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Drug-Carrying Pigeon in Canadian Prison Yard
Officers at a Canadian prison nabbed a drug smuggler who would definitely be considered a flight risk. The culprit? A meth-carrying pigeon.
In a scheme straight out of the Middle Ages, authorities at the Pacific Institution in Abbotsford, a correctional facility about 50 miles away from Vancouver, “reported capturing a pigeon carrying a tiny backpack filled with illicit drugs” in the prison yard late last month, according to Yahoo.
Yahoo reports that a “tiny fabric backpack tied to the pigeon contained crystal meth,” and that guards at the prison “spotted the bird and its cargo on Dec. 29 in one of the facility’s recreation yards.”
“It was spotted by correctional officers, I believe, and security intelligence officers when the officers were doing their standard patrols around and throughout the unit and institution, that’s when they initially spotted the bird with the package on it,” John Randle, a spokesperson for the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers, said, as quoted by Yahoo. “The officers then set up a trap to capture it.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Company has more on the daring capture:
“Officers were standing in one of the fenced inmate unit yards, which prisoners use regularly for hanging out, playing games or just getting some fresh air. Then the officers noticed something strange: a grey bird with a small package on its back. ‘From my understanding, it was tied to it in a similar fashion as like a little backpack,’ Randle said. The officers moved in. ‘They had to corner it,’ Randle said. ‘You can imagine how that would look, trying to catch a pigeon.’ After ‘a lengthy period of time,’ the officers apprehended the bird, removed its cargo and set it free. Randle said the package contained about 30 grams of crystal meth, which he described as a ‘fairly substantial’ amount of the intensely addictive stimulant. ‘It’s definitely scary with the fact that it was crystal meth that was found on the bird, because that causes a whole lot of problems,’ he added. Corrections Canada confirmed in an email it is investigating, but would not provide further details.”
There is precedent for this sort of fowl play.
In 2017, customs officials in Kuwait captured a pigeon that was also carrying drugs in a miniature backpack.
“A total of 178 pills were found in the fabric pocket attached to its back,” the BBC reported at the time, citing the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Ra’i.
“The bird was caught near the customs building in Abdali, close to the border with Iraq,” the BBC said. “An al-Rai journalist said the drugs were a form of ketamine, an anaesthetic also used as an illegal party drug. Abdullah Fahmi told the BBC that customs officials already knew pigeons were being used to smuggle drugs, but this was the first time they had caught a bird in the act.”
There was a similar story out of Argentina that same year, with police there shooting and killing “a carrier pigeon as it flew into a prison, then found a stash of cannabis and other contraband in a tiny backpack sewn to its feathers,” the British newspaper The Independent reported at the time.
“Officers at the Colonia jail in Santa Rosa, La Pampa, became suspicious after noticing the bird flying back and forth into the building over a number of days,” the newspaper reported. “After downing it, they discovered 7.5 grams of cannabis as well as 44 pills of the sedative Rivotril and a USB stick.”
“The method is also the most common way to sneak drugs into the Federal Penitentiary jail in Buenos Aires, the authorities said,” The Independent added.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/drug-carrying-pigeon-in-canadian-prison-yard/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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