url: hMPp://kfor.com/2014/01/20/senator-pushes-for-legalization-of-marijuana/



Oklahoma Senator wants marijuana legalized, Says, “Marijuana Has Not Killed Anyone”




OKLAHOMA - Whether states should legalize marijuana is a debate that continues.

That debate is heating up this week on the tales of a newly released, controversial interview with the president.

President Barack Obama is quoted in a recent article in the New Yorker magazine as saying he doesn’t believe marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol.

State Senator Constance Johnson is taking it even farther, saying alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana and should be legal.

Johnson has tried in the past to get legislation approved to legalize marijuana, but it has never passed.

This year she is trying again, introducing Senate Bill 2116. The bill would allow for the regulation and taxation of marijuana.

Johnson said, “I think we need to accept the realities that alcohol is a dangerous drug, prescription drugs are dangerous. Marijuana has not killed anyone.”

She says this measure would “acknowledge it and legalize it up to one ounce, I believe. That’s our intent.”

Mark Woodward, with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, said, “I’ve seen it wreck more lives than any other drug.”

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics hopes the bill does not make it through the legislature. In fact, Woodward says marijuana is a dangerous drug. He says while a person can take a drink of alcohol and not get drunk marijuana always causes a person to become impaired.

Woodward said, “The big difference is everyone who smokes marijuana gets intoxicated, becomes high off of it and becomes a safety risk.”

Woodward believes legislation like this sets a bad example for young people in our state.

He said, “We’re trying to tell kids to stay off drugs and then they’re seeing voters and legislators voting to legalize getting high on drugs. That makes our job as parents, law enforcement and educators a lot more difficult.”

Though Senator Johnson strongly believes the drug is not dangerous.

She said, “We’ve legalized alcohol, which is far more deadly and dangerous than marijuana.”

She believes Oklahoma is getting closer to legalizing the drug.

Johnson said, “We’re making progress. I think the things that happened in Colorado will mean more action and activism in Oklahoma.”

Senator Johnson says a recent poll shows most Oklahomans do in fact support the legalization of marijuana.

Her bill will be considered during the upcoming session, which begins February 3, 2014.

url: hMPp://www.sourcenewspapers.com/articles/2014/01/20/news/doc52dd45a70510b075052727.txt




Michigan medical marijuana users, caregivers decline in 2013




There were fewer medical marijuana patients in Michigan in 2013, but the number of medical marijuana providers dropped by nearly half as new laws regulating the growing industry took effect, and court rulings and prosecutions affected medical marijuana outlets.

The number of registered patients fell to 118,368 in fiscal 2013 from 124,131 the year before, or slightly less than 5 percent. However, the number of licensed caregivers fell to 27,046 from 50,188.

Even so, the state took in nearly $1 million more in licensing fees, raking in $10.89 million in 2013 compared to $9.9 million in 2012, according to two annual reports required by the Michigan Legislature. However, thecost of the program rose from $3.6 million in 2012 to $4 million in 2013.

Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe says it’s likely the court decisions have had the most impact on medical marijuana numbers, along with changes in state law.

“I think the all the court decisions that have come out have had a huge effect on that,” says McCabe. “The courts clarified a lot of that. I’m not an expert on this but I would attribute a lot of it to all the court rulings on dispensaries and who can be a caregiver and who can’t be a caregiver.

“It’s much more restrictive as to who can be a caregiver and who can’t be,” he said. “They’ve more strictly defined what is allowable and what isn’t allowable.”

McCabe rejects the implication that law enforcement has aggressively enforced medical marijuana laws.

“I wouldn’t say aggressive,” he said. “I would say law enforcement and prosecutors were following the law. Some chose to lay back and wait for the courts. What occurred in Oakland County, the courts have proven we were correct in our interpretation of the law all along.”

Voters approved a ballot question in 2008, with 63 percent in favor of allowing medical marijuana. Users pay a $100 fee to register. Approved caregivers are allowed up to five patients and to have 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana per patient, and 12 plants per patient.

But how the program works has largely been left to the legislature and court rulings to iron out.

New laws and a key Michigan Supreme Court ruling took effect in 2013.

The state’s high court ruling in February found that retail sale of medical marijuana is legal but that the state’s medical marijuana law doesn’t provide for dispensaries, dealing a blow to storefront operations that were popping up around the state.

Changes in state law that took effect in 2013 include:

•Requiring that transported medical marijuana be inaccessible to the driver.

•Making doctors perform a “complete assessment” (in-person evaluation) of a patient before authorizing a recommendation for medical marijuana.

•Changing the renewal period from every year to every two years. Proof of residency is now required before one may obtain a registration card.

Requiring that outdoor cannabis plants not be “visible to the unaided eye from an adjacent property when viewed by an individual at ground level or from a permanent structure” and be “grown within a stationary structure that is enclosed on all sides, except the base, by chain-link fencing, wooden slats, or a similar material that prevents access by the general public and that is anchored, attached or affixed to the ground, located on land that is owned, leased, or rented” by the registered grower and restricted to that grower’s access.”

•State-qualified caregivers must not have been convicted of any felony within the last ten years, or any violent felony ever.

url: hMPp://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Legislators-to-revisit-proposals-to-change-Texas-marijuana-laws-241220721.html




Legislators to revisit proposals to change Texas marijuana laws




HOUSTON – Two Texas lawmakers vow to re-introduce marijuana legislation as many times as it takes to move the Lone Star state closer to Colorado and Washington state-style pot regulations.

But experts in drug policy predict anywhere from five to 10 years before lawmakers in Austin might consider being swayed to change Texas marijuana laws.

“I would say within the next decade. Certainly within the next decade,” said Nathan Jones, Ph.D. with Rice University’s Baker Institute. “If you’re looking at the polling data it looks pretty electable. Or it looks almost inevitable.”

Recent polls by the Marijuana Policy Project and other polling organizations show an estimated 58 percent of Texans support legalizing, regulating and taxing small amounts of marijuana. Also, 61 percent support reducing penalties for possession of a small amount.

State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. said he plans to try for a fourth time to get a vote on his proposed bill that would lessen penalties for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana. Current Texas law considers possession of 2 ounces or less as a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail. Dutton’s bill proposes that an ounce or less be considered a Class C misdemeanor that puts it at essentially the same level as a traffic ticket.

The person would still be guilty of a criminal offense, although greatly lessened, and be required to attend a drug and alcohol awareness class. Dutton said the change would free up police, court and jail resources to deal with more serious crimes.

“I think that’s a little overkill for somebody who has an ounce or less of marijuana,” Dutton said of current Texas law.

“It’s a sea change from where Texas was,” he said of the proposed changes.

“Is it dangerous to be using (marijuana) in your house for example,” he asked comparing marijuana use to consuming alcohol. “Probably not any more so than having a drink in your house.”

Rep. Elliott Naishtat, of Austin, said he will make a seventh attempt this next legislative session to get a medical marijuana bill to the house floor for a vote.

So far the bill, that would legalize the use of marijuana in specific doctor-prescribe medical applications, has never made it out of committee despite testimony from Texans last session who claim marijuana is a key ingredient to managing a variety of illnesses from glaucoma to multiple sclerosis and easing the symptoms of chemotherapy.

“We make a little bit of progress every session. Last session for the first time we had a hearing on the bill,” said Naishtat. “And it was very compelling because the people who testified were people with legitimate medical conditions who were using marijuana specifically for medical purposes.

“All the publicity that’s been focused on the state of Washington and Colorado only helps us in what we’re trying to do.”

“I believe it will happen across the nation,” said Dante Cuccurullo the president of the north Houston chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

“I’m a father. I’m a husband. You know I shouldn’t be taken to jail for what I choose to do with my own body,” said Cuccurullo, who supports both Naishtat’s medical marijuana legislation and Dutton’s proposal to ease Texas marijuana laws. “We don’t want it in the hands of our children. We don’t want it in our school systems. We want it for consenting adults over the age of 18.”

Changes in marijuana legislation in Colorado and Washington state came after voter initiatives. Texas requires a 2/3 majority in both houses in Austin before a similar rewrite of Texas law could be made.

“There are too many members of the Texas House of Representatives who say to me, ‘Elliott, I can’t afford, I can’t take the chance of looking weak on crime,’” said Naishtat of what he admits is a difficult argument to make in Texas.

But Dutton believes it is an opinion war of attrition that will eventually gain traction.

“As we force this discussion about marijuana I think most of the time what happens is legislators start to feel the pressure from their own constituents,” said Dutton.

“Even if it doesn’t pass in the next legislative session, even though it’s polling in Texas at 58 percent, those attempts will prime the pump for later,” predicts Jones, who has written extensively about drug policy, drug wars in Mexico, and his assessment of the impact of U.S. drug laws.

“I don’t think we will be the last state,” added Naishtat. “But we have a big hurdle to overcome.”

url: hMPp://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/01/20/minnesotans-fight-for-legalization-of-medical-marijuana/




Minnesotans Fight For Legalization Of Medical Marijuana




The fight over legalizing medical marijuana moves to the State Capitol again next month. For some Minnesota families, a cannabis law can’t come soon enough. WCCO shares the battle two Minnesota families are fighting, believing that marijuana is the seed to a new life for their sick kids.

When you have a baby, you measure every month in milestones, but a cruel disorder has cost Wyatt Hauser those moments.

“He’s not talking, he’s not hugging, he’s not blowing us kisses, he’s not smiling at us, he’s not laughing,” Jessica Hauser said.

When he was just 6 months old, Jessica Hauser noticed some strange eye movement in her son. Two months, later doctors had a name for it.

“A devastating diagnosis. We didn’t know how devastating at the time,” Jessica Hauser said.

A rare form of epilepsy called infantile spasms. Wyatt can have up to 100 seizures a day. Difficult to watch, his seizures can last up to a half hour at a time.

“Sometimes you’re just kind of waiting around, staring at him, waiting to count seizures,” Jeremy Hauser said.

The Woodbury family has tried 10 different medications, along with different diets, without seeing much of a change. They think marijuana may offer relief.

“We want it. We need it as an option for our son,” Jessica Hauser said.

——-

Two-hundred miles north in Hibbing, Angie and Josh Weaver have dealt with the same desperation for years.

“We feel that Amelia deserves safe, legal access to the medicine that she needs,” Angie Weaver said.

Once a bright, talkative little girl, Amelia suffered a series of seizures when she was two. She gradually lost her ability to do just about everything.

“You feel like you’ve lost your child in a lot of ways,” Angie Weaver said.

Diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, another rare form of epilepsy, Amelia will also have dozens of seizures each day.

After seeing what happened to another little girl in Colorado with the very same diagnosis, more than ever, the Weavers want marijuana to be legal in Minnesota.

With the arrival of legalization in Colorado, Charlotte Figi takes a dose of cannabis oil daily. The custom cultivated plant has a high amount of CBD, a compound shown to calm the brain activity that causes seizures. The oil also has a low amount of THC, the marijuana ingredient that makes users high. Charlotte went from having 300 seizures a week to maybe one. The Colorado girl is also walking and talking again.

“It’s our daughter. It’s what our daughter’s going through. They have the exact same story,” Angie Weaver said.

——-

A neurology and pharmacy professor for nearly 40 years at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Ilo Leppik says the science is there to show the power pot can have to control seizures but he says people need to be cautious of its power.

“I would be very careful about pushing it as a miracle cure or pushing it as the answer for epilepsy,” Leppik said.
He believes more study is needed. Right now the 25 medications already on the market for epilepsy show more promise to a greater number of patients.

“It doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to have the same result,” he added.
Leppik thinks the issue has become too politicized and if distributed in a pill form through the regular drug store system, the drug could help some people.

——-

A lot would have to change at the state capitol before that could happen. For years, Minnesota’s law enforcement agencies have opposed legalizing medical marijuana concerned with public safety and drug abuse. Groups also point out that even though marijuana is legal to take for medical reasons in 20 states, the drug still hasn’t been approved for use by national health organizations.

Republican State Representative Bob Barrett from Lindstrom worries a law would make it easier for young people to start smoking pot. While sympathetic to those with chronic illnesses, he considers the current bill bad policy and wants lawmakers to take a step back.

“There are severe negative consequences, especially among our youth who as adults we should be taking care of,” Barrett said.
If it isn’t legalized this session, the Weavers say they will move to Colorado, convinced marijuana will make a difference for their daughter.

“It seems like the only answer as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what else to try,” Josh Weaver said.

It’s the same step the Hausers will take, starting over in another state, where Wyatt might have the chance to reach more milestones.

“Wyatt is a brave, patient little boy who’s worth fighting for. We’re begging the people who can make this happen, and make a change, that they give us a chance to save our son,” Jessica Hauser said.

——-

Nearly 100 children with epilepsy are now taking that same form of marijuana in Colorado that helped Charlotte Figi. The company selling it says they are all reporting positive results and hundreds of children are now on a waiting list.

A recent poll on the issue in Minnesota showed 76 percent of people polled were in favor of making medical marijuana legal here.

url: hMPp://www.nbcnews.com/health/your-dog-drugs-marijuana-poisoning-rise-pets-2D11959080



This is your dog on drugs: Marijuana poisoning on the rise in pets




Please don’t let your dog drink the bong water.

Calls reporting pet poisonings by marijuana have increased by about 30 percent since 2009, from 213 calls that year to 320 in 2013, according to the Animal Poison Control Center, a division of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Those calls probably represent only a fraction of poisonings related to cannabis.

In Boulder, Colo., where marijuana recently became legal, Dr. Matt Booth said his veterinary emergency center sees about a case a month. The episodes are usually accidental, he said, but even if some were deliberate, “and some ding-a-ling gave his dog marijuana, they wouldn’t tell me that” because of local animal cruelty laws.

Dr. Monica Kaeble of the Pet Emergency and Specialty Care Center in La Mesa, Calif., adjacent to San Diego, told NBCNews.com her practice sees more, about one or two cases of cannabis poisonings per week.

Marijuana doesn’t agree with dogs — and though cats can also be poisoned by second-hand smoke, dogs seem more apt to root through their owners’ stashes.

“Animals don’t react the same way as humans,” explained Dr. Tina Wismer, director of the Animal Poison Control Center. “They may become sedated, act drunk and wobbly, but about 25 percent go the other way. They become agitated, have high heart rates, they’re in distress. Most dogs become incontinent. They stagger around dribbling urine everywhere.”

Blood pressure can soar. Without treatment, dogs can go into comas and die.

Bong water (yes, really) is only one way animals can access the active ingredients in marijuana. While dogs can, and do, eat plant material, including marijuana leaves, serious poisonings more often result from edibles prepared by owners for their own use.

Marijuana butter is especially dangerous. “People put weed and a stick of butter in a sauce pan and the fat soluble cannabinoids leech into the butter creating a much higher concentration of THC,” Wismer explained.

Users then make brownies or cookies with the butter, and dogs, being dogs, and loving brownies and cookies, may scarf them down when a pet owner isn’t looking.

In the case of brownies, that’s doubly dangerous. Chocolate, a heart and nervous system stimulant in dogs, is one of the leading causes of dog poisonings in the U.S. Last year, the ASPCA poison control center received 9,200 calls related to chocolate poisoning, dwarfing the number of calls for marijuana.

But cookies can be doubly dangerous, too, Booth said. He’s seen cases of dogs ingesting marijuana-laced raisin oatmeal cookies, but the real problem wasn’t so much the marijuana as the raisins, which can be toxic to dogs, causing kidney failure.

Other frequent poisonings involve human medications, pesticides, and ethylene glycol anti-freeze.

The increasing availability of marijuana due to legalizations may be one reason why pet poisonings have gone up.

A 2012 study in the Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care reported a correlation between a rise in dog pot poisonings and the increased number of medical marijuana cardholders, finding a fourfold increase in cases at two Colorado hospitals over six years.

But Booth thinks awareness has helped. He used to see more cases involving marijuana at Alpenglow Veterinary Specialty + Emergency Center before Colorado made recreational pot legal.

“As it’s become more commolace in Boulder, and now with legalization, pet guardians have gotten pretty savvy. I see it less and less. If they haven’t had experience with it, then a friend has and word has gotten out. People are more conscientious and aware,” he said.

If your dog shows signs of wobbliness, incontinence, is hyper reactive to sound and sights, has seizures or signs of hyperthermia, you can call the ASPCA’s poison control center at (888) 426-4435, a local emergency animal hospital, or your usual vet.

url: hMPp://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/19/6081835/dan-morain-cannabis-industry-poised.html




Cannabis industry poised to become Capitol power player




Nearly all the power players showed up at the Citizen Hotel a few months ago, seizing the opportunity to give legislative candidates an early indoctrination into the ways of the Capitol.

Bankers, Realtors, doctors, casino operators, labor, alcohol and the insurance industry sponsored the daylong Leadership California Institute session.

Oh, and the California Cannabis Industry Association was there, too.

“We are happy to report that CCIA was received with open arms,” the organization said in an email to its supporters after the event. “Almost every attendee made an attempt to come speak with us during the day, including the 30+ legislative candidates.”

It had to happen. The marijuana business has become a tenant in the Third House, a term for the lobbying industry. In last year’s legislative session, Aaron Read & Associates, perennially one of Sacramento’s top billing firms, added legalization proponents to its client roster, which also includes police unions.

Now the California Cannabis Industry Association is seeking to establish itself as a joint trade association-chamber of commerce for the marijuana industry. To add to its air of legitimacy, the group has rented part of Chops, the watering hole across L Street from the Capitol, for a reception for lawmakers on Tuesday night.

“Everybody wants to know if we have a PAC,” Nate Bradley, the head of the nascent group, told me.

The answer is not yet.

But Bradley and his partner, Sean Donahoe, have high hopes, maybe $500,000 for Year One, though they have commitments for far less. They plan to endorse candidates for legislative and local races, including district attorney in Humboldt County (where else?).

Californians rejected a marijuana-legalization initiative in 2010. Perennial legislation to gently regulate the existing so-called medical marijuana industry fails. But Colorado and Washington state voters’ decisions to legalize the weed has emboldened promoters of full legalization in California.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a legalization advocate, has not decided whether to embrace an initiative for this November, but others hope to move forward. In the Legislature, players intend to start up where they ended in 2013, when legislation stalled on the last day of the session.

As Newsom might say, legalization – or another serious attempt at it – is coming whether we like it or not.

I don’t, though I also don’t care what consenting adults ingest.

California long ago decriminalized marijuana. Anyone 18 and older can get a 215 card and buy the pot of their choice. People hardly hide in darkened rooms, as you can smell on almost any street in midtown Sacramento. But total legalization – and the commercialization that will follow – would not be an advance for our state.

Leave aside the impact on kids of marketing. Take just one issue, the influence of money on politics. Some politicians might hesitate to accept donations from the marijuana industry now. But once it’s legal, the rush for the industry’s green will be on.

Think gambling money. California voters legalized Vegas-style Indian casinos in 2000. Casino tribes spend tens of millions on campaigns. They control gambling legislation so much that consultants to charities seeking legislative authorization for small raffle games first must check in with casino lobbyists to make sure they won’t be infringing on tribes’ turf.

Or money from the alcohol industry. California has a reputation for being a high-tax state. But the Tax Policy Center ranks California’s tax on wine as the nation’s second lowest. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed to raise the alcohol tax by a nickel per drink in 2009. It went nowhere, thanks to industry lobbying. And by a spread of 69-31 percent, voters in 1990 rejected an initiative to raise alcohol taxes, thanks to the alcohol industry’s money.

Or tobacco money. In this anti-tobacco state, tobacco industry lobbyists have a harder time flicking lint off their jackets than they do killing tax legislation. The Legislature has not raised tobacco taxes since 1993, and that was a mere 2 cents.

Marijuana is said to be California’s largest cash crop. Imagine the millions that could flow into campaign coffers. Politicians would be paralyzed, unable to impose any serious tax or regulation opposed by the industry.

Donahoe and Bradley, not slick in any way, hardly are king- and queen-makers. I chatted with them for an hour in their modest office around the corner from Frank Fats. Nice guys. They recently hired a lobbyist, Glenn Backes, who previously represented the Drug Policy Alliance, a well-funded legalization advocacy group.

Bradley, 34, is a former cop in the small farming town of Wheatland. His father, Reb Bradley, is a conservative pastor who worked on legislative campaigns supporting such staunch Northern California conservatives as Barbara Alby, David Knowles and Tim Leslie.

Bradley believes marijuana products saved his life, or at least allowed him to wean himself off anti-anxiety pills. Donahoe, 38, a veteran of various Democratic campaigns, uses it to ease pain from temporomandibular disorder.

They readily acknowledged they are operating in an odd corner of politics, the economy and culture. I mused that getting growers and others in the industry to join a trade group must be like herding chickens. Donahoe likened it to organizing pirates.

“These guys are determined. I give them that,” said consultant Mike Madrid, who organized the candidates’ forum at the Citizen and believes California will legalize marijuana. “It is a matter of when, not if.”

The first legislative candidate endorsed by California Cannabis Industry Association is Matt Pope, a Napa County planning commissioner, one of four major Democratic candidates seeking an open Assembly seat that includes Napa and Yolo counties. He welcomes the support.

“I’m pretty sure that one or more (opponents) will be taking money from alcohol-related businesses. I’m totally fine with that,” Pope told me.

Pope won’t be the last legislative candidate to receive a California Cannabis Industry Association endorsement. Many more will take industry money. The final fight over full legalization and the commercialization that will follow is well underway, whether we like it or not. Once it’s legal, the industry will become one of the dominant power players in the Capitol.

url: hMPp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100255831/cannabis-smoking-is-the-real-risk/




Smoking is what makes cannabis dangerous




My colleague Tom Chivers argues very persuasively that cannabis is "far safer" than alcohol. But he slightly glossed over the real risks of cannabis to the lungs. He addressed himself mainly to the mental health question, showing that alcohol's battering of the brains of heavy drinkers causes more havoc than the effects of cannabis, for most people. But cannabis doesn't just affect the brain.

As Tom says: "None of this is to say that cannabis is safe – especially since it's usually smoked, and usually smoked with tobacco, at that." But the tobacco content of joints is not all we need to think about; the cannabis content is harmful on its own. According to Dr Peter Lange writing in the journal Thorax, research shows that smoking marijuana or cannabis constitutes a "substantial hazard to the lung". For a start, it contains many of the same compounds as tobacco, including "olycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, cyanide, benzene and many others".

There aren't a huge amount of studies examining the link to cancer, but since cannabis contains similar carcinogens there's likely to be an increased risk.

(One study which failed to find an increased risk in cannabis smokers has been criticised for being too short.)

Not that cancer is all that the stoner fraternity (for want of a better synonym) may want to consider. Cannabis smoking techniques are different from tobacco – deep inhalation, holding of breath and even deliberate use of the Valsalva manoeuvre (blowing against a closed airway as some people do to "clear" the ears during flight). As well as enabling higher absorption of the active ingredient – the THC – these habits also mean you get a heftier deposit of the nasty stuff I listed above. And the breathing techniques might in themselves cause lung damage, such as bullous lung disease, which is known to occur at a much younger age in cannabis smokers (compared with tobacco).

Having said all this, I sympathise with Tom's desire to put things in proportion. He is right that the main danger to cannabis users is the criminal justice system. It does seem a sort of double standard that some drink themselves into madness and an early grave and we accept that as part of life's jolly pageant, while others, because they take cannabis, receive criminal records and worse – and find their lives permanently blighted.

Hey when I click Save Quote,,where does it save to?

url: hMPp://www.news10.net/news/article/268919/2/Garbage-collectors-collected-delivered-evidence-for-DEA-




Sacramento garbage collectors collected and delivered evidence for the DEA




SACRAMENTO - Garbage collectors for the City of Sacramento collected evidence last year for the DEA, according to court documents filed in a Sacramento drug trafficking case.

The information was revealed in a search-warrant application filed by a DEA agent working a case against suspected crack cocaine trafficker Omar Williams.

According to court documents, the DEA has been dealing with Williams since 2005, when they arrested him on weapons and drug charges.

Williams, 40, already had a long rap sheet by 2005, including convictions for attempted murder, assault on a police officer with a firearm, kidnapping, carjacking and drug trafficking. He is also a validated Meadowview Bloods gang member.

Despite being sentenced to over ten years in prison on drugs and weapons charges in 2008, documents show Williams was released on probation in early 2013 because federal crack cocaine sentencing guidelines were changed.

Court records indicate the DEA agent who put Williams away in 2005 got wind of his release in mid-2013, when he was tipped off by a paid confidential informant, who said Williams was already back to selling crack cocaine.

According to the search warrant application, the agent discovered Williams was using two houses, one as his official residence and another in the 1400 block of 66th Avenue as a place to package and sell drugs.

In order to get a warrant at the suspected drug house, the DEA needed to establish probable cause, which is why they turned to the Sacramento garbage company.

On Nov. 5, a garbage collection day, the DEA agent arranged with the city garbage company to make a special pickup at Williams' suspected drug house on 66th Ave.

According to documents, the city sent an empty garbage truck to the house, putting the garbage in the back the truck. The garbage truck didn't make any more pickups, heading directly to the City corp yard and the waiting DEA agent.

An employee supervisor handed over four knotted trash bags to the agent, who began searching the garbage for evidence.

The contents of Williams' garbage contained a cornucopia of drug related evidence, according to the investigating DEA agent, including:

- Cut-open rectangular plastic packages coated with cocaine residue
- Over 100 clear plastic sandwich bags coated with a powdery residue that tested positive for cocaine
- 20 pairs of used rubber gloves
- An empty cardboard box for a WeighMax digital scale
- Receipts bearing Omar Williams' name
- A ledger with numbers consistent with the current prices for kilograms of cocaine

Just three days later, Williams was arrested by DEA agents and was indicted on Nov. 21 by the US Attorney's Office on drug and weapons charges.

The City of Sacramento declined to comment on the story, but did say any waste put in a city garbage bin effectively becomes city property.

Sacramento criminal defense attorney and News10 legal analyst Bill Portanova concurred with the city's assessment, saying waste taken to the curb in a city garbage bin was considered abandoned, and there is no expectation of privacy for abandoned property.

Portanova said the tactic was just industrious police work and was perfectly legal.

"One man's garbage is a federal agent's treasure," he said.

Williams is currently in the Sacramento County Jail and is not currently eligible for bail.

Several calls for comment made to Williams' attorney were never returned.

Quote: Weedhopper wrote in post #8

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Hey when I click Save Quote,,where does it save to?

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How do I find this clipboard?

OK. Yep all I can find is my Note Pad and it doesnt show anything.

OK I get it now Ozzy. I was thinking I could save the Quote to my Desktop or Something. Sorry
I know I can cut and paste it to my Computer,,just thought that was a short cut.
I know,,,,,Im High,, 4U.