Jay Steffler spent more than eight years in pain and in bed after a hospital accident that left him with a rare ailment called reflex sympathetic dystrophy. With many of his nerve endings constantly firing, Steffler, a Pittsburgh piano player and documentary maker, tried treatments from spinal blocks to acupuncture, from anti-epileptic drugs to hypnosis. Nothing helped for more than a short time, he said, and he was in near-constant pain.

In 1999, Steffler took what he considered to be the desperate step of contacting McLean pain doctor William E. Hurwitz, who had a controversial national reputation for his use of high-dosage opioids to treat and control pain. Steffler, now 44, said he had been given only small doses of opioids before seeing Hurwitz because his doctors were concerned about addiction and about drawing unwanted regulatory attention to themselves.

[continues 332 words]

PLUM: The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, which has been absent in the Plum School District for nearly two years, is scheduled to return next month.

Plum School Board's education committee has signed off on the 10-week program, which will be taught by Plum Police Officer Mark Kost, who serves as the district's school resource officer, and Ed Kruse, the department's juvenile-crime detective.

The program will be presented to the district's 10 classes of sixth-graders.

[continues 274 words]

The first time self-described marijuana-legalization spokesperson Patrick Duff smoked weed, he was an 11-year-old kid in Delran, N.J. "I was a very adventurous young man," says Duff, who, when he didn't get high that first time, wondered what all the hype was about.

He couldn't have known that he and Mary Jane would have such an enduring, committed relationship.

Sixteen years later, Duff found himself hosting Open Minds, an hourlong weekly program on New World Radio 1540 AM. For an eight-week, buy-your-own-airtime stint that began in October, Duff -- along with a ganja-themed local hip-hop act, Herbillest -- provided a local forum for legalization activists to state their case to Philadelphians.

[continues 622 words]

TOWANDA - You're standing in line at the local supermarket, when you notice something very strange going on.

The person in front of you is purchasing not one or two boxes of a common cold remedy, but 10 or even more.

Or perhaps you spot someone at a local automotive supply store in the process of purchasing a whole case of car starter fluid - even though only one can is necessary to get a car started.

Maybe you've noticed strange odors constantly coming from a neighbor's residence - odors that indicate some kind of chemical reaction is taking place on the premises. Or maybe you've observed that your neighbor generates lots of trash that he treats in a very unusual manner. According to a presentation given Tuesday at the Bradford County Courthouse, these and other signs are indications of the manufacture of methamphetamine.

[continues 672 words]

The moralizers are trying to muck with U.S. science again.

A flurry of activity over the last few weeks has followed the effort of the Traditional Values Coalition, a right-wing religious group, to call into question almost 200 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants focusing on behavioral and social aspects of issues such as sexuality, HIV/AIDS transmission, and drug abuse.

This incident could have been written off as noise by a fringe group had it not come almost on the heels of the near-passage in the House of Representatives last July of what came to be known as the "Toomey Amendment," after its author, Rep. Patrick Toomey (R., Pa.). By a vote of 212-210, the House just missed defunding four NIH research grants on sexual behavior that had already been through rigorous scientific peer review and approval by NIH Institute National Advisory Councils.

[continues 590 words]

Hurrah for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. While the war on drugs in America has helped pave the proverbial road to hell with good intentions -- and even the U.S. Supreme Court has blinked at civil rights violations flowing from anti-drug fervor -- Pennsylvania's top court has offered a ruling full of good sense.

In a preliminary phase of a case, a three-justice panel ruled Nov. 20 that "suspicion-less" drug testing in high schools in the commonwealth was a problem under the state constitution, even though the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled such searches constitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

[continues 409 words]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 -- A federal prosecutor in Baltimore was found dead with multiple stab wounds on Thursday in a creek in a rural area of Pennsylvania, hours before he was scheduled to appear in court in the case of a violent drug ring.

The prosecutor, Jonathan P. Luna, was stabbed repeatedly, and an autopsy showed signs of freshwater drowning, Dr. Barry Walp, the coroner for Lancaster County in eastern Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

The body was discovered about 5:30 a.m. near a rural highway in Lancaster County, the coroner said. Mr. Luna, 38, was dressed in a business suit but had no identification on him. It was not until several hours later -- after the prosecutor failed to show up in a Baltimore courtroom, some 50 miles away -- that the authorities established his identity, Dr. Walp said.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A desire to discourage drug use among students is not a sufficient reason to justify 'suspicionless' drug screening targeted at student-athletes, parking-permit holders and extracurricular-activity participants, the state Supreme Court ruled.

The justices turned down the Delaware Valley School District's attempt to have a lawsuit in Pike County dismissed, meaning a legal challenge seeking to block the testing filed by two sisters -- who had passed the drug screening and have since graduated -- and their parents can proceed.

[continues 294 words]

BERWICK -- The borough has thrown out the results of the recent drug tests of Berwick police officers and has agreed not to make the findings public, officials say.

Thirteen police officers here were surprised Nov. 17 when they were told to go to Berwick Hospital for drug tests. Only a few members of council knew about the tests, which were authorized by Borough Manager Molly Sprung. Borough Council President Lucille Whitmire said the borough had "probable cause" and the legal right to do the testing.

[continues 96 words]

HARRISBURG - A desire to discourage drug use among students is not a sufficient reason to justify "suspicionless" drug screening targeted at student-athletes, parking-permit holders, and participants in extracurricular activities, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

The justices on Thursday turned down the Delaware Valley School District's attempt to have a lawsuit in Pike County dismissed, meaning a legal challenge seeking to block the testing can proceed. The challenge was filed by two sisters, who had passed the drug screening and have since graduated, and their parents.

[continues 343 words]

Thanks for publishing an honest letter concerning the misplaced priorities of our law enforcement officers ("Potheaded police work," Nov. 12).

With the recent high school drug raid in Goose Creek, S.C. ("Drug war's storm troopers," by Bill Steigerwald, Nov. 16), it should be apparent to everyone that our law enforcement officials need some guidance on setting priorities.

Each year they tell the public that the scourge of drugs must be dealt with by approving larger and larger budgets. But it's our own prohibitionist laws that create an unregulated black market and make a weed such as marijuana worth its weight in gold.

[continues 75 words]

Long before Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey and the counterculture generation discovered hallucinogenic drugs, the Indians of western Mexico were using peyote to commune with their gods.

Anthropologist Peter T. Furst, who spent 30 years among the Huichol people, says that Indian shamans have been using hallucinogenic plants as a doorway to the divine for thousands of years, likely following a tradition carried by their ancestors over the Bering Strait.

And now, some U.S. scientists are exploring how these substances might be used by doctors to battle anxiety, mental illness and alcoholism.

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Rush Limbaugh's recent admission that he has an addiction to prescription narcotics has thrust OxyContin back into the spotlight. The potent painkiller has been in and out of the headlines for about two years, ever since addicts began injecting it to get a heroin-like high.

A Newsweek headline blared, "Rush's World Of Pain: His Path To Pill Addiction . . . The Scourge of OxyContin." Elsewhere, the medication has been demonized as "hillbilly heroin"; Fox's Bill O'Reilly called it "liquid heroin."

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Mayor Street could not have set the scene better on Election Day if he had tried. Marlon Magill, a 30-year-old machinist, talked about the Safe Streets crime-fighting program when asked why he had just voted to give the mayor four more years.

"Look at the neighborhood," said Magill, gesturing toward the area around his polling place at Ninth and Lehigh in North Philadelphia. "There are no drug dealers on the corners."

Magill is not alone in his praise for Safe Streets. To many Philadelphians, it has been the saviour of their neighborhoods. Where before they hid from drug dealing taking place on the cornier, now neighbors sit on the steps, children play on the sidewalk.

[continues 437 words]

So Gary Ridgway of Seattle will be spared the death penalty for killing 48 women ("Man admits to killing 48 women," Nov. 6).

It took authorities two decades to catch him. Too bad they "just didn't have the manpower to spare" to find mass murderers such as Ridgway. They sure caught a lot of pot growers in that time, though. Thank God for that! We can all sleep safe knowing those menaces to society are safely behind bars.

Yep. Cleaning up society. Making the free world safe from potheads while some sociopath runs around for decades murdering women.

Where do they get these law-enforcement and legislative geniuses? When the heck are they going to get their priorities straight?

Ginger Warbis

Monessen, PA

[end]

Patients can now use buprenorphine to kick their heroin and OxyContin addictions in private.

Beth Worthy had a loving husband and two small children at home, yet she found herself in the middle of a rundown apartment complex, knocking on the door of a dealer who could give her the pain medication she so desperately craved.

"I remember my heart beating and the rush to get up the elevator," the 31-year-old said. "It was scary."

Indeed, Worthy's life was scary.

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Because of Bridgeville Police Department's intervention, seventh-graders at Chartiers Valley Middle School in Collier may receive DARE instruction this school year after all.

The program was to be discontinued in early September when Collier, which has supplied two DARE officers to the district's primary, intermediate and middle schools, decided to not participate.

Township officials cited studies that have questioned the effectiveness of the training as the reason for their decision, which knocked out DARE instruction at the primary and middle schools. The fifth-grade program was impacted, too, though officers from Scott thought they could fill that gap.

[continues 298 words]

It's a massive undertaking and maybe the most ambitious specific anticrime initiative of any American city -- with a mandate to shut down open-air drug markets in a city full of open-air drug markets. But the mission of Operation Safe Streets, according to the Philadelphia Police Department's website, goes even further, using the Operation's enormous multi-year $75 million budget to improve quality of life in city neighborhoods devastated by drugs and to drive the dope peddlers inside, where they'll presumably be easier to track and eventually arrest.

[continues 855 words]

CANTON -- Fifth-grade teacher Theresa Stimson quieted the students as they sat in the gymnasium bleachers waiting for their guests to arrive. As Deputy Montana of the Bradford County Sheriff's Department came in there were mixed reactions to the 100-pound Rottweiler.

Montana and his owner Deputy Michael VanKuren were there to teach the fifth-grade classes part of Week 4 of the D.A.R.E. education -- the use of canines to locate drugs.

Despite the sober topic, VanKuren had the classes laughing as he explained his partner's training and how they work together. "He thinks we are playing," said VanKuren, "when he is searching."

[continues 269 words]

Those involved should see harm they bring upon others.

If Roberta and Dominic St. George had been standing in their living room Wednesday evening at 8, instead of sitting, they would have been innocent victims of a gang-warfare shooting, they say.

John Need, too, could have been wounded or killed by the bullets that smashed a window of the house of John Need.

If anyone had been sitting at the table or in the chair for the computer of Quinta Krombel, she said, "they would have been hit."

[continues 170 words]

Pro-medicinal marijuana groups are cheering over the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that physicians can discuss the treatment option of medicinal marijuana with their patients without risking prosecution.

"The Supreme Court's decision not to take the case is probably the most significant court action on the medical marijuana front in two decades," said Robert Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), a lobbying group whose goal is to replace marijuana prohibition with a regulated system.

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Two lieutenants who publicly spoke out about alleged drug smuggling, drug use and inept management at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility were suspended indefinitely with pay Monday night.

Lieutenants John Barry and Genny Butczynski said despite their suspensions, they've heard from other prison officials that they might be fired by the end of the week. "I'm not surprised," Lt. Barry said of the suspensions. "The public has a right to know what's going on so they want to get rid of us."

[continues 640 words]

WASHINGTON - It was a small step for the Supreme Court, but one giant leap toward a sane drug policy.

I'm talking about the high court's refusal Tuesday to hear the Bush administration's appeal of a lower court ruling allowing doctors to recommend the medicinal use of marijuana to their patients.

Had the Supreme Court decided to hear the case, it would have had a golden opportunity to rip the innards out of laws various states have already passed to legalize or decriminalize the medicinal use of marijuana.

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It's been a tough two weeks to work at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.

A high-profile inmate made a daring escape last week. And now three corrections officers have been arrested along with two inmates on drug-related charges.

The arrest of three corrections officers, said prison Capt. Al Ottensman, "is embarrassing, to say the least."

Ottensman, who helped found the 7-year-old Straight-Up anti-drug program, which takes inmates into area schools to teach children about the dangers and consequences of drug use, said the arrest of the three officers reinforces a message he and Straight-Up co-founder Paul O'Malia have been trying to get across for years: drugs are not dependent on age or occupation.

[continues 384 words]

An undercover drug probe at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, under way since last July, has produced the arrests of three prison guards and two inmates.

Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas Thursday said the prison drug investigation has nothing to do with last week's prison break involving Hugo Selenski and Scott Bolton.

"It's a separate matter," Lupas stated.

The DA commended Warden Gene Fischi for helping to trigger the investigation by coming to him with information last July. At about the same time, state police investigators were gathering their own information relative to suspected illegal drug activity inside the prison.

[continues 839 words]

With 12 suspected drug dealers in jail and four on the run, one may think the Central Susquehanna Valley's law enforcement community may have scored a major victory in the war on drugs.

It was touted that way by Attorney General Mike Fisher and other officials on Thursday when they held a news conference to announce the arrests.

In many ways, the arrests may be a victory.

If the allegations prove true in court, those charged are responsible for bringing $2 million worth of cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana into the Valley in the last three years.

[continues 191 words]

He was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Camden. N.J. state police were ordered to release the footage.

Deborah Johnson had waited eight months for this moment, unable to sleep through the night - ever since Jan. 29, the day a New Jersey state trooper killed her son as he fled a traffic stop. She needed to know what happened.

It took a federal court order, but on Friday the state finally provided her family with videotapes of what happened, as filmed from the dashboards of three trooper cruisers.

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MIFFLINTOWN - The Rotary Club at Mifflintown invited a guest speaker Thursday at their weekly luncheon meeting at Truck Stop 35.

Special Agent John Barrett from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) addressed the group, stressing the importance of community activism to combat the local drug problem.

Barrett has 15 years experience with the DEA and began his career in Newark, NJ, working for two years there. In 1990, he made the move to the gang-infested Los Angeles area.

After eight years in California, he was assigned to Puerto Rico for three years. As Barrett put it, "I came to the lovely Harrisburg just over two years ago and I am enjoying it immensely. It is good to be back on the mainland."

[continues 747 words]

Rush Limbaugh, the most successful conservative radio personality ever, must come clean over allegations of drug abuse, or he's toast.

I say this sadly, since I'm one of Rush's 23 million fans.

Allegations that he illegally obtained and used huge amounts of addictive pain pills like OxyContin, the "hillbilly heroin," can't be papered over with "let's stick to the issues," as Rush told his listeners yesterday.

Unless he proves the allegations are false, he is no better than those goofs on the left whom he regularly derides as "long-haired, dope-smoking, maggot-infested" wackos.

[continues 693 words]

Well, if it wasn't racism that drove Rush Limbaugh to spout one of the most bigoted comments of even his storied career last Sunday, then maybe it was the OxyContin.

By now, the allegation that Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat prescription drug junkie has supplanted the brouhaha surrounding his observations about black quarterbacks being "media darlings" as the hot topic around office water coolers.

Days earlier, "Ditto-heads" reflexively weighed in with condescending bravado that their hero, though often, um, impolitic about race, surely wasn't a bigot. Why? Because he said so, that's why.

[continues 631 words]

Jeffrey Miron '79, one of the nation's foremost libertarian thinkers, brought economic analysis to focus on the issue of drug legalization last Thursday as he launched the department of economics' annual lecture series.

In the hour-long talk, mandatory for Economics 1 students, Miron argued that drug prohibition's large costs to society are not outweighed by the dubious advantages conferred by lowered drug consumption. Miron, a professor of economics at Boston University, said he hoped that even if some audience members did not agree with his conclusions, they would attempt to appreciate the economic arguments he presented.

[continues 412 words]

Even professors are not above using drugs to get attention.

Last night, Bioethics Professor Glenn McGee admitted to his audience, "I'll be blunt, I wanted to pack the house," as his reasoning for choosing Ecstasy and its medical usage as the focus of his lecture.

McGee's lecture entitled "Ecstasy: A Drug That Will, Er, Won't, Er, Might Be Bad, Uh, OK For You, Maybe -- Bioethics and the Bungling of MDMA" drew a crowd of about 80 to the Bodek Lounge of Houston Hall.

[continues 404 words]

Since becoming police chief in Kennedy, Anthony Bruni has sought to fine-tune his force by reorganizing its leadership and setting up beat patrols.

Recent changes and additions to the department continue to move Bruni's vision forward.

Officer Thomas Ficarri, sworn in Sept. 8, is the third police officer to be hired since Bruni became chief.

Additionally, the post of deputy chief was created and filled by Sgt. Robert Hull, of Kennedy, who has been on the police force for 10 years. He became sergeant eight years ago.

[continues 703 words]

Osama bin Laden may still be on the loose, but on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks the federal government was able to take down a far greater menace: Tommy Chong. The actor-comedian, one half of the '70s Cheech & Chong comedy duo, was sentenced yesterday Downtown in U.S. District Court to nine months in prison and was fined $20,000 after pleading guilty to drug-related charges.

Getting Chong off the streets is seen by many as a much-needed victory in the nation's cultural Vietnam, the war on drugs. Not that Chong is going to jail for possessing or distributing drugs. The hedonistic hippie is going to jail for possessing and distributing pipes that could be used to smoke them.

[continues 296 words]

This is in response to your Sept. 12 article on actor-comedian Tommy Chong being sentenced to prison for selling marijuana bongs and pipes. The first line of your story is a poor, out-of-context tease: "Actor-comedian Tommy Chong admits he had become the pot-smoking loser he once played in the movies. As a result, his freedom will go up in smoke ...."

Chong's complete quote is this: "I admit I did become that character for a while. I'm back to who I am."

[continues 106 words]

Pickets Staged In Front Of Offices In Lehighton And Stroudsburg

Drug and alcohol caseworkers in Lehighton and Stroudsburg marked Addiction Counselor Appreciation Day on Wednesday by picketing their own offices to protest deep state budget cuts.

The Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission lost $917,000 in state money this year and in response laid off six of its 50 employees, raised fees charged to some of its poorest clients and eliminated most short- and long-term treatment options, manager Joe Guardiani said.

[continues 418 words]

PHILADELPHIA - In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.

Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.

[continues 736 words]

PHILADELPHIA In the two years since law-enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers.

Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car.

[continues 444 words]

Having a methadone clinic in a neighborhood is safer than having active drug addicts living there, a local drug and alcohol counselor says.

Ed Pane, executive director of the Serento Gardens drug and alcohol program in Hazleton, lauded the approval by Luzerne County Court of a methadone clinic in Plains Township.

Pane said such a clinic is desperately needed in Luzerne County.

"We are losing 97 percent of the heroin addicts we treat here because we can't keep them," Pane said. "The heroin overdose death rate in Luzerne County is higher than the rate in Brooklyn. Aside from alcohol, heroin is the second biggest problem we have."

[continues 251 words]

Pittsburg - Tommy Chong, who played one half of the dope-smoking duo in the Cheech and Chong movies, asked for leniency from a judge Thursday but was sentenced to nine months in prison for conspiring to sell drug paraphernalia.

Chong's lawyers argued for no jail time, saying the Edmonton-born actor and comedian would use his celebrity to become a role model against drugs and would dedicate his life to public service. The 65-year-old apologized to the court and his family, saying he "got carried away" with his movie character.

[continues 180 words]

Standing in line to take a mandatory drug test is becoming part of the back-to-school scene for more local students.

Hampton School District is the latest northern school to weigh in on the drug-testing controversy, with the school board expected to act this fall on a proposal to test students suspected of using drugs.

The district would join Carlynton, Seneca Valley in Butler County, Canon-McMillan in Washington County and Franklin Regional in Westmoreland County as more schools move toward mandatory drug testing.

[continues 1011 words]

The article "Teenager Recalls Spell Marijuana Cast Over Her" (Aug. 7) repeated nearly every myth and urban legend about marijuana as if they were proven facts. Most were refuted long ago. To take just a few:

Today's marijuana is not seven to 14 times stronger than what was used in the late 1960s. As University of Southern California psychology professor Mitch Earleywine explains in his book, "Understanding Marijuana" (Oxford University Press, 2002), these calculations are based on small numbers of poorly stored samples in which the THC (the component that produces the "high") had degraded.

[continues 154 words]

BENTLEYVILLE - Bentworth School District is considering joining the ranks of public schools with student drug testing policies.

The school board will seek input from other districts with such policies, including Canon-McMillan and Seneca Valley in Butler County.

"It's in the very preliminary stages," board President John Petrisek said at a meeting Monday. "We're looking at the pros and cons."

Bentworth solicitor Matt Hoffman on Monday provided board members with legal options on enacting such a policy, discussing recent federal and state lawsuits questioning the constitutionality.

[continues 220 words]

As overall crime continues to diminish in Philadelphia, violent crime - including homicide and gunpoint robberies - is on the increase.

At the same time, police are arresting fewer people and solving fewer crimes. Those are the highlights gleaned from the latest crime statistics released by the police department.

The trend appears to present the biggest challenge yet for Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, who has pursued a far different policing strategy than his predecessor, John F. Timoney, since taking over in early 2002. That strategy relies less on arrests and more on police presence in high-crime areas.

[continues 1023 words]

"Thumbs up" and "thumbs down" are quick takes on the week's news.

As President Ronald Reagan is supposed to have remarked to Pope John Paul II, "It hurts, getting shot." Both men should know; both survived bullet wounds. Now-retired Erie police officer Terry Dawley would no doubt agree. He has been shot twice in the line of duty. And the wounds he suffered during an arrest three years ago have ended his career. Dawley was shot in the left hand, knee and right thigh; he lost the full use of his hand. This week, he retired after 13 years' service. Dawley was "the guy you write books about," one police lieutenant told our reporter, the ultimate S.W.A.T. policeman, the most decorated officer ever to serve the city of Erie. Yes, some Americans have become skeptical of the militarization of police work. Yes, we see how Hollywood romanticizes violence in its police movies. Neither of those criticisms applies here. Terry Dawley always had a fine reputation as a policeman. And he was also never afraid to speak his mind, in public and in print. "I can't even tell you how much I miss it," he said of his former profession. We wish him well.

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Maggie didn't plan to smoke marijuana. But she invited a friend to sleep over one night, and the friend showed up with some pot, a little something from her older sister.

Maggie was 14 years old. Her parents hadn't warned her about drugs except to say, "Don't do them," words that had no impact. If she'd had any drug education in school, it hadn't stuck with her.

Looking back now at age 18, after five months of a 10-month residential drug treatment program at the Cornell Abraxas Center for Adolescent Females, she realizes that she really didn't know anything about marijuana.

[continues 916 words]

County Prison

WILKES-BARRE - Last time Nicole LaTorre got drug treatment, it was 24 hours a day for 28 days. It didn't work.

Now that the 23-year-old is locked up at Luzerne County Correctional Facility on drug-related charges, she's trying treatment again. She gets about four hours a week.

Why should it work now?

"I feel it in my heart this time. I truly believe. I want this," she said.

Drug experts say LaTorre's resolve will play a role in her fight to stay clean, but without intensive treatment she faces long odds against success.

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Hempzels Combine the Nutritious Meat of Shelled Hemp Seeds With Traditional Pennsylvania Pretzel Mix

Shawn House's recent personal life has had more twists and turns than the hemp pretzels that he is marketing locally, regionally and across the nation.

Not long after buying Hempzel Pretzel Co. in July 2000, House and his wife were divorced. Several months later, he fell off a two-story roof and severely injured his arm.

On Mother's Day 2002, while moving from his old office in Blue Ball to one in downtown Lancaster, he was involved in an automobile accident and hit an Amish pony cart.

[continues 1124 words]

Babs Stewart of Butler doesn't need a tour of the county jail to know the harsh realities of a drug arrest. She doesn't need an explanation of the booking process, the strip searches, the delousing.

Stewart needs only to look to her immediate family.

Stewart's 19-year old son is addicted; he's doing his second stint in jail for violating probation. And she's the one who put him there. She knew he was using again after being in jail once, and called to have him picked up by his probation officer.

[continues 1025 words]

Local researchers have joined an international trial of a marijuana-based drug that could limit the damage caused in traumatic brain injuries.

Dr. Jack Wilberger, chairman of neurosurgery at Allegheny General Hospital, will be leading the local arm of the study, which began here about 10 days ago.

Dexanabinol, a synthetic drug, is derived from the active agent in cannabis, or marijuana. It acts on the so-called secondary injury process, which is a chemical cascade that leads to progressive brain cell death after the initial trauma. The drug counters inflammation, works as an antioxidant and blocks the uncontrolled influx of calcium into the cells, which can kill them.

[continues 293 words]