SACRAMENTO - The Department of Motor Vehicles postponed a driver's license test for a medical marijuana user with a case before the Supreme Court after her lawyer claimed she was being unfairly targeted for review without any driving violations. Diane Monson received notice from the DMV earlier this month that she needed to appear at a re-examination hearing Thursday or would lose her license. The notice did not say why she was selected, but she said with the exception of a speeding ticket 15 years ago she had spotless record. [continues 532 words]
LAS VEGAS -- A group seeking to legalize small amounts of marijuana in Nevada filed paperwork Tuesday that would compel state lawmakers to take up the issue during next year's legislative session. The Committee to Regulate and Control Marijuana has filed 84,665 signatures in five counties. They need a minimum of 51,337 signatures of registered voters to qualify. "The marijuana regulation initiative makes sense because it gives society control over marijuana, while our current prohibition policies keep marijuana completely uncontrolled," Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C., said in a statement. [continues 323 words]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A proposition to legalize the use and sale of marijuana was rejected by Alaska voters Tuesday night, but supporters said it would not be the end of their efforts to change the law. With 319 of 439 precincts reporting, 123,164 voters - about 57 percent - voted against the measure. Yes votes totaled 92,537, or about 43 percent. Wev Shea, a former U.S. attorney and a vocal opponent of the initiative, said he was pleased the measure failed despite proposition boosters raising more than $850,000, much of it money from outside Alaska. [continues 478 words]
HELENA -- Use of marijuana for medical reasons will be legal in Montana and tobacco users will see a tax increase, voters decided Tuesday in passing a pair of ballot measures Tuesday. Initiative 148 allows the cultivation, possession and use of marijuana, in limited amounts, for medical purposes. The initiative shields patients, their doctors and caregivers from arrest and prosecution. Initiative 149 will increase tobacco taxes by $45 million a year, allocating most of the money for new or existing health care programs. [continues 251 words]
I've got 23 ziplock bags filled with coca leaves laid out on the rickety table in front of me. It's been seven hours since the leaves were picked, and they're already secreting the raw alkaloid that gives cocaine its kick. The smell is pungently woody, but that may just be the mold growing on the walls of this dingy hotel room in the southern Colombian jungle. Somewhere down the hall, a woman is moaning with increasing urgency. I've barricaded the door in case the paramilitaries arrive. [continues 5311 words]
SINGAPORE - Rights group Amnesty challenged Singapore Tuesday to disclose the total number of executions this year, saying the wealthy island has put more people to death since 1991 than any other country on a per capita basis. "In the absence of full disclosure of official statistics, the organization remains concerned that Singapore may continue to have the highest number of per capita executions in the world," Amnesty International Southeast Asian official Tim Parritt said. Amnesty's call comes a day before Singapore's Court of Appeal rules on the case of 24-year-old Australian Nguyen Tuong Van, an ethnic Vietnamese man found guilty in March of smuggling 14 ounces of heroin and sentenced to death. [continues 301 words]
SINGAPORE - A Singapore court upheld on Wednesday the death sentence for a 24-year-old Australian man of Vietnamese origin found guilty of smuggling 400 grammes of heroin while in transit at the island's main airport. Nguyen Tuong Van, arrested at Changi airport in December 2002 while travelling from Cambodia to Melbourne, will be hanged unless his lawyers and rights group Amnesty International win a bid for clemency from Singapore President S.R. Nathan. If the petition fails, Van will be the first Australian citizen executed in Singapore. [continues 371 words]
The huge rise in amphetamine dealing has led to New Zealand's illegal drugs trade doubling in less than a decade, researchers say. The market for amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA and Ecstasy was now worth $168 million a year - about the same as cannabis. The trade in amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) had effectively doubled the dollar value of the New Zealand drugs trade in less than 10 years, concluded the study by Massey University's centre for social and health outcomes research evaluation (Shore). [continues 159 words]
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Bush administration's war on drugs stretches deep into Asia and Latin America, yet one of its most crucial campaigns -- in the eyes of drug czar John Walters -- is being waged this fall among voters in Oregon, Alaska and Montana. In each state, activists seeking to ease drug laws have placed a marijuana-related proposal on the Nov. 2 ballot as part of a long-running quest for alternatives to federal drug policies they consider harsh and ineffective. [continues 854 words]
Psychedelic drugs are inching their way slowly but surely toward prescription status in the United States, thanks to a group of persistent scientists who believe drugs like ecstasy and psilocybin can help people with terminal cancer, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, to name just a few. The Heffter Research Institute, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and others have managed to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to approve a handful of clinical trials using psychedelics. The movement seems to be gaining ground in recent years. Since 2001, the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration have given the go-ahead to three clinical trials testing psychedelics on symptomatic patients, and several more are on deck. [continues 1162 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Three years after the Bush administration tried to ban food products made with hemp, the government surrendered that front in the war on drugs, attorneys for the hemp industry said Monday. The Justice Department, these attorneys say, will not challenge a federal appeals court ruling that overturned the ban - a victory for more than 200 companies that make such things as energy bars, waffles, milk-free cheese and veggie burgers with the plant that contains only trace amounts of THC, the key ingredient in marijuana. [continues 532 words]
CHICAGO -- Mayor Richard Daley is backing a proposal to ticket people with small amounts of marijuana instead of prosecuting them in court. Chicago Police Superintendent Philip Cline is considering the proposal, made by an officer who was fed up with making minor drug arrests just to watch as judges dropped the charges. "Sometimes a fine is (better) than being thrown out of court," Daley said Tuesday. "Thrown out of court means nothing. Many times the offenders don't even show up anyway." [continues 171 words]
WASHINGTON - President Bush has removed Thailand from the U.S. government list of countries where significant illicit drug trafficking takes place. The move was the result of Thailand's progress in reducing opium poppy cultivation along with advances in other areas, the White House said Thursday in a statement. With Thailand deleted from the list, the number of major drug-transit or drug-producing countries was reduced to 22. They are: Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and Vietnam. [continues 290 words]
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Three Saudi security guards were beheaded in northern Saudi Arabia on Sunday after being convicted of trafficking hashish and using government vehicles to transport the drug, the Interior Ministry said. Khamis bin Mabrouk al-Sayeri, Nasser bin Mohammed al-Fahadi and Zidan al-Oqaili al-Anzi were arrested loading an undisclosed amount of hashish into vehicles belonging to Saudi border guards, officials said. The guards were later convicted of drug trafficking and breaching the state's trust for using the vehicles. [continues 84 words]
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen have killed a boss of one of Mexico's main drug cartels and two other people in an ambush at a cinema complex, and five of the assailants were killed in shootouts with police shortly afterward, prosecutors say. Paid killers shot and killed Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, a chief of the Ciudad Juarez cartel, at a cinema complex in the northwestern town of Culiacan on Saturday night. Two other people, including Carrillo Fuentes' girlfriend, were killed in the attack and a former top detective accompanying the drug lord was wounded. [continues 156 words]
ANCHORAGE, AK - Police cannot execute a search warrant in a person's home for possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana, the Alaska Court of Appeals ruled Friday. The court ruled in the case of Leo Richardson Crocker Jr., who was charged with controlled substance misconduct after police, acting on a tip, searched his home and found marijuana and growing equipment. A lower court ruled the search warrant that led to the arrest should have never been issued and suppressed the evidence against Crocker. The appeals court agreed. [continues 239 words]
LITTLE ROCK - Supporters of a proposed ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for medical use said they were confident Tuesday that enough additional signatures had been gathered to get their proposal on the Nov. 2 ballot. The deadline to turn them in is 5 p.m. today. "Given that there was only a month to collect the kind of signatures we needed ... I'm pleased with where we're at," said former state Sen. John Riggs, who has been helping in the campaign. [continues 423 words]
TORONTO -- A marijuana protest turned nasty Saturday when at least two people were detained during scuffles with city police on a park lawn near the provincial legislature. The dustup started after police -- accompanied by municipal bylaw officers and parks officials -- shut down the Canabian Day festival, a pro-pot rally when Toronto organizers failed to produce the necessary permits and insurance. "The major issue is the fact that we couldn't get any insurance," said organizer Marko Ivancicevic. "Basically, the last two years we've tried to get the (event) insurance but they keep denying us because it is a marijuana-based event." [continues 449 words]
Saskatoon - One of Canada's best-known marijuana activists was sentenced Thursday to three months in jail after pleading guilty to trafficking when he passed a joint to a supporter last March. Marc Emery, president of the B.C. Marijuana Party, was charged with trafficking after he spoke at a political rally at the University of Saskatchewan in March. Mr. Emery's lawyer said the sentence is too strict for simply passing one joint to one person. "I do have an issue with the length of the sentence," said Leanne Johnson. "Three months is a bit of overkill, perhaps, for passing one joint to one person." [continues 74 words]
HEDGESVILLE, W.Va.--President Bush said Tuesday the U.S. government will continue to assist Colombia in interdicting aircraft suspected of drug trafficking. The renewed authorization follows the accidental shootdown several years ago of an American missionary plane. The program was suspended in 2001 after a Peruvian warplane mistakenly downed the missionary flight over the Amazon, killing an American woman and her infant daughter. The "Airbridge Denial Program" was subsequently resumed on an annual basis. The White House says the counter-narcotics operation will take place "while observing strict adherence to agreed-upon and well-established procedures" to force down planes suspected of carrying drug shipments. Bush, who was campaigning in West Virginia, signed a presidential determination declaring that Colombia "has appropriate procedures in place to protect against innocent loss of life." [end]
AMSTERDAM - There is no scientific proof that cannabis use induces schizophrenia, Dutch scientists say, questioning recent research and an argument the Dutch government uses to crack down on marijuana-selling "coffee shops." In an article in this week's Magazine for Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed journal, the three authors say that on the basis of currently available data "there is no justification for the proposed closure of coffee shops." Often the first symptoms of schizophrenia occur during adolescence, when people start to experiment with drugs, but the scientists believe cannabis use only has a negative effect on people already genetically predisposed to the mental illness. [continues 102 words]
The count of signatures on a Nevada marijuana initiative is back on Friday, after a federal judge declared unconstitutional two state requirements for tallying ballot measure signatures. US District Judge James Mahan declined to order the state outright to put the marijuana initiative on the November ballot. He said a count of the 66,000 signatures around the state will determine if the measure qualifies. It would let adults possess up to an ounce of marijuana. The ruling invalidating Nevada's so-called "13 counties rule" could also give new life to an unrelated measure seeking to ban public employees from serving in the Legislature. The rule requires signatures from at least 10 percent of the number of voters who cast ballots in the most recent general election in at least 13 of the state's 17 counties. [continues 70 words]
DETROIT - Residents approved a proposal Tuesday to legalize medical marijuana use in a largely symbolic victory for those who hope to rewrite the state's drug laws. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, 59 percent, or 38,604 votes, were in favor of Proposal M, while 41 percent, or 26,497 votes, were against. The vote changes the city code, creating an exception to the marijuana ban for people who use the drug for medical purposes under a doctor's direction. But the change has no effect on federal and state laws that allow prosecution of those possessing or using marijuana. [continues 216 words]
OTTAWA (CP) -- Police with reasonable suspicions have the power to detain people temporarily but can't go on "fishing expeditions" in their pockets for evidence, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday. It was the first time the high court had examined an everyday police practice that many law officers and prosecutors take for granted. The decision upholds a ruling by a trial judge in Winnipeg, who acquitted Phillip Henry Mann of trafficking after police stopped him on the street in relation to a nearby break-and-enter and found almost an ounce of pot in his sweatshirt pouch. [continues 209 words]
WASHINGTON - The government is violating federal law by obstructing medical marijuana research, scientists contend in lawsuits seeking faster action on applications to grow the drug. In lawsuits to be filed Wednesday, researchers assert that Washington is refusing to act on legitimate research projects and delaying studies that could lead to marijuana's use as a prescription drug. "There is an urgent need for an alternative supply of marijuana for medical research," said Lyle Craker, director of the Medicinal Plant Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the main force behind the lawsuits. [continues 346 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill on Tuesday that would have eased rules on how much medical marijuana patients could possess in California. State voters approved a measure in 1996 to allow medical marijuana, but the initiative has been subject to a continuing battle pitting it against federal rules. The bill that Schwarzenegger vetoed would have removed quantity limits on the drug for California patients. "Reasonable and established quantity guidelines allow medicinal marijuana patients to seek relief from symptoms free from legal questions and permit law enforcement to carry out the law," Schwarzenegger wrote in a note to the State Senate explaining his veto. "Enactment of this bill would create uncertainty in this area of the law thereby making it more difficult for law enforcement to determine when a person was in possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes." Schwarzenegger has previously spoken out in favor of medical marijuana. [end]
The fellow reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a marijuana cigarette. Lighting it, he said matter-of-factly, "Would you like a joint?" I declined. Not from fear I might be turned instantly into an incurable addict. Not because I feared being tempted to try harder drugs. Not even out of any kind of moral superiority. The only pot I ever inhaled gave me a headache. My wife and I used to go to Sunday movie matinees and sit in the balcony, where we could smoke good ole, legal, health-destroying American tobacco. It was impossible, however, not to inhale the second-hand pot fumes from those around us imbibing in something I always had been told would totally destroy my life. [continues 779 words]
LAS VEGAS -- A marijuana initiative has failed to qualify in Clark County, jeopardizing the petition's ability to make the statewide November ballot, election officials said Thursday. To qualify for the Nov. 2 election, the initiative must collect 51,337 valid signatures statewide and qualify in 13 of Nevada's 17 counties. "It would be a longshot if they were to make the total of 51,000 if they are relying on just the other counties to make up the difference," said Steve George, spokesman for the Secretary of State's Office. "Usually if something doesn't carry in Clark County ... it will have a hard time making it." [continues 333 words]
WASHINGTON -- The House voted Wednesday to let the federal government continue prosecuting people who use marijuana for medical reasons in states where local law allows its use by patients. The 268-148 vote turned aside an amendment by Democrats and some conservative Republicans that would have barred the federal government from preventing states from implementing their own medical marijuana laws. Nine states have passed laws allowing people to use marijuana if recommended by a doctor: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. [continues 335 words]
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. - The head of the National Drug Intelligence Center has been fired because of low morale among the staff, the Justice Department said. Michael Horn was fired Tuesday on the heels of an investigation into possible mismanagement. The Johnstown-based center was established in 1993 to help the Justice Department coordinate intelligence among federal law enforcement agencies in fighting illegal drugs. Federal investigators interviewed many of the 400 employees at the center and found half of them had lost confidence in senior management and nearly 70 percent reported low morale due to complaints of favoritism, gender bias, wasteful spending and extensive travel by top staff. [continues 63 words]
WASHINGTON - Fresh off the set of the upcoming reality series "American Candidate," TV host Montel Williams was pushing a more personal cause Thursday at the U.S. Capitol: medical marijuana. The erstwhile host of the "Montel Williams Show" beseeched young congressional staffers and interns to pester their bosses to make marijuana more widely available to chronic pain sufferers. "Go back and start looking it up yourself and understand why it is your bosses are voting against something that will do nothing but help people," pleaded Williams, who has taken marijuana to ease pain since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. [continues 125 words]
WASHINGTON, June 29 (UPI) -- The decision by the Supreme Court to hear a California medical marijuana case this session renews the debate whether to legalize medical use of marijuana at the federal level and have a uniform national policy regulating it. The Supreme Court Monday put on its docket for consideration a case from patients who used marijuana after the treatment was recommended by their physician. Note the doctors did not write a prescription -- that would have taken them out of state law and into federal regulations and licensure troubles. [continues 1198 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a law outlawing marijuana applies to medical use by two seriously ill California women whose doctors recommended cannabis for their pain. The high court said it would review a ruling that the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 cannot be applied constitutionally to the manufacture, possession and distribution without charge of marijuana for medical use. The ruling by a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco found the two women had demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on their claim that the federal law, as applied to them, is an unconstitutional use of Congress's power to regulate commerce among the states. [continues 345 words]
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether sick people who smoke pot on a doctor's orders are subject to a federal ban on marijuana. The court agreed to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a case it lost last year involving two California women who say marijuana is the only drug that helps alleviate their chronic pain and other medical problems. The high court will hear the case sometime next winter. It was among eight new cases the court added to its calendar for the coming term. The current term is expected to end this week. [continues 409 words]
WASHINGTON (AP)--Land under cultivation for coca, the raw material for cocaine , has declined 20% since 1998 in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru, a United Nations report says. It reached a 14-year low of 163,800 hectares, the report by the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime released Thursday said. The three Andean countries are the world's biggest source of coca, the raw material for cocaine . The estimate for Colombia -86,000 hectares -represented a decline of 16% in one year and 47% since 2000, the report said. [continues 262 words]
COLUMBUS - Ohio Hempfest, an annual pro-marijuana event at Ohio State University, will go on this weekend as planned, a judge ruled Friday. The event's organizers were notified Tuesday that the university was canceling the event, which draws thousands of people. University officials said organizers did not follow the rules and they were concerned about public safety. The festival's organizer, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, then asked U.S. District Court Judge Algenon Marbley to overturn the university's decision to cancel the event. [continues 163 words]
Washington - A judge said Wednesday that a federal law aimed at restricting the display of paid, pro-marijuana ads in buses and subway stations is unconstitutional, improperly infringing on free speech rights. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman came in a lawsuit challenging the law that cuts off up to $3.1 billion in federal funds to local transit authorities if they display ads promoting the legalization or medical use of marijuana or other drugs. Fearing a loss of at least $85 million in federal aid, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority earlier this year declined to run ads submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union and three drug advocacy groups. The groups then filed suit, calling it an unconstitutional restriction. [continues 210 words]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children born to mothers who used cocaine heavily during pregnancy do not seem to have lower IQ scores than their peers, although they may have problems with specific skills, according to a report released Tuesday. Placing these so-called "crack babies" in foster care or adoptive homes, however, seems to compensate for some of those problems, the study findings suggest. During the cocaine epidemic in the US in the late 1980s and early 1990s, many experts predicted that children exposed to cocaine in the womb would suffer lasting developmental impairment. [continues 441 words]
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. - First, Sheriff Tim Evinger eliminated ketchup, salt, coffee and pepper at the jail, a move he says saved an instant $30,000 a year in runaway beverage and condiment costs. Now, Evinger has decided to start charging inmates $60 a day to help cover the costs of their stay behind bars. "My constituents expect me to use whatever means I have to keep the jail open to its full extent," the sheriff said. It is an idea that first surfaced about 15 years ago in Alabama, and has since spread rapidly across the country, to about one-third of the county jails in the United States. [continues 718 words]
Montpelier, Vt. -- The House gave preliminary approval Thursday to a bill that would allow people with certain life-threatening illnesses to use marijuana to relieve pain and nausea without fear of arrest and prosecution. "This bill does not legalize marijuana," said Rep. Thomas Koch, R-Barre Town and chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee. "What it does do is say that for a limited number of people with debilitating and intractable diseases who have registered with the Department of Public Safety, that we will not arrest and prosecute them, even though what they are doing is technically illegal." [continues 363 words]
SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian state has sought central government backing to trial cannabis as a medicinal treatment for people suffering acute but otherwise untreatable pain, officials said. New South Wales premier Bob Carr wrote to conservative Prime Minister John Howard for help in trialing the illegal drug to treat conditions such as HIV (news - web sites), cancer and multiple sclerosis that do not respond to more conventional therapy. Carr said the government had no intention of decriminalising cannabis, and since he had no desire to allow backyard cultivation or purchase from illegal traffickers, alternative ways of accessing the drug would have to be explored. [continues 162 words]
GREAT FALLS, Va. -- In a continuation of their long-term opposition to effective drug prevention policies, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Drug Policy Alliance have together published a slick booklet titled, "Making Sense of Student Drug Testing." The booklet's purpose seems to be to disparage the increasingly popular school health/safety-based drug prevention program of Random Student Drug Testing. Many communities throughout the nation are beginning to consider adopting RSDT as a humanitarian means to eliminate drug use and violence from their children's schools. But nearly all of those efforts are being impeded and delayed by misguided opposition induced by deceptive anti-RSDT propaganda. Numerous articles have appeared parroting specious arguments made by anti-testing advocates that are in turn being given widespread publicity in the media and on the Internet. Meanwhile the United States' plague of schoolchild drug abuse continues at a tragically high level. [continues 708 words]
LIMA (AP)--About 3,000 rural coca growers marched peacefully into Lima on Monday to demand the government stop programs to eradicate their cocaine-producing crop and release of one of their leaders. Protest leader Nancy Obregon told The Associated Press that the coca farmers would remain in the capital "until they solve our problems." Obregon said coca farmers want to speak with Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero and legislators about a law that would protect coca cultivation. They also want to meet with judiciary officials to discuss the release of one of their leaders, Nelson Palomino, who has been jailed for more than a year on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda. [continues 279 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Latin America and the Caribbean are doing a better job in the war on drugs but budget problems and savvy traffickers threaten that progress, the Organization of American States said on Thursday. The annual "Progress Report in Drug Control" said cultivation of illegal substances was dropping, seizures were rising or holding steady and nations increasingly were working together. The 34-member OAS includes Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and Canada, some of the largest suppliers of cocaine, marijuana and heroin to the United States. [continues 226 words]
Hartford, Conn. -- A bill that would allow seriously ill people to grow and smoke marijuana cleared one major legislative hurdle Wednesday, but now faces another. The House of Representatives voted 75-71 to approve an amendment that would let those with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and other serious illnesses use the drug to relieve nausea and other symptoms, with a doctor's written permission. It was the first time the measure passed the House. But lawmakers sent the main bill to another committee for approval before a final vote. With the state budget and several other items still remaining on the legislative agenda, it is uncertain whether the issue will be addressed again before the legislature adjourns next Wednesday. [continues 391 words]
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Maryland prisons are filled to overflowing with 25,000 inmates, a costly legacy of two decades of a "lock 'em up and throw away the keys" approach to fighting crime. Now the state is prepared to embark on a new approach to crime control, stressing treatment over punishment for many of the men and women who enter the criminal justice system every year. A law passed by the General Assembly this month creates the framework for diverting nonviolent offenders who abuse drugs and alcohol into treatment programs instead of prisons and jails. It was approved with support from a broad coalition that included Gov. Robert Ehrlich, the Legislative Black Caucus and conservative Republican lawmakers. [continues 873 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - A judge on Wednesday ordered the federal government to keep away from a California medical marijuana group that grows and distributes cannabis for its sick members. The decision from U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose was the first interpretation of a federal appeals court decision here last year that ordered the federal government not to prosecute a sick Oakland woman who smoked marijuana with a doctor's recommendation under a 1996 California medical marijuana law. Fogel ruled that the Justice Department cannot raid or prosecute the 250 members of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which sued the government after the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2002 raided its Santa Cruz County growing operation and seized 167 marijuana plants. [continues 637 words]
PARIS, April 14 (AFP) - French teenagers are among the biggest consumers of cannabis in Europe, smoking joints as often as they drink alcohol, an official study of thousands of students from 450 high schools released Wednesday showed. By the age of 18, two boys in three and one of every two girls have tried the narcotic - illegal in France - the survey by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Use (OFDT) revealed. "By the age of 16, regular consumption of cannabis reaches the level of regular consumption of alcohol," the authors said. [continues 80 words]
Nine per cent of random drug tests on workers by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) prove positive. ESR scientist and client manager Sue Nolan said the Crown Research Institute undertook drug testing programmes for more than 400 companies at more than 700 sites. Such programmes were highlighted by a landmark Employment Court ruling on Tuesday giving Air New Zealand the right to drug test some workers. ESR workplace drug testing programme manager Shellie Turner said that, along with the nine per cent of positive random tests, eight per cent of pre-employment drug tests were also positive. [continues 374 words]
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Parents who suspect their child is using drugs can easily get their hands on an array of home drug tests, but experts say the do-it-yourself route is the wrong one. In a study of eight Internet sites selling home drug-testing kits, researchers found that companies typically glossed over the technical difficulty of performing the tests, as well as the potential harm a home drug-screening effort could do to the parent-child relationship. Overall, the researchers say, the sites were short on detail when it came to explaining how to collect usable test samples, and several made no mention of the risk of false-positive or false-negative results. [continues 467 words]
