Santa Ynez Valley News, 13 Sep 2012 – Members of the Santa Ynez Valley Youth Coalition are celebrating the award of two federal grants, totaling $825,000 over five years, to continue their fight against substance abuse by young people. Formerly known as the Santa Ynez Valley Coalition to Promote Drug Free Youth, the local group is one of 57 recipients nationwide – and one of just five in California – of a grant from the Drug Free Communities program, coalition coordinator Mary Conway announced.
posted on September 17, 2012 by
US CA: Marijuana Grow’s Environmental Damage Shocks Sheriff’s
Chico Enterprise-Record, 16 Sep 2012 – MAGALIA – Detectives were "awestruck" at the environmental damage caused by terracing of a hillside and herbicides draining into the watershed for a marijuana grow they eradicated Wednesday in Magalia. The Butte County Sheriff’s Office Special Enforcement Unit served a search warrant on the 15000 block of Emma Mine Way, according to a Sheriff’s Office press release. They allegedly found 272 of the illegal plants with a weight of 4,100 pounds being disguised under Proposition 215.
posted on September 15, 2012 by
US CA: Business Plan Remakes Meth Market
Wall Street Journal, 14 Sep 2012 – LIVINGSTON, Calif. – When state drug agents first suspected a butcher-shop owner here of selling methamphetamine for a large drug network, they had no idea how big an organization their five-month probe would uncover. The resulting bust in August was one of the largest in state history, netting 11 arrests in four counties and more than 300 pounds of the illegal stimulant. More troubling was the discovery of the gang’s approach to logistics: It imported raw powdered meth from Mexico and refined it at Southern California "conversion labs" into crystal form with a higher street value.
posted on September 15, 2012 by
US CA: A Remedy In Limbo
Los Angeles Times, 14 Sep 2012 – A Crackdown on Pot Dispensaries Threatens to Derail a Man’s Quest to Control His Son’s Seizures Topamax. Depakote. Phenobarbital. The list goes on. Before Jayden David turned 5, he had tried a dozen powerful medications to tame a rare form of epilepsy. The side effects were devastating.
posted on September 10, 2012 by
US CA: PUB LTE: Prohibition Incentive To Trash Land
Times-Standard, 08 Sep 2012 – The damage caused by illegal marijuana grows is a product of a foolhardy pot prohibition policy. Keeping marijuana illegal makes pot growing an incredibly profitable operation that is done wherever a grower can plant a crop. Most of the diverted streams, un-permitted soil grading, clear cutting of trees, heavy fertilizer and pesticide usage and tons of garbage left in the state’s most pristine public lands will end overnight when legal growing on ordinary cropland is allowed.
