A Rehoboth Beach couple - the wife a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy, the husband a disabled veteran taking medication for schizophrenia - say Delaware State Police officers beat and used a stun gun on the husband after finding him giving his wife a sponge bath when the family home they were in was raided in a search for drugs in June 2014.

The couple, Ruther and Lisa Hayes, allege in a federal lawsuit that police commanders failed to train officers in the "constitutional bounds and limits concerning the use of force," especially when it came to interactions with disabled people.

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Pre-dawn police raids on suspected drug houses make for dramatic television. Too often in real life, however, these SWAT-like raids turn out to be mistakes, or, to put it more diplomatically, not exactly what the police had in mind.

The News Journal published a disturbing article about a lawsuit this week that raises questions about the police strategy when it comes to fighting the war on drugs. Delawareans should look at closely at the articles implications.

The article reports on a lawsuit filed by Rehoboth Beach couple against the Delaware State Police over their treatment during a drug raid on a Claymont house they were staying in. The wife is a quadriplegic. Her husband is a disabled veteran. They were not the subjects of the police raid, but they claim they were terrorized and mishandled by the police raiders.

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I read Jonathan Starkey's article "Will Delaware Legalize Marijuana" with great concern. The history of the tobacco industry in the United States has shown that there is tremendous profit in selling addictive chemicals for recreational use. A growing marijuana industry in the United States is applying lessons learned from the tobacco industry to marijuana. Unfortunately, the public and legislators are not being adequately informed of the dangers of this drug.

The use of marijuana is associated with memory impairment, impaired motor coordination (often resulting in motor vehicle accidents) and impaired judgment.

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Advocates of legalizing marijuana should be pleased: Legalization has strong support in Delaware, a 2016 target for the movement.

Legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use enjoys 56 percent support in the state, while just 39 percent oppose legalization, according to a new poll from the University of Delaware's Center for Political Communication. And the breakdown was the same when the sample was limited merely to registered voters, says Paul Brewer, CPC's associate director for research and professor in the Department of Communication and Department of Political Science and International Relations.

[end]

Immigration lawyer and columnist Christine Flowers calls cannabis consumers the "lowest common denominator" in a recent piece. The truth is quite the opposite.

The last three U.S. presidents admitted to an experience with the devil's lettuce along with scientists like Carl Sagan and possibly half of the NBA. In fact, 100 million Americans have tried cannabis.

Sprinkled with Latin and filled with a laundry list of marijuana cliches, Flowers decried Philadelphia's move to reduce penalties for pot possession. As a writer and legal expert she has, apparently, failed to do her homework.

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Like many young addicts, Nola Parcells is part conformist, part eccentric.

On Wednesday nights, she plays second base and catcher on her softball team. After the game, though, she lets Cash, her albino checkered garter snake, crawl through her platinum blonde hair with lavender highlights to help her relax.

Nola is the new face of heroin addiction in Delaware. A student at the University of Delaware, where her dad is a professor, she's white, charming and solidly upper-middle class.

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Heroin is killing people. It is destroying families and ruining lives. It is making criminals out of young people, and it is terrorizing whole neighborhoods.

Worse, it is spreading. Its low price makes it the drug of choice. And it is cheap. As the reporting in Sunday's News Journal/delawareonline special series shows, a bag of heroin can go for as little as $3. Yet a single 30-milligram Percocet could cost about $25. Too many people die from heroin overdoses. Far more have addictions that are burdens to themselves and their loved ones.

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The heroin problem has officially reached epidemic proportions. In the state of Delaware and in many other areas throughout the country, heroin has become one of the most widely abused and certainly one of the most devastating illegal substances. Today, heroin is cheaper, purer and more addictive than ever.

A nationwide crackdown on prescription drug abuse has caused their price to triple, causing many addicts to turn to heroin. So far this year, New Castle County has had 10 suspected heroin-related deaths in all areas of the county involving all races and sexes. Additionally, so far this year there have been 34 suspected heroin overdoses and county police have conducted 165 criminal heroin investigations. In 2013, NCCo police seized 270 percent more heroin than it did in 2012. Just recently, an undercover police operation resulted in the largest heroin bust in county police history, seizing 13,500 bags of heroin, with a street value of $41,000.

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One of the more generous community resources available to Delaware families is a program directed at elementary school children about "safe touching."

Appropriately, it often takes place in the classroom where all the students, regardless of gender, can be on the same page about the importance of setting and observing boundaries.

The overwhelming message is: You determine who has access to your body and don't allow anyone to make you feel uncomfortable when you deny them access to touch you.

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DOVER -- A state House committee gave approval Wednesday to amended legislation that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Helene Keeley, a Wilmington Democrat, would replace criminal penalties with $250 civil fines for anyone 21 or older in Delaware found possessing an ounce or less of marijuana for personal use. Fines double if unpaid after 90 days. The marijuana also would be turned over to police.

Anyone under 21 would face unclassified misdemeanor charges under the substitute bill, which replaces legislation that would have legalized possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. Parents of minors would be notified of an offense. But none of the charges would be entered into the criminal history database.

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Any Changes Will Come in Phases Because of the State's Financial Constraints.

Right around Christmas, a heroin addict from New Castle County went to jail for a month, where she detoxed but didn't receive the treatment she so desperately wanted.

When she got out, she couldn't get into Gateway Foundation, a state-funded rehabilitation center, which, as the only true inpatient drug treatment facility in the state, often has a waiting list and other hurdles to admission.

She was turned down for a variety of reasons, said Joe Connor, executive director of the Addictions Coalition of Delaware.

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The Spike in Heroin Use Is a Result of a Crackdown on Abuse of Prescription Painkillers.

In Delaware and around the country, heroin is in vogue again.

It's a deadly fad. In the last eight months, fatal overdoses from all drugs, including alcohol, have jumped from 12 to 15 a month. Heroin's resurgence is to blame for the rising death count, state officials say.

The problem is everywhere, and in all sections of New Castle County, from the Hunter's Run Trailer Park in Bear to the upscale Country Creek community near Newark. Some users died in bedrooms, others on bathroom floors. One was found in a shed behind a home in Chelsea Estates. Another was lying on a driveway in Bear.

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The News Journal Begins A Three-Day Special Report On Heroin's Impact In

Delaware And Across The Nation.

Delaware's Heroin Crisis

Delaware has for years lost a dozen residents each month to overdoses of booze and drugs, including prescription drugs such as Percocet. During the past eight months that number has risen to 15, and there's a high probability that heroin laced with the powerful painkiller fentanyl is killing more people.

The average age of the deceased is 41.3, but many have yet to hit their 30th birthday. In each case a family is shattered - be it rich or poor, suburban, inner city or rural, black, white or brown.

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FAMILIES, FRIENDS OF USERS ARE COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS AND ADDICTION

Sitting on the couch in her grandmother's Brookside home, Danielle Eby looks like any other tween girl. When her eyes aren't glued to the game on her iPhone, she's in the kitchen hunting for a snack or chasing one of the family's three dogs.

But at 10 years old, Danielle knows more about Delaware's drug culture than many adults. She knows what heroin looks like. She knows where people buy it. She knows how people act when they take it - lethargic, sluggish, like they're floating outside of themselves.

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Medical marijuana advocates say the state has taken too long to implement the 2011 law that established Delaware's program and are urging Gov. Jack Markell to act.

Much of the issue stems from the state pursuing a single pilot medical marijuana dispensary, rather than one in each county, which the law allows, said Zoe Patchell, legislative correspondent for the Delaware chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"We would just like the law implemented as it was written," she said. "If it was any other law, it would have been implemented by now."

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WILMINGTON, Delaware - Attorney General Beau Biden says a recent investigation of a state drug-testing lab overseen by the medical examiner's office shows Delaware needs independent crime laboratory.

Biden said in a statement Thursday that the state needs to build its own crime laboratory.

In February, Dr. Richard Callery was suspended as chief medical examiner amid an investigation of evidence tampering at a state drug-testing lab. The criminal investigation of drug evidence being tampered with, substituted or going missing after being submitted is ongoing.

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On Thursday, Gov. Jack Markell Sent a Letter About His Proposal for the Medical Marijuana Center to Legislators Who Sponsored a 2011 Bill to Allow Medical Marijuana Use in Delaware. the Center Was Put on Hold Because of Potential Conflicts With Federal Laws.

DOVER, Del. - Gov. Jack Markell is proposing to revive a plan to open a medical marijuana center in Delaware.

On Thursday, Markell sent a letter about the proposal to State Sen. Margaret Rose Henry (D-Wilmington) and State Rep. Helene Keeley (D-Wilmington South), who sponsored a 2011 bill to allow medical marijuana use in Delaware. Plans for a medical marijuana center were put on hold because of potential conflicts with federal laws.

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Let's start by stating that driving while impaired by drugs or alcohol is a crime and must be punished. All 50 U.S. states have clear laws prohibiting this activity.

But there is one intoxicant that is trickier than the others: marijuana, especially when used for medical purposes.

During the past two years, Colorado and Montana, along with more than a dozen other states, have proposed laws that set a strict threshold for determining when a marijuana user is deemed too impaired to drive.

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REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. - Rehoboth Beach Police have arrested a Colorado man they say shipped 12 pounds of marijuana to his real estate agent.

Thirty-six-year-old Andre Dismuke of Denver was charged Saturday with trafficking marijuana and numerous other drug offenses. He was released on $10,500 bail.

Police say the real estate agency called officials after an employee opened a package by mistake and found the marijuana, which police said had a street value of about $18,000.

Authorities stopped Dismuke and his wife, whom police did not name, when they arrived in Rehoboth Beach.

[end]

Federal Objections Delay State's Program

Last spring, after the governor signed into law a measure legalizing the possession of marijuana for medical use, cancer patient Diane Jump and hundreds of Delawareans suffering from serious health problems were relieved to know that the drug they had been using to treat the crippling nausea and pain of chemotherapy would not land them in jail.

Doctors, who must consent and write the prescriptions for medical marijuana, are holding back their approval. And the state is locked in a s talemate with the federal government over plans for distributing the drug.

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