Officials Buzzed Over Proposed Marijuana Farm Near Roswell – The Associated Press
A proposal to turn a former dairy processing plant near Roswell into a place to grow plants, specifically marijuana, isn't getting high praise from local officials.
The Roswell Daily Record reports that a joint city-county commission will meet next week to consider Pecos Valley Pharmaceuticals' request to rezone the facility as a "pharmaceutical manufacturing site."
According to a Chaves County Planning & Zoning Department report, officials have received verbal objections as well as one in writing.
But the report endorses approving the zoning change, saying the pot farm would bring economic development.
Chavez County commissioners at one time were considering an ordinance to ban marijuana in the county.
Roswell city councilors say state law does not allow for local governments to have control over marijuana dispensaries and growing operations.
Inmate Sues After 32 Taser Shots – KUNM News and The Albuquerque Journal
A former inmate from Albuquerque’s Metropolitan Detention Center is suing after allegedly being shot with a Taser more than 30 times and sprayed with pepper spray during a jail transfer.
The Albuquerque Journal reports that Mark Martinez filed the lawsuit last month. According to the lawsuit, Martinez, who has been diagnosed schizophrenic with bipolar disorder, saw demons in a transport van before he was about to be moved from MDC to a Los Lunas jail. The report says Martinez resisted officers who tried to put him into the van before they shot him 17 times with a Taser. The suit says they sprayed him with pepper spray three times and slammed van doors on his legs.
Medical staff then sent Martinez to the University of New Mexico Hospital to be treated for his injuries. The lawsuit says that the jail guards used a Taser on Martinez another 15 times at the hospital, and that guards threatened shoot hospital staff with a Taser when they intervened.
Corrections Department spokeswoman Alex Tomlin said there was only one officer from corrections present for the affair who has been cleared of wrongdoing. Bernalillo county and jail officials have not yet commented.
Missouri Site Helping Effort To Repopulate US Wolves - The Associated Press
A Missouri conservation center heralded for helping repopulate endangered wolves is tending to its latest puppy season.
But this year's spring ritual has a bittersweet vibe. That's because the furry matriarch of the Endangered Wolf Center near St. Louis is gone, and staffers consider the loss noteworthy.
Anna, a Mexican gray wolf, died last month of day shy of turning 14. Her 41 puppies over four litters came to symbolize the center's quest to save North America's rarest subspecies of gray wolf.
The Mexican gray once numbered in the thousands in the Southwest before being nearly wiped out by the 1970s. The center's executive director says the 110 now said to be in the wild all have genetic ties to her nonprofit.