MADRID, Spain - Police seized about 10 tons of cocaine on a fishing boat off the Cape Verde Islands and arrested 13 people, authorities said Friday. Spanish Civil Guards boarded the Belize-flagged boat about 1,000 miles from the island chain off the coast of West Africa, police said. The cocaine was found wrapped in 215 parcels, each weighing about 55 pounds. The crew of the "Lugo," all Colombians, were arrested. Six other people - five Spanish men and a Dominican woman - also were arrested in connection with the seizure in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia, according to the police statement. [end]
SHANGHAI (AP)--China has more than 1 million drug addicts, most of them under age 35 - a crisis that is costing the country billions of dollars a year, contributing to the spread of AIDS and hurting social stability, state media reported Friday. Top law-enforcement officials meeting in Beijing reported that almost three-quarters of China's 1.05 million registered drug addicts at the end of 2003 were under age 35. Many were unemployed, migrant workers or farmers, the official Xinhua News Agency and state-run newspapers reported. [continues 200 words]
ALEXANDER CITY, Ala. (AP) -- A marijuana legalization activist who had argued that she was searched illegally has been convicted of possession of less than a gram of the drug and some paraphernalia. Loretta Nall, who founded the U.S. Marijuana Party in 2002, was given a 30-day suspended sentence for the misdemeanors and was ordered to pay several hundred dollars in fines. She immediately filed a notice to appeal. Nall and her attorney argued that the Tallapoosa County Narcotics Task Force illegally obtained the search warrant that resulted in her arrest. [continues 194 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Rejecting one front of the government's drug war, a federal appeals court ruled Friday the United States cannot ban the sale of food made with natural hemp that contains only trace amounts of the psychoactive chemical in marijuana. The decision overturns the Drug Enforcement Administration's ban on the domestic sale of hemp food products. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put the DEA's move on hold last March so it could hear a challenge from the hemp industry. [continues 296 words]
SINGAPORE (AP)--Singapore on Friday slammed a recent Amnesty International report on the city-state's use of the death penalty and said it makes no apology for its uncompromising laws against drug offenders. A statement from the Central Narcotics Bureau said the Amnesty report - released earlier this month - was riddled with "misrepresentations and distortions." "The death penalty has deterred major drug syndicates from establishing themselves in Singapore," a statement from Central Narcotics Bureau said. "The Singapore government makes no apology for its tough law and order system." [continues 213 words]
NEW YORK - The federal government is planning to overhaul its employee drug testing program to include scrutiny of workers' hair, saliva and sweat, a shift that could spur more businesses to revise screening for millions of their own workers. The planned changes, long awaited by the testing industry, reflect government efforts to be more precise in its drug screening and to outmaneuver a small but growing subset of workers who try to cheat on urine-based tests. Some businesses have already adopted alternative testing, despite criticism by privacy advocates. But others have held back, partly awaiting government standards. [continues 816 words]
MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (AP) - A high school principal announced his resignation Monday after coming under fire over a November drug sweep in which police with guns drawn ordered students to the floor. "I realized it is in the best interest of Stratford High School and of my students for me to make a change," George McCrackin said in a statement. School officials asked Goose Creek police to come into the school Nov. 5 after receiving reports of marijuana sales on campus. Police said dogs sniffed drug residue on 12 book bags but found no drugs. No one was arrested. [continues 56 words]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Residents who openly bought and sold hashish at a famous hippie enclave in Copenhagen abruptly demolished their booths on Sunday, trying to head off a government crackdown on illegal drug sales. Drugs are illegal in Denmark but sales of hashish in the enclave, called Christiania, are tolerated. Residents banned the sale of harder drugs in 1980. Many of Christiania's residents believe the drug crackdown will lead to the eviction of some 1,000 residents and the realization of government plans to redevelop the 84-acre area for upscale housing. Residents said they were trying to pre-empt any government action by dismantling Pusher Street, as the hashish-selling area is known. [continues 272 words]
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. -- A Hayden man whose supply of medical marijuana was seized in an October raid by a local-federal drug task force has asked a judge to find the officers in contempt for failing to return the drug. Don Nord, 57, who is registered with the state medical marijuana program, had obtained an order from a Routt County judge earlier this month calling for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to return 2 ounces of marijuana to him. After the agency missed the deadline Monday, Nord and his attorney Kristopher Hammond filed a request with Routt County Judge James Garrecht seeking contempt-of-court citations against the officers. [continues 150 words]
MILWAUKEE - State Rep. Gregg Underheim's fight against prostate cancer got him thinking about whether those suffering from cancer should be allowed to use marijuana to cope with the pain. The Oshkosh Republican has decided to go against his party's leadership and introduce a bill that would let doctors prescribe marijuana for medical reasons. The decision represents a major shift in philosophy for a legislator who was quoted in High Times magazine in the late 1990s opposing the legalization of marijuana. [continues 242 words]
TORONTO -- Canada's top court ruled Tuesday to keep marijuana possession illegal, dealing a blow to activists who had argued the drug causes no serious harm. In a 6-3 decision spanning 400 pages, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that trafficking and possession, even in small amounts, would remain a criminal offense. The judgment prompted praise from law enforcement groups and disappointment from proponents of legalization. "My huge patriotism may slowly be dissipating. I have a lot of faith in my country, in freedom and justice, but it doesn't seem like we have a whole lot of that left," said Dominic Kramer, a marijuana activist who runs a store that sells hemp products and paraphernalia in Toronto. [continues 337 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The son of former vice president and 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore has been charged with marijuana possession. Albert A. Gore III, 21, was arrested Friday night after he was stopped for driving a vehicle without its headlights on. Two passengers were also arrested and charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession. They were identified as Yann V. Kumin, 21, and Marc G. Hordon, 22, both of Cambridge, Mass. A Montgomery County, Md., police officer stopped the car, a dark-colored Cadillac, in Bethesda, a Washington suburb, around 11:30 p.m. Friday. [continues 163 words]
OTTAWA (AP) Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said Thursday his government will reintroduce legislation to decriminalize simple possession of marijuana when Parliament sits again in the new year. Martin indicated that the bill, first brought in under his predecessor Jean Chretien, could be toughened in committee before it passes. "I think that one's got to take a look at the fines," Martin said. "I think that you have to take a look at the quantities, and I think that there has to be a larger effort against the grow-ops and against those who distribute." [continues 151 words]
SAN FRANCISCO -- A decision by a federal appeals court here approving the use and cultivation of medical marijuana did not address the broader question of whether medical marijuana can be bought and sold. That issue, the next legal battle in the medical marijuana movement, is still pending before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of the same court ruled Tuesday that a congressional act outlawing marijuana can not apply in states with laws permitting sick people to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. [continues 475 words]
BENTON, La. (AP) - The furor since a high-school student was expelled for bringing Advil to class may prompt a change in the Bossier Parish School Board's zero-tolerance policy on drugs. Some parents say a review is long overdue. Bossier City resident Sandy McGee heard School Board members say nearly two years ago that they would consider changing the policy. She and her husband, Wes McGee, appealed their daughter Kasey Battson's expulsion after the girl took an over-the-counter caffeine pill while a seventh-grader at Rusheon Middle School. [continues 355 words]
OAKLAND, Calif. -- If there's an epicenter of the nation's medical marijuana movement, it may be in a gritty six-block area near Oakland's city hall, where at least 11 dispensaries sell pot to any California resident with a doctor's note. Since voters approved a state ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana in 1996, "pot clubs" have popped up in San Francisco, Hayward, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz, among other California cities. But nowhere is their concentration as high as Oakland, leading some residents of this famously tolerant city of 400,000 to wonder if the proliferation of clubs has gone too far. [continues 664 words]
YANGON, Myanmar (AP)--A U.N. agency has delivered an emergency shipment of rice to former opium poppy farmers in Myanmar who have turned to growing substitute crops, state media reported Thursday. The U.N. World Food Program on Saturday delivered 690 metric tons (760 U.S. tons) of rice to the remote Kokang region of northeastern Shan State, where people are facing a serious food shortage, the Myanma Ahlin newspaper said. Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium after Afghanistan, and recently has become a major exporter of the illicit stimulant methamphetamine. [continues 240 words]
BANGKOK (AP)--Myanmar's military government Friday denounced U.S. government sanctions against its banking industry, saying any financial sector problems were partly the fault of developed nations that failed to provide aid. The U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday designated Myanmar and two of its private commercial banks as being of "primary money-laundering concern," and announced plans to prohibit U.S. financial institutions from doing business with the two. The action against the two banks represented the first time the U.S. Treasury Department used a section of the USA Patriot Act against specific foreign financial institutions, it said. [continues 256 words]
Montana high school and middle school student leaders decided Tuesday to oppose random drug testing. The 900 students attending the Montana Association of Student Councils convention here adopted a resolution "staunchly opposed to drug use in our schools" but equally opposed to any random drug-testing program in schools. The students said testing of students in athletics and other extracurricular activities could deter some students from taking part in positive activities. They also passed a resolution against community service as a requirement for graduation. [continues 153 words]
GOOSE CREEK, S.C. -- State police are investigating why officers charged into a crowded high school hallway with guns drawn in a drug sweep. Videotape from Stratford High School surveillance cameras showed students sitting on the floor Wednesday while officers with guns drawn looked for drugs. Charleston-area prosecutor Ralph Hoisington asked the State Law Enforcement Division to look into possible police misconduct in the operation. He called for the probe Friday after consulting with Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt. No drugs were found in the early morning sweep that included 14 officers and one drug dog. Some students were cuffed during the raid. [continues 540 words]
BALTIMORE (AP) -- Faced in recent years with burgeoning budget deficits, half of the legislatures in the country have rolled-back at least some of the get-tough on crime provisions of the past two decades, prison reform advocates were told Monday. States have repealed mandatory sentencing laws, re-established parole, and diverted nonviolent offenders from prison and into treatment programs, said Judith A. Green, of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. Speaking at the opening session of a two-day national conference on criminal justice reform, Green said the public appears to have reached a "tipping point" where reform efforts will continue even after the budget crisis is over. [continues 451 words]
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- New Jersey leads the nation in the proportion of prison inmates jailed for nonviolent drug offenses, as a result of punitive, inflexible laws that are burdensome to taxpayers and ineffective in curbing drug abuse, a drug policy reform group says. The Washington-based Drug Policy Alliance reported Thursday that 36 percent of New Jersey's 28,000 prison inmates are serving sentences for drug crimes, compared with the national average of 20 percent. The group quoted figures from the New Jersey state Department of Corrections as of June 2002. [continues 622 words]
DALLAS - In a speech replete with references to "miracles" and a "higher power bigger than people's problems," President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday renewed his push to let religious groups compete for government money. "The best way to help the addict ... is to change their heart," Bush said in a reference to how he stopped drinking at age 40. "See, if you change their heart, then they change their behavior. "I know!" Bush said, thrusting a finger into the air. [continues 442 words]
WASHINGTON (AP)--Colombian troops trained and armed by the U.S. under a counternarcotics program failed to rid an area of guerrillas before a U.S. plane fumigating coca crops was shot down last month, a government investigation found. It also said troops weren't close enough to respond once the plane was attacked. U.S. State Department officials who sent the planes on the fatal mission Sept. 21 were unaware of intelligence showing a heavy guerrilla presence in the area, according to a summary of the report's final draft obtained by The Associated Press. [continues 423 words]
WASHINGTON - Kate Patton had never heard of Ecstasy before the night of Nov. 14, 1999. That's when two police officers came to her home in suburban Chicago to tell her that her 23-year-old daughter, Kelley, was dead. She had overdosed on Ecstasy. Patton joined anti-drug advocates Thursday at a news conference announcing new TV, radio, newspaper and Internet ads aimed at encouraging parents to talk to their children about Ecstasy - known as the "Hug Drug," "X" or "E." [continues 308 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Millions of grandparents are acting as primary caregiver to their grandchildren, often because their own sons and daughters are in jail or on drugs. A Census Bureau report released Thursday found that more than one-third of the 2.4 million grandparents who are primary caregivers to a grandchild lived in a home without the grandchild's parents. The report, which looked at data from the 2000 census in greater detail, did not include reasons for that dynamic. Some grandparents do it because the parents have died, while other parents may be ill, said Sandra Horton, 59, of Lockhart, Texas, who runs a grandparent support group and cares for her 12-year-old granddaughter. [continues 542 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court rejected an appeal that jeopardized state medical marijuana laws that allow ill patients to smoke pot if they get a doctor's recommendation. Justices turned down the Bush administration's request to consider whether the federal government can punish doctors for recommending or perhaps even talking about the benefits of the drug to sick patients. An appeals court said they cannot. Nine states have laws legalizing marijuana for patients with physician recommendations or prescriptions: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, and 35 states have passed legislation recognizing marijuana's medicinal value. But federal law bans the use of pot under any circumstances. [continues 405 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP)--Mexico kept wiretaps and other intelligence secret for nearly a year as part of a joint U.S.-Mexico anti-drug operation, a feat Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor cited Thursday as proof of "a new era" in the country's once leak-prone law enforcement. Top organized crime prosecutor Jose Santiago Vasconcelos said more long-term drug probes like July's successful Operation Trifecta are in the works, and more arrests are expected soon. "This marks a new era in anti-drug cooperation," Vasconcelos said of Trifecta, a joint drug bust that resulted in more than 240 arrests after a 19-month investigation of the Zambada-Garcia drug cartel. [continues 276 words]
Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger is arriving in Sacramento with hopes of getting along better with one of California's recent enemies: the Bush administration. California has staged epic battles with the federal government on issues including environmental protection, energy, health care, consumer protections, immigration and medical marijuana. Schwarzenegger has promised to continue some of these efforts - - an ongoing lawsuit, for example, that would allow California to set tougher anti-smog standards for carbon dioxide emissions than the federal government requires. But during his first news conference as governor-elect, the moderate Republican indicated he's willing to reach some compromises with the more conservative President Bush, who plans to campaign with Schwarzenegger in California next week. [continues 693 words]
TORONTO -- An appeals court expanded the ability of patients to obtain medical marijuana but affirmed that possession by non-patients remains a crime. The decision Tuesday resolved a dilemma faced by the federal government: how to follow a court order to enable patients to get marijuana for treatment while also keeping the possession of pot by others illegal. With a looming court-imposed deadline to create a supply system for patients, the government in 2001 started registering qualified patients and authorizing them or other designated people to grow pot for medicinal use. Several hundred people have registered with the federal government to use marijuana for medical purposes. [continues 269 words]
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh ( http://www.rushlimbaugh.com ) said Thursday he resigned as an ESPN sports analyst to protect network employees from the uproar over critical comments he made about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. Limbaugh stepped down from the sports network's "Sunday NFL Countdown" late Wednesday, three days after saying on the show that McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed. "The great people at ESPN did not want to deal with this kind of reaction," Limbaugh told the National Association of Broadcasters at its convention in Philadelphia on Thursday. "The path of least resistance became for me to resign." [continues 280 words]
GENEVA -- Philippe, 36, works for that abiding symbol of Swiss respectability - a bank. He also likes to relax with a joint of marijuana after work. Until very recently it looked as though his habit might soon cease to be a crime. But then Parliament killed government-backed legislation that would have decriminalized cannabis consumption. Last month's narrow 96-89 vote was ironic, because it leaves Switzerland - a pioneer in drug liberalization - on the "no" side in a gradual European trend toward softening the marijuana laws. [continues 742 words]
Some Examples Of Cannabis Policies In Europe: NETHERLANDS: Legislation dating back to 1976 decriminalized cannabis. Consumption and sale allowed in so-called coffee shops, which have annual sales around $3 billion. BELGIUM: Decriminalized possession of cannabis in 2002. BRITAIN: On Sept. 12, downgraded marijuana from Class B to Class C drug. Possession now carries maximum sentence of two years, but government says most offenders will get off with a warning. FRANCE: Possession of soft drugs risks heavy fine and year in prison, but in practice cannabis use seldom prosecuted. Government may eliminate jail time but toughen fines for cannabis use. [continues 104 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Tuesday extended the life of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for five years while initiating a new program to protect neighborhood activists who stand up to local drug dealers. The legislation, passed by voice vote, also brings changes to the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) program to ensure that it focuses on places with critical drug problems and meets its goal of having local, state and federal law enforcement agencies work together in places with particularly serious drug problems. [continues 312 words]
JUNEAU -- Proponents of an initiative to decriminalize marijuana will get another chance to put the measure on the 2004 ballot, a Superior Court judge ruled. Anchorage Superior Judge John Suddock ordered Lt. Gov. Loren Leman and the state Division of Elections to reconsider nearly 200 petition booklets that were rejected earlier. Suddock said in a lengthy and, at times, scathing ruling issued Tuesday that state elections officials did not do enough to help the marijuana proponents work through the complicated initiative process. The Division of Elections received the ruling Thursday. [continues 458 words]
Undercover Agent Defends Texas Drug Arrests in '60 Minutes' Interview, Despite Pardons LUBBOCK, Texas Sept. 26 - A former undercover agent who faces perjury charges related to his part in the racially charged drug busts in Tulia says he's proud of what he did and is no racist, despite using a racial epithet "a lot." The epithet is "common slang" and "a greeting," Tom Coleman tells CBS' "60 Minutes" journalist Ed Bradley in Sunday's telecast. But he tells Bradley, who is black, that he wouldn't use the racial slur with him. "Oh, no sir, not you," Coleman says, according to a news release from the show. [continues 308 words]
BERN, Switzerland -- Ignoring the appeals of its health minister, the Swiss parliament Thursday blocked government moves to decriminalize cannabis and put state prescription of heroin on a permanent legal footing. After an emotional debate, the National Council voted 96-89 to take no action on the government's proposed narcotics law revision. This means the legislation will be kicked back to the Council of States, the upper house, which approved it in December 2001. Plans to decriminalize consumption and, under certain conditions, production and sale of cannabis - which in Switzerland refers to marijuana and other soft drugs - lay at the heart of the legislation. [continues 337 words]
NEW YORK (AP)--The Bahamas' prime minister said Wednesday he invited U.S. President George W. Bush to consider expanding the U.S. military presence in his country to help in the fight against terrorism and efforts to intercept drug smugglers and illegal migrants. Prime Minister Perry Christie was one of four Caribbean leaders to meet Bush at a breakfast during the U.N. General Assembly's annual session. Guyana's president and the prime ministers of St. Lucia and Grenada also attended. [continues 545 words]
DENVER -- Contradictory laws have left Coloradans who qualify to use medical marijuana struggling to get the drug, three years after voters approved its use. While state law allows certified users to buy, own, transport and grow limited amounts of marijuana, federal law forbids it. Also, many doctors are hesitant to authorize the treatment. Today, 320 Colorado residents ranging in age from 18 to 76 have the certification to use medical marijuana. Those patients come from 39 of Colorado's 64 counties. [continues 328 words]
SPRINGFIELD, IL: Add Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Rauschenberger to the list of politicians who say they've tried marijuana. The state senator from Elgin acknowledged Wednesday at a Statehouse news conference that he twice smoked the illegal drug while he was a student at the College of William and Mary in Virginia. Rauschenberger says he didn't enjoy it and didn't do it again, but he does think he inhaled. "I was a cigarette smoker at the time," Rauschenberger said. "I'm certain I had that reflex." [continues 75 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Brian Fitzgerald has been growing a marijuana plant in the window of his Massachusetts home for years, using it to treat his multiple sclerosis. On Tuesday, he and others lobbied Congress to make that treatment legal. More than 20 seriously ill patients urged lawmakers to pass legislation sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., that would allow states to pass laws sanctioning the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. But Frank acknowledged Tuesday that "with the Republicans in power, there is virtually no chance" of the bill becoming law. [continues 326 words]
BOGOTA (AP)--A U.S. drug-spraying plane crashed Sunday in northeast Colombia, the army said. Authorities were investigating whether the crash was an accident, or if rebels operating in the area shot the plane down. "We're not discarding any possibility yet," army Gen. Jairo Duvan Pineda told RCN Television. "What we do know is there is very bad weather in the area." The pilot, who is from Costa Rica, hasn't been found yet. Rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are fighting the army, another rebel group and outlawed paramilitary fighters for control of the area, called Catatumbo, which is filled with cocaine-producing coca. [continues 93 words]
JUNEAU, Alaska - The state attorney general told Alaska law officers Tuesday to continue to confiscate all marijuana, even though a state appeals court made it legal for people to possess up to four ounces in their homes. Officers should investigate the cases in a manner that would allow for federal prosecution, Attorney General Gregg Renkes wrote to the public safety commissioner. Possession of marijuana remains a federal crime. "This includes seizing and treating as evidence all marijuana found, even if under four ounces in the home, and writing reports documenting the investigation," Renkes wrote. [continues 150 words]
Stumping for votes in New Hampshire, presidential candidate John Edwards breezed through questions about war, health care and poverty before being stumped by a query about industrial hemp. "I could tell you, in general, my position about the medical use of marijuana, which is not what you are talking about," Edwards told a questioner Wednesday at an outdoor town meeting. "You are talking about industrialized hemp being used for WHAT?" Fiber from the plant, a relative of marijuana, is used to make paper, clothing, rope and other products. Its oil is found in lotions, cosmetics and some foods, and Paul Stillwell of Concord, N.H., said hemp also can be used to produce fuel. [continues 144 words]
Scores of laws and voter initiatives since 1996 have turned states away from "get tough" drug policies that emphasize the penalties for drug offenses, according to a report released Tuesday by an advocacy group. States approved measures that stress treatment instead of incarceration, restore voting rights and welfare benefits for offenders and allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Overall, states were cobbling together policies that treat addiction more like an illness than a crime, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports such an approach. [continues 468 words]
WASHINGTON -- Youngsters who smoke cigarettes are more likely to use marijuana than those who don't smoke, according to a study released Tuesday. The report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University and the American Legacy Foundation said young cigarette smokers are 14 times more likely to try pot. Eighty-four percent of the kids who have tried marijuana have smoked cigarettes within the past 30 days. The study focusing on 12- to 17-year-olds also found those who smoke cigarettes are six times likelier to be able to buy marijuana in an hour or less and 18 times likelier to say most of their friends smoke pot. [continues 250 words]
Thirty-two people were arrested Tuesday on drug and money laundering charges as part of a multi-agency task force operation that stretched from Texas to Tennessee, the U.S. Attorney's office in Knoxville said. Two other people were arrested on Monday after 34 were indicted by a federal grand jury Sept. 3 on charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine, and money laundering. The drug ring had collected almost $5 million in drug trafficking and money laundering, U.S. Attorney Harry S. Mattice Jr. said. [continues 112 words]
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Tommy Chong, who played one half of the dope-smoking duo in the Cheech and Chong movies, was sentenced to nine months in federal prison and fined $20,000 Thursday for selling bongs and other drug paraphernalia over the Internet. The 65-year-old was allowed to remain free until federal prison officials tell him in a few weeks where he must report to prison. Chong also forfeited about $100,000 for his arrest on federal drug paraphernalia charges. He'll spend a year on probation after he's released from prison. [continues 212 words]
GULFPORT, MS-Narcotics officers thought they had made a big bust when they seized 500 suspicious plants from Marion Waltman. Authorities say the plants looked like marijuana, but they turned out to be protein plants used to bulk up deer. Waltman says the kenaf plant does look like marijuana. "But it has seven leaves at the top and okra-looking leaves at the bottom," he said. "Marijuana only has five leaves. Any drug officer should have been able to figure it out." [continues 190 words]
TULIA, Texas -- Hog farmer Joe Moore was wrongly convicted of selling cocaine and sentenced to serve 90 years in prison. He forfeited more than his freedom. Moore said he lost his livelihood and his reputation. He also lost his health, as his diabetes worsened while he was behind bars. A legal battle led to pardons for Moore and 34 others this summer after the police officer who accused the group was discredited. Some former inmates are still bitter; others are struggling to rebuild the pieces of their lives. [continues 584 words]
