European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 25, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Sunday March 25 2007 stars and stripes Page 35 Wyo drug Case becomes Battle Over bongs by Mead Gruver the associated press Gillette Wyo Jeff Doles says customers we rent supposed to smoke marijuana or any other illegal drug from the Neon col ored water pipes he used to sell from his shop but a 24inch Bright red Bong to smoke tobacco yeah right say police who seized nearly 3000 pipes bongs and other items in three raids on his strip mall store hip hop hippies Wyoming has few head shops but theres plenty of talk Here about property rights and to that end Doles Case is unusual Only after a jury acquitted Doles on drug paraphernalia charges did prosecutors seek and win from a different judge permission to keep his merchandise it might be the first Case of its kind for the Wyoming supreme court theres a Long history of libertarian thought out Here in the West and in Wyoming said Doles attorney Nick Carter i think were getting away from that opinions Are mixed on whether civil forfeiture nationwide has in creased or decreased in the nearly seven years since the Federal civil asset forfeiture Reform act was signed into Law civil forfeiture attorney Bren Mead Jeff Doles poses at his store hip hop hippies in Gillette Wyo Doles was acquitted of Possession and delivery of drag paraphernalia but after the jury found him not guilty prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture and confiscated More of his merchandise a Grantland Board president of the group forfeiture endangered american rights said Shes see ing a resurgence in civil forfeiture its horrible said Grantland of Mill Valley Calif the supreme court ruled that forfeiture int punishment they dont have me convinced but Seattle attorney Rick Trob Erman said Hes seen dramatically fewer civil forfeiture cases since Cafra which sought to rein in a proliferation of forfeiture abuses under civil forfeiture it was Doles property that was found guilty not Doles that Means he Doest have to take things person ally but try telling him that whats the Point of it he said a jury has already spoken on it he said prosecutors filed for civil forfeiture because his acquit Tal peeved them it was a personal slap in the face to them and they cant stand it they hate it Doles said but the jury spoke its not my fault they didst speak on their behalf but Campbell county prosecutor Bill Eichelberger wants drug paraphernalia off the Street we were finding items in the hands of people using marijuana who advised us they had bought them at or Doles shop he said and Eichelberger says he has a Century of Case Law backing him up civil forfeiture helps police shut Down big time criminal operations by allowing Law enforce ment to seize property with a lower Standard of proof in Crimi Nal cases guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in civil forfeiture property need Only be More Likely than not involved in crime a jury found Doles not guilty of one count of conspiracy to deliver of drug paraphernalia and two counts of Possession with intent to deliver drug paraphernalia afterwards Gillette police chief Rich Adriaens was in moved just because six people found someone not guilty Doest mean the crime didst occur he said prosecutors filed for civil forfeiture after the verdict so that police could keep 330 items seized during two raids on hip hop hip pies District court judge Michael Deegan upheld the forfeiture on sept 21 and that very Day police raided hip hop hippies for a third time seizing 2300 More items scientists think outside of egg in cloning Ben cloning Pioneer Ian Willmut appears tuesday in san Francisco three teams of us scientists including Wilmut have asked their government for permission to restart cloning research by Paul Elias the associated press san Francisco it was nearly a decade ago that Jose Cibelli plugged his own Dan into a cows egg in a novel cloning attempt that was condemned As unethical by presi Dent Clinton and landed the Michigan state University researcher in a mess of controversy even though Cibelli and his colleagues patented the so called inter species cloning tech Nique they soon abandoned the research As a failure and the uproar subsided now the tempest is brewing All Over again at least three respected teams of British scientists have reignited the moral debate Over inserting human genes into animal eggs by pro posing similar experiments to Cibellis their goal is to eliminate the need for women to donate eggs for the cloning of human embryos a research goal they say will enable them to better understand the genetic causes of Many diseases and design personalized medicines currently the few scientists actively pursuing human cloning Are hobbled by a nearly nonexistent human egg Supply and each re searcher will need thousands of them getting eggs from women is the bottleneck to cloning Cibelli said an alternative would be welcomed All three us teams aim to get around that bottleneck by taking Dan from patients sick with a disease like alzheimer and fusing it with cow eggs that have had All their genetic material removed the Hope is that the human Dan will trick the eggs into thinking there pregnant beginning development after about five Days of growth the cloned embryos would be destroyed and the Stem cells extracted the Stem cells would be grown in their labs and the researchers could look for the Onset of diseases study their development and test experimental drugs on the cells you can Model alzheimer disease or Par Kin sons disease in a dish said Stephen Minger director of the Stem cell Laboratory at Kings College in London mingers request for a government License to use cow eggs instead of women eggs to generate human embryonic Stem cells stirred significant controversy in the United King Dom last year his application with the human fertilization and embryology authority along with another from Lyle Armstrong of the North East England Stem cell Institute is expected to be ruled on later this year us researchers Are required to obtain government licenses to work with human Embry onic Stem cells no such restrictions exist in the United states though president Bush banned Federal funding for most such re search in this country Ian Wilmut the us researcher who cloned Dolly the sheep in 1997 said that if British government approves licenses for Minger and Armstrong hell apply for a third mothers pay is May 13th a message for free at Stripe com Starsia stripes will accept mothers Day messages at Stripe com from March 30 to april 23 messages will be published in the Mideast european and Pacific editions on May 12 greetings will also be online for viewing at Stripe com starting May 12 visit Stripe com for More details