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Newsbriefs
3/26/99
Marc Brandl, brandl@drcnet.orgSan Diego, CA: Steven McWilliams and Dion Markgraaff, who ran the San Diego Cannabis Caregivers Club (medical marijuana provider), pleaded guilty on Tuesday to maintaining a place of distribution for a controlled substance. In exchange for their pleas, local prosecutors have dropped seven more serious felony charges. If convicted the men will face three years in prison each. The two were busted in January of 1998 with eleven marijuana plants at a checkpoint in eastern San Diego county that searches for illegal aliens and drugs that have made it passed the US-Mexico border checkpoint. Austin, TX: Two
drug bills sponsored by state Senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) passed
the Texas Senate on Tuesday and await consideration in the state House.
SB41 mirrors federal legislation that would give dealers a maximum life
sentence if use of their illegal products causes loss of life. SB
43 would set up a state wide database of drug overdoses. Two other
bills, also sponsored by Shapiro, are expected to come up for consideration
in the Senate very soon. SB 42 would allow parents to request drug
tests of their children by the public school. SB 44 would prevent
16-17 year olds from checking themselves out of a drug treatment program.
The drug legislation is seen as a response to over two dozen young people
dying because of heroin overdoses in the affluent community of Plano in
the last year.
New Zealand: Earlier
this year a government selected panel studying the issue of cannabis policy
found that the legal status of cannabis in New Zealand should be reconsidered
and that cannabis should be on a par with legal products such as as alcohol
and tobacco. Last week the government responded to the findings of
the panel by announcing that cannabis will not be legalized or decriminalized
and that drug paraphernalia will soon become illegal. The government
will also be cracking down on doctors who prescribe too many drugs and
will make Ecstasy a schedule A drug, the most prohibitive schedule under
New Zealand law.
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