Citrus Heights Police Department

6315 Fountain Square Drive * Citrus Heights, CA 95621

Roseville Police Department @ Roseville High School

1 Tiger Way * Roseville, CA 95678

Roseville Police Department @ Maidu Community Center

1550 Maidu Drive * Roseville, CA 95661

Folsom Police Department

46 Natomas Street * Folsom, CA 95630

Davis Police Department

2600 5th Street * Davis, CA 95618

A statewide signature-gathering effort is underway for a ballot measure to roll back provisions of California’s Proposition 47, which turned drug possession, drug trafficking and theft into misdemeanors.

If adopted by California voters next November, prosecutors would be given discretion to charge drug addicts with a “treatment-mandated felony” after two drug convictions.

These are modest, necessary reforms to address drug trafficking, addiction and theft plaguing California.

The problem began with the passing of Proposition 47 in 2014.  The ballot appeared on the initiative under the misleading title, “The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act.”

The results were the opposite. Pharmacies now display merchandise in locked cases.  Dishwasher pods, shaving cream, and even shampoo bottles are locked up to discourage shoplifting.  Business.org found a 54% increase in shoplifting among 700 small businesses, with 23% saying it happens daily.

Proposition 47 implemented three broad changes to felony sentencing.

First, it reclassified certain theft and drug possession from felonies to misdemeanors.

Second, it authorized defendants serving sentences for felony offenses that would have qualified as misdemeanors under the proposition to petition for resentencing as a misdemeanor.

Third, it authorized defendants who completed sentences for felony convictions that would have qualified as misdemeanors to possibly reclassify those convictions as misdemeanors.

In practice, most misdemeanor (and often felony) thieves get away with their crimes.  National retailers are targeted because expensive and confrontational loss-prevention strategies of the past no longer exist.  It’s easier to write off losses.

Under the proposed new law, offenders charged with a “treatment-mandated felony” would have the option to complete a drug and mental health program or serve time in jail.  The new act would also increase penalties for drug dealers and allow judges to sentence dealers who possess firearms to state prison, rather than county jail.

The new act would allow prosecutors to charge thieves with two prior misdemeanor theft convictions with a felony and possible jail sentence, regardless of value of the stolen property.

Visit Inside Sacramento to read the full article.

National Rx Take Back Day

Saturday, April 22, 2023

10:00 am – 2:00 pm

Nearby Locations:

DEA – Sacramento District Office * 4328 Watt Avenue Sacramento, CA 95821

U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs * 10535 Hospital Way Mather, CA 95655

City of Sacramento Police Department * 5770 Freeport Blvd. Sacramento, CA 95822

Roseville Police Department * 1550 Maidu Drive Roseville, CA 95661

Collection Locator

The Roman physician Galen coined the term “plague” to describe any quickly spreading disease.  Epidemics of all kinds have been described as plagues, but the bubonic plague was a very specific disease.

The Black Death is the name given to the first wave of the plague that swept across Europe in the 1300′s.  It was called a pandemic because it spread across many countries and affected many populations.

The cause of the bubonic plague comes from the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is commonly spread by fleas that bite their hosts (usually rats or humans) and introduce the bacteria into the host’s bodies.

For years, researchers have been looking for where the pandemic originated and recently found DNA evidence of the bacteria inside the ancient teeth from the bodies of people buried in modern-day Kyrgyzstan.  The ancient teeth dates all the way back to 1338 when the plague was beginning to grow.

“What we found in this burial ground…was the ancestor of four of five of those lineages – so it’s really like the big bang of plague.” – Johannes Krause, PhD

Researchers believed for a long time that burial sites in Kyrgyzstan, which have 467 tombstones spanning nearly 900 years, could possibly have remains of people who died from the plague.  There are 118 graves dated between 1338 and 1339, and the high number in just two years caught researchers’ attention.

Seven teeth from seven different people buried found evidence of the bacteria inside of dried blood vessels in the teeth.  They then determined that the bacteria strain in the teeth was an ancestor of genomes from victims of the Black Death about 8 years later.

CDA Journal

Science Museum