CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Each summer, West Virginia State Police helicopters search state hilltops, and tons of prime marijuana plants are seized and destroyed. Thus the state's most valuable agricultural crop -- which could provide enormous tax revenue -- is wasted. Meanwhile, thousands of luckless young West Virginians sit in prison cells on "pot" charges, while taxpayers cough up millions for their keep. When the convicts eventually are released, they are partly unemployable and their lives are permanently marred. This costly police-and-prison "war on pot" is somewhat a reprise of Prohibition, when America foolishly tried to stamp out alcohol. Prohibition created organized crime, causing bootleg murders and payoff corruption -- yet it failed absurdly. [continues 346 words]
Long Court Battle Coming Obviously, no schoolteacher should show up for class reeking of whisky, or puffing cigarettes, or stoned on pot. As far as we know, none of these ills afflicts Kanawha County schools seriously. But the school board is so obsessed by the possibility that a teacher might use dope that it is squandering a lot of taxpayer money on the hazard. So far, the board has spent $25,000 - the school taxes from perhaps 1,000 families - for lawyers defending the board's attempt to impose random drug testing on teachers. [continues 376 words]
New Drug Safer For Addiction Treatment Mental health centers across West Virginia are promoting a new treatment for painkiller addiction. The treatment program - an alternative to methadone clinics - includes counseling and the use of a relatively new medicine called Suboxone. "It prevents somebody from getting high when using an opiate drug," said Genise Lalos, director of addiction services with the Prestera Center. "It blocks the high. This is the gold standard for treating opiate addiction." Last week, Prestera and three other nonprofit behavioral health centers - Seneca Health Services of Summersville, Valley Health of Huntington and West Brook Health Centers of Parkersburg - received a $360,000 grant to promote the new treatment program over the next two years. The organizations serve 40 of West Virginia's 55 counties. [continues 795 words]
Officer begins walking high school beat in St. Albans Patrolman Mike Page moved through the bustling cafeteria at St. Albans High School on Tuesday, shaking hands with students and flashing smiles. It was the second day on the job for Page, the school's new prevention resource officer, but it wasn't exactly unfamiliar territory. "The kids know me. I play basketball with them. I lift weights with them," he explained. "It's not like I'm a stranger." - advertisement St. Albans Principal Tom Williams said Page's presence will be felt throughout the school day and across the campus. [continues 390 words]
Drug's Bad Press Shouldn't Harm Treatment For Addiction The recent increase in negative perceptions of methadone as a treatment for opiate addiction and the potential that has for limiting treatment alternatives for the citizens of West Virginia is a cause for concern in the health care community. I am a member of the Board of Directors of CRC Health Group, Inc. -- as well as someone who is proud to have spent a significant amount of my professional life supporting effective drug and alcohol treatment. [continues 663 words]
Number Drops From 37 in 2005 to 16 in 2006 Putnam County Sheriff Mark Smith believes law enforcement officials have turned a corner in the fight against the methamphetamine drug trade. In 2006, 16 labs were uncovered in Putnam County -- fewer than half the 37 labs found in 2005. This year's drop also comes just two years after authorities discovered 50 drug labs at Putnam County sites. Only seven of the 2006 labs were actually being operated when deputies found them. [continues 360 words]
America the Stockade THE International Center for Prison Studies, part of King's College in London, has published a new study of prisoners in various countries. China, the world's most populous nation with nearly 1.3 billion residents, has 1,548,498 people in cells, putting it second on the worldwide list. America, with 300 million people, has 2,186,230 locked up -- ranking first by a wide margin. Other nations in the top 10 of jail populations are: Russia, 869,814; Brazil, 361,402; India, 332,112; Mexico, 214,450; Ukraine, 165,716; Thailand, 164,443; South Africa, 157,402; and Iran 147,926. [continues 195 words]
Kids across America are warned to stay away from "nose candy" in anti-drug campaigns. But a Kanawha County student is fighting his suspension for pretending to put actual candy up his nose. According to a lawsuit filed in Kanawha Circuit Court Monday, a student-athlete at Sissonville High School was given Smarties candy as a reward for good academic performance. In front of his teacher and fellow classmates, the student pretended to put one of the small candy discs up his nose. Another student used his cell phone to record video of the incident. [continues 352 words]
West Virginians apparently aren't as fond of marijuana and other illegal drugs as people in other states. The average numbers of West Virginians more than 12 years old reporting use of the drug from 1999 to 2001 were below national averages, according to a report released by the U.S. Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration. On average, 3.5 percent of West Virginians surveyed in that time said they had tried marijuana in the last month, compared to 5 percent nationally. About 1.4 percent of state residents said they had tried the drug for the first time in a given year, just slightly less than 1.6 percent of average Americans. [continues 468 words]
Counties that enact successful programs eventually could see crime rates drop, they say, as the uneducated and the drug-addled get the schooling and counseling they need to become productive, law-abiding citizens. "Sure, for most people in County Commission offices, it's about bottom-line dollars," said Steve Canterbury, the head of the state Regional Jail Authority. "But it does have many other benefits." $1 Million In Jail Debt Harold Mullins is one of the convicts who has received a second chance from an alternative-sentencing program. [continues 623 words]
More People Reporting Possible Labs In the early morning hours of Feb. 17, a group of firefighters from Kanawha County dug through the rubble of a house that had just burned to the ground. One by one, the firefighters picked out camp stoves, matchbooks without their striker pads and empty boxes of cold pills. Dunbar firefighter Mike Hoffman knew what that meant. Another methamphetamine lab had burned down. In an interview a few weeks later, he said he was not surprised. [continues 834 words]
81 percent of drug abusers unaccounted for in federal report The latest federal numbers on painkiller abuse in West Virginia would be good news - if they were true. If a federal report released last week was true, only 34 people in the state would have sought treatment for abuse of "other opiates" besides heroin - such as OxyContin, Vicodin and Lortab - at West Virginia drug-treatment facilities in 2002. If it was true, West Virginia would have fewer painkiller addicts in its treatment clinics than any other state. [continues 547 words]
7 New Facilities Would Bring W.Va. Total To 15 Seven new methadone clinics are applying to set up shop in West Virginia, now that the state's moratorium on methadone clinic applications expired last week. The state Health Care Authority imposed the six-month moratorium to give itself a break from methadone hopefuls while regulators write the first-ever state rules for the clinics. Those rules won't be ready until early next year, said Sheila Kelly of the Department of Health and Human Resources. [continues 335 words]
As a psychiatrist, I have the privilege of treating people who have various forms of mental illness and substance abuse. I consider treating them a privilege because each person I've met in my office is a unique and valuable member of society with a story to tell, a story that must be heard by someone. To be able to participate in charting a course toward recovery for these individuals is a blessing to me. [continues 449 words]
Methamphetamine requires the simplest of ingredients. All of which are easily paid for at drug, hardware or department stores in most neighborhoods. Once the various pieces are placed together and cooked the right way, it completes a dangerously enticing puzzle that is wreaking havoc with police and lawyers. In courtrooms, methamphetamine is a popular term as well. Suspects are being charged under a new state law that allows officers to arrest anyone possessing ingredients used to create the drug because they are considered to be operating or attempting to operate a clandestine drug lab. [continues 948 words]
A corporation that runs a chain of methadone clinics has withdrawn its applications to open clinics in Greenbrier, Mercer and Mineral counties. National Specialty Clinics Inc. is in the process of being bought by a bigger corporation. CRC Health Group Inc., an 8-year-old corporation, became the nation's biggest for-profit provider of drug and alcohol treatment this year when it bought a group of clinics in the San Diego area. CRC now owns 30 methadone clinics in 11 states, including the Life Center of Galax, a southwestern Virginia methadone clinic that has vied with NSC in recent months for the right to open methadone clinics in Beckley and Roanoke, Va. [continues 253 words]
A local doctor has filed a letter of intent with the state Health Care Authority to start a methadone clinic to serve Montgomery and the areas of upper Kanawha, Clay and Fayette counties. Charleston has had a methadone clinic for almost three years. It sells doses of methadone, a synthetic and addictive drug similar to heroin and morphine, to people who are trying to stop abusing prescription painkillers. But the Charleston clinic, part of a national chain run by a for-profit corporation called National Specialty Clinics, will sell its methadone only to people who can pony up $12 a day in cash. That works out to $4,380 a year - and NSC won't bill insurance companies. [continues 292 words]
Editor: Last month I wrote a letter regarding my late brother, Steven Mark Merritt, from Charleston, who died from OxyContin and cocaine intoxication. I received numerous responses from people who complained that I did not love or respect my brother. Yes, I loved my brother. No, I did not respect his lifestyle of drugs and crime. I begged Steve in endless conversations to change and stop using drugs. He scoffed at me, and he also elected to turn his back on God, too! God is now his judge. [continues 78 words]
Booming Industry WE'VE ALWAYS felt that America's war on drugs is mostly an exercise in futility, a replay of the historic fiasco that occurred when Prohibition sought to stamp out alcohol. Repeatedly, we have urged that drug-users be given treatment instead of being jailed as criminals. Therefore, we're pleased that West Virginia is acquiring methadone clinics where OxyContin and heroin addicts can obtain a legal synthetic opiate for only $12 a day. This blocks their craving for costly street drugs, and reduces their need to steal to support their habits. If enough addicts turn to legal methadone, the criminal rings supplying illegal narcotics may lose their customers and go out of business. [continues 369 words]
It's 'Worse Than OxyContin Ever Dreamed Of Being' Methadone was the murder weapon a Mercer County woman allegedly used to kill a man in Montcalm in January, according to an indictment handed up last week. It's the third methadone killing Detective C.J. Smothers has investigated in Mercer County in the past year. Methadone has surpassed OxyContin as a killer drug in that area, he said. "God, this is worse than OxyContin ever dreamed of being," said Smothers, of the Southern Regional Drug and Violent Crimes Task Force. [continues 906 words]
