By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com Marijuana use has doubled in the last decade, and with that has come a doubling in the use disorders associated with it, according to a recent medical study by a Columbia University epidemiologist published this week in The Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry and in Medscape Medical News. Dr. Deborah Hasin reported…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) issued an alert this week about the continuing rapid rise of seizures and overdose fatalities involving fentanyl. As reported in this column last June, fentanyl is a fast-acting opioid , 50-100 times stronger than morphine, that is now being used by sellers to…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com Supreme Court Justices have a busy November with, among their other duties, six days of Oral Argument, including five cases of interest to criminal justice folks on both sides of the aisle. Death Penalty Jury Selection: No Court calendar would be complete without a contentious death penalty case. Foster v. Chatman…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com DETROIT — Federal court, more often than not, is a pretty serious place. But on Wednesday, judges, prosecutors, attorneys, courthouse staff and members of the media gathered on the first floor of the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Detroit to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The crowd…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com The U.S. Supreme Court will begin its 2015-2016 term with oral arguments in October on three tough cases on capital punishment from the minority of states which still maintain a de facto death penalty. In Kansas v. Carr, Gleason, the issues presented involve the trial judge’s instruction to the jury and…
By Ross Parker With the recent volume of media on the issue of the heroin epidemic, its overdoses and deaths, has come an effort to provide an easy explanation for the cause of and solution to this multifaceted problem. Much of the blame has been directed at doctors, who are charged with being either intentionally…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com A young woman from Michigan we will call Janice started using heroin in her early 20s. Her family stuck by her and financed several rounds of rehabilitation. Each of these was followed after a short period of time by a relapse and her family or friends rushing Janice to a hospital…
By Ross Parker ticklethewire.com Three months ago the mother of an Ypsilanti Township man found her young son slumped over in his bed, dead, with a syringe still in his hand. He was one of the latest victims of the deadly combination of heroin laced with the prescription drug fentanyl. Zachary Burdette is charged in…
