Wild Pot Found in Indiana National Park

Radio monitoring leads officials to marijuana patch

(NEWSER) - Agent 99, watch out: A 6-inch-long box turtle known as "No. 72” may want your job. Washington, DC, police recently got an assist from No. 72 in making a drug bust, the Washington Post reports. One of several turtles fitted with transmitters that allow National Park Service researchers to track them, No. 72 happened to receive a visit from a scientist while plodding amid some suspicious plants. "I could tell they were marijuana plants," said Ken Ferebee. More»

New York Times examines case of border patrol agent

(NEWSER) - Bryan Gonzalez was working as a Border Patrol agent in New Mexico when he made the fatal mistake of musing to a colleague that legalizing marijuana would end Mexico’s violent drug war. He was fired soon afterwards; his termination letter said he held “personal views that were contrary to the core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.” He’s not alone either, the New York Times observes. Law enforcement officials nationwide have been fired for questioning drug laws. More»

Want to stay off the beaten path? Start here

(NEWSER) - If you’ve seen enough of Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon, CNN has an idea for you: Why not visit another of the country’s 397 national parks and monuments, like one of these seven you’ve probably never heard of?

• Dry Tortugas: You have to seriously want to make it all the way out to one of these seven islands 70 miles west of Key West, which are only accessible by ferry or seaplane. But don’t expect actual dryness: Tropical storms are a regular occurrence.

Our war on marijuana does more harm than good

(NEWSER) - What will happen if we legalize marijuana? Simple: Police will be able to “focus on serious crime instead,” writes George Soros in the Wall Street Journal . The liberal billionaire and philanthropist outlines his reasons for supporting California’s Prop 19 , with the bottom line being that “our marijuana laws are clearly doing more harm than good.” The people benefiting the most from keeping pot illegal, he argues, are “the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade.” More»

Heavily armed men in two trucks opened fire on his home

(AP) - Gunmen opened fire on a police chief's house in southern Mexico, killing his 23-year-old daughter and a bodyguard and wounding three others, police said yesterday. Anacleto Flores Valle, the chief of police in the Pacific coast town of Petatlan, was uninjured when heavily armed men in two trucks opened fire on his home Sunday. The gunmen fled and were not identified. More»