Narcotics Officials Say Manufacturers Difficult To Locate In Rural Areas

COLUMBUS -- Although marijuana and cocaine are still problems, the growing prevalence of methamphetamine presents difficult challenges to narcotics officers, Lowndes County law enforcement officials say.

"Marijuana is still the most popularly used drug, and cocaine is still common, but the big problem now is meth," said Tammy Prescott, public relations specialist with the Lowndes County Sheriff's Department. "Two years ago, Lowndes County had the most meth labs in the state of Mississippi, but we took them down and ran a lot of them off."

[continues 371 words]

The question is whether Oregon, if this particular law is passed, would take the wrong step in its efforts to restrict access to medications that contain pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient of crystal meth.

The state House of Representatives this week approved, by a 55-4 vote, a measure to require people to have a doctor's prescription if they want to buy medicine that contains pseudoephedrine. Observers expect the bill to pass the Senate, and the governor also supports it.

Other supporters of the prescription-only bill include one representative who said the current laws - restricting pseudoephedrine medications to pharmacies, keeping them behind the pharmacist's counter instead of on shelves and requiring buyers to show identification - are not tough enough. (Those restrictions, incidentally, are similar to ones enacted this year by the Mississippi Legislature.) The Oregon lawmaker said he and three colleagues shopped for cold medicines on Monday and in one hour got their hands on enough of it to make crystal meth to last four users for several weeks.

[continues 223 words]

Friday evening, the town of Shelby received a dose of excitement when several arrests were made and a search of Mayor Robert Patton's was conducted.

Around 9:15 p.m. Friday, Mayor Patton said that he heard a knock at his front door. He explained that before he could open the door, agents with Mississippi Bureau of Investigation were in his home.

"When I got to the den, the state and federal police kicked the door in and shouted for me to lay on the floor," said Patton. "I did what I was told because I was brought up to always respect and obey the law."

[continues 319 words]

Incident Clouded In Secrecy

What's with the secrecy?

It's common knowledge all over Bolivar County that the Drug Enforcement Agency raided homes and made some arrests last weekend at Shelby.

Unfortunately most of the talk about the incident is filled with speculation and rumors. That's because so far the DEA has been unwilling to discuss the matter.

Clearly such an unusual incident is going to generate a lot of talk, but when the details aren't clear people who may have had nothing to do with the incident can find themselves included when the authorities fail to set the record straight.

[continues 262 words]

SHELBY - On Friday the Drug Enforcement Agency made a major bust in Shelby, but so far the agency hasn't been willing to discuss what happened.

On Friday evening, DEA made an undisclosed amount of arrests in Shelby.

The agency did not work with the Shelby Police Department, but did seek aid from the Bolivar County Sheriff's Department.

Allegedly, $180,000 cash, an undisclosed amount of uncut diamonds and various narcotics were retrieved from Mary Sutton's home. She was arrested on charges stemming from the incident.

[continues 85 words]

The Modesto (Calif.) Bee said in a recent editorial:

Methamphetamine has become the No. 1 drug problem in a vast swath of the nation, according to a new survey of county sheriffs across the country.

That's hardly a news flash, but there may be a silver lining of sorts in the ugly cloud of toxic waste and human destruction meth casts over the communities where it proliferates.

Now that the problem has clearly become a national one, various efforts to combat the drug may be stepped up. That's surely good news for the San Joaquin Valley, once the undisputed center of national meth manufacturing and still home to a huge portion of the problem.

[continues 233 words]

Random drug testing policies were adopted last week by the Board of Trustees of the Philadelphia Public School District in an effort to give students in grades seven through 12 a reason to say no to performance-enhancing and illegal drugs as well as alcohol, school officials said.

The policies will be outlined in an informational public meeting on Aug. 11 in the high school cafeteria beginning at 7 p.m. as well as provided to students when classes resume.

Students involved in extracurricular activities such as sports, cheerleading and band will be tested randomly as well as students who school officials suspect might be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

[continues 443 words]

If the increasing numbers of methamphetamine users in the San Joaquin Valley don't strike fear into your pocketbooks, consider that 70 percent of Fresno's identity theft cases are committed by meth addicts.

They stay up for days finding ways to steal your personal financial information and then use it to run up thousands of dollars in purchases in your name.

It is time to get serious about these two growing crimes... the penalties must be stiffened for both crimes. Right now, the crooks see these crimes as essentially free rides.

[continues 249 words]

ICE Team Works To Slow Down Drug Traffic Through Jones County.

The proliferation of drugs throughout America is such that no one agency can stop it completely. In many cases the amount of illegal drugs and the money derived from the trade resembles a flood that has for years spread throughout every state in the union.

There are a lot of holes in the dike. Law enforcement agencies, including the Laurel Police Department, are trying to plug those holes.

But even the officers whose task it is to transform that steady flow into a trickle know the flood gates can't be closed completely.

[continues 939 words]

Gov. Haley Barbour named Marshall Fisher head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics in June. Fisher has worked in law enforcement for 28 years, first in theTyler, Texas, police department before moving to the DEA.

Shortly after busting several men in San Antonio for cooking crack cocaine on a kitchen stove, Marshall Fisher sat holding a 2-year-old boy in diapers on his lap.

Tears rolled down the toddler's cheeks as he watched drug-enforcement officers put handcuffs on his father and uncle.

[continues 416 words]

PURVIS - Hundreds of students in Lamar County schools would be tested annually for drugs under a new policy approved by the county school board.

Under the policy, all students involved in extracurricular activities must take at least one drug test at the beginning of the season and random tests will be given to about 100 students at various times throughout the year.

A student who fails a test must sit out 20 percent of a season or 20 percent of a year's activities. Second and third offenses are more serious, with students being kicked off the team for the season or being banned from any sports or extracurricular activities for the rest of the school year.

[continues 134 words]

CANTON -- Three teenagers became the first to complete a Madison County program designed to combat juvenile substance abuse.

One of the graduates is a 17-year-old college-bound freshmen who scored 32 on the ACT. Another has obtained his GED, and the third was excused from the ceremony because he had just begun working at a full-time job. His mother accepted his diploma.

U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, a former circuit judge who founded the state's first felony adult Drug Court in 1999 in Lincoln, Pike and Walthall counties, spoke at the first graduation ceremony for the Madison County Juvenile Drug Court.

[continues 277 words]

$474 Million Loss Nationwide Has Officials Worrying About Future

The loss this year of a $474 million federal grant program to combat drug crimes nationwide has Mississippi law officers wondering how they will keep up the fight in their communities.

The seven-member Smith County Sheriff's Department stands to lose $21,000 because federal Byrne Grants, which are intended for violent and drug-related crimes, will be taken away from law enforcement programs and diverted to homeland security programs.

"In a little rural county like ours, that almost cuts the drug agent out," Smith County Sheriff Charlie Crumpton said.

[continues 314 words]

Officials Hope Random Testing In Various Activities Will Cut Down On Drug Use

Dusty Acy, a senior on the power-lifting team at McLaurin High School, can bench press 330 pounds.

Tyler Sanders, a ninth-grader at Northwest Rankin High, is more comfortable lifting pawns and queens as an award-winning chess player.

Sanders and Acy might not have much in common, but both will be subject to random drug testing under a Rankin County School District policy starting this fall.

[continues 505 words]

Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure?

Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good."

[continues 576 words]

Board Member Says There Has Been Spike In Drug Problems

Oak Grove high school senior Erica Taite said she doesn't see a drug problem at her school, but she believes having a drug testing policy in place will only help avoid one.

"I've never seen drug use at the school or when I go to a party," she said. "I'm not saying there isn't any drugs, but the people I'm friends with don't do them."

[continues 423 words]

There are three big reasons to believe the Supreme Court made a big mistake in its June 6 ruling that the laws in California and 10 other states allowing medical use of marijuana are no protection against federal raids and prosecutions.

First, morality: By what license, in a free and democratic society, do we deny clearly effective medication to fellow citizens, suffering chronic, horribly intense pain that's resistant to other treatments? Maybe that's why, in a national poll released June 13, 68 percent of Americans opposed (only 16 percent favored) arrest of medical marijuana users.

[continues 622 words]

WASHINGTON - Colombia's request for an additional $150 million to strengthen its anti-coca spraying program was rebuffed Thursday by a House appropriations subcommittee.

It comes soon after new data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime indicated Colombia achieved only a modest reduction in coca cultivation despite heavy spraying, with more coca being grown in Peru and Bolivia. Coca is used in the production of cocaine.

However, lawmakers on the foreign operations subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee did approve $463 million requested by the Bush administration for Plan Colombia, a massive anti-drug effort.

[continues 185 words]

'Education is always the key,' sheriff says

JACKSON COUNTY - The East Central Civic Association hosted a town hall meeting Tuesday night to arm parents with information on how to prevent children from using drugs and alcohol.

District Attorney Tony Lawrence, Sheriff's Capt. Ken Broadus and Children Coalition director Jim Yancey spoke to about 70 parents and community leaders on the options they have concerning teen drug use.

"Education is always the key in something that's harmful to our society," Sheriff Mike Byrd said. "It all starts with education and knowing what to look for."

[continues 248 words]

WASHINGTON - Exasperated by pessimism about the "war on drugs," John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, says: Washington is awash with lobbyists hired by businesses worried that government may, intentionally or inadvertently, make them unprofitable. So why assume that the illicit drug trade is the one business that government, try as it might, cannot seriously injure?

Here is why: When Pat Moynihan was an adviser to President Nixon, he persuaded the French government to break the "French connection" by which heroin came to America. Moynihan explained his achievement to Labor Secretary George Shultz, who said laconically: "Good."

[continues 675 words]