PENDLETON, Ind. - An Indiana inmate who died of unknown causes was once accused of being a leader of a drug ring operating out of state prisons.

Pendleton Correctional Facility Superintendent Dushan Zatecky said 32-year-old [name redacted], of Crawfordsville, died Monday at St. Vincent's Anderson Regional Hospital.

Madison County Coroner Marian Dunnichay told The (Anderson) Herald-Bulletin that an autopsy did not find a medical reason for [name redacted]'s death. She said a toxicology report would take three to four weeks.

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But Doctors Need Court Order to Give Results to Police

INDIANAPOLIS - A surge in heroin and painkiller abuse - and a related spike in the number of drug-dependent newborns - has doctors calling for drug tests for all pregnant women.

But, first, doctors and health officials want lawmakers to shield addicted, expectant mothers from punishment.

The Legislature has taken a first step, quietly passing a measure to prohibit doctors from giving results of a pregnant woman's drug tests to police without a court order.

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Odds Against Indiana Legislators Backing Medical Marijuana

The husband and father was near death from Crohn's Disease in 2009.

Over a three-month period, his weight dropped from about 175 pounds to 117 pounds. He had his large intestine, colon and rectum removed, and he was largely confined to his bed or a chair.

He had no appetite and was surviving largley on IV fluid. He was so worried about accidentally jarring the stapled incision in his abdomen that his muscles ached from the constant tension.

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INDIANAPOLIS - As heroin use surges, local prosecutors are pressing to restore tough penalties for drug dealers and users, less than two years after sentencing laws were relaxed to clear prisons of drug offenders.

Dustin Houchin, prosecuting attorney in Washington County, cited cases across the state where some people charged with dealing heroin now face just a year in prison - not enough, he said, to set them straight.

"That just strikes me as fundamentally too low for someone selling poison to people in my community," said Houchin. His rural county, like other areas, has seen a surge in heroin overdoses in the past two years.

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The Fort Wayne Allen County Board of Health took a closer look on Monday at national and local trends in the illegal use of opiates.

Capt. Kevin Hunter of the Fort Wayne Police Department gave an overview of what is going on nationally and in the city. Since 2013, many prescription opiate abusers have turned to heroin as a cheaper, more readily available source to feed their addictions.

According to Hunter, today's heroin, which comes from Mexico, is much stronger and more addictive than the drug of the 1960s and 1970s. Most users are injecting the drug, which is a public-health concern. Recently police have seen an uptick in the number of people using fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid used as a pain reliever and anesthetic. It is a schedule II substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Recently three people died from overdoses of the drug, which was sold to them as heroin.

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INDIANAPOLIS - On the altar, behind a row of flickering candles, the silhouette outline of a marijuana leaf shined in lights. Colored balloons occasionally bounced through the air as the minister of music led a band in a pew-shaking rendition of "Mary Jane," the funk tribute to the drug. And Bill Levin, who was introduced as "the Grand Poobah" of this new church, finished the gathering with a simple message: "Light up, folks!"

As legislation that proponents call a religious freedom law took effect in Indiana on Wednesday, Mr. Levin's First Church of Cannabis held its first service in a quiet neighborhood on this city's Eastside. Mr. Levin, who is 59 and known around here for his wild puff of white hair, dreamed up the church as a way to test the state's new, much-debated law: If the law protects religious practices, he figured, how could it not also permit marijuana use - which remains illegal here - as part of a broader spiritual philosophy?

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Tax Designation As Charitable Organization Allows Contributors to Deduct Donations.

Emotions appeared sky high at the newly formed First Church of Cannabis, after the Internal Revenue Service granted it nonprofit status.

"What a GLORIOUS DAY it is folks," the church's founder Bill Levin wrote in a post on Facebook announcing that the IRS had approved making the church a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization. "WE ARE 100 % a LEGAL CHURCH... All say HALLELUJAH and SMILE REAL BIG!... We are OFFICIAL!"

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I would rather see cannabis made legal than all the problems with heroin. Wake up, people. Marijuana is not killing our kids. Heroin is.

Deb Asbury

Lafayette

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana approved a yearlong needleexchange program Thursday for a county at the center of an HIV outbreak that prompted a new state law allowing such programs.

State health Commissioner Dr. Jerome Adams' approval for Scott County includes a public-health emergency declaration that will allow it to operate a needle exchange through May 24, 2016. The southeastern Indiana county has operated a temporary needle-exchange since early April under executive orders Gov. Mike Pence signed in response to the largest HIV outbreak in state history.

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Governor Mike Pence overrode Indiana law and his own antidrug policies Thursday to authorize a short-term needle-exchange program designed to help contain HIV infections in a rural county where 79 cases have been reported, all of them tied to intravenous drug use.

Pence issued an executive order declaring a public health emergency in Scott County, an economically depressed area about 30 miles north of Louisville, Ky., that has seen dozens of new infections since December. The county typically sees only about five HIV cases each year, health officials said.

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It would seem that the decision to invite Michelle Alexander, author of the book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," to speak Monday at Saint Mary's College was inspired by stories ripped from recent headlines.

Instead, Mana Derakhshani, a French professor and associate director of the Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary's, says part of her interest in the book stemmed from her desire to find good material for a faculty reading group.

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Some legislators and citizens are ready to legalize marijuana. Then Indiana would gain needed revenue dollars, people with certain medical conditions might benefit and everyone would live high and happy thereafter. End of story? Not.

Look at the total picture.

When discussing drugs, always keep in mind that the human brain is still developing until about the age of 25. Drugs that might not affect an older person's brain could cause drastic and permanent damage to a young person's developing brain. Long-term marijuana users who started using when young were later found to have a drop in their IQ.

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The Greencastle Community School Corporation will present the program "What Parents Should Know: Drugs and Their Children" on Wednesday, Jan. 28 at Greencastle High School's Parker Auditorium.

Any parent who has a child from fourth grade up is invited to attend.

The free 6:30 p.m. program is for parents only. No students or other children will be allowed to attend.

Purpose of the session is to help parents know and look for the possibility of drug use in their children. Schools have been seeing a lot more drug use and discipline problems because of poor decisions and peer pressure.

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MUNCIE - One of the backers of a medical marijuana bill introduced by Sen. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, is the father of a Muncie woman who died in her 30s of a terminal illness.

"Her dad told me her best days were when she could get high-grade marijuana," Errington says.

The fifth annual "Hoosier Survey," conducted in 2012 by Ball State University, found that 53 percent of Hoosiers supported decriminalizing marijuana by making it legal to possess small quantities.

The 2013 "Hoosier Survey" found that 52 percent of Hoosiers supported making marijuana a regulated substance much like alcohol and tobacco, and that 78 percent of Hoosiers believed that marijuana should be taxed like cigarettes.

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Two Democrats - one in the Senate and one in the House - have introduced bills that would allow the use of medical marijuana in Indiana.

Senate Bill 284, by Sen. Karen Tallian, and House Bill 1487, by Rep. Sue Errington, would allow people with a doctor's recommendation to use marijuana for medical purposes.

Tallian's bill would create the Department of Marijuana Enforcement, or DOME, which would oversee a program for those who use marijuana for treatment. The Democrat from Portage has long fought for legalization of marijuana in Indiana, but her efforts have failed. She has introduced bills that would have decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana. Two bills Tallian wrote the past two years died without a hearing.

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Once upon a time, I stood in a batter's box and faced a baseball pitcher who threw so hard I could not even see the ball. I just heard it go by.

The 1960s were like that, too. I apparently missed the 1960s though I was standing in the batter's box.

Missed drug temptation and curiosity, except for Novocain. It's a gap in my life, which probably means I won't be enlisting in the "transformational" anti-drug crusade in Porter County.

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DR. WALLACE: I'm an 18-year-old female. I have never taken any type of illegal drug in my entire life, and I seriously doubt that I ever will. I'm also positive that all of my many close friends are drug-free, and we all talk about not getting involved with guys who are doing drugs. We are thinking that it must be a male thing to be into drugs. Do you agree?

- - Nameless,

Goshen, Indiana

NAMELESS: I agree. The American Council on Drug Education has stated that of teen drug addicts, 72 percent are males. But females do become addicted to drugs, and their addiction is every bit as serious as addiction for males. Please read the following letter from a young mother who had a difficult time overcoming her drug habit:

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Despite the efforts of area educators, law enforcement and medical personnel, the death toll from drugs continues to climb in Tippecanoe County as area residents succumb in increasing numbers to the suffocating grip of addiction.

Accidental drug overdoses killed more people here last year than in any of the previous 20 years, according to the findings of a report compiled by Deputy Coroner Matt Wietbrock. And Coroner Donna Avolt said a preliminary review of this year's deaths suggests the region is on pace to tie 2013's unprecedented high.

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The war on marijuana is a smashing and overwhelming success, if you measure success by how many violations of civil rights, liberties and constitutional rights it has generated.

In a far-flung suburb of Chicago named Shorewood, the Drug Enforcement Agency and local cops entered the house of Angela Kirking for shopping for organic fertilizer. It seems that in itself is reasonable suspicion, if you shop at an Illinois home-and-garden store.

Police ran her plates and found her address. They looked through her garbage, which supposedly had a marijuana scent to it. Also, her electric bill was deemed too high. Finally, they got a judge to sign off on a warrant.

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Judy Brown smokes pot on a regular basis and she's not afraid to say so.

"I need it to help offset my chronic pain from injuries I sustained in a car accident in 1986," the LaPorte woman told me while waiting to see her pain management physician.

Along with her husband, Brown, 60, sat in the office lobby of Indiana University Health in Michigan City and studied a word puzzle. The elusive words she continues to search for in this state, however, are "medical marijuana."

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