San Mateo County Says The Project Is A Preliminary Step Toward Large-scale Research Into The Subject. SAN MATEO -- Phillip Alden has smoked marijuana -- legally, as far as California law is concerned -- for four years. An AIDS sufferer, Alden knows the drug reduces pain in his feet and hands, improves his appetite and controls nausea. But the 37-year-old unemployed writer has not used marijuana for three weeks and will avoid the substance for three more weeks -- even as those symptoms creep back into his daily regime -- in the hope that his sacrifice eventually will lead the federal government to approve marijuana as a prescription medicine. [continues 990 words]
There's good news and bad news on the drug overdose front. The good news is that fewer people in Lane County died of drug overdoses - particularly heroin - in the first half of this year. But that's overshadowed by the bad news that more people are dying from overdoses of prescription medications. A 27-year-old Eugene heroin addict admitted himself to the Buckley House detox program when he relapsed for two weeks after being clean six months. In a midyear report released in late July by the county medical examiner's office, 24 people died from overdoses of heroin, methamphetamine or a combination of prescription drugs and alcohol, Lane County Medical Examiner Frank Ratti reported. [continues 716 words]
I commend Jim Dwyer for his well-reasoned commentary, "Amnesty? Let's help our own, also" [Bisbee Observer July 26, 2001.] He was right on target calling the American drug war a political one and "... a practice which should be condemned as a denial of the human rights of those who choose what we call drugs, while those who choose tobacco and alcohol, America's major killers, are considered merely exercising their right to slow suicide." I once tried to have a reasonable conversation with a member of the Bisbee Police Department about why marijuana, for example, was illegal. [continues 577 words]
Questions 'street Smart' Article Re HRMC Employees Get 'street Smart', July 11 I'm glad to see your police officers venture into the community to acquaint others with street slang surrounding drugs. I'm less happy, though, to see the police talking about "the impact drugs can have on the county" which is presumably a means for the police to persuade the audience that drug prohibition is a good idea. I would like to be a fly on the wall when an audience member asks a few probing questions about drug prohibition: [continues 198 words]
Prison officials say that nearly 10,000 inmates in New York and thousands more across the country are infected with hepatitis C, an insidious liver infection that is difficult to treat, has no definite cure and, over many years, kills 5 percent of those who contract it. Prison and public health officials are wrestling with how to respond to the surprisingly high rates of infection, trying to figure out how to contain its spread, and how and when to provide expensive treatment that in most cases does not work. Some states are treating hundreds of prisoners infected with hepatitis C, while others are treating none. [continues 1850 words]
It's a common weed killer and the world's best-selling pesticide. Sometimes referred to by its chemical name, glyphosate, it's better known commercially as Roundup. Odorless and apparently only slightly toxic, you can buy it for your back yard at any large supermarket. So why is its use kicking up such a stink in Colombia? Colombian police have been using it for more than a decade as the weapon of choice in the aerial spraying of coca plants and opium poppies used in the production of cocaine and heroin. [continues 842 words]