Teens Failed To Call '1 -- Then Dumped Friend's Body WEST JORDAN -- Two teenagers who dumped the body of their friend near the Point of the Mountain after he fatally overdosed on drugs were sentenced to jail and juvenile detention Wednesday. Zachary Tyler Martinez Zachary Tyler Martinez, 18, died of a drug overdose March 11, 2005. Rather than call for help when Martinez appeared to be in trouble or even after he died, the teens dumped his body at the Salt Lake County Hang-Gliding Park. Wednesday, two boys, now aged 17 and 18, were sentenced in juvenile court for their roles in the crime. [continues 655 words]
Just six years after Utah was near the top in the nation for the number of meth lab raids per capita, such seizures in Utah have plummeted. Ravell Call, Deseret Morning NewsCold and allergy medicines such as Sudafed, which has ingredients that can be used to make meth, are kept behind the counter at Jolley's Corner Pharmacy in Salt Lake City. The number of illicit methamphetamine-producing operations shut down in Utah last year dropped by 84 percent from 1999's total. [continues 787 words]
Kathleen Parker ignored the basics in her May 5 on-line column blasting Dr. James Dobson for his stand against massive taxpayer spending for The Global Fund. The Global Fund controversy is over how billions of dollars will be misused in the fight against global AIDS. The truth is that President Bush has adopted the Ugandan strategy of A (abstinence), B (be faithful) and C (condoms) to lower HIV rates as the U.S. strategy. Look at the research: Between 1990 and 2002, the prevalence rate of HIV in Uganda in major urban areas plummeted from 31 percent to 6.5 percent. The ABC model is the only strategy that has effectively combated AIDS in a general population. Another truth: Once U.S. money leaves our government's hands, taxpayers must expect absolutely no accountability for how their money is spent. The Fund has and will continue to finance the efforts of liberals, such as George Soros, to legalize prostitution, legalize drug use and sponsor Advertisementhuge dancing condoms that "educate" small children. Soros' organizations have already been awarded more than $80 million by the Fund. Enough! Dr. Dobson strongly supports the fight against AIDS, but when American money is being hijacked to fund the destructive agenda of radical liberals to legalize prostitution and drug use, you better believe he'll speak up. Tom Minnery Focus on the Family Colorado Springs, Colo. [end]
Family Behind Schools With Checkered Record Calls In Political Favors, Critics Say A bill permitting state regulation of boarding schools for troubled teens was quietly smothered in the Utah Capitol this year after the founder of a chain of controversial schools, who is a major Republican donor, lobbied key lawmakers. Powerful legislators, including House Speaker Marty Stephens, held back the measure until the Legislature's clock ran out at midnight on March 3 - the final day of the session. Six days later, the bill's biggest opponent, World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools founder Robert Lichfield, presented a $30,000 check to Stephens' campaign for governor. [continues 1894 words]
The rise and fall of Mexican drug-law reform over recent weeks has been, for drug legalizers, a dizzying high followed by a painfully abrupt crash. U.S. drug authorities laid down their usual bummer: No user is going to get off easy on "their" watch. And thanks to the United States' overwhelming power and influence, their watch extends everywhere. Mexico isn't the first nation to suffer side effects from America's estimated $30 billion-a-year drug war. A 2003 attempt by former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien to liberalize drug possession laws met with threats from U.S. drug czar John Walters that the tougher resulting border security could hold up U.S.-Canadian trade, and the idea soon went up in smoke. Colombia has been for years the site of what is essentially a damaging and expensive proxy war in the service of the United States' delusion that it can wipe out cocaine production. [continues 724 words]
Police on Monday recovered two rare copies of the Book of Mormon believed to have been stolen last fall from a Mormon Institute of Religion. SWAT teams from Murray and Midvale, conducting a routine drug raid, searched a home in the 400 East block of Larchwood Drive (6770 South) in Midvale about 9:30 p.m., according to a Midvale police press release. In addition to finding methamphetamine, officers located an 1840 Nauvoo edition of the Book of Mormon and an 1841 Liverpool edition, valued at $35,000 and $25,000, respectively. The books were believed to have been stolen in late October or early November from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute of Religion on the U. campus. Also recovered in Monday's raid were two issues of the Salt Lake Herald newspaper from the late 1800s. It is unknown whether those newspapers had been stolen. Assisting in Monday's raid were narcotics detectives from West Jordan and Taylorsville police departments. So far, Monday's raid appears to be unrelated to last week's recovery in Magna of 11 rare copies of the Book of Mormon believed to have been stolen from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Memorial Museum in Salt Lake City. [end]
WEST JORDAN - An 18-year-old Draper woman admitted Thursday to giving her friend a lethal injection of heroin and cocaine last year and then dumping the body in the hills above Bountiful. Macall Petersen pleaded guilty to a class A misdemeanor charge of negligent homicide in connection with the June 25 death of 18-year-old Amelia Sorich. For dumping the body, Petersen pleaded guilty to desecration of a dead human body, a third-degree felony. In exchange for her pleas, three other third-degree felonies - two counts of drug possession and one count of obstructing justice - were dismissed. [continues 304 words]
Opiate Addiction: 3-Day Program Allegedly Kicks Cravings Without Withdrawals; Critics Bash The Process Mike Brown's descent into prescription pain pill addiction began innocently, when he was given Vicodin by a dentist after a root canal. "In three days I took all 30 pills and got hooked," he said. "I couldn't believe the high. It became a quest to find doctors who would write me prescriptions." The Salt Lake Valley salesman, then 36, had no history of substance abuse. His use soon began spiraling out of control when his wife died in 2000, eight months after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. [continues 608 words]
PROVO - Utah County Sheriff Jim Tracy is supporting the actions of a deputy accused of targeting substance-abuse patients for arrest. Tracy says he has spoken with the deputy criticized late last month for allegedly waiting outside the Utah County Substance Abuse clinic to nab patients with outstanding warrants. He said his officer is not acting out of line. "I told him he's not to sit there . . . and do what we call direct enforcement," Tracy said. "But if we see something in and around that area, we're not going to turn a blind eye - that's what they pay us for." [continues 295 words]
I was reading Ted McDonough's article "Crossing the Line" [March 23, City Weekly], and I have to say, I can't even believe that this is an issue. So people get stiffer fines for selling drugs inside of a drug-free zone, and the drug-free zones are so large that they have nowhere to sell their drugs safely? Boo-hoo. The easiest way to avoid a large fine for selling drugs in a drug-free zone? Don't sell drugs anywhere! I thought that the point of our judicial system was to discourage people from breaking the law. If that means that they get stiffer fines for selling drugs anywhere within the city limits, too bad. [continues 76 words]
There is currently a provision within the Higher Education Act that is under fire by both the ACLU and the SSDP: the Students for Sensible Drug Policy. This provision blocks any person who has been convicted of a drug offense to be eligible for financial aid. Thus far, this provision had blocked more than 200,000 prospective college students from receiving financial aid since it was enacted in 2000. More than 250 organizations have called for the full repeal of the law, citing various reasons, but most of all, that it is unconstitutional. [continues 719 words]
It is most certainly disturbing to read with abhorrence about violence and death along the U.S.-Mexico border. After all, that is "their" problem and we must wall it out. The fact however is that this narcoterrorism, and the voracious drug habits in the United States, are synonymous. The demand brings the supply to those who grow or manufacture, package, ship, warehouse, transport, sell, and buy it, which brings the violence and human destruction right to our easy chairs. Yet addicts, casual users, proponents of the legalization of drugs, and many bystanders seem indifferent to the bloodbaths that follow the deliveries to consumers and users. [continues 660 words]
Controversy Simmers Over Whether Non-Indians Can Understand and Respect Native Spirituality When news spread that Arvol Looking Horse would be visiting Utah, many who practice American Indian spirituality were thrilled. Some also felt a chill. Looking Horse, after all, has come to represent the growing sentiment among many American Indians that non-Indians do not belong in the center of sacred ceremonial practice. A Lakota spiritual leader, Looking Horse - with the support of dozens of Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders - issued a proclamation in 2003 calling for an end to exploitation of ceremonies. [continues 1049 words]
I'm writing about Bruce Mirken's outstanding letter, "Prohibition Doesn't Work" [Feb. 2, City Weekly]. I'd like to add that if tough-on-drugs policies worked, the quixotic goal of a drug-free America would have been reached a long time ago. And, if tolerant drug policies created more drug use, the Netherlands would have much higher drug usage rates than the United States. They do not. In fact, the Dutch use marijuana and other recreational drugs at much lower rates than Americans do. See the Website: DrugWarFacts.org/TheNethe.htm. And, if tolerant drug policies caused more overall crime, especially violent crime, the Dutch would have much higher crime rates than the United States. [continues 105 words]
I want to applaud Ben Fulton for his well-put and very insightful honest words ["Mangled Sentence," Note From the Editor, Jan. 26, City Weekly]. The justice system really has it totally backwards when it comes to drug sentencing. My husband is serving a 24-year sentence for drug conspiracy--there was never any evidence, nothing found while he was under surveillance for over a year, nothing except the word of others who were caught doing things and got years cut off their sentences in exchange for implicating him. [continues 92 words]
The bizarrely long prison sentence given to Weldon Angelos ["Mangled Sentence," Note From the Editor, Jan. 26, City Weekly] might make some sense if there were the slightest evidence that the federal war on marijuana was having its intended effect. There isn't. Despite a record 771,605 marijuana arrests in 2004--roughly equal to arresting every man, woman and child in the state of Wyoming, plus every man, woman and child in Salt Lake City and Provo combined--the latest U.S. Justice Department "Drug Threat Assessment" reports no evidence of decreased marijuana availability anywhere in the country. But doesn't prohibition keep marijuana away from kids? Well, no. According to the 2005 Monitoring the Future survey, released in December and funded by the U.S. government, 85.6 percent of high school seniors report that marijuana is "easy to get." Despite many millions of marijuana arrests, that figure is virtually unchanged from the first "Monitoring the Future" survey in 1975. It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. If so, marijuana prohibition is a prime example. It's time to junk our failed experiment with prohibition and replace it with a common-sense system of regulation and control. Bruce Mirken, Marijuana Policy Project, San Francisco, Calif. [end]
Tribes Would Need Federal Recognition SALT LAKE CITY - A proposal before the Utah Legislature would limit the use of peyote to federally recognized Indian tribes during traditional religious ceremonies. Peyote is illegal for general use, but federal law allows for limited use in American Indian religious ceremonies. The Utah bill is intended to prevent people from escaping prosecution by claiming Indian heritage and religious use of peyote without being able to prove it. The bill follows state and federal court cases against Linda and James Mooney, founders of the Oklevueha EarthWalks Native American Church of Utah. In 2000, the couple were charged with drug distribution for providing peyote to members of their church and its visitors. [continues 132 words]
How should Utah respond to the growing use of methamphetamine? ("Methamphetamines: Insidious drug requires a different approach," Our View, Jan. 11). During the crack epidemic of the '80s, New York City chose the zero tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack, and America's capital had the highest per-capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. Simply put, the younger generation saw firsthand what crack was doing to their older brothers and sisters and decided for themselves that it was bad news. This is not to say nothing can be done about methamphetamine. Access to drug treatment is critical for the current generation of meth users. Diverting resources away from prisons and into cost-effective treatment would save both tax dollars and lives. The following U.S. Department of Justice research brief confirms my claims regarding the spontaneous decline of crack cocaine: http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1 /nij/187490.txt Robert Sharpe Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, D.C. [end]
I heartily agree with Robert Sharpe's Jan. 20 letter calling for treatment and not prison for drug addicts. The contradiction with this philosophy is that only a percentage of addicts are sent to prison. They do get there eventually when they 1) break your car window and hijack your stereo for money to buy methamphetamine, 2) rob a retail store to sustain their habit, 3) invade your home for the same reason, 4) steal identities to make money for drugs, or 5) commit assaults and violent acts when obtaining or distributing drugs. The drug addict does not exist in a vacuum. A mixture of treatment and punishment seems to be in order. Mike Buchanan Salt Lake City [end]
The First Step When facing up to substance abuse, the first step is not only to admit that you have a problem, but that your old ways of dealing with it won't work any better tomorrow than they did yesterday. Gov. Jon Huntsman's announced approach to the problem of methamphetamine abuse in Utah admits that the state has a problem with this harshly addictive chemical. More importantly, it admits that the traditional approach to drug abuse - jail - doesn't work. [continues 335 words]
Focused On Treatment: Governor Announces The Startup Of The 34-Person 'Equal-Partner' Think Tank Citing methamphetamine's costs to society, from bulging prisons to children abandoned to foster care by drug-addicted parents, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. on Monday announced the creation of a task force charged with putting an end to the "scourge." Members of the 34-person task force met for the first time Monday, but don't plan to meet again until after the 2006 legislative session, which ends in March. The committee has set no deadline for issuing recommendations. Huntsman's anti-meth initiative is one of several launched over the years. [continues 461 words]
Last year was the year of the very public, very deadly drug overdose. Somehow, the trend didn't turn up on anyone's top news story list of 2005. But everyone seemed to talk, wring their hands and cry about it. Perhaps it's because of the 67 people in Utah who died of accidental drug overdoses in the first nine months of 2005, 16 of them were younger than 20. They were high school and college students. One worked in a carwash. [continues 581 words]
Friends Who Don't Report Victims Of Drugs May Face Penalties A Salt Lake lawmaker, responding to a rash of drug overdose deaths this year where panicked friends didn't call 911 and watched the victims die, plans to introduce legislation that would make it a crime to not help someone they know is in trouble. Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Salt Lake City, will sponsor the bill that would make it a class B misdemeanor to not render aid. "Law enforcement feels like their hands are just tied. Parents are like, 'Isn't there any consequence for these kids that abandon their friends?' " she said. "If you're going to do drugs with your friends, and somebody gets into a bad situation, you can't just abandon them or you're going to be liable." [continues 745 words]
Utah Teens Less Involved But Are Not Uninvolved Typically in the past year, one of every four Utah high school students was offered illegal drugs at school. One of every nine was in a physical fight there. And one of every 13 was threatened with a weapon at school. And typically in just the past 30 days, one of every 18 carried a weapon to school. One of every 26 used alcohol at school. And one of every 27 used marijuana at school. That widespread use of drugs, alcohol and violence in Utah high schools is reported in a new study by the National Center for Educational Statistics, based on surveys of students in grades nine through 12 in Utah and across the nation in 2003. The good news for Utah is that such problems are below the national average in every category. [continues 764 words]
Two weeks ago I wrote about the challenges Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson faces in the last half of his second term due mostly to his passion for causes that often are controversial in Utah and his confrontational style that has earned him enemies on the City Council, in the Legislature, the surrounding counties and his own Democratic Party. The following Wednesday, Anderson was the guest host of Doug Wright's program on KSL Radio. Wright was in Washington, D.C., at the time discussing with Republican operatives the possibility of running against Congressman Jim Matheson next year. [continues 704 words]
The intense rush from a methamphetamine high can last up to 12 hours, but when users fall from the high, stomach cramps, anxiety, convulsions and insomnia are there to catch them. In reality, there must be something to using methamphetamines or people wouldn't do it. Most addicts don't fit the mental picture of a runaway teenager sitting in an alley, said Luciano Colonna, The Harm Reduction Program executive director on Monday to 50 Weber State University students. The drug is so inexpensive and easy to create, it has become the drug of choice for blue-collar workers, soccer moms and homosexuals, Colonna said. In the year 2000, 3,448 addicts preferred methamphetamines -- a total that reached 5,486 in 2004. [continues 490 words]
Utah Students' Alcohol Consumption Also Up Incidents of school violence across the country are down by about half from a decade ago, but have held steady since 2000, and Utah mirrors the trends. However, student alcohol consumption and on-campus marijuana use have been rising in the state since 2000, according to a government report released Sunday. The study, conducted by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, looked at 2003 data from across the nation to assess violence and drug use in schools. [continues 745 words]
Treatment Is Key: Some Doctors Say That Postnatal Neglect Is The Bigger Issue During the mid-1980s, so-called crack babies became an icon of the havoc wreaked by cocaine and a catalyst for new laws targeting pregnant women. Hospitals began testing pregnant women for the drug and states started jailing addicted mothers and taking custody of their children. The media warned of the creation of an underclass of exposed infants born with devastating birth defects and permanent brain damage. Twenty years of medical research have shown the prenatal effects of cocaine to be far less severe than the "crack baby" legend suggests. But the myth has resurfaced with the spread of methamphetamine and led to new labels: "meth babies" and "ice babies." [continues 1099 words]
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson has received an award from a national group that promotes alternatives to the "war on drugs." The Drug Policy Alliance gave Anderson the Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Drug Policy Reform - which is given to individuals who "most epitomize loyal opposition to drug war extremism," according to the Drug Policy's Web site. The site noted Anderson's decision to pull funding for D.A.R.E., and the city's training of police in harm reduction and the city's efforts to educate sex workers about how to protect themselves. More recently, the mayor created a campaign urging drug users to call 911 when their friends overdose. [continues 113 words]
Weldon Angelos' supporters say he is a casualty in the war on drugs, an offender who deserves time behind bars but not a virtual life sentence for carrying a firearm while dealing pot in Utah. Prosecutors, though, insist the former music producer's mandatory 55-year term is appropriate. They paint Angelos as major dealer who hooked up with a violent street gang, carried a gun while conducting his illicit business and made his living peddling large quantities of drugs. "Addressing the epidemic social problem of armed drug distribution with increased punishment and deterrence is consistent with contemporary standards of decency," U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner and assistant U.S. attorney Robert Lund write in a court brief. [continues 726 words]
A pregnant drug user locked up in the Salt Lake County jail since Sept. 22 on a special arrangement between the sheriff and a judge was checked into a residential drug treatment program Monday with her newborn girl. Tammaria Gehring gave birth Sunday night and was released from the hospital the next day to the Volunteers of America Utah. Gehring's family is hopeful she will shake her addiction, but they worry she'll walk away from the detoxification center and disappear with her child. [continues 454 words]
Salt Lake County: The Lockup Wanted To Turn Away A Suspect To Avoid Any Legal Risk; A Judge Just Wants What's Best For Baby Tammaria Gehring is more than eight months pregnant. Until Sept. 22, when she was locked up in the Salt Lake County Jail, the 30-year-old mother of two was living in a motel room and using methamphetamine. Were it not for a judge who personally lobbied Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard to book her - against Kennard's strict policy not to book pregnant women - Gehring would still be out, possibly doing drugs, despite a felony drug charge and violations of her pre-sentencing release. [continues 896 words]
After taking her first full-time job at an alternative high school, CarolAnn Duncan has taken an active interest in drugs. Her students provided her with marijuana, their bongs and joints. "I think my students taught me more than I taught them," Duncan said. "They said, 'CarolAnn is too stupid and naive, we need to teach her.'" After working in education for 25 years and seeing what drugs can do to the students she worked with, CarolAnn is perfectly suited for her new job as House of Hope director. [continues 805 words]
Strike Force Agent Works To Reach Teenagers Before It's Too Late OGDEN -- Nearly three years ago, a local teen clung to life. Randy Lythgoe, an agent with the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, had been called to investigate the comatose teen's situation. "When I walked into his room, I didn't have my badge on. I walked through a crowd of teenagers standing vigil in the hallway," Lythgoe said. "After a few minutes, the young man's father and I walked out of the room and back through the crowd of teenagers. At that point, I had my badge exposed. Half of those kids got up and left as soon as they figured out who I was." [continues 495 words]
Question 31 on the Free Application for Federal Students Aid, could be a life changing one -- and no one knows why. The question asks whether a student has been convicted of the possession or sale of drugs, because as part of Title IV of the Higher Education Act, convictions for the sale or possession of drug make you ineligible to receive educational federal aid. However, few people seem to be aware of it. The Daily Universe contacted 91 high school students in Utah County and asked them what they knew about the Higher Education Act. Two of the students knew what it was. Of the rest, 82 percent said they knew nothing about it and the remainder either mistook it for Bush's No Child Left Behind Act or didn't answer. [continues 511 words]
Title IV of the Higher Education Act is up for reform this year, a law that has reportedly affected more than 160,000 students across the nation. Sec. 483 of Title IV of the Higher Education Act states "a student who has been convicted of any offense under any Federal or State law involving the possession or sale of a controlled substance shall not be eligible to receive any grant, loan or work assistance under this title ..." Periods of ineligibility vary, depending on the number of offenses. In general, a student convicted of one offense is ineligible for a year, two offenses marks ineligible for two years and three offenses brings indefinite ineligibility. [continues 394 words]
The American Civil Liberties Union announced Monday that it would join in the lawsuit filed against the Utah County Sheriff by a Salt Lake City-based rave promoter whose party was busted on Aug. 20. The ACLU's Margaret Plane said the sheriff's decision to raid the event with 90 officers, automatic weapons, dogs and a helicopter raises concerns about the First Amendment rights of those in attendance. Law enforcement has singled out the often clandestine, DJ-driven dance parties as events with the singular intent of distributing and using illegal narcotics. Plane said that view is a generalization that is not fair to those who attend the shows with no intent of breaking the law. [continues 270 words]
Why Did Utah Police This Summer Storm A Harmless And Legal Rave With Guns And Dogs, Terrorizing Partygoers? You Don't See Them Busting Down The Gates At Nascar Races Or Concerts By Crosby, Stills And Nash. Close to midnight on a Saturday evening late this summer, a police helicopter crested over a ridge in a desert canyon near Salt Lake City, descended into a low hover over a private ranch, and lit up the area with floodlights. Below, about 1,000 young people were dancing to electronic music at a legal, long-planned rave. They had no idea the police in the sky were armed to teeth and had them surrounded. [continues 2568 words]
To the editor: I'm writing about: "Drug task force celebrates accomplishments on T-shirt" (9-07-05). Drug task forces are just government bureaucracies. And like all government bureaucracies -- guaranteed to expand. Why? Because heads of the bureaucracies get paid in direct proportion to how many employees work under them, not according to how well they perform their mission. Throwing more and more money at our drug problem is not the answer. We have been doing this for more than 35 years. The net results are that illegal drugs are just as available today as they were in 1969. The only thing that changes is the name of the evil drug du jour. [continues 165 words]
Looking for a way to pat themselves on the back, members of the Cache-Rich Drug Task Force decided the easiest way would be to wear their accomplishments on their back. Logan City Police Officer Jeff Simmons recently was promoted to sergeant in the department's patrol division, and with the change in duties, left behind his job as a task force agent. As sort of a going-away present, the task force created a T-shirt that lists 100 search warrants the group served from April 2004 to August 2005. [continues 185 words]
Kicking The Addiction: The High Number Of Narcotics Cases Points To The Need For Special Drug Courts Drug-related crimes top the list of those most often prosecuted in Utah. They accounted for the largest group of felony charges filed in fiscal 2005 - - as well as the top two misdemeanor filing categories. Not far behind: forgery, theft and protective order violations. Members of the Utah Judicial Council, which sets policy for the state courts, heard the statistics as part of a recent budget planning session. [continues 357 words]
CEDAR CITY - Forest Service officials are turning to the grass roots - hikers, hunters, passers-by - to help root out, well, grass. You know, the illegal kind. Pot. Dope. Weed. Yes, marijuana increasingly is springing up in remote areas throughout the West, including Utah, and federal officers are seeking public help in eliminating the illegal plants from public land. "A large grow was reported by a citizen last year on the Pine Valley Ranger District [of the Dixie National Forest] just north of St. George," says Special Agent Charlie Vaughn, criminal investigator for the Dixie, Fishlake and Manti-La Sal national forests in southern and central Utah. [continues 351 words]
OGDEN -- Some 75 recovering alcoholics and substance abusers took over the bowery at Lorin Farr Park Saturday evening for the 4th annual Ogden Drug Court Alumni Picnic. About 200 family members and friends joined the gathering with the alumni group, one of the stronger components of the 2nd District Court alternative program for drug abusers. When the first alumni group of drug court graduates gathered about 41/2 years ago to form the alumni committee, their number was about five. Typically it takes a year to get through the intensive therapies and testing of drug court to reach alumni status. [continues 375 words]
Convicted marijuana users in Cache County are seeing little time, if any, in jail, and rarely go to prison unless their use of marijuana leads them to harder drugs. However, local statistics conflict with a report released today by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute, which says the United States today is spending 300 times more on drug control than it did 35 years ago and, partially as a result, there are more people serving time in the U.S. for marijuana-related charges than the total inmate population of eight European Union countries. [continues 355 words]
Unless people were there Saturday night, participating in the "rave" party in Spanish Fork canyon, it would be hard for them to draw conclusions as to whether police used excessive force when they busted things up, as party organizers are alleging. But there can be no question as to whether the health of party goers was endangered by illegal drugs that were circulating, and there can be little question that the event's organizers were sloppy and ill-organized. Communities worldwide are dealing with the rave phenomenon, which has been en vogue for several years now. Organizers of this event apparently had a permit from the health department and had medical personnel on-hand, but they had not obtained a necessary permit from the Utah County Commission, which is what led police to be suspicious. Police who raided the party found the usual lineup of illegal drugs, ranging from Ecstasy and cocaine to alcohol. [continues 314 words]
State Seeks 'Do Not Resuscitate' Order; Preemie's Mom Was Shot To Death A girl born minutes after her mother was shot to death has tested positive for three types of narcotics, is suffering from brain injuries and is on life support, according to state lawyers. The lawyers, speaking in a child-welfare hearing Tuesday, asked for a "do not resuscitate" order for the girl, whom medical staff reportedly call "Janie." Third District Judge Elizabeth Lindsley said she would have to review Janie's medical status before ruling on the state's request and asked the lawyers for a formal written motion. [continues 584 words]
Firsthand accounts conflict so starkly that one might wonder whether law enforcement busted two separate events last weekend in Spanish Fork Canyon. Yet the Diamond Fork-area location is among few details confirmed by both the roughly 300 partygoers and about 90 law enforcement personnel who dispelled them at 11:30 p.m. Saturday. Uprock Records of Salt Lake City promoted the event as an "album-release party" on fliers and Internet sites like www.utrave.org. In addition to live performances by DJ Craze of Miami and Spor from the United Kingdom, the party featured typical highlights like a laser light show, barbecue, oxygen bar and glow sticks. [continues 703 words]
Utah County: Sheriff Defends The Actions, Denies Wrongdoing Partygoers at a rave in Spanish Fork Canyon that was busted by police Saturday night say officers used brutal and excessive force to clear the crowd. As many as 90 police officers from several agencies, including SWAT members and major crimes investigators, stormed the DJ-driven dance party around 11:30 p.m. dressed in full SWAT gear and holding automatic weapons. A helicopter announced the police presence as it crested a nearby hill and began shining a spotlight on the outdoor dance area, said 19-year-old Scott Benton of Logan. [continues 670 words]
Party's Over: 90 Officers From Several Agencies Cite 60 At The Event, Which Had More Than 400 People In Attendance About 60 people were arrested Saturday night when police officers busted an illegal rave in Spanish Fork Canyon. Those arrested were cited on a variety of charges including the possession of illegal narcotics, weapons violations, DUI, illegal consumption of alcohol by a minor, disorderly conduct, assaulting a police officer and drug distribution. The youngest of those cited was 15 years old, said Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Gilbert. [continues 460 words]
'Soft On Drugs' Charge Is Absurd Nobody wants their daughter taking meth. Nobody wants their son shooting heroin. Not because those behaviors are illegal - though they are and almost certainly always will be - but because that junk kills people. But no parent protects her children by denying that drug abuse exists. Even the most bellicose of the drug warriors will tell you that. And when the anti-drug crusaders condemn such reasonable and realistic efforts as the Harm Reduction Project as somehow being soft on drugs, then it is the drug warriors who are in deep and harmful denial. Harm Reduction advocates know better than anyone that drugs kill people. In many cases it is their own children who have died, or who have come much closer to death than any parent wants to imagine. [continues 282 words]
Inside Utah
