Many Use the Narcotic Because It Is Convenient, Easy to Buy

Synthetic marijuana is illegal in Georgia - again.

Last week, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law a bill outlawing "all forms of synthetic marijuana."

Senate Bill 370 - Chase's Law, in memory of Chase Burnett, a 16-year-old from Fayette County who drowned in a hot tub after smoking the drug commonly referred to "spice" - is aimed at successfully curbing a drug that has seen a rampant increase in usage, especially among young people.

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Officials Have Had Eye on Drug for a While

The responsibility of monitoring and enforcing Chase's Law will mainly rest of the shoulders of local law enforcement.

But, officials say, it is something that has been on their radar for some time, even though manufacturers of the drug have been one step ahead of lawmakers.

"The law has already addressed synthetic marijuana and it has been addressed for some time," said Lee Darragh, Hall County district attorney. "Every time they tweak the law, the industry has responded by changing the formula only slightly to make it legal again."

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'Spice' has potential to be deadly 16-year-old drowned in hot tub after using drug

Although synthetic marijuana is fairly new to the drug landscape and many of its long-term dangers are not known, many familiar with the drug and its consequences know the potential threats of use - even once.

The most widely publicized case to-date was Chase Burnett, a 16-year-old who was found dead in his parents' hot tub after smoking the substance in early March. The law, passed last week, was named Chase's Law in memory of the young man.

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A key legislative committee on Tuesday approved sweeping changes to Georgia's criminal justice system in a sentencing reform package intended to control prison spending and ensure costly prison beds are reserved for the state's most dangerous criminals.

The legislation, approved by the Special Joint Committee on Georgia Criminal Justice Reform, is a key part of Gov. Nathan Deal's legislative agenda. House Bill 1176 must be approved by the House and the Senate before the governor can sign it into law.

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A Senate proposal to either drug test or require mandatory education and development classes for Georgians who receive public assistance passed a state House committee Tuesday.

Legislators debated the merits, purposes and goals of tying benefits to drug tests and the pursuit of education, and advocates for the elderly, homeless and poor had a chance to speak to the Judiciary Committee.

"Don't do this," pleaded Viola Davis, an underemployed nurse from Clarkston who lost her full-time job about a year ago while taking in a mentally ill nephew and two foreclosed-upon family members.

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Syndicated columnist John Stossel's March 1 commentary, headlined "Drug war has been dismal failure," was itself a "dismal failure."

First, the United States of America was never involved in a "drug war." The drug war to which liberal journalists like to refer was between drug criminals intent on corrupting American social standards through illegal drug sales and, thus, vying for power and territory. My case in point is what is occurring in Mexico at this very moment between criminal drug gangs.

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Most Georgians missed it, but there was a presidential debate here after all.

Actually, it was a forum, and the candidates weren't the Republicans vying for the White House. (CNN canceled a debate set for last Thursday in Atlanta when GOP candidates Mitt Romney and Ron Paul said they had other plans.)

These candidates were Libertarians, five of them, and they answered questions from a moderator for about an hour at their party's Georgia state convention Feb. 25 in Athens. The Truth-O-Meter started swaying when Gary Johnson, who won a straw poll afterward with 79 percent of the vote, was asked a question about legalizing marijuana.

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A local woman's son became "psychotic" last October after smoking a substance he purchased legally, according to her testimony at a recent Athens-Clarke County Health Department board meeting.

The substance - synthetic marijuana known as "spice" - was a topic of discussion at the board meeting Wednesday, when Marla Gray told her son's story.

Many of the board members said they had never heard of the drug but said they planned on learning more about it and whether it has had a significant impact on the county.

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The first thing Tammy Jordan did was erase the damnable number from her cell phone. Not the second thing, not the third. That number was gone.

Where Jordan was headed, the number had no place. She just graduated from Dawson County's drug court and vowed to look forward, not back. She would devote herself to the two daughters she had neglected and care for her father because she had abandoned her mother.

Jordan's methamphetamine addiction had led her to months-long absences from her family. The boyfriends she found could be as bad as the dope, including one who beat her to the point of unconsciousness in front of her two young daughters.

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This is the fourth in a five-part series about sentencing reform in Georgia. A special state commission has found that drug courts are less expensive and work better than prison terms for many offenders. Today's article focuses on the struggle of a Dawson County man who is in the last phase of the program.

Seven mornings a week, Gordon Pirkle Jr. arrives at the Pool Room just off the Dawsonville square to run the NASCAR-themed restaurant founded by his father 45 years ago.

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One Georgia drug court attracted widespread national attention over the past year.

In January, Amanda Williams, the chief judge in Brunswick who presided over Georgia's largest drug court, resigned in disgrace amid charges that she behaved in a tyrannical manner and locked up some drug court defendants indefinitely, with orders they have no access to their family or lawyer.

One woman given an open-ended sentence by Williams in 2008 attempted suicide after two months in jail. The woman had previously been flagged for having suicidal tendencies.

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Drug Court Gave Woman 'Stability' To Get Life Back

For many years, Charlotte Whitlock's bedroom was the most comfortable spot she could find under a city bridge.

She would break down cardboard boxes she found on the streets and put those on top of rocks or concrete, the way the other crackheads and bridge dwellers had shown her, then she would pad the cardboard with a lot of blankets and seek the sleep that would take her away from who she was. She saved bottles of water to brush her teeth, and she would get meals and clothes from charities around downtown Atlanta.

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Offenders Get Help, Not Prison, From Judges

Editor's Note: This is the first in a five-part series on accountability courts - intensive programs lasting a year or more in which defendants must prove that they can abide by the law.

An Alpharetta mom so amped up on meth she spent eight hours cleaning her oven with Q-tips. Now drug-free: 311 days.

A Roswell college student with a 3.7 grade-point average blows her tuition on drugs and is arrested for forging prescriptions. Drug-free: 390 days.

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The death of Chase Burnett rocked the town of Fayetteville. More than 200 friends and family members visited his parents' home Sunday night.

Chase's classmates at McIntosh High School were so shaken by the news that they remained silent throughout lunch period the following Monday morning, and signed a memorial wall in his honor.

"Chase was accepted, adored, loved and respected by all his peers, friends and adults. He absolutely loved life," said his father, David Burnett. "We're sincerely overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support that we have received."

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Re: "These are not criminals" and "Why celebrate arrests?" Thursday Letters.

If people have been smoking pot in college for 40 years, maybe that is part of the reason for the decline in education. I imagine the teachers' lounge nowadays is a lot different than when I went to school. The cultural revolution has indeed changed the nation's way of thinking. Quite a bit to the good =AD and some undoubtedly questionable.

Do we need another legal intoxicant out on the road with alcohol and the epidemic of prescription drugs to cloud judgment? And how can we avoid supporting murderous cartels that import the "innocent" weed? There is no way to regulate who grows, ships, sells, supplies or smokes the product.

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ALBANY -- With 42 percent of child endangerment cases and 43 percent of federal convictions in Georgia involving methamphetamine use, officials say it is time to attack the problem on a regional level.

That message came to Albany on Wednesday.

The Georgia Meth Project, in partnership with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and the Dougherty County School System, hosted a community forum at Phoebe Northwest Wednesday to educate the public on the dangers of meth use -- and to get more area volunteers on board the prevention effort.

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You're a monster. Every banana you've ever eaten has indirectly caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people. How could you? OK, that was too much. But there actually is a connection. In 1954, the United States organized a covert operation to oust Guatemalan president Jacabo Arbenz, who was responsible for a number of land reform laws that were especially troubling to the United Fruit Company, known today as Chiquita Brands International. The Eisenhower administration, including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, C.I.A director Allen Dulles, owned ample stock in the fruit company, which thrives to this day.

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ATLANTA - A Georgia middle school student claimed in a lawsuit Wednesday he was humiliated and traumatized when he was brought to a vice principal's office and forced to strip in front of classmates who said he had marijuana.

The student, then in the seventh-grade, said he still suffers from emotional distress because his classmates taunted him by calling him Superman, the underwear he was wearing when he was strip-searched. The student is suing the Clayton County School District for unspecified punitive and compensatory damages.

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The mother of a Clayton County middle school boy is suing the school system, claiming her son was humiliated by an improper strip search for marijuana that turned up nothing.

"In the presence of the vice principal, school resource officer and three students, (the victim) was ordered to take off his pants, shirt, socks and underwear to a point where he was fully nude. Stripped naked, in the presence of school personnel and students, no contraband was found," according to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday.

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ATLANTA - Representatives of social-service agencies and advocacy groups took turns Wednesday telling a House subcommittee why they oppose legislation that would require welfare applicants to be tested for illegal drugs.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, said he was open to some of their recommendations but refused to withdraw it. He said his experience as a physician's assistant where he often treats welfare patients who use drugs convinced him it was necessary to safeguard taxpayers and steer the users toward treatment.

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