Nassau police arrested a Bellmore man on charges of drug possession and having a stolen gun on Monday afternoon.
Bureau of Special Operations officers observed William Pulgiano, 25, place two rifles in the trunk of his car while parked in front of his Littleneck Avenue home at 2:50 p.m.
Upon further investigation, Pulgiano was found to have in his trunk a shotgun, a 9-mm rifle, a .45-caliber handgun that was reported stolen in Florida, several bags of cocaine, two bags of marijuana, a scale and small plastic bags, according to 1st Squad detectives.
advertisement
Pulgiano was charged with criminal possession of stolen property, criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of marijuana and two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Tags: Bellmore, cocaine, Nassau police, William Pulgiano
I have been waiting a very long time for someone (other than me of course hehe) to take a reasoned aproach to this subject. You have by far made the best writen argument I have seen to date. If its ok ill be posting this to our clooective site for our patients to read as well as distribute it to our local city council as they are “trying” to fight us but will lose. Fantastic paper my friend :)
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/90295/
WHO survey of 17 countries finds that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.
The United States has some of the world’s most punitive drug policies and has led the cheering section for tough “war on drugs” policies worldwide, but a new international study suggests that those policies have been a crashing failure. A World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, conducted by some of the world’s leading substance abuse researchers, found that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.
The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the United States leading the world by a large margin.
This study is important because it’s the first time a respected international group has surveyed drug use around the world, using the same questions and procedure everywhere. While many countries have their own drug use surveys, the questions and methodology vary, and comparisons between countries are difficult. This new study eliminates that problem.
Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.
Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the United States led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in the Netherlands, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 — roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy tried to dismiss the study, Bloomberg News reported:
Trying to find a link between drug use and drug enforcement doesn’t make sense, said Tom Riley, spokesman for the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington. “The U.S. has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison,” Riley said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Should we spend less? We’re just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.”
Funny, ONDCP takes precisely the opposite line whenever a state considers liberalizing its marijuana laws. In a March press release, deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns railed against a New Hampshire proposal to decriminalize marijuana, saying such a move “sends the wrong message to New Hampshire’s youth, students, parents, public health officials and the law enforcement community,” and would lead to “more drugs, drug users and drug dealers on their streets and communities.”
Back in 2002, denouncing a proposed marijuana law reform in Nevada, ONDCP distributed a list of talking points to prosecutors specifically slamming the “extremely dubious” Dutch system of regulated sales, saying, “Increased availability of marijuana leads to increased use of marijuana and other drugs.”
In fact, ONCDP’s latest excuse for the failure of U.S. drug policies — that enforcement and penalties don’t really have much effect on rates of use — is probably just about right. But it also dynamites any justification for our current marijuana laws. The WHO researchers put it this way:
“The U.S., which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use.”
For this we arrest 830,000 Americans a year on marijuana charges?
More information about drug laws from Just Say Know:
Using Internet Explorer web browser: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/home
With All Other Browsers: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/index.html
In order to effectively address drug related death, disease, crime and addiction, we must demand rational drug policy that has PROVEN to get far better results than our drug war.
We have laws on the books that are causing a nonviolent US citizen to be arrested every 17 seconds on drug charges. Those laws have been in effect for almost 100 years and the goals of those laws are not being accomplished AT ALL. It’s time for the voters to say enough is enough and support long term proven methods of dealing with drug use and addiction in an effective rational manner.
The goals of the drug war are to reduce drug related death, disease, crime and drug use. It has accomplished NONE of those goals after almost 100 years of prohibition policy, over 1 trillion tax dollars wasted, ever tougher criminal penalties, arresting millions of Americans, removing an ever increasing list of our Constitutional rights and all the other effort and resources that have been put into this failed wasteful and harmful unproductive policy.
The drug war is a real war and it is an unnecessarily harmful, completely unwinnable, and wasteful war. It is in fact a war against a certain large percentage of our own population that chooses to different degrees and with a wide range or results, to put a wide variety of different substances in their body and for a wide variety of reasons. It’s being fought in our communities with real guns, military styled raids against nonviolent citizens, teargas, dogs and virtually every other tool of war available.
Despite the drug war and all the money and efforts that have been put into it, drugs today are more potent, more readily available and often less expensive than they were in 1971 when Richard Nixon coined the phrase “war on drugs”.
Right now we are installing 900 new prison beds and hiring 150 new correction officers every 2 weeks. Here in the “land of the free” for the first time in history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison. 2,319,258 Americans were incarcerated at the start of 2008. The United States now incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth, more than even far more populous communist China. Over half of our federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense. Largely because of the drug war, arresting Americans is becoming big business. We now have companies attempting to privatize our penal systems. These companies are huge supporters of drug prohibition and any other laws that cause Americans to be incarcerated. The more Americans behind bars, the more money they get from the government.
Marijuana which accounts for roughly half of all drug arrests, never was a serious threat to society, families, or individuals and it never will be. Because of that bad law being implemented based on lies by a few people that stood to gain financially from marijuana’s prohibition and them intentionally deceiving lawmakers, literally millions of Americans that choose to use that plant for ANY purpose are criminalized needlessly. No one in the entire world of any age in all of recorded history has ever died from the ingredients in marijuana. In the US we arrest someone on a marijuana charge every 38 seconds.
Many big corporations that see marijuana as competition contribute heavily to promoting marijuana prohibition. Alcohol, tobacco, petroleum, cotton, timber, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, just to name a few and of course the government contributes billions every year to keep their prohibition cash cow alive and well. I’ve seen estimates that contributions toward drug prohibition may be as much as 1 million dollars per day. However, once people learn the truth about the issues they overwhelmingly are in favor of revising drug policy. That’s why 13 states have passed medical marijuana laws already and several have decriminalized. I’m sure you saw the news that the feds revised their policy about prosecuting medical marijuana patients that are in compliance with state laws. That’s a huge step in the right direction. It proves when enough voters take action rational progress toward regulation and away from prohibition is being made.
Because of our prohibition policy bad laws have been put on the books that make it illegal for IV drug users to obtain clean needles. This results in AIDS and hepatitis being spread unnecessarily into our non drug using society on a huge scale.
Now take a look at the way the Swiss have dealt with their heroin problem. You can watch a lot about this in the video titled “Jack Cole Interview” on the Just Say Know website (link below). In Switzerland they set up government run clinics where heroin addicts can go and get pharmaceutical grade heroin. If you don’t have the money to pay for the drug it’s free. That instantly put every illegal heroin dealer in that country out of business… they can’t compete with free. Anyone that wants heroin can go into a government run clinic up to 3 times a day and inject it. There are medical personnel on hand and anyone that wants to kick their habit is given counseling and help toward that goal. The results are that there has not been a single heroin overdose there in more than 13 years. Switzerland has the lowest AIDS and Hepatitis infection in all of Europe. Crime fell by 60% because no one is stealing or prostituting their self to pay for their heroin and after a 10 year study, they documented that there has been an 82% decline in new heroin users. Now please tell me why our drug war seems like better policy than that. No one went to jail and no one got killed. This program is far less expensive than what we are doing and far less harmful.
True drug addiction of all types should be handled as a medical problem not a criminal problem. Drug use should not automatically be considered abuse or addiction. If a person kills or drives when they are intoxicated or breaks any legitimate law, we already have laws on the books to deal with those problems and if a real danger to society is recognized like it was with drunk driving, then those laws certainly should be rationally adjusted accordingly. Trying to lock up every drug user or eradicate every plant that produces illegal drugs from planet earth are completely unattainable irrational goals. We simply cannot afford to lock up every drug user and even if we could the vast majority go back to using drugs when they are released. Some countries even went so far as to execute drug users and even that has not succeeded in accomplishing a “drug free” country. At some point we have to realize that a certain percentage of people are always going to use drugs and implement policy that minimizes the harms without devastating society.
Most drugs are made from weeds that without prohibition would be of far less financial value. According to a fairly recent documentary by Walter Cronkite, all the plants needed to supply an entire year’s worth of the heroin consumed in the US could be grown on about 50 square miles almost anywhere on earth and the entire year’s worth of heroin could be transported in a single cargo plane. Doesn’t it make more sense to have doctors treat the addicts and rational laws to deal with drug consumption and the related harms like drunk/intoxicated driving than to try and stop heroin or any other drug’s production? It has to because law enforcement has only been able to prevent the production or transportation of about 10% of the heroin and all other illegal drugs according to their own statistics.
If you can show me ANYTHING that the drug war has accomplished when it comes to reducing drug related death, disease, crime and drug use that has significantly improved any drug related area over a long period of time I’d appreciate you telling me what it is.
The Constitutional right to freedom of religion, free speech, a free press, to keep and bear arms, to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, to life, liberty and property, to be protected from having your property taken by the government without due process of law and without just compensation, to confront the witnesses against you, to be protected from excessive bail, excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, to vote and others have been unjustly denied to millions of Americans in the name of the drug war.
In 1914 when all drugs were legal in the US, 1.3% of the US population was addicted to drugs. Despite over 1 trillion tax dollars being wasted, millions of Americans being arrested and all the other harms that have resulted from our failed drug prohibition policy, today 1.3% of our population is still addicted to drugs. That’s 0% improvement.
Because of the inflated prices of illegal drugs CAUSED by prohibition the profits between the point of production and the point of sale can be as much as 17,000%. Drug prohibition is a self perpetuating policy that draws people into the illegal drug trade like a magnet because of the enormous profits. Alcohol prohibition created the same problems as every other drug prohibition. The year alcohol prohibition ended violent crime fell by 65%. Regulating drugs is NOT a solution to our true drug problems. Regulating drugs IS a solution to our illegal drug TRADE related crime and violence problems. With rational drug regulation the authorities are in control of the drug trade instead of violent gangsters. That’s a huge step in the right direction and once regulation is in place we can effectively deal with our real drug problems. When was the last time you heard of alcohol dealers getting into a shootout? I bet it was when alcohol was prohibited. Regulation equals control. Prohibition equals crime and corruption.
More information about drug laws from Just Say Know:
Using Internet Explorer web browser: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/home
With All Other Browsers: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/index.html