Drug Profits Threaten Stability Opium production in Afghanistan threatens to undermine gains made at the ballot box toward uniting the country under an elected government. Production increased in nearly every measure, according to the United Nations' 2004 Afghanistan Opium Survey. This year's opium harvest rose 17 percent to 4,200 metric tons in spite of international efforts to restrict production. Bad weather and disease prevented it from exceeding the record production of 4,600 metric tons in 1999, the year before the Taliban banned new cultivation. [continues 342 words]
QUITO, Ecuador - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday that Latin American counties must work together to counter drug trafficking and international terrorism. Rumsfeld, in South America for a conference of Western Hemisphere defense ministers, told reporters that he hopes to strengthen regional security agreements in the Americas aimed at stopping narcotics and terrorist organizations. The conference was to begin today. [end]
RUTLAND, VT - Vermont State Police and a number of other state agencies are helping to put together a program to train emergency workers about the dangers of methamphetamine. The drug is cheap, addictive and easy to make from legal ingredients. It also carries with it the dangers of lab explosions, poisonous gas or chemical contamination from the production process. That's why the liquor control commission, the health department and the police academy are working with state police to recognize the signs and dangers of methamphetamine labs. [continues 290 words]
With Montana's approval of a medical marijuana initiative, nearly three-fourths of Western states now have such laws -- while only two of the 37 states outside the West have adopted them. Why is the West so much more receptive to the idea? >From a procedural standpoint, it's just easier to get pot issues on Western ballots because most states in the region allow such initiatives. Nationwide, just 24 states allow citizens to put issues on the ballot by petition, bypassing the Legislature. Eleven of those states are in the West. [continues 492 words]
WASHINGTON - The commander of U.S. - led forces in Afghanistan said Tuesday he may need more troops in the months ahead if the army starts fighting a war on opium. Lt. Gen. David Barno told reporters at the Pentagon that the Defense Department is considering an expanded role in snuffing out Afghanistan's opium trade, which has blossomed since the fall of the Taliban regime. American troops would probably help with interdiction, while the British concentrates on eradicating poppy fields, he said. [continues 500 words]
SYRACUSE - Syracuse city lawmakers are examining local alternatives to the war on drugs, asking for advice from national experts to help develop a new drug policy. "It's become increasingly apparent to a lot of different people that the war on drugs is not working," said Stephanie Miner, chairwoman of the council's finance committee. "This is something that's going on across the country, and we want to learn how other communities are dealing with it, and if there's a way to spend money more efficiently," she said. [continues 169 words]
NEW YORK - A former narcotics detective who renovated his Long Island home with $45,000 in stolen drug money was sentenced to two years in prison Friday despite his lawyers pleas that he was drunk and distraught over his wife's ill health during the theft. Carlos Rodriguez was the first New York police officer sentenced in New York 's worst police corruption scandal in a decade. At least nine officers have been implicated in thefts of cocaine and drug money linked to their work on a northern Manhattan anti-narcotics initiative. [continues 140 words]
BUFFALO, N.Y. - A marijuana ring passed out business cards and fliers at schools and painted its distribution houses bright blue to signal customers, according to authorities who spent Thursday rounding up suspected members, including the alleged ringleader and a city police detective. More than 300 local and federal officers, including five SWAT teams, arrested roughly two dozen suspects and searched a dozen houses, confiscating six handguns and an undetermined amount of cash and drugs, said Peter Ahearn, special agent in charge of Buffalo's FBI office. [continues 259 words]
MORRISTOWN - Two women are in custody after being found in possession of Ecstasy and marijuana that authorities say is worth more than $2 million. Heather Clement-Shenandoah, 31, St. Paul, Minn., and Hai Thi Nguyen, 49, Vancouver, British Columbia, were arrested on federal charges of conspiracy to distribute drugs following a nightlong investigation that began when they stopped at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint at Routes 37 and 12 in the town of Morristown about 9 p.m. "They started with an illegal alien and then found all these drugs," St. Lawrence County Sheriff Gary J. Jarvis said. [continues 223 words]
Monnet Succeeds Smith In St. Lawrence County OGDENSBURG - Lee J. Monnet is getting main stream. Well, not quite. The man who ran for state Assembly two years ago as a Libertarian, and has shirked everything Republican or Democrat, now holds the power to give or deny St. Lawrence County candidates in those parties one thing they often want - the Independence Party line on the ballot. "It seems different now that I'm main stream," he said. "I don't want the party run over by Democrats or Republicans. I'd like to see independents get involved." [continues 423 words]
A portion of your Sept. 18 editorial "Good Decision" left me disgusted. You wrote "charges against (X) were dismissed. That is to bad". Too bad that half of the federal prison spaced is used to jail nonviolent drug offenders. Too bad that some states, like California, have more nonviolent drug offenders serving 25 years to life without parole than all their thieves, rapist and murderers combined. And, too bad, to those nonviolent drug offenders who have been raped in prison and infected with AIDS, in essence sentenced to death for using marijuana. [continues 195 words]
A judge dismissed a marijuana-growing case against Terrence M. Sutton in the interest of justice while blasting the U.S. Border Patrol and local police for a "warrantless" search that "traumatized" Mr. Sutton's wife and 8-year-old daughter. Jefferson county Court Judge Kim H. Martusewicz repeatedly referred to the "occupation" by federal agents and police of the Sutton modular home and property at Route 1 in the town of Alexandria. The judge ruled that the Aug. 28, 2003, raid violated the U.S. and state constitutions. [continues 1373 words]
Judge Affirms Constitutional Rights Police officers cannot just barge in to a residence without a warrant, terrorize a family and conduct a search The U.S. Constitution and the New York State Constitution protect against such warrantless raids. Yet that is what federal, state and local police officers did to a family in the town of Alexandria last August. Their actions drew a severe reprimand this week from Jefferson County Court Judge Kim H. Martusewicz, and rightly so. The judge dismissed a marijuana-growing case and chastised police for their tactics. [continues 398 words]
Researchers Study Neurons SAN JOSE, Calif. - Mother Nature created a way to ``tune in, turn on'' long before pot-smokers rolled their first joint, Stanford scientists have found. Eavesdropping on the conversations between brain cells, the research team found that neurons make their own marijuana-like chemicals called cannabinoids, which indirectly alter the way information is received and filtered. When the chemicals are released, ``neurons have a harder time deciding which are the relevant things to pay attention to,'' said investigator John R. Huguenard, associate professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. [continues 310 words]
Weldon H. Angelos, a 25-year-old producer of rap records, will be sentenced Tuesday in federal court in Salt Lake City for selling several hundred dollars in marijuana on each of three occasions, his first offences. He faces 63 years in prison. Laws that set mandatory minimums sentences require 55 of the 63 years because Angelos carried a gun while he sold the drugs. "It would appear effectively to be a life sentence," the judge, Paul G. Cassell of U. S. District Court there, wrote in a request to the prosecution and the defense for advice about whether he has any choice but to send the man to prison forever. [continues 153 words]
WASHINGTON - Fewer American youths are using marijuana thanks to anti-drug messages that highlighted its risk, according to a federal report released Thursday. However, the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health also showed that more Americans are abusing prescription drugs. Although the survey reflects many positive changes, it also shows "just how much work still remains to be done to stop drug use before it starts and to heal America's users," Charles G. Curie, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), said at a news conference. [continues 269 words]
Did I detect a little humor in the Aug. 5 article "Schumer Unveils Three-Part Plan For Nipping Meth Problem In The Bud"? Could it be a reporter from the Watertown Daily Times is starting to see the joke on the taxpayers the war on drugs has become. Senator Schumer said at Thursday's press conference "it took 15 years to get the crack problem in hand". He doesn't want the same thing with crystal meth. What has worked stopping the use of crack-cocaine? [continues 213 words]
U. S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer said Wednesday that for rural New York, it is 1984. The state's senior senator wasn't citing an Orwellian prophecy, but saying that in 2004, methamphetamines are to rural New York what crack cocaine was to New York City 20 years ago - a budding problem. "When I became a congressman, there was this new drug people talked about, and it was called crack," Mr. Schumer said in a morning press conference at the Metro-Jefferson Public Safety Building, Watertown. "No one paid attention at first, and it became a problem. It took us about 15 years to get the crack problem in hand. We don't want to do the same thing with crystal meth." [continues 882 words]
MONROE CITY, IN. - Communities searching for innovative ways to stop the production of methamphetamine have tried everything from distributing locks for fertilizer tanks to training road crew to identify meth labs. Steve Luce, a sheriff from Knox County with a Wild West streak, dons a cowboy hat and hops on a horse. Since March, The sheriff and his deputies have gone by horseback through forest and farms three or four times a month, looking for the labs in places were cars and all-terrain vehicles cannot go. [continues 395 words]
Hogansburg - The St Regis Mohawk Tribal Police and the Franklin County Task Force will receive $176,687 in recognition of their fight against the marijuana trade in 2003. Representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection will present checks to Tribal Police Chief Andrew J. Thomas and to Franklin County District Attorney Derek P. Champagne. The ceremony will occur Friday in the Franklin County Courthouse, Malone. The money comes from assets seized by federal agents from individuals allegedly growing marijuana. They were seized under federal forfeiture laws that allow sharing of narcotics-related proceeds with state and local agencies involved in the investigations. [continues 254 words]
