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Firefighter's Suspension Stokes Dispute At City Hall

2009-07-01T15:16:00.001-07:00

Criminal charges against a Pittsburgh firefighter spurred a union-management showdown yesterday, with Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration calling for more disciplinary rights and drug testing, and a labor leader demanding innocent-until-proven-guilty treatment for a seven-year veteran.

Sparking the fight was firefighter Vincent Manzella, 31, who was charged Thursday with burglary, theft and calling in false alarms. The fake alarms were a diversion, according to a criminal complaint, so he could burglarize a Lawrenceville firehouse to support a heroin habit.

"We have an employee that has been placed in a great deal of trust, and he misused that trust," said Public Safety Director Michael Huss. "We tend to have within the Fire Bureau more of this type of illegal drug use than we do in our other public safety bureaus.

"It creates a tremendous hazard ... not only to his co-workers, but to the public we're trying to protect."

He suspended Mr. Manzella for 30 days and called on a trial board of three firefighters to terminate him.

"Everybody's convicted this individual before [seeing] any legitimate charges," said Joe King, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1. He said the trial board will decide the case "based on the evidence presented."

A police investigation identified Mr. Manzella as the person who called 911 three times in early April to trick firefighters into leaving their station unmanned. Police say he entered and took petty cash and personal cash.

Though perhaps less than $100 was stolen, the case involves "calling in false alarms, putting firefighters in danger, utilizing city resources," Mr. Huss said.

Mr. Manzella worked at the Lawrenceville firehouse a few years ago, but was off on workers' compensation when the calls were made. He later returned to work at the Sheraden firehouse, where police found him June 19.

According to the criminal complaint, he admitted to the ruse and "stated that he was really bad into heroin at the time" after his work injury led to narcotics addiction.

In January, the Post-Gazette reported the case of firefighter John Connors, who pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. The city sought to fire him, but a trial board found that the city took a shortcut around labor contract provisions when it demanded drug tests. Mr. Connors is back at work, having won the trial board decision and an arbitrator's award.

"Out of all the firefighters we have, there's a very small percentage that are using these types of substances. But it's something we can't tolerate," said Mr. Huss. Three firefighters are now subject to "last chance" agreements for drug or alcohol violations.

Mr. Huss called for random drug testing of firefighters, but added that he needed to bargain that with the union. Now the city can demand that a firefighter undergo a drug test in a variety of circumstances, including after a return to work after more than two weeks off on compensation.

The union has long wanted "a reasonable testing program" focused on firefighters who show signs of a problem, said Mr. King. But he said Mr. Huss "just wants it his way or no way, and that doesn't work."

Mr. King brought up an incident last year in which police pulled over firefighter William Clifford in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity. Police found nothing, but the city had him drug tested anyway.

Mr. Huss reiterated Mr. Ravenstahl's call, made after Mr. Connors was returned to work, for the General Assembly to rewrite the 70-year-old state laws that govern discipline of firefighters in Pittsburgh. Instead of firefighters judging their own, he wants them to have the right to challenge discipline through arbitration.

Arbitration "may serve us better than what we currently have," Mr. Huss said.

"His chances of [getting] that are slim to none," said Mr. King.

Today, when a firefighter is disciplined, the public safety director and the accused each choose the names of 25 firefighters of rank equal to, or higher than, the accused. The names are placed in a box, and seven are drawn. Each side can strike two, leaving three to decide the case.

A proposed new recovery plan under state Act 47 for distressed municipalities, up for city council vote today, calls on city officials to ask the General Assembly to abolish the trial boards.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n667/a06.html
Newshawk: Just Say Know: http://www.efsdp.org
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jun 2009
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2009 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Rich Lord, Staff Writer

Doctor Not Accompanied by Cloud of Smoke

2009-06-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Close your eyes.

Now imagine a garden-variety marijuana doc.

You projected someone goofy, right? Dr. Feel-Good?

Or venal? Dr. Slime-Ball?

Anecdotal evidence abounds that unscrupulous marijuana doctors will recommend weed for anyone who claims a malady, genuine or not.

I asked Dr. Bob Blake if the stories were true.

"Oh, God, yes!" he said. "Guaranteed."

Then how could this ER doctor - "highly respected," according to Palomar Pomerado Health spokesman Andy Hoang - get involved in the demimonde of medical cannabis?

"IT'S A NEW DAY: WE'RE REOPENING OUR SAN DIEGO CLINIC!!!!"

The bulletin atop Medical Marijuana of San Diego's Web site reflects, one gathers, the euphoria of the cannabis community.

"Two years ago," Blake writes on his home page, "Medical Marijuana of San Diego temporarily relocated to the San Diego/Orange County border because there were no dispensaries or co-ops available to supply medical marijuana to our patients in San Diego County, the Board of Supervisors refused to implement the ( medical ) marijuana laws, and the district attorney served notice that all dispensaries were to close."

During this two-year dark age, as county supervisors remained hostile to the permissive state law, Medical Marijuana's local patients were forced to drive to Orange County to receive their prescriptions. And then

"With the new Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that the federal government would leave medical marijuana alone and only go after those breaking both federal and state laws, the climate changed. When the Supreme Court refused to hear the final appeal of San Diego County, dispensaries started opening up all over San Diego."

As it happens, Medical Marijuana of San Diego, one of an estimated 20 county doctor's offices that prescribe cannabis, is rebounding from its own rough brush with the law.

In 2006, Drug Enforcement Administration agents conducted a sting at the clinic. A Medical Board of California investigation determined that Dr. Alfonso Jimenez, an osteopath, had recommended marijuana without adequate exams. In April, Jimenez lost his license to practice medicine.

This left up to 10,000 of Jimenez's cannabis patients with invalid prescriptions. The only way to save the practice was to put it in the hands of a doctor in good standing.

Enter Dr. Blake. For 20 years, Blake was the chair of Pomerado Hospital's Emergency Department. For two years in the mid-1990s, he was the hospital's chief of staff.

"Before losing his license, Dr. Jimenez turned over your care to me," Blake assures patients on his Web site. "I stand behind EVERY patient's letter of recommendation for medical marijuana written by Dr. Jimenez."

Blake's nearing 60, but the tan, lean vegetarian looks 50 in baggy shorts, T-shirt and sandals as he sips iced tea at the Pannikin, Leucadia's coffee hangout.

He grew up in North Park, went to St. Augustine High School and spent his free time gliding over the water - as a sailor and a surfer - and underneath as a diver. To stay in shape, he swims two miles most every day, from Swami's to F Street and back.

After graduating from UC Irvine's medical school, Blake went into emergency medicine.

In 2005, he'd had enough of the pressure and long hours. He started looking for a niche where he could use his skill at sizing up injuries and dealing with pain.

Around 2000, a family member had become a "chronic pain patient" after a car accident. Having explored the usual "modalities," a colleague of Blake's suggested cannabis.

His relative started out with two doses of cannabis a week - and then two a month. "The metabolites continue to work after the euphoria is gone," Blake said. Unlike opiates, "the benefits for long-term pain management are excellent."

He thought about working with medical marijuana right after quitting Pomerado, but "I didn't feel like getting in the middle of the firestorm."

Early this year, however, as the legal climate was shifting, Blake contacted Jimenez and began an internship to learn the hemp ropes, so to speak.

Then Jimenez was stripped of his license. Taking a deep breath, Blake plunged. "I had no idea what I was entering," he said of the challenges of assuming a stigmatized practice.

I asked him if his friends and former associates were taken aback at his offbeat course. He said no, not at all. ( That's one advantage of living in Leucadia, I suppose. )

Still, he's leery of the counterculture image of medical marijuana. He said he'd like to tone down the Web site and advertising he inherited from the flamboyantly hip Jimenez.

Blake's looking for an office in Mission Valley to add to his space in Dana Point. He says he spends about 15 minutes with patients - as much as a half an hour with new ones. He insists upon medical records to back up claims of distress, whether mental or physical.

If anyone showed him a marijuana bud in his office, he'd kick the person out. He practices medicine in a separate universe from dispensaries or co-ops.

Though a strong advocate of cannabis as a pain reliever, Blake says he opposes legislation to legalize the drug.

The country's mainstream isn't ready for such a radical change, he says. He worries about traffic safety if pot were legal.

Besides, it would be bad for business, he says with a smile.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n664/a09.html
Newshawk: NORML Conference http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7877
Votes: 0
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/6STa0kXL
Pubdate: Mon, 29 Jun 2009
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@uniontrib.com
Website: http://www.signonsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it's circulation area.
Author: Logan Jenkins

The Rising Price of Futility

2009-06-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

I have bad news and really bad news about the war on drugs.

The bad news is that the good guys are still losing.

The really bad news is that continuing this futile battle is about to get a lot more expensive. And for that you can blame the U.S. Supreme Court -- or, if you take the long view, the criminal-coddling crowd that gave us the Bill of Rights.

In a 5-4 decision Thursday, the justices ruled that prosecutors are forbidden to use crime lab test results against criminal defendants unless the analysts who produced them are available to testify in court and face cross-examination by defense attorneys.

The majority said the exclusion of such unaccompanied lab evidence was mandated by the Sixth Amendment, which gives all defendants the right to confront witnesses against them.

Four dissenting justices said the majority had put "a crushing burden" on prosecutors and forecast that "guilty defendants would go free, on the most technical grounds" as a result. Writing for the dissenters, Justice Anthony Kennedy called the majority ruling "a windfall for defendants" that contravened 90 years of legal precedent.

Michigan's Used to It

The decision in Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts will have relatively little impact on prosecutors in Michigan, which is among a minority of states that already require lab technicians to testify about any test results they produce.

But it effectively precludes legislation to ease that burden on Michigan State Police scientists, who are currently logging 15 or more hours of overtime a week to process an enormous backlog of forensic evidence.

Tim Baughman, chief of appeals for the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said prosecutors and state lawmakers concerned about six-to eight-month waits for crime lab results have discussed freeing technicians to spend less time in court. "That's a solution that no longer exists after Thursday's ruling," he said.

Prosecutors in the majority of states whose courts historically have allowed crime lab reports to speak for themselves are more apoplectic. "It's a train wreck," Scott Beck, the executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, opined after reading the majority's decision. "To now require that criminalists in offices and labs ... where budgets are already being cut back travel to courtrooms and wait to say that cocaine is cocaine -- we're still kind of reeling."

The High Cost of Liberty

The most interesting thing about Thursday's decision is that it was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, seldom an apologist for criminal defendants and widely regarded as the court's staunchest conservative.

Scalia must have bridled at the conservative dissenters' insinuation that he was setting drug dealers loose, but he was adamant that the Constitution entitles defendants to confront human witnesses, not just mute lab reports.

Enforcing a defendant's right to cross-examine witnesses might be inconvenient and expensive, Scalia admitted, "but the same can be said of the right to trial by jury." It was not the justices' place, he added, to decide when constitutional safeguards were no longer worth what they cost the government to uphold.

"The sky will not fall after today's decision," Scalia wrote.

He's probably right about that. But the cost of putting those who manufacture, sell and use illicit drugs rose significantly this week. And now those of us who pay the freight have even more reason to wonder if we're getting our money's worth.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n663/a08.html
Newshawk: Help keep us running! http://drugsense.org/donate
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 2009
Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Copyright: 2009 Detroit Free Press
Contact: letters@freepress.com
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/125
Author: Brian Dickerson, Free Press Columnist
Referenced: The ruling http://drugsense.org/url/B9971kEO
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

Measure F: New Tax For Medical Pot

2009-06-28T20:17:00.000-07:00

Measure F carries with it perhaps the smallest financial benefit to the city, though its backers like something else about the proposal: the potential to further legitimize medical pot.

Measure F would create a new business tax rate for Oakland's four legally operating medical marijuana clubs, hitting them with a levy of $18 for every $1,000 in gross sales.

That compares to $1.20 for every $1,000 in gross sales the clubs now pay under the standard retail business tax.

The proposed tax could produce a windfall of $315,000 — $294,000 more than under the current rate — in the 2010 calendar year, according to an analysis from City Auditor Courtney Ruby's office.

The clubs see the ballot measure as a way to help the broader cause of medical marijuana.

"Criminals don't pay taxes," said James Anthony, an attorney for Harborside Health Center, one of the dispensaries. "Law-abiding citizens do. We are nothing if not law-abiding citizens."

Medical marijuana is legal under California law, but prohibited by federal law. But some see a turning point in how people across the United States view the use of marijuana for medical purposes. For example, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan ( at-large ) noted that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Obama administration will end the federal raids on medical pot clubs operating in California or other states that have protected medical use.

"It is important that there be regulation and that there be a permit process and that there be taxation," Kaplan said. "Both because the city needs the revenue and to be sure that we weed out the bad actors."

Measure F came about after the clubs approached Councilmembers Kaplan and Nancy Nadel ( Downtown-West Oakland ) about instituting a new tax, Kaplan said.

The measure needs a simple majority to pass. Anthony said he expects the clubs, not patients, will absorb the cost of the tax.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n654/a02.html
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jun 2009
Source: Oakland Tribune, The (CA)
Copyright: 2009sANG Newspapers
Contact: http://www.insidebayarea.com/feedback/tribune
Website: http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/314
Author: Kelly Rayburn, Oakland Tribune

US MA: OPED: The Meaning of the New Marijuana Law

2009-02-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

THE MEANING OF THE NEW MARIJUANA LAW Cambridge - As you may have heard, there is a new marijuana law on the books. In November, Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly indicated they wanted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. As you may have heard, this law went into effect on Friday, Jan. 2, 2009. I'd like to take this opportunity to clarify what the law means and what has and has not changed. In a nutshell, this new law means that anyone caught with an ounce or less of marijuana in their possession will receive a fine of $100. Those under the age of 18 who are caught with an ounce or less of marijuana, will be required to pay the $100 fine, as well as attend a drug awareness program, or receive an additional $900 fine ( the total fine then being $1,000 ) if they fail to do so within a year. In addition, parents of young people under 18 who have been cited will receive a copy of the citation, and will be liable for the fine if the child does not complete the program. The marijuana is still to be confiscated by the citing official in all cases. Each violation will result in a $100 fine, regardless of the number of previous violations. However, the decriminalization of marijuana does NOT make it legal. It is still illegal to smoke, possess or otherwise have marijuana. This law simply changes the way a person is held accountable for the possession of the substance. The act becomes a civil violation instead of a criminal one. This also means that there will be no CORI ( criminal record ) on the individual due to this infraction. It is still ILLEGAL to distribute marijuana. Sharing a joint may be considered distribution ( i.e., one person handing marijuana, in the form of a cigarette, to another person so they can smoke it ), and may still be cited as a criminal act. Selling, trafficking or manufacturing marijuana is still illegal. Also, possessing more than an ounce of marijuana is still illegal, and can result in criminal prosecution. Also very importantly, driving under the influence of marijuana is still illegal. A person can still be arrested for driving while under the influence of any substance, including marijuana or alcohol. This new law also does not affect employers' policies regarding the use or possession of marijuana. In other words, this law does "not prohibit workplace discipline that has historically been wholly separate and distinct from the criminal process," according to the state's Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, nor does this impact the ways that schools deal with students who are caught smoking pot or in possession of pot. Previous policies are still in place, and this new law does not supersede them, according to the State. Although the city police are generally going to be the entity that enforces this law, university police and transit police are also able to cite residents for the possession of marijuana. The funds from these citations will, in our case, go to the City of Cambridge. Individual municipalities, such as the City of Cambridge, are still able to pass local laws that would make smoking marijuana in public a crime. In fact, many communities are considering additional local ordinances and even state lawmakers have proposed new state-wide laws to discourage the normalization of marijuana ( one lawmaker has proposed a law that would make it possible for schools and employers to make possession on their campuses or worksites a crime ). This law doesn't make smoking pot okay. It changes the way we, as a community, have to deal with marijuana as a substance in our midst. This does not give young people or parents or anyone else free reign to smoke pot whenever and wherever they want to. Marijuana is still an illegal drug, and its use has been linked to many mental illnesses, including an increased risk of schizophrenia ( see http://www.news-medical.net/?id=28108 for more information ). I encourage the adults in our community to consider the messages they may be sending young people if they blatantly carry a few joints around. A young person who sees this may think that it is then ok to smoke pot, which is still a mind-altering drug, and which is still illegal. It is up to us to ensure that our young people know what this new law means, and that just because they won't be arrested for having pot in their possession, doesn't mean that it is okay to walk around with it in their pocket.

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CN BC: Drug Committee Aims For Better Choices

2009-02-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

DRUG COMMITTEE AIMS FOR BETTER CHOICES There was a time when students caught with drugs or alcohol at school were automatically told they were not welcome at their school for several days. This sort of automatic out-of-school suspension is fast becoming a thing of the past in School District 69 ( Qualicum ) however, as Ballenas Secondary principal Rollie Koop and colleague Gillian Wilson from the District Drug and Alcohol Review Committee explained Tuesday night. Speaking at the regular board meeting, the pair detailed the new approach to drug and alcohol incidents in the district, noting the old, punishment-based model did little more than put the students behind in their work and expose them to the risk of further substance abuse. Although the automatic out of school suspension model is no longer in favour, that doesn't mean students who come to school high or drunk get off scott free. Far from it, but the committee tailors the very real consequences to the individual situation. "One size doesn't fit all when it comes to substance abuse," Koop said. "We look at where kids are on the continuum of use. We've had kids appear before us who may have been caught the first time they experimented, and we've had students who were entrenched in some dangerous patterns." The focus, he said, is to educate, provide support, make positive changes, prevent escalation of substance use and ensure the safety of students is paramount. "When a student is found to be outside policy in terms of use or possession, we put them in an in-school suspension and begin the process of working with them to prepare them for a meeting with the district drug and alcohol committee, so they can understand their own use patterns and can look at the impacts on themselves and on others. We want to move them towards a commitment to reduced use or abstinence." The process has been successful, Koop said, noting the new model allows students and their families to discuss what's going on in their lives. "We have an open and honest conversation with their families and find out where they are at in the continuum of abuse and then shape our path in terms of recommendations for education, counselling and discipline," Koop said. Wilson noted most students caught with drugs or alcohol are from high schools and are male. She cautioned against reading too much into this. "Girls may be better at not getting caught." The pair related some of the stories they've heard from students and they were heart-wrenching. "There was a student last year who I suspected was a regular user, but who showed no signs," Wilson said. "He slipped up and came to school under the influence of alcohol. He had shame and guilt and wanted to hide things and be this perfect person. With a suspension, the shame would have continued." One of the darkest stories, Koop said, was unanticipated. "There was a young man we were working with for a year but were never able to get to the truth about his behaviours or use," Koop said. "In that hour-long interview, the disclosure came to us that for a two-year period this young man had been a guinea pig for a local drug dealer. Every time a new shipment of drugs came into the community, the adult tested them on this young man to determine the strength of the drug and its impact." That, he continued, is the key to the new direction's success - to find out what is going on in a student's life and to steer them towards making better choices. "We are moving in the right direction," Wilson said. "We are helping families find solutions."

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n132/a06.html?1140

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Tony Ryan Encourages Change in War on Drugs Policies

2008-02-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

When it comes to feeling today's financial crunch, Arizona is no different than any other state in our Union. So it's no surprise to see that Governor Napolitano is proposing to save the state over $60 million by transferring responsibility for prisoners in the state penal institutions to the counties.

In the early 1970s, Arizona had a state prison population of around 2,000. By the end of 2000 that population had grown to almost 28,000. Today Arizona houses some 37,000 prisoners in the state system and the prison population is expected to grow by over 50 percent in the next decade, a trend that is double that for the general population. Arizona's prison system now costs some $900 million a year, or about 10 percent of total state expenditures from General Fund dollars.

What's the cause of the skyrocketing number of prison inmates? Have we become a society run amok with rampant and unstoppable crime? Or is it that our policies in fact, are filling the prisons? Can we economically and socially afford this increase?

As a young man I was proud to live in a country known around the globe as the beacon of liberty. It's one of the reasons I entered a 36-year career in law enforcement serving and protecting as a Denver police officer. Now our country has over 2 million people incarcerated. We've become, according to former Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey, the world's new gulag.

"Gulag" - I remember that word. I heard it years ago when people spoke of the old Soviet Union and how they locked people up. It was used as an example of what we weren't, and would never become. I remember the end of South Africa's Apartheid, starting with the release of Nelson Mandela. That country's black voters formed lines up to a mile long for their first national election. Apartheid was an example of race relations gone bad. Nearly 850 black males per 100,000 were imprisoned under that system.

Under the drug laws of the U.S. we now imprison black males at a rate 5 to 6 times greater than South Africa did at the peak of Apartheid. Our nation's prison population has increased since the early '70s by 700 percent, yet the crime rate ( with fluctuations ) has remained about the same. Incarceration for drug offenses was less than 20 percent of the inmate population but has climbed to nearly half. Our national budget in the fight against drugs is costing us about $70 billion a year ( since 1971, when President Nixon made the declaration of a War On Drugs, we have spent nearly $1 trillion ).

Is this money well spent? Are we winning this war? Are our communities closer to being free from drugs? Have all the dealers been locked up? No. This country's drug problem is worse than ever and drugs are available in virtually every community.

After nearly four decades, our drug problem is now world-wide with a market worth $500 billion, about 8 percent of total global trade. Yet we can't keep drugs out of our jails and prisons, so how can we expect to keep them out of our children's schools?

The rising cost of incarceration is not just monetary. It affects us socially - previously incarcerated citizens have a hard time finding lucrative employment upon release, and often return to crime and go back to prison. Nationwide, our prison system is one giant revolving door of misery and Arizona is no exception.

If we are to rein in the harms of drugs, we must change the policies that have gotten us into this mess. The correlation between Nixon's declaring a War On Drugs and the explosion in prison population growth is no coincidence. The time has come for us to hold a national discussion about our failed drug policies and seek options to a war that has no end. Perhaps Governor Napolitano should consider other options to prison transfers, like reducing the flow of humanity into them. A flow brought to flood stage by our War On Drugs.

[sidebar]

Ryan is presenting at the Willcox Rotary Club meeting today, Wednesday, Feb. 6, at the Elks Lodge, 247 E. Stewart St., at noon.

Tony Ryan served more than 36 years of continuous service as a Denver police officer, and received numerous awards including the Medal of Honor, the Purple Heart, the Merit Award, and the Community Service Award. He is now a board member of and speaker for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ) is an international nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to reduce the multitude of harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition.

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Getting Out Of Control?

2008-02-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

GETTING OUT OF CONTROL?

OF THE FOUR LOCAL NEWS briefs in Friday's edition of 24 hours, three of them involved marijuana grow ops in different scenarios. Isn't this getting out of control, this failed policy of prohibition? I guess not as long as police officers maintain their jobs and newspapers have stuff to write about.

- - K. Hotchkiss, via e-mail

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'Clueless' Parents Get Set Straight

2006-08-17T13:47:00.000-07:00

'CLUELESS' PARENTS GET SET STRAIGHT

Lifestyle, Grades Are No Guarantee

Study says moms and dads are 'parental palookas' who have no idea about the extent of their teens' drug and alcohol use

At first glance, Samantha Tish, 15, who lives in a small town near the Wisconsin border, would seem insulated from drug and alcohol use.

She has good grades and a tight group of girlfriends whose weekend activities run to shopping and watching movies, rather than partying. But that doesn't mean that temptation isn't lurking everywhere.

"Most parents are clueless," she said. "They have no idea what goes on at parties ... or how drugs and alcohol are everywhere. Their kids are going to do what they want to do."

Tish's observation is supported by a survey released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Among the findings: One-third of teens and nearly half of 17-year-olds attend house parties where alcohol, marijuana and illegal drugs are plentiful--even when parents are actually in the home.

The head of CASA called the adults "parental palookas."

"Where are they?" asked Joseph A. Califano, CASA's chairman and president and former secretary of health, education and welfare during the Carter administration. "Why aren't they walking in and out of the party? Don't they smell the pot or the booze? There's just a tremendous disconnect."

The survey also found:

- Eighty percent of parents believe that neither alcohol nor marijuana is usually available at teen gatherings, but 50 percent of their kids say they attend parties where alcohol, drugs or both are available.

- Ninety-eight percent of parents say they are normally present during parties in their homes, while a third of teens report that parents are rarely around.

- Only 12 percent of parents see illegal substances as their teen's greatest concern. But twice as many teens ( 27 percent ) say drugs are a major worry.

- Thirty-eight percent of teens say they can buy marijuana within a day; 19 percent can complete the transaction in an hour or less.

"Parents are living in a fool's paradise," Califano said. "They've got to take the blinders off and pay attention. If asbestos were in the ceiling, they'd raise hell. But their schools are riddled with drugs. If they'd say, 'Get the drugs out' with the same energy, we'd get somewhere. This is a wake-up call."

The annual teen survey, a CASA staple since 1995, interviewed 1,297 12-to-17-year-olds and 562 parents ( 84 percent of whom were parents of the youth surveyed ).

The report also found that navigating the transition from age 13 to 14 is particularly perilous. The availability of illegal substances spikes at this time, with 14-year-olds four times likelier to have access to prescription drugs than their year-younger peers, and three times likelier to be offered Ecstasy and marijuana.

Finette DuFour of Buffalo Grove has first-hand experience with this passage. Her son first dabbled with alcohol at this age, which gave way to pot and other drugs, she said. Now 18, he is currently living in a halfway house, she said.

"People just want to think that this only happens in bad neighborhoods .. or with gangs. That it doesn't happen to jocks and cheerleaders. But I can tell you that no one is immune ... and when [drug use] happens, it accelerates very rapidly. Parents don't want to talk about it; they don't want the schools or the neighbors to know. They're completely overwhelmed."

She decided to fight back--not by sweeping it under the rug but by being candid about her family's problem.

In addition to volunteering at Families and Adolescents in Recovery, an outpatient program in Rolling Meadows, she started a group called Parent to Parent, which helps adults find treatment and other resources when they and their teens are in crisis.

Locally, mental-health professionals agree that there's no shortage of risky behavior, despite a plethora of anti-drug and alcohol programs.

"When you talk to teens confidentially about being responsible for their health, you'd be amazed at what you hear," said Dr. Cynthia Mears of Children's Memorial Hospital.

Other research studies indicate that when under the influence of drugs and alcohol, "[teens] can't negotiate sex; they can't negotiate getting home safely; they can't negotiate money; they can't negotiate anything."

So what should parents do? "Lock up their alcohol and introduce themselves to the parents of their kids' friends," she replied.

While recent years have shown a drop in substance abuse--the statistics for alcohol and illegal use of prescription drugs is "not moving a whole lot," said Dr. Greg Teas, medical director of the chemical dependency program at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Center in Hoffman Estates.

After marijuana, Vicodin, a powerful painkiller, is now the second-most popular drug of choice for high school students, he said.

One reason for all the parental denial, say experts, is that they often feel their offspring are protected by affluent lifestyles, extracurricular activities and impressive grade-point averages.

However, Jennifer Filpi, a substance-abuse counselor at the Families and Adolescents in Recovery program, said it is precisely such intelligence that makes kids adept at manipulation.

"They can spin things and make them happen the way they want," she said.

Another way parents are caught flat-footed is that they desperately want to believe that their kids are doing the right thing, Filpi said. "They really want to trust them."

But kids, not just adults, say such naivete can put teens at risk.

"So many parents have put so much effort into creating the perfect son or daughter, that they can't really believe when something goes wrong," said David Cosby, a sophomore at New Trier High School. "They think, 'I've done everything'--and that image has become so solid that when something bad does happen, it's a shock." Samantha Tish of Roscoe, Ill., agrees. None of her close friends drink, but she says that makes her a rarity. "And while parents say they're home when their kids are having a party, they don't usually go down and really check ... or kids just hide it behind the couch.

"Really, I'm not sure what parents can do about parties ... except not let [teens] go."

[sidebar]

WHAT PARENTS SAY

80 Percent believe alcohol and marijuana are not usually found at teen parties

But -- What Teens Say

50 Percent say they attend parties where alcohol and drugs or both are available

What Parents Say

98 Percent say they are normally present during parties they allow their teens to have at home

But -- What Teens Say

33 Percent say parents are rarely or never present at parties they attend

Thank You For Not Snitching

2006-08-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

THANK YOU FOR NOT SNITCHING

When you're truly in a narcotic task force's crosshairs, they might give you a signal in the form of a simple rhyme: "Give us three, and we'll set you free." This couplet, most effective when recited by an agent perched on the lip of his chair, muscles tensed and ready, should be interpreted to mean that if you incriminate a handful of marbles law enforcement would rather play with, they'll drop those pending drug charges. And in an era of federal mandatory minimums that work like dispassionate Pez Dispensers handing out tart, 10- year prison bids for such crimes as, say, thinking about dealing America's most commonly used illicit drug, marijuana ( a decade for planning, not selling ), getting a suspect to "flip" on someone else can be a process smoother than photosynthesis.

So what's with Jason Weaver - father, husband, and until recently, restaurateur and hydroponics supplier praised in the local daily and the Current for taking soil-free gardening beyond the realm of toker technology? Couldn't he save himself, and tell on you?

The longboarder who affixed his surf moniker to his year-old coffee bar and deli would not own Big Kahuna's on Ashby and North Flores after today. The equipment from Jason "Big Kahuna" Weaver's other business, Casa Verde Garden Supply and Hydroponics, also housed in the 4,000-square-foot-building on Ashby, would be dismantled and shipped to Del Rio, and on to indoor farmers in Guatemala and Honduras. It was Thursday, August 10, less than two months before Weaver, 31, would report to a federal prison ( actually, a tent compound in Beaumont, Texas, surrounded by barbed wire ) and begin a three-year sentence for conspiracy to grow and sell marijuana.

Weaver spent most of the morning patching up the building painted in bright green sativas and dark-green indicas, spotted with Tiki gods drawn in a style that's part Marvin the Martian, part Polynesian pop. Inside, soul-surfer beach and fishing trip ephemera, and a 2006 Richard De La O painting of a white-winged figure slaying a green demon ( the artist said it was Weaver vs. the DEA ).

In the kitchen, Weaver made pepperoni pizza subs and assured the man in the white plastic lei, Jesse Gonzales, that he would make a phone call and get him another job prepping and cooking. And Weaver sat across from the Current, using Murphy's Oil Soap to scrub foaming caulk from his fingers, sharing what was on his mind on this last day. He came off sounding a little bit like the doomed and insightful old guy in Tuesdays with Morrie.

"I go away on September 29," he said. "I'm not looking forward to it, but I'm sure I'm going to learn from it.

"My saying is, 'Enjoy life, because you don't know what's coming from one day to the next.' When I wake up in the morning I thank my god, because everyone's god is different." Weaver riffed on about life lessons, about his new ankle tattoo, something he can carry into prison to remind him of his 9-month-old daughter ( a sea turtle ) and 6-year-old son ( a squid ). And then he added, with some bitterness: "And I would say that you can't control people."

That last bit of wisdom was rooted in his experience with the childhood friend who helped manage the garden-supply shop Weaver and his wife, Tracee Wilkerson, started online in 1999, shepherded to a half-million dollar business by 2002, relocated in 2003 to a Fredericksburg address, and into the Ashby building in 2004. Somewhere during the course of events, Weaver said, his friend flipped.

Weaver told the Current that said friend signed an affidavit incriminating him and, in exchange, received four years probation. This could not be confirmed. The U.S. Attorney's officials who handled Weaver's case are on vacation, but Weaver's attorneys assured the Current that all information related to flipping is confidential; that no representative of the legal process could divulge anything about whether or not the government offered a deal. If it's not in the plea agreement, a matter of public record, it's secret.

Let's be absolutely clear: The government had incriminating evidence against Weaver. He says he was an unapologetic pot-smoker ( as are one in seven Americans, according to the marijuana-policy watchdogs at NORML ). Now subject to drug screenings as a condition of his $100,000 bond, his green-blue eyes look into the middle distance as he fondly recalls kayaking in Port Aransas and lighting up a bowl with just a magnifying glass ( because matches would get damp ).

Weaver is represented by one of the nation's best drug-defense gurus, San Antonio lawyer Gerald Goldstein. Goldstein helped clear Hunter S. Thompson of multiple charges stemming from an illegal Colorado raid that turned up four sticks of dynamite and the usual Fear and Loathing suspects: cocaine, LSD, marijuana. Records show the investigation into Weaver and four associates ( including his alleged informer friend ) took place between January 2003 and the end of March 2005. Hundreds of marijuana plants were seized on Weaver's properties in West Rockport and his hometown Floresville ( and on the property of associates locally ). By April 2005, Weaver was arrested, and entered a plea agreement rather than face trial and be subject to a mandatory minimum 10 years for conspiring to grow up to 1,400 marijuana plants with the intent to distribute. He was sentenced in May 2006, and waived his right to appeal.

But it was during the course of the investigation, Weaver said, that he had the option of going free, when the regional narcotics task force would camp across the street at San Pedro Springs Park, then show up with a yearbook filled with photos of 300 dirtless gardeners who came from as far as Buda, San Marcos, and Corpus Christi to buy indoor-lighting systems, hydroponic systems, and organic nutrients - instruments used by NASA, 4-H clubs, orchid societies, schools, and marijuana growers.

"They told me from the very beginning, 'Give us three and we'll set you free, buddy,'" Weaver says. "I may be stupid or arrogant, but I said it's got to stop right here. This is going to ruin someone else's life." He says he burned customer records and played dumb.

Drug agents routinely rely on compromised informers to investigate homegrown marijuana cases for two reasons, according to National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Executive Director, Allen St. Pierre.

( 1 ) Pre-1980, the majority of marijuana came from outside the U.S. ( read: South Asia, Central America, Canada, Mexico, and Jamaica ).

"The domestic product, it was like someone lit up hair in a room," St. Pierre, 41, said, slandering our American weed forebears, at least the ones cultivating in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the '60s and '70s. And as the government worked to eradicate international shipments and stomped on outdoor year-round grow operations in sunny Florida, South Texas, Arizona, Hawaii, and the infamous green triangle in Humboldt, California, a new DIY generation of home brewers took root. Magazines like High Times and Sinsemilla Tips taught them how to harness a technology used in the age of the Roman Caesars and set up thousand-dollar grow systems in their closets. Today, drug-enforcement officials say indoor-growing operations produce a more potent drug than their two popular pot-producing rivals, Mexico and British Columbia.

( 2 ) It wasn't long before law enforcement started flying down city grids with infrared scanning devices mounted on helicopters to see whose closet was thowing off heat, to detect the high-intensity lamps used for indoor-marijuana growth. In 2001, the Supreme Court said hoo-rodding around the skies looking for hot spots was an invasion of privacy, a warrantless search, and a Fourth-Amendment violation. Which sent our law-enforcement Icaruses back to the ground, sometimes digging through curbside garbage without a warrant, sometimes subpoenaing UPS shipping records from garden-supply stores, and, St. Pierre said, often asking someone to "give them three ... "

Goldstein said folks have been sentenced in connection with the Big Kahuna's case, and more probably will be. "It's a never-ending spiral," the lawyer said. "As a consequence, people will do almost anything to avoid that punishment."

So the question remains: Why, if he could, didn't the Big Kahuna hand over some bigger fish, spare his family ( he and his wife are in counseling ) and his business?

"My wife, she said 'You're protecting friends and customers over your family,'" Weaver said. "She's been with me 12 years, and she's always scolded me, and there's been many times where she told me so, and not to trust people. I give everyone that opportunity and I say shame on you, not shame on me.

"And this way," he adds, "I don't have to worry about someone plugging me or beating me with a bat or burning down my place."

Big Kahuna restaurant will be closed for renovation through August, then reopen under new ownership.

Fentanyls Tentacles Growing In Reach

2006-08-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

FENTANYL'S TENTACLES GROWING IN REACH

Strong Painkiller Is Linked With Local Heroin Deaths And Illegal Possession By Nurses

When a wave of fentanyl-related overdose deaths rolled eastward earlier this year, the painkiller made headlines as the newest pharmaceutical to hit the streets, with a deadly efficacy and a rising demand.

But the highly potent opiate has been abused for years - even here in Luzerne County - and that abuse hasn't been limited to the archetypical addict.

Illicit use of the analgesic in the medical profession was first noticed in the mid-1970s, less than two decades after its initial synthesis, and persists today, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Abuse in the health sector locally has existed since at least 2004, when a nurse was punished in response to a conviction for illegal possession of fentanyl. Another nurse was suspended for the same reason earlier this year. Neither conviction stemmed from drug thefts in Luzerne County.

In April, the Pennsylvania State Board of Nursing suspended Theresa Kamus-Kelly's license for three months and ordered the Kingston woman to serve three years of probation.

Two years ago, the board revoked the nursing license of Drums native Paul A. Colasurdo for stealing fentanyl patches from his job to feed his fentanyl addiction.

While fentanyl abuse is "rare," DEA public information officer Bill Hocker said it's been a particular problem among medical professionals.

A survey published in a 2002 issue of the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia analyzed drug use by anesthesiologists at U.S. academic medical centers. The study, which reported abuse by 1 percent of faculty members and 1.6 percent of residents, found fentanyl was the favorite controlled substance.

But it wasn't until a rash of more than 400 deaths from fentanyl-laced heroin overdoses nationwide earlier this year that the public noticed the drug, which has been estimated at roughly 100 times more potent than morphine.

The drug causes respiratory depression, leading to asphyxiation, according to Luzerne County Coroner Dr. Jack Consalvo.

In Luzerne County, fentanyl is indicated in at least five recent overdose deaths. A spate of three fentanyl-related overdose deaths in two months alarmed Consalvo enough in May to ask the DEA to remove the drug from the market.

Such a ban might limit the availability of fentanyl, which, evidenced by cases like those of Colasurdo and Kamus-Kelly, is easy for medical professionals to obtain.

The nursing board called Colasurdo's actions "a most egregious violation" when revoking his license in August 2004.

Colasurdo, now deceased, had pleaded guilty to, among other charges, three felony counts of criminal conspiracy in March 2002 in Carbon County and guilty to three counts of theft by unlawful taking and defiant trespass in April 2003 in Schuylkill County.

Working at a nursing home, he would support his addiction to fentanyl by removing fentanyl Duragesic patches from elderly chronic-pain sufferers and inject the liquid from the patch, Colasurdo admitted to the nursing board. He also said he would go to the home when he wasn't working to steal patches.

He said his addiction began at age 17, after a doctor prescribed him painkillers after a car accident. At the time of the hearing in 2004, he claimed he went to counseling and attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings several times a week, a claim substantiated by his mother, Janice.

His family confirmed Aug. 4 that he died in October at age 24 of a drug overdose, but declined further comment for this story.

In the more recent case, Kamus-Kelly pleaded guilty in Lehigh County to possession of a controlled substance and acquisition of it by fraud after supervisors found a small vial of fentanyl in her locker at the Lehigh Valley Hospital. The guilty plea last October triggered an automatic suspension of her nursing license in January.

Kamus-Kelly said she didn't use fentanyl, but admitted to police she obtained it by faking hospital records. She later told the nursing board she had become addicted to Vicodin, a moderately potent opiate she used by prescription to handle pain after two neck surgeries.

She did not return multiple calls for comment.

In April, she accepted a consent agreement with the nursing board of a three-month license suspension and three years of probation thereafter.

Kamus-Kelly told the board that after being confronted at the hospital, she attempted to enter voluntary recovery programs twice and wasn't admitted, but successfully completed a treatment program at the Marworth chemical dependency center in Waverly.

In August 2005, after disclosing her addiction problems and the resulting criminal charges, she landed a registered nurse anesthetist job at the Berwick Hospital Center. She received random drug screenings under the supervision of Lawrence Reid, the medical director of the hospital's anesthesiology department.

But the license suspensions have kept her from working since January, even though the hospital is "willing and desirous of re-employing" her because she will be under supervision and is "an excellent nurse from the standpoint of both technical skills and compassion for her patients," according to a letter written by Reid to the State Department's prosecutor.

In June, after being told she could not work as a regular nurse until mid-July or a registered nurse anesthetist until July 2007, Kamus-Kelly petitioned for a modification of the consent agreement that would allow her to work.

The petition was discussed at a board hearing on Friday afternoon in Harrisburg, according to state Department of State press secretary Leslie Amoros, but the board's decision was not known.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Life on Hold in California Prison

2006-08-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

A LIFE ON HOLD IN CALIFORNIA PRISON

Sara Jane Olson has gone from SLA fugitive to suburban mother to low-key inmate. Now, in 'enforced idleness,' she awaits her 2009 release.

CHOWCHILLA, Calif. -- Shortly after 8 each weekday morning, Inmate W94197 reports for work on the prison yard. She earns 24 cents an hour emptying trash cans and tidying up. She is grateful for the job.

Caught in 1999 after living as a fugitive for 23 years, she was convicted of murder and other crimes stemming from her link with the Symbionese Liberation Army, a violent band of radicals best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.

Then Sara Jane Olson went to prison, and turned invisible.

At the Central California Women's Facility here, Olson -- whose name was Kathleen Soliah in the heyday of the SLA -- is now a white-haired woman of 59, serving out her seven years.

Her experience, related in letters and a series of conversations, reveals much about punishment and survival in a state system that holds 11,730 women.

She fears falling ill and landing in the prison healthcare organization that experts say claims one life a week through malpractice or neglect.

She laments the absence of anything meaningful to do. She craves privacy. And she tiptoes nervously through each day while awaiting that moment in 2009 when she'll go home to her husband and daughters in Minnesota.

To be famous is no advantage. The savviest convicts strive to be unremarkable, undeserving of concern. Olson does not discuss her past, and few women living alongside her in this San Joaquin Valley town are aware of it. There is, inmates say, an unwritten rule behind bars: You do not ask an incarcerated sister what she has done.

Still, there are rumors, the marrow of prison life. Prisoners often peer into Olson's face and insist they know her. One said she'd heard Olson belonged to Al Qaeda.

Amid the crowd, Olson's posture is nonthreatening, a semi-slouch. Her expression is blank. To show emotion is to attract unwanted attention - -- or, worse, risk causing offense.

Anonymity is best.

*

A Fugitive Is Caught

Olson's entry into California's criminal justice system began June 16, 1999, when her minivan was pulled over by police near her home in St. Paul, Minn. After more than two decades, she had been found, living openly as a doctor's wife and mother of three girls in an ivy-covered Tudor home.

"I had a really good life," Olson recalled. She acted in community theater and taught citizenship classes. She volunteered for groups aiding African refugees, the poor and other causes, and recorded books for the blind.

Friends were stunned to learn that she had been associated with the SLA, a short-lived group whose slogan was "Death to the Fascist Insect That Preys Upon the Life of the People." Many, however, rallied around her, raising $1 million in 10 days to win her release on bail.

Olson had been on the lam since 1976, when she was charged with conspiracy to murder Los Angeles police officers by planting bombs beneath their squad cars the previous year. The bombs did not explode and no one was hurt. The eldest of five children from a middle-class Palmdale family, she was indicted -- and then disappeared.

While accounts of her involvement with the SLA vary, she and others say her link was forged after a close friend and five other SLA members were killed in a shootout with Los Angeles police in 1974. In previous interviews, Olson said she then provided shelter, food and other aid to SLA members hiding from police but never planted any bombs.

After Olson was returned to Los Angeles for trial, prosecutors amassed 23,000 pages of documents, fingerprints and other evidence against her, and lined up 200 potential witnesses. The trial promised high drama -- the saga of a fetching high school pep-squad member turned fugitive -- and a revisiting of the social tumult of the 1970s.

Then came the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Olson decided not to take her chances in court.

"For the first time," she recalled, "people started referring to me as a terrorist."

Instead, she pleaded guilty to attempting to explode a destructive device with the intent to commit murder. In another plea agreement in a separate SLA case, she and three others were convicted of second-degree murder stemming from a Sacramento-area bank robbery in which customer Myrna Opsahl was killed.

"We were young and foolish," Olson said at the time in a letter to the court, and "in the end, we stole someone's life."

Today, she doesn't want to discuss the events that landed her in prison, but she has expressed remorse more than once in the past.

"I'm incredibly sorry," she told the state parole board in 2002. "Of course, I can't take it back, so I have to take responsibility, and that's what I'm doing now."

Earlier that year, Olson -- who had formally changed her name after her arrest -- had been dispatched to Chowchilla, 260 miles north of Los Angeles. Her community now is a warren of squat, sand-colored buildings circled by an electrified fence. Beyond the barrier, almond groves stretch for miles, colliding at the horizon with a sky of blinding blue.

*

A Steady Diet of TV

Olson's days pass in a locked, 18-foot-by-18-foot dorm-like cell shared with seven other women. She spends hours on her metal bunk, writing on yellow legal pads to 30 friends and relatives. She also watches more TV than she ever has before.

The concrete room is sterile, with shower and toilet doors that have cut-outs at waist level so inmates are always visible. Prison rules forbid homey touches, save for pictures of family taped here and there.

While she can expound for hours on current events, history and myriad other topics, Olson prefers not to talk about herself. She has inmate friends but says that, aside from the many women who form lesbian relationships, prison is not a place for sharing confidences.

"There is some sort of sisterhood in here, I guess," she said. "But people really can't trust each other.... You can only throw so much on other people, because they are dealing with their own isolation from their lives."

Olson's straight hair falls just below her jaw. Thick bangs top a narrow face bearing a thatch of wrinkles and bright blue eyes behind large oval glasses.

A lifelong runner, she remains lean with arms tanned dark, the result of working outside in a place where the sun slams down hard from dawn to dusk. She is 22 years older than the average woman behind bars in California.

In the beginning, Olson went through a period many newly incarcerated people describe -- wondering whether she could survive. Some scream and yell; others stare out the window day after day.

"I grabbed a shovel and dug and hoed and raked on the yard for a couple months," Olson recalled. "Some people thought I was crazy, but the old-timers understood."

Surviving in prison meant accepting what she called "enforced idleness," with one monotonous day sliding into the next. The noise is ceaseless, the facility packed to twice its intended capacity.

"We live on top of each other," she said. Anything private "has to be done inside your head."

To escape the din and pass the time, she walks obsessively -- hour after hour, loop after loop around the prison yard.

Her custody status is "Close A," meaning she is among the most intensely supervised inmates. She has challenged the label because it limits privileges, prevents her from joining certain prison programs, requires her to be counted seven times a day and eliminates any chance of transferring closer to home.

So far, those appeals have been denied. Her attorney, David Nickerson, said corrections officials view her as an escape threat who would be a danger to society if she got out. A prison spokesman described her as a quiet inmate who caused no trouble, but would not comment further.

About 10 times a year, Dr. Fred Peterson journeys from St. Paul to Chowchilla to see his wife of 26 years. An emergency room physician, Peterson tries to bring at least one of the couple's three daughters each time, though family finances, depleted by Olson's legal bills, are stretched thin.

The rules allow one kiss and one hug at the start of each visit, and a second round of affection at the end.

"We make the most of it," Peterson said. "Visits are what keep everything going, so we consider ourselves exceedingly fortunate to be able to go."

The future, Peterson said, is a favorite topic, although plans are vague. Nibbling on food from the visiting-room vendor, Olson receives a run-down on her husband's work with the Inmate Family Council -- a group that meets regularly with the warden about prisoners' concerns - -- and enjoys detailed reports on her daughters, including their latest boyfriends, jobs, hopes and disappointments.

Her oldest, 25, graduated from college this year and is talking about law school. The youngest is 19 and a budding actress, while the middle daughter, 24, is a student and singer, with a regular gig at a jazz club.

"It was very hard on all of them," she said of her girls, "in different ways and for different reasons. Being cut off is the worst thing. Everything else you just deal with."

*

Politically 'Invigorated'

While she keeps her past private inside prison, Olson said incarceration has "invigorated" her politics and led to an addiction to talk radio. In one conversation over several hours, her topics skittered from the Iran-Contra scandal to theater, poverty, African politics, the future of the Internet, bankruptcy law, the music industry, the war on drugs and the civil rights movement.

In the privacy of an interview, away from guards and other convicts, the quiet inmate's voice becomes lively, her manner almost merry. Her hands flutter to and fro, punctuating speech that reflects an avid reader with a wide vocabulary. After a monologue of several minutes, she stops and lets out a loud, ringing laugh, apologizing for "standing on my soapbox."

For a year, she served on the inmate advisory council, organizing special events and bringing grievances to the warden. She said the experience amounted to "mostly beating one's head against a wall."

A three-year effort by inmates and their relatives to win permission to plant a vegetable garden is one example. The project would give inmates something to do, said Olson, one of a handful of prisoners promoting the idea, and the harvest would be donated to local food banks.

A prison spokesman said the warden was still evaluating the suggestion but that if approved, the garden would be limited to flowers. Fruits or vegetables could be sneaked in and used to brew pruno, a crude alcoholic beverage some inmates concoct behind bars.

At ground level, Olson says conflict with fellow inmates is best borne silently. Let harassment roll off your back, because responding could lead to an argument, followed by a disciplinary citation to mar one's record.

The wild card is the presence of so many inmates who are mentally ill. "They have no idea how to behave, no ability to get along," she said. "It just adds to the anxiety of the place."

Some guards are helpful, some not. "Some staff want to be reasonable, you can see it in their eyes," Olson said. But within the officer corps, it doesn't pay to be inmate-friendly. "It's seen as weak. Still, everyone knows who you can get a kind word from now and then."

Before she arrived in prison, Olson thought the experience would be "educational." She recalled that Father Philip Berrigan, an activist priest from Baltimore who was arrested more than 100 times before his death in 1993, once suggested that all middle-class people should spend time in jail to "know what goes on."

Today, Olson said, "I can still see his point, but I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone."

California's correctional system, she says, treats all incarcerated females as if they are "violent predators" and puts them in high-security lockups. Yet the majority -- about 66%, according to state figures -- are serving short terms for nonviolent crimes.

In her frequent writings for newsletters and other publications, she elaborates: "Develop programs that place female lawbreakers in communities where we can maintain strong ties with our families and our homes. Help us to learn to become assets to our society, not its outsiders."

In January, the Schwarzenegger administration offered a model anchored in that sort of philosophy, proposing that 4,500 nonviolent women be moved out of prison and into private, locked facilities in their own communities.

The plan has not found enthusiastic support in the Legislature, but it will be debated this month as part of a special session on corrections.

Olson worries most about the growing number of older women in prison. Younger inmates prey on the elderly, stealing their belongings, extorting food and favors.

Prison medical care, recently seized by a federal judge and placed in the hands of a receiver, is another concern.

In 2003, Olson said, her mammogram showed a suspicious lesion, and a follow-up biopsy was ordered. Months later, the test still hadn't been done. Olson was not given a reason for the delay and did not consider it unusual, given the waits routinely faced by prisoners with more serious diagnoses.

Back in Minnesota, her husband fired off an e-mail to then-Gov. Gray Davis. That cleared the way; the biopsy was done and all was well. Prison officials would not comment, citing the confidentiality of inmate records.

*

'That's the Old Life'

Olson says she does not stay in touch with her co-defendants, only one of whom -- her brother-in-law, Michael Bortin -- has been released from prison. Two others -- Bill Harris and Emily Montague, his former wife -- are due to be released from other California prisons within a year.

As for the SLA days, Olson says: "For me to come forward with some kind of spiel about what I did in those times, and what was happening from a political perspective, it's just not a discussion for public consumption right now. That's the old life."

Has Sara Jane Olson changed in prison? The question prompts a pause. Hard to say, she finally responds, "because I don't see myself reflected on the outside.

"I'm older -- oh, who am I kidding, I'm old -- and I've become really paranoid," she said. "I've also become very good at masking my emotions. It scares my daughters, when they see my face, but in here, it's just what you do to survive."

Drugs Issue Sparked Up By Dickel

2006-08-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

DRUGS ISSUE SPARKED UP BY DICKEL

Why do drug cheating athletes think they can get away with it? Will sport ever be clean? Cannabis is not performance enhancing, so what's the big deal? What image do drug cheats send to the influential minds of young athletes striving to be the best?

The questions just keep coming. As soon as one is answered, more arise.

Basketballer Mark Dickel tested positive for cannabis after the Tall Blacks' match against Australia in Napier last month. He admitted the offence and awaits punishment.

That admission should be praised, the drug use should not.

The Ministry of Health says marijuana is the third most common recreational drug used in New Zealand, but it is not good for you or sport's image and that makes it a banned substance in the World Anti-Doping Agency's eyes.

"It meets the criteria that WADA established," Drug Free Sport New Zealand executive director Graeme Steel said.

"There are three categories: it must be performance enhancing, it must have harmful health consequences or it must be contrary to the spirit of sport.

"It seems that under the third category, along with the second one, WADA has decided to incorporate it on to the list. In other words, it is contrary to the spirit of sport and the health of the athlete."

The black mark it puts on basketball's image has not been overlooked.

"From our point of view, it is extremely disappointing," Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin said yesterday, when Dickel was suspended for this weekend's test series against Qatar, which tips off tonight in Dunedin.

"Mark knows he has let a lot of people down and must now face the consequences."

It has been a big couple of months in the hazy world of drugs in sport.

Wallabies wing Wendell Sailor was benched for two years after his positive test to cocaine.

The world's ( equal ) fastest man Justin Gatlin faces a life ban after a positive result to testosterone. He had a suspension reduced a few years back after convincing officials a positive drugs test was due to medication he was taking.

Tour de France winner Floyd Landis is trying to convince the world the high level of synthetic testosterone found in his body was natural.

"With these recent cases, we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg," WADA head Dick Pound said recently.

It suggests getting drug users out of sport is a huge task.

There is a big difference between using testosterone and cannabis but there is also a key similarity - both are on the WADA list of banned substances.

WADA's international standard 2006 anti-doping code cannot be clearer.

"Cannabinoids ( eg Hashish, marijuana ) are prohibited".

For testosterone there is a lot of fine print to explain what is an acceptable level and what is not but smoke just one joint and you face a positive result.

Drug Free Sport New Zealand outlines the risks for athletes who use substances such as cannabis.

"Marijuana will be tested for in competition in all sports," DFSNZ states on its website.

"All users of marijuana must be aware that traces may be detected many weeks after taking it, particularly for those who have been heavy or long time users.

"It is listed as a 'specified substance' which means that it is possible to get a lighter penalty for the first offence."

That last sentence may be some consolation for Dickel. A positive test to cannabis will not be career-ending. Between July 2004 and May 2005 nine New Zealand athletes tested positive to cannabis. The heaviest penalty was a six-month ban, given to a bodybuilder.

All other penalties have been either a warning, reprimand, fine or a combination of those.

"The matter is initially referred to Basketball New Zealand," Steel said.

"Their rules, as I understand them, would require them to refer it to the Sports Disputes Tribunal, which is an independent body which hears these kinds of cases.

"In the case of cannabis, if the athlete can show or satisfy the tribunal that it wasn't used to enhance performance then, because it's what's called a specified substance, the range of sanctions alters and the range applicable in that case is a warning at the bottom end to a one-year ban at the top end."

With Dickel already admitting his guilt the likelihood of a small penalty and the matter being finalised before the Tall Blacks fly to Japan for the world championships is high.

Methadone Clinic Wins

2006-08-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

METHADONE CLINIC WINS

County Law Restricting Medical Facility Sites Faulted

A federal jury ruled yesterday that Baltimore County officials discriminated against the patients of a Pikesville methadone clinic when they enacted a law prohibiting state-licensed medical facilities from locating within 750 feet of homes.

After hearing testimony over three weeks, the U.S. District Court jury deliberated for less than five hours yesterday before finding in favor of A Helping Hand methadone clinic. The clinic, which also prevailed in a judge's ruling that the county law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, will remain open.

The findings do not immediately repeal the four-year-old law, but they could prompt changes in the law to avoid similar challenges from other methadone clinics that might seek to open in the county, said Steven J. Barber, a lawyer for A Helping Hand.

"It's a great day for the people in Maryland who have serious need for treatment," said Barber, adding that his Washington law firm, Steptoe and Johnson, represented the clinic on a pro bono basis. "And the message to the county should be clear: [The law] should not survive."

County attorneys said they would probably appeal the judge's ruling, but it was unclear yesterday whether the county would also appeal the jury's verdict.

The private, for-profit clinic in the Ralston neighborhood filed the federal lawsuit against the county in 2002, claiming that the law discriminated against the clinic's patients and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland joined the suit against the county. And three of the clinic's patients, identified in the court proceedings as John Doe One and Two and Jane Doe One, were also listed as plaintiffs in the suit.

The jurors found that the county had not interfered with the individual rights of the clinic's clients and awarded no damages. The county might have to pay the legal expenses of the clinic, though the judge didn't rule on the amount yesterday. The jury found that the clinic's right to due process was violated.

District Judge Catherine C. Blake, who presided over the trial, had ruled Monday that the county law had a "disparate impact" of being discriminatory, meaning whether it was intentional or not, the law had the effect of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Donald I. Mohler, a county spokesman, said that County Executive James T. Smith Jr., a former Circuit Court judge, would carefully review the case and its "implications for the county taxpayers."

Mohler said the county was disappointed by the verdict. He called the dispute an "important case for families in Baltimore County."

Lawyers for the county had argued that officials were employing zoning law to keep certain types of businesses out of neighborhoods, much the way the county prohibits factories and other companies from being located too close to homes.

They pointed out that methadone clinics are permitted in areas zoned for manufacturing, and that the 2002 law doesn't single out drug treatment facilities, but applies to all state-licensed medical facilities, including kidney dialysis offices. The law mentions adverse effects on the community from such facilities, such as increased traffic and parking problems.

Lawyers for the clinic argued that the county based its law on stereotypes of drug addicts and had violated protections for disabled people by bending to fears held by residents about drug treatment facilities.

Richard Griffiths, an attorney for the ACLU of Maryland, said yesterday's verdict "serves to bolster the rights of people under the ADA, especially those with disabilities that might be disfavored by certain groups, such as government entities."

He said he didn't know of any jurisdictions in Maryland with zoning laws similar to Baltimore County's but said that the case could serve as precedent to any government seeking to single out those in drug treatment.

Blake struck down county laws in 2000 and in 2002, ruling that they violated the ADA because they were stricter about methadone clinics than other similar medical practices. However, a 2002 appeals court ruling held that a jury should have decided whether the law violated the ADA, according to county attorneys.

A Helping Hand is the only for-profit methadone treatment clinic in Baltimore County. A public-private hybrid program is in an industrial park in Timonium. Another private, for-profit methadone clinic that had sought to open in Pikesville settled with the county out of court last year.

UT: Survival of the Sacred

2006-02-21T10:29:00.000-08:00

Controversy Simmers Over Whether Non-Indians Can Understand and Respect Native Spirituality When news spread that Arvol Looking Horse would be visiting Utah, many who practice American Indian spirituality were thrilled. Some also felt a chill. Looking Horse, after all, has come to represent the growing sentiment among many American Indians that non-Indians do not belong in the center of sacred ceremonial practice. A Lakota spiritual leader, Looking Horse - with the support of dozens of Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders - issued a proclamation in 2003 calling for an end to exploitation of ceremonies. Non-Indians, he says, are welcome to join Indians in prayer and on the periphery, but they should not lead the most sacred ceremonies, such as the Sundance and Vision Quest. Not only do Indians with little appreciation of tradition pervert and sell ceremonies and their tools, he argues, but also non-Indians dabble in something they do not fully understand. Drawn by native spirituality's understanding of nature, plants and animals - and often packing their own New Age notions - scores of non-Indians have been attracted to native spirituality. "A lot of people are doing things, and they've only got a shadow," says Lacee Harris, a social worker from Salt Lake City. Harris is a Northern Ute-Northern Paiute. When Looking Horse was invited to Utah from South Dakota for various appearances along the Wasatch Front last week, audiences expected to hear him expound on the issue. He didn't. But that doesn't mean Looking Horse, averse to conflict, has backed away from his insistence that Indians reclaim their faith. Indeed, he believes the future of the human race hinges, in part, on the ceremonial practices. "There is a lot about our [way of] life that is essential to the survival of the two-leggeds," he said in an interview. Those who take part in ceremonies for their own gratification do not realize there are ramifications for others, he says. "They begin a slow killing of the medicine," he says. "They don't realize they destroy the creator by doing this," adds his wife, Paula Horne Mullen. Time to 'pick up the pipe': Ogden resident Robin Naneix is one of those struggling to understand where that leaves her. Reared in Georgia, Naneix was taught Indian ways - such as talking to plants and looking for signs in nature - by her grandmother, whose own mother was Cherokee but who never called her ways "Indian." For a number of reasons, the family did not end up on the tribal roles. Naneix is fair-skinned, with dark blond hair. After trying on Christianity and looking into Buddhism, Naneix turned to Indian ways eight years ago. She studied and gradually learned the complexities of native spirituality, careful to respect traditions. Like many who began practicing Indian spirituality as adults, Naneix adopted Lakota ways because the Lakota Sioux generously have shared their traditions with strangers for the past century. Through the years, Naneix believes she has been confirmed in her path. She regularly finds eagle feathers as she spends time outdoors, a gift of the creator, she says. Dreams and visions told her three years ago that it was time to "pick up the pipe," a significant step in a spiritual journey. In December, she decided that next summer, she will do the Sundance - four days of nearly nonstop dancing with no food or water. "In that sacred circle, you are one on one with creator," Naneix says. Looking Horse, she says, is a "very wise and spiritual man." But, "at the end of the day, he is a man. . . [who is] telling us we can't be with the creator." "For me and my friends, it feels like it's because of our color," Naneix says. "We say that sounds racist." In her mind, taking part in sacred ceremonies should depend on one's heart and preparation, not heritage. "It comes down to: Are you being mindful and acting out of your heart?" Rights & rites: Forrest Cuch, executive director of the Utah Division of Indian Affairs, notes another dimension to the controversy: legality. "It is the only ethnic minority that has a political relationship with the U.S. Congress that came about as a result of war," he says. "The treaties were made with the American Indian people, not with other people." Certain rights belong only to members of federally recognized Indian tribes, such as the right to possess eagle feathers, which represent knowledge and are vital in many native ceremonies. Another is the right to use peyote, a hallucinogen derived from cactus. Federal law requires one be a member of the Native American Church of North America as well as a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe to use peyote. Utah law, however, had a loophole allowing peyote use by non-Indians. The Legislature this session passed HB60 to make state law conform to federal law and it's awaiting the signature of Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Cuch and leaders of Utah's Indian tribes praise the measure as a step in remedying exploitation of native practices. "A controlled substance has to be regulated," Cuch says, "otherwise it will be abused." Like Looking Horse, Cuch laments the disrespect shown to native spirituality as it becomes popular among non-Indians. "Far too many of them think that because they participate in a few ceremonies, they can become shamans and medicine people." But Cuch's views on non-Indian participation in sacred ceremonies shows there is a wide divergence among Indian leaders. "They [non-Indians] need to devote 15 or 20 years working as an apprentice. When they achieve that, Indian people will recognize and support them." Harris agrees it's not impossible for a non-Indian to develop enough spiritually to be in the center of ceremonies. "It is possible if they want to put in the time." Eleanor Iron Lightning, a Lakota who lives in Salt Lake City and invited Looking Horse, says "only a drop" of Indian blood is necessary for one to be on a path toward full participation in Indian ceremonies. Looking Horse acknowledges he does not have the authority to enforce his view. That call is up to each community's spiritual leader in each situation. But, he and his wife say, the creator, through prophecies and revelation, has given particular ceremonies to particular native people for a reason. "I wouldn't want to start making ceremonial sand painting because I had a dream I was a Hopi," Horne Mullen says. "As a Lakota, I have to respect that." She recognizes that many who have joined native circles are "really good people." "We're trying to help them understand the delicate nature of the situation. We say 'share prayer, but keep in place the boundaries of respect for who we are.' "

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FL: Cocaine Intrudes On Paradise

2006-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

ACHUTUPO . After keeping the world at bay for five centuries, the Kuna Indians on Panama's unspoiled Caribbean coast now confront an insidious intruder: cocaine traffickers. The fiercely independent tribe inhabits Kuna Yala, a semiautonomous area that includes a coastal strip and the San Blas islands. The region is known mainly to foreign eco-tourists who can afford to reach its isolated white sand beaches. The Kuna have fought off incursions by Spanish conquistadors, rubber growers, gold miners and, most recently, tourism promoters who ply them with a steady stream of resort proposals. But they jealously protect their sovereignty, won after a bloody uprising in 1925. Today, the tribe permits no outside ownership of its land. The Kuna control almost 400 picture-postcard islands but inhabit fewer than 50 of them, which are crammed with bamboo-sided, thatch-roofed huts. The women are known for gaily colored dresses and for their embroidered molas, or tapestries, coveted souvenirs. Men spend the day fishing, gathering coconuts and catching lobsters. "Foreigners often view the Kuna as simple mola makers with hardly a care in the world, but it is they who decide when and if outsiders, including Panamanian police and other authorities, can enter their lands," said Scott Doggett, author of Lonely Planet's Panama guide. In the past few years, however, the Kuna have faced an interloper that has proved difficult to fend off -- and has brought the scourge of addiction. The 200-mile-long Kuna lands lie just south of a transit route for Colombian drugs on their way to the U.S. market, much of them stowed aboard sleek boats often outfitted with a trio of 200-horsepower engines and guided by satellite positioning systems. A consequence of the increasing drug traffic is the increase in drugs that wash ashore, dumped by drug runners to avoid detection or to be picked up by associates. The cocaine then gets sold or used locally. The so-called go-fast boats have proved elusive to U.S. and Panamanian authorities trying to stem the flow of drugs. They are difficult to track and intercept because their speeds reach 80 mph and they travel at night. Officials who run the U.S.-Panamanian drug interdiction program say they have had success recently in catching some of the boats. This nation's top anti-drug prosecutor, Patricio Candanedo, said that in 2005, Panama seized 35 tons of cocaine in seaborne raids, nearly four times as much as in 2004. One American official said the anti-drug efforts have been helped by a U.S. gift of several go-fast boats that Panamanian law enforcers use to chase down the drug runners. But the surveillance has pushed drug boats' skippers to run closer to Kuna Yala shores so they can ditch their boats and cargo on shorter notice. And that has increased the incidence of what the locals call "ocean jackpots," or the recovery by Kuna tribesmen of cocaine that is then distributed locally. On some islands, up to half of Kuna men between 18 and 25 are addicts, said pharmacist assistant Galindo Morales, a health-clinic worker. Residents still talk about an incident over the summer that brought home the risks of being close to a narcotics shipping lane. After a boat loaded with a ton of cocaine beached on the mainland in June with mechanical problems, the skipper asked a fisherman to stand guard over the cargo. Instead, the Kuna tribesman sold it to traffickers in Colon for $700,000, according to several island sources. Traffickers returned days later to find their merchandise gone and threatened the entire population of Achutupo with death. Terrified, elders then made an almost unheard-of appeal to the Panamanian government for police protection. For a time, 40 police officers stood guard over the island waiting for the reprisal from drug runners. Today, four remain on constant watch.

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Bermuda: Police Blitzes and Jail Terms Will Never End Drug

2006-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

A recovered heroin addict who went on to found a US drug rehabilitation centre said Bermuda would never defeat the scourge through Police crackdowns and imprisonment. Israel Cason told a Bermudians Against Narcotics rally a possible solution was to get recovering junkies to help existing addicts. "People always say experts need to do it but may I remind you that experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch." More than 120 people defied looming rain clouds to gather at St. George's square for the rally. Mr. Cason, who founded the Baltimore "I can't, We can" programme, said addiction affected people from all walks of life, not just people on "skid row". "I came from a good family, my mother was a preacher and my father was a deacon," he said. "In my neighbourhood there were 'exciting' people and I decided I wanted to be a hustler. I had no knowledge of what the lifestyle was but I thought it looked more exciting than being a preacher." "I was a heroin addict for 30 years. Despite that I managed to maintain a business and family. I owned my house. I thought I was fine and didn't realise that instant gratification would bring lifelong pain.The disease is progressive and chronic. It comes on so slow you can adapt to it and don't realise it has happened." "In the end the same drug I took to kill the pain became the very thing that caused the pain. It's a vicious cycle. I wound up sleeping in my car in a parking lot for the last two years of my addiction. "Pain is a universal motivator. It motivates you to change you lifestyle or continue getting worse. I needed to feel that pain before I realised I had to change my lifestyle." Minister of Drug Control, Wayne Perinchief, spoke later at the rally and said that Mr. Cason's message about pain was pertinent to Bermuda. "In Bermuda we never allow the pain to get too much that they have to leave. Mothers enable their sons to be weak, tough love is needed on this Island. "Brother Cason brought that message home to me. I know how hard it can be. I had a son who used drugs and caused me so much pain I didn't know if I wanted him alive or dead sometimes. But we need to stop enabling our sons and allow them to reach the pain that will motivate them." Saafir Rabb, another "I can't, We can" official, said the Baltimore programme had helped 9,000 addicts since 1997, 6,750 of whom have remained clean and sober. He said the programme was spiritually based and looked to change the lifestyle of addicts. Another aim was to remove the desire to associate with drugs. A main feature of the programme was empowering addicts to help each other. And another key to its success was self sufficiency. There was no reliance on Government grants. "The programme is unique in that it is not set up to be a burden on society or the government," he said. "It is set up to be self sustaining, we set up businesses that provide revenue to fund the recovery programme." Mr. Rabb said that the organisation had come to help BAN in anyway possible and hoped that a similar programme could be established on the Island. Mr. Cason said it was important to realise that recovery takes a holistic approach. "Recovery and sobriety are two very different things," he said. "After I went to rehab with a cousin I came out and realised everyone that I had hung around with was still a junkie. If I didn't change the people around me I would have been drawn back in." "I had to change my lifestyle, morals and belief. Each phase involves difficulties. Change equals stress, but in the difficulties is the ease it does get better. If we endure the pain the rewards are great." Mr. Cason also said the drug problem on the Island had reached an alarming rate and needed to be properly addressed. "Bermuda needs to realise it will only get worse if we don't do something. We cannot Police our way out. We cannot incarcerate our way out. We've tried that and all we end up with are more prisons The solution is in the problem, we get recovering addicts to help out current addicts. People always say experts need to do it but may I remind you that experts built the Titanic and amateurs built the arch."

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Kenya: Cut To The Chase, UK And US Tell Kenya Over Drugs

2006-02-18T10:27:00.000-08:00

Nairobi - The Government is under unprecedented pressure from the international community over the handling of the twin cocaine seizures - one worth Sh6.4b and another worth Sh1.1b - by police in December 2004. The international community is demanding from the seemingly reluctant Kenyan authorities that the drugs, according to one diplomatic source, be tested, weighed and disposed in accordance with the international standards. The pressure from the representatives of the various foreign missions in Nairobi and the relevant agencies of the United Nations, diplomatic sources say, are still being exerted through quiet diplomacy. But it may only be a matter of time before the quiet diplomacy channel is abandoned in favour of what diplomatic sources describe only as "other more effective channels" should the government fail to act on their demands. In what could be the clearest indication yet of disquiet on the government's handling of the cocaine seizures - in the face of widespread speculation that the consignment could well have been tampered with - the US and UK envoys met the Attorney General, Amos Wako, and Director of Public Prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, last Wednesday during which they expressed reservations about the government's argument that the drugs could neither be tested nor weighed until George Kiragu, the prime suspect, is extradited from the Netherlands. A court in Netherlands last week ruled that Kiragu had a case to answer over the cocaine consignment and ordered that he should be extradited to Kenya to face trial, but he quickly filed an appeal in which he is arguing that he may not get a fair trial in Kenya due to the many vested interests in the matter. The UN, US and European Union member states are reportedly of the view that, by citing Mr Kiragu's extradition as the reason for not testing - let alone destroying - the drugs, the government is shifting goal posts and buying time. This is because the authorities had early last year attempted to secretly destroy the drugs, but changed tune when the move was blocked due to keen public attention and instead started resisting, citing Kiragu's extradition, requests for transparent testing and disposal. Sources told The Sunday Standard that US ambassador, William Bellamy, and the UK High Commissioner, Adam Wood, wondered why the government was procrastinating the disposal of the drugs even after it promised recently that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime would be invited to test each of the 954 packets of the seized cocaine. The UN office on Drugs and Crime had in May last year applied to the Kenyan authorities for permission to test each of the packets in a bid to allay fears that it may have been interfered with, a request to which President Mwai Kibaki acceded. In a subsequent meeting between the UN representative and Wako later last year, the AG is said to have assured the international body that its experts would be allowed to test the drugs as requested. In their meeting with the AG last week, the diplomats are reported to have also expressed concern that, since the seizure, cocaine has been finding its way to the UK through the Kenya Airways, something that had never been witnessed before December 2004 when the consignment was impounded. This, it is felt, appears to lend credence to the now widely held view that the cocaine may not be intact, after all. When contacted for comment, Jennifer Barnes, the US embassy's press attachE, tacitly confirmed in a carefully crafted statement that the meeting took place. "Mr Bellamy has had a number of conversations with the government concerning that pile of drugs ( cocaine ) that they have been holding. We are interested in having the government test, weigh, verify and dispose of the drugs in accordance with international standards. It is important that the government of Kenya moves as quickly as possible," she said in a statement she issued only after wide consultations. But the UK Deputy High Commissioner, Ray Kyles, could neither confirm nor deny that the meeting took place, pleading only that he did not wish to speak to the press at this time. Other reports had also indicated that, in their meeting with the AG, the diplomats had hinted that the national carrier, the Kenya Airways, could be in the spotlight over the increasing cases of some of its staff members being arrested at Heathrow Airport, London, with packets of high-grade cocaine. Such open concerns from the British authorities have for the last two days given rise to fears in the aviation industry about the possibility of the Kenya Airways being banned from plying the highly lucrative Nairobi/London route, especially if it is established that the cocaine consignment currently in the custody of the government was tampered with. But the UK and US missions in Nairobi categorically denied that there was any such a move, primarily because the airline's Managing Director, Titus Naikuni, has recently expressed concern over the recent arrests of its staff while trying to smuggle cocaine to London. "I am not aware of any such a move and there would be no ground for banning the airline," said Ms Barnes. But impeccable sources say Naikuni has received two letters, one of them preceded by an email, from British authorities warning him on the impending action and urging him to "put his house in order". One of the letters is said to contain a list of prominent Kenyans to whom the airliner should not issue tickets to London. The Kenya Airways management denied any knowledge of plans to slap a blanket ban on its liners to London. "We have received no such communication from either the Kenyan government or the British authorities. Ordinarily, they would have communicated to us had that been the case," said Michael Okwiri, the Head of Corporate Communication. Okwiri also disclosed during the interview that, thanks to the three incidents in which KQ staff have been arrested in London, the airline has introduced a special sniffer dog, among other security arrangements, to improve on its methods of detecting illicit cargo.

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Bid For ID Cards For Tuolumne County Medical Marijuana

2006-02-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

A program to provide identification cards to Tuolumne County medical marijuana patients failed to win county approval yesterday. The Board of Supervisors split 2-2 on whether to establish the state-mandated registration program. The program, voluntary for users, would have provided state photo ID cards to people "authorized to engage in the medical use of marijuana," according to state law. Although the county won't face any state penalties for not complying with the requirement, yesterday's decision does mean someone could file a lawsuit to force the county to adopt the program, County Counsel Gregory Oliver said. Supervisors could have followed the lead of San Diego County and filed a lawsuit in federal court to avoid complying with the program. But that option failed to win support from the board. "I'm against spending our local money to have a redundant lawsuit," Supervisor Dick Pland said. "There is already a lawsuit. We don't need another." The issue is complicated by disagreement between the state and federal governments over the legality of medical marijuana. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, which allows possession of marijuana for medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation. The state Legislature in 2003 created a law which requires counties to create identification card programs for medical marijuana users. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has held that people in California who use medical marijuana can still be prosecuted by the federal government. So far, 16 counties have adopted a marijuana registration program, county Health Officer Todd Stolp said. Tuolumne County's program would have required applicants to have a doctor's recommendation for medicinal marijuana. A panel of three local doctors, including the county health officer, would have reviewed each ID card request. That applicants would not need a recommendation from a doctor practicing in Tuolumne County concerned Pland, who joined Supervisor Mark Thornton in voting against the program. "That indicates a lack of local accountability," he said, referring to cases elsewhere where doctors have handed out questionable medical marijuana recommendations. Voting for the program was tantamount to endorsing the concept of medical marijuana, Thornton said. He also worried that, in some cases, taxpayers would be subsidizing the program. The county Health Department had planned on charging $60 for the card. Medi-Cal or County Medical Services Program patients would have been charged $30 instead. Supervisors Liz Bass and Paolo Maffei voted for the ID card program. Maffei said it could be helpful, but wasn't perfect. "People shouldn't have to sign a paper to get their pain medication," he said. Medical marijuana advocates are split on whether an ID card program is a good thing. Some have concerns over registering with the government. Others said the card could be useful. "The card is there to protect people who are concerned with law enforcement harassment," F. Aaron Smith, of the medical marijuana advocacy group Safe Access Now, told supervisors.

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BC: Forum To Be A Wake-Up Call To Parents

2006-02-16T13:11:00.000-08:00

There are lots of parents in New Westminster who have a "My kid wouldn't do that" attitude and that's one of the reasons police and school district officials are organizing a public meeting this Tuesday. New Westminster is becoming known as "party central" for youth aged 12 to 18 and police are regularly breaking up gatherings that can number as many as 200. Most of the teens are either using alcohol or drugs like marijuana. When police arrive at these gatherings they go into "triage" mode, said Sharon MacKay, the district's community school co-ordinator. They assess which teens are so intoxicated that they require hospitalization and if others need to be driven home because they may endanger themselves. "Because some are so drunk or high, police feel the need to take care of them, rather than just disperse the crowd," said MacKay. What's even more puzzling is the reaction of parents to this, said Karen Janzen, the school-based prevention worker in the district. "Often when the kids are brought home, the parents are like, 'Well, we used to do it, kids will be kids and kids will drink' kind of thing," said Janzen. "That's obviously an issue. The impression I'm getting from a lot of kids is they say no one's really stopping them, 'So why should we stop?' Their parents don't like it but they're not stopping them." The seminar for parents, entitled "My Child Wouldn't Do That," is this Tuesday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Glenbrook Middle School gymnasium. One of the keynote speakers is Randy Miller, a former drug addict who spent 13 years on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, addicted to heroin, cocaine and other drugs. The New Westminster resident was a star athlete at New Westminster secondary school in the early 1970s. "For me it was gradual," said Miller, 52. "Kids think they're bullet-proof and it won't happen to them. That's why I'm doing this. To educate them that it can happen to them." Miller argues that marijuana is a gateway drug leading to others. When he smoked pot in high school it had a THC ( tetrahydrocannabinol: the main active ingredient in marijuana ) content of three per cent. Today's hydroponic marijuana has a THC content of 23 per cent. "Especially if they have an addictive personality," said Miller. "It can be like eating candy. You just keep doing it until you're way into it." In 1999 Miller's drug life on the Downtown Eastside was chronicled in the documentary Through a Blue Lens, made by members of the Vancouver Police Department. Soon after that he went into recovery and is now drug-free, working full time and educating children and youth about the dangers of drugs. He doesn't like what he's hearing about the drug and alcohol-laced gatherings in New West. "It's up to the parents to be their kids' friends and talk to them about what they're up to." The age of some of the teens involved in the gatherings shocks Janzen. Police have identified youth as young as 11 and 12 who are involved. And it's not just one or two beers that they're sipping at. Janzen has spoken with middle school students who tell her they consume a 26-ounce bottle of hard liquor like vodka. Her student interviews also find these gatherings can involve sexual activity where young girls are trading sexual favours for drugs and alcohol. Once they get stoned or drunk, their level of intoxication also puts them at risk of further sexual exploitation. "It seems like parents aren't responding or they're not getting it that it's their kids who are involved in this," said Janzen. Parents also tend to believe their child is using drugs and alcohol or involved in sexual activity because they're hanging out with the wrong kids. The truth is that those teens are just as involved as the others, she said. "That's why we're doing this and drawing attention to what's really going on." The seminar is free but pre-registration is required. To attend call 604-517-6345 and register for course N88. Baby-sitting will be provided free of charge for those who need it.

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BC: Guru of Ganja Marks 10 Years of Pot Advocacy

2006-02-15T13:10:00.000-08:00

Since he began supplying chronically ill people in Victoria with marijuana out of a van 10 years ago, Leon "Ted" Smith has seen some major changes in his role. Not the least of those has been his legal banishment from having anything to do with the operation of the Cannabis Buyers' Club he founded in 1996. Despite being forced by the courts to watch the fruits of his labours from arm's length, Smith said this week he is extremely pleased with how far the club has come in achieving its mandate. "It's extremely important for me to have this club perceived as legal, and being vindicated in court is a necessary step in that," he said. In all, Smith, whose aim is to see marijuana legalized, has faced 11 charges related to marijuana and its distribution. Some stemmed from raids on the club storefront, while others came from such activities as passing out pot cookies on International Medical Marijuana Day and sharing joints at a weekly Hempology 101 meeting at UVic. Most of those charges were dismissed, largely due to constitutional questions and the application of existing laws in situations involving medical marijuana. "Going through all the trials, being acquitted for all the club trials - - that's 11 charges done and gone and the club is free and clear," Smith said. "It gives me a warm feeling inside every time I think of it. I'm really proud of it." Not everyone has seen him as a saviour in that time. After Smith was acquitted on a handful of charges in 2004, Victoria police Insp. Grant Smith stated "my personal opinion is that Ted Smith definitely has an agenda to get marijuana legalized in Canada." While he stopped short of questioning Smith's integrity, the inspector said "there definitely is an ulterior motive." After five years of operating the club and having the occasional run-in with the law, Smith and his compatriots were ordered by police to get a storefront. While in some ways that legitimized the club's activities, there were the inevitable members who flauted the rules and re-sold pot they bought from the club. These days the Buyers' Club is limping along, barely making enough to pay the bills - Smith said it is $40,000 in debt. But its "sister" organization, Hempology 101, continues to thrive. There are more than 250 members of the marijuana educational organization at the University of Victoria alone, making it one of the largest clubs on campus. As well, Smith's Wednesday night presentations in the foyer of Ministry of Health building on Blanshard Street have been attracting upwards of three dozen participants. Due to popular demand, Smith plans to teach a weekly course at UVic starting in September. The content, he said, will range from hemp to the history of cannabis, its uses, the history of prohibition, medical uses and other topics. "I would like to get some guest speakers, maybe some sociology profs, and talk about the current legal status of cannabis," he said. Aware that upwards of 100 people a week could attend the classes and be looking to learn, Smith said he'll need to be on his best behaviour. "It's quite different than downtown, where we kind of goof around. When you stand up in front of 100 students you better damn well know what you're doing." With a little more time on his hands lately, he's in the middle of writing a textbook on marijuana, hemp and its uses, with the goal of finding a distributor locally and elsewhere. That may or may not provide him with financial self-sufficiency, but regardless, he's feeling good about where he's at. "The level of life I live is so much greater," Smith said. "When you work with people who are sick and dying like I do, just being able to walk around is amazing."

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6 PDEA Agents Relieved For 'Shabu Market' Fiasco

2006-02-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

Include DILG, PNP In Probe - Miriam Six team members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency ( PDEA ) were relieved of their duties yesterday for their alleged failure to detect the existence of a "shabu market" that was discovered by a police raiding team in Pasig City last week. Undersecretary Anselmo Avenido Jr., PDEA executive director, yesterday ordered the six PDEA team members to undergo investigation for possible neglect of duty following the discovery of the shabu den on E. Soriano St., Sitio Mapayapa, Barangay Santo Tomas in Pasig City. The relieved PDEA personnel were identified as SPO2 Arsenio Gregorio Jr., team leader; and members SPO2 Oscar Rudas, SPO1 Tomas Calicdan, PO3 Eleonito Aptuhan, PO2 Celino Sumauang and PO2 Ramil Policarpio. Assistant Secretary Rodolfo Caisip, PDEA deputy chief, said the six will be placed under investigation for possible lapses in their duty. "They will also be subjected to drug tests to be supervised by the PNP Crime Laboratory Service to determine if they are users of prohibited drugs such as shabu and marijuana," Caisip added. Immediately after the raid, PNP chief Director General Arturo C. Lomibao ordered the relief of 19 policemen assigned at the Police Community Precinct ( PCP ) 20, Pasig City Police Anti-Narcotics Unit, and Eastern Police District ( EPD ) Drug Enforcement Unit. Lomibao expressed disgust over the discovery of the "shabu market" located just a few meters away from PCP 20. Lomibao did not rule out a connivance between police authorities and drug syndicates. "The drug den could not have lasted this long without the cooperation of corrupt police officials and men. They should be unmasked and punished. No one should be spared," Avenido stressed. A total of 319 persons - 216 of them adults while the rest minors - were picked up by elements of the Anti-Illegal Drugs -Special Operations Task Force ( AID-SOTF ) during the raid last Friday. Last Sunday, the PNP-CLS authorities found 179 of those arrested positive for using shabu and marijuana. Of the 179, 11 are minors. They are now detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame in Quezon City. As of press time yesterday, PNP authorities were still waiting for the arrival of the prosecutors from the Department of Justice ( DoJ ) in Camp Crame to file the appropriate criminal charges against those found positive of using illegal drugs. AID-SOTF authorities also recovered two kilos of shabu, several drug paraphernalia and two handguns during the raid in the 1,000-square meter shabu den. Heads Will Roll Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago filed a resolution yesterday mandating the proper Senate committees to investigate, in aid of legislation, public officials who allowed a slum area in Pasig City to become a virtual public market of illegal drugs. Senate Resolution 442 also directed the Senate to include in its probe the liability of officials of the Department of Interior and Local Government ( DILG ), the local government of Pasig and the Philippine National Police ( PNP ) as well as barangay officials of Palatiw in Sitio Mapayapa, Pasig City. "The compound is composed of numerous 'one-stop-shop' shabu restaurants where users could rent shabu paraphernalia and buy drugs at R5,000 per gram," said Santiago adding that the operation has been going on for almost a year without being caught by local barangay and police officers in the area. Santiago pointed out that under Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Act of 2002, the government shall pursue an intensive and unrelenting campaign against the trafficking and use of dangerous drugs and other similar substances through an integrated system of planning, implementation, and enforcement of antidrug abuse policies, programs, and projects. The latest incident, however, where rampant peddling of illegal drugs remained unabated for almost a year in broad daylight means that authorities may not be taking the law seriously. According to Santiago, it is alarming that reports by the United Nations ( UN ) indicated that the country, despite its stringent penalty being imposed by the law, has remained one of the countries with a high incidence of drug addiction especially in Asia. The same report also claimed that the Philippines is one of the leading countries with a high volume of shabu being manufactured locally.

NC: Sheriff's Drug Unit Is Special Breed

2006-02-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

DURHAM -- Before the third and last leg of a recent 12-hour shift, detectives from the Durham Sheriff's Anti-Crime Narcotics Unit congregate in their headquarters in one of the less-glossy pockets of Northgate Mall. A bulletin board -- cluttered by photographs of seizures from the biggest busts of the past two years -- hangs just beyond the office meeting room. The pictures show detectives standing next to large bricks of marijuana, fuzzy digital shots of snowy bags of white powder, and collections of high-powered illegal guns fanned out on conference tables. In the meeting room, four detectives finish the tedious process of bagging and labeling drugs and weapons as evidence. Conversation jumps from topic to topic like a scanner hopping channels. There's congratulatory back-slapping, then reminiscing about past cases, followed by straight-faced discussions about the spike in weapons seizures and the growing street buzz about gangs. The unit's leader is Lt. Derek O'Mary, who took over the 10-man squad two years ago. During his tenure, the squad reportedly has seen a 600 percent increase in drugs seized. O'Mary expects 2006 will be a banner year, and gives credit to his men. "This unit, as small as it is, is having an impact," he said. "We hear about it from people on the streets. They're changing the way they do business because the word's out." Every man in the unit, O'Mary says with obvious pride, has been trained in technical surveillance, woods surveillance, interrogation, and special weapons and tactics. The training allows them to handle both investigations and actual arrests. That sets them apart, he said, from many other similar units. "You look at these guys and they look very ragtag, but I'm telling you they know what they're doing. It's comforting to work in the company of these folks," O'Mary said. After taking the handguns and marijuana confiscated earlier in the day to the courthouse, the team stopped for a 15-minute dinner. Gathered around a table at a relatively empty sub shop, the detectives downed hot sandwiches and playfully argued about what neighborhood "hot spots" they were going to focus on for the rest of the shift. Two hours after dinner, O'Mary parked himself near an alley he knew to be a meeting place for drug deals. His unmarked patrol car idled next to a storm sewer brimming with trash. He got out and did a slow walk around the edge of the area, stopping to talk with residents and the occasional pedestrian ambling down the dark, empty street. O'Mary said one of the things he likes most about the unit was the wide variety of work the men did in a single shift. The detectives could spend hours staking out a single parking lot, or spend the night patrolling known drug areas and making arrests the unit refers to as "takedowns." O'Mary joined the Sheriff's Office after four years in the Air Force. In two years, he rose to the rank of investigator. He has spent 11 out of 16 of his years in law enforcement in drug investigations, and can rattle off drug street names and gang symbols as easily as he can recite the alphabet. O'Mary said the drug problem in Durham was like a "dam that springs a leak -- you plug it with a finger and soon you're running out of fingers and toes." Less than a decade after the city seemed reluctant to admit to a gang problem, O'Mary and his men have seen record numbers of weapon seizures, as well as drug busts ranging from marijuana and cocaine to heroin. On Jan. 6, a stakeout in the 600 block Belt St. resulted in the recovery of 1.76 ounces of heroin. The estimated street value: $25,000. Foot chases, flashing lights and police "10" codes notwithstanding, O'Mary pointed to a big difference between daily life in his unit and what the general public sees on television cop shows. After searching a vehicle for evidence of crack cocaine, the detectives shook hands with the people and tell them to stay safe. After a similar, almost strangely polite interaction, a man O'Mary's unit just searched said he didn't have enough gas in his car. O'Mary reached into is wallet, handed the man a few $1 bills and told him to "stay warm." "This is why [my men] are so successful," O'Mary said. "You don't have to be a jerk to people." Still, O'Mary keeps a predatory instinct. "It's a cat-and-mouse game," he said. "If we don't catch 'em this time, we'll get 'em next time."

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Let's Admit It - The Good Five Cent Cigar

2006-02-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

But how can we expect it to be? Its staff is composed of hard-working, full-time college students, living on tight deadlines and meager stipends. For providing such an invaluable service to our community, the staff members of the Cigar deserve far more credit and compensation than they current get. They also deserve our understanding when their articles don't reach the highest echelons of journalistic excellence. This is why I was not shocked and appalled when the Cigar reported earlier this week that LSD is primarily used as a date rape drug, it is most popular between the ages of 12-25, and its sole source is the Hells Angels ( "Retired investigator says heroin, LSD use growing in popularity", 2/7/06 ). These claims, made by retired investigator Gino Rebussini, range from exaggerations to blatant fabrications. Had the reporter had the time and resources to investigate this, Rebussini would not have been able to spread misinformation so easily. But we know the Cigar is doing the best with what they've got. Journalistic integrity, however, is not as optional as journalistic excellence. So when a reporter intentionally misrepresented my stance to further his own agenda in yesterday's Cigar, I was shocked and appalled indeed. Anthony Maselli came to me last week looking for confirmation of his suspicion that President Carothers' intention in softening the campus marijuana policy was simply to boost the university's image by yielding fewer arrests. While I admitted that I could not be certain of the Carothers' intention ( since I had not yet spoken to him about the issue ), I noted that his past actions would not lead me to believe that this was the case. The following quote - part of an e-mail interview with Anthony - sums up the view that Students for Sensible Drug Policy ( SSDP ) and I hold: "For years, President Carothers has worked alongside SSDP in our efforts to repeal the law that denies federal financial aid to people with drug convictions. I cannot be certain of his intentions this time around, but he has often expressed a willingness to keep students out of the criminal justice system and in school. In any case, the actual effect of this policy is much more important than the intentions behind it. If this policy results in a decline in student arrests, that is an image the university can rightly be proud of. However, there are several images that the university cannot rightly be proud of. A "scarlet letter" taped to a student's door in Narragansett. A dismayed student looking on as his dorm room is searched without his consent. These are not images to be proud of. But - oddly enough - I can be pretty sure that President Carothers' intentions are pure, even while supporting the policies that create these demoralizing situations. Just as - oddly enough - I suspect that Anthony Maselli's heart was in the right place even as he injected his own bias into a supposedly unbiased news article. But good intentions only go so far when good actions are left behind. Yesterday, I received a personal apology from Anthony, which I now publicly accept. I forgive you. In the same way, it is my hope that SSDP and I will work alongside President Carothers and that he will come to realize that imposing harsh, invasive disciplinary policies has done more harm than good to this university. Perhaps he will even work with SSDP to sculpt sensible campus policies for alcohol and other drugs - policies that respect a student's autonomy and privacy, while also helping that student when he or she is in trouble. Rhody Rides is an excellent first step. For students interested in working with SSDP on these issues, we invite you to an event, co-sponsored by Students for Social Change, called "Dinner, Dessert, and Dissent." It will be held in the Union 193 Coffeehouse, today from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. As the event title suggests, you will be well fed. Sincerely, Micah Daigle URI Students for Sensible Drug Policy Editor's Note: The Cigar offers an apology to Micah Daigle, President Carothers and other members of the administration for the clear bias in Maselli's story.

Whoa On Drug Testing

2006-02-11T12:51:00.000-08:00

I am a prosecutor in York County, but I live in James City and have two children who are graduates of the school system. There is no question that drug and alcohol use are an issue in our community. I see the effects of abuse every day in our court system. But I take issue with leaping from recognizing there is a problem to assuming that random drug testing of high school students is the best, or even the most advisable, solution. The Supreme Court has ruled that these programs are constitutionally permissible, but it has not addressed their viability. That is not their function. It is that of the school system. When both the Gazette and the school system freely admit that there is no empirical data to support the effectiveness of random student drug testing, but that doing something rather than nothing is advisable, I have a problem. At a minimum, if the proposed program is to proceed, there should be a sunset provision with a review of the data to judge effectiveness. At a minimum, we should be exploring what programs have been utilized by other school systems with documented effectiveness. Beyond the bottom-line issue, I have the following concerns about the program being proposed. 1. If part of the first-time positive drug tester's treatment is a five-part education-treatment program, wouldn't all students, particularly middle school students, benefit from exposure? Prevention means stopping the behavior before it starts. 2. How does confidentiality not become a phantom concept if students begin disappearing for two weeks at a time from activities? 3. The program has no exception for students who are given alcohol by their parents under their supervision and control. Virginia Code 4.1-305 allows parents to give alcohol to their children "by order of parent," as do parents in other countries within their own homes and under their authority, i.e., the taste-of-wine-with-dinner concept. 4. Withdrawing positive samples on school property is indicative that students are in possession of alcohol or drugs ( on school property ), a violation of Virginia state law. Are James City County officers or prosecutors comfortable with/able to overlook actual violations of criminal law? I suggest utilizing programs with proven effectiveness. I would explore securing grant funding for a drug dog devoted exclusively to use in the school system ( overseeing parking lots, lockers, classrooms, school buses ). Yes, it wouldn't catch every user, but neither will a random 10% testing policy. Its advantage is that it is established practice, accepted by the students, and is directed against everyone, not just kids who would be deterred by testing from participating in positive school activities . Once drug users are detected, utilize the existing framework for supervision and treatment within the court system. First-offender possessors of alcohol and drugs face treatment, supervision, an analysis of what other services are needed, continued drug testing, and have the opportunity, after dealing with the wake-up of a judge and the court system, to have the contact wiped off their record. The second contact carries real consequences with a proven track record. I ask that our school system and parents consider all options to select the one most effective in guiding students to legal, healthy behavior. Nancy Bolash James City