Looking For A Used Car? A 12-gallon Shop Vac? A Jack Daniel's Barrel Bar With Three Stools? Come On Down To The Burke County Fairgrounds On Saturday Morning And Place Your Bids. Everything Must Go. (Morganton) -- N.C. revenue officers hope the first drug tax seizure auction in Western North Carolina in 16 months will bring crowds of people looking for deals on everything from a six-person hot tub to Dale Earnhardt commemorative pocket knives. Seventy-five percent of the money raised goes back to the sheriff's office or police department that made each drug bust, said Ralph Johnson, the former Burke County sheriff who supervises the revenue department's unauthorized substances division in Western North Carolina. The revenue department gets the other 25 percent to run the division. [continues 341 words]
Basketball player Rickey Higgins' argument that he should be reinstated to his high school team because he's an alcoholic and protected under federal law will be no slam dunk in court, according to some legal experts. "I think it's definitely going to be a difficult case," said attorney Barry C. Taylor, legal advocacy director of Equip for Equality, a private, non-profit Chicago-based advocate for people with disabilities. Higgins, a 17-year-old senior at Warren Township High School in Gurnee, announced this week that he has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the school violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by removing from him from the team for two alcohol-related brushes with the law, knowing that he is an admitted alcoholic. [continues 627 words]
Attacking Opium And Coca Farms With Bioweapons Sounds Great. . . To Officials IMAGINE a mind-altering drug that is harvested from a plant grown in just a few small regions of the world. Efforts to curb demand are floundering and international trade has made the barons of the industry rich and powerful. Then, one day, crop dusters fly over the crops, scattering a fungus or bacterium which the plants can't resist. A new way of waging war on crack and heroin ? Well, it could be. Scientists working for the US government and the UN admit they are trying to develop biological agents to destroy coca bushes and opium poppies, and make no secret of their desire to use them in such places as Colombia or Afghanistan (see p 20). [continues 645 words]
Editor -- As the adoptive parents of two children prenatally exposed to drugs, we agree 100 percent that women of childbearing age who wish to have long term or permanent birth control options should be paid to do so (Chronicle, September 7). The alternative cost in time and finances for children with special needs is staggering and help is not available. We would love to make a monetary contribution to the "CRACK" organization, but we can't because our kids need speech, occupational, physical and behavior therapies, continual medical attention and costly special diets, none of which is paid for by insurance or government programs. [continues 149 words]
Editor -- Today's Chronicle (September 7) is carrying a news article, "One Approach to Crack Babies -- Women Paid Not to Have Children." In my view, this has the whiff of Nuremberg. It is a direct violation of the first statement in the Nuremberg Code of Medical Ethics that before any procedure, therapeutic or experimental, "informed, freely given consent" of the patient is a sine qua non of ethical medical practice. Any physician participating in the sterilization of patients is guilty of unethical conduct, since no addicted patient with the offer of $200 can give meaningful consent. No matter how laudable the goal, physicians should not engage in this type of activity. Dr. Michael J. Franzblau, San Francisco [continues 5 words]
LEGISLATURE:But lawmakers see slight chance that Davis will approve the independent research. Critics of the state's "three strikes, your out" law were pleased that the Senate voted Thursday for an independent study of the law but have little hope that Gov. Gray Davis will authorize the research. "I'm praying, but I'm a little bit afraid," said Fountain Valley insurance broker Sue Reams. Reams' son Shane is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence after two burglary convictions and a third strike for standing lookout while a friend sold a $25 rock of cocaine to an undercover cop. [continues 210 words]
HAMDEN -- A Florida man trying to sell date rape drugs at a local college campus was arrested after a shoplifting incident, police said Sunday. Police don't believe the suspect actually sold any of the drugs. Shawn Lee Brock, 19, is charged with possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, fourth-degree larceny and criminal impersonation. The arrest prompted police to issue a warning to the community and led to the first seizure in town of the drug, Rohypnol. [continues 208 words]
To The Editor: As a member of ReconsiDer: A Forum on Drug Policy, I would like to clear up a misconception some people have of us. We do not in any way advocate drug use. What we are is a group of concerned people who feel that our civil liberties are being compromised by the Government's zeal to wage this so called war on drugs and that it is time to reconsider a new approach to the drug problem before we become a police state. [continues 52 words]
To The Editor : I would like to answer Mr. Paul H. Mallette's question in the Ogdensburg Advance News dated Sun 29 Aug 1999. Question: " I'll close with this question to those who are concerned and to the members of ReconsiDer. In all of the years that alcohol has been legalized, what has the cost been to each and every American-man, woman, and child, financially, physically and emotional? My answer: " What would the costs of alcohol be if we had not repealled alcohol prohibition and, in addition to the problems we now have resulting from alcohol itself, we added liquor'cartels' and their corrupting influence on government,alcohol smuggling at the borders, shotings in our streets over markets for alcohol, millions more prison inmates for alcohol use,etc. I wonder if the country could have survived such a situation. remember, Alcohol prohibition was "the experiment that failed" , As a matter of fact , it failed so badly it was the only constitutional ammendment ever to be repealed ! " [continues 285 words]
Jim Heim's regurgitation of reefer madness myths and hysteria (Letters to the Editor5, Sept. 2), despite the many recent reports (Institute of Medicine, World Health Organization, etc) that have dispelled them, makes me wonder which planet he has been on for the past few years. The obvious answer to his question is, Yes, of course we should "disregard the studies that have shown that one joint is equivalent to a pack of cigarettes" when these studies have been thoroughly disproved. The world is slowly waking up, not only to the relatively benign nature of cannabis, but also to the fact that the war on drugs is an incredibly expensive failure. [continues 253 words]
SO WHEN will Canberra's authorities give up this ridiculous, naive, and depressingly seventies idea that you can address all social problems with town planning? ('Canberra drug bust . . .', CT, September 5, p.3) Dudes, kids don't start taking loads of heroin and committing property offences and violent crime because they have problems with urban design. The average criminal mind does not think to itself: ' Oh no, this public park area suffers from a lack of sensitive landscaping and fails to promote a sense of community ownership with the contours of its garden beds! How can I protest against all this alienating modernist architecture? Why, yes! Of course! I'll acquire a raging skag habit and then go and hold up a service station with a meat cleaver.' Has it occurred to anyone that maybe some education, employment or drug-rehabalitation programs would have more effect on this town's crime problems than any number of misguided landscaping initiatives? CATHY COOTE Campbell [end]
How many lives have been wasted not only by drugs but by laws that make users criminals? Texas Gov. George W. Bush presumably used illegal drugs sometime in his past. If he did, he and the nation are fortunate. He was not arrested. He was not sent to prison. He was not marked for life with a criminal record. He became an outstanding citizen, quite possibly the next president of the United States. How different things might have been if he had been caught and arrested. [continues 524 words]