The third week in July, Republican Gov. Rick Perry said that the U.S. Constitution -- whose 10th Amendment limits federal power -- gives states the right to decide on such matters as abortion and gay marriage. The fourth week in July, the Texan recanted. He now supports a federal ban on abortion and gay marriage. Social conservatives told him they didn't cotton to giving states the right to defy their views on things they care about. Perhaps it's time for progressives to pick up the freedom banner that was so quickly dropped in the mud of Republican primary politics. Here are examples of intrusive state and federal government, ripped from the headlines: [continues 530 words]
I read Mr. Chitwood's article of 23 August with some interest. Of particular note was the comment by Mr. Lewis Solomon that marching was not enough. Mr. Solomon was right on that count. He missed the boat, however, regarding flooding the area with police. The purpose of the march was to enlist the neighborhood. There simply are not enough police in the state to flood every neighborhood in Columbus. War, like life, is defined as the art of the possible. This is a war, make no mistake. [continues 222 words]
Drugs. Say the word and images of back alley deals spring to mind. Yet, as we can see from Monday's three-county bust at mostly local convenience stores, the problem of illegal drug use is much more insidious and has threaded its way into the norms of everyday life. You may well have walked into many of these stores to pay for filling up your car with gas, or perhaps a soft drink as you drove to or from work. You may well have had one of your children with you as you wandered the aisles, looking for those few quick pick up items needed at home - some milk or a bag of potato chips to go with tomorrow's lunch. [continues 236 words]
There was a quake last week, but you likely didn't feel it. See, this particular quake was not of the Earth, involved no shifting of the planetary crust. No, what shifted was a paradigm, and the implications are hopeful and profound. On Tuesday, you see, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for an end to the War on Drugs. Said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous in a written statement, "These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidence-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America." [continues 447 words]
Dear President Obama: Right after your election, somebody asked if I thought having a black president meant black people's concerns would now receive attention at the executive level. I told them I expected the opposite. There used to be a saying -- only Nixon could go to China. Meaning, of course, that only he, as a staunch anti-communist, had the credibility to make overtures to that nation without accusations of being soft on communism. By the inverse of that political calculus, I never expected that you, as a black man, would do much to address black issues. [continues 476 words]
On Feb. 17, the Spring Mill neighborhood was abuzz with firefighters, police officers, paramedics and gawkers after a meth lab explosion caused a fire that killed three young children. But what happened to the house after the chaos died down, the children were buried, 4,555 grams of liquid meth were carted away and three people were charged? Not much, neighbors say. Becky Bridges is confronted with a ghastly reminder of what happened each time she comes and goes from her neighborhood because the house sits at the entrance. It's vacant, its windows boarded, its shrubs unkempt. Hot pink fliers tacked to the facade warn people that the home was once a clandestine laboratory for the manufacture of illegal drugs. [continues 680 words]
One of the surest ways to ease the immigration problem would be to end America's insane war on drugs. The battle to supply illegal drugs to the U.S. has turned Mexico into one of the most violent countries on the planet. Thousands of people were murdered in drug-related incidents just last year. Many Mexicans who might otherwise stay home are fleeing to the U.S. for their safety. Ending the drug war wouldn't completely stop illegal immigration, but it would remove one of the strongest incentives. Joe Williams Douglasville [end]
A Harris poll released in March revealed that a whopping 74 percent of American adults support legalizing medical marijuana in their state. Are you listening, Gov. Deal? As you might expect, the numbers were lower for people endorsing legalized recreational use in their state - -- 42 percent. Over 3,000 adults across the U.S. were surveyed in Feb. 2011 to obtain these results, which reflected an ABC News-Wasington Post poll this past January that arrived at similar numbers. A stat breakdown reflects regionalized values. New England is rapidly becoming the new hue for medical marijuana in the U.S.: East Coasters vocalized the highest support for legal medical use in the nation at 80 percent, and just as impressive, 50 percent supported legal recreational use. The politically open-minded West saw the second-highest level of support for legal medical pot at 76 percent, as well as 50 percent in favor of legal recreational use. Support in the Midwest was slightly lower, at 74 percent for medical, 59 percent for recreational use, but higher than the conservative South, which nonetheless surveyed at over 69 percent for medical and 34 for recreational. [continues 69 words]
Faced with a lawsuit, the Atlanta Police agreed Tuesday to start following state law and document how it spends the hundreds of thousands of dollars it receives annually in cash seized from suspects in criminal investigations. The Washington-based public-interest law firm, Institute for Justice, filed the lawsuit earlier this year in Superior Court after the group's research found no police department in metro Atlanta documented its use of seized cash and other assets as state law required. The only major Georgia police department following the law was Savannah, said Anthony Sanders, a lawyer with the libertarian group. [continues 366 words]
Most men arrested in Atlanta test positive for illegal drugs at the time of their arrests, according to a new federal study. About 62 percent of men arrested in the city in 2010 tested positive for at least one drug, according to the National Drug Control Policy's Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Annual Report. "Drug addiction is too often the root of crime in our communities," said Gil Kerlikowse, director of the National Drug Control Policy. He said the report's findings illustrate why the nation's drug problem should be approached as a public health and safety problem. [continues 119 words]
ATLANTA-Republican Gov. Nathan Deal suggested that unemployed people on probation fill thousands of jobs that farmers say have been left vacant by laborers frightened off by Georgia's tough new immigration law. His suggestion, made Tuesday, came as the state released a survey showing a shortage of about 11,000 farm laborers at the beginning of the harvest season for many crops. The new law, set to go into effect July 1, requires businesses with 10 employees or more to use a federal database to ensure employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S. It also gives police more authority to investigate suspected illegal immigrants. [continues 359 words]
Dear President Obama: Right after your election, somebody asked if I thought having a black president meant black people's concerns would now receive attention at the executive level. I told them I expected the opposite. There used to be a saying -- only Nixon could go to China. Meaning, of course, that only he, as a staunch anti-communist, had the credibility to make overtures to that nation without accusations of being soft on communism. By the inverse of that political calculus, I never expected that you, as a black man, would do much to address black issues. [continues 457 words]
Want a good way to start pushing our economy back in the right direction? The answer to the question is to end the spectacularly failed costly war on rugs. When is the U.S. government going to finally realize that it can't legislate morality? Many people believe the answer to solving our drug problem is to simply tell people to say "no" to drugs -- but after being in practice for decades now, the evidence shows this has failed miserably. People have been doing drugs for thousands of years and it's never going to stop. There will always be people who do drugs and those who become addicted. [continues 292 words]
Albert Einstein, offering perhaps the most succinct definition ever of insanity,=94 said it was performing the very same task repeatedly, yet expecting a different result each time. The modern world's most famous physicist could easily have been describing the government's five-decade old =93war on drugs.=94 In the past half century, one administration after another has spent billions trying to rid the country of those who choose to ingest non-government sanctioned substances. Far from achieving any measure of ultimate success, the result of this so-called =93war=94 has been a net increase in illicit drug users, a massive increase in police powers, a huge increase in America's prison population, and a depressing decrease in civil liberties. [continues 537 words]
The stories are real. The experiences are harrowing. And the messages appear to be effective. A year after its $4 million advertising campaign rolled out, The Georgia Meth Project will release this week a survey that found 52 percent of teenagers believe there is "great risk" in taking methamphetamine just once or twice. That's an 11 point gain over the benchmark survey conducted last year, before the messaging campaign hit the airwaves. More young people also believe that using meth will negatively influence a younger sibling and increase the risks of losing control, suffering brain damage and stealing, the survey said. [continues 910 words]
Last month, the United States Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision in the case of Kentucky v. King, told the police in our nation that they may break into a home without a warrant if they believe that the occupants might be in the act of destroying evidence. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg realized that this might be the last nail in the coffin of one of the most important personal protections left for Americans. While the politicians in Washington are fiddling away our economic security, the Supreme Court has lit a match that will burn up what is left of the right of privacy and the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. [continues 608 words]
I would like to follow up to a May 17 letter. The author rightly points out that Georgia sentencing laws are overly harsh, particularly regarding possession of small amounts of drugs. Loud cries of objection can be expected from the private prison industry, which is handsomely paid by the state. Additional hand-wringing is likely from local and state governments because of the financial impact on their budgets that diminishing sentences will bring about. As the letter writer suggests, we will also hear an outcry from the public because of probable cutbacks in services it has come to take for granted. [continues 194 words]
Informants Reveal How Dealers Destroy Drugs Flushing drugs down the toilet is the most common method of destroying evidence. But a 16-pound sledge hammer always wins versus a ceramic commode. Smashing toilets is just one method narcotics investigators use to recover flushed evidence. They will dig up a septic tank or dismantle the pipes underneath a house if necessary. "It's a nasty job, but someone has to do it," said Richmond County sheriff's Sgt. Allan Rollins. The potential for losing evidence factors heavily into the logistics of serving a search warrant. When possible, they'll seek out informants who can tell them beforehand how a dealer plans to get rid of his drugs when police knock down the door. [continues 414 words]
Jacob Samter had two ways of relieving anxiety: swimming and heroin. Swimming led the energetic 22-year-old to coaching jobs at Chattahoochee High School and the YMCA. Heroin led him to his grave. On Feb. 4, Samter's parents woke to find him slumped on the floor beside his bed in their Alpharetta home. A powdery white residue, likely the dregs of his last heroin hit, was on the nightstand. Samter's death was the culmination of 12 years of dabbling with drugs that relatives said took a turn for the worse when he got hooked on heroin in 2009. The family hired a psychiatrist and a social worker to help him. It worked for a while, but he relapsed over the holidays. [continues 1342 words]
New Panel to Overhaul State'S Corrections Policy Standing, symbolically, in the Hall County drug court his son operates, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law late last month a bill that could change the face of criminal justice in Georgia. House Bill 265 -- which found overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers -- creates a 13-member panel to study and propose improvements to the state's corrections system. Composed of gubernatorial appointees, House members, and judges or their appointees, the Special Council on Criminal Justice has been tasked with a noble if overly ambitious mission: to find methods to shift the state's focus to rehabilitation rather than simply retribution, decrease the number of nonviolent offenders who are locked up each year -- repeat offenders, in particular -- and, in turn, curb the prison system's increasingly unsustainable financial burden on taxpayers. [continues 446 words]
Inside Georgia
