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Drugs with a street value of more than three-quarters of a million euro have been seized on one of the country's busiest motorways. Detectives uncovered the cannabis in a Northern Ireland-registered car stopped on the M1 near Drogheda. The driver and only occupant were arrested and is being held at Balbriggan Garda station under the Drug Trafficking Act.

The arrest was part of a joint Garda and PSNI operation into drug trafficking. Detectives from the Garda National Drugs Unit stopped the car as it was travelling northbound near the Drogheda toll plaza. Some 30 kilos of cannabis herb and 75 kilos of cannabis resin have been sent for forensic analysis. The haul is believed to have a street value of 810,000 euro.

A key member of a Miami-based marijuana-smuggling ring was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service on Thursday, more than 31 years after skipping out of a federal trial. Mark Steven Phillips, 62, was arrested in his apartment at Century Village, a seniors community where he had been living in recent months, according to a press release by the U.S. Marshals Service.

Along with 13 others, Phillips was charged in May 1979 in what was then the country's largest marijuana importation prosecution in history. The ring, known as the "Black Tuna Gang," derived its name from the radio moniker for the group's Colombian source for marijuana. Phillips, who faces sentencing for a racketeering conviction and adjudication of fugitive charges, told U.S. Magistrate Edwin Torres that he has no property, $600 in a bank account and receives $667 in monthly Social Security benefits, the Miami Herald reported.

According to the U.S. Marshals Service, Phillips was sleeping when deputies went to his apartment on Monday and was told the "judge wants to see you, Mark" by the lead deputy marshal. "The judge wants to see me from 30 years ago," Phillips replied. Authorities estimate that the ring smuggled 500 tons of marijuana into the U.S. in the mid-'70s.

LINCOLN, Neb. -- A 63-year-old California woman has been given three-to-eight years in a Nebraska prison for the 66 pounds of marijuana found in the back of her sport utility vehicle.

Cynthia Bruckner, of Fountain Valley, Calif., was convicted of a drug-delivery charge in November. The Lincoln Journal Star says Bruckner was sentenced on Thursday.

She had sworn she didn't know the marijuana was secreted in the SUV she was driving along Interstate 80 last February when it was pulled over. A drug dog soon led state troopers to the hidden pot.

Troopers arrested Bruckner and her son, who was traveling with her. He is 43-year-old Scot Christensen, and he lives with her in Fountain Valley.

Christensen was convicted earlier this week and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 31.

(Source)

A Denver-area marijuana grower who was controversially arrested last February was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison on Friday.

Chris Bartkowicz of Highlands Ranch, Colorado was arrested at his home in February, 2010 after DEA agents saw a segment about his medical-marijuana grow operation on local news.

"Whether it's a small grow or a big grow, I don't think the average person realizes how close to their front door it is," Bartkowicz told KUSA in Denver during a segment on Colorado's burgeoning medical marijuana industry.

Days later, DEA agents arrived at Bartkowicz's house, confiscated the marijuana plants he had been growing in his basement, and charged him with felony Marijuana Possession with Intent to Sell, a crime punishable by up to 40 years in prison.

The arrest send shockwaves through the medical marijuana community, as Bartkowicz was a licensed medical marijuana caregiver in Colorado.

Marijuana-rights activists pointed to a guidance the Obama administration issued shortly after taking office that directed law federal enforcement officials "not to focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws."

The DEA says that it had reasonable evidence that Bartkowicz was not in "clear and unambiguous" compliance with Colorado law, as the number of plants he was growing exceeded the amount he was allowed under state law.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Bartkowicz could not use state law as a defense.

In October, Bartkowicz pleaded guilty in exchange for a sentence of 60 months on prison. District Court Judge Philip Brimmer accepted the deal on Friday.

(Source)

From the age of 14, Henry Cockburn spent much of his time stoned on cannabis. His father Patrick, the award-winning foreign correspondent, thought his habit was harmless until the day Henry nearly died and was subsequently sent to a psychiatric hospital. The details of Henry's dramatic breakdown and treatment for schizophrenia makes compelling reading, especially for any parent whose child is using cannabis. Father and son have turned the story into a book. In one extract, Cockburn describes how his son turned from talented artist to disheveled wreck.

"He stopped shaving or washing his hair and went barefoot, so his feet became septic. He also soiled his jeans more than once." Now 29, Henry is in recovery and living in a halfway house in London. The details of his paranoia, his delusions and obsessions add to the growing evidence that the drug can trigger psychosis in people who are already genetically vulnerable. Author Julie Myerson also knows how excessive cannabis use can threaten to wreck families. Her son Jake became hooked on the potent "skunk" form of cannabis and Myerson was forced to throw him out of the family home in south London. Myerson, who also wrote a book about his drug abuse, has said there came a point "when it felt like my son was pulling the whole family over the edge".

Dealing with a pot-smoking teenager who is literally "out of their head" is a frightening situation which more London parents are being forced to confront. Cannabis has always been considered a "soft" drug, albeit illegal. A high without the toxic risks of heroin or cocaine. No drug is "safe", though, and figures from the National Treatment Agency (NTA) reveal that around 750 people a year in the UK - 14 a week - end up in treatment for mental health problems specifically related to cannabis use. Between 2009 and 2010, the overall number of 18- to 24-year-olds on the drug who accessed treatment services in London rose by nearly a third from 660 to 853. These services range from advice to more specialist help. There are many forms of cannabis or marijuana but the prevalence of skunk is causing most concern. Grown intensively indoors, it is up to three times as potent as hash or weed. Helena O'Connell, from Addaction, warns that cannabis use is the "norm" among young people in London and that means smoking skunk. She says: "It's like binge drinking. There's so much peer pressure with skunk and it's unheard of to switch to something milder.