Police Chiefs are proposing the effective de-criminalisation of heroin, with plans to supply it free to eliminate dealers and associated crime. Sir David Phillips, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, will unveil proposals next month for the most radical change to drugs policy so far. He will call for heroin to be prescribed to anyone who wants it in an attempt to destroy the illegal trade and the UKP1 billion cost of crime committed by addicts. The drug will be dispensed - probably as a tablet or linctus - in official premises staffed by police, social workers and medical personnel. It will still be a crime to use or possess heroin elsewhere. [continues 553 words]
The politicians who take the most money from the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical cartels are the politicians who want to expand the war on illegal drugs. Every time one person dies of illegal drug abuse, 47 already have died of abusing legal drugs. Parents, the chances are that your kid is not going to die a crackhead or a heroin junky. But your kid might well die a pathetic drunk, smoking cigarettes with several prescription drugs running through his or her bloodstream. Politicians will say or do anything to defend their money supply coming from the legal drug cartels. [end]
My admiration for Dr. Eugene Pearce as a physician and skilled debater knows no bounds. In his recent letter regarding Oregon's "death with dignity" law, however, he misses the mark on several points: 1) Nobody said John Ashcroft is a "right-wing wacko." That he is a religious extremist who has no hesitancy about imposing his beliefs on others is indisputable. 2) In writing a prescription for an ill patient, a doctor is breaking no federal law, no matter what the patient does with the medicine. Yet Ashcroft would summarily remove the doctor's license to practice medicine without due process. Why his involvement? [continues 68 words]
Cops Battling Increase Of Marijuana-Growing Operations In Area At first glance, the home looks like any other in the land of manicured lawns and two-car garages. The yard is kept clean, the grass is cut and kids skip past on their way to the local school. But take a closer look and something just doesn't seem right. The windows are blacked out, a strange smell hangs in the air and the quiet, new owner is rarely home. And then Ottawa's drug squad arrives. Officers jump out of vehicles, knock down the front door and run inside with guns drawn. That's how many Ottawa residents are finding out their next-door neighbour is running a marijuana-growing operation. [continues 913 words]
In a Dec. 1 letter calling for public funding of elections, Gena DiLabio complains about certain members of Congress who voted for privately run security at the nations airports ("Election Reform: We must remove cash from political life"). She states that this service should be federalized and professionalized - a couple of terms that do not go well together. The idea that the government is the best solution to all of our problems seems to be an all-pervasive American myth that flies in the face of most of the observable evidence. [continues 258 words]
The father of a student who died after taking ecstasy is to spearhead a poster campaign highlighting the risks of the drug. Alan Spinks, whose daughter Lorna, 19, died in Cambridge in May, said he wanted to make young people aware of the dangers of the drugs. He said he was particularly keen to do so in the light of government moves to relax drug laws. The poster, which shows a series of ecstasy tablets below the catchline "Which One is the Killer?" is expected to appear on billboards around the UK in coming weeks. [continues 332 words]
The Drug War Blunders On: The DEA Is Cracking Down On Hempseed Oil In Tortilla Chips WASHINGTON - And now, for something completely different, to borrow a phrase from Monty Python. The three earnest young men burdened with plastic bags came to the office bearing food. Pretzels with seeds. A snack bar. An energy bar. Tortilla chips. Never mind the caloric sin. We're talking serious evil here. Or so the government says. Unless you are an avid reader of the Federal Register and perused the tiny print of almost undecipherable bureaucratese on pages 51,539 through 51,544, you might have missed it -- but the government has returned to normal. [continues 656 words]
Guilty Plea In Drug Case Thrown Out FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The Kentucky Court of Appeals yesterday threw out a guilty plea in a drug case because the evidence came from an unconstitutional roadblock put up by the Butler County sheriff. A unanimous three-judge panel of the court said the sheriff's office used the pretense of a roadblock set up to detect traffic and drunkendriving cases to actually search for drugs. Judge Joseph Huddleston said traffic roadblocks must be narrowly focused so they do not infringe on people's rights to avoid improper searches. "Key . . . is whether there are adequate limits on the discretion of the individual officers conducting the roadblock," Huddleston said. [continues 260 words]
Re: "Where ecstasy is all the rave," Dec. 2. Is the Herald insinuating that raves and ecstasy are closely related? I have been going to all-night parties for the last three or four years and I don't take ecstasy. I go for the same reasons my fellow ravers do -- the music and the people. You can find drugs in the middle of maximum-security prisons. So should we close jails? What about high schools where you can score faster than in a party full of strangers? Should we close them as well? If there have been 22 ecstasy-related deaths in Canada in the last three years, my math background tells me it is statistically far safer than alcohol, which is responsible for thousands of deaths per year. Jean-Pierre Grenier Calgary [end]
Some FBI Agents Are Needed Instead In The Terrorism Fight. WASHINGTON -- The shooting war on terrorism has drained some street-level agents from the Central Valley's anti-methamphetamine campaign. As part of a larger redeployment, the FBI has removed its six Central Valley special agents from a collaborative anti-meth effort. But with its remaining complement of award-winning agents and officers, the Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program is pressing on. "You can't argue with it, but it does create some problems for us," Bill Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based anti-meth campaign, said of the FBI reassignments. [continues 587 words]
Recent news that cocaine, LSD and heroin use among Florida's teens declined over the past year brought sighs of relief from school and state administrators, teachers and parents alike. The statistics in the 2001 Florida Youth Substance Abuse survey, however, showed marijuana use on the increase among middle school students across the state. The rise among students in grades 6-9 can largely be attributed to boredom, according to Jim McDonough, director of the state's Office of Drug Control. [continues 303 words]
