(Editor's note: This week's cover story comes courtesy of our sister paper, the Houston Press. Visit here for more stories by reporter Angelica Leicht.) BY ANGELICA LEICHT Sitting cross-legged on the floor in her apartment outside of Houston, Faith's mother looks over at the toddler repeatedly as ... More >>
Good news for E Cannabis Unum supporters across the country: Texas, land of big businesses and economic prosperity, could stand to gain a ton of money from legalizing marijuana -- over $166 million per year, by some estimates. That's a Texas Miracle if we've ever heard one. Of course, it would als ... More >>
In a perfect example of why it's best -- if you're looking to run a successful drug empire -- to keep the manufacturing and distribution arms of your outfit separate, the Drug Enforcement Administration moved to seize 35 financial accounts, six cars, jewelery, almost $20,000 in cash, seven gold Cana ... More >>
State Representative Steve Stockman is the Texas lawmaker who is probably least likely to whip out a joint at the party and share it with everyone. He likes families, straight people, guns and fertilized eggs that might one day become babies. He hates liberals. Not as much as he hates the federal ... More >>
No one seriously believes anymore in the Reefer Madness depiction of marijuana use, in which this new-fangled devil weed transforms otherwise upstanding teenagers into murderous sociopaths. Even some otherwise staunch social conservatives (e.g. Rick Perry) are beginning to embrace some degree of dec ... More >>
It's not often that Texas Governor Rick Perry has occasion to wax at length about his views on drug policy, but when you find yourself in Davos, Switzerland, on a World Economic Forum panel devoted to the "drug dilemma," there isn't much else to talk about. This morning's discussion (it was late ev ... More >>
Crave DFW, the popular restaurant-news site, has been unusually quiet this week, and now we know why: Steven Doyle, the site's founder, was arrested this week in Farmers Branch on outstanding warrants and drug charges. He's currently being held on multiple bonds. According to the arrest report, Doy ... More >>
Those who could stay off the roads on Friday did so, but truckers, the grease that keeps American commerce humming, couldn't rest. They had consumer goods to deliver, groceries to restock, gasoline stations to replenish. At around 3:30 p.m., police say Martin Barrera was transporting a particularly ... More >>
No one expects Dallas City Councilman Sheffie Kadane to be an expert on drug culture. He comes across as a staunch teetotaler, someone who associates marijuana with Reefer Madness-style hysteria, who would turn off The Wire in shocked disgust. Yet his role as a municipal policymaker requires at lea ... More >>
The pendulum of public opinion on marijuana policy has been swinging rather dramatically in recent years away from prohibition and toward a more libertarian approach. Hence last year's decision by voters in Colorado and Washington to legalize the stuff and the corresponding announcement by the Justi ... More >>
Consider this a public service announcement for smokers of K-2 and similar products. There's a widely available, all-natural product -- a miracle, really -- that delivers that synthetic marijuana-like high you crave without any unfortunate face-eating side effects. It's called weed, and it's about a ... More >>
Over the course of several months in 2008, undercover narcotics detectives with the Dallas Police Department visited El Palacio Bar at 4430 Maple Ave. on three occasions and asked for cocaine. Each time, their server dutifully retrieved a small plastic baggie of powdered nine-hour energy from a stor ... More >>
Judging from some pretty spectacular video clips and photos, it's little short of a miracle no one was killed in the December 3 fire that destroyed The Arbors of Las Colinas apartment complex in Irving. As it was, only one resident was taken to the hospital after falling from a third-story window, w ... More >>
Marijuana advocates were abuzz last month -- and by "abuzz" we mean excited, of course -- when a bill to reduce penalties for marijuana possession was passed out the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. The bill had been watered down to apply only to people younger than 21, but the Texas ch ... More >>
There was just something that didn't add up about Debonaire Bros, the retail menswear business Kristian Fitz had registered with the Texas Secretary of State. For one, there didn't seem to be any clothes. Federal agents staked out the store's supposed address, a Red Bird home belonging to Fitz's par ... More >>
Agents of nearly a dozen federal and local law enforcement agencies busted a large drug ring this week, arresting a dozen people and seizing 600 marijuana plants and 25 pounds of hydroponic weed. The sweep -- conducted by Dallas PD, the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, Homeland Security and the IRS, ... More >>
Last Thursday, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency received a tip from someone in Brownsville, Texas: A Dallas-bound freight shipment described on shipping manifests as a collection of scales and metal plates actually seemed to contain something else entirely. The shipment was picked up that ... More >>
With Cinco de Mayo fast approaching, the Dallas/Fort Worth chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is scrambling to remind Americans that if you're going to undermine a holiday designed to celebrate a culture's heritage, you don't have to just do it by getting h ... More >>
What's in your drugs? Well, not your drugs, obviously, or ours, because we're law-abiding, tax-paying, speed-limit-driving good citizens, one and all. But as anyone who may have a purely academic interest in this sort of thing might like to know, street drugs are often very, very impure (shocker), a ... More >>
Seems like only three weeks ago Sam Hurd was just another former wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys who was on his road to journeyman status, which, in his case, ran through Soldier Field. Then it was revealed: Even before his acquisition by the Chicago Bears, the San Antonio native fancied him ... More >>
In mid-October we predicted that the hearing before the Permit and License Appeal Board over whether the club Afterlife should have its dancehall license revoked would probably be the most exciting thing that's come before the board in a very long time. In hindsight, that was probably an under ... More >>
In one East Texas town, a new brand of meth lab has business -- and the occasional house -- booming.
In a strange about-face, the President tries to hack medical marijuana off at the knees
Robert breaks the news: An arrest has been made in connection with the August 13 death of 19-year-old Matthew Allen of Grandview. Police have arrested 19-year-old Skylar Brandt on felony charges alleging that she supplied Allen the drugs he took and eventually overdosed on.And that's just the sta ... More >>
Matthew Allen was 19.We've spent much of the morning today trying to track down more information on what happened to Matthew Allen, the 19-year-old who died in an Irving hospital on Saturday morning after apparently using ecstasy while attending at Club Afterlife on Northwest Highway on late Frid ... More >>
Via.Just couldn't hold this till item till 4:20, so sorry. But I'd meant to mention last week that the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (or NORML) was staging its part of the World Wide Marijuana March on May 7 on the Dallas City Hall Plaza. ... More >>
Destroyer, The War on DrugsThe LoftMarch 26, 2011Better than: listening to karaoke Wham!, I guess.Destroyer's Dan BejarThe bottom line: I wish I had thought to bring a Kindle to read at The Loft on Saturday night -- not unlike the guy helping me hold up the column in the middle of the floor at th ... More >>
Click to embiggen to see where some of the West Dallas Gator Boys' drug houses wereBack in August Sam told you all about Tyrone Weatherall, a leader of the West Side Gator Boys -- and an exotic animal collector -- who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess with the intent to distrib ... More >>
We're thinking the kiddos at Pinkston High School weren't having a tough time getting high last year. (The markers are streets where drug houses were located.)Tyrone Weatherall, the 35-year-old leader of the "West Side Gator Boys," pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to possess wi ... More >>
Kimberly ThorpeSome of the drugs and money seized by law-enforcement officials in the fall of 2009We were there in October of last year, when the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the I.R.S., the U.S. Secret Service and Texas Air National Guard -- and every other law-enforcing acronym -- ... More >>
Will the feds' new stance on medicinal marijuana have any impact on local users, even though, sadly, Texas isn't among the states that permit the practice? Craig Watkins's office says no way, no how. Local Libertarians, not surprisingly, are crossing their fingers. (As opposed to ...) "The federa ... More >>
Back in January, we told you the sordid story of Dallas County Sheriff's Deputy Standric Choice, who, with two other men, was arrested for plotting to steal cocaine so they could deal cocaine -- how HBO. Two months and one confidential informant later, the 36-year-old former law enforcement officer ... More >>
Only a few days ago, The Dallas Morning News ran a piece about Texas' Tango Blast gang, which was formed within the confines of the state's penitentiaries and "could change the Dallas landscape because it rejects old notions of prison gang exclusivity and lifelong commitments," wrote Tanya Eiserer. ... More >>
The U.S. Attorney's Office just sent word: Arturo Tinoco is going to federal prison for a long, long time -- 19 years and then some. Why? Because twice in the span of seven months, the 29-year-old was stopped by Dallas police, who, both times, found a whole bunch of methamphetamine in the car -- not ... More >>
It's not one of your more dramatic, studio-pitch press releases from the U.S. Attorney's Office; it's no Freddy Lee Foots armored-car narrative, that's for sure. Still, I did think today's missive from The Man -- concerning a big Ecstasy bust involving 13 folks from Dallas, Plano, Euless, Arlington, ... More >>
Mark Stepnoski About six years back, Our Boss Man wrote about former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Mark Stepnoski's efforts to play on grass as the then-newly installed president of Texas NORML -- you know, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Which, turns out, was only the ... More >>
Say it ain't so, Joe Ezeokeke. Because, really, if you can't take more than three ounces of liquid onto an airplane, what in the world made you think you could bring four kilos of cocaine onto a flight? Alas, that's just what the Nigerian citizen did on December 22 of last year, when he smuggled cok ... More >>
High on music, man. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but not long after we totally harshed on DFW NORML’s mellow about the terrible bands that perform at the organization’s events, they announced a party with music that approaches tolerability. Well, at least it’s not rap-rock. Reform-minded f ... More >>
Dennis Road runs from Royal Lane north toward Forest Lane, where it turns into Josey Lane. But on that short Northwest Dallas street, federal law-enforcement agents discovered a fairly large heroin trafficking operation that, early next year, could very well land three Dallas men in prison for life. ... More >>
This is Lalo, the man to whom the U.S. government paid $260,000 to act as an informant -- and the man believed to be responsible for at least one murder, if not many more. The cover story in this week's issue of Unfair Park is based largely on court documents and internal government memos, most of w ... More >>
If news happens, but no one is there to issue a press release, is it still news? There's a koan for all you tree-hugging hippie stoner types to mull over while we offer up some rather old news to the less easily distracted: The League of Women Voters of Texas has come out in favor of decriminalizing ... More >>