A University of Western Australia researcher has called for the scrapping of a multimillion-dollar anti-methamphetamine campaign by the Federal Government, after finding that graphic advertisements actually made the illicit drug more appealing to teenagers. A study by clinical psychology researcher David Erceg-Hurn found that a similar American campaign warning of violent behaviour and self-harm associated with crystal methamphetamine had the opposite effect to what was intended, making the drug appear less risky to young people. The review, published in the international journal Prevention Science, found that after six months of exposure to an expensive anti-ice advertising campaign in the American state of Montana, three times as many teenagers believed using ice was not risky. [continues 97 words]
IN THE Godfather, Don Corleone wisely knew which offers he could refuse. When another family proposes cutting the Corleones in on its narcotic interests, he declines, saying with respect, "I have a lot of friends in politics. But they wouldn't be so friendly if they knew my business was drugs instead of gambling ... Drugs, that's a dirty business ... It doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, you understand, it's just that your business is a little dangerous." [continues 670 words]
A $440 Million Drug Bust - the World's Largest Ecstasy Haul - Has Put the Spotlight on the Mafia's Links to Australia. IT WAS a discreet meeting at Rome's Fiumicino Airport nearly three years ago. The senior Italian Mafia investigator spoke in hushed tones as he related an intriguing story. The Italian authorities, he told The Age, had begun investigating a Calabrian crime network spanning nine countries, including Australia. The investigator offered few details and said the operation was at an early stage. It would possibly be years before the group's activities were made public. [continues 1815 words]
WHILE the world awaits findings from new AIDS prevention trials, millions of people are becoming infected because governments are overlooking studies showing that behaviour modification works, AIDS experts have warned. Measures cited by the experts included promoting safer sex through delayed intercourse and the use of condoms, decreasing drug abuse, providing access to needle exchange programs and promoting male circumcision. But none of these alone offers a simple solution to preventing infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, the experts have said at the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. [continues 350 words]
Cannabis would be sold legally in post offices, in packets that warn against its effects, under a proposal outlined by the head of one of Sydney's major drug and alcohol clinics. The director of the alcohol and drug service at St Vincent's Hospital, Alex Wodak, said Australia needed to learn from the tobacco industry and the US prohibition in coming to terms with his belief that cannabis would replace cigarettes in consumption levels over the next decade. "The general principal is that it's not sustainable that we continue to give criminals and corrupt police a monopoly to sell a drug that is soon going to be consumed by more people than tobacco," he said. [continues 216 words]
Drug dealers looking for extra profits apparently added lead flakes to packets of marijuana, inflating their value while causing dozens of cases of serious poisoning, doctors in Germany reported today. The lead made up, on average, 10 per cent of the material in the marijuana packets, boosting profits by about $US1,500 ($A1,613) per kilogram, Franzika Busse of University Hospital Leipzig reported. "One package contained obvious lead particles; this strongly indicated that the lead was deliberately added to the package rather than inadvertently incorporated into the marijuana plants from contaminated soil," the researchers wrote in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine. [continues 171 words]
YOU will often hear people talk about an issue being a question of common sense. In the area of drug policy, many people in the community think that drug testing of school students is such an issue. Surely we should do all we can to stop young people using drugs and so testing them to make sure they don't is common sense? The truth is that some things are not as sensible as they may seem, and drug testing school students is one of those things. [continues 622 words]
FIRST glance, the idea of drug-testing our school students may not seem palatable. But when we look more closely at the position we are now in, Australians may need to rethink how we can prevent illicit drug use among our young. The fact is that rates of illicit drug use in Australia are higher than other countries in the developed world. For example, the US has lower per capita rates of amphetamine and cannabis use than we do. Its binge-drinking rates are also lower than those of Australian teenagers. Indeed, a recent international comparison of under-age alcohol use, conducted by Australian and US researchers and involving 6000 children, found levels of binge drinking are up to three times higher among Australian year 9 students compared with equivalent American teenagers. [continues 605 words]
MELBOURNE Grammar headmaster Paul Sheahan knows he's a fairly lonely voice in the debate over drug testing in schools. For the past 10 years, his elite private boys school has tested around 25 students suspected of illicit substance abuse - most of whom tested positive. Mr Sheahan knows it's not a popular measure, but he believes drug testing is for "the greater good". "The idea is one of salvation, rather than damnation," Mr Sheahan said. "We actually have the child's interest at heart. I know it might sound as though we're fairly brutal but we're not. We believe that kids lead much more productive lives without drugs, and if we can help them get on the straight and narrow, that's all for the good." [continues 458 words]
ILLICIT drug use by Australian schoolchildren is more common among those with the most pocket money, according to new research. But a year-long study into whether schools should test for drugs found that alcohol was a far more widespread problem among teenagers than illicit substances such as cannabis, ecstasy and methamphetamine. The finding comes on the eve of today's COAG summit, at which Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and state and territory leaders will discuss strategies to tackle teenage binge drinking. [continues 778 words]
The new Thai Government is to relaunch the country's "war on drugs" which killed more than 2500 people allegedly involved in the trade. During a three-month killing spree in 2003 thousands named on police "black lists" were shot dead, allegedly on government orders. Yet the government's narcotics control board concluded that more than half the victims had no involvement in drugs. One couple from north-eastern Thailand was shot dead after coming into unexplained wealth. They were, in fact, lottery winners. [continues 149 words]
A LEADING US doctors group has endorsed using marijuana for medical purposes, urging the US government to roll back a prohibition on using it to treat patients and supporting studies into its medical applications. The American College of Physicians, the second largest doctors group in the United States, issued a policy statement on medical marijuana this week after it was approved by its governing body. The group cited evidence that marijuana is valuable in treating severe weight loss associated with AIDS, and nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy in cancer patients. [continues 361 words]
PRISON authorities have expanded drug detection tests in Victorian jails after discovering an increasing number of inmates abusing a heroin addiction substitute. The addition of the drug buprenorphine to Corrections Victoria's drug-testing regime comes amid a separate review into the administration of drug users in prisons, and new statistics that reveal scores of prisoners remain drug-dependent while in Victorian prisons. Buprenorphine is a semi-synthetic opiate introduced in Victoria in the late 1990s as a treatment for heroin dependency in cases where methadone was deemed inappropriate. [continues 380 words]
INDONESIA'S Constitutional Court has dealt a severe blow to the Bali nine by endorsing the death penalty and the execution of drug offenders. In a split decision, the court upheld the validity of capital punishment, rejecting pleas that it breached Indonesia's constitution and international obligations. Three of the nine-judge bench opposed the verdict. The decision leaves the six Australians who face firing squads dependent on a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court, which has already upheld or imposed their death penalties. [continues 544 words]
NOT long ago it seemed that Victoria had largely been weaned off heroin. Sure, it was still on the street, as it probably always will be, but heroin deaths had dropped to record lows and authorities were confident the scourge was in retreat. This newspaper reported that success. Other illicit, killer drugs, such as "ice", became the focus of police, political and media attention; winning the war against heroin was an old story. Tragically, smack is coming back and drug experts such as Nick Crofts, from the Turning Point centre in Fitzroy, say we need to do some serious thinking about our treatment service. It is, he says, inadequate and struggling to cope with existing demand, let alone with what is yet to come. Says Dr Crofts: "We are working in a policy environment where the previous premier (Steve Bracks) said very clearly heroin is gone and the only problem we have now is amphetamines. Which is utterly wrong. State Government support for both medical treatment for people with addictions and the pharmaco-therapy program is pathetic." [continues 350 words]
In Britain, there is a proposal to assess drugs based on the risk they pose, writes Catherine Deveny. I HAVEN'T taken a lot of drugs in my time, but, like most people my age (I'm 39), I tried almost all of them when I was in my 20s. I've taken less than most of my mates because drugs didn't do that much for me. And because I'm a tight-arse. These days I'm fairly dull. I don't need to drink to have a good time, I just need to be in bed by 9.30 with a copy of The Monthly. [continues 744 words]
A pro-cannabis lobby group says an ingredient in cannabis may prevent mad cow disease. The National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) says a French study shows cannabidiol may be effective in preventing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease. Scientists at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France found cannabidiol - a non-psychoactive ingredient - may prevent the development of prion diseases, the most well known of which is BSE. Researchers found cannabidiol inhibited the accumulation of prion proteins in infected mice and sheep. [continues 56 words]
Victoria's powerful police union has relaxed its tough stand against random drug testing of officers, paving the way for its future introduction. Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said a welfare-based drug testing program to be introduced by the end of the year could lead to random drug testing. Mr Mullett had said random drug testing was too heavy-handed -- "a sledgehammer to crack a nut" -- but told The Sunday Age that he was keeping an open mind on the issue. [continues 252 words]
Will Indonesia Legalise Cannabis? A study by Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency has sparked a squabble in the world's largest Muslim nation, after it suggested the drug might be useful in the alternative fuel or agriculture industries, and the government should consider legalising its use. Indonesia's vice president Jusuf Kalla has also suggested it is acceptable to use cannabis for cooking. "To add up in a curry or soup recipes, that's common," Kalla said last week. "Not to get high, but merely for food seasonings. [continues 365 words]
New Zealand's government has decided to outlaw party pills containing amphetamine-like drugs that have been on sale in the country. The pills, containing benzylpiperazine (BZP) or triflouro-methyl-phenylpiperazine (TFMPP), have long been legal in New Zealand but in 2005 the government added restrictions to make them only available to people aged over 18. The sale of the pills was reportedly allowed to counter the growing number of people taking illegal amphetamines and an associated rise in violence. But New Zealand Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton on Thursday said a cabinet meeting had backed his recommendation to ban the pills. [continues 289 words]
- --- THE once-predicted global epidemic of drug abuse is being brought under control, even though opium production is up in Afghanistan, cocaine consumption is rising in Europe and trafficking is growing in Africa, the United Nations has found. "Recent data show that the runaway train of drug addiction has slowed down," the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said after the agency's annual drug report was released on Monday. "For almost all drugs -- cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines - -- there are signs of overall stability, whether we speak of production, trafficking or consumption. [continues 60 words]
THE annual St Patrick's Day bash at Equity Chambers is the Victorian Bar's party of the year. Hundreds of lawyers cram the unair-conditioned third floor corridor of Bourke Street's historic Equity Trustees Building to drink, flirt -- and regale each other with courtroom war stories. "It's a major-league piss-up -- people vomiting in people's rooms," said one regular. "It's close, cramped and hot -- and everyone is absolutely blind by the end of the night," said a former attendee. "If you don't drink, it's fascinating for about 10 minutes. If you do, you could stay eight hours. Basically it's a whole lot of barristers and judges talking about their work." [continues 802 words]
STATE cannabis laws must be strengthened and a heroin injecting room in Sydney's Kings Cross closed down, the federal minister responsible for illicit drugs has warned, ahead of a meeting on drug policy with the states today. Christopher Pyne has lashed out at his state counterparts for being weak when it comes to preventing illicit drug use and accused them of undermining Canberra's "Tough on Drugs" stance -- foreshadowing a fight at today's Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy. Despite growing evidence of the contribution cannabis makes to mental health problems, "the state governments still have a soft approach to cannabis use", Mr Pyne said. [continues 187 words]
A NEW hummingbird species discovered in a cloud forest in Colombia already needs protection from humans, according to the experts who found the bird. Called the gorgeted puffleg, the new species, with a blue and green throat, measures between 90 and 100 millimetres. The male was an iridescent green and electric blue patch on its throat - -- the gorge -- and from tufts of white feathers at the top of the legs. Ornithologists Alexander CortDes-Diago and Luis Alfonso Ortega first saw the bird in 2005 during surveys of mountain cloud forest in the Serrania del Pinche, in south-west Colombia. [continues 139 words]
MORE than 1.8 tonnes of ecstasy and amphetamine-type stimulants -- including the deadly drug ice -- were seized by Australian authorities last financial year, a 10-fold increase on the figure of a decade ago. In 1996-97, customs and Australian police forces seized 169 kilograms of amphetamine (speed), crystal methylamphetamine (ice) and MDMA (ecstasy). But an Australian Crime Commission report, to be released this morning by Justice and Customs Minister David Johnston, shows that 1384 kilograms of amphetamine-type stimulants, and 435 kilograms of ecstasy, were discovered by authorities last financial year. [continues 373 words]
Police, parents and teachers will work hand in hand to combat the ice epidemic under a $150 million boost to the federal government's tough on drugs strategy. Prime Minister John Howard believes his government's zero tolerance approach to drugs is working but the growing methamphetamine problem, particularly ice, means more effort is necessary. The four-year package includes a major boost to the government's law enforcement efforts, further support for non-government rehabilitation services and money for drug education. [continues 515 words]
More than 100 people were arrested during the annual Mardi Grass weekend festival at Australia's cannabis capital, Nimbin, NSW police said. The northern NSW town's 34th Mardi Grass attracted up to 7,000 people for a three-day weekend event but brought with it a raft of arrests for possession of cannabis-laced goods and offensive behaviour. Two police officers were injured while chasing an offender on foot, requiring surgery for one of the officers. A roadside police operation and foot patrols resulted in 109 people being arrested, with 50 charged with various offences and 62 cautioned for cannabis possession. [continues 216 words]
CYBERSPACE can be as daunting as the universe or as restrictive as a schoolyard. The problems arise when the smaller is allowed to invade the larger. This happened last week when footage of aggressive bullying at Xavier College, filmed late last year on a student's mobile phone and distributed to others, made it into the wider domain. It has since been seen on television and the internet. Xavier has suspended five students, and the bullying allegations are being investigated by the police. [continues 214 words]
The Government is right to send extra troops to Afghanistan, which needs all the help it can get. WITHIN days, 300 elite Special Forces troops will go to Oruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan. Later this year, 75 RAAF personnel will be sent to Kandahar to help with air-traffic control, followed by a helicopter contingent next year. The dispatch of extra troops to this long-troubled country, announced on Tuesday by Prime Minister John Howard, will double Australia's deployment to about 1000. Presciently but wisely, Mr Howard has warned of the dangers faced by the troops, who will be under Australian command as part of the International Security Assistance Force. "There is the distinct possibility of casualties, and that should be understood and prepared for by the Australian public," Mr Howard said. [continues 573 words]
A NSW anti-cannabis campaign will target teenagers as they travel to school and surf the internet. NSW Health launched the $600,000 campaign, which it says is designed to warn the 14 to 19-year-old age group on the dangers of starting the marijuana habit. Print advertisements, carrying tag lines such as "Pot. It mightn't kill you, but it could turn you into a dickhead", will appear in youth magazines and on bus stop posters. The ads feature a person staring accusingly from a black and white photo and quotes such as: "You've got great eyes, when they're not bloodshot" and "I'd lend you money, but you still owe me from last time". [continues 206 words]
My favourite character as a kid growing up was Superman. I thought he was so cool. He could fly, had X-ray vision and a laser beam. You know the spiel. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound. He didn't even bleed. He was invincible. Only kryptonite could stop him. We all know in day-to-day life Superman was mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent. His days were spent bumbling along, making mistakes, trying to live a normal life. [continues 871 words]
ONE of Australian football's biggest stars is being investigated by drug squad police as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into a so-called "rat-pack" of sport, media and entertainment cocaine users. And he is not an Eagle. The former star of a Melbourne-based club has maintained a high profile in the media since his retirement from the game he played with distinction. Persistent rumours of his links with a drug dealer have prompted detectives to monitor his activities in recent months. [continues 591 words]
AS EACH day brings us closer to the start of another glorious AFL season, so it is that every 24 hours comes another chapter in an ugly drama which makes us wonder whether football will truly witness a fresh and innocent new dawn ever again. Frankly it came as no surprise to learn that Daniel Kerr was dealing with convicted criminals. But to hear those taped conversations on the ABC, the lifestyle it reflected and the names Kerr mentioned was chilling. [continues 865 words]
Drugs policy arouses strong emotions. People see drug users and fear the unknown. The traditional response from politicians, particularly conservatives, has been to exploit these fears for political gain. The outcome has been an over-reliance on law enforcement as a means of stamping out both the supply and use of harmful drugs. In 2003, the House of Representatives standing committee on family and community affairs inquired into drug abuse and produced a report that was in keeping with the history of drug policy. It called for the abandonment of harm minimisation as the principal objective of the National Drug Strategy. The committee wanted prevention and abstinence-based treatment to be the focus of government policy. [continues 488 words]
OVERDOSING on prescription or over-the-counter drugs is twice as common as overdosing on illicit drugs, new Melbourne ambulance figures show. With heroin abuse declining dramatically after a glut at the turn of the century, the city's paramedics have attended a far greater proportion of legal-drug overdoses -- 6150 in the 12 months to February last year. Over the same period, data from the Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre show there were 3011 ambulance calls for illicit drug overdoses, comprising 1369 for heroin and 1642 for all others, including ice and ecstasy. [continues 371 words]
TODAY Sunday Age reporter Reid Sexton and photographers Meredith O'Shea and Justin McManus have produced an in-depth look at Melbourne's underworld drug scene. They were sent out to document the truth behind Melbourne's so-called "ice storm". What they found was tragic, heart-wrenching, grubby and dangerous. It is rare that police, experts and junkies agree, but they agree on this one thing: there is little or no ice on Melbourne's streets. Maybe what the "top end of town" is consuming as ice is the real thing - -- 80 per cent pure methamphetamine in crystalline form -- but everyone else, police say, is getting low-grade meth, often lower than 15 per cent pure. [continues 403 words]
DRUG addict Vassil Papageorgiou jabs the syringe into his right thigh as he sits in his Y-fronts on the toilet in his small East Melbourne flat. A globule of blood emerges where the needle breaks the skin and Papageorgiou's eyes roll back in his head as the drug and other gunk courses through his veins. He slumps as the pain that has been racking his body dissipates. The pain was really only in his head, he knows. And what gives Papageorgiou momentary relief is also what might end up killing him. He knows that, too. [continues 1743 words]
Streetwise cabbies in northern Mexico are cashing in on the chaos of a violent drug war by whisking wide-eyed visitors about town in macabre tours of seized narco properties and famous murder scenes, Mexico City's Reforma newspaper reported on Sunday. Taxi drivers in the Pacific coast city of Mazatlan satisfy tourists' ghoulish fascination with a battle between cartels that killed 2,000 people last year, for about 200 pesos ($18) a trip, the newspaper said. Located in the state of Sinaloa, one of the worst hit by recent violence in the war between an alliance of local traffickers and the powerful Gulf Cartel, Mazatlan has its fair share of historic drug violence "must-sees." [continues 189 words]
STATE health authorities are concerned that a prescription drug used to relieve severe pain is being obtained fraudulently and misused. The drug, OxyContin, is an opioid prescribed for people with conditions such as cancer and severe joint pain. For years its misuse has been a problem in the United States, where it has been dubbed "hillbilly heroin". The Department of Human Services has issued two alerts to doctors in recent months, urging caution when supplying prescriptions for OxyContin. An alert issued late last year said that in some cases drug-dependent people feigned pain and presented forged hospital discharge letters citing a diagnosis of cancer or another painful condition. It said some drug-seekers may ask doctors to prescribe high-dose forms, which could be sold for $1 a milligram. [continues 306 words]
VICTORIA is seeing the long-term mental health effects of an "ice" epidemic that started several years ago. Aggression, anxiety, psychotic episodes and brain injury are increasingly evident among longer-term users of crystallised methamphetamine, or ice, according to clinicians. As the Bracks Government this week announced a crackdown on the drug - -- diverting $14 million from the fight against heroin to counter the ice plague -- a former Victoria Police drug investigator told The Age that warnings about ice had been sounded for years [continues 723 words]
CUTTING spending on heroin programs to tackle the growing popularity of the amphetamine ice is "robbing Peter to pay Paul", a leading drug prevention group has warned. The Australian Drug Foundation said the $14 million ice prevention and treatment program should come from new State Government spending because reallocating heroin funding was a gamble with "unwelcome consequences". Foundation chief executive Bill Stronach commended the initiative on ice but said that while heroin deaths had decreased in recent years, the gains might not be maintained. [continues 189 words]
A drugs expert has labelled the Bracks Government's plan to tackle ice and amphetamine use among Victorians as a knee-jerk reaction to the media's treatment of the subject. Bill Stronach, chief executive of the Australian Drug Foundation, said he was disappointed about revelations that the Premier, Steve Bracks, plans to divert $14 million from current heroin programs to bolster efforts to tackle growing amphetamine use. Mr Bracks and new Mental Health Minister, Lisa Neville, will this morning launch a new offensive against amphetamines, including police programs to target ice dealers, funding for aggressive treatment programs and a study on the impact of parents' amphetamine use on children. [continues 400 words]
PAULA is 32, a real estate agent and a regular user of ice. She and her friends snort or smoke it on weekends -- usually Friday night, which can bleed into Saturday night and Sunday morning. "It's like ecstasy because I get a sore jaw from grinding (my teeth), but it makes me feel like I have so much energy. It makes things easy. I'm confident, I can talk to anyone, it makes things fun for me," she says. Paula was a regular user of ecstasy and speed when a friend introduced her to ice a year ago. Since then, the other drugs have fallen by the wayside with the exception of marijuana, which she smokes to come down from ice's long-lasting, frenetic high. [continues 165 words]
A CONTROVERSIAL treatment to help drug addicts kick heroin could put them at risk of fatal overdoses, research has revealed. When implanted in the body, naltrexone -- a drug that sends addicts into immediate withdrawal -- was thought to prevent heroin overdoses by blocking the effects of opiates. But doctors from the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of NSW found five drug-related deaths among people using the implants in coronial records. Four men and a women, with an average age of 26, died between 2002 and 2004. Two of them were from Victoria. [continues 220 words]
Almost one in 10 Australians has tried methamphetamines at least once, according to a scorching report to the Federal Government that recommends a host of policies to combat the scourge. In what could be seen as confirmation of fears that Australia faces a methamphetamines crisis, a report by the Australian National Council on Drugs, advisers to the Government on illicit drugs, says there has been a "significant upsurge" in problems related to use of methamphetamine drugs since the late 1990s. It singles out crystal methamphetamine, or "ice", as a particular worry. [continues 394 words]
GETTING released from US prisons could be even more dangerous than being in them. Death and prison records from Washington state show that 30,237 convicts released from 1999 to 2003 were 12 times more likely to die from a drug overdose and 10 times more likely to be murdered in a two-year period than the general population. "We know this is a population that has a higher rate of smoking, higher rate of mental health problems, higher rate of chemical dependency, and more risk-taking behaviour," said Ingrid Binswanger of the University of Colorado. [continues 151 words]
For Shane Warne, it was a couple of Red Bull drinks that gave him a buzz and the little lift he needed to work some magic with a cricket bat. Nobody commented on the dangers of a role model loading up on caffeine and heading out into the sun -- or the fact that the spin king had three years ago been suspended from play because of imbibing a banned substance. Instead, at the Sydney Test match last week, there was a larrikin tone to the reporting of Warney and his little liquid helpers in a can. [continues 615 words]
MINIMUM sentences for drug traffickers and a specialist unit to treat "ice" addicts are the cornerstones of the Liberals' policy to crack down on drugs. A 200-bed drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre for prisoners would also be set up. Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said a Liberal government would take a tough line on drugs and seek to change the culture surrounding "recreational drugs", which he described as the scourge of our society. "The message to the community is: we are not going to tolerate it any more. Drugs are dangerous, dabbling in drugs is dangerous, and young people need to get the message," he said. "We are not going to cope if we continue to simply put around the message that it's OK to dabble or it's OK to use recreational drugs -- there is no such thing." [continues 176 words]
CHRIS Towie has worked as a GP for 20 years, but says he is now considering retiring early from his Broadmeadows practice. The strain of dealing with crystal meth addicts is too great, says Towie, 50. "It's escalated enormously in the last 12 months. You would rarely see a violent patient that is in a rage two years ago, now it's common -- I would say I'm seeing about two a week. I've twice been assaulted by heroin addicts in 20 years," he says. [continues 1692 words]
TWO officers were equipped with their guns, handcuffs and capsicum spray when they stole cannabis crops with a street value of $75,000, a court heard yesterday. One of the officers, a constable, then blackmailed the owner of the crops to pay him or face criminal charges, the County Court was told. Prosecutor Michael Hennessy said the constable received $8000 from the owner of the crops in February. The allegations were heard yesterday at the plea hearing for a police informer who had told the constable about the location of the crops. [continues 327 words]
