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UPwe 08/12/93 Drug raid nets over 1,000 marijuana plants
BOONVILLE, Calif. (UPI) -- Mendocino County authorities announced Thursday
they had seized more than 1,000 marijuana plants and arrested a man on weapons
charges in a drug raid.
A sheriff's department spokesman said Pedro Garcia was arrested after he was
found in a field of marijuana during a raid Wednesday by the County of Mendocino
Marijuana Eradication Team (COMMET) on a farm west of Boonville.
Garcia was carrying a loaded, sawed-off shotgun at the time of the raid and
pointed it at the agents, but dropped the gun when ordered to do so.
The spokesman said 1,074 marijuana plants, some as tall as 12 feet, were
seized.
Garcia was booked on several charges including marijuana cultivation and
possession and assaulting an officer. He was held on $25,000 bail.
APn 08/16/93 Teacher-Marijuana
WINFIELD, W.Va. (AP) -- A high school math teacher was acquitted on charges
he sold marijuana, but the superintendent wants to fire him anyway.
Matthew Woo, 37, was cleared in a trial last May, after jurors said police
illegally entrapped him.
But he admitted using marijuana and Putnam County School Superintendent Sam
Sentelle told school board members in a memo last week he would recommend Woo's
firing on that basis.
Prosecutor Bill Rardin, however, told Sentelle that Woo's admission is not
grounds for dismissal.
"Unfortunately, unless the job performance evaluations indicate
unsatisfactory reviews, the current law in the state of West Virginia does not
allow for the dismissal of a school teacher for acknowledging use of marijuana
and even a drug addiction," Rardin wrote.
circa 08/16/93 Smoking Pot Increases Risk of Pneumonia for HIV-Infected
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new study shows that smoking drugs such as marijuana or
crack is significantly associated with an increased risk of bacterial pneumonia
in HIV-infected people.
The work was conducted by Dr. Waleska Teixeria Caiaffa and others at the
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, with the support of the
National Institutes of Health, a U.S. Public Health Service agency.
The researchers said doctors counseling HIV-infected people should inform
them of the link.
The U.S. Public Health Service has warned in the past that irritants and
contaminates of smoked marijuana may be harmful to people with HIV.
REUTER RTw 08/17/93 TURKISH POLICE SEIZE HASHISH, MARIJUANA PLANTS
ANKARA, Aug 17 (Reuter) - Turkish police said on Tuesday they had seized 229
kg (500 pounds) of hashish and 145,000 marijuana plants in the southeastern
province of Diyarbakir.
Anatolian news agency quoted Diyarbakir police as saying the drugs had been
destroyed after being found in a field near Belenli village on Friday. Two
people were detained.
REUTER UPn 08/17/93 Search for missing man turns up pot farm in Mass.
ASHBY, Mass. (UPI) -- Police searching a wooded-swampy area for a missing man
discovered a clandestine pot farm in Ashby, Mass.
Police said they discovered the marijuana operation Monday afternoon while
searching for a man who was reportedly despondent and possibly suicidal.
During the search, police came across between 200 and 300 marijuana plants
about 9 feet tall, growing in 5-gallon containers.
The officers pulled up the plants and took them to a garage at the state
police barracks in Leominster.
An investigation was under way to determine who might have been cultivating
the marijuana, which officials estimated had a street value of about $300,000.
The missing man, meanwhile, returned home unharmed.
circa 08/17/93 Drug Swallowing smuggler bagged in Japan
TOKYO (Reuter) - A New Zealander has been arrested in Japan after he was
alleged to have smuggled drugs by swallowing huge quantities of marijuana, a
customs official said on Tuesday.
The official at Osaka International Airport in western Japan said
construction engineer Kerry Mitchell, 37, was seized there on July 12 after he
was alleged to have swallowed 755 grammes of the drug in 118 individual plastic
packets.
"It was amazing -- the guy swallowed more than 700 grammes of marijuana in
packets done up in plastic food wrap," said the official.
- - - -
RTw 08/18/93 NORIEGA TO SERVE 40 YEARS AT MIAMI PRISON
MIAMI, Aug 18 (Reuter) - Ousted Panamanian dictator General Manuel Noriega
will serve the remainder of his 40-year drug sentence at a federal prison near
Miami, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons said on Wednesday.
Defence attorneys had sought to keep Noriega, 59, from being sent to the
nation's maximum-security prison in Marion, Illinois.
Dan Dunne, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the decision had
nothing to do with the deposed dictator's unique status as a prisoner of war.
"We always attempt to designate inmates near the court of jurisdiction, if
not within it," Dunne said, referring to the site of Noriega's Miami trial.
Prison officials said Noriega would have an exercise bicycle and colour
television in his cell because he is not allowed to go into the general
recreation area with other prisoners at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre.
The prison south of Miami is not classified as a minimum or a maximum
security facility, and is normally used to hold prisoners awaiting trial,
although others are seving sentences there, Dunne said.
Noriega, 59, was convicted in 1992 of helping Colombian drug lords smuggle
huge amounts of marijuana and cocaine through Panama to the United States.
He has been in Miami since shortly after surrendering to U.S. military
troops who invaded Panama in December 1989.
Noriega will be eligible for parole after serving at least 25 years.
- - - -
LONDON - Cannabis, marijuana, hash, grass, pot, ganja, bhang -- one way or
another people have been smoking or eating the Indian hemp plant for thousands
of years. But it is only now that scientists are beginning to understand how the
drug works. Their answers could help in the search for novel therapies for a
range of ailments and shed new light on the complex chemical workings of the
brain (BC-SCIENCE-CANNABIS, BY BEN HIRSCHLER, MEDICAL FEATURE, 660 WORDS)
- - - -
RTw 08/19/93 CANNABIS RESEARCH OPENS A NEW WINDOW ON THE BRAIN
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON, Aug 20 (Reuter) - Cannabis, marijuana, hash, grass, pot, ganja,
bhang -- one way or another people have been smoking or eating the Indian hemp
plant for thousands of years.
But it is only now that scientists are beginning to understand how the drug
works.
Their answers could help in the search for novel therapies for a range of
ailments from glaucoma to mental disorders, and shed new light on the complex
chemical workings of the brain.
Since the late 1980s scientists have known that the brain contains tiny
"receptors" through which the main active ingredient in cannabis,
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), acts.
Until last year they were mystified as to why humans had chemical "docking
sites" which let them get "high."
Then, in December a new chemical was found in pigs' brains which seemed to
do naturally what cannabis does when smoked. It was named anandamide, from the
Sanskrit "ananda" for "bliss."
Now Israeli scientists have confirmed that finding. Using cells grown in
culture they proved, in a paper published last month, that anandamide does
indeed bind to the same receptors as THC and triggers similar responses.
"It provides further evidence for the idea that we have a system in the
brain which is made up of cannabis receptors," said Aberdeen University's Dr
Roger Pertwee, secretary of the International Cannabis Research Society and one
of the original discoverers of anandamide.
"It's very exciting because this is a newly discovered system of the brain
about which we know nothing."
While anandamide has yet to be isolated in human brains, he believes it is
only a matter of time before it is tracked down.
What the mind-bending substance is doing in our brains remains a mystery.
The fact that the receptors are located in the hippocampus area, which
controls memory, the cerebral cortex, involving higher thought processes, and
the basal ganglion, affecting movement, may give some clues.
Pertwee speculates that the brain may use anandamide to fine-tune memory
and learning, and the chemical could have a role to play in disorders like
depression and schizophrenia.
Understanding anandamide's function may also help in the search for drugs
which deliver the therapeutic benefits of cannabis without making people high.
Cannabis, while shunned by modern doctors, has a long history of medicinal
use, dating back to ancient Chinese times.
Britain's Queen Victoria, whose physician described it as "one of the most
valuable medicines we possess," was given it to ease her menstrual pains.
There is considerable anecdotal evidence that cannabis counters the nausea
caused by chemotherapy, stimulates appetite in AIDS patients and fights the
spasms of multiple sclerosis.
It is also believed to help glaucoma sufferers by reducing the build-up of
pressure in the eye.
A handful of doctors in Europe and the United States tacitly approve of
patients smoking the drug to help relieve symptoms.
But Dr Lester Grinspoon, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School,
and co-author of a book published earlier this year on the benefits of cannabis,
believes that the medical establishment as a whole is neglecting a valuable
remedy.
Cannabis' main problem, compared with approved prescription medicines, is
its blunderbuss action.
Smoking a joint involves inhaling around 60 different pyschotropic
substances, triggering all sorts of different chemical reactions in the brain.
Unravelling just how the body makes and uses its own version of the drug
may help efforts to design selective cannabis-based medicines in future.
Pertwee expects drug firms, some of which have worked to no avail to
produce cannabis derivatives in the past, will be cautious before committing new
money to a controversial area.
"At the moment I think the drug companies are just waiting until the basic
scientists come up with something they can apply," he said.
REUTER
APn 08/19/93 Court Pot
BRANTFORD, Ontario (AP) -- The long arm of the law didn't have to reach far
for Lincoln MacKenzie, who came to court carrying a gym bag full of marijuana.
"How stupid can you get?" asked Provincial Court Judge M.J. Perozak on
Wednesday. "Showing up with it in the court building is just absolutely stupid."
MacKenzie, 20, pleaded guilty to marijuana possession charges and was
sentenced to 22 months in jail. The bag contained 18 bags of marijuana.
MacKenzie showed up in court Aug. 11 to face charges of stolen property,
dangerous driving and breaching probation. He also pleaded guilty to those
charges.
UPn 08/19/93 Police hack down $1.5M worth of marijuana in Mass.
BOSTON (UPI) -- Teams of state police raided marijuana patches in 10
locations across eastern and central Massachusetts Wednesday, hacking down
nearly 1,000 pot plants worth an estimated $1.5 million.
The plants were loaded onto a fleet of National Guard trucks and stored for
evidence. There were no immediate arrests.
"It's really high-grade marijuana," said state police Trooper Larry Gillis.
All of the patches were located on public lands, and police said all appeared
to be operated independently of each other. Raynham, Sudbury, Dedham, Southboro
and Dartmouth were among the towns where the fields were found.
Authorities believe the fields were part of an organized commercial drug
operation.
"Marijuana has become a significant cash crop in Massachusetts," state police
Sgt. Bob Cerra said.
Some of the "mini-farms" were surrounded by animal traps apparently aimed at
keeping out human trespassers more than animals, Gillis said.
The plants were discovered by police helicopters and kept under surveillance
for the past month in hopes that growers might show up to harvest the pot, but
no one did so police decided to move in, Gillis said.
UPwe 08/20/93 Body found in marijuana field
YORKVILLE, Calif. (UPI) -- Authorities said Friday they had found the
bullet-ridden body of a man in a recently-raided marijuana field in rural
Mendocino County.
A sheriff's department spokesman said the unidentified man's body was
discovered about 12:20 a.m. after a passing motorist notified authorities.
The motorist told police he was driving down a rural road when Jose Ceja
flagged him down. Ceja said his friend had been shot and needed help.
However, by the time authorities arrrived the man had died.
Under questioning, Ceja said he and his friend were the men seen fleeing the
area Thursday when it was raided by agents from the county's drug task force.
The agents destroyed the marijuana in the field and left the scene.
Ceja said he and his friend came back to collect their belongings when they
came under fire.
APn 08/20/93 Dead-Drugs
By WILLIAM C. CRUM
Associated Press Writer
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Some Grateful Dead fans persuaded the University of
Oregon to lift its ban on the group by promising to police concerts for drugs
themselves.
About 250 "Dead-icated Volunteers" will patrol two sold-out weekend shows at
the school's Autzen Stadium in Eugene to discourage fans, known as Deadheads,
from using drugs. The band was barred from the school after a 1990 concert
because of complaints of drug-using fans.
"There's no denying that marijuana smoke follows the Dead around," said Jerry
Rust, a longtime Deadhead and Lane County commissioner.
But Rust said the two-person patrols will mark a turning point for the free
spirits who have made Eugene the heart of Deadhead country.
"I think it shows the maturity of a generation, people influencing people,
growing up a little bit and knowing you can have a good time without being out
of control," he said.
After the school banned the Dead, Rust and other fans persuaded the
university to let the group return by promising to establish the Deadhead "peer
suggestion" corps.
Fliers mailed with concert tickets note the university's concerns and ask for
help in "reminding your companions and others to be clean, cool, conscientious
and respectful of the place we visit."
Dead concerts are a throwback to the band's '60s roots. Deadheads wearing
their trademark tie-dyed shirts and skirts flock to the events, many setting up
stalls in parking lots to sell homemade jewelry and organic goodies. More than
40,000 fans are expected at each of the weekend concerts in Eugene.
Concert promoter Kit Kesey, nephew of author Ken Kesey, said Deadhead
behavior would be watched closely.
"The Grateful Dead are here on slightly probationary terms," he said. "If
this doesn't work, they might not be invited back."
The Dead have been associated with illicit drugs since their early days as
the house band for San Francisco's acid tests. Their latest public brush with
drugs came a few weeks after the 1990 Autzen concert, when keyboardist Brent
Mydland died of a drug overdose.
Dead publicist Dennis McNally said the peer teams were unique in the Dead's
experience but, "We'll go with it. If it helps, great."
UPn 08/21/93 High tech pot farm designed after Disney
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (UPI) -- An ordinary house in a residential neighborhood
turned out to be home to a high tech pot farm patterned after a Disney World
attraction.
Police closed down the operation Friday after finding 600 marijuana plants
with an estimated value of $80,000 in a hydroponic indoor garden filling the
home of Gary King.
Duval County Sheriff's Lt. Ken Palmer said the system had sophisticated
electronics that monitored watering, light and humidity.
Palmer said King, 37, told police he got the idea for the setup, estimated to
cost $15,000, from the water gardens at EPCOT Center at Disney World.
King also was experimenting with solar panels as an electric source so high
electric bills would not give him away.
RTw 08/23/93 POLICE SEIZE DRUG DONKEYS HIGH IN THE HILLS
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 23 (Reuter) - South African police arrested two donkey
herders high in the mountains on the Lesotho border after finding 11 of their
beasts carrying marijuana.
A spokesman said officers seized 460 kg (1,000 lbs) of marijuana with a
street value of 460,000 rand ($150,000).
REUTER
APn 08/24/93 Strip Searches
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A federal judge on Tuesday told school officials and six
students who say they were improperly strip-searched that they should settle the
dispute or he would rule in favor of the students.
The strip-searches were part of a fruitless drug investigation at Ben
Franklin Junior High School in New Castle, about 50 miles northwest of
Pittsburgh.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the students, drafted a
policy on when strip-searches will be allowed at the town's eight schools.
School officials were reviewing the draft Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch told the sides to settle or he would forbid
strip-searching any student unless educators obtained strong physical evidence
of drug use or possession.
According to court papers, the students were taken into an empty classroom
Dec. 18 and required to pull up their shirts and pull down their pants.
The searches were based on two other students' claims that they saw several
boys smoking marijuana on the school football field.
UPwe 08/26/93 Violent morning in Willits
WILLITS, Calif. (UPI) -- Authorities in Willits reported two separate
shootings Thursday, three days after the normally quiet rural community was
rocked by a murder-suicide that claimed five members of a single family.
According to a police spokeswoman, the first shooting began about 1:50 a.m.
when Dave Wagner, armed with a shotgun, went to investigate two men in his
fields.
Wagner told authorities the two men opened fire, which he returned, wounding
one of the men before they fled.
Wagner had called authorities Wednesday and requested that they remove 23
marijuana plants he found on his property.
Investigators later found a pile of dry grass in Wagner's barn and speculated
the men had intented to burn the structure down in retailiation for losing their
marijuana plants.
The second incident occurred just after 11 a.m. when officers responding to a
report of shots being fired found Charles Underhill of Willits with a bullet
wound. He was rushed to Howard Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.
Police said there were no suspects or motive in the shootings.
UPma 08/26/93 60-year-old woman charged with growing marijuana
PITTSBURGH (UPI) -- An arrest warrant has been issued for a 60-year- old
Pittsburgh woman on charges of growing eight marijuana plants at her home.
The woman's son, Edward Henderson, 33, and his mother, Rita, both told police
the plants belonged to her. The son was charged Tuesday with cultivating the
marijuana plants.
Police say Rita Henderson has been out of town, but she told police officers
she will will turn herself in this week.
Two police officers were patrolling Saturday when they say they noticed a
7-foot marijuana plant near the Henderson's back fence in Pittsburgh's
Beltzhoover section.
Police searched the house Tuesday and charged Henderson with possession of
marijuana, manufacturing the drug and possession of paraphernalia. He is free on
his own recognizance.
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