It's 7 p.m. on a Wednesday, and a ponytailed man is speaking with no small enthusiasm to a small room filled with laughing people, devouring their dinners and listening with rapt attention as he cajoles them to help him legalize every illicit drug in America. If you're flashing back to your teenage years and picturing a basement filled with stoned kids and aspiring Timothy Learys, think again. The merry audience is the North Branford Rotary Club, one chapter of the international civic organization that leans towards older and more conservative membership. The charismatic speaker is Peter Christ, a retired police officer who spent twenty years arresting people for drug offenses before retiring and enlisting in the drug policy reform movement. [continues 947 words]
ACLU Helps the Fight With the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Students for Sensible Drug Policy are working to overturn the HEA Aid Elimination Penalty, a law that states students convicted of drug offenses automatically lose their financial aid. "We have been working to overturn this policy since it was passed in 1998," Tom Angell, campaigns director for SSDP, said. In February, SSDP and the American Civil Liberties Union were able to force congress to scale back the policy. It was changed so students who were convicted of the crime in college would lose their aid, but if convicted before college, students would still be eligible to receive aid. [continues 541 words]
Hemp Fest Lights Up Commons Hemp Fest-- the annual public convention held to advocate the legalization of marijuana in Massachusetts -- was held Saturday and Sunday at the Boston Commons, with local students and dread-locked, tie-dyed demonstrators alike demanding one thing: freedom. Mike Cann, a spokesman for MassCann, which sponsored the event, said he was unhappy with Massachusetts' current political agenda. "The police are not our enemy," he said. "We have one common enemy: politicians. I will never vote for someone who wants to arrest me." [continues 412 words]
OAKLAND - A change to the state's treatment-not-jail law for drug users can't take effect until a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality runs its course, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday. After a 35-minute hearing, Judge Winifred Smith wasn't inclined to deviate from her tentative ruling that a temporary restraining order she'd issued in July should become a preliminary injunction.The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their case, she found. [continues 350 words]
Giambra Ways It's Time to Try a New Approach; Others Say No When County Executive Joel A. Giambra floated the idea of legalizing outlawed drugs, critics responded as if he was on one. But Giambra is hardly alone. The idea of using the government to regulate and control banned substances in order to put the illegal drug trade out of business has gained ground in recent years, with support coming from surprising quarters: law enforcement officials. Their involvement is an example of how calls to revamp the nation's drug policies are no longer solely the province of the left, which has historically favored legalization. Conservatives such as William F. Buckley Jr. and former Reagan-era Secretary of State George Schultz support liberalized drug policies. So, too, does Walter Cronkite, known in his heyday as "the most trusted man in America." [continues 1417 words]
Legislature's Allowing 'Flash Incarceration' May Violate Prop. 36 OAKLAND -- A change to the state's treatment-not-jail law for drug users cannot take effect until a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality runs its course, an Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Thursday. After a 35-minute hearing, Judge Winifred Smith did not deviate from her tentative ruling that a temporary restraining order she issued in July should become a preliminary injunction.The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their case because SB 1137's provisions are at odds with Proposition 36's purposes, she found. [continues 350 words]
A former CIA pilot says secret flights to El Toro could explain a Marine officer's `suicide' When we first spoke, a decade ago, the fear in his voice--the staccato pace, the tremor--was unmistakable. "I can't talk to you," he said. "This is all classified." He answered just one question: if he told me what he knew, he'd go straight to federal prison for violating U.S. national security laws. Then he hung up the telephone. Two weeks ago, I tracked the man to his home in rural Pennsylvania. This time, he didn't hang up on me. The terror in his voice was gone, replaced by the cheerful nonchalance that maybe just comes with being 69 years old and knowing that your kids have finished college, you're well into retirement, and it's too late for anyone to ruin your life for talking to a reporter about matters that powerful people would rather keep secret. [continues 5158 words]
Supervisor Proposes Making Marijuana Busts a Low Priority Famously tolerant San Francisco could become an even friendlier place for pot smokers if the Board of Supervisors passes legislation that proclaims most marijuana violations "the lowest law enforcement priority" for city police. Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced the legislation last month before supervisors took a four-week late-summer break. His nonbinding ordinance directs police to essentially ignore all marijuana crimes except those involving minors, driving under the influence of the drug or the sale of marijuana in a public place. [continues 478 words]
A Maryland Court Rules That Addicted Moms-To-Be Would Be Best Served by Treatment, Not Imprisonment Let's say you're pregnant. Driving without a seatbelt, playing ice hockey, subsisting on Cheetos: They may not be recommended by What to Expect When You're Expecting, but do they constitute illegal reckless "child endangerment" -- punishable by imprisonment? In a decision hailed by National Advocates for Pregnant Women, Maryland's highest court has, in effect, said no. "Imprisonment is not only the most costly thing the state could do," Lynn Paltrow of NAPW told the Washington Post. "It's the most family-destructive thing the state could do." [continues 523 words]
Some college students have lost financial aid due to drug convictions. Some against the policy argue it is ineffective and that students are not properly made aware of repercussions ahead of time. Chris Lippke had reviewed the financial aid policy before completing his FAFSA application for his freshman year. But when he was charged with a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana in 2003, Lippke was forced to drop all classes and take a year's leave from school. "I wasn't fully aware what it all meant," he said. "I'd looked through the rulebook and was aware of a zero-tolerance policy, but didn't know the fine print," he said. "The classes were gone, the money for that semester was gone -- and it all had to come out-of-pocket." [continues 950 words]
With Texas' state prison population expected to exceed capacity by nearly 10,000 beds as soon as 2010, state lawmakers face a public policy crisis. In its legislative appropriations request for fiscal year 2008-2009, the Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) called for the biggest expansion in prison building in over two decades. Whether legislators have the political will to commit to spending at least $520 million on construction is another matter. DJC's plan envisions three new prisons and 5,080 new beds, 500 of them for a DWI treatment center. The plan also recommends 850 beds for special drug treatment prisons, substance-abuse treatment centers for parole-ready inmates, halfway houses, and community-based treatment programs for minor offenders. [continues 969 words]
On Sept. 2, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime announced that opium cultivation in Afghanistan had increased an alarming 59 percent. The drug trade in Afghanistan, like in the Andean region of South America, undermines government institutions that ensure security and allow democracy to function. Yet, that the citizens of these countries still are willing to cultivate opium or coca demonstrates that so long as there is demand for a drug, the suppliers will find a way to deliver. [continues 650 words]
Prop. 36 Has Driven Thousands of Hard-Core Drug Addicts Away From Prison and into Treatment, but Backers Worry That Recent Changes to the Program Could Stifle Its Success. "I should have been killed, if it wasn't for the airbag," she whispers, so as not to disturb the court session. Bert Gabriel, her brassy-haired, grandmotherly case manager, dispassionately surveys her client's mottled arms. Gabriel knows that for this woman to be in court today, she had to survive a lot more than a car crash -- she had to overcome a twenty-year heroin habit. Nevertheless, today she's sober and ready to graduate from Proposition 36. [continues 6347 words]
PHILADELPHIA -- The deaths came in an unexpected spring wave. At the medical examiner's office here, investigators counted 53 fatal overdoses between April and June alone, the lethal toll of heroin mixed with the potent painkiller fentanyl. In Detroit, 12 people died in a 24-hour period. In Chicago, where the same concoction has been linked to nearly 100 deaths this year, some dealers lured addicts by promising a version of the drug so powerful it was intended as a tranquilizer for large animals. [continues 1607 words]
Federal official in Fresno fighting spread of drugs to parks. With Mexican drug cartels linked to nearly 80% of illegal marijuana-growing operations found on state and federal public lands, national drug czar John Walters said his office is working to free those lands from drug traffickers. Walters was in Fresno on Wednesday to join a marijuana-eradication operation near Pine Flat Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest in eastern Fresno County. He also met with top local, state and federal law enforcement officials. [continues 486 words]
Four States Now Maintain Internet Lists of Drug Offenders, With More Likely to Follow. It works much like any other registry of dangerous offenders. Punch in a name, bring up a criminal history. Try a county search, find everyone on the list who may live nearby. But instead of child molesters, a new Web site tracks methamphetamine cooks in Tennessee. And more states are joining the latest effort to fight the drug -- putting the identities of meth manufacturers a mouse click away. [continues 653 words]
North Coast, State Production Soaring; Sending Workers North Cheaper Than Smuggling Dope Illegal marijuana production is surging on the North Coast and across the state as a result of rising dominance of Mexican crime families over the state's underground pot economy. Scores of Mexican nationals are being sneaked across the border to grow, guard and harvest marijuana gardens inside California because tightened border security has crimped smuggling of Mexican-grown pot into the state, according to local, state and federal drug agents. [continues 1138 words]
Cass County's Meth Task Force is in the midst of distributing a quantity of public education materials. The rollout continues through September. Meth Watch materials aim at educating retailers, who received training in June. During road patrols, the Sheriff's Office is distributing Meth Watch retailer packets containing customer information sheets, door signs, shelf signs and an employee poster altering workers to "pre-cursor" material methamphetamine "cooks" might buy, such as cold pills containing ephedrine or pseudophedrine, acetone, rubbing and isopropyl alcohol, starter fluid (ether), gasoline additives (methanol), drain cleaner (sulfuric acid), lithium batteries, rock salt, matchbooks (red phosphorous), lye, paint thinner, aluminum foil, glassware, coffee filters and propane tanks. [continues 875 words]
You Know the Drug War Is Going Badly When Law Enforcement Turns Against It The idea that America's 35-year-old war on drugs has serious problems isn't new. Multiple long-standing organizations ranging from NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) to Libertarian think tank the Cato Institute have advocated drug legalization for decades. The debate has even permeated American popular culture to a degree, with films like Traffic and Maria Full of Grace exploring the human impact of drug prohibition. [continues 1341 words]
Illinois Republican Jerry Weller is one of the most powerful men in Congress when it comes to Latin America. His wife is the most powerful woman in Guatemala's controversial FRG party. JERRY WELLER WAS running for his sixth term as congressman from Illinois' 11th District in July 2004 when he announced that he was engaged to Zury Rios Sosa, an outspoken third-term legislator in Guatemala's congress and the daughter of former dictator General Efrain Rios Montt. "I am thrilled to have found my best friend and soulmate," Weller stated in a press release. "Our love knows no boundaries." In the same release Sosa said, "With Jerry, I am starting an eternal springtime. I admire his character, his commitment to his responsibilities, and his honesty." [continues 3009 words]
LOWELL -- While she does not line up completely with the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition, (SHaRC) Green Rainbow Party gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross does agree the state is throwing good money after bad. "Part of what worries me and part of the reason I'm running for governor is that we've heard all the rhetoric, but the state is still paying $43,000 a year for a prisoner who needs a rehab bed," Ross said. "It's the policy issues at the state level that have me concerned. There are basic solutions that we are not looking at." [continues 478 words]
Marijuana offenses by adults could become Missoula County law enforcement's lowest priority if a recently filed ballot proposal proves successful. Should voters approve, the initiative crafted by Citizens for Responsible Crime Policy (CRCP) would direct Missoula County officials--including the Sheriff's Department and County Attorney's Office--to put marijuana-related investigations, citations, arrests, seizures and prosecutions at the bottom of their to-do list, in favor of investing more time and resources into more serious crimes. Nothing about marijuana's criminal status would be changed, and the initiative wouldn't preclude marijuana arrests; rather, the measure would simply direct law enforcement to prioritize other crimes like robbery, murder, rape, assault and drunken driving. Marijuana offenses involving minors, driving under the influence or distribution near schools would not be de-prioritized. [continues 886 words]
An initiative that aims to make marijuana offenses the single lowest priority for Missoula County law enforcement has qualified for a spot on the November ballot, according to proponents of the measure. Dubbed Initiative 2, the measure was proposed by Citizens for Responsible Crime Policy, and, thanks in part to months of aggressive signature gathering, has won the support of more than 20,000 registered voters in Missoula County. The measure required just 11,723 signatures to place on the ballot. [continues 357 words]
To say the statewide slate of Green Party candidates faces a tough election campaign underestimates the obstacles that Republican and Democratic domination have built in Connecticut since Henry Dutton, a Whig, was governor in 1855. Political experts and observers say the 2,200-member Green Party, while addressing some major issues that concern state voters, cannot get its message out to enough people to overcome the massive media campaigns of the Republicans and Democrats. But amid the expected cacophony of attack advertising in this year's quadrennial gubernatorial race and the sizzling-hot U.S. Senate campaign, the Greens will provoke Connecticut's electorate to think beyond traditional party politics. [continues 1246 words]
Roundtable Discussion Presented Here. SOUTH BEND -- National Drug Control Policy Director John P. Walters credited state laws restricting access to methamphetamine ingredients with helping to reduce drug use by teenagers, but said at a Thursday news conference that much work remains to be done. Walters was invited here by U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola, R-2nd, and participated in a roundtable discussion on drug policies, the role of the courts and methamphetamine use in Indiana. Superior Court Judge Roland Chamblee, who oversees the county's drug court program, and local police and prosecutors also participated in the roundtable discussion, which was held at the County-City Building. [continues 115 words]
After A Welcome Decline, Cities Such As Philadelphia, Above, Are Seeing A Resurgence Of Violent Crime. NEW YORK The United States is losing the war in Iraq; more specifically, Philadelphia is. This war is at home, in the city's 12th Police District, where shootings have almost doubled over the past year, and residents have spray-painted "IRAQ" in huge letters on abandoned buildings to mark the devastation. It is a story being repeated up and down the East Coast and across the nation. In Boston, where the homicide rate is soaring, Analicia Perry, a 20-year-old mother, was shot and killed several weeks ago while visiting the street shrine marking the site of her brother's death on the same date four years earlier. Recently, Orlando's homicide count for this year reached 37, surpassing the city's previous annual high of 36 in 1982. And in Washington, D.C., where 14 people were killed in the first 12 days of July, Police Chief Charles Ramsey declared a state of emergency. [continues 1965 words]
Registries Include Makers, Dealers States frustrated with the growth of toxic methamphetamine labs are creating Internet registries to publicize the names of people convicted of making or selling meth, the cheap and highly addictive stimulant plaguing communities across the nation. The registries -- similar to the sex-offender registries operated by every state -- have been approved within the past 18 months in Tennessee, Minnesota and Illinois. Montana has listed those convicted of running illegal drug labs on its Internet registry of sexual and violent offenders since 2003. Meth-offender registries are being considered in Georgia, Maine, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington state and West Virginia. [continues 445 words]
Study: Possession Tops Sales As a Charge; Big Racial Disparity After two decades of steadily toughening laws, Illinois now puts more people in prison for drug crimes than any state except California, according to a study released Tuesday by Roosevelt University. The report also found that more people are being incarcerated for possessing narcotics than for selling them and that the state's prisons hold about five black inmates convicted of drug offenses for every white inmate--one of the largest racial disparities in the country. [continues 1219 words]
When Lori Fickey was cited for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana Thursday, she said she was not doing anything dangerous and was hardly a threat to other people. Fickey, 24, of Grand Junction, who was ticketed after an officer searched her truck outside a restaurant on North Avenue and discovered a small amount of marijuana, said she thought it was absurd that possession of miniscule amounts of "an herb" in Colorado is even a crime. "It shouldn't be illegal," she said. "You have people out there who do things with alcohol. That's where you see most of your crime." [continues 440 words]
Two U.S. Border Patrol agents facing 20 years in prison for shooting in the buttocks a drug-smuggling suspect should get a new trial because they are "victims of prosecutorial misconduct," including an unjust grant of immunity, says the head of the National Border Patrol Council. NBPC President T.J. Bonner said exonerating evidence was withheld during the March trial of Senior Agents Ignacio "Nacho" Ramos and Jose A. Compean, whose sentencing is set for Tuesday, adding that the agents followed long-established Border Patrol policies in the incident. [continues 626 words]
When you're truly in a narcotic task force's crosshairs, they might give you a signal in the form of a simple rhyme: "Give us three, and we'll set you free." This couplet, most effective when recited by an agent perched on the lip of his chair, muscles tensed and ready, should be interpreted to mean that if you incriminate a handful of marbles law enforcement would rather play with, they'll drop those pending drug charges. And in an era of federal mandatory minimums that work like dispassionate Pez Dispensers handing out tart, 10- year prison bids for such crimes as, say, thinking about dealing America's most commonly used illicit drug, marijuana (a decade for planning, not selling), getting a suspect to "flip" on someone else can be a process smoother than photosynthesis. [continues 1406 words]
From the lack of body counts in Iraq, to drug wars to torture, the United States is making the world a worse place to live in. The following three subchapters are excerpted from John Tirman's 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World (Harper Perennial, 2006). Read another excerpt here. Three ways America is screwing up the world: 1. "We Don't Do Body Counts" When U.S. General Tommy Franks uttered those words in 2003, he was conveying the new sentiments of the American military and its civilian leadership, that counting the dead of "the enemy" was not necessary or useful. Franks, who may be remembered as the only general in the annals of American history to lose two wars, was simply repeating what his political handlers told him to say, as all active duty generals do. In this case, it was an attempt to deflect the moral consequences of a "war of choice," a lesson Frank's generation learned from Vietnam. But the "no body counts" policy reverberates around the Arab and Muslim world, to America's detriment. [continues 2183 words]
Livid over the vague voter-enacted state law allowing use of medical marijuana, a crusading lawyer tries to untangle unintended consequences. The law has driven the supply system underground, pot patients are getting busted, and some cops, prosecutors, and judges just don't get it. Jon Graves heard noise behind his house one evening last October. The house backed onto an alley in the University District, and he was always watchful. He went to the back of the house to investigate. A woman was banging on his bedroom window from the alley below. [continues 4881 words]
PHILADELPHIA -- An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse. The proposed change includes provisions intended to prevent problems that plagued earlier programs. Nevertheless, it has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and incited debate among prison rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in. [continues 1720 words]
Tulsa Police Forced to Reassess Priorities Federal grants to the Tulsa Police Department are drying up, forcing cuts to special projects including those that pay overtime costs for monitoring sex offenders and for meth-lab cleanups. Since 2002 -- the earliest year for which records could be located -- grants to Tulsa police from the U.S. Department of Justice have fallen from about $952,000 to about $373,000 in 2006, said Cpl. Art Surratt, the Police Department's grants coordinator. The grants, now called Justice Assistance Block Grants, totaled as much as $3 million one year, Chief Dave Been said. [continues 825 words]
A photograph of President Bush waving a flag after the Sept. 11 attacks is juxtaposed against a black-and-white image of a black mother smoking crack cocaine in bed next to her baby. Larger-than-life portraits of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar line the walls. The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement Administration exhibit unveiled Friday at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked. Advocates of legalization who are leafleting outside the exhibit say the DEA is leaving out an important part of the story. Critics agree that drug trafficking provides a potentially lucrative revenue stream for terrorist organizations. But they say the profit is fueled by the government's war on drugs, which creates a situation akin to prohibition of alcohol. [continues 367 words]
DEA Defends Traveling Exhibit as Critics Draw Parallels to Prohibition Era A photograph of President Bush waving a flag after the Sept. 11 attacks is juxtaposed against a black-and-white image of an African American mother smoking crack cocaine in bed next to her baby. Larger-than-life portraits of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar line the walls. The central message of a traveling Drug Enforcement Administration exhibit unveiled at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry yesterday is that terrorism and drugs are inextricably linked. [continues 763 words]
Federal Court Case Is Winding Down Four years after the opening of a methadone clinic in Pikesville prompted protests by residents, fines from Baltimore County officials and swift legislation aimed at shutting it down, the two sides are continuing their argument before jurors in a trial nearing its end in federal court. The result of the trial could force a change in Baltimore County and, legal experts and drug treatment advocates say, send a signal to other local governments that they, too, need to modify zoning laws for rehabilitation programs. [continues 1106 words]
Detective Was Right To Use Deadly Force, DA Rules. A Towamencin Township police detective who shot a 19-year-old suspect as he and an accomplice tried to flee a drug bust was justified in using deadly force, the Montgomery County district attorney said Wednesday. The ruling clears Detective James Hanrahan, who shot Chad Hacker Jr. in the stomach Aug. 3 outside the Wawa at Forty Foot Road and Sumneytown Pike. Prosecutors say Hacker, of 337 Homestead Drive, Lower Salford Township, and driver Jonathan A. Moyer, 20, of 418 Hill Road, Salford Township, had just paid $7,000 for 10 pounds of marijuana and tried to escape after police told them to stop. Moyer is accused of trying to run Hanrahan over. [continues 478 words]
Governor's Call for Special Session Follows Criticism SACRAMENTO - The Legislature began a special session Monday to try to fix the state's broken prison system amid powerful competing pressures -- some that demand reform, but others that make sweeping change unlikely. The pressures are both political and practical. There is pressure on the prisons themselves, which are bursting with inmates -- more than 170,000 of them, or almost double the intended capacity. Thousands of prisoners are sleeping in double- and triple-bunk beds in gymnasiums. [continues 1127 words]
The NYPD disproportionately targets poor, black and Hispanic neighborhoods when enforcing marijuana smoking-in-public laws, according to a hotly debated new study. The results of the study, funded by the Marijuana Policy Project and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are published in the new issue of Harm Reduction Journal, an open-access online journal published by BioMed Central. The NYPD says that this type of enforcement goes along with its focus on where the heaviest crime patterns exist and is part of the department's successful quality-of-life policing strategy. [continues 195 words]
Election - Improperly signed and dated petitions disqualify several thousand signatures Talk about a buzz kill. Although they paid petition circulators $94,000, organizers of an effort to make marijuana crimes Portland's lowest law enforcement priority failed to gather enough signatures for the November ballot. The city auditor's office ruled that the group calling itself Citizens for a Safer Portland turned in 31,623 John and Jane Hancocks - -- more than the 26,691 they needed to qualify. But the city elections officer found that several hundred sheets, containing 4,449 signatures, were not properly dated and signed. [continues 327 words]
Is The War On Drugs Working President Bush's recent State of the Union address was charged with optimism. Portraying America as a "hopeful nation", he touted a 19 percent decline in youth drug use since 2001. While this information may come as a relief to Americans, it is an oversimplification of the facts. This general decline has been accompanied by increases in abuse of inhalants and prescription drugs. Youth drug abuse is only slowly recovering from a spike in the mid-1990s, and this decline is decelerating. [continues 319 words]
'War On Drugs' Only Wastes Resources, Harms Users, Funds Criminals The current issue of the Summer Titan, the student newspaper at Cal State Fullerton, proclaims that marijuana is "still in vogue." The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center confirms in its 2006 Assessment that marijuana demand continues to hold steady. But make no mistake - we're still making war on it. And few seem to care. It's a testimonial to the effectiveness of government spin that people seem barely troubled by the "war on drugs" despite the fact that it is by far our quagmire of all quagmires, having raged for over three decades, with no end in sight. This is an issue crying for public debate in the 2006 elections, yet no candidate is demanding one. [continues 549 words]
As a longtime crack addict from Lexington, Ky., George Moorman was one more black male being churned through America's criminal justice system until one day in 1997, when he came before a drug court judge for stealing a camcorder. "He decided to put me in the drug court program - he told me I was too intelligent to go to the penitentiary," recalls Moorman, who, at 54, just earned a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Kentucky. "I'd already made the decision to change. But saying you're going to make a change doesn't mean you're going to do it. You have to have the support." [continues 1224 words]
Ads equating addiction with a disease provoke strong response In the 20 years since a woman cracked an egg into a hot skillet while saying, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs," science has made great strides in understanding just how illicit drugs fry the mind. The nonprofit group responsible for the iconic anti-drug campaign also has evolved with a provocative message that drug addiction is a disease worse than cancer, diabetes and AIDS. "It'd be better if I had cancer, then you wouldn't tell me what I'm going through is just a phase," says a shirtless man in a new public service announcement. "You wouldn't see my condition as a lack of willpower, but the disease that it truly is." [continues 932 words]
As a longtime crack addict from Lexington, Ky., George Moorman was one more black male being churned through America's criminal justice system until one day in 1997, when he came before a drug court judge for stealing a camcorder. "He decided to put me in the drug court program - he told me I was too intelligent to go to the penitentiary," recalls Moorman, who, at 54, just earned a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Kentucky. "I'd already made the decision to change. But saying you're going to make a change doesn't mean you're going to do it. You have to have the support." [continues 1214 words]
DEA and County Officials Close Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in San Diego, Say Raids Are a 'Warning' In the past two years, the number of medical-marijuana dispensaries in San Diego County has grown from zero to roughly two-dozen - most of them located within San Diego city limits - with another dozen medical-cannabis delivery services focused solely on bringing pot to a person's home. Only the L.A. area has experienced a similar increase in medical-cannabis-related businesses in such a short period of time. Unlike L.A., however, where local law enforcement have spoken out against federal closure of medical marijuana dispensaries, the issue has reached a tipping point in San Diego - earlier this month, federal and local law-enforcement agents raided 13 dispensaries and arrested 15 owners and employees. Five people have been charged with the federal crimes of conspiracy to distribute and conspiracy to manufacture marijuana; the remaining were arraigned in state court on drug sales and possession charges. [continues 1213 words]
