America's war on drugs is a glowing example of the success that can be achieved when a generation of people refuse to give up on a bad idea.

Millions of poor people and minorities have been locked up in our prisons and jails. Addicts receive mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes that are symptoms of their offensive disease. Our children are raised in an atmosphere of lies, fear and intolerance. Lives are ruined, prisoners are taken and drugs are, well, rampant.

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When Charles Lynch asked local officials for permission to sell an herbal medicine in the central California town of Morro Bay, they granted it to him -- even though the medicine was marijuana.

That's because marijuana recommended by a doctor has been legal in California since 1996. A dozen other states have passed similar laws. Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and New Hampshire are among about 10 states that have been debating similar measures.

So Charlie applied for a business license, joined the chamber of commerce, talked to lawyers and even called the Drug Enforcement Administration before opening his medical marijuana dispensary with a grand ribbon-cutting ceremony.

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A Warren Correctional Institution corrections officer from Dayton has been charged with attempting to sneak 200 grams of marijuana into the prison.

Stephen L. Howard, 49, appeared in Lebanon Municipal Court this week to face charges of attempting to convey drugs onto the grounds of a detention facility, a third-degree felony, and possession of criminal tools, a fifth-degree felony. Howard used hollowed-out markers and a Subway sandwich in an attempt to transport the marijuana from an outside dealer to an inmate, said Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Doug McKinney.

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Tallmadge -- The schools will have no program to provide drug and alcohol education to students until possibly 2010 since the cancellation of DARE, Mayor Christopher Grimm said, and some school representatives wish it could be offered sooner.

"I consider it more of a luxury item with the economy the way it is," Grimm said. "We're going to wait."

The mayor said the city hopes to eventually institute a program similar to DARE, which was canceled this school year in December to save money, he said.

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No-Cost Searches By Authorities Help Budget, Curb Abuse, Officials Say

Before police officers with drug-sniffing dogs scoured the halls at Mount Vernon High School on Tuesday, students were given a five-minute warning to come clean.

A few handed over prescription and over-the-counter medications hidden in their backpacks or lockers.

The hourlong building sweep that followed netted no illegal drugs, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a success, said detective Cpl. Matt Dailey of the Mount Vernon Police Department, who helped organize the search. "We want them to know that we're out there; we're watching."

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We've come a long way from "I didn't inhale," Bill Clinton's rather lame attempt to explain away a marijuana toke years before he became president. President Barack Obama has been candid about his use of marijuana and cocaine as a young man, when he was grappling with his identity. In his autobiographical Dreams From My Father, he wrote, "I got high (to) push questions of who I was out of my mind."

The revelation barely caused a ripple during the campaign.

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Dear Editor,

The presidents of South America are right to call for legalization of marijuana. They can no longer fight a losing battle against a foe that should be embraced. And, we can't afford to underwrite the activity. We can't afford to carry on the battle ourselves here at home.

We need a commodity, or resource, that we can exploit to the maximum. Marijuana is it. It is exploitable from agriculture to laboratories of pharmeceutica. Exploitable by state, industry, individually. Domestically and internationally.

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State Lawmakers Urged to Alter Sentencing Laws to Help With Crowding

The head of Ohio's prison system gave state legislators a no-nonsense budget talk yesterday, saying, "We've lost the war on drugs, yet we keep sending people to state prisons."

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, made an impassioned plea for sentencing reforms to divert more offenders from overcrowded state prisons and ease the burden on the financially strapped system.

The alternative: closing another prison in 2011, Collins told a House committee reviewing the state budget.

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NEW YORK -- Snap, crackle ... pot?

Bursting with indignation, legions of legalize-marijuana advocates are urging a boycott of Kellogg Co., including all of its popular munchies, for deciding to cut ties with Olympic hero Michael Phelps after he was photographed with a pot pipe.

The leader of one of the biggest groups, the Marijuana Policy Project, called Kellogg's action "hypocritical and disgusting," and said he'd never seen his membership so angry, with more than 2,300 of them signing an online petition.

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A puff a day might keep Alzheimer's away, according to marijuana research by professor Gary Wenk and associate professor Yannic Marchalant of the Ohio State Department of Psychology.

Wenk's studies show that a low dosage in the morning of a certain canavanoid, a component in marijuana, reversed memory loss in older rats' brains. In his study, an experimental group of old rats received a dosage, and a control group of rats did not. The old rats that received the drugs performed better on memory tests, and the drug slowed and prevented brain cell death. However, marijuana had the reverse effect on young rats' brains, actually impairing mental ability.

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You never know what you're going to get with Cheech & Chong.

Actually, that's not true at all. For the most part, you know exactly what the '70s stoner comedy duo -- known for its various hit movies, including their 1978 debut feature film, "Up In Smoke," which was the highest grossing comedy (over $100 million) of 1978 -- is capable of. However, the one caveat is apparently you never know what you're going to get when interviewing Cheech Marin, 62, and Tommy Chong, 70.

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SAN DIEGO -- I was glad to see George W. Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. And, frankly, I was a bit surprised I was glad.

I never had much sympathy for Ramos or Compean, disgraced law enforcement officers who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler, then lying about it. From studying the facts, hearing the arguments of the agents' supporters and interviewing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whose office tried the case, I'm convinced the pair broke the law and they were justly convicted and sentenced. Ramos received 11 years, and Compean got 12. Both will be released March 20.

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The Athens County Sheriff's Office has plans to reduce the drug usage in the area despite leaving a multi-county crimes task force.

The Major Crimes Task Force, started in April 2005, is law enforcement officers targeting drug and narcotic violations among other crimes, said Larry Mincks, the Washington County sheriff.

Washington and Morgan counties are the only members of the task force since early January when the counties decided to "refocus their man power" in places other than Athens County, Mincks said. He added Washington County needed its officers for homicides, attempted homicides and drug problems in their own area and couldn't send its officers on the one-hour drive to Athens County.

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In the past four years, violent crime has dropped a staggering 40 percent in Over-the-Rhine.

But an elusive and entrenched drug trade continues to thrive, one of the biggest deterrents to the neighborhood's transformation.

Last year through November, police made 1,470 drug-related arrests - the most of any city neighborhood, according to Cincinnati Police statistics. Many are considered nonviolent offenses, but statistics can be deceptive.

"Drugs go hand in hand with violent crime, and when a drug trade gets ingrained in a neighborhood for such a long time it's not easily removed," District 1 Captain Theresa Theetge says.

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I was glad to see that George W. Bush commuted the prison sentences of former Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. And frankly, I was a bit surprised I was glad.

I never had much sympathy for Ramos or Compean, disgraced law enforcement officers who were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler and then lying about it. From studying the facts, hearing the arguments of the agents' supporters, and interviewing U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whose office tried the case, I'm convinced the pair broke the law and that they were justly convicted and sentenced. Ramos received 11 years and Compean got 12. Both will be released on March 20.

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Authorities Credit Work by Informant; Latest Drug Suspect Gets 15 Years in Prison

A high-stakes Akron drug dealer has become the latest suspect stung by an attorney who became an informant for federal agents.

Chevaliee "Chevy" Robinson, 30, pleaded guilty last fall to charges of drug conspiracy and money laundering in U.S. District Court in Akron. He was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

His arrest and 29 others were made possible, federal authorities said, because of the undercover work of Robinson's former attorney, Frank Pignatelli.

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Despite Penalties, Scores Are Caught Each Year Trying To Smuggle Them In

The contraband was lobbed over the fence in tennis balls, swapped and swallowed from a shared cup of coffee, and tucked into gutted TV converters and hollowed-out books.

Some Ohio prison inmates with a craving for drugs regularly succeed in recruiting friends and family in hopes of scoring an illicit high behind the confines of the razor wire.

The methods used to smuggle narcotics into state prisons last year ranged from the ingenious to the obvious, but at least 115 attempts met the same fate: They failed.

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One benefit of decriminalizing or legalizing cannabis (marijuana) that doesn't get mentioned (Letter: Time to Decriminalize Marijuana Is Now, Jan. 12) is its potential to lower deadly hard drug addiction rates.

Lower addiction rates will come from more honest drug awareness programs which will make it difficult to brainwash students into believing lies, half-truths and propaganda concerning the relatively safe, socially acceptable, God-given plant cannabis. Youth who become adults will be taught the truth; cannabis is not nearly as dangerous as honest hard drugs.

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The parallels between the 1933 coming of Franklin Roosevelt and the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama must include the issue of Prohibition: alcohol in 1933, and marijuana today. As FDR did back then, Obama must now help end an utterly failed, socially destructive, reactionary crusade.

Marijuana prohibition is a core cause of the nation's economic problems. It now costs the U.S. more than tens of billions per year to track, arrest, try, defend and imprison marijuana consumers who pose little harm to society. The social toll soars even higher when we account for social violence, lost work, ruined careers and damaged families. In 2007, 775,137 people were arrested in the U.S. for mere possession of this ancient crop, according to the FBI's uniform crime report.

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It is time for Americans in all 50 states to realize the state and federal governments do not have the ultimate power in determining decriminalization and legalization of marijuana. Both would relieve the incredible overcrowding in prisons and would save millions, if not billions, each year spent to incarcerate pot smokers, buyers and dealers.

Federal and state prisons could be used as intended -- for violent crimes such as murder, rape, extortion, robbery, kidnapping, etc. Only the people have the voice to decriminalize and legalize marijuana, with provisions, of course, to match liquor laws as they apply to the average citizen.

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