If you haven't heard of the potent psychedelic plant Salvia divinorum, don't bother looking for it: It's on the verge of being declared illegal in Ohio. The Ohio House yesterday voted 90-4 to pass legislation making the plant from the mint family a controlled substance. Ohio will become the sixth state to make it illegal. The bill now goes to Gov. Ted Strickland for his signature. The Ohio Board of Pharmacy is directed by the bill to develop chemical standards for the amount of the drug in the bloodstream that would trigger a driving-under-the-influence charge. [continues 207 words]
Two weeks before the Bay State votes on controversial ballot Question 2, which would decriminalize possession of small amounts of pot, the regional Drug Enforcement Agency office is honoring the memory of an agent slain by Mexican drug lords, by encouraging people to stay away from all drugs. "We're reaching out to people about living drug-free," said acting Special Agent in Charge Kevin Lane. Yesterday, Gov. Deval Patrick proclaimed next week Red Ribbon Week in Massachusetts. The Red Ribbon is worn by DEA agents during the last week of October each year in memory of fallen DEA agent Enrique Camarena. [continues 278 words]
The New Mexico Health Department has approved its first applications from patients whose doctors prescribed medicinal marijuana under the state's new law. Under the new statute, approved applicants are entitled to a designated dosage of marijuana. But there's a hitch. It's up to the patients to figure out how and where to get the marijuana. This is because the state has not carried out the second phase of the law, due Oct. 1, which is distribution and production of cannibis. [continues 1034 words]
'It Is Our Responsibility To Fix It. Let's Get It Done' Napolitano Calls For New Emphasis In Fight Vs. Meth Gov. Janet Napolitano is calling for a crackdown on the cross-border methamphetamine traffic and an expansion of addiction treatment to combat the illegal drug's growing threat to public health and safety. "We run the risk of losing entire generations of Arizonans to meth if we don't have this as a No. 1 public priority," Napolitano said. "This is our No. 1 drug problem. It is a public health problem. It is a crime problem. It is a public safety problem. It is our problem, and if it's our problem, then it is our responsibility to fix it. Let's get it done." [continues 612 words]
Bernie Ellis Gave Comfort to the Sick and Dying. For That Crime, the Government Means to Take Everything He's Got. Life came unglued for Bernie Ellis on the day drug agents raided his farm like it was the fortified villa of a South American cocaine kingpin. Ellis was bush-hogging around his berry patches when two helicopters swept low over the treetops. Then, rumbling in on four-wheelers, came 10 officers of the Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force. The war on drugs had arrived, literally, in Ellis' backyard. It was a major operation to strike a righteous blow against the devil weed. [continues 3058 words]
State Will Broaden Its Approach To Treating Addiction, Gov. Strickland Says As she stumbled to the Netcare crisis center on Central Avenue, tears streamed down Erica Smith's cheeks. Years of heavy partying, drinking and smoking crack -- along with selling blood plasma and even trying prostitution to get money for drugs -- had taken a cruel toll. Smith could go no lower -- and survive. "As I walked it was like I could feel pieces of my body falling off," she said. "I was so broken up." [continues 1514 words]
The Drug War Claims More Lives Than Drugs Themselves. Now that we have the official 2006 Philadelphia murder tally -- 406 killings -- we can start talking about ways to lower it. But wringing our hands and singing songs of solidarity isn't going to cut it. And it's unlikely that anyone will seriously propose changing the ruinously expensive and counterproductive drug policies that make Philadelphia one of the most violent cities in the country. By the end of January, the U.S. had already spent well over $4 billion just this year trying to prevent people from putting controlled substances up their noses and into their veins. The War on Drugs -- what is it with Americans and declaring war on indefinite nouns? -- creates a predictable netherworld of nefarious suppliers and dealers who turn to violence to settle scores and turf wars. No matter how hard the police may work to disrupt these networks, they end up plowing the sea. And all that drug money leads inevitably to corruption. [continues 532 words]
New Mexico's use of jails run by companies is the highest in the country -- and rising -- but do they live up to their promises? New Mexico leads the nation on another list: We're No. 1 in using private prisons to house inmates. The latest U.S. Justice Department statistics, published in a study called Prisons in 2005, showed 43 percent of New Mexico prisoners were in private lockups. That's well ahead of the 6 percent national rate for privately held state prison inmates. And the percentage in New Mexico is bound to rise even higher in the near future. [continues 1270 words]
A chemical that will prevent methamphetamine makers from using anhydrous ammonia as a raw material for the drug will be added to the widely used nitrogen fertilizer, state officials said Monday. Marvin Van Haaften, director of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy, said the chemical, known as calcium nitrate, can be added to each of the 26,000 tanks used in Iowa for the application of anhydrous ammonia. The discovery of the inhibitor has national and international implications because of the widespread use of methamphetamine, he said. [continues 339 words]
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - It looked like Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson would coast toward re-election until Saturday when his little-known Republican opponent dropped out of the race and the GOP named a more aggressive candidate. J.R. Damron, who had no ballot opposition in this month's primary election, never got much traction in his campaign and was so far behind Richardson in fundraising that some GOP insiders questioned whether he could compete against the popular incumbent. The Santa Fe radiologist who has never held elected office addressed delegates at the Republican State Central Committee meeting and left without talking with reporters. [continues 424 words]
ST. LOUIS -- Justin Knox bit down on the bitter-tasting patch, instantly releasing three days' worth of a drug more powerful than morphine. He was dead before he even got to the hospital. The 22-year-old construction worker and addict was another victim in an apparent surge in U.S. overdoses blamed on abuse of the fentanyl patch, a prescription-only product that is intended for cancer patients and others with chronic pain and is designed to dispense the medicine slowly through the skin. [continues 503 words]
ST. LOUIS -- Justin Knox bit down on the bitter-tasting patch, instantly releasing three days' worth of a drug more powerful than morphine. He was dead before he even got to the hospital. The 22-year-old construction worker and addict was another victim in an apparent surge in U.S. overdoses blamed on abuse of the fentanyl patch, a prescription-only product that is intended for cancer patients and others with chronic pain and is designed to dispense the medicine slowly through the skin. [continues 506 words]
With California Inmates Expected to Give Birth to More Than 300 Babies This Year, Officials Are Preparing to Open the State's First Prison Nursery Juanita Massie can recall her baby's kicks inside her belly, how her water broke, how hard she strained in labor as the contractions intensified. But her most vivid memory is humiliation -- she was shackled to a bedrail. And the sensation of cuddling her newborn was fleeting, because the baby was whisked away by a social worker -- and Massie was transported back to her 8-foot-by-12-foot prison cell. [continues 1608 words]
Meth is ugly. The pictures are too graphic to display. It is the one drug you cannot hide from other people because the bloody pits in your flesh are too obvious. Methamphetamine users feel like bugs are crawling under their skin, and they pick and scratch until all that is left are open sores -- but the bugs were never really there. Blount County District Attorney Mike Flynn described a poster of a meth user in Tennessee whose arms are covered in open wounds due to imaginary "meth bugs." [continues 786 words]
We have more problems than we deserve and more solutions than we've tried. One reason? The way we treat those who offer solutions. Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek is a case in point. Given the shrinking county budget, what with federal program cuts and tax waivers (TIFs), we're lucky Pulkrabek has the smarts and political courage he does. His increased use of electronic monitoring saved the county 882 jail days. Mental health and substance diversion programs also help. But the partisan flack started to fly at his suggestion the legislature re-think penalties for alcohol and drug abuse. [continues 597 words]
When he was new in "blue," Robert Owens was the scourge of East Los Angeles junkies, racking up record-breaking numbers of heroin arrests. But even then, the young Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy wondered if all the collars and the time and resources it took to make them were making any difference. Those doubts only grew during the rest of his 38 years in law enforcement, including his 22 years as police chief in gritty Oxnard, Calif. Today, at 74, Owens is an outspoken proponent of ending America's drug war, which has been waged for nearly four decades at an estimated cost of $500 billion. Despite the best efforts and intentions of anti-drug policies, it simply hasn't worked, he says. [continues 607 words]
This Is Your Society. This Is Your Society On An Endless, Losing Campaign Against Drugs. NOW DO YOU GET IT? Howard Woolridge is outside of Utica, N.Y., heading east on horseback on a beautiful late summer day. He's wearing a t-shirt with the slogan "Cops Say Legalize Drugs. Ask Me Why." For the last 3,000 miles, he's been switching off between his two horses, Misty and Sam. But the t-shirt slogan has stayed the same. [continues 6100 words]
Yes, I think we should legalize marijuana--and maybe all drugs. But the big news is that some prominent conservative Republicans agree with me. What is it about marijuana that makes politicians hallucinate? The faintest whiff of "the weed of madness" (as government propaganda used to call it) causes them to see distorted images of things that aren't there and never were: law and order, justice, reelection. But they don't see the obvious. The war on drugs was lost years ago, and pretending otherwise only makes the problem worse. [continues 1766 words]
Johnson, Gary
