A Parrish man whose home was raided for the marijuana plants he cultivated to help treat his wife's disease said he has turned down a plea bargain proffered by the state. Robert Jordan, who grows marijuana to help treat Cathy Jordan's Lou Gehrig's disease, said he refused the state's plea deal because it required him to give up his right to a fair trial or stop cultivating the plant. The State Attorney's Office and Jordan's attorney have negotiated for weeks about possible charges against Jordan. Jordan said potential charges are "still up in the air" as the talks continue, but he expects he will be charged soon. [continues 631 words]
PARRISH - Four days after lobbying Tallahassee lawmakers to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, an activist couple were busted by police for growing pot at their home in Parrish. Manatee County deputies uprooted two full-grown backyard marijuana plants belonging to wheelchair-bound Cathy Jordan, who suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, and disabled Vietnam veteran Robert Jordan. Although neither was arrested Monday, officers confiscated 21 seedlings that the Jordans insist were intended to stabilize her neurodegenerative disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. [continues 945 words]
The sheen emanating from Donnie Clark's emerald vegetable garden is blinding. There are hulking heads of lettuce, spinach and broccoli -- plants that will not land him in federal prison this time around. Myakka City's most famous folk hero now spends his days puttering around in his backyard plot, sun on his cheeks, dirt under his nails, the weight of the past no longer square on his shoulders. His life has been one of wild adventure, unrelenting mischief, lengthy confinement and abnormal forgiveness, and if he had not been born the son of a Manatee County commissioner 70 years ago then surely an imaginative screenwriter would have invented him. [continues 1751 words]
On Oct. 24, a federal district judge blocked Florida's controversial law that mandates drug tests for temporary-assistance applicants. According to Judge Mary Scriven, compelled drug testing violates the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on illegal search and seizure and that individuals retain a right of privacy against such intrusive, suspicionless searches by the state, even when applying for temporary assistance. "The constitutional rights of a class of citizen are at stake," Scriven wrote, confirming that the Constitution protects all of us from unreasonable searches, even if we are poor. [continues 80 words]
A federal judge this week shot legal holes through Florida's requirement that all welfare applicants undergo drug testing. We hope Gov. Rick Scott, who promoted the ill-advised tests, backs off the policy before more money is wasted defending it in court. The judge temporarily suspended the drug testing requirement, faulting the fact that results lack confidentiality and noting that the policy violates constitutional protections. That's because it forces welfare applicants to be tested even when there are no grounds to reasonably suspect that they are drug users. [continues 294 words]
Florida banned the sale and possession of a class of designer drugs - misleadingly marketed as "bath salts" - with little fanfare this year. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an emergency order in January, temporarily banning MDPV, one of the chemicals found in some of the products. The Legislature subsequently passed a bill that permanently makes it illegal to distribute or possess bath salts laced with MDPV or one of five other man-made chemicals; Gov. Rick Scott signed the legislation in late May. [continues 566 words]
Without doubt, it is the popular thing to do. Save the taxpayer money. Keep someone who is using illegal drugs off the public dole. Prevent the government from subsidizing the drug habits of people on welfare. To that end, Gov. Rick Scott has signed legislation that will require all those applying for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, to undergo drug testing, and to pay upfront for the test. If the applicant passes, he or she will be reimbursed for the cost of the test and, assuming all paperwork is in order, begin to receive benefits. A failure -- that is, evidence of illegal drug use -- will preclude the applicant both from a reimbursement for the test cost and from receiving benefits. [continues 691 words]
Pressed by a community increasingly affected by prescription drug abuse, Sarasota County commissioners responded Tuesday with a new, strict set of regulations. The rules are designed to preserve access to legitimate pain-management practitioners but keep out illicit businesses -- those that feed a black-market trade in addictive narcotics. The county's new requirements represent a step forward -- if they withstand potential legal challenges and can be properly enforced. The community also should recognize that crackdowns alone cannot solve the growing problem of opiate addiction. Prevention and educational efforts, as well as broader treatment options, are needed. [continues 555 words]
More Bureaucracy For Those Who've Paid Their Debts to Society Rick Scott, the governor who wants to remove regulatory hurdles, has helped put a big roadblock in the path of freed felons hoping to fully participate in civic life. The governor and Cabinet, sitting as Florida's executive clemency board, voted last week to toughen the process nonviolent felons must go through to get their civil rights restored. Before this change, the state used a reformed, streamlined process to restore rights for nonviolent felons who completed their sentence, finished probation and made full restitution. [continues 453 words]
Accept Company's Offer and Implement Monitoring Program Maybe the opponents of a statewide system for monitoring the prescription of high-powered narcotics are holding out for more money from the pharmaceutical industry. It's doubtful. But that strategy is the only logical reason for Gov. Rick Scott and House Speaker Dean Cannon to oppose implementation of the system. Last year, in response to rising numbers of deaths related to prescription painkillers and Florida's status as the go-to state for drug buyers, the Legislature passed a law that calls for a prescription-drug monitoring program. The strong consensus among legitimate pain-management specialists, drug-abuse experts and law enforcement officials is that a statewide data base is the most important component of an effective monitoring program. Legislatures in a majority of the states have created data bases and reported declines in drug-abuse problems - as Florida has experienced increases. [continues 145 words]
In 1919, the United States went dry. The great experiment of Prohibition began. It was a great "success." It criminalized a large part of the population who still wanted to drink and created organized criminals. It was 14 years before the country decided that Prohibition was a bad idea with decidedly worse, unintended consequences. Upon its repeal, those thousands of gangsters who thrived under Prohibition were out of work; however, our government then banned certain drugs. And the war on drugs has been as successful as Prohibition in keeping the suppliers wealthy. The war is going so well that it stretches from the poppy fields of Afghanistan to the coca and marijuana fields of South America, Mexico and North Port. Our prisons are full of users and dealers; a shooting war is going on in Mexico and East Los Angeles, and the billions of dollars, pesos, euros, etc., spent each year to stop the drug trade are going down a black hole. Many of the people holding up banks, robbing convenience stores, or breaking into houses are doing it to buy drugs. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different outcome each time. I think it's just dumb. Rick Garms Englewood [end]
SARASOTA - U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Bradenton, intends to announce today that he will file legislation intended to crack down on "pill mills" that provide prescription pain killers to addicts and drug dealers. He has yet to release the details. Buchanan held a public forum on Monday at which he, law enforcement and a special state prosecutor asked the Legislature to start a patient database that investigators say they need to monitor the drug transactions and addicts who may be "doctor shopping." [continues 76 words]
With eight Floridians dying daily because of prescription drug abuse, it was expected that Gov. Rick Scott's decision to pull the plug on the pill-monitoring program would draw criticism in the state. But the decision is also drawing the ire of state lawmakers from as far away as Kentucky and West Virginia. Florida is the largest of 12 states without a system to track prescription narcotics, and the state's hundreds of storefront pain clinics attract drug dealers and addicts from around the Southeast. [continues 624 words]
Regarding your Feb. 6 editorial, Florida is one of many states grappling with overcrowded prisons. Throughout the nation, states facing budget shortfalls are pursuing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. A study conducted by the RAND Corp. found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.48 in societal costs. There is far more at stake than tax dollars. The drug war is not the promoter of family values that some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Not only do the children lose, but society as a whole. Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders with hardened criminals is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in anti-social behavior. [continues 76 words]
Budget Shortfalls Provide Impetus For Needed Change Prisons are one of many areas of state government that Gov. Rick Scott has targeted for cuts in his budget proposal, which he is expected to release Monday. Scott has vowed to carve $1 billion from the corrections budget over the next seven years. That would be almost a 42 percent reduction from the current funding level of $2.4 billion. Like many of the spending cuts that Scott has proposed over the last month, his plans for prisons are short on details. [continues 791 words]
TAMPA - On the fourth floor of a hivelike, 1970s-vintage lab building on the University of South Florida's medical campus, Thomas Klein has spent 25 years studying marijuana's effects on the immune systems of mice, blowfish and human beings. If anyone should be able to answer the question that has surrounded pot for decades -- How bad is it for you? -- it should be Klein. Klein, 66, a tall, courtly professor of immunology and molecular medicine, can tell you he is very close to solving a few puzzles about the connection between cannabinoids -- the active compounds in marijuana -- and common allergies. But like other researchers in the field, Klein says marijuana's health effects remain a daunting mystery. [continues 1719 words]
Irvin Rosenfeld speaks fluidly and fast, breaking off a conversation to take another call and returning to the first one precisely in mid-sentence, juggling intricate idea strands like the stockbroker he is. You would never take him for a guy who smokes 10 to 12 joints of marijuana a day. Rosenfeld is not anyone's idea of mellow and laid-back. Apart from his day job, he has just written a book, "My Medicine." It is the story of his lifelong endurance of a rare bone condition, his battle for the legal right to control it with marijuana, and his membership in an exclusive club -- with 13 people at its largest, and now four still alive -- of patients who receive regular monthly cannisters of relatively mild weed, grown, rolled and shipped courtesy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. [continues 1042 words]
SARASOTA - State and federal laws prohibit pharmacists from filling prescriptions they know to be fraudulent, yet local police conducting sting operations are instructing pharmacists to break those laws. Instead of arresting a suspect for passing a bogus prescription, detectives are telling pharmacists to fill the prescription while officers wait outside, ready to arrest the person carrying the pills. Police get better evidence for court, and the suspect faces more time in prison on a more serious drug trafficking charge. But caught in the middle are pharmacists who must balance their professional obligations as a health care provider with helping law enforcement in an action that is a crime and could put their professional licenses at risk. [continues 769 words]
Governor Should Sign Bill Restricting Private Pain Clinics Florida's governor should sign recently approved legislation that aims to clamp down, hard, on "pill mills" -- businesses that earn a fortune off the shady and exploitive dispensing of narcotic painkillers. If signed into law, much of the measure, SB2272, would not take effect until late this year. In the meantime, the city of Bradenton is considering a moratorium on any new permits for such establishments. Several other Florida cities and counties have either passed similar restrictions or are considering them, the Herald-Tribune's Halle Stockton reported last week. (In Sarasota County, a community consortium is preparing a measure.) [continues 444 words]
Thirteen states in America have made it legal in the past 13 years to smoke marijuana for medical reasons. Another two states have eased the penalties against using marijuana for medicinal purposes. Three states have licensed nonprofit corporations to grow medical marijuana and two state legislatures, in California and Massachusetts, are conducting hearings on whether to legalize pot. In Europe, seven countries have decriminalized marijuana. In Latin America, the former presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico -- all demoralized by the violence associated with the illegal drug trade -- have proposed the repeal of prohibition. [continues 696 words]
DENVER - Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine. The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana. Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students. [continues 669 words]
MANATEE COUNTY - School district officials are proposing that all new employees and substitute teachers pass a drug test before being hired. School Board members will review the policy at a meeting Monday night. "It's a deterrent," said Darcy Hopko, assistant superintendent. "We would like anyone that comes on board to be totally clear of any kind of drugs." If adopted, new hires would have to submit a urine sample for the test that detects most recreational drugs and also some prescription drugs such as methadone and barbiturates. [continues 130 words]
I am in complete agreement with the recent letter "Buy and burn foreign drug crops," regarding the problem of drugs that come from Afghanistan. Buy them and burn them. We have never found a crop yet that will provide a living for the farmers in Afghanistan. Just as the people in America need jobs, so do people of other nations. We could not only save money, but think of the lives we could save among our military personnel. We would also have a much better relationship with the people of the opium- and coca-growing countries. [continues 119 words]
Florida's medical examiners recently released another report that shows another annual increase in the number of prescription-drug overdose deaths. The report concluded that prescription medicines caused more deaths in 2008 than illicit drugs -- a multi-year trend. The medical examiners also reported sharp increases in deaths caused by prescription tranquilizers and painkillers such as oxycodone and hydrocodone. The results of the year-end report weren't surprising: An interim report covering the first six months of 2008 indicated that the upward trends in drug-caused and drug-related deaths would continue throughout the entire year. Since the middle of last year, responsible physicians, pharmacists and law enforcement officials have warned that a near-epidemic of deadly prescription-medicine abuse was continuing. [continues 756 words]
Drug Database Could Work Against Patients The news out of South Florida is certainly scary -- illicit "pill mills" providing prescriptions of potent painkillers to addicts and dealers, combined with soaring death rates from legal narcotics. The Legislature's predictable response: Pass a law meant to curb prescription drug abuse through a statewide database that tracks doctors who prescribe controlled drugs, and patients who are issued such prescriptions. Lawmakers didn't fund the database, and it won't be operational until late next year. [continues 362 words]
GROVE CITY, Ohio -- For five hours, Dana Smith huddled stunned and bewildered in her suburban living room while the body of her son Arthur Eisel IV, 31, lay slumped in an upstairs bathroom, next to a hypodermic needle. Family and friends streamed in. Detectives scurried about. For Mrs. Smith, the cold realization set in that her oldest son Artie -- quiet, shy, car enthusiast, football and softball fanatic -- was dead of a heroin overdose. The death was the end of a particular horror for Mrs. Smith, whose two other children, Mr. Eisel's younger brothers, also fell into heroin addiction "like dominoes," she said, and still struggle with it. [continues 2385 words]
Marijuana is the only drug Cathy Jordan says helps her fight Lou Gehrig's disease. The 59-year-old mother smokes two joints every night to relieve depression and muscle spasms, and to boost her appetite. "It's keeping me alive," said Jordan in an interview at her home in Parrish. "Anti-depressants made me a zombie and other drugs had bad side effects. The crime is that people like me can't get it legally." Floridians could vote for the first time next year to allow marijuana for medical use. A petition drive, started last week by an Orlando woman whose father has Parkinson's disease, would make the drug legal for any condition as prescribed by a doctor. [continues 1157 words]
In the lawsuit over whether Venice officials violated Florida's open government laws, Anthony Lorenzo is not the story. He's suing, yes. And the defendants -- current and former members of City Council and its advisory boards -- may wish they could deflect attention to him. But other than spreading the news that Lorenzo has been imprisoned for possession and sale of cocaine, his detractors really do not have much. One of the recurring rumors around town is that Lorenzo is out for money. [continues 336 words]
SARASOTA - Detectives are using detailed video from a surveillance camera to identify suspects who spray painted the side of a building on North Tamiami Trail -- and who are suspected of defacing even more buildings. A handful of property owners say surveillance cameras could help them battle other crimes along the commercial strip, such as drug dealing, prostitution and vandalism. They want to install a half dozen digital cameras along U.S. 41, using $3,000 in grant money, their own money, and maybe some city money, too. The cameras cost about $10,000 each. [continues 315 words]
SARASOTA - A Sarasota man who said he was strip-searched outside an apartment complex in front of at least a dozen people, including children, has filed a complaint against the Sarasota Police Department sergeant who conducted the search. Barry Mitchell said he was humiliated last week when Sgt. Joseph Stiff, wearing a latex glove, pulled back Mitchell's boxer shorts and ran his hand along Mitchell's buttocks, touching his anus. "It was the most embarrassing thing in my life," Mitchell, 21, said. He filed the complaint Monday. [continues 556 words]
SARASOTA - Unlike graying peers who refuse to acknowledge youthful drug use, Rick Doblin celebrates his. He will tell crowds of strangers about the dizzy days of tripping on acid and getting arrested for swimming naked at his alma mater, New College, in the 1970s. He 'fesses up to dropping out his freshman year in pursuit of truth through psychedelics. He will tell them that the cedar-and-granite Sarasota home he built three decades ago -- described by Rolling Stone magazine as a "Frank Lloyd Wright on acid design" -- was conceived to enhance the experience. He endorses the aboriginal bonding traditions of parents sharing psychedelic drugs with their children. [continues 1743 words]
Required tests for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs for certain groups of public school students almost became policy in Manatee County without so much as a public discussion. Whether that policy would be a good idea or not is a worthy debate. But what's amazing is that the debate was almost skipped and the policy installed while all but under the radar. Even some School Board members had only a vague notion of it, and knew only that a grant had been explored. But the grant had been won and a urine-on-demand policy was virtually set to be sprung on students this fall. [continues 334 words]
MANATEE COUNTY - A new random drug testing program, yet to be implemented by the school district, is geared toward helping, not punishing, students. The first time a high school athlete or cheerleader tests positive for an illegal drug or alcohol, he or she would only face a 30-day ban from participating in those activities. The student would not even be thrown off the team. Just one problem. Those rules conflict with the district's long-standing policy of suspending students found to be under the influence of illegal drugs for 10 days and possibly expelling them. [continues 352 words]
MANATEE COUNTY - Manatee school officials were ready to enact one of the state's most stringent drug testing programs for athletes this fall even though some School Board members and athletic directors knew little about it. One board member said yesterday she could not remember voting on a measure to seek a grant for the program that would test roughly 1,000 athletes and cheerleaders for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and alcohol. Students who test positive could be suspended from competition and eventually kicked out of sports. [continues 459 words]
Drug Program For Manatee Athletes Needs Discussion Federal funds are available to Manatee County's school district to test student-athletes for drugs and alcohol: Who knew? Not enough people, including some important figures in the school district. Some School Board members and athletic directors were caught off guard and unaware this week when Herald-Tribune reporter Christopher O'Donnell asked them about the district's emerging plan to implement the testing program. But O'Donnell's article, a surge of information sharing by the district and a proposal to hire a testing-program chief, scheduled for School Board consideration Monday, provide greater awareness -- and, we hope, will lead to a broader public discussion of the most effective ways that public schools can help deter young people from illegally consuming alcohol and drugs. [continues 603 words]
The Manatee County School Board needs to educate itself on the downside of student drug testing. Coach Stacey Horton of Braden River High's cheerleading squad notes that prescription drug abuse is a bigger problem than marijuana. Student drug testing will compound the problem. Marijuana's organic metabolites are fat-soluble and can linger for days. More dangerous synthetic drugs are water-soluble and exit the body quickly. If you think students don't know this, think again. Anyone capable of an Internet search can find out how to thwart a drug test. This is one of the many reasons the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes student drug testing. Simply put, drug tests create incentives for marijuana users to switch to harder drugs to avoid testing positive. [continues 126 words]
MANATEE COUNTY - High school athletes and even cheerleaders in Manatee schools will be randomly tested for recreational drug and alcohol use this fall under a new program that will be among the strictest in Florida. The district is one of three in the state that received a federal grant to test students on varsity sports teams for use of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Officials say testing will help students stay drug free by giving them a cast-iron reason to say 'no' when friends are pressuring them to drink or use. [continues 861 words]
I was aghast to read in your paper about a drug sting at a local McDonald's. That particular McDonald's has a huge indoor play area to attract children and is usually full of children. How could the Sarasota Police Department condone a drug sting where so many children are present? The paper states that the suspect shoved a boy out of his way. He could just as easily have grabbed the boy as a hostage! Can you imagine the trauma of seeing armed, masked policemen rush a restaurant, shouting for everyone to get under tables? If the manager of this restaurant does not file a complaint, I will be disappointed. I know that I will never take my grandchildren there again. What were the police thinking? June Brasgalla Sarasota [end]
Risks of Police Action Outweighed the Benefits Want a drug bust with that burger and soda? No, thank you. Unfortunately, conducting an undercover drug buy and arresting the suspect at a McDonald's were on the Sarasota Police Department's menu of options for busting a repeat criminal offender. Worse, the bust went bad when the police rushed to make the arrest, prompting the suspect to re-enter the restaurant -- frightening customers and employees, and placing them at serious risk. Police Chief Peter Abbott told the Herald-Tribune Editorial Board, in an e-mail yesterday, that he has "conducted an after action critique with the supervisors involved and will utilize our experience in future operations." [continues 565 words]
Your article Saturday about how a reverse drug sting at a local McDonald's went out of control was very disturbing. Yes, I am a criminal defense attorney. However, as a citizen and member of our community, I was outraged. What were the Sarasota police thinking when they decided to sell drugs in a crowded McDonald's? Police Chief Peter Abbott said it was too dangerous for police officers to conduct these types of operations in remote areas. If these types of operations are so dangerous, does Abbott believe it is acceptable to essentially use our citizens as human shields? [continues 151 words]
Sarasota Officers Stormed Restaurant to Nab Drug Suspect SARASOTA - Undercover police officers stormed a McDonald's restaurant and ordered diners and employees to the ground as they tried to catch a suspected cocaine dealer Thursday. The Sarasota police officers were dressed in black, carried rifles and wore masks when they ran into the restaurant on the corner of Beneva and Fruitville roads. They burst through the door at dinner time, yelled for patrons to hide under tables and chased a 24-year-old man who hid in a bathroom. [continues 458 words]
It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine. Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking. In South America, we throw money, military equipment and aerial fumigation at the problem, and as a result, coca growers relocate, regroup and production thrives. We repeat the cycle. Yes, there may be occasional dips in production after a particularly successful mission (the Hulk sometimes goes for months "without incident"), but inevitably the coca growers, cocaine producers and drug traffickers return. [continues 299 words]
BRADENTON - Little Sam Rich was free on bail awaiting sentencing in a drug case when a judge ordered him locked up after a urine test. There were trace amounts of cocaine and marijuana in his system, but something else caught the judge's eye and convinced her that Rich had tried to cheat the system: his "abnormal" level of a chemical called creatinine. Creatinine is a natural by-product of chemical reactions in muscle. Doctors look at creatinine levels to determine kidney functioning. But creatinine is also carefully watched by the courts as a measure of dilution in a urine sample. [continues 552 words]
Detectives Knock On Doors In Drug Search DUETTE - A few tips came in to detectives Wednesday about possible marijuana grow houses in northeast Manatee County. The next day, sheriff's detectives showed up at the front doors without warrants or evidence to ask to take a look around. Surprisingly, the residents of two homes on the same block gave detectives the OK to search their properties, where the detectives happened upon "elaborate" indoor grow operations, each boasting several marijuana plants. The procedure is called a "knock and talk," and any law enforcement officer can do it, said sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Romano. [continues 451 words]
The letter "Defense can't be prosecutor's puppet" misinterprets the slogan on my campaign signs: "End the revolving door system!" He states that our local justice system is racist and that having an "anti-drug crusader" like me would hurt "minority defendants who have suffered under police discrimination." The public defender's office can do more to prevent crime than any other government agency. The majority of people who enter the justice system are nonviolent offenders who have substance-abuse or mental-health issues. Substance abuse drives the entire system. [continues 191 words]
The recent pedestrian/sidewalk-law issue has thankfully highlighted some of the racial discrimination that permeates our local justice system. However, I believe that there is an even more insidious problem awaiting poor blacks who seek equal treatment under the law. I speak of Ron Filipkowski's campaign for public defender. Filipkowski has signs up all over Sarasota pledging to "end the revolving door system," and his campaign pamphlets pledge that he will be "a leader who will fight to prevent crime." [continues 133 words]
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The father of a young woman murdered while working as an informant in a police narcotics sting wants lawmakers to bar police from enlisting young people like his daughter in the drug war. "I don't think kids should be doing police work," Hoffman, of Palm Harbor, told The Tallahassee Democrat on Monday. "I am going to try to get a Rachel Law going so kids aren't used in this way.... Rachel was not an undercover police officer. This is not a civilian job." [continues 134 words]
Suppose a doctor who teaches and practices pain medicine asked you to support legislation that would help save lives, improve patient care, prevent addictions and stem illegal trafficking in prescription drugs. Suppose that a local pharmacist wrote you a letter stating, "The amount of dubious prescriptions for oxycodone, methadone, fentanyl, other miscellaneous opiates and benzodiazepines that enter my pharmacy is not only frightening, it's appalling." Suppose that your state's medical examiners issued a report warning that the number of deaths linked to abuse of powerful painkillers and sedatives has steadily increased in your region and state -- exceeding the death toll from some of the most widely used illegal drugs. [continues 470 words]
SARASOTA COUNTY - Daniel Prewett's trial on federal charges that he laundered drug money will have nothing to do with the dozens of former investors who say he ripped them off for millions. But the trial starting Monday -- and the possibility of life in prison for Prewett -- might be the only chance for the investors to see him suffer some sort of consequences. They are last in line to claim Prewett's remaining assets in bankruptcy court, where there are $36 million in claims against Prewett personally, and even more against his company, J.H. Investment Services. [continues 602 words]
SARASOTA -- The city's practice of filing nuisance abatement cases against landlords when their tenants are arrested in drug investigations has been called into question by a recent court ruling. Sarasota Circuit Judge Bob McDonald concluded Jan. 9 that the city tried to penalize Beresford Powell, the owner of a North Sarasota apartment building, for illegal activity that he was not aware of. The ruling focuses on the city's use of drug operations in which undercover police officers or informants try to buy drugs from suspected drug dealers inside their homes. [continues 359 words]
