TresSugar

Missouri County Posts Meth Lab Locations Online: Good Idea?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:45:51 -0700

If you're looking to move, chances are you suss out a neighborhood first: schools, crime rates, sex offenders nearby, and the like. If you live in Jefferson County, MO, you can add another criteria to your info gathering: whether a meth lab is located nearby.

Not limited to hardcore crack houses, the sheriff's department is listing places where it's seized any materials tied to meth production that indicate a past presence of a secret drug lab in the past two years. Real estate agents are thrilled by the new development though schools and house size still top the list of important area details. With the release of the info however, nearby homeowners might worry that the released info could wreak havoc on their own home's value.

The sheriff says, "We keep raising the bar on awareness. You either do something about it, or you stick your head in the sand." Jefferson County has one of the worst meth problems in the United States. The state of Missouri recorded 770 meth-lab incidents in the first six months of this year.

Is their criteria too broad? Should a house be listed as a meth lab just for having evidence gathered? Is privacy at stake or is this progressive crime fighting?

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Intervention Has Never Been So Fun

GiggleSugar — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:06:20 -0700

I'm having a hard time breaking my addition to A&E's Intervention. (Though I guess it could be worse.) Perhaps a song is in order?

See more Kristin Chenoweth videos at Funny or Die

Front Page: Blast Hits Pakistan as Hillary Clinton Arrives

TresSugar — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:00:48 -0700

Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan today where a bomb killed at least 86 people in a crowded marketplace. - AP
Five are arrested for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in Richmond, CA, on school grounds during a homecoming dance. It's alleged at least 20 people witnessed the hours-long sexual assault and did nothing. - CNN
US Internet networks might crash if too many people end up working from home due to the swine flu. - Washington Post
Family members of a British couple feared kidnapped by Somali pirates are fearing the worst and hoping for the best. - AFP
Former Nazis are on trial in Germany. - BBC News
After Andre Agassi admitted that he used crystal meth during his career, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency is asking for more information. - USA Today

Cookin' Meth With Rena Ray

GiggleSugar — Mon, 14 May 2007 10:54:42 -0700

Capitalizing on Rachael Ray's popular "30-Minute Meals" series, her backwoods sis Rena shows you how to cook such dishes as "Peanut Butter Crank-O-Loco" with ordinary household ingredients like pseudoephedrine. Just don't blow up the lab, er, I mean, kitchen. Yummo!

Book Bag: This Is Your Country On Drugs

TresSugar — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:00:00 -0700

Americans are so addicted to drugs that our government had to declare war on them! This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, a new book by Ryan Grim, explores the unlikely consequences of the so-called War on Drugs. Some examples? Ronald Reagan may have inadvertently caused the crack epidemic. The fastest-growing drug today is a legal hallucinogen you can buy on the Internet. Past antidrug campaigns actually encouraged drug use. And, Americans have stopped using LSD altogether.

In fact the disappearance of LSD, or acid, prompted Grim to research US drug habits. In the book, he writes:

Strolling around Burning Man and being unable to find acid is something like walking into a bar and finding the taps dry.

According to one review of the book, Grim demonstrates how "the American passion for getting high turns enforcement-centered strategies into a vast game of Whack-a-Mole." As government policies target marijuana and cocaine, they end up encouraging the meth trade.

Giggle Links

GiggleSugar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:00:00 -0700

This is what you get when you directly translate the Chinese interpretation of a Star Wars script. - Dynamic Discord
Dan Meth's Smart Ass Guide to the USA. Oregon's my fave. - Dan Meth
Excitement at the Rock, Paper, Scissors championships! - Holy Taco
Sweet! A Scatological poetry slam. - Passive Aggressive Notes
The six most bizarre things people actually collect. - Cracked
Another Interspecies love affair. - Stupid Videos
WTF?! Man uses wife impersonator for divorce. - Holy Taco

Vigilante Drug Arrests Clean Up MO Town - Under Fake Badge

CitizenSugar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:56:56 -0700

It was a small town overrun by meth, until a new sheriff came to town - a federal agent who immediately started ransacking houses, cuffing people and naming names. It seemed like the town of Gerald, MO, known as "a meth capital of the United States" was getting a big makeover of the law and order variety. Except for one tiny problem: the "law" part of that equation wasn't exactly legal.

Known by the locals as "Sergeant Bill," the new officer assured residents that no search warrants were needed because he worked for the Feds. After the local weekly paper made a couple of inquiries into the matter, the reign of justice by Sergeant Bill, crumbled. The Sergeant wasn't any kind of federal agent - Bill, it seems, is actually Bill A. Jakob, an unemployed trucking company owner from a few towns over. To see the rest of Sergeant Bill's story, read more.

The tour of duty of faux-agent Bill has left the town of Gerald in an uproar. Three of the five police officers have been fired, and the mayor is facing impeachment - not to mention multimillion-dollar civil rights lawsuits pending. Bill is likely facing charges of impersonating a law enforcement officer, and questions abound as to why someone would take on the job of cleaning up a town for free?

Sergeant Bill's lawyer says that the events tumbled out of some "errors in judgement, but that the results weren't necessarily bad: “It was an innocent evolution, where he helped with one minor thing, then one more on top of that, and all of the sudden, everyone thought he was a federal agent. I’m not saying this was legal or lawful. But look, they were very, very effective while he was present. I don’t think Gerald is having the drug problem they were having. I’ve heard from some residents who were thrilled that he was there.”

The residents who weren't so thrilled include one local man who was handcuffed in his front yard, and has yet to be charged with any crime - though his reputation has already been found guilty.

What would drive a man to try to clean up a town's drug problem - sans badge or paycheck? Is vigilante justice always bad?

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Parents Hire Drug-Sniffing Dogs to Check Up on Their Kids

CitizenSugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:03:58 -0700

Apparently cheeky or cheesy PSAs are no longer enough ammo in helping parents keep their kids off of drugs: they're resorting to hiring K-9 units of their own. A New Jersey company called Sniff Dogs rents out retired, trained drug-sniffing dogs to parents suspicious that their kids might be involved in drugs.

The dogs rent for $200 an hour and can detect heroin, cocaine, meth, and ecstasy - not to mention pot-residue on clothes even if the drug was smoked two nights before. That knowledge alone might be enough to spark sparking up teens into doing their own laundry.

To see the conflict behind the good intentions, read more.

One parent hired the pups as a precautionary measure. She said, "Most kids will deny it and then where do you turn? Not knowing is worrisome. It's nice to know you can have something you can turn to." The dogs didn't uncover any dope on their visit.

Now that technology has vastly expanded the kid-tracking capabilities of parents (including GPS-embedded clothes) the increased surveillance brings up issues of trust. One psychologist says, "There are major repercussions for this type of intervention. When parents do this, it erodes trust and goodwill." Is wagering trust over safety a good bet? Can tools like this help more than they hurt?

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Seattle's Schizophrenic Shooter Had Valid Gun Permit

LibertySugar — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:00:19 -0700

A mentally ill man who shot three people at a music festival in the Pacific Northwest last week had obtained his weapon with a valid concealed weapon permit. A bullet from his Glock 19 handgun hit three victims last Saturday while Grainger was fighting another man. The bullet passed through a man's nose, another's wrist, finally ending up in a woman's leg.

22-year-old Clinton C. Grainger suffers from anxiety and schizophrenia and has been receiving treatment for a meth addiction since he was 18. Grainger's issues did show up as disqualifying conditions when he applied for a gun permit in January 2007. A mental illness diagnosis alone is not enough to restrict a citizen's right to bear arms under Washington state and US federal law.

To find out what federal law is regarding mental illness and gun permits, read more.

Federal law requires that an individual be involuntarily committed to a mental institution, found not guilty by insanity, or deemed by a judge as a "mental defective" and a danger to himself or others, before second amendment rights are restricted. Nevertheless, it appears that if background checks were more sophisticated, at least Grainger's narcotic addiction would have prevented him from obtaining the permit. Yet, as with the shooting tragedy at Virginia Tech, crucial disqualifying information located in different systems were not properly shared.

Are nominal and negligent background checks to blame for victims' injuries? Should we make it harder for those with a mental health diagnosis to obtain a gun? Considering that many Americans are treated for anxiety and depression, what mental illness should cause a citizen to lose the right to bear arms?

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Briefing Book! Knowing Is Half the Battle . . .

LibertySugar — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:00:38 -0700

War on Drugs: Do touchy-feely antidrug ads work? Me not Meth ads hit California. - SFist
War on Words: Nothing has changed? McCain recycles 2001 op-ed for today's foreign policy speech. - The Huffington Post
Voters: Sore losers? Large percentage of both Obama and Clinton supporters will vote McCain if they lose. - Talking Points Memo
Torture: Do you know what happened at Abu Ghriab? Oscar winner to publish archive of new pictures. - Politico

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