One of the accused was reported to have been boasting to fellow patrons at a local tavern about the number of plants he had stolen.
Six Wisconsin men are facing felony charges for stealing or damaging what they believed to be a bumper crop of marijuana plants but were revealed to be industrial-grade hemp.
Two of the six alleged thieves were caught by employees of a state-licensed hemp-growing operation in Kenosha County and were detained until law enforcement arrived. The other four defendants were either apprehended nearby or arrested after an investigation by the county sheriff’s office.
Hemp has become a newly prevalent crop in Wisconsin after the passage of a 2017 law that allowed the production and processing of the plant for industrial use as well as the production of CBD oil.
The Kenosha News detailed a criminal complaint regarding the thefts, which stated that on September 15, the property owner and two employees discovered two of the aforementioned individuals in their field at 3 a.m. The two individuals, who were carrying a suitcase and duffel bag, were held at gunpoint until law enforcement arrived.
Thieves Hit The Same Crop Twice In One Month
A third individual, who had reportedly dropped off the other two, was arrested nearby, while the remaining three alleged thieves were arrested after an investigation by the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department for having reportedly stolen plants earlier in the same month, which prompted the property owner to take watch over his crop.
The latter three defendants had been seen loading a large pile of plants into an SUV parked near the field. According to the complaint, one of the accused thieves was reported to have been boasting to fellow patrons at a local tavern about the number of plants he had stolen.
The criminal complaint claimed that three of the defendants had taken as many as 30 plants during the first raid on the farm, but in the second incident, only five plants were reported as damaged.
According to the property owner, each plant produces one to three pounds of hemp that sells for $300 to $400 per pound.
“Hemp” and “marijuana” are terms given to varieties of cannabis plants that differ according to the amount of THC, the psychoactive compound that produces a euphoric effect or “high”—by dry weight.
Plants classified as hemp contain 0.3% or less of THC, while those labeled marijuana contain more than 0.3% THC. Hemp also contains another chemical compound, cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound that is reported to have medicinal properties.
Previously Illegal Hemp Now Legal to Grow In All 50 States
The Farm Bill of 2014 marked a turning point in the cultivation of hemp, which had been made illegal by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The Farm Bill officially defined hemp by its THC content, which allowed for increased growth for research and industrial usage.
The 2018 Farm Bill made hemp legal to grow in all 50 states, which Wisconsin had adopted through the passage of its own act the previous year.
According to the Kenosha News, Wisconsin currently has more than 1,400 licensed hemp growers and nearly 700 processors, with 39 in Kenosha County alone. Those farms take up 239 acres across the county, and are easy to spot—which made the thefts all the more baffling to Sgt. Christopher Hannah of the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department.
“If it’s an illegal marijuana operation, it’s not going to be growing along the roadside for everyone to see,” he said. “The person is going to have illegal activity is not going to do it in plain view.”
A DC government employee was caught selling drugs, sometimes right outside of his office building.
The FBI raided a Washington, D.C. government office last week and discovered a cache of the deadly opioid fentanyl. The drugs allegedly belonged to Darrell Marcellus Pope, who worked at—and sold drugs from—the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
Pope was arrested and charged with selling fentanyl. He and his wife, who also worked in the office, are currently on leave.
Inside The Operation
The scheme was discovered by undercover agents who reportedly caught Pope selling fentanyl, claiming they observed him selling the stuff just outside his office, often just a few feet away from an elementary school.
The scope of Pope’s operation spanned Woodbridge, Virginia, Clinton, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. Drivers in the scheme would drive clients from Virginia to D.C. for the express purpose of making an illicit purchase.
According to DCist, Undercover agents then set up a sting operation during which Pope allegedly sold agents fentanyl and/or heroin nine times over the course of a month.
According to court documents, Pope sold his wares at $100 a gram and carried a handgun to at least one sale.
The FBI allegedly confiscated “at least one ounce” of the suspected fentanyl from Pope’s home, an “additional quantity of suspected fentanyl” in his workspace, and 30 more grams on his person. Pope’s co-workers knew about the FBI raid, according to a spokesperson, but the fentanyl was definitely a surprise.
A government employee working at the heart of our nation isn’t the only surprising fentanyl dealer in recent news.
Ex-Eagle Scout Turned Fentanyl Kingpin
Aaron Shamo, a 29-year-old former Eagle Scout in Salt Lake City, Utah, faces a mandatory life sentence for his involvement in a multimillion-dollar opioid scheme. His operation created hundreds of thousands of counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl.
Shamo started on this dark path when he met his co-conspirator, Drew Crandall, who worked with him at an eBay call center. The pair formulated a scheme to sell their Adderall prescriptions on the dark web before eventually using those profits to purchase and sell harder drugs, including cocaine and MDMA.
They got their network of friends to receive drug shipments at their addresses.
Not long after, the pair got into the business of pressing their own pills, first starting with fake Xanax made of the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam, then moving on to their deadly fentanyl products. According to ABC News, the two would sell thousands of pills a week at $10 a pop.
Their business faltered as people became sick or died from taking their pills. Their operation came to an end when a customs agent intercepted a shipment of fentanyl destined for Shamo’s operation.
“El Chapo was violent, but El Mencho has taken it to a new level,” said one DEA special agent.
With El Chapo—once the world’s most notorious drug lord—set to live out the rest of his life in a U.S. prison, another drug lord has emerged to fill his place.
El Mencho (born Nemesio Oseguera-Cervantes) is the leader of Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel (JNGC), believed by U.S. officials to be Mexico’s largest criminal organization.
According to Matthew Donahue, the DEA’s regional director of North and Central America, capturing El Mencho is the agency’s “number one priority.”
El Mencho lived in California “some 30 years ago” when he was deported to Mexico following a drug arrest, according to CBS News.
Building His Empire
Since then, he built his empire and expanded it throughout Mexico and major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, New York, Atlanta and Chicago.
“He’s made few errors, has a lot of street experience, and that’s made it very difficult for us to manage the investigation to arrest him,” Kyle Mori, a DEA special agent in Los Angeles, told Univision. “He’s an intelligent guy, very good at what he does.”
DEA officials say JNGC is responsible for at least a third of the drugs entering the U.S. by land and sea, including “tons” of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl-laced heroin, according to the Justice Department.
JNGC has also gained a reputation for brutal violence. “El Chapo was violent, but El Mencho has taken it to a new level,” said Mori.
Mori believes that JNGC is not only more violent, but larger in every way than El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel, which is still operating under new leadership, according to PBS.
The Justice Department once described the Sinaloa Cartel as “one of the world’s most prolific, violent and powerful drug cartels.”
El Chapo (born Joaquín Guzman) was convicted in February of 10 counts including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs, and use of firearms. In July, he was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture.
Guzman was once on Forbes’ list of billionaires, highlighting the massive wealth that he accumulated from his drug trafficking empire. He is also known for escaping prison twice in Mexico.
The iconic punk pioneer leaves no stone unturned in her new memoir, Face It.
Debbie Harry, the platinum-blonde frontwoman of Blondie, has come out with a new memoir. In Face It, out Tuesday, Harry matter-of-factly recalls her life as a young artist trying to make it in New York City.
Excerpts from her book shed light on the role that drugs played in the iconic singer’s young life.
Harry wasn’t a fan of weed, but would sell it to earn some money. “I couldn’t handle it at all,” she wrote, according to Page Six. “I’d find myself either floating above my body in a state of catatonia or in complete paranoia.”
Cocaine With Bowie And Iggy Pop
Cocaine was not her favorite indulgence, either. “I didn’t care for coke too much—it made me jittery and wired and it affected my throat,” she wrote.
But she had it on hand while on tour with David Bowie and Iggy Pop, giving them a gram when they couldn’t get it elsewhere.
To thank her, Bowie “pulled out his c—k, as if I was the official c—k checker,” Harry wrote. “David’s size was notorious, of course, and he loved to pull it out for men and women. It was so…sexy.”
While her longtime boyfriend, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, was in the hospital being treated for pemphigus vulgaris (an autoimmune disorder), Harry supplied him with heroin to help him get by.
“I kept him supplied with heroin. He was on heroin the whole time he was in the hospital (three months),” wrote Harry. “It kept him relatively pain-free and mentally less tortured.”
She added, “I was most certainly indulging, too, staying as numb as possible… The heroin was a great consolation. Desperate times, desperate measures, as the cliché goes.”
Assault & Robbery
When Harry and Stein were living on First Avenue and First Street in downtown Manhattan, a man forced his way into their apartment with a knife, tied the couple up and gathered his haul—Stein’s guitars and cameras.
They offered him the LSD they kept in the freezer, but he declined. Then he forced Harry to have sex with him.
Harry recalled that losing their belongings was more painful at the time. “I’m very glad this happened pre-AIDS or I might have freaked,” she wrote. “In the end, the stolen guitars hurt me more than the rape. We had no equipment.”
Harry, now 74, is still the iconic singer of Blondie, which released its 11th studio album, Pollinator, in May 2017. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.
“He had no choice but to let me go. I was gonna die and he tried to get me help, he got me into rehab a couple of times and I would leave.”
Comedian Artie Lange recently emerged from a lengthy rehab stint and he wants to apologize to Howard Stern for his past behavior, Page Six reports.
Lange went on the YouTube show AftershockXL and explained, “I feel terrible. I’m going to call him one of these days.”
Lange’s mishaps with drugs were often hilarious fodder for The Howard Stern Show, but Stern became rattled when Lange attempted suicide and backed away from commenting on Artie, even when the comedian trashed him publicly.
Taking Responsibility For His Actions
Now Lange says, “There should be no guilt on Howard’s part. Howard did nothing wrong. All Howard did was try to help me. I love him so much. It’s a shame that anyone in my life would feel any guilt. I f—ed up.”
Lange knew he was putting Stern in a difficult position, and that Howard gave him an incredible gig that any comedian would kill for.
“All he did was give me the best job ever and I take full responsibility,” the comedian explained to New Jersey 101.5. “He had no choice but to let me go. I was gonna die and he tried to get me help, he got me into rehab a couple of times and I would leave… he was in my crazy life, and I don’t think he knew what to do after a while. When a junkie is in your life and you care about them, they start to rip your heart out.”
Stern Speaks
Stern admitted to the New York Times magazine, “I choose my words about Artie carefully, because I love him. It wasn’t a clean break. It was many years of wanting Artie to get help. I know that a lot of fans want me to talk about Artie and feel it’s a cop-out for me not to. I’ll take that. I don’t want to do anything that would rock his boat. I get sad talking about Artie. He was a tremendous contributor. But we had to move on.”
Earlier this month on Twitter, Lange announced his return from an extensive rehab stay, and he wrote, “Great to be home! 7 months 14 days but one day at a time. Lots of new stories to tell. Will announce some new tour dates on Friday. Thanks for the support. Love you all.”
Dealing with the death of a close friend in sobriety can be tough. But if you follow some simple guidelines and take it slow, you can transform a painful trial into a caring tribute that honors their memory.
When a friend in a 12-step fellowship dies, processing the loss can be challenging, even if the person was sick with a chronic disease or naturally nearing the end of life. The idea that someone might die is very different from the reality of that person dying and being forever gone.
Because of the way we share in 12-step groups, we quickly become intimately acquainted with our fellow meeting-goers. We also see our peers regularly—weekly or more frequently—often over years, sometimes decades, in the same rooms and homes and restaurants. The resulting relationship is uniquely strong and meaningful. So when a loss occurs, whether you are working a program or just on the outskirts of meetings, it can be tough to get through. However, if you follow some simple guidelines and take it slow, you can transform a painful trial into a caring tribute that honors their memory.
Recently, I lost a sober friend in a 12-step fellowship. Although we rarely saw each other outside of the meetings, there was a close connection between us. His smile helped me overcome a feeling of alienation after I’d moved to a new neighborhood and started to attend new meetings. He made me feel welcome. As a person with the disease of alcoholism or addiction or whatever you want to call that sense of being “other” and “less than” that bubbles up from within, I resisted, especially then, acceptance and comfort when it was offered to me. My new sober friend, a senior citizen in his 70s, helped me overcome this insecurity and feel “part of” a meeting that eventually became my beloved home group.
Not that long ago, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. At least, it seems not that long ago. When it happened, I immediately knew something was wrong. Although his smile remained bright, his health and strength were taken from him. He fought a courageous battle for well over a year.
My friend was loved by many, and after he passed, we had to figure out a way to process his death. The guidelines below, which focus on maintaining decency and decorum and avoiding added hurt and unnecessary damage, helped us grieve. (Although these suggestions may be helpful in general, they are specifically meant to be considered within a 12-step context.)
1) Respect the Spiritual Principle of Anonymity
The 12th Tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous states: “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.” The majority of 12-step fellowships have adopted this tradition. In the digital age of mobile technologies and the internet, anonymity needs to be respected beyond the original boundaries of “press, radio, and films.”
Although many people, including myself, are quite open about sobriety on social media, others are strict about maintaining anonymity. When a sober friend dies, you may be tempted to post a tribute on their Facebook page, letting the world know that they died sober. Resist the temptation. By taking such an action, you could be violating their anonymity, and revealing something to family or co-workers that they would prefer to have kept anonymous. Also, don’t automatically assume you know all the details, which brings us to number 2.
2) Never Presuppose a Relapse or Speculate on Causality
Sadly, people in recovery sometimes return to drug and alcohol use, and sometimes it results in death. Although this was not the case with my friend, I have seen too many people overdose and die or develop fatal diseases because of excessive drinking. However, when a sober friend dies, until you know for sure from a medical report or similar legitimate source, you shouldn’t speculate on whether or not they relapsed. Such speculation is nothing more than gossip, even if you don’t intend it to be. As Aesop wrote in a fable and Thumper later adopted as his motto, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Even if someone did die as a result of a relapse, do not act like the “wise” sage. It’s not your job to use that knowledge to warn others. Such an attitude raises you above the emotional reality and places your sobriety on a pedestal. And imagine if you are wrong. Then, not only have you damaged a sober friend’s legacy, you have hurt yourself by telling such a story. In these cases, better safe and kind than sorry and foolish. As a member of a 12-step fellowship, I don’t want to point fingers or take other people’s inventories. I don’t want judgment to consume my capacity for love and empathy.
Instead, focus on the good: What was special about your friend?
3) Be Cautious and Respectful When Speaking to the Family
If you meet a sober friend’s family at a memorial service or funeral organized by them, make sure ahead of time that it’s okay to discuss your friend’s sobriety. Many people remain anonymous even within their own families. They also have friends and co-workers who know nothing about what happened in the past.
It’s not your job to enlighten everyone about what a great speaker or sponsor your friend was. You will likely end up creating confusion and uncertainty. And if your friend did not disclose his or her participation in a 12-step program, you could be adding to the family’s already-heavy emotional burden.
If you believe the family may not be aware of a sober friend’s 12-step participation, then come up with a story about how you knew each other. Maybe a book club, a favorite activity, or a past introduction through mutual friends.
It’s easy to take the focus off of you by talking positively about your friend. You can tell people what a good person he or she was and how much you enjoyed their sense of humor. With my friend who died recently, his family knew about his sobriety and celebrated it. At the same time, people who knew him from 12-step fellowships talked about his business acumen, his lovely smile, and his joking personality. It was not hard to find topics to discuss that were outside of the 12-step context.
4) Set Up a Separate Memorial for the 12-Step Fellowship to Mourn and Celebrate a Sober Friend
Although it makes sense to attend the family’s funeral or memorial service to show your support by being present, it’s a good idea to set up a separate memorial service as well. This second service can focus on your sober friend’s 12-step community. Often there will be a meeting before this kind of memorial service. Then, in the service, people will openly talk about the person’s role in the fellowship, and what gifts he or she brought to the program. The meeting and the service should both be open so that anyone can attend. When you publicize this event, be careful not to use social media in such a way that violates anonymity. In most cases, word-of-mouth at meetings and personal one-on-one communications should be enough to raise awareness.
5) Celebrate the Positive and Maintain a Loving Legacy
Once a sober friend is gone, the best way to process that loss is to celebrate the positive. Rather than focusing on the loss, talk about what that person gave to others and their memorable qualities. My sober friend always made a point to offer a seat next to him to newcomers. He made everyone feel welcome. Today, I do my best to maintain that loving legacy by doing what he did. I keep his smile and his love alive by going outside of my comfort zone, following his example, and acting as he did.
As alcoholics and addicts in 12-step fellowships, we are vulnerable to our character defects, and sometimes end up relapsing as a result of them. The process of getting sober is about progress and not perfection, and we make mistakes and fall back into deeply entrenched negative patterns of behavior. The death of a sober friend reminds us of the real, lasting value of our sobriety. We can celebrate the positive while we grieve the loss. We recommit not only to our recovery, but also to practicing the principles that reflect the best qualities of our departed friend.
Some believe that if a Democrat takes office in 2020, federal cannabis legalization will soon follow, as all major candidates support the issue.
A recent study found that the sitting U.S. president has a high level of influence over public perceptions around cannabis and whether the substance should be legalized on a state or federal level.
The study, published in the journal Defiant Behavior, looked at “the relationship between the president and Americans’ attitudes toward marijuana legalization from 1975 through 2016” using data from the General Social Survey and the American Presidency Project,
“Findings indicate that confidence in the executive branch, fear of crime, and presidential drug rhetoric predict attitudes toward legalization despite controls for other factors such as estimated levels of marijuana use and arrests,” write study authors Dr. Richard J. Stringer and Professor Scott R. Maggard.
Shifting Attitudes Toward Marijuana
Over the past decade, presidential attitudes toward the Schedule I drug have shifted from “just say no” to the current president, who has expressed a desire to leave the legalization and regulation of cannabis up to the states and focus the energy of the Justice Department elsewhere, following in the footsteps of former President Barack Obama.
Trump reiterated this stance as recently as late August, after he was asked by a reporter whether the drug would be federally legalized while he was in office.
“We’re going to see what’s going on. It’s a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision,” Trump said at the press briefing. “A lot of states are making that decision, but we’re allowing states to make that decision.”
According to Marijuana Moment, the study on presidential influence over public attitudes toward cannabis found that for every percent increase in the number of words about drugs in a president’s State of the Union address, odds of favoring legalization decrease by 6%.
At the same time, those who have high confidence in the administration “correlated with 29% decrease in supporting legalization.”
As of October 2018, 62% of the U.S. population favored federal cannabis legalization.
Saying No To “Just Say No”
The data examined by researchers starts with the administration of former President Gerald Ford, who was more moderate on marijuana than his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who launched the failed “war on drugs.”
However, Ford’s presidency did not result in much change to federal drug policy. The Reagan administration then launched the famous “Just Say No” campaign, resulting in a 27% drop in public support for cannabis.
It’s largely expected that if a Democratic candidate takes the Oval Office in 2020, federal cannabis legalization will soon follow, as all major candidates have expressed support for this action.
Although regulations have clamped down some on over-prescribing, authorities are still finding pill mills in operation.
Since late last year, federal authorities have charged 87 doctors with operating pill mills where they overprescribed opioids. Data collection has allowed the feds to make those arrests and has helped contribute to guilty pleas from nine of the doctors so far.
Brian Benczkowski, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, told CNN that while traditional tips are helpful, collecting and analyzing data on prescribing practices allow authorities to work efficiently at targeting the most egregious over-prescribers.
He said, “I think before we employed a data driven model it was a lot harder to find them in the first instance. You had to rely on local law enforcement providing tips. You had to rely on individuals in the community providing tips. The data tells us exactly where to go very quickly.”
How They Locate Pill Mills
The feds look at a few different pieces of information when analyzing prescription data: they see how far patients are traveling to a doctor, how many deaths are linked to that doctor, and the dosage strength that the doctor provides.
Federal guidelines recommend that doctors not prescribe opioids that measure more than 90 morphine milligram equivalents, or MMEs, per day. However, doctors operating pill mills prescribe up to 500 MMEs per day to patients. When that is outlined in hard data, it’s easy to know who to investigate, because “usually nothing can justify” writing prescriptions for so many pills, authorities say.
Once law enforcement knows where to look, spotting a pill mill is easy.
“When you go and observe this doctor’s office and you see lines down the block, you see people shuffling around waiting to go into the doctor’s office, you see behavior that looks very much like behavior you see in traditional street corner hand-to-hand drug distribution, it’s stark. It’s readily apparent what’s going on,” Benczkowski said.
How Do Pill Mills Work?
He explained how the pill mill operations work.
“They [the doctors] are taking cash and putting it in their pockets. [Patients] go into the doctor’s office, they leave $300 with the receptionist. They have a two-minute consultation with the doctor who writes them an opioid prescription and they walk out the door. And that line is processed like a conveyor belt all day every day. It doesn’t look like a normal doctor’s office.”
A Drug Enforcement Administration official said that investigating pill mills is a unique operation.
“We’ll do surveillance or send a confidential source in, and we’re really looking at the type of prescriptions doctors are writing and then asking medical experts, are these within the norms? It’s more of a chess game in a way than a traditional narcotics investigation. We’re a cross between investigating white collar crime and narcotics.”
Although regulations have clamped down on over-prescribing, authorities are still finding pill mills in operation, something that frustrates Father Brian O’Donnell of Catholic Charities West Virginia.
“I thought the fear of God had been put into doctors in the past few years,” he said. “I’m very disappointed to hear this is still going on.”
Patients Not Targeted in Opioid Prescription Crackdown
Benczkowski emphasized that the feds are focused on charging the doctors, not people addicted to opioids.
“We recognize that we can’t just prosecute our way out of this problem,” he said. “The individual patients are not criminal defendants, they’re victims. And we wanted to make sure that they had access to appropriate medical care and appropriate treatment resources.”
It’s the biggest bust of its kind in Minnesota history.
Police in Minnesota confiscated 76,972 THC vape cartridges, estimated to be worth about $4 million, on Monday. Along with the illicit cartridges, law enforcement officers seized $23,000 in counterfeit cash and arrested a suspect who allegedly dealt the cartridges on Snapchat.
The problem isn’t the THC itself, as medical marijuana is legal in Minnesota. Authorities are concerned that these unlicensed vendors are driving a growing scourge of vaping-related illnesses, possibly due to unknown additives in counterfeit cartridges.
“We have no idea what is in these cartridges,” said Brian Marquart, an official from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
This particular bust comes hot on the heels of the death of an elderly woman who was vaping THC to manage back pain. The Minnesota Department of Health says her August death marks the first time anyone in the state has died from a vaping-related lung injury.
On a national scale, there have been 13 vaping-related deaths and 805 vaping-related illnesses, which has been pushing more states to ban vaping in some shape or form.
States Banning Various Types Of E-Cigarettes
Massachusetts has temporarily banned the sales of all vaping products.
“One of the experts said that, ‘We don’t have time to wait. People are getting sick and the time to act is now.’ I couldn’t agree more,” Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said.
Michigan and New York have banned flavored vapes. New York in particular is zeroing in on vitamin E acetate, a particular additive found in many THC vape cartridges. Minnesota feels the same way.
“We just don’t know the impact of when you inhale it,” said Daniel Huff, Assistant Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health.
“The Trump administration is making it clear that we intend to clear the market of flavored e-cigarettes to reverse the deeply concerning epidemic of youth e-cigarette use that is impacting children, families, schools and communities,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in a statement this month.
According to Azar, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is in the process of finalizing a compliance policy to remove all flavored e-cigarettes from the market, including legacy flavors like mint and menthol.
The former child star checked into a mental health facility earlier this year for a stress-related relapse.
Amanda Bynes is reportedly living in a sober group facility after an alleged relapse.
According to The Blast, the actress was advised to check into the group home by both her family and doctors, claiming they felt it was “the best place” for her to be.
Sources tell The Blast that there have been several signs pointing to a shift in Bynes’ mental space, such as increased Instagram activity and dying her hair bright pink.
Conservatorship Hearing
The actress recently made an appearance in Ventura County Court in relation to her conservatorship case. The conservatorship has been in place since 2014, when Bynes nearly lit her dog on fire.
Entering treatment for her mental health is not new for Bynes, who has been in and out of such facilities since 2012. She has also been sober for varying amounts of time—at one point for four years.
In April 2019, Bynes’ attorney Tamar Arminak announced that Bynes had chosen to return to treatment on her own.
“I will tell you she’s doing remarkably well, under the circumstances,” he said at the time. “This time around, she realized herself, after the PAPER magazine interview spread, that she really wasn’t feeling like herself all of [a] sudden. She wanted to address it right away before going back into show business and exploring show business again. And it was her decision and her choice to address the situation, seek treatment, which I think is an incredibly mature way of handling this type of thing.”
Graduating From FIDM
A few months later, Bynes was allowed to leave treatment in order to walk at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising’s graduation ceremony, where she received her bachelor’s degree. She then returned to the treatment facility.
Bynes has been open about her struggles in the past. In November 2018, Bynes spoke toPAPER magazine about her history with substance use disorder. She said she first tried marijuana when she was 16, then delved into harder drugs.
“Later on it progressed to doing molly and ecstasy,” she said at the time. “[I tried] cocaine three times but I never got high from cocaine. I never liked it. It was never my drug of choice.”
Bynes said she also abused Adderall, noting she “got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.”
She added that she’s grateful her drug use never went further and warned others against going down a similar path.
“There are gateway drugs and thankfully I never did heroin or meth or anything like that but certain things that you think are harmless, they may actually affect you in a more harmful way,” Bynes told the magazine. “Be really, really careful because you could lose it all and ruin your entire life like I did.”
