State Briefs

Medical seizures lead to seizure of cocaine, LSD, weed, meth and mushrooms

GILLETTE (WNE) — A 42-year-old man was arrested on multiple drug-related charges after officers arrived at his home on a medical emergency call Friday.

His wife, a 36-year-old woman, reported the man was having a seizure Friday night in the 3400 block of Quacker Avenue.

When officers arrived, the woman who reported her husband’s seizure began having a seizure herself and was taken to the hospital for treatment, said Police Sgt. Dean Welch.

At that point, the man regained consciousness and was OK. The man and woman both showed signs of “amphetamine” use and the man said they had each used cocaine about three hours earlier.

He gave officers permission to search their home, but the woman denied a search. They eventually got a search warrant and found a slew of drugs.

Including packaging weights, officers found 23.7 grams of cocaine, 1.4 ounces of psilocybin mushrooms, 28.2 grams of meth, 2.3 grams of LSD, 3.1 grams of marijuana and 19.1 grams of THC edibles inside the residence.

Welch said the man claimed ownership of all of the drugs and was arrested for misdemeanor use of a controlled substance, felony possession of meth and cocaine, as well as three misdemeanor charges for possession of marijuana plant form, edible form and LSD.

After being released from the hospital, the 36-year-old woman was arrested for misdemeanor use of a controlled substance, Welch said.

Cody taxi drivers happy with Tipsy Taxi hike

CODY (WNE) — Ron Clark, owner of Town Taxi, said he’d rather take someone home for free than see them drive drunk.

However, he’d much prefer to get paid at least as much as he would charge somebody on a normal flat rate.

Now he and the other taxi companies that use the City of Cody’s Tipsy Taxi service will be paid $3 more than before each time they take someone home who has a voucher.

Since it started, the service has paid the taxi company $7 every time someone has used one of the vouchers to get a free ride home after drinking. Last week, the city council unanimously approved paying taxi companies $10 per voucher starting retroactively Jan. 1.

“I charge $8 a ride, so I was losing money,” Clark said. “It’ll help a lot.”

On average, about 16 retail or restaurant liquor license holders participate by handing out vouchers to qualifying customers.

Those who are impaired are eligible for a free ride home and driven from a participating bar or restaurant to a place of residence or hotel within city limits.

“It’s a great benefit to the community,” said Cody Cab manager Earl “Mike” Farlow. “It keeps people from driving when they’ve been drinking.”

He said the company has been participating in the program since its inception in 2011. He now charges a $9 flat rate for rides in town, so the voucher will finally no longer be a loss for him as well.

“That would benefit us greatly,” he said. “It is a program that greatly benefits our citizens here.”

Clark said he averages roughly 30-35 uses of the voucher per month. He said in the summer that use can rise to 50 vouchers in a month.

New federal bill would bring funds to Wyoming to fight CWD

POWELL (WNE) — Wyoming may soon receive federal help in its fight to mitigate chronic wasting disease. A bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support, promising millions of dollars to be shared with the 27 states where the deadly disease has been found. 

Amid concerns the disease will continue to spread to herds across the country, the bill authorizes $70 million annually from fiscal year 2022 through 2028 for research and management of CWD. 

Should the bill pass the Senate and be signed into law, the U.S. Department of Agriculture would administer the funds. 

The department would distribute funds through cooperative agreements with state or tribal wildlife agencies and departments of agriculture, with at least 75% going to wildlife agencies, according to the legislation sponsored by Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis., and Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Penn. 

The Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act passed the House with a vote of 393-33 in December, with U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., backing the legislation. 

Brian Nesvik, director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, heralded the legislation at the Game and Fish Commission’s January meeting in Cheyenne Wednesday. 

“For the last couple of years, when we’ve looked at what the costs are to be able to do large scale CWD research, we realized that [CWD] isn’t something any one state can bear the cost of,” Nesvik said. “So we’ve been talking with our delegation about finding some federal money that could help us get a start.” 

The disease has hit the state hard, including areas in the Big Horn Basin seeing infection rates as high as 60%.