UK8/1/00
IN THE WEST OF LONDON, CRACK IS BEING SOLD inside sandwiches by hot dogs vendors at 20 pound a "Rock Dog". Police have surveillance plans in place for the summer and have made no comments.
New Zeeland7/20/00
CANNABIS PLOTS RUIN ECOLOGY OF BUSH SAYS DOC WHANGAREI The Department of Conservation is increasingly concerned at the risk to native plants and animals from illegal cannabis cultivation in the bush. The Northland conservancy’s biodiversity manager, Adrian Walker, waid cannabis plantations were having serious effects on conservation values. “The damage to the conservation estate is not a new issue, but one that is slowly increasing over time.”
UK7/13/00
CANNABIS DEALERS TRADE ON INTERNET Drug dealers who produce homegrown cannabis, and trade it over the Internet have emerged alongside Colombian drug barons and Afghan warlords as players in the international drugs market. According to the annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board, the United Nations drugs watchdog, "a new and dangerous trend of very potent homegrown cannabis is being pushed in Western Europe and finding its way into schools."
US7/4/00
DENTIST TELLS COPS THAT "SOMEONE ELSE" WAS GROWING POT! After police discovered what they called a “sophisticated” marijuana growing operation in a garage at a Sun Prairie dentist’s office, the owner pointed the finger at man who was a friend and a patient. Court documents filed allege that the Dr.(who we find unecessary to name), 46, said another man from Madison was running a marijuana operation out of a building adjacent to his dental practice, When confronted by state investigators after a long stakeout, the Dr. tried to distance himself from the situation and said he was “not actually running the operation.” On Monday, both Dr. and "the other man" were arrested on charges of manufacturing marijuana. The arrests came after state and Sun Prairie drug investigators raided the garage and found almost five pounds of marijuana and 27 marijuana plants in various stages of growth.
Italy7/1/00
SOCIOLOGIST MAURIZIO BARBAGLI SAYS THE CONTROLLED HEROIN distribution plan, which has been adopted in Switzerland since 1994, is giving many positive results. In Italy instead, the debate on how to fight drugs is completely sterile.
Australia6/30/00
AUSTRALIA: CLUBS MAY SELL DRUG TEST KITS. Nightclubs and discos may sell test kits so patrons can check the purity of their drugs. Furthermore, some clubs had expressed interest in hiring the St. John Ambulance staff to treat injured or drug-affected clubbers. The measures are only two of many aimed at "curbing drug use and violence" at clubs and raves in New South Wales.
Netherlands6/28/00
DUTCH CABINET SAYS "NO" ON IMPLEMENTATION OF MARIJUANA LAWS. The Cabinet has put aside the wishes of de Tweede Kamer (Parliament / Congress). On June 27 2000, de Tweede Kamer voted with a small Liberal majority, in favour of legalising the cultivation of marijuana, by coffeeshop owners. In response to why this well-backed legislation was killed by the Cabinet, Prime Minister Kok said, “We moeten de broze modus vivendi met andere Europese landen niet verstoren.” (Holland must not distance itself from it’s European neighbours.) Four political parties; PvdA, D66, Groenlinks and the SP, wished to end the present situation where coffeeshops may sell marijuana legally but not grow marijuana. These four progressive parties have been supported by a prominent group of 60 city Mayors from throughout the Nederlands. They have not expressed their further intentions.
UK6/13/00
MORE CHILDREN LURED INTO DRUG CRIMES THE number of children caught up in drug crime has soared by a quarter, revealed the Home Office recently. Almost 8,000 youngsters under 17 were convicted or cautioned for offenses in 1998 compared to the previous year. The increase was more marked among girls with a 32 per cent rise in the numbers under 18 sent to prison. The statistics come after Drugs Tsar Keith Hellawell trumpeted research indicating that the number af 14 to 15-year-olds experimenting with drugs was falling. He has made tackling drug usre by yound people a key aim but has admitted the average age at which children first try them was becoming lower.
Germany6/2/00
GERMANY OKS DRUG INJECTION ROOMS Parliament on Friday legalised drug injection rooms that have sprouted in German cities to provide addicts with clean needles, reversing a policy upheld by the former conservative government. The upper house approved a compromise law that won crucial support from some conservative-led states by emphasising that addicts who get the needles also need counseling. The lower house hap passed the measure Thursday.
UK5/21/00
A RESEARCH BY THE ADVISORY COUNCIL ON THE MISUSE OF DRUGS says that every year 800 people under the effects of drugs die in car accidents.
US5/18/00
MARIJUANA KINGPIN CONVICTED, FACES LIFE More than anything, Jose Luis Aravelo considered himself a hard worker. He became a millionaire after two decades in business and later owned a string of companies with names like Burning Diesel and Burrito Bandit. And he rewarded himself with two homes in the foothills of Tucson, Ariz., a new Chevrolet Tahoe and seven Harley-Davidson motorcycles. His downfall began with a bag filled with about $ 500,000, a scrap of paper with a scribbled cell phone number and a meeting at a tire dealership in Tampa. Aravelo, an Arizona native, was one of the largest marijuana distributors in the United States, prosecutors say. He was convicted in federal court in Tampa this week of planning to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana and conspiring to launder money. He faces life in prison and an $ 8 million fine.
US5/14/00
OREGON AGENCY TO ALLOW OFF-DUTY MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE HILLSBORO, Ore. - The Tualatin Valley Water District may be the first public agency in Oregon that has agreed to allow its employees use medical marijuana. The policy comes with several restrictions: Employees must have a medical marijuana card, they can’t smoke on the job, and the district’s 30 employees with federally issued commercial driver’s licenses can’t smoke at all, because federal law still regards marijuana as a controlled illegal drug. The law permits people to use marijuana for a variety of conditions, not just terminal illnesses, including problems such as nausea that don’t keep them from doing their work. However, under Oregon’s law, employers can refuse to accommodate medical marijuana use by employees. None of the water district’s 85 employees uses medically prescribed marijuana.
Mexico5/3/00
MEXICAN STATE REPORTS ARMY CLASH WITH DRUG TRAFFICKERS MEXICO CITY- Troops clashed with men armed with automatic weapons in a rural part of wouthern Mexico, killing one person and injuring another, the Guerrero state government said. The state news release, reported by the federal government’s Notimex news agency, said that the clash occurred in the village of Palanca del Rio near the town of Coyuca de Catalan in mountainous territory about 120 miles southwest of Mexico City. The government attributed the clash to drug traffickers and said a suspevcted trafficker named Salvador Cortes Conzalez died and a woman named Elba Carcia Lopez was injured.
New Zeeland5/1/00
GROW YOUR OWN’ PLEA WELLINGTON- Green Party MP Nandor Tanczos appealed in Parliament for people over 18 to be allowed to grow and possess cannabis for their own use. “New Zealand needs to get over its obsession with cannabis and gett over the snigger factor which makes rational debate on this issue so difficult,” Mr. Tanczos said recently. “We have the highest recorded arrest rate for cannabis in the world, police spend tens of millions of dollars arresting people for it, and, despite what they say, 85 per cent of these are for simple personal possession.”
Italy5/1/00
ROME Marco Pannella has been condemned to 2 months and 20 days (converted into a 7 million Lire fine) of prison for having distributed hashish in 1995. Pannella ities the Judges, who, he says, ‘are forced to apply insane laws’.
Canada4/30/00
POLICE SAY THEY ARE POWERLESS TO HALT SEED SALES ON WEB Vendors of cannabis seeds through Canadian Internet sites are so confident of being beyond the reach of the law they use their home pages to mock the authorities. “Let me help you overgrow the government,” says the Web site of Vancouver besed Marc Emery Direct Marijuana Seeds, in business since 1994. H.D. Seeds, shich has been “serving Canadians since 1997,” shows a picture of the House of Parliament on its home page. The site likes to keep the accounting books in order, however. It warns that 7% will be addes to each purchase to cover Canada’s goods and services tax. Other sites glorify convicted drug traffickers. Stinky’s Marihuana Seed Bank, for example, has named one its seed packages in honour of Howard Marks, described as “one of the biggest marijuana smugglers of our time.”
US4/28/00
JUDGE IMPRISONS QUADRIPLEGIC MAN Louis E. Covar has been in a wheelchair for 35 years, unable to do more than raise his shoulders. On Thursday, he began a seven-year prison sentence. His crime: smoking marijuana. Cost to taxpayers to keep him behind bars: $ 258.33 a day an $ 660,000 during seven years. “If I had another alternative, I would do it, “Mr. Covar, 51, said at his probation revocation hearing in Richmond County Superior Court. He has tried many different drugs during the past three decades to ease painful muscle spasms he has suffered since July 4, 1967, when he broke his neck. His doctors continued to prescribe narcotics, the latest of which was 40 milligrams of Valium a day, he said. “I don’t know where I am half the time I’m taking that,” Mr. Covar said. Smoking marijuana eases the pain but leaves his mind clear so he can at least communicate, he said. “I’m already in prison in my body, and they want to put me to sleep all the time,” Mr. Covar said of doctors. When Judge J. Carlisle Overstreet sentenced Mr. Covar last March to seven years of probation for the felony offense of marijuana possession, he scolded the quadriplegic.
UK4/26/00
BRITISH PC HELD IN INDIA OVER 1M POUNDS HEROIN HAUL A BRITISH police officer has been arrested in India and accused of trying to smuggle heroin worth almost 31m pounds into Britain. Shabir Rehman Abdul Mubarak, a constable from Preston Lancashire, was one of five men held in Bombay by Indian drug squad officers. He holds both Indian and British passports, although his superiors in the Lancashire force had been unaware of his dual nationality, which usually bars people from serving in the police. Bombay police said the suspects were found with 5 kilograms of “superior-quality heroin” with a street value of 950,000 pounds. It is alleged that Mubarak used his police warrant card to try to smuggle the drugs onto a flight to Dubai, where the suspects were scheduled to catch a flight to Manchester.
Pakistan4/24/00
AFGHANISTAN DRUGS WORRY PAKISTAN ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Afghanistan is growing a record amount of drugs and that’s bad news for Pakistan and the world, warned Pakistan’s Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider. But isolating Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban army is not the answer, he told a U.N.-sponsored press conference where a 1999 International Narcotics Control Board report was released. The report, which takes a global look at drug production, said Afghanistan is the worlds’s largest producer of opium. Last year it produces 4,600 tons, according to U.N. statistics.
US4/23/00
HEMP OPPORTUNITY MUST FOR IDAHO Idaho farmers may have an opportunity to put a new crop in their rotation, one with desirable agronomic benefits and the ability to bring in many value-adding industries and jobs. Gov. Kempthorne, in his State of the State speeck, said this is what Idaho needs. The crop is industrial hemp. Its scentific name is Cannabis sativa L., which is the root of the word canvas, traditionally made from hemp. Hemp is a cousin to marijuana, but hemp isn’t the same as marijuana in the same way a California poppy isn’t an opium poppy. Hemp once was a dominant crop in the world’s economy. The prime obstacle to growing hemp in the United States is the federal Drug Enforcement Administration’s opposition. The DEA’s concern is that marijuana would be substituted for hemp in the field.
France4/20/00
Experts strongly oppose those who view synthetic drugs as being hedonistic and relatively innocuous, and instead insist upon the neurological degeneration caused by substances such as exstasy.
Australia4/20/00
EXPERTS COOL ON DRUG TESTS FOR PARENTS Drug testing parents would be costly, hard to supervise, easy to subvert, and a black market in “clean urine” would be exploited, experts said after the idea was floated by the Minister for Community Services, Mrs. Lo Po’. Mrs. Lo Po’ said neglectful and abusive parents with a history of drug or alcohol dependency should be compelled to undergo drug tests before their children were returned to their care. She said she was no longer oprepared to take parents’ word that they were drug-free.
Canada4/20/00
‘GROW-UP’ BLAZES WILL KILL, LANGFORD FIRE CHIEF WARNS VICTORIA It’s only a matter of time before a firefighter is injured or killed in a blaze resulting from an illegal marijuana grow operation, a Victoria area fire chiefs warns. “I’m afraid if the court system does not address ellegal grow operations adequately, we’re going to lose a firefighter,” said Bob Beckett of the Langfort Fire Department. Hee made his comments eary Saturday morning after a fire levelled a rented house. Equipment in the home suggested it sheltered a grow operation. Thirty firefighters attacked the inferno.
New Zeeland4/20/00
TANCZOS TO TOUR WITH CANNABIS MESSAGE Green MP Nandor Tanczos will tour university campuses around the country during the next two weeks to drum up support for the decriminalisation of cannabis and other issues. The tour, to universities and polytechnics in Christchurch, Dunedin, Auckland, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Palmerston North and Hamilton, was also aimed at further developing the Greens’s relationship with young people, he said. A poll last week, which put nationwide support for the Greens at 7.1 per cent and the third highest out of all political parties, showed the party had 21 per cent support in the 18-24 year age group- level with National.
Germany4/20/00
A sentence of the German Constitutional Court authorises therapeutic use of cannabis, although with prior request from the Federal Pharmaceutical Institute.
UK4/20/00
GREEN DISGUST AT NEW HIGH IN 1998 DRUG ARRESTS With the release of the Home Office figures on drug seizures and arrests for 1998 the Green Party condemned the Government over it’s continuing adherence to a failed drugs policy The new record high of 128.000 people arrested, a 13% increase on ‘97, shows that the desired policy of keeping people off drugs is simply failing Most worrying, the largest increase in drug arrests are for the more addictive drugs such as heroin, up 30%, and cocaine, up 32%. The number of crack seizures rose by a shocking 36%.
UK4/20/00
A study by ‘The Lancet’ says that ecstasy is, after car accidents, the second major cause for death among young Europeans. The greater risk is for those who only make occasional use of the drug.
UK4/20/00
Tory leader William Haqgue says he’s willing to excuse all his conservative colleagues in Parliament who have in the past used cannabis.
UK4/20/00
I SUPPORT LEGALISING CANNABIS AS MEDICINE CUMBRIA’S police chief has voiced his support for the legalisation of cannabis, but only if it is for medicinal purposes. Chief Constable Colin Phillips gave his forthright views on a series of controversial issues when he adressed a meeting of journalist in Carlisle. In a frank an revealing discussion, Mr Phillips outlined his vision for Cubria Police to members of the county branch of the National Union of Journalists.
UK4/20/00
FISCAL ABANDONS PROSECUTION OF CANNABIS GROWER I’ll carry on smoking, says man who is told criminal case is ‘not in the public interest’ A FISCAL has dropped legal proceedings against a disabled man who usis cannabis for pain relief, saying that continuing with the case would not be in the public interest.
France4/20/00
PARIS Fire was intentionally set aflame in the Didro-Documentation, Information Droques centre, which has been open for 27 years. Premises partially destroyed, a small quantity of money and documents stolen.
Bolivia4/20/00
There have been violenty clashes in Cochabamba between the campesinos and the police. The official reason for this outbreak is the rising price of water. The real reason is the destruction of coca plantations, which have been substituted with low profit cultivation.
Australia4/18/00
2.5M AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS HAUL IN DRUG RAIDS Three men have been charged and more arrest are expected after a massive police operation on the Far South Coast that uncovered cannabis with a street value of more than 2.5million dollars. The drug plantations in a state forest near Batemans Bay are believed to be the largest discovered in the region in terms of monetary value. An anonymous tip off led police to the first well-organised cannabis cultivation site deep in the forest earlier this month The launched a combined operation under the command of the newly formed Far South Coast Local Area Command Drug and Property Unit, involving the Sydney-based State Protection Group, South-East Region State Protection Support Unit, Batemans Bay detectives, Monaro Drug Unit and Far South Coast uniform opratives.
Canada4/16/00
BREATH HELD IN MARIJUANA BID Rev. Brian Carlisle is no dope. He believes 160 kilograms of marijuana that Mission RCMP seized last October is rightfully his, and he’s working the courts to get it back. Carlisle, an ordained minister with Universal Life Church, is the founder of Holy Smoke Alternative Healing Center, an organisation that provides medical marijuana to its members. “We use it for medical and spiritual purposes, to heal each other and heal ourselves and do what is says in every single religion and culture on the planet- “do what is right and hurt no one,” Carlisle said. He was in a New Westminster court recently with a group of supporters prepared to argue whyu the seized bud - or 1.05m canadian dollars in compensation for it - should come his way.
UK4/16/00
A policeman and a pusher who were recycling sequestered drugs on to the illegal market have been given light punishment 3 years and 11 month to the policeman and 4 years to the pusher.
New Zeeland4/12/00
JUDGES, POLICE, MPS USE CANNABIS, SAYS TANCZOS Mr. Tanczos, who openly admits using cannabis, told more than 300 University of Canterbury students yesterday that he was not the only MP who had used the drug. He said millions of dollars were being spent on cannabis prohibition when the police did not have the resources to respond to real crimes, like burglaries and violence. The cannabis law was creating a taxpayer subsidy for organised crime because prohibition artificially inflated the price of the drug, he said.
Canada4/11/00
CANADA POT MOMMA How do you arrest a young mother with a Masters degree for selling pot to sick people with doctor’s notes? You don’t. You arrest her friends instead. A dozen police officers waited outside untif the Compassion Club’s female co-founders left the Club’s Plateau office, then moved in and arrested two male volunteers last week and confiscated all the club’s documents an marijuana.
US4/10/00
COLOMBIA MAY TEST ANTI-COCA FUNGUS WASHINGTON- A fungus that destroys coca plants soon mayh be tested in Colombia. “Initially if would be a small test on the ground in Colombia, something on a far, far smaller scake what would be needed for eradication,” said Richard Baum, a foreign policy analist for U.S. drug policy office. The fungus, a mycoherbicide, consumes coca plants whose leaves are het raw material used to produce cocaine, an expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. While similar to a fungus that commonly kills tomato plants in American gardens, U.S. scientists said the fungus they have tested in Hawaii will attack no other plant.
UK4/7/00
CAB SEIZES POUNDS 13M FROM CRIMINALS The Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB), the multi-agency group which has spearheaded the drive against drug barons and crime gang bosses, has seized more than pounds 13m in assets since it was established four years ago.
Spain3/26/00
Although their use has slightly diminished during 1999, alcohol and tobacco remain the favourite drugs among the Spaniards. Consumption of illegal drugs is also diminisching, but the habit of mixing them is growing.
UK3/20/00
5M POUNDS DRUGS TRIAL COLLAPSES AFTER ‘SPS FAILURES’ Crown Prosecution Service lawyers and the police were severely criticised by a judge for imcompetence after the collapse of a drugs trial that included an allegedly corrupt detective. The trial, estimated to have cost up to 5m pounds, was abandoned after the prosecution failed to disclose hundreds of pages of evidence to defence lawyers.
UK3/18/00
A report by the Police Foundation suggests that the Government should de-penalise hashish and marijuana and include ecstasy in the list of light drugs. This indication will probably not be discussed before the end of the present legislature.
Switzerland2/17/00
Problems have arisen between various Townships and the Government of the Swiss cantons, because of the many shops that sell products made with cannabis. The city’s want stricter laws, while the cantons are for the de-penalisation for consumption.
India2/15/00
There is no news here.
New Zeeland2/9/00
MP, CARTOONIST AGREE DRUG-USE EDUCATION VITAL WELLINGTON- While their views on drug use are different, Rastafarian Green MP Nandor Tanczos and cartoonist and anti-drug campaigner Tom Scott agree the cannabis laws are not working. They say education of young people on the effects of drug use is vital. The pair were interviewed by BBC reporter Julian Pettifer for a Crossing Continents programme on BBC Radio 4 5o be broadcast in Britain on March 9.
Italy1/1/00
The congress of the Left Wing Democrats has approved a motion for the legalisation of light drugs and for controlled distribution of heroin. The Government counterbalances: ‘our programme only foresees harm reduction and the funding of rehab centres’.
Belgium1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Columbia1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Morocco1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Norway1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Denmark1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Russia1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
South Africa1/1/00
There is no news for this country.
Turkey1/1/00
There is no news for this country.