A new tool in the war against drugs may turn out to be one of the most effective because it saves lives in the nick of time. It's called naloxone hydrochloride - commonly referred to by the brand name Narcan - a life-saving medication that can stop or reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. No longer is it just illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine that are being abused, but also opioids that include prescription medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine. JOHN BERRY - REGISTER CITIZEN FILE PHOTO Naloxone hydrochloride, known by the name-brand Narcan, in a medical kit on a Campion Ambulance in Torrington. [continues 444 words]
A new tool in the war against drugs may turn out to be one of the most effective because it saves lives in the nick of time. It's called naloxone hydrochloride - commonly referred to by the brand name Narcan - a life-saving medication that can stop or reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. No longer is it just illegal drugs such as heroin and cocaine that are being abused, but also opioids that include prescription medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine. [continues 444 words]
Culture Change Seen As Authorities Target Big Hauls, Weapons NEW HAVEN - A West Haven man charged with conspiring in a marijuana trafficking scheme in New Haven will stand trial in federal court in December. Jesse Wrubel was charged by a federal grand jury in February 2014 for being involved in a marijuana trafficking scheme involving 60 pounds of marijuana and three stolen firearms. His co-defendant, Matthew Voloshin, has elected to plead guilty and awaits sentencing. The two have been detained since Feb. 7, 2014. [continues 935 words]
Concerns voiced by the first selectman, the police chief, the town social services director, and a state representative persuaded the Planning and Zoning Commission it might not be time for medical marijuana facilities in Ridgefield. "From a law-enforcement perspective, do I want to see more and more people coming in, potentially driving under the influence?" police Chief John Roche said. "No, I don't." The commission voted 6-to-2 Tuesday night, Oct. 27, to have Town Planner Betty Brosius put together a regulation prohibiting medical marijuana facilities in Ridgefield. [continues 1092 words]
Half a year ago, Colorado and Washington voters approved ballot measures to make marijuana legal in their states. But ending the pot prohibition can't happen overnight, even after electoral wins like that. Just ask Gil Kerlikowske, the nation's "drug czar." "Neither a state nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress," Kerlikowske declared in a mid-April appearance at the National Press Club. That makes it sound pretty improbable that Colorado and Washington voters will see the change they supported at the ballot box anytime soon, doesn't it? [continues 494 words]
'Inconsistencies' Cited in Handling by Nl Police New London - Defense attorneys representing dozens of clients charged with drug crimes by New London police have been receiving letters from State's Attorney Michael L. Regan indicating that the evidence seized in their clients' cases may have been compromised. Regan said Tuesday that an audit of the police department property room by the state police Central District Major Crime Squad and New London police is continuing. To date, the audit has revealed "several inconsistencies," according to police. [continues 697 words]
This is in response to the editorial "Malloy didn't call anyone racist but drug enforcement is" (May 18). Regarding the comments made by Gov. Dannel Malloy that upset Republican legislators: The drug war has been waged in a racist manner since its inception. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was preceded by a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Opium was identified with Chinese laborers, marijuana with Mexicans, and cocaine with African-Americans. Racial profiling continues to be the norm, despite similar rates of drug use for minorities and whites. Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities. [continues 117 words]
Republican state legislators want an apology from Governor Malloy for what they construe as his accusation that they are racist for opposing repeal of the law establishing 1,500-foot "drug-free" zones around schools, whereby mere possession of drugs is made a felony nearly everywhere in cities, where most blacks and Hispanics live, but not so much in suburbs and rural towns, where most whites live. While the governor, a Democrat, was not obliged to apologize for what he didn't quite say, he might have remembered that soft words turn away wrath and expressed regret for misunderstanding. That would have facilitated repeal of the questionable drug law instead of engendering resentment of repeal. [continues 537 words]
Yale Professor: Safety, THC Content, Expanding Use at Issue MIDDLETOWN - Since the federal government historically has obstructed scientific research of marijuana, there's an absence of highquality evidence, just as many states, including Connecticut, already have rolled out the red carpet to the fast-growing medical marijuana industry. It's a Catch 22, according to Dr. Deepak C. D'Souza, a Yale professor-psychiatrist and member of the Medical Marijuana Board of Physicians. "In the absence of gold-standard evidence, what is the bar for legalization?" D'Souza asked Tuesday at the Middlesex County Substance Abuse Action Council's spring forum. [continues 530 words]
Connecticut Republican state legislators are angry again at Gov. Dannel Malloy. Last week the governor noted the racially disproportionate effect of the state's drug laws, which impose more severe penalties in the cities where most members of racial minorities live than in the suburbs and rural towns where most white people live. The law, the governor said, "is patently unfair and, if not racist in intent, is racist in its outcome." The governor has proposed to repeal the law that makes mere drug possession in cities a more serious crime than drug possession elsewhere. He does not propose to change the law about selling drugs. [continues 393 words]
Several years ago at a public forum, I found myself sitting in front of Mayor John Daniels. I took the opportunity to ask him what he thought was the greatest legacy of his administration. He responded that community policing would have been his greatest legacy but that the city had all but abandoned it. Fortunately this approach to law enforcement has since been restored. Mayor Daniels said that the city's needle-exchange program had been his greatest single gift to the city. This program, which he had first opposed and ultimately embraced, was shown by a landmark Yale Public Health study to have reduced new AIDS infections in New Haven (80 percent of which were transmitted by hypodermic needles) by a third. The level of trust created by not being subject to arrest by participating also provided an opportunity for health professionals to refer addicts to drug rehabilitation programs that they might otherwise not have known about or been open to considering. [continues 97 words]
Give thanks for the little things, they say. A bill that would stop the feds from going after medical marijuana users in states that permit such activity is something for which we should give thanks. But it is little. Let's not criticize the sponsoring senators - Rand Paul, R-Ky., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. - for such a small reprieve from the war on drugs. They've probably gone about as far as they could within the two-faced confines of our national politics. [continues 537 words]
Another reason to re-legalize cannabis (marijuana) for sick citizens and their families that doesn't get mentioned (Letter: Medical marijuana can improve quality of life for hundreds of children, March 2, 2015) is because it is biblically correct since God (The Ecologician) created all the seed bearing plants saying they're all good on literally the very first page of the Bible. Further, many people know of cannabis as the tree of life and the very last page of the Bible indicates the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. Christ Jesus risked jail in order to heal the sick. A sane or moral argument to cage sick people who use cannabis doesn't exist. Stan White Dillon, Colorado [end]
John S. Santa has been successful in the fuel oil and energy business, but his real passion is trying to reduce the population of nonviolent offenders in the state's correctional system and to help those who are released into a society that turns its back on ex-offenders. Santa and the Rev. Marilyn B. Kendrix, associate pastor of Church of the Redeemer, United Church of Christ, met with the New Haven Register's editorial board Tuesday as members of the Malta Justice Initiative, which is, among other things, supporting Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's "Second Chance Society" proposals to reduce the human and financial costs of the state's criminal justice system. [continues 808 words]
I am fully supportive of the proposed House Bill 5892. I think it is important that Connecticut legislators be aware of the positive changes that could potentially take place for many families, should this bill be passed. Unfortunately, I know of many ill children who could benefit from the use of medical marijuana if it were legal. It is extremely disheartening that many families have to be displaced and act as "refugees" in order to properly care for their ill loved ones. The use of medical marijuana has been extremely effective for many children just like Cyndimae Meehan, in ways that traditional anti-epileptic drugs have not. [continues 94 words]
Amid all the uncertainties surrounding the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia, a few things are clear. Among them is that Congress has better things to do than meddle in the purely local affairs of the District. That District officials and employees have been threatened with jail, by no less than the chairman of a powerful congressional committee, for their good-faith efforts to follow a voter mandate, is utterly inexcusable. Such a spectacle - and the fact that the District is under congressional attack for undertaking virtually the same steps as its counterparts in Colorado, Washington and, most recently, Alaska - should bring home to the rest of the country the need to redress the historic injustice of the city's limited political powers. [continues 261 words]
Child Lives in Maine With Mom Because She's Too Young to Use Drug Legally in Connecticut to Treat Her Epileptic Seizures At the family's request, Rep. Kevin Ryan, D-Montville, introduced a bill in the current session to lift the age restriction on medical marijuana. It is pending in the Public Health Committee. In the year and a half since she's been taking marijuana oil, Cyndimae Meehan has gone from having hundreds of epileptic seizures a day to just one or two. [continues 1154 words]
When Connecticut passed its medical marijuana program in 2012, Meehan said she was "ecstatic" until she saw the 18-year-old age limitation, which left her "devastated ... crushed." Cyndimae Meehan, 12 years old, was suffering as many as 2,000 seizures a day from a severe form of epilepsy known as Dravet's syndrome. The condition, which she developed at 10 months old (one day after she had been vaccinated, though the connection is unknown) jerks her body violently, over and over. The only thing that has helped has been marijuana, which she consumes in oil form. [continues 1033 words]
Marijuana is now legal in several states out west, and the world has yet to end. That's part of why two Connecticut lawmakers, Reps. Edwin Vargas, D-Hartford, and Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, want to bring legalization east. Is that a good idea? What will happen if we fully legalize marijuana? Conventional wisdom on that breaks down into two camps: One side says that crime will go up, use will go up, and that all of this will pose a serious public health risk. The other says that legalization will save the government money, help keep people out of jail, and otherwise not make life too different. [continues 684 words]
Marijuana is now legal in several states out west, and the world has yet to end. Legalization brings revenue. Marijuana is now legal in several states out west, and the world has yet to end. That's part of why two Connecticut lawmakers, Reps. Edwin Vargas, D-Hartford, and Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, want to bring legalization east. Is that a good idea? What will happen if we fully legalize marijuana? Conventional wisdom on that breaks down into two camps: One side says that crime will go up, use will go up, and that all of this will pose a serious public health risk. The other says that legalization will save the government money, help keep people out of jail, and otherwise not make life too different. [continues 684 words]
Inside Connecticut
