The region is in the middle of one of the Midwest's meth pipelines along the Interstate 94 corridor, Wilson said. He said the counties closest to Minneapolis and St. Paul have the highest number of cases in the area. Between 1999 and 2000, investigators submitted 40 meth cases from St. Croix County to the State Crime Lab for testing. The number of meth cases in St. Croix County began to skyrocket in 1999, said St. Croix County Sheriff Dennis Hillstead. [continues 211 words]
Paul Bischke of St. Paul argues that drug offenders are nonviolent and should be released in favor of less punitive alternatives (letter, Aug. 30). What we are not hearing is how drugs are used to take advantage of the innocent, and overcome the resistance of the unsuspecting. Men, women and children are bought, sold, rented or victimized to maintain or acquire them. Like ex-City Councilman Brian Herron, users become so addicted that they pawn property, borrow from family or friends, and steal from employers or the public. If you thought prison walls offer sanctuary to addicts from dealers (who may carry a badge), you are mistaken. Drugs do violence by assaulting reality with a sensual or illusionary buffer that alters body chemistry and retards growth and potential. The penalty should fit the crime. J. STEPHEN BROWN Bayport [end]
WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network raise money through a variety of legitimate and illegal sources, ranging from charities, business enterprises and wealthy supporters to illegal drug and weapons trafficking, the U.S. government believes. Investigators and experts believe members of bin Laden's al-Qaida network make money any way they can to support the cause. There are strong signs al-Qaida has profited handsomely from the opium trade, with fighters used as smugglers and to protect smugglers, said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. [continues 367 words]
A vestige of Minnesota's farm history went up in smoke in northern Washington County on Thursday, under the watchful eyes of Minnesota National Guard members and county narcotics officers. They mowed, piled and burned about 15,000 naturally occurring marijuana (hemp) plants. The effort was part of a National Guard program to eradicate marijuana, conducted in cooperation with the county sheriff's office. "It's a situation we try to keep under control for public safety," said Sgt. Patrick Olson with the Washington County Sheriff's office narcotics task force. [continues 289 words]
As a black man and state correctional officer, I feel that the prison-industrial complex is akin to a "plantation." Anyone familiar with sharecropping and plantations would understand corrections today. It's long been perfectly clear to me that if America's crime begins to fall, as it has, and if we became 100 percent law abiding, that America's prison systems would look for ways to either import crime or import prisoners. We have already done the importing of prisoners, and probably would opt to do the other if that opportunity ran out. It has always troubled me how so many minority men and white men on the bottom of the socio-economic scale always end up in prison for unfair drug-related charges. [continues 325 words]
Your prison-boom editorial (Aug 16) was feeble defense for a "free" society that denies freedom to more of its citizens than any other nation on earth. You wrongly pooh-pooh the Drug War's role in prison expansion. Today the U.S. jails more citizens for drug offenses than it jailed for all crimes in 1970; and more than the entire European Union currently jails for all crimes. Drug incarceration also has an indisputable racial bias against blacks and Latinos. [continues 134 words]
VANCOUVER, B.C. -- A woman squats on a stoop in an alley. She holds an orange syringe in her right hand. With her left, she is squeezing the air as if trying to catch an insect that is not there. Half of the dose of heroin she had been injecting is still in her needle. She is in junkie limbo. "She has done a hit of heroin. She hasn't even finished it, it's so good," explains Mel Hennan, who is patrolling this city's back alleys. [continues 691 words]
LOS ANGELES - They stormed in after midnight, kicking down doors of homes and businesses around this county's desert fringe. More than 100 federal agents and local detectives took part in the raids. And by the time the sun came up they had nabbed yet another gang of suspected methamphetamine traffickers. The raids last week culminated an 18-month investigation dubbed "Operation Silent Thunder" that led to the arrest of nearly 300 people on drug or weapons charges. Hundreds of firearms and explosives have been seized. [continues 687 words]
Riddled with pain from rheumatoid arthritis and a degenerative bone disease for years, Diana Rose rarely left the house. Then in November, a doctor prescribed the painkiller OxyContin, dramatically changing her quality of life. "I can actually go shopping at the mall, play with my grandchildren and even swim in our pool," said Rose, a 57-year-old Kentucky woman. "This drug has enabled me to do things without being in pain." OxyContin, a powerful drug that is a chemical cousin to opiates such as morphine and heroin, has enabled thousands of people, such as Rose, to resume the normal activities of life. But now some doctors fear that a backlash triggered by rampant street use of the drug dubbed "hillbilly heroin" will derail significant advances in the field of pain management. They worry that U.S. drug officials may respond to rising illicit use of OxyContin by yanking it from the market, place stricter limits on the use of all opiates, commonly used to treat cancer patients, severe back pain and other chronic pain conditions. [continues 838 words]
WASHINGTON -- Drug offenders spend a year more in prison on average than they did 15 years ago, and drug offenses now make up about one- third of federal criminal cases, both the result of tougher drug sentencing, according to new figures from the Justice Department. More than 38,200 suspects were referred to federal prosecutors in 1999 for alleged drug offenses, up from 11,854 in 1984. About 84 percent of these suspects were subsequently charged in a U.S. court, showed the figures, which were released Sunday by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics. [continues 338 words]
An off-duty Minnesota State Patrol trooper was charged with possessing crack cocaine after Minneapolis police stopped his vehicle early Wednesday, according to court documents filed by Hennepin County prosecutors. Jeffrey Allen Carstens, 36, a seven-year veteran of the patrol, has been charged with fifth-degree possession of a controlled substance, a felony, according to court documents filed by prosecutors. Carstens, who by his employers' accounts has an exemplary record, has been placed on an "investigatory" leave with pay as the State Patrol conducts an internal investigation. [continues 574 words]
When the Washington County narcotics unit searched a home in Willernie in July, officers found a "grocery list" for methamphetamine: "Zylene, paint thinner, distilled water, rock salt and one gallon jar of pickles." With the growth in the number of meth labs in Minnesota, the first four items together are becoming nearly as familiar as the last. The state is on pace to double last year's record of 138 lab seizures: Authorities have taken 165 labs in the first seven months of this year. [continues 733 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia -- With Washington set to deepen its involvement in Colombia's anti-drug efforts, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson said Wednesday there are far more cocaine- and heroin-producing crops growing here than previously believed. "Everywhere we look there is more coca than we expected," Patterson told a small group of American journalists, referring to the prime ingredient of cocaine. It was her first substantive on-the-record briefing since arriving in Colombia a year ago from El Salvador, where she also was the ambassador. [continues 555 words]
Sixth to 12th-graders who live in single-dad homes are more likely than others to use drugs, according to a survey released Thursday. The survey, done by a division of an Atlanta-based anti-drug organization, also found that high schoolers' use of such drugs as heroin, Ecstasy and marijuana increased -- reversing a three-year decline in overall drug use. Meanwhile, cigarette and alcohol use dropped to a 13-year low. The survey was conducted at schools that contracted with PRIDE Surveys -- an arm of the Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education -- during the 2000-2001 academic year. More than 75,000 students nationwide answered questionnaires anonymously. [continues 130 words]
A Problem On The East Coast, Painkiller Oxycontin Is Growing Concern In Minnesota Authorities in Minnesota and across the nation are on guard against abusers of a powerful painkiller that has spawned an illicit market in Appalachia and led to pharmacy robberies in parts of the East Coast. OxyContin is a narcotic pain reliever, derived from opium, often prescribed to terminally ill cancer patients. On the market since 1996, it has helped ease pain and improve the lives of more than 1 million patients, said its developers. Its strength and duration, though, has also attracted abusers. [continues 602 words]
A 4-year-old once disappeared in corn more than twice her height on a large farm in Redwood County, Minn., prompting her frightened parents to call for help. But before dozens of cops and a few police dogs began searching on foot, police used a heat-seeking camera mounted on a State Patrol helicopter and found her within 15 minutes. Such technology has been the focus of controversy lately over how it can be used in narcotics investigations. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the cameras cannot be used to detect activities inside a dwelling without a warrant. The decision and the indoor-marijuana-cultivation case that led to it cast the devices as invasive police surveillance, infringing on people's right to privacy. [continues 527 words]
Once upon a time, I believed in the good intentions of drug-abuse prevention programs in the public schools. No longer. In April, Northfield schools secured $1,500 from the Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning for a drug-abuse prevention assembly. With the blessings of the principal, superintendent and school board, Kevin Merkle, Northfield High School activities director, hired a Christian evangelist to do the job. Don't bother to read that paragraph again. You got it right the first time. Public dollars. Public school. Christian evangelist. [continues 779 words]
Along the country roads off Highway 99, it is plain to see why the Central Valley calls itself the nation's fruit basket. Rising from some of the richest soil in the world, rows of fig and almond trees give way to orange and lemon groves, grape and cherry orchards and lettuce and cabbage plants, as far as the eye can see. But hidden away on this soil, in abandoned barns and falling-down farmhouses, hundreds of laboratories are churning out illegal methamphetamine, the highly addictive stimulant that Barry McCaffrey, the former federal drug czar, has called ``the worst drug that has ever hit America.'' [continues 288 words]
MADISON, Wis. -(AP)- Plans to hold the annual Weedstock marijuana festival over Memorial Day weekend have gone up in smoke. Organizers say a pending lawsuit stemming from last year's festival promoting the legalization of marijuana made it impossible to stay on schedule with this year's event. As last year's Weedstock was beginning, a judge ordered it shut down because the organizers hadn't obtained a permit required under a newly passed Sauk County ordinance covering open-air gatherings. [continues 86 words]
The Minnesota State Patrol would be required to collect and report data on the race of motorists pulled over in routine traffic stops under a bill approved Tuesday by a Senate committee. But local police and sheriff's departments would not have to take part in a state study of ``racial profiling'' by police officers. An amendment added to the bill by Sen. Randy Kelly, DFL-St. Paul, also would appropriate $5 million to outfit police squad cars across the state with video cameras to record arrests. [continues 275 words]
