Cannabis Hemp News

QLD councillor hit in biker sting A Rockhampton city councillor and board member of Crime Stoppers has had a house which she owns seized by police in an operation targeting drug trafficking by bikers. A rental property belonging to Rose Swadling has been seized under proceeds of crime laws. In the same operation, Rockhampton lawyer Doug Winning has been served with a notice to appear in court to face charges of official corruption and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Cr Swadling was recently re-elected to the Rockhampton City Council and is liaison officer between council and the police. Her house was seized as part of Operation Mayflower – a 20-month in…

Tuesday, August 24, 2004 MARIJUANA was found in an express package posted to a Mackay man from the Gold Coast, the Magistrate's Court was told yesterday. Michael John Marino, 46, food processor, pleaded guilty to attempting to unlawfully possess marijuana in Mackay on July 28. The arrest followed the interception of a suspicious parcel which had been sent to Mackay as air freight, prosecutor Sergeant Neville Cox said. The package was carried by Toll Express and it contained three clipseal bags each wrapped in additional plastic. The marijuana weighed a total of 83.3 grams. Police were notified and they went to the address on the package and interviewed Marinoh www.dai…

POLICE have broken a drug manufacturing ring and seized drugs worth $810,000, drug manufacturing equipment and a cache of guns and ammunition. The seizures were made during raids on three Darwin properties last week after the Northern Territory Drug Enforcement Section (DES) arrested a man at midnight on Thursday. They found 18 grams of amphetamine paste, two MDMA (ecstacy) tablets, cash and a mobile phone in his car. DES Superintendent Kris Evans said the man had been the subject of an continuous police operation. We spent months catching him. His arrest led police to a Darwin unit where another search found 102g of amphetamine paste, 150g of cannabis, two ecs…

High-Tech Pot Bust Becomes Political Issue Wednesday, June 16, 2004 Two Swiss pot smokers thought they could puff away undisturbed in a parked car — but they weren't counting on the military surveillance drone flying overhead. The soldiers testing the pilotless plane via remote control near the city of Lucerne (search) called police when they spotted the pair, reports the Le Matin Dimanche newspaper. Cop cars soon drove up, sirens screaming, and arrested the puffers in mid-joint. The whole thing would have ended there had not Boris Banga (search), a socialist member of the Swiss parliament, complained to fellow lawmakers that the incident in late May was an in…

York County task force makes large pot bust The marijuana bust netted 596 plants after officials staged a three-day stakeout. By Shannon Greene Lake Wylie Pilot (Published July 15‚ 2004) After a three-day stakeout, police made the largest marijuana drug bust of the season Monday on S.C. 49 near Kingsburry Road. The York County Multi jurisdictional Drug Enforcement Unit cut and seized 596 plants. Police charged Francisco Palomo Ruiz, 24, of Clover with trafficking marijuana. A second suspect was still at large at press time. On Friday, the South Carolina National Guard spotted the plants from the air and called in the county's drug enforcement unit to execute…

Oakland Tribune, Rosynsky/Gammon Day after pot bust, details still hazy Controversy and confusion surrounding the largest pot bust in city history continued Thursday as federal agents filed criminal complaints against four Bay Area residents, while the defendants' relatives and medical marijuana advocates insisted the arrests were bogus. Conflicts between the California Highway Patrol and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration also surfaced as each agency gave differing accounts of how nearly 4,000 marijuana plants were discovered in a West Oakland warehouse. CHP officials insisted the huge marijuana bust was the result of a routine traffic stop that led them to the …

Marijuana smokers buying poisoned dope 28.07.2004 By AINSLEY THOMSON Marijuana users are being warned about poisoned cannabis being sold on the Coromandel Peninsula. A pro-marijuana group says the cannabis has been sprayed by police with a herbicide, a process which turns the drug blue. Unscrupulous growers are disguising the poisoned cannabis with yellow food colouring to make it look green. The National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) said the affected marijuana could cause people to cough up blood and suffer nausea and headaches. Police confirmed that when they found marijuana plots they sprayed them with herbicide. Waikato police spok…

The true price of prohibition Drug-related crime costs more than the Home Office's annual budget, but treatment for users is underfunded and locked into punishment Danny Kushlick Friday August 6, 2004 The Guardian Labour and the Tories are fighting over the law and order baton in the race for government. But both parties are committed to a regime that arguably causes more crime than any other single policy. In the 2004 comprehensive spending review last month, Gordon Brown earmarked just under £15bn to run the Home Office in 2007-08, up more than £4bn on 2002-03 but a billion less than the £16bn that the government estimates to be the annual cost of drug-related …