Group Seeks OK For Medicinal Use

The Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana is confident that it will gather enough signatures of registered voters to qualify its proposed initiated act for the Nov. 2 general election ballot, a spokesman for the group said Friday.

Chloe Crater of Little Rock declined to disclose how many people have signed the group's petition for the proposal.

The alliance needs to turn in the petition with at least 64,456 Arkansas registered voter signatures on it by July 2. It must be turned in to the secretary of state's office. Attorney General Mike Beebe's March 12 approval of the popular name of "The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act" and its ballot title allowed the alliance to start collecting signatures.

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Fighting crime and the prevalent use and manufacture of methamphetamine fall in the same web for the Saline County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

"Meth manufacturing and abuse creates a ripple effect in our society," Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld said. "Within a short time of becoming addicted, addicts typically turn to crime to feed their habit.

"They will beg, borrow and then steal and do whatever else they have to do to get meth. Crimes such as hot checks, shop-lifting, prostitution, burglary, and even assault, rape and murder are usually related to meth abuse in one way or another."

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FAYETTEVILLE -- Police K-9 teams sniffed for the title of top drug dog Friday when the National Narcotics Detection Dog Association wrapped up its annual convention.

The week-long convention, hosted by the Fayetteville Police Department, drew dogs and their police officer partners from across the country.

More than 150 dogs trained all week in Fayetteville, searching for drugs hidden in designated buildings and buried outdoors. About 40 earned annual NNDDA certifications by detecting marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.

Police rely on certifications from NNDDA and other groups, plus in-house training to keep their dogs sharp. The Washington County sheriff's office and the Fayetteville, Bentonville and Johnson Police Departments certified K-9 teams this week.

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LITTLE ROCK - As the state continued its roundup Monday of 32 men mistakenly paroled on methamphetamine convictions, some legislators questioned whether Arkansas's treatment of methamphetamine crimes is overly harsh.

The Department of Correction error, which surfaced last week, revived a debate over drug sentencing that began in 1999, when legislators decided to require that methamphetamine manufacturers serve 70 percent of their sentences.

"We have created a monster here because we have taken away a judge's right to make sentencing decisions," said Rep. Jan Judy, D-Fayetteville. The state granted the 32 early releases by misreading inmate intake forms, said Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Correction.

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PARAGOULD -- The sixth grade class of Oak Grove Middle School may not be finished with school this semester, but they've already had one graduation.

On Friday, the class of 218 students officially graduated from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

Mike Carter, principal at OGMS Middle School, noted his support of the program, as it allows students to familiarize themselves with local law enforcement officers and learn the dangers of drug abuse.

The 10-week program, which was taught by Cpl. Ryan Shrable, of the Paragould Police Department, aimed to educate students of the ills of drug abuse and violent behavior.

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The Atkins School Board Tuesday of last week voted to suspend the district's drug policy. The action was taken after an executive session for the purpose of discussing the rehiring of the district's principals. The suspending of the drug policy was because the board now thinks that drug testing should be based on a random sampling of the entire student body. The present policy was based on a sampling of those students who participate in activities.

The building principals were rehired for the 2004-05 school term: Rebecca Sheets, elementary; Allen Wilbanks, middle school; and Robert Travis, high school. Also hired after the executive session was Janet Pitts as middle school library aide.

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64,456 Signatures Needed by July 2

Advocates for using marijuana as a doctor-prescribed pain reliever finally got the legal OK on Friday to begin collecting signatures to put an initiated act on the Nov. 2 election ballot.

After more than four months of rejecting the proposed act over ambiguous language, Attorney General Mike Beebe agreed to the latest wording of the popular name of "The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act" and its ballot title.

"I'm thrilled. It's been a struggle to get the wording right," Denele Campbell of West Fork, executive director of Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said Friday.

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A Cannabis Cooperative Buyer's card from Oakland is not a get-out-of-jail-free card in Pope County, one of four California men and women learned during bond hearings Wednesday at the Pope County Detention Center.

After landing in the Pope County jail following a traffic stop on Interstate 40 Sunday morning by Arkansas State Police Trooper Roby Rhoads, the 25-year-old Clovis, Calif., man will not pass go or collect $200 after bond was set at $75,000 commercial by Russellville District Judge Don Bourne.

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NEWPORT, Ark. (AP) - The Arkansas Department of Correction has reprimanded one of its math instructors after he substituted units of cocaine and methamphetamine while testing inmates on their multiplication skills.

Instead of using apples and oranges to calculate ratios, the instructor at the Grimes Unit prison used rocks of cocaine and meth ingredients. Among the questions: . "Rico sells 422 rocks per week in four different territories. He wants to expand to seven different territories. If he continues to sell at the same rate how many rocks per week will he sell in seven territories?"

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Rock musician and avid sportsman Ted Nugent will speak out against alcohol and other drugs in Russellville during a regional planning meeting aimed at addressing the methamphetamine problem in a 10-county area. The meeting will be held Sept. 29 at Tucker Coliseum at Arkansas Tech University.

The event is being hosted by the prosecuting attorneys in three judicial districts -- David Gibbons (5th District, which includes Pope, Johnson and Franklin counties), H.G. Foster (20th District, Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties) and Tom Tatum II (15th District, Conway, Yell, Logan and Scott counties).

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Four fifth grade students at Pinkston Middle School were treated to a limo ride Monday for their efforts in D.A.R.E. class -- Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

Allison Bonner, Kasey Hutson, Maddie White and Michael Nuzum won first and second place honors for their posters and videos. Each project was aimed at preventing their peers from abusing drugs and alcohol, according to D.A.R.E. officer Sgt. Ralph Bird.

"These projects were fantastic," Bird said. "With the newer technology the videos keep getting better and better, and the artwork on the posters was great." The winners were treated to a limo ride courtesy of Sundowner Limousines and lunch at Pizza Inn. Wal-Mart also contributed to the day's events.

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You know, I've always liked Rush Limbaugh, I began listening to him probably more than 15 years ago. I thought at first he was a joke, a parody of conservatism, whose sole purpose was to inflame and incite discussion and debate.

To tell you the truth, I really don't know that I was wrong. Sure, Limbaugh was bombastic, egotistical, and sometimes more than a little hard to live with. But, he was entertaining, which is why he became a virtual one-man industry, besieged by imitators but never matched for pure virtuosity of the medium he has commanded so well for so long.

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Red Ribbon Week Festivities Are In Full Swing At Rector Elementary School This Week.

On Monday, Oct. 27, the school was decorated with red ribbons on "Let's Color The School Red" Day. Ribbons were handed out to all students and staff members to wear during the week.

Tuesday, Oct. 28, was "Put A Cap On Drugs" Day. Students and staff were asked to wear their favorite hat or cap.

Days remaining in the week are as follows:

- -- Wednesday, Oct. 29, is "Take A Stand For A Drug-Free Land" Day. Students and staff are asked to wear red, white, and blue to show pride for a drug-free country.

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Despite the recent creation of a drug task force in the Benton County Sheriff's Department, the drug problem in the county is getting worse, Sheriff's Department Captain Tom Brewster said Oct. 14.

Brewster addressed the drug problem in Benton County and northwest Arkansas during a talk at the Senior Protection Academy in the Sheriff's Department headquarters.

The academy is one of a series of periodic seminars held by S.A.L.T. (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together), a group of citizens selected on the basis of leadership abilities from communities throughout the county.

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BULL SHOALS - A group of people from law enforcement and other public service agencies sat around tables at a resort here last week, a view of trees changing into fall colors and Lake Bull Shoals picturesque all around.

Most were from various agencies across the 14th Judicial Circuit, covering Baxter, Boone, Marion and Newton counties, and they'd been invited to discuss the ever-growing problem of methamphetamine. As the day wore on, Lyle Scott, assistant chief of police at Mountain Home, brought reality into the discussion. He said that after doing preliminary figures he could count about 12 different meth labs that had been busted within a one-mile radius of the resort, which resulted in numerous arrests, during the last year. "I don't think people understand how devastating this is to our community," echoed Baxter County Sheriff's Sgt. Ralph Bird. The summit was a day-long meeting of many people from agencies concerned with drug abuse in the area, but all agreed that methamphetamine is the worst problem of all illicit substances abused. To make that even more believable, Duane "Snowball" Griffin with OMART Chemical Free Living Center said that during the 2002 fiscal year some 46 percent of participants entering the program listed methamphetamine as their drug of choice and 58 percent listed it as number two on the list As the meeting began, officials explained it was arranged by the North Arkansas Drug Awareness and Prevention (NADAP) council. Marion County Sheriff Carl McBee thanked everyone for attending the seminar and asked them to be creative in coming up with ways to fight the growing meth problem. "'Just say no' is not going to work," he said. Keith Rutledge, state drug director, explained that the state Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention (ADAP) council had received a $500,000 grant to find a way to stop methamphetamine abuse. NADAP received some of that money to fund last week's meeting, NADAP director Andrea Parton said. Rutledge told the group that most addicts are finally influenced by the "two Js," which he explained stood for the "judge" and "Jesus," adding that most addicts have a spiritual vacancy that led them to drug abuse. He also said that addicts must be taught the four Rs before they can be ready to kick the habit, which include responsibility, restitution to community and family, respect for themselves and others and restoration to reality to confront the other three items. Rutledge said the best "soldiers" in the war on drugs are those addicts who have recovered from being a "casualty" of the war itself. Parton offered a presentation on ways to fight drug abuse in general, including tobacco and alcohol. She said the more people from different walks of life that are involved in the fight the better the chances of winning. But before the group could discuss ways to fight the problem, it first needed a basic understanding of the drug and manufacturing process.

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Guidelines Seen As Too Rigid, Unfair

U.S. District Judge Stephen M. Reasoner recently shook his head from the bench, looked out across his Little Rock courtroom and asked a question more and more federal judges are contemplating: "Why am I here?"

Little Rock attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. recalled the judge uttering those words in frustration at a sentencing hearing last month for one of Hall's clients, who had been convicted of a drug charge.

Reasoner was reacting to the rigid mandates of federal sentencing guidelines, which judges must follow except in rare circumstances. While the guidelines are designed to give judges some leeway within a mathematically deduced penalty range, in this case the range was narrow: 120 to 121 months.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

'Tough-On-Crime' Hits the Bottom Line.

Larry Norris's job is to keep some of the toughest, most dangerous criminals in Arkansas locked up. "Skittish" is not a word that applies to the director of prisons.

So it was significant last May, when Norris told state legislators that the situation he faces is "scary."

After 30 years of policies born out of promises to be "tough on crime," Norris and other state officials are finding themselves in a corner. They are surrounded on all sides by numbers - and the numbers relating to prisons are menacing.

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Regarding your article, "Deputy smells marijuana in vehicles" (June 17):

This is a common tactic of law officers, whether they actually smell marijuana or not. Predatory policing like this is common, usually directed at the young and/or minority drivers. A friend of mine here in Wisconsin recently was subjected to a similar arrest, despite the fact the car did not smell like pot.

All the folks described in their story, and anyone who may be a target of this kind of predatory enforcement should exercise their Constitutional rights to decline consent to a search, and to remain silent. Law officers have plenty of real crime to attend to, and targeting youth for unconstitutional searches does nothing to address the real threats to public safety.

Know your rights and exercise them. File a complaint if you believe you have been mistreated, and file suit if you have a case. This kind of abuse will continue only if we allow it.

Gary Storck

Madison, Wis.

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Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Correction, talks recently about the impact methamphetamine cases are having on the prison population. A new law requires those convicted on meth-related charges serve no less than 70 percent of their sentence.

Inmates convicted of methamphetamine-related drug charges are stacking up in Arkansas prisons.

And a strict, new sentencing law for methamphetamine-category convictions that requires the convict to serve no less than 70 percent of sentences given by the courts has put nearly 600 meth dealers in prison with sentences that run an average of seven years longer than those being served by non-meth drug offenders, according to Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Correction.

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Inspired by a new nationwide study reporting that drug testing does little to curb student drug use, a Conway man says he wants the Conway School District to reconsider its drug-testing policy.

But board members, who voted 4-3 in August to approve a policy to randomly test students involved in extracurricular activities, have no plans to reconsider, School Board President Terry Fiddler said.

So far, less than a year after implementation, administrators consider the program a success, Fiddler said.

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