But Treatments Centers Report Rising Admissions for Those Using The Drug CHARLESTON - New state and federal laws targeting methamphetamine makers and users might be contributing to a decline in the number of labs in South Carolina, but officials warn that the drug is still affecting many people. The top Drug Enforcement Administration agent in South Carolina said officers are seeing fewer meth labs nationwide. "We're seeing the same results that other states have seen, that the meth lab numbers are going down," John Ozaluk said. But "that doesn't mean that our meth problem has gone away." [continues 227 words]
Legislation could bring new meaning to phrase 'rolling a fatty' in time Let's face it, banning trans fats extends government power much too far into the private sector for comfort and takes nanny state-ism to a new extreme. Give people the choice to be fat if they want - at least, that seems to be how many people on campus feel. But many of these pro-personal responsibility advocates don't speak out against anti-drug legislation, and that just doesn't make sense. [continues 354 words]
CHESTER -- Police in Chester County Realize That Interagency Cooperation Is Essential to Fighting Drugs. But some agency heads disagree about how they should get along. In the coming weeks, Sheriff Robby Benson says he'll send proposals to the police chiefs in Fort Lawn and Great Falls, asking them to allow their officers to work together as a drug unit with his agency. Benson has had the same agreement with the Chester Police Department since 2003. Essentially, Benson says, the agreement means officers from Great Falls and Fort Lawn can work on cases outside of their towns as part of the drug unit. The chiefs and the sheriff would decide who heads the unit, and the agencies would divide the seized assets. [continues 607 words]
School students in Northeast Georgia are getting an "up close and personal" look at the dangers of methamphetamine, thanks to a new program which brings former addicts into the classrooms. The Faces of Meth program reaches throughout Northeast Georgia with a message - meth is dangerous and deadly. According to officials, nearly 2 million Americans are addicted to meth and one out of every 10 teens becomes addicted after trying the drug just once. "Northeast Georgia is no exception," said Sharon Lee, director of the task force. "The addiction rate is 95 percent after one try." [continues 249 words]
DPS Kicks Off Red Ribbon Week The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety kicked off its Red Ribbon Week celebration Monday at the department's headquarters. With approximately 50 people in attendance, ODPS Chief Wendell Davis welcomed and thanked them for participating in the celebration. "The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety encourages the citizens of Orangeburg to support activities that raise awareness and encourage prevention of substance abuse," Davis said. "We call upon every citizen to wear a red ribbon throughout the week in recognition of their commitment to a healthy, drug-free lifestyle and our commitment to a drug-free America." [continues 383 words]
When Bryson Fowler was 8 years old, he encouraged his 19-year-old cousin to stop smoking cigarettes and cigars, because it was damaging the teen's health. "My cousin almost died because he was coughing, and he collapsed," said Fowler, now 10. "When you take drugs, you lose all your energy." Fowler, a fifth-grader at Jesse Bobo Elementary, learned the importance of saying no to drugs at a young age through his school's participation in Red Ribbon Week. [continues 390 words]
Justice System Must Change,Mayor Tells Senate Task Force COLUMBIA - Charleston Mayor Joe Riley proposed anti-crime legislation Thursday to a state Senate task force, but some questioned whether the threat of longer prison sentences would help. Riley has responded to a surge in homicides and gun violence in Charleston by calling on the state to increase penalties for gun-related offenses and to pump money into South Carolina's backlogged courts, overwhelmed probation offices and overcrowded prisons. The nature of crime has changed due to the illegal drug trade, Riley said, and the justice system must change in response. [continues 820 words]
If students ("Students With Drug Offenses Lose Financial Aid," Wednesday) are convicted of murder or rape, they'd still be eligible for financial aid in school; this creates another facet of the Higher Education Act and aids policy discrimination that doesn't get mentioned by government supporters. Even if not convicted of a felony, but a misdemeanor, and charged for possessing the God-given plant cannabis (not a drug), one could lose their financial aid. Would students have lost financial aid if caught with alcohol? This provision of the Higher Education Act is bad policy that should be amended or terminated. Stan White [end]
Students who checked "yes" on the FAFSA application saying they have been convicted of a drug-related offense automatically lost federal financial aid in the form of Pell Grants, Stafford Loans and potentially state financial aid as well, but they may be able to win it back. For charges of possession, the first offense is loss of financial aid for a year. Second offense is two years and for a third offense, financial aid is suspended indefinitely. The policy has been in effect since 2000, when an amendment was added to the Higher Education Act, which was passed in 1965. [continues 400 words]
ANDERSON - Methamphetamine is becoming the drug of choice in South Carolina, creating paranoid addicts who turn to crime to support their habits, state and local law enforcement officials say. The drug's sale and manufacture is plaguing police and even firefighters, who sometimes are the first to discover where the drug is made. Officials say the drug is used by people of all walks of life. The labs - sometimes in the trunks of cars - are toxic fire hazards. "Right now we're dealing with a drug that has no demographics," said Michael Miller, director of the Anderson-Oconee Regional Forensics Laboratory. [continues 196 words]
Cindy Smith can't forget the images of Goose Creek police storming the halls of Stratford High nearly three years ago, forcing students to lie face down on the floor while dogs sniffed their book bags and the students themselves. Her daughters don't attend the school, but the Lexington County mother of two high school students joins thousands of S.C. parents who rely on school resource officers and administrators to keep their children's schools safe and drug free. [continues 385 words]
Officers Burn 8,000 Plants After Raid; No Arrests or Suspects More than $16 million worth of marijuana went to the animal shelter incinerator instead of the streets after drug agents raided eight irrigated fields in the woods of Lancaster County, S.C., Friday. Agents in a helicopter spotted the illicit crop near Cedar Creek Dam, about 50 miles south of Charlotte, around 3:30 p.m. Friday, after hours of fly-overs in the Wateree River area. The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office does air scans four or five times a year during the summer growing season, Lt. Lee Blackmon said. [continues 301 words]
Two Charged After Fountain Inn Officer Was Dragged By Car A Fountain Inn police officer shot a man in the chest after the officer was dragged by a car on Fairview Street, the police chief said. Detective R.C. Ladnier shot [Name redacted], 24, Greenville, after [Name redacted] tried to drive away while Ladnier questioned him about selling drugs at about 4 p.m. July 26, Fountain Inn Police Chief Keith Morton said. Ladnier reached for the keys to shut off the car which began to move and drag him. Ladnier fired one round and hit [Name redacted] in the right side of the chest, Morton said. [Name redacted] fled the scene but was stopped by another police officer about a mile away on Fairview Street. [continues 179 words]
Random locker searches, DARE officers and drug dogs are helping to decrease the number of drug incidents in Greenwood and Abbeville county schools. "In my findings, I was happy to discover that the number of students who have been caught with drugs has decreased. The percentage dropped 38 percent from the 2004 to 2005 school year," District 50 Assistant Superintendent Robert McClinton said. "Then, there were 13 incidents where students were found with drugs; this past year, there were only eight incidents. When you look at 16 schools with 9,400 kids in total population and you only have eight incidents, it's pretty good, but we would love for it to be none." [continues 431 words]
YORK -- Tosca, a nearly 70-pound Belgian Malinois canine, leaped up on her hind legs and parked her paws on a library bookshelf. Then she forced her black nose between two book spines. One book tumbled to the floor. Two more met the same fate. Then she found it -- a small black case filled with cotton balls that had been exposed to marijuana odor -- hidden behind the books. "She will alert on the faintest of odor," trainer Joel Raines said as Tosca sat and wagged her tail. [continues 512 words]
Officers Say Seizures Down As Fewer People Report Plants Local law enforcement officials know marijuana is being grown in the Orangeburg area, and are concerned that they are getting fewer tips reporting the plants. Lt. Todd Williams of the Selective Enforcement Division of the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office said information on marijuana growth has been diminishing for some time. "We started noticing about two years ago that we were not getting as many tips on marijuana grows," Williams said. "Last year this time, we had confiscated more than 100 plants. This year, we're just under 50. We know that marijuana is still being grown in the area, but our problem is the indoor growers." [continues 496 words]
CHARLESTON, S.C. - A federal judge approved a $1.6 million class-action settlement to compensate students who were searched during a 2003 high school drug raid in which police with guns drawn ordered students to the floor. U.S. District Judge Patrick Michael Duffy approved the settlement Monday in a lawsuit filed against the Berkeley County School District and the Goose Creek Police Department by students' families. Surveillance videotapes captured the raid at Stratford High School, in which officers drew their guns, ordered students to lie on the floor and used a dog to search them for illegal drugs. [continues 87 words]
An estimated 140 Stratford High School students searched during the school's 2003 police raid could receive individual shares of settlement funds between $6,000 and $12,000 as soon as September. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Patrick Michael Duffy gave final approval to the class-action settlement that pitted students and families affected by the police sweep against Berkeley County School District officials and the Goose Creek Police Department. The judge gave preliminary approval to the settlement in April. [continues 355 words]
A new issue has appeared lately in The Post and Courier op-ed pages: the "War on Drugs." There are strong feelings on both sides, and it's about time we had a thorough debate about what remains a huge feature of American policy. In 1971, President Richard Nixon coined the term, "War on Drugs," and since then the American government has failed to put a dent in the demand for illicit substances, let alone eliminate them. History proves the supply will always be there to meet demand. [continues 221 words]
Regarding the article concerning South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform: Regulating all drugs seems like a great idea. All the violence during the Prohibition era has, of course, been recycled to the drug trade. Treatment for users would be so much better than jail time and a lot cheaper for taxpayers. Fewer families would be broken up, and fewer kids would be unsupervised. It would be a lot less grief for all. The billions of dollars we have spent in the drug war seem to have gone up someone's nose or up in smoke. [continues 60 words]
Regarding Skip Johnson's May 30 plea for a sane drug policy: I feel compelled to second the motion. We fight cocaine and heroin-producing nations. We are killed and the governments turn "leftist." They know the problem is not that they supply drugs. It's that we demand them. We declared a "War on Drugs" that was lost before it began. And we state-sponsor the addiction of gambling that is as bad as any of the other addictions, with the possible exception of alcohol. [continues 250 words]
The recent opinion piece, "Drug legalization would help bring end to related crime" ignores the painful lessons we have learned about illegal drugs in America over the past several decades. Drugs such as meth, marijuana and heroin are illegal because they are harmful. The notion that making drugs legal would make our nation safer is absurd and contradicts the efforts of committed parents, teachers and community leaders who are working to keep dangerous, addictive drugs away from young people. In the opinion piece, it is noted that the goal of his group, "South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform" is to "legalize all drugs." What would South Carolina, or the United States, look like if we had just as many people using meth, heroin or marijuana as use cigarettes or alcohol? [continues 86 words]
The Post and Courier's May 12 front-page article that revealed the Charleston County Council had given $500 to a group that "aims to legalize all drugs" has kicked up a tempest and brought scorn on the council and on our organization. While that phrase and versions of it used by other news media are technically accurate, it is a gross oversimplification. The public has a right to a fuller and more accurate picture of who we are and what we stand for. [continues 888 words]
$500 From Budget Raises Questions Over Financing CHARLESTON - The chairman of the Charleston County Council said he was appalled the county put $500 in its budget to support a group that wants to reform South Carolina's drug laws. Council Chairman Leon Stavrinakis said he recently became aware of the money that another council member directed to South Carolinians for Drug Law Reform. "I'm appalled by it," Stavrinakis said. "I wish I had known." Councilman Henry Darby said he supported the donation because the state's drug laws need to be changed. [continues 279 words]
The FDA Becomes A Player In The Culture Wars Last Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued an announcement saying there were "no sound scientific studies" that justified the medical use of marijuana. The statement came at the behest of Capitol Hill lawmakers, in particular U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.). Hmm, thought The Eye, the congressional campaign diversion issues are popping up early this year. FDA spokesperson Susan Bro said the statement came from the combined review of past studies by the FDA, federal drug enforcement, and regulatory and research agencies under the aegis of the Health and Human Services Department. [continues 527 words]
New regulations aimed at curbing production of methamphetamine For allergy and cold sufferers this spring, finding relief in a popular nasal decongestant might not be as easy as heading down an aisle at the local pharmacy, as the television ad for Sudafed suggests. With new federal guidelines that took effect last week and a bill restricting the sales of pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in Sudafed, on its way through the state legislature, local pharmacies are stocking this over-the-counter drug behind their counters. They also are limiting the amount one person can purchase -- if they hadn't already. The regulations are all in an effort to reduce and deter the production of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant drug concocted with relatively inexpensive household items that has plagued communities in the Midwest and worked its way into the Upstate of South Carolina. [continues 620 words]
Marion School District 1 has become one of the 32 school districts in the nation to receive funding through a three-year Safe and Drug Free School and Community grant to implement a new mandatory, random and suspicionless drug and alcohol policy. Students in grades 7 through 12 who play any school-sponsored sport are subject to random testing to help fight what Marion 1 Superintendent Dr. Cheryl Allread called a "significant community issue." Allread said she is proud to be in a school district where people have stepped forward to address this issue. [continues 607 words]
COLUMBIA, S.C. - An associate warden at a state prison in Sumter County faces federal drug charges. Matthew Golden, 43, was arrested Wednesday and charged with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of crack cocaine, U.S. Attorney Reginald Lloyd said. The cocaine has a wholesale value of at least $100,000, authorities said. Golden is an associate warden at Wateree River Correctional Institution, a medium-security facility in Rembert. He has worked in the Department of Corrections since Nov. 13, 1984. [continues 70 words]
Stratford High Students, Lawyers Would Share in $1.6 Million Plan The controversial drug sweep in 2003 at Stratford High School also could be a costly one - to the tune of $1.6 million, according to a plan to settle a class-action lawsuit stemming from the raid. Under the plan, students in the hallway during the sweep would split $1.2 million. Their lawyers would divide an additional $400,000. The agreement also said the Berkeley County School District, Goose Creek Police Department and other defendants would admit no wrongdoing but would follow new school search guidelines. [continues 528 words]
Braves, Johnny Bravo Show Students How To Pull It Off On a mission to help children make smart choices, the Atlanta Braves Grand Slam Program made a stop at Felton Laboratory School on Tuesday. Emphasizing the four keys to making a grand slam in life -- staying in school, reading, staying physically fit and staying drug-free -- the program, founded in 1990, helps young people realize that, "Just like the Braves players hit home runs on the baseball field, they too can hit home runs by following these keys in the classroom," said Keith Roberts, community affairs coordinator for the Atlanta Braves. [continues 525 words]
Adderall has replaced marijuana as the most abused drug on Clemson's campus, said city of Clemson Mayor Larry Abernathy. Adderall, the most common prescriptive medication for ADD and ADHD, is also the most popular drug to those students wanting a quick "fix" of energy. "Adderall is a Class II controlled substance, the same classification as oxycotin and morphine," said Lake Jameson of Redfern Health Center. "In true ADD and ADHD patients, Adderall lets them focus and produces a normal state of mind. For someone without ADD, it acts like speed." [continues 641 words]
To the Editor: I'm writing about Harvey Neiblum's thoughtful column: "Should marijuana be a legalized drug?" (March 17). For those who say no, my question is why do they want marijuana to remain completely un-regulated, un-taxed and controlled by criminals? Only legal products of any kind can be regulated, taxed and controlled by any government. It seems to me that in order to properly evaluate our nation's drug policies, we need to compare and contrast our drug policies with those of another nation with dramatically different drug policies. I suggest that we use the Czech Republic for our comparison. [continues 193 words]
To the Editor: Regarding Harvey Neiblum's thoughtful March 17 column, if health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. [continues 96 words]
To the Editor: In response to Harvey Neiblum's call to legalize marijuana, we are, I think, just like so many others like us, exasperated by the ignorance and lack of compassion shown by the so-called drug warriors who, whilst claiming to have our best interests in mind, are, as we see it, actually the very people responsible for turning a large number of our inner cities into war zones; criminalizing large numbers of our young people and ruining race-relations by their targeting of ethnic minorities. [continues 291 words]
A federal judge on Monday slashed prison sentences for three former doctors from a now-closed Myrtle Beach pain clinic where federal prosecutors say drugs were illegally prescribed. In a federal courtroom in Florence, U.S. District Judge Weston Houck changed Michael Jackson's sentence to 30 months from 292, and Deborah Bordeaux's and Ricardo Alerre's to 24 months from 97 and 235, respectively, prosecutors said. Monday's resentencing hearing was scheduled after a federal appeals court ruled in 2005 that Houck, who first sentenced the three in 2004, could have used more discretion in those sentences. [continues 511 words]
THE BIGGEST WASTE of money in our state -- not to mention human potential -- is the hundreds of millions of dollars we spend every year locking people away. Of course we have to lock up violent offenders. But nearly half the 22,000 inmates in state prisons have never committed a violent offense. One reason: A quarter of all inmates are there for drug crimes, 10 percent for traffic offenses, and nearly as many for fraud. Some of these crimes were violent; others were not. [continues 475 words]
Got A Minute? It's interesting to note that legal drugs such as alcohol and tobacco cause more problems - family, health and economic - than all the illegal drugs combined. There is a prevailing theory that the use of soft drugs, such as marijuana, inevitably leads to the use of harder drugs such as heroin. That same thought pattern helped lead to Prohibition, which of course meant that no one would have alcoholic problems ever again. All that produced was that a non-existen organization, the Mafia, got a foothold in American society, which has since become emblazoned in concrete. [continues 885 words]
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Debate on a bill that would put some cold medicines behind the counter and require buyers sign a log will move to the Senate floor, following approval Wednesday in a Senate committee. The measure, similar to one in the U.S. Congress, would put cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, behind store counters. Methamphetamine is made with common ingredients, including the cold medicines, in makeshift labs that are prone to explosions. The labs leave behind toxic waste, and expose children to hazardous materials. [continues 541 words]
S.C. Man Accused Of Accepting Bribes CHARLESTON (AP) - A lab assistant charged with taking money to cover up urine test results has highlighted the state's lack of oversight of drug-test screeners. Neal Lamar Holmes, 41, of Charleston, was arrested last month on a charge of obstructing justice. He is accused of taking $90 total from two undercover agents to give clean test results. Authorities say it was not the first time Holmes had asked for money to alter tests. They believe he conducted at least hundreds of drug tests for the U.S. Probation Office and the U.S. District Court in Charleston during his three years as a drug screener. [continues 288 words]
WALHALLA - Methamphetamine, or just meth, is being called the fastest-growing drug problem in the country, and Oconee County is not immune. "It makes the crack epidemic of the '80s look like kids eating candy," said Michael Miller, director of the Anderson-Oconee Regional Forensics Lab. Mr. Miller said the number of meth cases his lab professes has gone from 12 percent to 68 percent in just the last couple of years. More than 50 people turned out Thursday at St. John's Lutheran Church in Walhalla to learn more about the epidemic at the second South Carolina Meth Watch program to be held in Oconee County. [continues 349 words]
Of the original participants admitted to an alternative program to help drug users kick the habit, one never showed up to court, another was given the boot for breaking the rules and the third left on her own. Not exactly the smashing success Horry County officials had hoped for, but not altogether unexpected, given the addictive nature of drugs and the myriad issues that drug court officials said they have had to work through since their first hearing Aug. 23. Recently there have been some promising signs that the six-month-old program is beginning to achieve its desired effect of straightening out the lives of residents who have either pleaded guilty to or been convicted of nonviolent drug-related crimes. [continues 991 words]
Plan Is To Put Medicines Behind The Counter That Are Used To Create Drug COLUMBIA - A Senate subcommittee passed along a bill Thursday that would put Sudafed and other cold medicines used to create the illegal drug methamphetamine behind the counter. The bill now heads to the full Senate Medical Affairs Committee. It would require that people buying the medication present photo identification and sign a log that includes their name, address and how much of the product they purchased. As approved by the House last month, the measure required pharmacies to send those logs to the State Law Enforcement Division, to be put into a central database for investigative purposes. [continues 271 words]
It started at a party. It ended in a suicide attempt. She'd smoked marijuana before, but not methamphetamine. When she saw the older kids doing it at the party, she decided to try it. She was 12. Now she's 13 and in rehab for meth addiction. Experts say meth -- a highly addictive and euphoric drug that was once associated with rural communities and rundown hotels -- is starting to show up in the littlest addicts. For teenagers who are now entering the criminal justice system and drug counseling programs, the appeal of meth is simple -- it's easy to buy and cheap to manufacture. Another impact isn't as alluring -- it kills. [continues 1045 words]
In a May 2003 issue of the Journal of School Health, an article entitled "Relationship between student illicit drug use and school drug-testing policies" studied 76,000 students across the United States and found no difference in drug use rates between students of schools that have drug testing programs and those that do not. In an era when steroid abuse is rampant across the media, one has to wonder whether school districts will jump on the band wagon and push for mandatory drug testing of their students to help control what the media portrays to be an impending epidemic. [continues 649 words]
Authorities Fear Border Counties Will Become Focus Of Meth Activity The methamphetamine legislation N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper lobbied for was just five days old when he realized his state is operating as an island. Officials say the new law, aimed at limiting the purchase of meth ingredients, has no major loopholes but one major pitfall - its jurisdiction ends at the state line. Bulk purchases of some cold medications are now illegal in North Carolina, but that's not yet the case in Virginia and South Carolina, a difference that authorities fear could make border counties, such as Horry and Brunswick (N.C.), into hubs for meth-related activity. [continues 1192 words]
Random Checks Using Dog Aims To Keep Drugs, Guns Off Campuses In Fort Mill Tosca, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, trots around cars parked in the Fort Mill High School student lot, her nose pushed against the sides of the vehicles. She holds back at one sedan, circling by the door. Then, after a few more good sniffs, she looks up at her handler and sits down. That's her alert signal. Tosca has been trained to recognize the scents of gunpowder and all sorts of drugs -- and she smelled something suspicious here. [continues 634 words]
Law Officers Like Cold-Remedy Rules; Pharmacy Group Raises Concerns Proposed state legislation calling for tighter controls on the sale of certain cold remedy drugs would put a major dent in methamphetamine production, the bill's sponsor says. But a pharmacy group has concerns that the bill would create a paperwork burden on its members. A bill proposed by Rep. Joan Brady, R-Richland, would require that all stores-- from pharmacies to convenience stores -- place drugs containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine as the sole active ingredient behind sales counters. [continues 291 words]
Inconvenience May Be Worth Safety A nightmare for police officers came true last week in Berkeley County, when two police officers were hospitalized after entering a house used as a meth lab. People who run meth labs produce methamphetamine, which, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, is a synthetic central nervous system stimulant that is classified as a Schedule II controlled substance. It is dangerous, and it is distributed across the nation under the names of "Crystal" and "Speed." [continues 327 words]
I'm writing about: "Bill would put cold medicines behind the counter" (The Gazette, Jan. 17). Keeping the ingredients of meth behind the counter is certainly a lot better solution than the previous nonsolution of building more and bigger prisons. Oklahoma learned the hard way that the so-called "tough on drugs" policies don't work and they are very expensive. Largely because of its "tough on drugs" policies, Oklahoma became the fourth-highest state for incarcerations. Largely because of our war on drugs policies, the United States has been transformed into the most incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization. Even though we in the United States have fewer than 5 percent of the world's population, we have more than 25 percent of the world's prisoners. In other words, one of four prisoners in the world is locked in an American jail or prison. What message does this send to the rest of the world? Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
Despite Efforts, Students Still Smoke Pot, Drink And Take Ecstasy Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series examining drug use at local high schools. FORT MILL TOWNSHIP -- Recreational drug use, from alcohol to cocaine, is a problem at Fort Mill and Indian Land high schools, educators and students say. How deep a problem the schools are dealing with, however, depends on how it's measured. In Fort Mill, for example, there are more than 2,000 students but only seven cases where drugs were confiscated in the past year and a half. Officials in Fort Mill say that's a strong indication the problem is not severe. [continues 535 words]
Inside South Carolina
