremely dangerous methamphetamine. The drug is so powerful women find it hard to kick during pregnancy and after giving birth, which sometimes even leads to the children being taken from them. [continues 317 words]
When Putnam City North High School student Maddye Hayes got into the helicopter, she knew it wasn't just any ride. Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control agents with guns followed behind to protect agents and visitors, including the 14-year-old, last Thursday during their aerial search of central Oklahoma as part of the bureau's annual marijuana eradication program. "It was like the real deal," Hayes said. Though the group didn't find any plants during Hayes' ride, she said it changed her perception of marijuana cultivation. [continues 283 words]
Inside Oklahoma
