The conflict between state and federal laws over the legality of medical marijuana is forcing some law enforcement officers to take on the unwelcome duty of delivering pot that caregivers attempt to ship through a parcel service.
Over the past year, the Billings Police Department has received an increasing number of calls from FedEx and UPS workers who discover packages containing what appears to be legal medical marijuana. A police investigator must then pick up the package, make phone calls to determine whether it is a Montana-legal product produced by a “caregiver” who is registered with the state and notify the distributor to retrieve the pot.
Airports anti-drug chief Col. Jose Piedrahita says that Colombian authorities found the unusual statue during a routine security check by anti-drug agents Friday in a mail warehouse at Bogota's international airport.
The 36-centimeter-high (14-inch-high) statue was inside a box headed for Madrid, Spain. The statue was painted gold with green stripes on the base.
Piedrahita said Saturday that laboratory tests confirmed the cup was made of 11 kilos (24 pounds) of cocaine mixed with acetone or gasoline to make it moldable.
Authorities in Ecuador, joined by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, have seized a submarine built secretly in the jungles of the South American country, according to a DEA press release.
The electric-powered submarine, 30 feet long, was intended to transport multi-ton quantities of cocaine. But after acting on intelligence obtained by the DEA, authorities in Ecuador were able to seize the clandestine vessel on Friday before it was ever deployed, the DEA said.
