Don Erler's Tuesday column ("Let those thoughts on government soar") was right on target. Marijuana prohibition has done little more than to burden millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records. The University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" study reported that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than in any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. [continues 128 words]
AUSTIN -- It's been decades since Willie Nelson smoked that first joint in Fort Worth, but -- Ain't it funny how time slips away? -- he's still singing the praises of pot. On Friday, the country music legend headlines Austin Freedom Fest, a benefit concert for four pro-marijuana groups, including the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Nelson co-chairs NORML's advisory board. "Marijuana is like sex," the Hill Country crooner wrote in his 1988 biography, Willie. "If I don't do it every day I get a headache." [continues 494 words]
Musings at 37,000 feet (and back on the ground in Rhode Island): Lines approaching security clearance were absurdly long at 5 a.m. Thursday. That's the day that the Transportation Security Administration at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport started checking passenger identification, a function previously performed by the airlines. My wife, Cyndy, and I were in lines for well over an hour, boarding the plane mere minutes before it pushed back from the gate. The lengthy delays, we were told, were largely the result of too many passengers failing to segregate their gels and liquids into transparent plastic bags. [continues 654 words]
John Walters, President Bush's "drug czar," is using the tragedy of young people dying from use of "cheese" heroine to promote his current favorite program: random, suspicionless drug testing of all students. (See Thursday news story "Drug czar praises testing by Texas school districts.") Walters' grants will redirect $1.67 million in Department of Education funds to test kits, test administrators and laboratories. Students must miss class time to be tested. Schools risk being sued in case of error. The largest study of student drug testing ever done -- 76,000 students -- was conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. It found no difference in illegal drug use between students in schools that test and those in schools that do not. [continues 68 words]
DALLAS -- Fernando Cortez Sr. hopes that increased national awareness about "cheese" heroin will prevent other parents from experiencing the loss he did. His son, 15-year-old Fernando Cortez Jr., died March 31 after he took the drug -- a mixture of black tar heroin and crushed over-the-counter medicine such as Tylenol PM. "These issues need to be addressed," Cortez said, "to help moms and dads so they don't go through what I went through." John Walters, President Bush's "drug czar," was in Dallas on Wednesday to draw attention to the importance of random drug testing in schools and to award some grants. [continues 269 words]
WASHINGTON -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon, locked in a bloody confrontation with drug cartels, is negotiating a massive counter-drug aid package with the Bush administration worth hundreds of millions of dollars, said several American officials familiar with the talks. Both sides are working out details of a package that resembles a U.S. aid plan for Colombia. The talks have been taking place quietly for several months and will be a central item on the agenda when President Bush and Calderon are expected to meet in Quebec on Aug. 20-21. [continues 544 words]
GRAND PRAIRIE -- As many as 50 law enforcement officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and several Metroplex cities on Saturday were clearing a marijuana field near the intersection of Farm Road 1382 and Camp Wisdom Road near where the Grand Prairie and Dallas city limits meet. The 5-to-7-acre field, on which more than 10,451 pot plants were interspersed, was discovered Friday. A caller tipped off the Grand Prairie Police Department on Friday afternoon. Dallas police then confirmed the find using their helicopter, and DEA officials were called in. [continues 114 words]
CHICAGO -- Drug abuse experts say the arrest of Al Gore's son underscores the growing problem of prescription drug abuse among America's youth. College students use the stimulant Adderall, an attention-deficit drug, to get a speedy high or pull all-nighters. The other drugs police say they found in Al Gore III's possession -- marijuana, Xanax, Valium and Vicodin -- also are campus favorites, experts say. "Al Gore's son is just like everyone else's," said Dr. Donald Misch, director of health services at Northwestern University in Evanston. "The only thing missing was the No. 1 abused drug, which is alcohol." [continues 495 words]
FORT WORTH -- Five years ago, Deezmond Henson was a young at-risk student, seemingly headed for a brief, violent life on the streets. But he went to a military-style summer camp as part of DEFY -- Drug Education for Youth -- and things turned around. Now he's headed to the University of North Texas. On Saturday, Henson, 18, delivered a simple message to this year's 67 DEFY campers: "Stay away from drugs, and keep those you care about away from drugs." [continues 232 words]
WASHINGTON -- One war appears to be going well for the U.S. and its allies these days: the drug war. The availability of all major illegal drugs except Afghan heroin is flat or down, according to newly released global figures for 2005. So is drug use in the U.S., the world's leading consumer. And drug seizures are up sharply. No one is saying the world's drug problem is solved, only that it is contained for now. "We seem to have reached a point where the world drug situation has stabilized and been brought under control," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, based in Vienna, Austria, wrote in an analysis of world drug trends that was released last week. U.N. drug-trend analyst Thomas Pietschmann is a co-author of the 2007 World Drug Report. [continues 330 words]
As a police officer, I focused on DUI and red-light running -- proven killers of innocents. When I found pot on a red-light runner who wasn't intoxicated, I wrote the traffic ticket and tossed the pot into a ditch. That allowed me to continue looking for public safety threats. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Simple possession of pot is a violation of the law but not a public safety issue. In my 18 years of service, I responded to zero calls generated by the use of marijuana. I don't agree with Barry Cooper. (See June 20 news story "Ex-cop markets DVD on avoiding pot busts.") But I understand his frustration that our profession has lost its focus on public safety. Dallas [end]
Bong Hits For Jesus Aren't Anti-War Armbands. It's as plain as that -- at least to the humorless disciplinarians on the U.S. Supreme Court. Joseph Frederick said the "BONG HiTS 4 JESUS" banner he unfurled across the street from his high school in Juneau, Alaska, during the 2002 Olympic Torch Relay was a nonsensical stunt to get on TV. His principal, Deborah Morse, wasn't amused. She confiscated the sign and suspended him. The justices decided that she could. [continues 805 words]
KENNEDALE -- More than 1,100 Kennedale students who take part in extracurricular activities or park on campus face random drug testing when the new school year begins in August. High school and junior high school students who test positive for illegal drugs or alcohol can be suspended from extracurricular activities for two weeks to a year, but will not be suspended from classes. They will also perform 10 to 60 hours of community service and will lose parking and off-campus privileges if they drive to school. [continues 413 words]
WASHINGTON -- The Constitution protects a vehicle's passengers as well as drivers from illegal searches and seizures, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The case arose out of a late-night stop in California's Central Valley. The court ruled that when a vehicle is stopped, both driver and passenger are in police hands and therefore can't be searched without due cause, the court ruled. It's the first time the court has ruled definitively that a police stop affects drivers and passengers alike. [continues 97 words]
At first, the methamphetamine Kimberly Garner smoked kept her awake for five, six, sometimes seven days. Eventually her body built a tolerance to the drug, and she added Ecstasy to her daily meth high. The meth made her teeth hurt, so she took Xanax to knock herself out. She felt like a zombie. "I couldn't remember my name," said Garner, 23, of Fort Worth. "My body couldn't function." Garner was lucky: She survived a potentially lethal combination of drugs and is now in treatment. But the number of people dying from mixed-drug overdoses in Tarrant County is steadily rising, from 17 in 2004 to 41 in 2006, according to the Tarrant County medical examiner's office. [continues 909 words]
By R.A. DYER Star-Telegram Staff Writer The Texas House voted to allow the state to create the first ever needle-exchange program for intravenous drug users -- but only as a pilot project around San Antonio. The provision was added to a broad Medicaid bill, Senate Bill 10, which was sponsored in the House by Rep. Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple. Rep. Ruth McClendon, D-San Antonio, at first tried to add an amendment to the bill that would create a statewide needle-exchange program. But she limited her amendment to Bexar County, where San Antonio is, when it appeared that she did not have support in the House for the broader program. [continues 389 words]
A November 2005 nationwide Gallup poll showed that 78 percent of Americans "support making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering." State medical marijuana initiatives have been repeatedly endorsed by voters. Three state legislatures -- in Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont -- have had the courage to stop arresting patients without a drive from the voters. This isn't a partisan issue -- it's a compassion issue. Many of the legal alternatives proposed by opponents of medical marijuana are too expensive and too addictive and have too many side effects to be good medicine for all patients. Chemotherapy patients who are too nauseated to eat or swallow a pill shouldn't have to fear arrest if they -- and their doctors -- find that smoking marijuana is the most effective means of treating their symptoms. [continues 81 words]
CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuela accused U.S. anti-drug agents Friday of collaborating with traffickers and rejected Washington's allegations that rampant corruption, a weak judicial system and lack of international counternarcotics cooperation has allowed illegal drug smuggling to thrive in the South American country. Justice Minister Pedro Carreno accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of forging ties with drug traffickers before President Hugo Chavez suspended cooperation with the agency in 2005. "A large quantity of drug shipments left the country through that organization," Carreno said a day after the State Department criticized Venezuela in its annual report on trafficking. "We were in the presence of a new drug cartel." [continues 64 words]
North Dakota issued the nation's first licenses to grow industrial hemp to two farmers Tuesday who still must meet federal requirements before they can plant the crop. The farmers must get approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which treats hemp much the way it does marijuana and has not allowed commercial hemp production but has said it will consider applications to grow it. Hemp is a cousin of marijuana that contains trace amounts of the chemical that causes a marijuana high, though hemp does not produce the same effects. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make products such as paper and rope. Six other states -- Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana and West Virginia -- have authorized industrial hemp farming, according to Vote Hemp, an industrial hemp advocacy organization. [end]
John Gaworski thinks his daughter got a raw deal. On Nov. 2, the 16-year-old senior at Southwest High School in Fort Worth consented to have her car searched in the campus parking lot after a drug-sniffing dog indicated that it smelled something. School officials searched the car and say they found a marijuana seed in the driver's seat and a small piece of a plant on the floorboard. The student, whom the Star-Telegram is not identifying because she is a minor and has not been charged with a crime, denied that the pot was hers and even offered to take a drug test. [continues 651 words]
The top cop in this unhinged city across the border from Texas has 300 openings on a 600-member police force, and his fearful greeting gave a big clue why. "Please, please don't use my name or take a photograph," the interim chief said. One police chief was killed last year, a second quit in the spring and no one else appears brave or foolhardy enough to work this side of the law in Nuevo Laredo. Mexican President Vicente Fox quietly withdrew the federal police that he had dispatched with great fanfare last year to bring peace, leaving the city virtually unprotected in a smuggling war that's claimed 170 lives since January. [continues 481 words]
Asked recently what Texas could do to help a border police department like McAllen's, Chief Victor Rodriguez had a ready answer: Give us a nearby place to burn seized drugs. He then outlined a situation that stunned members of the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee holding a field hearing in the Rio Grande Valley. In a region that is a gateway for drugs coming from Latin America and bound for cities throughout the United States, destroying drugs means sending a caravan of vehicles and officers on a two-day trip costing $8,000 to $10,000. [continues 707 words]
Illegal immigrants in Texas and those who wish to join them would be free to look for work under an open-border policy proposed by Libertarian gubernatorial candidate James Werner. "It's important that there be a rational process to enter -- they need to get a criminal background check -- but then anybody who has the desire to work ... is welcome in my state," said Werner, 44, who acknowledges that that position irks conservatives. "But once here, they could not be the recipient of government handouts -- and that's what gets liberals mad." [continues 497 words]
Never mind that border security and immigration are supposed to be federal issues. The candidates running for Texas governor this year are promising to do what Washington hasn't, or won't, on the longest stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in the nation. Their proposals range from the near militarization of South Texas to a throw-open-the-gates policy allowing people to come and go throughout North America just like they do in Western Europe. Whether any one of the proposals makes it into law or even makes any sense, the prominence of the issues on the campaign trail highlights voter anxiety about illegal immigration, grisly drug violence and the possibility, even if it's remote, that foreign terrorists might exploit the porous border to stage attacks on the U.S. [continues 1268 words]
Let's make it clear that our schools are off limits. We won't tolerate outside instigators who strut up to high school campuses with mayhem on their minds. We'll act decisively against rowdies who show little regard for fellow students or authority figures. We can say, "Not in our schools, you won't" to guns, to knives, to drugs, to dope. To booze, to fists, to gang wear and graffiti. And even then will we be able to protect our children from the predators and misanthropes and lunatics of the world? [continues 731 words]
A narcotics officer was recovering at the hospital Friday after he was shot in the leg while trying to serve an arrest warrant in southeast Dallas, officials said. The officer's name was not released because he has been working undercover, said Sgt. Gil Cerda, a Dallas police spokesman. The shooting occurred about 9 p.m. Thursday at a home in the 9700 block of Pine Hurst Lane in the Pleasant Grove area, Cerda said. Police arrested two people at the scene. [continues 100 words]
MEXICO CITY - To send a chilling message to their underworld rivals, Mexican drug cartels are adopting a method of intimidation made notorious by Middle Eastern terrorist groups. At least 26 people have been decapitated in Mexico this year, with heads stuck on fences, dumped in trash piles and -- most recently -- tossed onto a nightclub dance floor. Although beheading goes back centuries as a form of execution, it has become the latest tactical escalation of an ongoing turf war that gets nastier all the time, with hit men looking for new ways to instill fear. [continues 444 words]
An escalating drug war and a sharp increase in "brutal violence" in Mexico have prompted the United States government to issue a travel alert to Americans, particularly those going to Nuevo Laredo. The government identified Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo in South Texas, as one of the most dangerous spots for American travelers. "U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Mexico should exercise extreme caution when in unfamiliar areas and be aware of their surroundings at all times," said the warning, issued by the U.S. Department of State. "Public sources suggest that narcotics-related violence has claimed 1,500 lives in Mexico this year." [continues 446 words]
An escalating drug war and a sharp increase in "brutal violence" in Mexico have prompted the United States government to issue a travel alert to Americans, particularly those going to Nuevo Laredo. The government identified Nuevo Laredo, across the Rio Grande from Laredo in South Texas, as one of the most dangerous spots for American travelers. "U.S. citizens residing and traveling in Mexico should exercise extreme caution when in unfamiliar areas and be aware of their surroundings at all times," said the warning, issued by the U.S. Department of State. "Public sources suggest that narcotics-related violence has claimed 1,500 lives in Mexico this year." [continues 453 words]
EL DORADO, Kan. - This factory town outside Wichita is instituting random drug screening for all middle and high school students participating in -- or even just attending -- any extracurricular activity. That includes sports, clubs, field trips, driver's education, even school plays. Those who don't sign consent forms cannot attend games, go to school dances, join a club or park a vehicle on school property. Administrators insist that the district does not have a drug problem, and say the new policy, one of the toughest in the nation, is aimed at keeping it that way. [continues 208 words]
Nine Grapevine-Colleyville students tested positive for illegal drug use during random drug screens over the past academic year. Steve Trachier, the district's executive director of administration, discussed the first year of Grapevine-Colleyville's drug testing practices with trustees at Monday night's school board meeting. Under the district's policy, students in school-sponsored extracurricular activities are randomly tested for 11 substances, including alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine and opiates. The students are in activities such as debate, choir, band and dance, and on athletic teams. Of the random sample of students who were tested, another random sample was taken, and those students were tested for steroids. [continues 239 words]
REDFORD -- As thousands of U.S. soldiers prepare to join the fight against illegal immigration and drug smuggling, tiny Redford finds itself haunted by a tragedy from the last major intersection of U.S. military might and border security. It was amid a few humble shacks alongside the Rio Grande that 18-year-old goat herder Esequiel Hernandez, an American citizen, was shot and killed by a U.S. Marine on May 20, 1997. After the shooting, then Texas Gov. George W. Bush sent his condolences to the Hernandez family and the government abruptly ended the kind of armed military patrols that led to the teenager's death. [continues 504 words]
So now we know how Martin Lee Anderson died. We can forget the original autopsy report filed by Charles Siebert, a doctor so inept that he wasn't technically a doctor (he had allowed his license to lapse) when he issued the report. A doctor so inept that he once described a person he autopsied as having "unremarkable" testes. The person was a woman, so if she had testes at all, it would seem quite remarkable indeed. Siebert claimed that after Anderson had been hit, manhandled and choked by guards Jan. 5 at a so-called boot camp in Panama City, Fla., the 14-year-old died of sickle cell trait -- a genetic blood disorder carried by 1 in 12 Americans of African heritage. That finding has been roundly hooted by real doctors, who say it is unlikely in the extreme that the condition could lead to death. [continues 558 words]
A new drug cocktail has shown up in Grapevine, and police say they fear it will soon be popular among teens throughout Tarrant County. Street-named for its yellowish color, "cheese" is an inexpensive and highly addictive combination of heroin, water and over-the-counter pain reliever. After dozens of busts in Dallas schools, Tarrant officials want parents to know about the homemade drug blend and how to tell when their children may be using it. James Avita, 18, says the inexpensive and highly addictive drug has been around for a while and isn't going away. Everyone he's acquainted with knows what it is, Avita said, and it killed his best friend less than two weeks ago. [continues 580 words]
Smart or stupid, prudent or foolish? What was Mexican President Vicente Fox thinking May 2 when his spokesman confirmed that he would sign legislation allowing individuals to possess small quantities of several currently illegal drugs, including cocaine and marijuana? Supporters of the law in the upper house of Mexico's Congress included most senators from both the conservative PAN and the more liberal PRI parties. They claimed that allowing personal use of small quantities of drugs would free authorities to focus interdiction efforts on larger drug traffickers. [continues 580 words]
Would you be willing to pay $2.5 million for a three-bedroom, three-bath house with no garage, a small patio and about 600 square feet of air-conditioned space? My close encounter with the lifestyle of the wealthy on Florida's "emerald coast" reminded me that tight quarters can be sumptuous. The real estate developer who owns the 52-foot yacht described above lives aboard it for several months each year with his wife and two young children. They do not feel victimized when sleeping in bedrooms little larger than some kitchen tables and using "heads" the size of coat closets. [continues 595 words]
SAN FRANCISCO-- A federal appeals court Wednesday overturned the pot-growing conviction of the self-proclaimed "Guru of Ganja," a marijuana advocate who has written books on how to grow pot and avoid getting caught. The court cited jury misconduct in overturning Ed Rosenthal's conviction, but it otherwise upheld federal powers to charge marijuana growers. Rosenthal was convicted in 2003 for cultivating hundreds of marijuana plants for a city of Oakland medical marijuana program. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced him to one day in prison, saying Rosenthal reasonably believed he was immune from prosecution because he was acting on behalf of city officials. [continues 301 words]
LAREDO -- Seizing property, luxury cars and jewelry and arresting at least seven people, federal authorities have disrupted a cocaine distribution cell controlled by suspected Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, officials said Saturday. The raids began Thursday in Laredo, a key transit point for U.S.-bound cocaine, in a continuing investigation that began months ago and stretches across the nation. "It represents the disruption of a domestic cell of the Sinaloa Cartel. ... We feel that it is a very significant case, a very significant cell of that organization," said Joe Arabit, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's San Antonio office. [continues 324 words]
WORCESTER-- Police dog Xvroni spent about five years patrolling and ferreting out drugs. The award-winning German shepherd had to be retired a few weeks ago because of allergies and intestinal illnesses. "Very few dogs have gotten as many drugs and seizures as she's done," Officer Stephen C. Cortis said this week. He hopes his newest dog, Brie, will have the same nose for drugs. Xvroni, at about 7-1/2-years old, is young for a dog, but Officer Cortis said her health problems prevent her from doing her job. Officer Cortis, who trains his dogs, opted to retire his companion and give her to a friend who could care for her. [continues 647 words]
Of 156 random drug tests given to Grapevine-Colleyville students this spring, 11 were positive for illegal drugs. Of 20 students screened for steroids, none were positive. The district began testing students in extra-curricular activities after nine Colleyville Heritage High School athletes revealed a year ago that they had used illegal anabolic steroids in spring 2004. In the latest round of tests, of 35 Grapevine High School students tested, 5 had positive results; of 38 students Colleyville Heritage High School students tested, two were positives; of 38 Colleyville Heritage students tested, four were positive; of 45 Grapevine High students tested, none were positive. Three tests were labeled as positive because the students refused to be tested. The other positive tests were for marijuana and amphetamines. [end]
You confused the issue with the Monday story headlined "Double slaying probably drug-related, police say." Remember the famous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929 when Al Capone's men gunned down men from the competing Bugs Moran gang? Would you say that was "alcohol-related"? Hardly. Those thugs didn't kill each other because they were drunk; they killed each other over money, and the gang wars stopped when the prohibition on alcohol was repealed. The Keller slayings, like the 1920s Chicago slayings, were prohibition-related, not drug-related. Let's put the blame where it belongs. Carl Veley, Houston [end]
The Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved temporary funding Tuesday to continue operating the county's drug task force as state officials debate how to spend dwindling federal narcotics grant money. The court agreed to spend $465,000 to fund the county's narcotics team through June 30 -- a 90-day stop-gap measure -- while it awaits word from the state on its grant applications. Federal grants, distributed through the Texas governor's office to fund narcotics enforcement in Texas, have declined nearly 70 percent to $14 million this fiscal year, compared with $33 million in 2004-05, said Rachael Novier, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. [continues 267 words]
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion that is as sensible as it is legally flawed. Gonzales vs. Oregon, in which the court had before it the opportunity to draw upon and extend the constitutional right to privacy, could suggest that the days of extravagant judicial activism are numbered. The issue was whether the U.S. attorney general could interpret the Controlled Substances Act to keep doctors from prescribing drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide for incurable patients with less than six months to live. Oregon law permits the practice. [continues 657 words]
The Supreme Court's ruling on Oregon's physician-assisted suicide law narrowly focused on the U.S. attorney general's statutory authority but at the same time seemed to say something broader about the scope of executive power. The 6-3 ruling on Jan. 17 said that the U.S. attorney general couldn't undermine Oregon's Death With Dignity Act in the guise of regulating physicians. But the decision shouldn't be read as an endorsement of physician-assisted suicide. [continues 475 words]
The Northwest school district may again offer parents free home drug-testing kits for middle-school students. The 8,731-student district distributed the kits in November to parents who asked for them. District officials said they received about 150 kits from the nonprofit group notMYkid. The organization supplies the free kits to middle schools, along with drug prevention programs. In previous interviews, organizers said that middle school is usually when students start to use drugs. "I've heard some positive comments that parents were pleased that this is something that's being offered," said school board President Debbie Thomas. [continues 156 words]
GRAPEVINE -- Schools are flush with anti-drug messages. But few have matched the attention of those that have popped up in some Grapevine-Colleyville district urinals. Three hundred deodorized urinal screens were donated to the district in February, when nine Colleyville Heritage High School athletes admitted to having used steroids. The black surfaces of the screens are blank, until they are hit by a steady stream to reveal the message "Avoid steroids." "It was a great hit," said Brian Fawcett, a distributor for Magic Message in Grapevine. Fawcett's wife is a Grapevine-Colleyville teacher, and he has three sons in the district. [continues 114 words]
JUSTIN - Northwest school district officials began handing out free at-home drug-testing kits this week to parents of middle school students who ask for them, making Northwest one the few districts in north Texas that endorses drug testing for preteens. The nonprofit organization that supplies the free kits was founded by an Arizona couple who also own the company that sells the kits. District officials said they received about 150 of the 300 kits they requested from the nonprofit group, notMYkid, which says the Northwest program is its first in Texas. The group has started its program in schools in Nebraska, Georgia, Pennsylvania, California and Kentucky, and is hoping to provide kits to schools in every state, organizers said. [continues 915 words]
FORT WORTH _ A 35-year-old Fort Worth woman who was stunned by a Taser and later stopped breathing while being booked into jail died of a drug overdose, according to the medical examiner's office. Carolyn Daniels sudden death on June 24 was an accident caused by acute cocaine intoxication, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled. Daniels, who was arrested on suspicion of being publicly intoxicated on a substance other than alcohol, died at an area hospital about 90 minutes after she was shocked by a Taser, officials have said. [continues 362 words]
America has a serious drug problem, but it's not the "meth epidemic" getting so much publicity. It's the problem identified by William Bennett, the former national drug czar and gambler. "Using drugs," he wrote, "is wrong not simply because drugs create medical problems; it is wrong because drugs destroy one's moral sense. People addicted to drugs neglect their duties." This problem afflicts a small minority of the people who have tried methamphetamines -- and most of the law enforcement officials and politicians who lead the war against drugs. They're so consumed with drugs that they've lost sense of their duties. Like addicts desperate for a high, they've declared meth the new crack, which was once called the new heroin (that title now belongs to Oxycontin). With the help of the press, they're once again frightening the public with tales of a drug so seductive that it instantly turns masses of upstanding citizens into addicts who ruin their health, their lives and their families. [continues 585 words]
WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure? Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. [continues 682 words]
