TUCKER, Ga.-After his Florida used-car dealership failed two summers ago, Jeffrey Gonzalez decided to switch careers. So he moved to Georgia and opened a clinic prescribing opioid painkillers.

He picked this Atlanta suburb because while Florida law stipulates that only doctors can own such facilities, Georgia imposes no such restrictions. Within a few months, Mr. Gonzalez was open for business. To staff up, he hired two physicians through a Craigslist ad. His lead doctor wasn't a pain specialist, but a gynecologist.

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Ah, the great American West, where man can generally breathe free and also inhale -woman, too. Thank you, thank you, voters in Colorado and Washington state, for legalizing marijuana. But will Washington, D.C., leave you alone? Attorney General Eric Holder said this week that the Justice Department will weigh its response to the state referenda.

A new national poll finds 58 percent of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and only 39 percent against. A raft of other state laws easing the prohibition on pot and growing public contempt for the existing law should be enough to change the policy. And so should a basic sense of decency.

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It is the eyes that often betray a drugged driver.

If they are glassy or blood shot, pupils dilated or constricted, or if they exhibit a jerky motion when following a smooth horizontal movement, it tells a police officer a lot about the type of drug someone has used. But not if they don't know what to look for.

An advanced police training course gaining in popularity in Georgia called the drug recognition expert program goes a step beyond Standardized Field Sobriety training, which is focused on alcohol impairment, to help police identify if a driver is under the influence of drugs.

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What's next? Amid all the munchie-themed jokes from reporters, political elites and late-night comedians, this remains the overarching question after Coloradans voted overwhelmingly to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana in the same way alcohol is already legalized, regulated and taxed. Since those anti-Drug-War principles are now enshrined in Colorado's constitution, only the feds can stop this Rocky Mountain state if they so choose. But will they? And should they even be able to?

The answer to the former is maybe. Barack Obama campaigned for president pledging to respect state marijuana laws but his Justice Department has been authorizing federal crackdowns. Now, with the results of the 2012 election, Colorado's Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has been forced into the awkward position of fighting off the feds in defense of a state constitutional amendment he tried to defeat.

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Regarding George Reed's Nov. 7 column, the drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2010, there were 853,839 marijuana arrests in the U.S., almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not lower rates of use.

The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. Decriminalization is a long overdue step in the right direction. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as organized crime controls distribution, marijuana consumers will come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. This "gateway" is a direct result of marijuana prohibition.

Robert Sharpe, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C.

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Some years ago I wrote a column in this paper suggesting it might be time to consider legalizing marijuana since it probably isn't any more harmful than beer, a legal drug. But I have come to see I was wrong.

Proponents of legalized marijuana make the point that it is not as harmful in its health and social consequences as alcohol, and they might be right. But that doesn't mean its effects are benign or that legalization will eliminate all criminal activity associated with its manufacture, sale and usage. If alcohol and tobacco were new on the scene today and we were aware of their potential harmful, sometimes lethal, consequences, would we still legalize them?

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Fake Weed' Poses New Challenges for Law Enforcement

With its widespread availability, marijuana is among the first drugs teenagers encounter, and more youngsters are lighting up these days than in years past. It's a trend that concerns experts and counselors who say teens grossly underestimate the risks of a psychoactive drug more potent than your father's marijuana.

"Marijuana is back," said Sgt. Donald M. Bush, who coordinates the Columbus Police Department's Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. "You may have an older person say, 'When I was young, I smoked marijuana and it didn't do anything to me.' But now you've got a much higher percentage of THC, and it's a whole different game."

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The Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday that state law enforcement cannot obtain search warrants to use thermal-imaging scans to detect indoor marijuana-growing operations.

Georgia law allows for police to search for "tangible evidence," and heat patterns inside a home or garage do not fit that definition, the court said in a unanimous opinion.

"Giving the word 'tangible' full effect, it appears that the General Assembly intended 'tangible evidence' to mean evidence that is essentially an object with material form that could be touched by a person," Justice Harris Hines wrote. "That meaning does not include the remotely sensed heat at issue here."

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State high court denies attempt to suppress evidence

ATLANTA - The Georgia Supreme Court has ruled that evidence of marijuana growing can be used in an upcoming trial despite the defendant's argument that it was improperly obtained with a thermal imaging scan, according to an opinion published Monday.

James Brundige has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges related to growing marijuana. He argued that evidence found by authorities should be suppressed because one of the searches was for heat loss, which isn't "tangible evidence" under state law.

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Patrick Desmond was running out of second chances.

About a year after being arrested for cocaine possession, the garrulous ex-Marine was pulled over for drunken driving. Taking his military service into account, a Florida judge agreed to allow Desmond to enter a residential drug treatment program in lieu of jail.

Enter Narconon of Georgia, where his parents say they paid $30,000 to get their son the round-the-clock supervision he needed and Florida's drug court required.

Less than a year later, while in the Narconon program and living in a Sandy Springs apartment complex that housed fellow addicts, Desmond, 28, hopped into a car with two former Narconon clients in search of heroin. He ended up overdosing from a combination of alcohol and drugs.

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Woodward Signals Growing Concern About Private-School Culture.

Starting next fall high school students at Woodward Academy in College Park will be expected to pass more than math, English and science courses if they plan to stay in school. They'll also be subjected to random drug tests.

The elite private school where tuition is $21,950 a year will start random drug testing students in grades nine through 12 next fall. School President Stuart Gulley said the testing will be done not because there's hard evidence of drug abuse at the school but because of a "large number of anecdotal accounts of drug use not just at Woodward, but throughout metro Atlanta."

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In response to Frank W. Gadbois' letter on Aug. 23, he says our poorest citizens need Christian charity and food stamps -- not impractical and unconstitutional drugs tests. He goes on to say, "They need a leg up, not a kick in their rear ends." I disagree with Gadbois on his closing statement. Those citizens who truly cannot work and are really down on their luck need temporary help to get a leg up, but many of those are either able-bodied or abusers of drugs. They absolutely do not deserve a dime of aid from anyone.

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Nicholas Jackson Sr.'s double life brought danger to his door and may have cost the life of his teenage son, according to court documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Federal prosecutors say they have new information on the circumstances of the February home-invasion in Gwinnett County that led to the killing of Nicholas Jackson Jr., an honor student and rising football talent at Norcross High School.

Friends and family describe the elder Jackson as a typical suburban dad, shuttling his son from their tan, two-story Norcross home to football games and volunteering at them.

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JONESBORO -- Each addict's turning point to recovery is unique but the goal remains the same -- to stay sober.

Or they could fail and suffer the consequences.

In Clayton County Adult Felony Drug Court, the consequences of failure are real and include donning an orange jumpsuit and all the glamour that goes along with being an inmate.

Getting into the program is fairly simple, just commit the right kind of crime and you're in. Staying in and being successful, well, now that's harder. The challenge becomes swapping prison orange for the black cap and gown of a Drug Court graduate.

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Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Fulton County District Attorney's office held a press conference this morning to announce an "unprecedented" bust that resulted in the seizure of millions of dollars in drugs and cash and the dismantling of a Fulton County drug operation.

Standing in front of several tables lined with evidence bags, Harry S. Sommers, the DEA Atlanta office's special agent in charge, said officers seized nearly 90 pounds of heroin, more than 4 pounds of crystal meth, $2 million in cash, and guns, from a Gwinnett County stash house.

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Heroin is mounting a comeback, appealing to a younger, more diverse audience than ever before, experts say.

And there are signs the supply is meeting that increased demand in communities previously untouched by heroin trafficking. Last week, the Cherokee County Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad arrested two men for trafficking - Brandon Ray, 22, of Acworth, Richard Edwards, 31, of Woodstock - in an undercover sting, recovering four grams of brown Mexican heroin.

"We've arrested people for [heroin] possession before, but never trafficking," said Phil Price, commander of the Cherokee narcotics squad.

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Bath salts and synthetic marijuana, two relatively new drugs that are technically legal because manufacturers keep reformulating them, are becoming an increasing concern for law enforcement because of their unpredictable effects.

The Georgia Pharmacy Board last month issued an emergency order that temporarily gives all state and local law enforcement officers the authority to seize the two products, even though the new formulations of synthetic marijuana aren't technically illegal and the persons selling them cannot be charged criminally.

Within days, several local police departments were taking on the charge. The Cherokee County Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad seized 6,200 packages of synthetic marijuana at locations in Canton, Woodstock, Ball Ground and Holly Springs.

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America recently commemorated the 40th year of its "War on Drugs." Celebrations were muted because of the war's dismal failure. How many candles are appropriate for shooting yourself in the foot? Congratulatory cards from sister nations were sparse, since many are urging us to abandon what was a stupid idea in the first place. Gee thanks, Richard Nixon.

It's even stupider now. The FBI reports 750,000 annual arrests for marijuana possession. How inane is that? Now we have cleverly imposed on each of those malefactors a criminal record, thus making it harder for them to ever get a job. Who was the genius who thought that one up? Maybe it was those tireless leaders who seek to keep African Americans and Latinos "in their place." Because of racial profiling by police, that place is often jail.

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Athens Man Claims State Allow Doesn't Allow Technique That Led to Discovery of Marijuana

ATLANTA - A lawyer for an Athens man accused of manufacturing illegal drugs told the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday that state law doesn't allow police to get a search warrant to gather thermal imaging to discover marijuana growing in a garage.

However, a prosecutor, a judge and the Court of Appeals say the 2009 search warrant the Northeast Drug Task Force used was proper.

The case may be the first of its kind in any state's court to confront the issue.

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ATLANTA - A lawyer for an Athens man accused of manufacturing illegal drugs told the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday that state law doesn't allow police to get a search warrant to gather thermal imaging, as was used to discover the marijuana growing in his garage.

However, a prosecutor, a judge and the Court of Appeals say the 2009 search warrant used by the Northeast Drug Task Force was proper.

The task force used a thermal imaging device to detect a "hot spot" in the garage of James Brundige's home on Club Drive, then presented that to a judge as evidence that the hot spots probably were caused by high-intensity lights used to grow pot plants indoors.

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