In 2003, there were some major advances in the fight against the methamphetamine epidemic, which has gripped Kitsap County and many other areas of the West for the last decade. Five years of effort by federal, state and local authorities broke up the Munoz-Munoz organization, believed responsible for half the local meth supply. Twenty-six people involved with the Mexico-based drug trafficking family were convicted and sentenced to federal prison, and the street price of the drug zoomed, a positive indicator of success. [continues 139 words]
Court Backs Medical Marijuana Use The federal government's stance on medicinal marijuana is simple: Pot is banned, and anyone caught growing, selling or smoking it is a criminal. But a court ruling this week suggests the law is flawed. Use of marijuana for relief of chronic pain and nausea, the judges said, is "clearly distinct from the broader illicit drug market." Washington, D.C., is fighting a losing battle on this one. At least 30 states have passed laws supporting the right of those suffering from cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses to use marijuana. Voters in nine states, including Washington, Oregon and California, have explicitly allowed the medical use of pot under a physician's guidance, despite the drug's classification under U.S. Code as a Schedule 1 controlled substance: illegal in all circumstances. [continues 272 words]
In the course of challenging the arrests of 19 people caught with the equivalent of "less than six Plain M&Ms" in drugs between them, public defenders have uncovered compelling evidence of racial disparity in drug-delivery arrests in Seattle. The Seattle Police Department and King County Prosecutor's Office, parties to the lawsuit, wanted the evidence to remain covered. They both asked King County Superior Court Judge Richard Jones to keep the information from the public. Last month, Jones denied their requests. [continues 258 words]
In its medical-marijuana ruling earlier this week, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has endorsed compassion and states' rights - ideas worth considering together. It was surely compassionate to rule in favor of Angel Raich, who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor, and Diane Monson, who suffers from degenerative spine disease. It is a matter of simple humanity to accommodate such sufferers, and California law did that. So does Washington's, passed by initiative with 59 percent of the vote. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal drug laws have no exception for medical need -- that is, there is no individual right to obtain medical marijuana. Now comes this case, which says the federal drug law interferes with states' rights. [continues 248 words]
Court Says Those Who Use for Medicinal Reasons Are Exempt A federal court ruling yesterday that would permit some medical marijuana use bolsters what proponents say is the clear -- and fair -- judicial trend to allow state medical marijuana laws like Washington's to stand. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said yesterday that a congressional act outlawing marijuana may not apply to sick people with a doctor's recommendation in states that have approved medical marijuana laws, such as Washington. [continues 639 words]
A FASCINATING news report last week revealed that Canada and the United States are more estranged than ever in their modern history. Two neighbors of North America are drifting apart, both socially and politically. The separation is post 9-11 but aggravated by differing national agendas in Ottawa and Washington, D.C. The story in The New York Times showed two societies diverging dramatically on social issues. A relationship that once accepted cross-border Canadians and Americans as two peas of the same pod has split along the same fracture lines that divide Americans from each other. [continues 540 words]
Drug dealers arrested by Seattle police are most often black, even though whites dominate the drug-dealing trade and constitute the majority of users, according to a report being released today. The 78-page report was written by Katherine Beckett, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington, as part of pending litigation against Seattle police. The report, as well as the civil lawsuit, contends police drug- enforcement tactics target racial minorities, who the report says represent a relatively small percent of those selling drugs in Seattle. [continues 1058 words]
Committee Opts for $12 Million Facility The issue of whether or not a new jail is needed in Stevens County was discussed at a public meeting hosted by the Stevens County Board of Commissioners. The Detention Facility Needs Citizen Advisory Committee, made up of residents from all areas of the county, has spent the last 15 months studying the Issue. They presented their formal recommendation to the public at the Nov. 17 meeting. The committee recommended building a $12 million dollar facility which would be built to the south of the Courthouse and would Incorporate a skybrldge that would connect to a renovated second floor of the courthouse. [continues 967 words]
HERMISTON -- Welcome to Umatilla County, home to watermelons, potatoes, rodeos and methamphetamine labs. Umatilla County had 47 methamphetamine labs busted in 2002, the fifth most in the state. More chilling, perhaps, is the number of labs per capita: one for every 1,500 people in the county. Multnomah County, the state's most populous, had one lab for every 8,000 people. According to the 2000 census, Multnomah County has 660,486 residents; Umatilla County just 70,548. Through October of this year, the county is ranked second in meth labs seized, just behind Washington County. So far, 55 meth labs were busted in Umatilla County. And the county has achieved the dubious honor of having the most meth labs per capita in the state so far this year. [continues 318 words]
PENDLETON -- Larry Nicholson lived in a cardboard box under a bridge in Milton-Freewater one winter more than a decade ago. His addiction to methamphetamine took him to the bridge, but it was the loss of his cardboard box that led him to treatment. Not because he wanted to be rehabilitated, but because he was hoping for a warm place to stay and three meals a day. He was walking back to his box one day when he saw the garbage truck haul away his home. He decided it was time to move on and began hitchhiking to Portland. [continues 1281 words]
If The Size Of The Assembled Company Was Any Measure, Then The Just Know Forum Last Saturday May Be Counted A Success. More than 330 islanders packed the high school commons to learn more about the impact of drugs, alcohol and depression on their children. The event, planned by the new Just Know coalition of schools, social service agencies, and grassroots parent groups, was supported by the city, school PTOs and 16 island businesses. The breakout sessions on subjects ranging from the effects of trendy designer drugs to new alarms about the old standards - pot and alcohol - were informative. But the day's true import only registered when one counted up the representatives of island life present - not only parents, but city officials, business leaders, fire and police personnel, island-based counselors, judges, attorneys and teachers. It was an assembly that, we hope, bespeaks the collective determination to tackle the problems that beset young people growing up on Bainbridge. [continues 454 words]
COLVILLE -- Like Boy Scouts without a match, Stevens County officials tried to build a fire of public support for a new jail Monday night. At the end of a two-hour meeting, it wasn't clear whether they had a flame or just a puff of smoke. About 40 people turned out for the meeting, but most of them were public officials or civic activists. Many had served on the committee that studied seven options and recommended a new $12 million jail across the street from the county courthouse. [continues 507 words]
Substance Abuse On Bainbridge Is Shaped By Island Demographics. Wealthy Kids Have Money In Hand. Often, Both Parents Work. "BHS is almost like the perfect scenario," said BHS sophomore "Jared" (not his real name). "There are, like, all these big houses with parents who are gone all the time, and the kids have large allowances." But the push for suburban perfection also takes a toll, Jared says, and overloaded parents pass the stress down to kids. Depression, substance abuse and eating disorders may result. [continues 1055 words]
Or, How to Get Busted, Post-I-75 By passing I-75, the initiative making marijuana possession Seattle cops' "lowest law-enforcement priority," in September, voters handed potheads a pass to indulge in their favorite illicit substance without police interference. Starting in September, Seattle cops were ordered to ignore small-time possession and only arrest dope fiends dumb enough to flaunt their pot use in public. By all evidence, Seattle's streets have not--contrary to some I-75 opponents' claims--been overrun with zonked-out hippies in VW buses veering, bong in hand, into oncoming traffic. In fact, since the initiative passed in September, just nine pot busts have gone to City Attorney Tom Carr's office for prosecution. Which raises the inevitable question: Just how dumb do you have to be to get arrested for pot in post-I-75 Seattle? Four of Seattle's stupidest potheads--either prosecuted or busted post-I-75-- provide answers and a few cautionary lessons. [continues 394 words]
U.S. Border Guards Allegedly Found Marijuana, Ephedrine in Teen's Vehicle A 16-year-old boy from the Lower Mainland was arrested Wednesday by U.S. border patrol agents when he drove into Washington state in a vehicle alleged to contain nearly $1 million US worth of marijuana and ephedrine. The boy is due to appear in a Seattle court today. Neither his name nor the municipality in which he lives have been released. Assistant chief patrol agent Joseph Giuliano said Thursday that agents in Linden, Wash., were told of a possible drug smuggling attempt from Canada into the U.S. that was supposed to take place Wednesday. [continues 219 words]
YOU GO AMY JENNIGES! Thanks for writing all this! I hope Mayor Nickels will realize that we really need help on the Hill. People pee and shit on the streets; every entrance to a store is occupied by aggressive panhandlers; [the neighborhood has] vandalism, no parking, useless transit, and cardboard buildings where you can hear your neighbor snore; and the flight path is right above all this to complete the misery. I mean, this is where most of Seattle's workforce lives. How disrespectful of the city and the mayor to offer [these] conditions to us. I am beginning to think they want all the decent people to move out of the area and turn it into some human dump, sort of a Pioneer Square extension. [continues 144 words]
TO THE EDITOR: I agree with your recent article regarding the disgusting evolution of what I like to call Capitol Hell ["Shithole," Amy Jenniges, Oct 23]. Nowadays one cannot walk along even the side streets of the Hell without getting harassed by some nasty scumbag begging for drug money. Something dramatic has to be done. Instead of blaming city government, how about blaming the junkies, beggars, losers, hookers, bums, drug dealers, failures, et cetera, who have actually created this problem? I'm fine with providing more services for these people, but let's be honest--it's their fault the neighborhood has gone to Capitol Hell. Morgan Pettis [end]
Ellen Forney's "How to Kick at Home" gave up a lot of good information, but I'd like to add something: If you use sedatives to get through those first awful days of withdrawal and then decide to go back to dope, you really need to be careful with your dose. The risk of an OD is much, much higher when you've got sedatives in your system--and they can linger for more than a day. Rodent Leg [end]
A National Antirave Act Wants To Stop You From Dancing In The Dark. Hollywood has a long tradition of films in which the ridiculous plot serves only as a flimsy excuse for the soundtrack. Such was the case with the idiotic "plot" of the 1984 movie Footloose in which the family of a high-school rebel (a young Kevin Bacon) moves to a Utah town and Bacon discovers that they've outlawed--can you believe it?--dancing. Fast-forward to this year. With virtually no attention, Congress passed an onerous new national antidrug bill--one whose implicit effect is to outlaw certain types of dancing. Enter the RAVE Act. [continues 599 words]
The Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign is up for refunding. If you're wondering what your $150 million a year has bought, just think back to those ridiculous ads during the Super Bowl that suggested marijuana can get girls pregnant or result in teens accidentally shooting one another. Lying about the real effects of drugs and drug abuse does not equip our children with the knowledge needed to make critical decisions in their lives, including about taking drugs. In fact, the last five years of ad campaigns by this ONDCP program and the exorbitant amounts of money spent have proven ineffective; and further, it is believed these ads have had a direct effect on increasing teen drug use. [continues 79 words]
Capitol Hill is nearing rock bottom, plagued by public drug use and drug dealing, a problematic park, a dearth of social services, a short-staffed police precinct, and a mayor who apparently couldn't care less. Before the rainy season began in earnest earlier this month, Capitol Hill's Cal Anderson Park was literally awash in human crap. And used needles. And beer bottles, condoms, and tiny drug baggies. While the park is currently disguised as a playground for small kids, a soccer field for big kids, and a construction site--the city is currently working on capping the reservoir--neighbors know what the park is really being used for. [continues 3195 words]
The recent spectacle of Rush Limbaugh, one of the foremost critics of liberal values, being "outed" as a drug abuser has been most interesting. Should he be afforded the benefit of liberal leniency, or should he face what he has advocated so vociferously for others? A quote from Limbaugh's Oct. 5, 1995, show affords us a glimpse of that advocacy: "Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up." [continues 66 words]
When the phone rang at Dianne Hansen's home in Woodland in August, she could tell there was a roomful of telemarketers on the other end. "It was very noisy," said Hansen, a computer specialist with The Columbian. "You could hear other people talking." A polite-sounding man told Hansen he was calling for the Washington State Law Enforcement Association, Inc. He asked Hansen to make a donation to help delinquent juveniles with their problems. In the weeks that followed, a bill came to her home from the association, and then a second. [continues 581 words]
LET'S GET TO the heart of the matter: I did not, at any time, get a wheelbarrow full of little joy pills from my housekeeper. I don't even have a housekeeper. I do, however, have the pills. For the past nine years, I've been addicted to the same drug as Rush Limbaugh. OxyContin is a time-release capsule containing the active ingredient oxycodone, which also goes into Percoset and Darvoset. The time-release OxyContin version doesn't have a quick peak high. It offers a steady level of pain relief over a long time, which makes it ideal for chronic pain. [continues 749 words]
Felony drug charges against an Amboy-area man were dismissed Friday by a judge who earlier ruled that the Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force conducted an illegal raid. Michael Orick, 49, has no criminal record. In December, law officers discovered a sophisticated marijuana-growing operation in a man-made cavern on Orick's property. Earlier this month, Superior Court Judge Roger Bennett suppressed the evidence and said the search was illegal because detectives relied on information improperly acquired from Clark Public Utilities. [continues 410 words]
Since 1996, nine states, including Washington, have passed citizen initiatives allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. The feds, whether it was the Clinton administration or the current one, have fought back, using a law passed in 1970 as its hammer. That law placed marijuana on the most-restricted list of illegal drugs, and it didn't provide for medical exceptions. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that "cannabis clubs" that had formed in California for the purpose of acquiring and supplying medical marijuana were violating the federal law. [continues 400 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Attorney General John Ashcroft's attempt to weaken states' rights and meddle in the doctor-patient relationship. The high court declined to review an appellate court ruling that the federal government cannot punish doctors for so much as talking to their patients about the medical benefits of marijuana. The San Francisco case in question involved a policy enacted by the Clinton administration requiring the revocation of federal prescription licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that physicians in nine states that allow the medical use of marijuana (Washington is one) should be able to speak candidly with their patients without fear of federal government sanctions. The appeals court did not, however, guard doctors against prosecution for helping obtain the drug. [continues 93 words]
The Bellingham School District no longer offers the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program because the city and the school could not support the program in the wake of budget cuts, Bellingham Police Department Lt. Mark Gill said. "It's unfortunate, and I think we'll look back and see what kind of effect it had," said Chris Lease, school resource officer at Sehome High School. According to the D.A.R.E. Web site, it is a collaborative program in which law enforcement and local schools join to educate students about the personal and social consequences of substance abuse and violence. [continues 297 words]
The discovery last year of a sophisticated marijuana-growing operation in an elaborate man-made cavern near Amboy has proved a bust for law enforcement. A judge on Wednesday granted a defense attorney's motion to suppress all evidence seized by members of the Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force in a December 2002 raid. Clark County Superior Court Judge Roger Bennett ruled that law enforcement relied on information improperly obtained from Clark Public Utilities. While prosecutors did not immediately drop charges against Michael E. Orick, 49, the ruling guts the case against him. Prosecutors had filed additional charges of money laundering against Orick and his wife, Lori O. Orick, 41, after an investigation of their finances suggested they were earning thousands of dollars selling marijuana. [continues 438 words]
When Kitty Candelaria's husband David was diagnosed with the Hepatitis C virus in November 1996, she didn't know about the shame and misinformation attached to it. It began when a doctor, who assumed David had acquired the blood-borne virus by injecting intravenous drugs, tried repeatedly to make him admit just that. From that point on, David was so worried about being falsely labeled an IV drug user that he refused to tell anyone what was wrong with him. [continues 687 words]
Another school year starts, and another beer riot takes place. It was happening when I was in school 30 years ago, and it continues today. The police say, "You get a lot of young people who are relatively inexperienced with alcohol and relatively inexperienced with life, and you get them away from home for the first time... " and "You get a huge number of kids with a large amount of alcohol, and in that group they will do things that individually they would never, never do. And you get a few kids doing some stupid things, and pretty soon others join in." ("Trouble has often found a home on Greek Row," Local News, Sept. 30.) [continues 77 words]
The Lummi Nation has been given a $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Justice for the next three years to assist in its Community Mobilization Against Drugs campaign. The money will allow the tribe to hire a program coordinator and statistician to help better coordinate law enforcement and treatment needs on the reservation, said Chairman Darrell Hillaire. In May, tribal officials opened a 10-bed safe house for youth, one of several facilities planned as part of the tribe's CMAD initiative. Lummi Nation leaders also have plans to open an in-patient drug treatment center and battered women's shelter. The grant was one of 25 awarded by the Department of Justice through its Indian Alcohol and Substance Abuse Demonstration program, which is meant to to help tribal governments combat drug and alcohol issues. [end]
With little fanfare, highly touted researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently made a stunning announcement. Data from their experiments with the now infamous drug Ecstasy, published a year ago in Science, turned out to be fatally flawed. It seems the vials had been mislabeled and the drug administered to -- and that killed 20 percent of -- the study's laboratory monkeys and baboons was not Ecstasy but a completely different substance. As a research scientist, having conducted the first federally funded sociological study of Ecstasy users, I am happy about the recent news that one dose of Ecstasy does not, as the widely publicized Science article had claimed, cause irreversible brain damage leading to Parkinson's disease. [continues 760 words]
Whew, folks! Our national fear level has just been reduced from orange alert to yellow alert. The dangerous criminal Tommy Chong (age 65) of Cheech & Chong fame has been sentenced to nine months in prison for selling glass pipes (aka paraphernalia). Never mind that the petty villains Osama bin What's-his-name and Saddam Somebody are still on the loose. We can thank the Bush-Ashcroft zealots for this new assurance of homeland security. Actually, Chong's real crime over the years has been to use the weapon of mass destruction -- ridicule -- to expose the absurdity of the misguided war against the heart of the axis of evil, the evil weed, marijuana. We can all breathe easy for nine months now that this desperate terrorist is safely behind bars. David L. Edwards, Olympia [end]
The Inside Dope on Dope, from a Former Dope Dealer God clearly wants you to fritter away the next four (or five) years in a pathetic drug-induced stupor. Otherwise, why would He have provided such a bewildering cornucopia of excellent head-twisting substances for your enjoyment? And a strong, resilient body clearly designed to absorb copious amounts of self-abuse? And all those extra brain cells? So, in a paroxysm of pious religiosity, The Stranger has asked me, former college drug dealer extraordinaire, to provide some basic information regarding some of the more popular manifestations of God's mind-altering bounty, based on what I've seen. I'm always glad to help out. [continues 711 words]
SENSIBLE SEATTLE AND THE WINNING OF I-75 For the national media, the only thing that happened in Seattle's elections last week was the defeat of a 10-cent per cup espresso tax. But caffeine wasn't the only drug on the ballot in Seattle. By a margin of 58% to 42%, Seattle voters approved Initiative 75 (I-75), which directs Seattle police and prosecutors to make marijuana possession arrests the lowest law enforcement priority. While not decriminalizing marijuana possession, the successful initiative should bring down the number of marijuana possession arrests in the city. Seattle police have said that the initiative will not make much difference since police only made 400 pot possession arrests last year, but 400 arrests is still more than one per day. And city attorney Tom Carr has worried publicly that defense lawyers will challenge any possession arrest as going against the will of the voters. [continues 1739 words]
Wake up and smell the coffee, Seattle. You don't need another addiction. You sun-deprived hordes in Western Washington are famous for your java jones. No one in the Emerald City can walk from Seahawks Stadium to Safeco Field without stopping for a latte. We're OK with that. It's even cute the way you cup one hand over your double-talls to keep the rain from diluting the froth. But the results of this week's citywide initiatives have us worried. Sure, rejecting the 10-cent-per-cup espresso tax was inevitable. You have to draw the line at a $4 cup of coffee. [continues 135 words]
Innocent man, 72, is handcuffed after suspect is arrested in mobile home drug raid Detectives with the Spokane County Sheriff's Office entered the wrong mobile home during a Spokane Valley drug raid Tuesday morning and handcuffed an innocent bystander. No one was injured in the 9:45 a.m. incident, but detectives were offering apologies for the "major mistake" Tuesday night. "We blew it, pure and simple," said a written statement from Sheriff Mark Sterk. Detectives with the sheriff's Investigative Support Unit went to the Pinecroft Trailer Court, 11920 E. Mansfield, to arrest a man suspected of manufacturing methamphetamine. [continues 364 words]
No. 1 Drug Problem Sweeps Across State Alarming statistics presented Tuesday by a top drug enforcement official added a statewide perspective to what's already seen as a burgeoning local drug problem. Dave Rodriguez, director of the Northwest High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, said Tuesday in Vancouver that 222 meth labs in Washington state were dismantled in 2002. That's a stunning increase from 38 meth lab seizures the previous year. Rodriguez, speaking at the third annual Meth Summit here, also pointed out that ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, chemicals used to "cook" meth, are flooding into Washington from Canada. [continues 290 words]
Amid the array of drug threats facing communities, methamphetamine stands out for the broad reach of its pernicious effects. The drug can wreck not just users' lives, but also pose serious threats to the health of their kids, police officers and even the environment. And it's epidemic -- the drug is found everywhere, in rural, suburban and urban settings. After spreading from the West Coast, the stimulant has crossed the Mississippi River and reached the East Coast. Even as the cheap, easily produced drug spreads nationally, this state may be making modest progress. Priscilla Lisicich, chairwoman of the Governor's Council on Substance Abuse, said that meth production in the state has trended downward for more than a year, including a 15 percent drop during the first part of this year. After the state's third meth summit, held in Vancouver last week, Lisicich came away feeling, "We are making progress, but let's be cautious." [continues 318 words]
As a former Vancouver resident, I read a thoughtful Sept. 18 editorial, "Rampaging meth." There's one law, if passed by Congress, that would completely put the illegal meth labs out of business overnight. That would be a law making pharmaceutical-grade amphetamines legally available in local pharmacies for pennies per dose. Ninety years ago when all types of recreational drugs were legally available in local pharmacies for pennies per dose, we didn't have clandestine drug labs or drug-related crime. And drug dealers, as we know them today, didn't exist. [continues 127 words]
Editor, The Times: I predicted 66 percent against I-77 (the 10-cent espresso tax). It was really 68 percent NO! I knew that I-75 (lowering marijuana's law-enforcement priority) would pass ("Latte tax creamed; Leave pot smokers alone, Seattle voters say," Times, front page, Sept. 17). We were, I admit, pretty grumpy at our child-care center the next day. Maybe it was because we were sleep-deprived from a late-night in-service training on infant first aid and CPR. We learned how to breathe life back into a lifeless baby... just in case. Most of us probably got back to our homes around 9 p.m., just in time to see the latest tally on I-77. I was getting really angry! [continues 210 words]
Boy! The headlines in The Times Wednesday sure tell you a lot about Seattleites. They turn down a 10-cent tax on lattes, which would go for education for low-income children but they passed a pro-marijuana initiative. Shame, shame on you Seattle!! Don and Gloria Bjorkman, Mill Creek [end]
The White House Lectures Seattle On Pot Initiative President Bush's drug czar, John Walters, is leading a new systematic nationwide effort to quash citizens' initiatives on pot reform. The trend was established last year when Walters successfully campaigned to defeat initiatives in Nevada, Ohio, and Missouri. Last week, his campaign arrived in Seattle for an afternoon press conference, just six days before the primary election, to challenge Initiative 75--a measure to deprioritize Seattle's pot laws. [After this story went to print, I-75 held a comfortable lead at 58.62%. --Eds.] [continues 1161 words]
Here's What Pot Initiative Really Changes -- Not Much Seattle voters had spoken, and their message seemed simple enough: Leave pot smokers alone. But what does it all mean? With Initiative 75 certain to pass (by yesterday, it had 59 percent of the vote counted so far), is it now legal to smoke pot in Seattle? Can you still be prosecuted? And what about marijuana for medical purposes? To help make sense of it all, we took these questions -- and more -- to the Seattle Police Department and Tom Carr, the city attorney. [continues 638 words]
Marijuana Use Is Illegal for a Reason Christopher Bingham criticizes the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force for "cutting down the local pot harvest" ("Legalizing pot is a much better idea," Sept. 15) and presents the same old worn-out reasons for legalizing marijuana that appear in the media several times each year. In making his case for selling marijuana in state-run stores, generating tax revenue from sales, and (can you believe it?) creating jobs in those stores for people now considered to be criminals for growing and selling the substance, Mr. Bingham conveniently fails to acknowledge and address the inherent dangers to individuals, families and communities. [continues 127 words]
The number of Washington labs set up to extract the cold-pill ingredients used to make methamphetamines soared last year, a top state drug enforcement official said Tuesday at the third annual Meth Summit in Vancouver. Police seized 222 of the extraction labs in 2002, up from 38 the previous year, said Dave Rodriguez, director of the Northwest High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The labs use chemicals to break down cold capsules into ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, constituents of the plant ephedra. Those chemicals are used to "cook" meth using the red phosphorus method, the most popular method in Southwest Washington. [continues 716 words]
More than 200 Clark County residents from all walks of life crowded into a conference hall at the Red Lion Hotel at the Quay on Tuesday night to learn about life after methamphetamine addiction. An electronic poll taken during the second annual community meth recovery forum revealed that more than half of those attending were recovering meth addicts or friends or relatives of addicts. About 70 percent said they came to the forum because they were concerned about someone who was involved in meth use or about the drug's impact on the community. Three-quarters had some personal connection to meth addiction. [continues 431 words]
A Seattle initiative that would make adult marijuana possession the lowest law-enforcement priority was passing last night, leaving police and prosecutors concerned about a soft-on-drugs message. I-75 was promoted as a way to make the most of limited law-enforcement resources, though critics called it a veiled attempt to condone marijuana use. I-75's biggest financial backers included the national Marijuana Policy Project and Peter Lewis, head of Ohio-based Progressive Auto Insurance, which favor decriminalization. [continues 187 words]
They Have Seriously Misplaced Priorities Sept. 6 must have been a slow news day for The Herald to put the "bumper crop of pot" story at the top of the front page. Particularly when the article is full of half-truths, stereotypes, misleading information and contradictions. "Taking down pot growers is a day's work" for the 15-member Regional Task Force, yet "it's hard for us to find whoever put these here." So actually no growers were "taken down." Another quote: "It's been a good summer for growing marijuana," according to Sgt. Jim Duffy, but the grow detailed in the article was "pathetic." [continues 135 words]
Inside Washington
