AMHERST - With more than two dozen University of Massachusetts students accompanying him, Terry Franklin brought concerns to the Select Board about the number of marijuana arrests in town. Franklin, of 1040 N. Pleasant St., questioned why town money was being spent to arrest residents for marijuana violations when the town passed a marijuana resolution that he helped bring to voters. Franklin is one of the organizers of the annual "Extravaganja," a festival that features, food, music, speeches about legalizing marijuana use. [continues 243 words]
WESTFIELD - It was not retaliation, but an experiment to show restrictions of body movement when under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Students at the South Middle School were given the opportunity last week to tape up some teachers with red ribbon, a symbol of a national drug awareness program in memory of the 1985 murder of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration undercover agent in Mexico. Jeffrey W. Collier was one teacher who volunteered for the demonstration, and said he did so because, "I thought it would generate excitement and enthusiasm among students." He was right. [continues 286 words]
Putting good stuff in her body and keeping bad stuff out is a concept that Abigail Ruiz, fifth-grader at Woodbury Elementary School, now has a firm grasp on thanks to lessons she has been learning through Red Ribbon Week. Ruiz and every other student in the Marshalltown school district are taking part in the week designed to keep students off drugs and alcohol. "Smoking cigars and drinking alcohol are all really bad for you," Ruiz said. "We learned that we need to keep our bodies healthy by putting good stuff in our body." [continues 375 words]
The Davis-Bacon Act was enacted in the 1930s specifically to give whites preference over blacks in obtaining high-paid, unionized construction jobs. Outrageously, the law remains in effect. Minimum Wage Laws make it especially difficult for black men in central cities to obtain jobs. Economist Milton Friedman calls minimum wages "the most racist laws on the books." Welfare: Until the mid-1990s, welfare laws provided living wages to mothers. But the mothers were required not to work and not to marry an employed man. Therefore, millions of children have grown up without fathers in an environment of dependency. [continues 427 words]
The federal government says it won't approve the use of marijuana as a prescription medicine because it hasn't seen any scientific evidence to prove that it has any health benefits. So what happened when Lyle Craker, a plant and soil sciences professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, applied to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for a permit to grow high-grade marijuana for scientific research in 2001? The DEA lost his application. And then it said he had not filled out the forms correctly. And then it sent two DEA agents to the Amherst campus to discourage the university. [continues 255 words]
GRANITE CITY -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed several new laws Friday that give law enforcement more tools to protect Illinois families and farmers. The comprehensive legislative package creates new criminal offenses to help law enforcement crack down on people who assist in the dangerous methamphetamine-manufacturing process, gives meth-addicted inmates access to treatment and help before they are released back into their communities, and provides local law enforcement agencies with more support in closing down and cleaning up illegal meth labs. [continues 681 words]
SPRINGFIELD - A proposal to put a needle exchange program here will get one more fine-tuning Wednesday before the City Council votes on the controversial measure July 18. The council Planning and Economic Development Committee will discuss needle exchange at 4:45 p.m. at City Hall in City Council Chambers. In a needle exchange program, intravenous drug users get one clean needle for each used, or dirty, needle they submit. Supporters say such an exchange can get infected needles off the streets and prevent the spread of such blood-borne diseases as AIDS and hepatitis C among users prone to sharing needles. [continues 396 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Both college towns, Boston and Boulder, Colo., share another distinction: They lead the nation in marijuana use. Northwestern Iowa and southern Texas have the lowest use. For the first time, the government looked at the use of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and various other substances, legal as well as illegal, by region rather than by state for a report yesterday. Regions could be as specific as Riverside, Calif., or as broad as all of the state of New York (minus New York City). Federal officials say the information will help states decide where they should spend money for treatment and prevention programs. [continues 370 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. [continues 682 words]
Like the old parable about the frog not noticing as it slowly boils in a pot of water, Americans are losing more and more of their rights everyday to an overweening federal government, yet we hardly seem to care. Last week's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on California's medical marijuana law is the latest example. The court has been backing the right of Congress to intervene in our lives for so long now that it's hardly news anymore. States' rights, while abused to defend the institution of slavery, once were thought to be the individual's best defense against the feds. But that doctrine has long since been rendered ineffective, and it was worthless in the marijuana case. So as the federal government grows in size and reach, the question arises: Is there any aspect of our lives left that Congress cannot regulate? Monday's ruling suggests that the answer is probably not. [continues 721 words]
The Supreme Court ruling yesterday to outlaw use of medical marijuana came just weeks before a local plant scientist is expected to appear in court, accusing the federal government of obstructing his research on the topic. Lyle E. Craker, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, said yesterday's high court decision "certainly does not help our case." "On behalf of society, I am disappointed," said Craker, who is a professor of plant and soil sciences. "People who are ill and can benefit from use of marijuana are going to be denied a medicine that could help them in their suffering." [continues 207 words]
In the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, Congress classified marijuana as a dangerous and illegal drug that has no benefits. In 1996, voters in California passed a medical marijuana law allowing people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana with a doctor's recommendation to ease pain. For a federal government that has been waging a decades-long war on drugs without success, it is difficult to admit that there might be some benefit in marijuana use. As a result, the Bush administration turned the war on drugs into a war on sick people. [continues 294 words]
Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey this week unveiled a drug treatment and prevention plan that would allow high schools to test students for drugs at a parent's request and create "sobriety high schools" in Boston and Springfield. The proposals are part of a $9.1 million anti-drug package that must be approved by the Legislature. Under the proposal, each community would have to set up protocol to determine how often to offer drug testing, whether to keep the results confidential between the school and child or involve parents and when to refer a student to counseling, Healey said yesterday in a phone interview. The voluntary drug-testing program would be implemented at a high school with approval from the superintendent or mayor and with parental support. Parents and schools would work together to determine if a student who tested positive needs counseling or an increase in parental involvement or both, according to Laura Nicoll, deputy press secretary for Gov. W. Mitt Romney's office. Students who test positive for drug use would not be prosecuted, Healey said. "Drug testing should never be used in a punitive manner," Healey said. "The idea to offer drug testing in schools is to create a drug-free environment where children can learn and feel safe." [continues 444 words]
Eight days before he left office in January 2001, President Clinton issued an order protecting nearly 60 million acres of national forests from road construction. At the time, the national forests contained 386,000 miles of roads, eight times the length of the interstate highway system and enough to encircle the earth 15 times. Most of the roads were built for timber access and extraction. The Clinton order sent a message to Americans not heard since Theodore Roosevelt created the national forests a century ago: Our forests are more valuable as pristine woodlands than as planks of lumber. [continues 292 words]
Imagine a Springfield man has just learned he has a life-threatening disease and he needs some medical advice. Should he ask his doctor about treatment, or should he ask the Springfield City Council? Later this month, the City Council is expected to vote on a revised proposal to establish a needle-exchange program in the city. The city's public-health experts and members of its large medical community agree that Springfield should approve the program to prevent the spread of HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C and other blood-borne disease. So far, a majority of City Council members has blocked the program. Some say it is wrong to spend taxpayer money to promote the use of illegal drugs. Others say it will attract drug addicts and criminals to the city. None gave a medical opinion. [continues 260 words]
A recent trip to Des Moines for some Woodbury Elementary students was designed to encourage them to live drug-free lives, as well as providing the students a chance to see Iowa government in action. Woodbury fifth-graders taught by Mrs. Alman and Mrs. Stevens were able to take a bus to the Wallace Building and the Capitol Building courtesy of the Marshall County Sheriff's Office Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program. "There was no Marshalltown bus available, so I used grant money secured for D.A.R.E. [through a drug-free community program] to pay for a bus to take us," said Marshall County Deputy/D.A.R.E. Officer Steve Sodders. [continues 177 words]
A team of local police and state troopers rousted about 38 alleged small-time drug dealers in Greenfield, Montague, Leverett, Colrain and Bernardston yesterday starting at about 6 a.m., District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel announced at a press conference. A half-dozen suspects were already in jail on other charges. Another dozen or so suspects are due to be rounded up in the near future, officials said, in the climax of the five-month Operation Slow Burn. In all, 60 arrests are expected, with maximum sentences running 10 years for distribution of heroin and one-year minimum sentences for distributing near a school zone. [continues 316 words]
AMHERST - When University of Massachusetts Police Officer Gerald R. Perkins brought his dog Max up to a car with a nervous-looking student inside, Perkins knew something was up. "I could kind of tell near the doors he was going to get something," Perkins said. Moments later, Max, a four-year-old mixed breed dog who lives to play, did his characteristic signal that there were drugs inside at the rear of the vehicle. Soon after, the young man admitted that his girlfriend had stuffed a bag of marijuana down her pants at his request when they were pulled over. "The fact that he could smell that at the rear of the vehicle, that impresses me. Not finding bales of marijuana that anyone can smell," Perkins said. Max, who unlike many police dogs is friendly and likes to be patted, is the UMass Police Department's first canine helper. Perkins has been working with him since last summer. [continues 293 words]
NORTHAMPTON - On a day when he came to praise Northampton for its commitment to needle exchange, the director of the state's HIV/AIDS Bureau stopped short of appealing to Springfield to follow suit. "Every community needs to be able to wrestle with this on their own terms," said Kevin Cranston, who was in Northampton to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the needle exchange program operated here by Tapestry Health. Noting that Western Massachusetts has been a hot spot in the spread of HIV, Cranston added, "We welcome any community willing to take on proven HIV interventions." [continues 400 words]
MARION -- A recent Supreme Court ruling will help local law enforcement agencies take a bigger "bite out of crime." The court ruled in a case originating in Illinois that drug-sniffing dogs could be used in routine traffic stops. "This ruling confirms the ability of our officers to use the dogs in a routine stop," Williamson County Sheriff Tom Cundiff said. Cundiff said that Williamson County has always had an aggressive anti-drug policy, but this will help officers in their attempt to curtail the drug problem. [continues 310 words]
