State Creates Office to Fight Problem, but Under Staffs, Underfunds It If officials are aware of the statewide heroin crisis that has killed thousands of Pennsylvanians, they apparently think there's a cheap fix. After six years of inaction, in 2010 the Pennsylvania General Assembly created the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, formerly a modest bureau tucked into the Department of Health. Then they piled on a huge workload and gave it little money. Overdoses have spiked in Pennsylvania, with heroin and other opiates killing more than 3,000 people since 2009, not counting deaths attributed to accidents, disease and suicide. Thousands more have had their lives torn apart, like Holly Wright, a mother of two from Kittanning, who went to treatment after losing her job, money and nearly her children. [continues 1626 words]
Penny Ashley knew her son had a heroin addiction problem and did everything in her power to get help for him, but it still proved to be not enough. She along with other family members and friends are grieving the loss of Jacob Charles Ashley of Southgate, who died Sunday, Jan. 4, 2015, at the age of 21. Born in St. Marys, Ohio, on Oct. 26, 1993, he moved to Wyandotte in 2004. He graduated from Roosevelt High School and then went on to Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn where he participated in Ford Automotive Student Service Educational Training. The ASSET program is a 24-month, six-semester associate's degree training program that provides students with skills to succeed in the automotive industry. He graduated from the program and was working in the body shop at Southgate Ford. [continues 480 words]
Re: How Ottawa police are responding to gang violence, Jan. 8. As mentioned by police Chief Charles Bordeleau, the reality is that gun violence is being fuelled by the drug trade. The drug trade is perpetuating this violence and cruelty that is simply mind-boggling and unprecedented. The futile war on drugs simply cannot be won. Why we continue to defy and ignore more than 100 years of failed prohibition is simply mind-boggling, counterproductive, and irresponsible. Prohibition, as history shows, be it for alcohol or illegal drugs, fuels violent crime, including the lucrative gun trade. It is easily argued that law enforcement, in and by itself, simply does not, nor has it ever reduced or dried up the supply of illegal drugs. Illicit drugs have been with us forever. [continues 131 words]
Editor, Regarding your Dec. 15 op-ed, not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but adult recreational use should be legal and regulated. Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences. So much for protecting the children. Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime. [continues 77 words]
I SPENT 26 years as a State Police officer fighting the drug war, 14 of those years as an undercover officer working every kind of case, including billion-dollar heroin trafficking conspiracies. I have seen the ravages of both drug use and current drug policy. The consequences of addiction in an illegal marketplace are far greater than the addiction alone. Users don't know how much of their purchase is heroin or whether it has been cut with an agent such as Fentanyl, a drug many times stronger than heroin. [continues 112 words]
In Lebanon, Where All Eyes Are on a Neighbouring Country Tearing Itself Apart, a Multi-Million-Dollar Drug Trade Is Flourishing Like Never Before LEBANON'S drug kingpin watched his workers sink spades into the piles of marijuana that banked the walls of his factory, throwing the chopped plants on to machines that sifted out the top-quality hash bound for Britain's streets. The secret processing plant outwardly an unremarkable cow barn stands on a hillside overlooking the fertile plains of the Bekaa Valley, where cannabis is once again a multi-million-dollar drug trade. [continues 903 words]
When a grand jury refused last week to bring an indictment in the death of Eric Garner, the New Yorker who died from a policeman's chokehold, the outrage across the political spectrum was nearly universal. Left and right, libertarian and collectivist: Everybody was, for once, in agreement. For a moment or two. Then fissures began appearing. One of them concerned the role New York's cigarette taxes played - or didn't - in Garner's death. You can make a good argument, as several commentators did, that the city's outlandishly high taxes contributed to Garner's death. Those taxes have created a huge black market in cigarettes, and the cops were busting Garner for selling "loosies," or individual cigarettes, on the street. Not long ago, New York enhanced the penalty for selling loosies, and "an order to crack down on the illegal sale of 75-cent cigarettes in Staten Island came directly from police headquarters, setting off a chain of events that ended in Eric Garner's death," the Daily News reported. [continues 633 words]
A Psychology of Macho Law-Making Steers Policy - in Defiance of Public Opinion and Common Sense The government should ban all reports on drug legalisation. They get you hooked on rage. Evidence-based reform is a gateway substance to common sense. Just send a message: no thought means no. Parliament's response to this week's report on the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act shows that psychoactive substances are the last taboo to afflict Britain's elite. It has got over past obsessions with whipping, hanging, sodomy and abortion, but it is still stuck on drugs. There is no point in reading the latest research on drugs policy worldwide. It is spitting in the wind. The only research worth doing is on why drugs policy reduces politicians to gibbering wrecks. [continues 961 words]
Regarding "San Diego shuts down four illegal pot shops" (Oct. 23): The city keeps closing pot shops, but the numbers don't seem to go down. In September 2013 "more than a dozen" were reportedly operating. In May 2014 the number was "at least 54." Now, in October, with four new closures we are down to "around 50." At least two new pot shops have opened in my neighborhood in Pacific Beach since June. At the same time Vista has effectively closed every pot shop and kept others from opening by filing criminal complaints. Selling marijuana is still illegal by state law. Not one Vista case has gone to trial because the operators close voluntarily and quickly. Do we always have to do things the hard way? Scott Chipman Pacific Beach [end]
Medical marijuana is legal in Canada. Well, sort of legal. At least some of the time. In certain ways. Health Canada helpfully clarifies all on its website by explaining that "dried marijuana is not an approved drug or medicine in Canada ... [pause for a beat] but courts have required reasonable access to a legal source of marijuana when authorized by a physician." So, make no mistake, the government still hates marijuana. It's not going to endorse the stuff, or admit that pot might do any kind of good in any circumstances. It's definitely not going to call it medicine. [continues 716 words]
FURTHER to the new cannabis study by Professor Wayne hall of King's College London (Mail), none of us calling for an end to the so-called War On Drugs is suggesting that cannabis (or any other drug) should be made available to adolescents. I'm equally concerned about the potential harm caused by drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. But the appropriate responses are evidence-based public health interventions and sensible regulation. Drug policies have neither curbed demand for illicit drugs nor reduced supply. They certainly haven't done anything to eliminate the risks Prof hall has identified. There are no greater obstacles to reducing harm than prohibition and the continued criminalisation of drug users. [continues 116 words]
So far, the Amendment 2 debate has been a fact-free zone. So everyone can understand what a fact is, I will offer a couple. 1. After thousands of years of use by humans, there has never been a recorded death actually caused by marijuana. No cannabinoid even has an LD-50. That's the dose capable of killing 50 percent of the time. 2. There is only one study showing that marijuana might harm developing brains, and that study has been widely discredited because the affected children were mostly living in poverty, which itself causes the same harm detected. There are no other studies suggesting harm, only a lot of citations to that study. [continues 219 words]
The subject of your article "Hooked. Terrified. Trapped." is another needless victim of the woefully misplaced war on drugs. Instead of getting this student the help he needed for treatment of his drug addiction, campus security coerced him into becoming a police informant. I hope the University of Massachusetts Amherst uses this unnecessary tragedy to recognize that substance use among college students is a public health issue and not a matter for the criminal justice system. Dr. Mark Eisenberg Brookline [end]
To the Times: We have the war on drugs, the war on crime, and even the war on hunger now. The sad fact is that the war is designed just like the wars against our foreign enemies. These wars are actually a war against empty pockets for the folks in charge. We have had a huge war on drugs for years now, yet for some reason we seem to have a worse drug problem than ever. Why, you may ask? Because we aren't serious about the consequences. [continues 330 words]
Re "This isn't Ferguson" (Editorial, Aug. 28): Your editorial about Ferguson, Mo., was right on. To further understand the militarization of our police forces and how it is being instituted, consider the following: SWAT teams have grown 14,000 percent over a 10-year period, Al Jazeera reports. Ninety percent of the tasks performed by these SWAT teams with their newly issued armored vehicles and military-grade weapons are for nonviolent drug raids and serving drug warrants. Basically, this already-proven failure of drug policy-the "Drug War"-is being used as a sorry excuse to militarize the police against us. We must demand an end to this drug war, once and for all. [continues 104 words]
To the Editor: In the 1960s, civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, and elsewhere faced local police officers armed with hand held batons, fire hoses, attack dogs and horse-mounted riot control officers. Recently, in Ferguson, Missouri, civic rights protestors went up against aggressive local police officers equipped with body armor, automatic weapons, armored personnel carriers and at least one police sniper aiming a telescope-equipped assault rifle at the protestors. Street protests today look a lot like those of the 1960s but, with drug war-driven militarization of local law enforcement agencies since then, the police response in Ferguson now looks a lot like urban warfare. [continues 622 words]
Boys from fourth to ninth grades Wednesday took a break from playing basketball at the Town of Oyster Bay Athletic Center in Hicksville to listen to a Nassau County detective's presentation about the dangers of drugs. "This is the biggest epidemic this country faces," Det. Pamela Stark said. "Every 15 minutes someone in the country is dying from opiates." Every year, as part of the Nassau Police Athletic League's Drug Awareness and Prevention Program, children of all ages learn about the consequences of drug abuse. Wednesday's was an all-boys PAL camp. [continues 223 words]
Fife's legal standoff with the state could mean I-502 goes up in smoke. It really could, man. Few places are as unremarkable as Fife, this industrial burb scattered along Highway 99 east of Tacoma. If it weren't for the Poodle Dog diner and the Memorial Fountain, once a drinking trough for thirsty cargo-bearing horses, there would be little to distinguish this small city (pop. 9,290), aside from its surfeit of car dealerships, cheap motels, and drive-through smoke shops. [continues 1109 words]
Depending on your point of view, Marc Emery could be styled a valiant crusader against injustice who has devoted his working life to battling the intrusive activities of an overbearing state, or a self-absorbed troublemaker and self-promoter who ensures his regular space in the spotlight by breaking the law. Either way, Mr. Emery has been released from U.S. custody after serving a five-year sentence for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and is expected to return to Canada within weeks. He has already declared himself a victim - once again - and announced plans to seek revenge on the Conservatives in Ottawa by campaigning hard for Justin Trudeau's Liberals in the 2015 election. [continues 716 words]
The Agency Is Caught Between States That Lean Toward Marijuana Legalization and Law Enforcement That Maintains a Hard Line WASHINGTON - For narcotics agents, who often confront hostile situations, Capitol Hill has been a refuge where lawmakers stand ready to salute efforts in the nation's war on drugs. Lately, however, the Drug Enforcement Administration has found itself under attack in Congress as it holds its ground against marijuana legalization while the resolve of longtime political allies - and the White House and Justice Department to which it reports - rapidly fades. [continues 1142 words]
One of Florida's foremost cancer hospitals takes the job of caregiver so seriously it holds a 'Caregiver Academy' for those caring for patients following stem-cell transplants. Caring for someone who is very ill is a huge responsibility that can involve addressing basic needs such as bathing, eating, continence, dressing, toileting and transferring. A major element of Amendment 2, the ballot question Floridians will vote on in November, concerns caregivers who could assist with a recipient's use of marijuana. [continues 480 words]
Cristian Omar Reyes, an 11-year-old sixth-grader in the neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon - "no matter what." In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, but she has not. Three people he knows were murdered this year. Four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of two weeks at the beginning of this year. A girl his age resisted being robbed of $5. She was clubbed over the head and dragged off by two men who cut a hole in her throat, stuffed her panties in it, and left her body in a ravine across the street from Cristian's house. [continues 1993 words]
If the Obama administration is to be believed, America's infamous "War on Drugs" is over. In its most recent National Drug Control Strategy, released last week, officials promised a more humane and sympathetic approach to drug users and addiction. Out, the report suggests, are "tough on crime" policies. Rather than more police and more prisons, officials talk about public health and education. They promise to use evidence-based practices to combat drug abuse. And they want to use compassionate messaging and successful reentry programs to reduce the stigma drug offenders and addicts face. [continues 695 words]
The War on Drugs Creates a New Class of People to Be Discrimined Neil Franklin, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is a dedicated advocate against the War on Drugs. He's participated in it on the police side as a 33-year veteran of the Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department. He's served on drug squads and done undercover work. LEAP is a national organization of former and current law-enforcement officers who support ending the War on Drugs. Franklin was among those, along with Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow), who convinced the national NAACP to pass a resolution calling for an end to the War On Drugs in 2011. [continues 1156 words]
A Refugee Crisis, Not an Immigration Crisis CRISTIAN OMAR REYES, an 11-year-old sixth grader in the neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon - "no matter what." In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, but she has not. [continues 2446 words]
Several decades from now, when historians look back at the beginning of the end of the expensive, wasteful and tragic American War on Drugs, Jesse Snodgrass may very well be mentioned prominently. It shouldn't be that way, of course. An autistic 17-year-old student at Chaparral High School in Southern California should never have been swallowed up by the American anti-drug industrial complex, but he was. Want some dollars and cents figures? The drug war is big business; bigger than U.S. Steel, as Hyman Roth would say. The federal government spent $15 billion in 2010 on the War on Drugs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. That's about $500 per second. State and local governments spent at least another $25 billion in 2010. [continues 372 words]
Several decades from now, when historians look back at the beginning of the end of the expensive, wasteful and tragic American War on Drugs, Jesse Snodgrass may very well be mentioned prominently. It shouldn't be that way, of course. An autistic 17-year-old student at Chaparral High School in Southern California should never have been swallowed up by the American anti-drug industrial complex, but he was. Want some dollars and cents figures? The drug war is big business; bigger than U.S. Steel, as Hyman Roth would say. The federal government spent $15 billion in 2010 on the War on Drugs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. That's about $500 per second. State and local governments spent at least another $25 billion in 2010. [continues 586 words]
War has been declared on the "war on drugs." Not by violent cartels, but by economists, public health workers, human rights advocates and others who believe that punitive, blanket prohibition is not only failing but has done enormous harm. Thousands took to the streets of more than 100 cities across the globe June 26, "reclaiming" the United Nations' International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking by protesting the fallout of the drug war, from health crises to mass incarceration. [continues 780 words]
Americans Fund Cartels That Have Kids Fleeing Since Oct. 1, U.S. Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 52,000 children traveling alone from Central America and Mexico. Many of these kids made the dangerous trip to escape even more dangerous conditions in their home countries. According to a 2013 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees survey of 400 children who fled to the United States from Central America and Mexico, nearly half said drug cartel and gang violence had affected them personally, while 20 percent said they had been abused or otherwise experienced violence in their own homes. [continues 566 words]
I did not believe it before I went to Afghanistan. But it's now clear that prohibition is no answer to this deadly scourge When Tony Blair deployed British troops in Afghanistan, ending the illicit production and supply of opium was cited as a key objective. In 2001 the prime minister linked heroin use in the UK with opium cultivation in Afghanistan: "The arms the Taliban buy are paid for by the lives of young British people buying their drugs. This is another part of the regime we should destroy." Yet after 10 years of effort with tens of thousands of troops in the country, and having spent billions trying to reduce poppy cultivation, Afghans are growing more opium than ever before. [continues 782 words]
Steep Rise in Arrests Reveals Disparities in Legal Approach Weirton, W.VA. - Taped to the wall of pride inside the Hancock County drug task force's bare-bones office, a snapshot of eight marijuana plants draped over coat hangers serves as evidence of one more small triumph in the war on weed. That same image of a drug-filled closet is seared in Ryan Neeley's memory, but with a very different meaning. To Neeley, the photo is proof that in the same country where a town in Colorado features a marijuana vending machine, the same country with a president who said it is wrong for "only a select few" to be punished for smoking pot, possession of the drug can still be a life-altering experience, and not in a good way. [continues 2788 words]
Peak region to vote? Neither of the purveyors of pot in Manitou Springs are sharing an opening date for their recreational wares. An employee at Reserve 1 says it just turned in its application to the state, while Bill Conkling, owner of Maggie's Farm, simply texted back "Not yet" when asked. Regardless, the group trying to kill their businesses, No Retail Marijuana in Manitou Springs (noretailmarijuana.com), reports that it turned in double the amount of signatures needed to make the November ballot - "as we all knew they would," says Conkling. City Clerk Donna Kast did not return a verifying phone call by press time, but the group is confident local voters will get a chance to just say no. [continues 321 words]
We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal government and states that have gone their separate ways on the failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs. Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that legalized pot for medicinal uses. If the Senate goes along in drawing that line, it will establish a zone of sanity in an otherwise crazed patchwork of federal and state approaches to drug enforcement. [continues 392 words]
The Habersham County toddler's injuries ("Toddler severely hurt in police raid," News, May 30) are the predictable result of our militarized policing and the drug war. After four decades of the "War on Drugs," America's police forces have more military hardware than do many countries' armies. According to the Cato Institute, more than 50,000 "no knock" warrants are issued here each year. These military-style raids predictably lead to tragedies like the one Thursday. Countries like Switzerland and Portugal, in contrast, treat addiction and drug abuse as a public health issue. It's time we follow their examples; it's time for a cease fire. WARREN GOODWIN, ATLANTA [end]
House Vote Shows States Tired of Disjointed Tack We can't go on like this. The words are familiar to parties in many dysfunctional relationships, like the one between the federal government and states that have gone their separate ways on the failed and grotesquely expensive war on drugs. Something has to give. The U.S. House recognized that with an unprecedented bipartisan vote last week to bar the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration from raiding marijuana dispensaries in states that legalized pot for medicinal uses. [continues 420 words]
Decriminalisation Would Allow the State to Set Manufacturing Standards and Collect Taxes, Writes Allan Massie Every week, people appear in sheriff courts all over Scotland charged with drug offences. Sometimes they are in possession of drugs for their own use. Sometimes they are charged with supplying them to others, often acquaintances, friends or members of their own family. They are, I suppose, dealers, if only in a small way, though they may also have closer connections to organised drug crime, which is, after all, a big and profitable business. [continues 1002 words]
CHICAGO - If Radley Balko is right, it may be the dog lovers of America who touched off a movement to rein in the strongarm tactics that have accompanied the militarization of the country's police forces. Balko, who writes The Washington Post's "The Watch" blog on criminal justice issues, says that police these days too frequently shoot people's pets when making a raid, and people are becoming fed up. I recently read Balko's book, "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces," after spending some time in a firearms class. In that class was a retired policeman who firmly subscribed to the "us vs. them" mentality Balko so vividly illustrates. [continues 648 words]
I'VE never taken any leisure drugs. I never will - well, maybe to end some unbearable terminal disease, but otherwise, no. But there are many people who do take drugs for pleasure, and there always will be. I don't support the use of drugs, but the current laws and their enforcement haven't fixed the problem, in fact, they may have made things worse. The war on drugs has actually been a failure many ways with many unintended consequences and lots of collateral damage. [continues 826 words]
The movement to end the violence through the decriminalization of drugs has never had so much momentum. And it's never been easier to get involved. On Saturday, May 10, the third annual "National Dignity March" converged in Mexico City, with hundreds of marchers having walked for a full month from cities and towns all over Mexico. Most of the marchers had lost family members or friends in drug-trafficking violence. They were marching for justice in the country's drug war-calling for the deaths and disappearances to be fully investigated. They also demand that the Mexican government's response to drug trafficking include economic and public health initiatives rather than military action, which has escalated since 2006. (For more information on the movement's history and goals, see my in-depth article on this topic.) [continues 743 words]
Regarding your May 5 editorial commending the Pitt County Sheriff'=C2=80=C2 =99s Office for being the first law enforcement agency in North Carolina to equip its officers with the overdose prevention drug Narcan: Nasal administration of the Narcan reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. This harm-reduction approach to a growing prescription drug abuse problem will save lives. The drug war is part of the problem. Illegal drug users are reluctant to seek medical attention in the event of an overdose for fear of being charged with a crime. Attempting to save the life of a friend could result in a murder charge. Overzealous drug war enforcement results in easily preventable deaths. [continues 125 words]
The letter to this and other newspapers from Robert Sharpe of Washington lobby group Common Sense for Drug Policy makes the standard tired reference to a mythical "war on drugs". No such war has ever launched. What we've had is a war on the bulk supply of drugs to the lower classes coupled with tolerance to personal demand for drugs from the middle class. It's the same double standard now embodied in calls for minimum alcohol pricing. A beautiful illustration of our feigning drug war is documented in the extras of the film City of God when an honest Rio police chief starts winning the drug war in the favelas but loses it in the dinner parties when his peers can no longer procure their little indulgence. [continues 135 words]
MOBILE, ALA. - "That situation didn't define who I was," Clarence Aaron, 45, told a group gathered for a weekend celebration at the Mobile high school he attended more than two decades ago. When at age 24 he found himself in federal prison in 1993 - after he was convicted and sentenced to life without parole for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense - he felt what he called the "stigma." But the former LeFlore High varsity football star refused to give in to the bitterness of receiving a life sentence while career drug dealers received decades' less time. He had a plan: Follow the rules. Work hard. Even in maximum security, "be the best person I can be." [continues 1012 words]
B.C. Regulators Warn That Big Profits Are Being Made By Medical-pot Stock Speculators Big profits are being made by share speculators in the emerging marijuana industry, prompting a warning from B.C. regulators to beware the green rush. "Investors need to know that a lot of these startups fail," said Richard Gilhooley of the B.C. Securities Commission. Gilhooley was reacting to the storm of interest surrounding publicly listed companies getting into the medical and non-medical marijuana business in Canada and some U.S states. [continues 809 words]
With all of the recent hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth over the prospect of legalizing marijuana, I have a few questions. Simply put, are we winning the War on Drugs? Has the current illegal status of pot and other dangerous drugs kept anyone who wanted to try them from doing so? Has the War on Drugs put a dent, even the slightest dent, in America's insatiable appetite for hard narcotics, particularly marijuana? If you can honestly answer yes to any of those questions, then I can understand why you oppose the legalization of weed. I felt the same way for many years. But today, I think we are not only losing the War on Drugs, we've already lost it. [continues 205 words]
Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are alarmed by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and money laundering that Mexican drug cartels are conducting in the U.S. far from the border. U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing concern to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, not just those near the U.S.-Mexico boundary. "If we fail to secure our borders, then every sheriff in America will become a border sheriff," said Sam Page, sheriff of Rockingham County, N.C. "We're only a two-day drive from the border and have already seen the death and violence that illegal crossings brings into our community." [continues 785 words]
BRISTOL - Brightly colored packages with names like "Bizarro," "Platinum" and "Juicy Herbs Marshmallow Root" are filled with material labeled incense, but police call it synthetic marijuana. "Just looking at the package and names of these things, it almost looks like candy," said Police Chief Thomas Grimaldi. "It says on it 'Not For Human Consumption.' For the marketers, and I use that word loosely, that's their way around it." Grimaldi gave a slide show presentation to the Board of Education recently to alert local educators, parents and students that the controlled substance is being marketed to children. [continues 457 words]
Weed, the CNN documentary anchored by Dr. Sanjay Gupta that aired last summer, highlighted the case of Charlotte Figi, a Colorado girl whose epileptic seizures were calmed by use of a special strain of cannabis high in cannabidiol, or CBD, a cannabinoid associated with the plant's medical properties. Television is a powerful medium, and the documentary showed the anguish and ultimate relief of the parents, who OKed the use of the cannabis oil only after exhausting all other possibilities. Millions watched as Charlotte, after being given a specially grown and manufactured tincture of cannabis oil, went from having hundreds of seizures a day to just a few. [continues 784 words]
The drug cartels are laughing at us as we keep drugs illegal to ensure their profits stay high to fuel our enemies in our own hemisphere toward the destruction of our own country. Usually by our own police and greedy officials who are rapidly destroying our U.S. Constitution with compete impunity. They are confiscating our guns, too, in order to prepare us for planned slavery and death. We should not stand for this and we should stop it now, just as our founding leaders who built this great country did. We must band together and fight tyranny and demand the enforcement of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and to preserve our heritage-now! Ed Nemecheck Landers [end]
Our police/prison industry unions should be banned from lobbying and influencing our public policy. The police/prison lobby has grown to a point where they are imposing policy upon us with total disregard for what is good for our country. I do not believe that individual officers are evil and unneeded. I believe their over-reaching unions are evil, as does the 100,000-member-strong Police Officers Against Prohibition. Half of the police/prison industry funding comes from the drug war. We all know that it is a complete failure, except for growing a police industry that rivals all three branches of our military in size. We know that the black market in drugs funds nearly 100 percent of gang activity and the cartels. We know that branding our youth with felonies for drugs and affecting their life-long employment is counterproductive. But, we are helpless to end this drug war due to the massive influence of police/prison industry money in our political arena. Had the police/prison lobby accepted America's changed stance on pot and other drugs, we would have sanity in the growing of pot and not rampant gangs and cartels. Don't you think we can make our own policy without police control? Garry Cooper Durham [end]
The war on drugs has failed. This is one of the conclusions we are forced to draw from our in-depth article chronicling drug use in Frederick County schools, which detailed just how easy it is for students to get hold of heroin, LSD, ecstasy and marijuana. One way to hit back is to target the source of the supply line by making marijuana legal, regulating the trade and taxing it. In early February, The News-Post's editorial board hosted two representatives of the movement to legalize marijuana in Maryland -- Neill Franklin, a 33-year veteran officer and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and Rachelle Yeung, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project. We've taken on board and debated what they said, and it's convinced us there's a stronger case for legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana than simply decriminalizing it. [continues 514 words]
