Parents generally don't like to expose their children to the evils of the world. You will rarely encounter a parent who enjoys taking their kids to Satanic rituals or explaining to them the benefits of loathing those who are different than you. However, when hate is pre-packaged in a seemingly family-friendly video game scenario, parents don't question it. So I will.

Question: How many innocent children were corrupted this past holiday season by the sinister messages delivered via Super Mario Galaxy?

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Despite His Struggles With Addiction, The President's Policies Show Little Compassion

Visiting Baltimore last week, President Bush shared his personal struggles against alcohol addiction with former prisoners in recovery who are enrolled in Jericho, a program to help them re-enter productively into society. Mr. Bush recounted having given up alcohol the day after his 40th birthday, after a "particularly boozy night." He often credits his Christian faith for giving him the strength to stay sober.

Although his presidency is almost over, it's not too late for Mr. Bush to do much good as a role model and advocate for people recovering from addiction. To succeed, he will have to keep a few things in mind:

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BALTIMORE -- President Bush is talking more openly lately about his old drinking habit, and on Tuesday he offered perhaps his most pointed assessment yet by saying plainly that the term "addiction" had applied to him.

"Addiction is hard to overcome. As you might remember, I drank too much at one time in my life," Bush said during a visit to the Jericho Program, a project of Episcopal Community Services of Maryland that helps former prisoners deal with problems such as drug addiction so they can find jobs and reintegrate productively into society.

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A recent front-page story in The Frederick News-Post ("Forum warns of growing gangs," Jan. 14) reported findings presented by a "gang awareness forum." The forum presenters warned that over 400 people in our area are confirmed gang members.

While the article (or perhaps the forum presenters) fell short in giving a precise definition of how one qualifies as a gang member, the current widespread presence of gangs should nonetheless be of concern.

I am one of many Americans who has come to realize that gang activity is largely a product of the current war on drugs. We know, from studying economics, that any enterprise will continue to function as long as its products are in demand. If prohibited, that enterprise will be relegated to the underground economy, also known as the "black market." In a black market, all transactions occur outside the sphere of contract law. Without a peaceful means to settle disputes, all that is left is violence. In addition, increasingly draconian prison sentences mandated for adult offenders make plying the drug trade much less risky for minors; hence, their recruitment.

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As a retired police detective and student of history, I heartily agree with Cynthia Tucker's assessment of the war on drugs ("When will we end the failed drug war?" Opinion * Commentary, Dec. 31). No one can state one positive outcome after the expenditure of, by my group's estimate, more than $1 trillion in tax money and the arrests of 38 million Americans, mostly citizens of color, in the drug war over the last 30-plus years.

We have not and never will make a dent in the supply, purity or price of illegal drugs.

Perhaps one day we will become as wise as our grandparents and end our modern-day drug prohibition.

Howard J. Wooldridge

Frederick

The writer is a retired police officer and an education specialist for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

[end]

There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalization ("When will we end the failed drug war?" Opinion * Commentary, Dec. 31).

Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. Heroin maintenance pilot projects are also under way in Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

If such programs are expanded, prescription heroin maintenance could deprive organized crime of a core client base. This could help render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations from addiction.

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City Considers Easing Laws On Treatment Center Placement

Renewing debate over a controversial proposal that has failed twice before, the Baltimore City Council is again considering legislation that would permit live-in drug treatment centers to open in more residential neighborhoods.

Though the same bill has faced opposition from neighborhood groups in the past, Mayor Sheila Dixon's administration is under pressure from the U.S. Department of Justice to loosen the city's zoning laws - which critics charge are used to limit the centers - or face a federal lawsuit.

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The omnibus spending bill recently passed by Congress contained at least one piece of good news for Washington: A longtime restriction on using local funds for needle exchange programs was lifted. Removing the restriction was overdue because the district has one of the nation's highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection, and distributing clean needles to drug users could help slow the spread. Regrettably, a nationwide ban on using federal funds for needle exchange programs remains in place. Congress should follow its sensible action on D.C. and lift the national ban as well.

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Outside the City, Homicide Is Less Common but More Personal

In a violent September weekend in Baltimore County, two killings occurred within hours of each other - and both shooters were dead before investigators arrived at the scene.

The suspect in each case was a former partner who, after shooting his victim, turned the gun on himself.

As police officials finalize homicide numbers for 2007, they say the two September homicides demonstrate the nature of murder in the region's suburbs, where killings often involve people who know each other - a contrast to the drug-fueled, impersonal violence racking urban areas.

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ATLANTA - You don't hear much about the nation's "war on drugs" these days. It's a has-been, a glamourless geezer, a holdover from bygone days. Its glitz has been stolen by the "war on terror," which gets the news media hype and campaign trail rhetoric. Railing against recreational drug use and demanding that offenders be locked away is so '90s.

But the drug war proceeds, mostly away from news cameras and photo-ops, still chewing up federal and state resources and casting criminal sanctions over entire neighborhoods.

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The Numbers Look Bleak For City Mired In Murder, And No Approach Has Brought Lasting Success

For the second year in a row, more Baltimore families have suffered through the murder of a loved one than in the previous year.

The increase, though slight, underscores a troubling trend in homicides that leaves Baltimore standing virtually alone among major American cities.

Since 1990, Baltimore's homicide rate, the number of killings per 100,000 residents, has stayed consistently high, while most other U.S. cities have seen their numbers drop in the years since crack cocaine-related crime was at its worst.

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As two of the French experts interviewed for The Sun's recent series on buprenorphine, we were dismayed that the major public health benefits of French policy were not properly reflected ("The 'bupe' fix," Dec. 16-Dec. 18). We feel that the response by The Sun's public editor to the criticism of the series by several leading public health professionals demonstrates a continuing disregard for the evidence ("How Sun took on bupe," Dec. 23). In 1994 in France, heroin overdoses claimed more than 500 lives - most of them injecting drug users who often shared needles. Opioid substitution treatment and needle exchange programs were not available.

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Now that the city of Baltimore has exceeded last year's murder tally, it is time for The Sun and others to admit that aside from the relatively few innocent victims caught in the crossfire, the vast majority of murders in this city are drug-related, and that the murders are a symptom of a largely unaddressed metropolitan health problem known as addiction ("277th killing in '07 is grim milestone," Dec. 21). In the meantime, the majority of city residents go about their business in productive, drug-free neighborhoods and are not really impacted by this spike in violence.

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As a physician and public health professional who has dedicated my career to improving the lives of those with addiction to heroin and other opiates, I read with dismay The Sun's articles on buprenorphine ("The 'bupe fix,'" Dec. 16-18). I have never seen a newspaper report so lacking in balance and context. Every medication has side effects; what's critical is the balance of risks and benefits.

Buprenorphine is an effective treatment for the dangerous disease of opiate addiction. Balanced against the benefit of saving thousands of lives is the small risk of diversion of the drug, which is a tiny slice of the overall illegal drug trade.

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Yes, addicts will be addicts. Yes, I've heard of adults huffing paint, shooting Viagra, smoking crumbs from the carpet and even, occasionally, of somebody abusing "bupe" - all in a desperate search for any kind of high to substitute for their elusive drug of choice. But let's get real: No hard-core (or any-core) addicts are seriously seeking Suboxone for steady consumption.

And The Sun fails to offer any convincing evidence of widespread abuse of the drug other than anecdotal comments from attention-seeking abusers and disgruntled doctors.

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The Sun's series on the abuses of buprenorphine distorts the true picture of an extremely promising therapy for heroin addiction. Given the high social costs of addiction, the United States has embraced buprenorphine as an effective treatment, after carefully examining the experience of France and other countries. And a number of extraordinary controls guide the use of buprenorphine in this country.

As a result, buprenorphine is extremely safe when used properly. And thousands of people use buprenorphine appropriately and therefore safely. It has helped them turn around their lives.

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In The Sun's recent series of articles on buprenorphine, the many positive aspects of buprenorphine seem to have been lost in the overwhelming focus on its negatives. The first and most important of these positive aspects is the number of studies that have shown how effective the medication is at helping people stop using heroin and prescription pain killers.

The diversion of buprenorphine, although an issue, must be put in the context of the illicit sale of other medications - for instance, there is even a black market for antibiotics and asthma inhalers.

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Not one person. Despite pages of text arguing that the misuse of buprenorphine is a crisis, The Sun interviewed nobody in Maryland whose initial or primary problem is abuse of the medication ("The 'bupe fix,'" Dec. 16-18). Not one good comparison. The Sun provided no information to help readers contrast the street market for buprenorphine with our major heroin problem or with the diversion of more addictive, more lethal and less regulated drugs, such as OxyContin.

Not one stereotype of drug treatment left out.

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Near the end of his column "Making drugs legal not a fix, say ex-users" (Dec. 12), Jay Hancock responds to comments about the inability of drug legalization to solve problems associated with illegal drug use from recovering addicts at Man Alive's Lane Treatment Center by saying, "Any nation trying it would encounter devilish complications."

Switzerland has proved that this statement is not necessarily true.

Through their current Heroin Assisted Treatment program, the Swiss have drastically reduced drug-associated crime, reduced new addiction and positively increased the health and social situations of heroin addicts.

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After weeks in the judicial trenches trying to keep poor people awaiting trial out of jail, my University of Maryland law students almost always have the same two questions:

Why does the state's pretrial justice system incarcerate so many people, typically 30 days and longer, because they can't afford bail?

And why does the legal profession seem to care so little about accused indigents denied a lawyer at the initial bail stage, given its respect for the 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright ruling, where the nation's highest court declared the right to counsel fundamental for ensuring equal justice?

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It's disappointing - although not surprising - that a promising drug in the fight against addiction has become a sought-after narcotic in the illegal drug market in some areas of the U.S. and in other countries. As detailed in a series in The Sun that concludes today, buprenorphine is being abused by some patients and black marketeers, who sell it for profit or combine it with other drugs for a different kind of high.

This drug "diversion" is not unusual and is no reason to give up on "bupe," which has helped relieve addiction to heroin and prescription painkillers, such as OxyContin. A key solution is to put more safeguards in place, including more training for doctors and counseling for patients.

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Yesterday, a federal grand jury indicted a West Baltimore man who acted as cameraman for the notorious Stop Snitching DVD on drug-related charges.

Akiba M. Matthews, 35, was charged with distribution and possession with intent to distribute heroin, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

If convicted on all charges, Matthews faces up to life in prison. At minimum, law enforcement officials said a conviction on the firearms charge by a felon carries a mandatory minimum prison term of five years

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With a welcome dose of common sense, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that federal sentencing guidelines are advisory, not mandatory, and that a judge is still free to exercise discretion, depending on the circumstances of the case. The court's reiteration of the principle that judges should use their judgment is particularly appropriate in drug cases, where mandatory minimum sentences are often unnecessarily harsh and disparate punishments involving crack and powder cocaine are especially glaring.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission's unanimous vote yesterday in favor of a retroactive review of many of these sentences should help restore some fairness, but it comes after too many people have already served too much time. Congress needs to enact more comprehensive relief.

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Legalize drugs? That's what I advocated in this space a month ago. By allowing licensed clinics to sell or dispense hard drugs, we could take business away from violent dealers and let rationality and regulated economics rule the streets instead of robbery and murder.

Not so fast, say people who really know about heroin supply and demand. The hard-drug trade, say former patrons, doesn't have much to do with rationality.

"I don't think that's going to stop the dealers from dealing," says Felicia, 47, a recovering addict who notes that even legalized methadone is bought and sold on the streets. "It may slow it down some. But there's always going to be someone out there that's going to sell to me. Always."

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On the question of drug and alcohol use at Loyola College, Cynthia Parcover seeks out the answers in the classrooms. Parcover conducts the Loyola College Student Lifestyle Survey (LCSLS), one tool in the college's campaign to assess campus norms on subjects ranging from prayer and service, to alcohol and drug use. As the Assistant Director for Alcohol and Drug Education and Support Services (ADESS), she is on the forefront of the effort to study student perceptions, compared with what officials in the administration call campus realities. Other surveys the College refers to are the New Student Survey (NSS) and Core Alcohol and Drug Survey (CORE).

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Despite the controversy surrounding The Greyhound's first installment of its series, "A Costly Habit" on cocaine use at Loyola, we are glad to see the story raised reactions both positive and negative. As the sole newspaper on campus, we must take into account our effect on the college community, and of course, how the Loyola student community views, itself, as a result. Either way, any sort of discussion that takes place must examine both the positive attributes of Loyola's community, of which there are many, and the negative in order to educate ourselves about campus realities.

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Two students were discovered with marijuana in Cecil and Harford dorms four weeks ago, while a large rumor is circulating around campus that another drug bust occurred in Caroline House.

According to Chestertown Police Captain Robert Edler Jr., [redacted] was arrested in [redacted] for marijuana possession.

The Harford incident occurred at 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 31.

The student has not been charged yet, and police have not released the name.

According to Public Safety records, no such incident in Caroline happened. Director of Public Safety Jerry Roderick says that the persistent buzz on campus about such an occurrence "is a mystery."

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The philosophy of harm reduction that forms the basis of the Good Samaritan policy I hope to enact through the University Senate this year is straightforward. This excerpt from the website of the nonprofit organization Harm Reduction Coalition (www.harmreduction.org) summarizes the guiding principle quite well: "[A public policy approach of harm reduction] accepts, for better and for worse, that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and chooses to work to minimize its harmful effects rather than simply ignore or condemn them." This acceptance does not indicate "giving up" on the drug problem but taking a positive and effective approach to solving it.

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New Police Commissioner Questions Policies on Drugs, Arrests

The City Council is to vote tonight to approve Frederick H. Bealefeld III as Baltimore's 36th police commissioner since 1850, and the first under the administration of Mayor Sheila Dixon.

The 45-year-old began his law enforcement career a quarter-century ago in Baltimore and has worked under 10 commissioners.

With Baltimore on the verge of recording 300 homicides in a year for the first time since 1999, Bealefeld faces a daunting challenge. Violent crime, drugs, gangs and witness intimidation threaten to undermine recent improvements in public safety that have sparked a resurgence in many neighborhoods.

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Deceased Suspect Had A History Of Violence

The Annapolis police officer who was shot during a Friday afternoon drug raid in Eastport is out of the hospital and recovering at home, a department spokesman said yesterday.

Police also say they seized about $1,000 worth of cocaine following the shootout that left the suspect dead.

Lt. Brian Della said Officer 1st Class David Stokes, who was hit in the leg during the 12:22 p.m. raid and flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, was released later that night. "He is doing well," Lt. Della said at a news conference yesterday.

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Photo Caption: According to the DEA supply of cocaine nationally has decreased over the past 18 months. Prices have risen by 15 percent per pre gram, making a typical purchase of cocaine well over $130.

Matthew Lindeboom contributed to this story.

"I wouldn't say cocaine is prominent on this campus right now," says an upperclassman from Loyola College who wishes to remain anonymous. "It is in a down period. We need more dealers on this campus. There doesn't seem to be many."

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State, City Health Officials Seek Answers

Women who sell sex for drugs will receive new attention from public health authorities interested in finding ways to curb the spread of HIV.

State and city health officials say they will join forces to explore the links between prostitution, drug addiction and transmission of the virus.

Officials with both agencies said they will hold the first in a series of meetings this month in an effort to tap the expertise of community organizations that have been helping women engaged in prostitution.

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There is a way to stop Baltimore's murder epidemic. Improve Baltimore's schools. Revive Baltimore's neighborhoods. And it doesn't involve more police, higher taxes or longer prison sentences.

Instead, it requires restructuring what is possibly the city's biggest industry.

Legalize heroin and cocaine sales, and you erase the economic force behind Baltimore's heartache.

Would it lead to new addicts? Of course. Would it send a bad message to kids? Yep. Would it cause problems we can't envisage? Probably. And it would be an enormous improvement.

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Two students have been removed from housing following a drug bust, raising questions about the college's policy on entering locked rooms and the process for giving sanctions.

The students, who have identified themselves as Gabe Dinsmoor '10 and Jenn Hennion '11, were caught with marijuana.

"We had marijuana out in the open in multiple bags." Dinsmoor said in a recent interview. "We were weighing out the marijuana to distribute it. ... We were selling it."

Goucher staff entered Dinsmoor's room less than 12 hours after receiving a tip on October 22, The Quindecim has learned. Gail Edmonds, dean of students, said she authorized the room search. When the Goucher staffers arrived at Dinsmoor's room, located in "The T" residence hall, the door was locked. They knocked, and seconds later unlocked the door and entered the room. They found Dinsmoor and Hennion in the middle of weighing marijuana for distribution.

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Women Trade Sex For Drugs, With AIDS The Result

While just a teenager in the 1970s, she danced on The Block, where she snorted cocaine and heroin and sold sex in back rooms. Later, with her addictions firmly rooted, she set out on her own, offering her body on the streets of West Baltimore as a deadly virus was spreading.

The years have worn away at Sharon Williams, whose deeply lined face, reddened eyes and pained expressions tell of poor health, nights in abandoned buildings and customers like the man who kicked her down a flight of stairs, breaking two ribs and puncturing a lung.

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Four students were arrested at Sussex Central High School this week after police officers, with the school's cooperation, put the school day on pause to sweep the campus for illegal drugs. They found some, police said -- thus the charges, and long suspensions.

It's not what parents think they're sending their children off to in the morning, a drug-raid shakedown. "My kids are starting to feel that they are in a jail," one parent wrote on the Delaware Wave's Web site, delawarewave.com, which reported the raid as it happened Friday morning. "I feel there are good intentions in the actions of the administration but they need to pick their battles."

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Resident Life officials responded to a student organization's efforts to lobby Resident Assistants to use discretion in reporting marijuana use in dorms, telling RAs they are barred from deciding whether or not to call police over drug use.

Several RAs in North Campus said they ignored Resident Life's e-mailed warning, which came last week after Students for a Sensible Drug Policy began hand-delivering its letter to RAs last month. The letter urged RAs to consider what they said are unfair consequences students face when police are called to investigate drug use.

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Through all his years in politics, despite the endless obligation to shake hands, smile for the cameras and coax money out of contributors, Sen. John McCain has somehow avoided becoming a complete phony. Annoy Mr. McCain, and you won't have to wait long to find out.

Even a sickly, soft-spoken woman in a wheelchair gets no pass from him. The other day, at a meeting with voters in New Hampshire, Linda Macia mentioned her use of medical marijuana and politely asked his position on permitting it. Barely were the words out of her mouth before Mr. McCain spun on his heel, stalked away and heaped scorn on the idea.

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Student groups on the campus have much to learn from Students for Sensible Drug Policy. The group went the traditional, preferred route of achieving their goals. They set up meetings with Resident Life officials and tried to convince them that penalties brought against students who smoke pot in dorms are out of step with how society treats usage of the drug. But no dice.

In response, the group's leader, junior Anastacia Cosner, stepped up and joined the University Senate. Even though she'd be vastly outnumbered by faculty senators, she realized that joining the university's most powerful policy-making body is the most direct way to effect change.

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In a "last-ditch" effort to get better treatment for students accused of using drugs in dorms, university activists are asking resident assistants not to immediately call police or write students up if they smell or suspect drug use.

The university's chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy is asking RAs to use discretion before calling police when they smell marijuana in their halls because of the harsh consequences that come with drug violations. Those punishments include expulsion from housing at the university level, and arrest and automatic loss of state and federal financial aid if the case enters the judicial system.

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Yesterday, The Diamondback reported that Students for Sensible Drug Policy is "asking resident assistants not to immediately call police or write students up if they smell or suspect drug use" ("With no-go on ResLife, SSDP targets RAs," Oct. 4). Varied misconceptions about our motives have been the largest contributors to the hindrance of our progress toward the ultimate goal of more reasonable and fair punishments for students caught with marijuana. I'd like to briefly clarify that the terminology in the article may have suggested a different goal than what we are aiming for.

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D.A.R.E. Honors An Officer, Educator

Officer George Stephens did not like the energy he was getting from the seventh-grade students in his Drug Abuse Resistance Education class at Briggs Chaney Middle School. So the Montgomery County Police veteran stopped his lesson for a dance break.

Suddenly, two dozen students rose from their chairs and slowly started dancing behind their desks. Everyone was soon happily moving and singing a call-and-answer song about D.A.R.E., Stephens included.

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Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young is taking his war against the "war on drugs" one step farther.

On Monday, Young said he will introduce a resolution seeking a hearing - -- with testimony from the Baltimore Police Department and the city Health Department -- to open a dialogue on what he said is a failed strategy against illegal drugs.

"Like I've said before -- what we've done is not working," he said.

"We need to have a dialogue about taking the profit motive out of drug dealing and ending the so-called war on drugs."

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Annapolis Company Will Target DOD Jobs

ARINC Inc., which has spent the past eight decades supplying airlines with communications technology, said yesterday that it plans to also fight "narcoterrorism" - the flow of illegal drugs that finance terrorists - as part of a Department of Defense contract worth up to $15 billion.

The Annapolis company is one of five chosen from a pool of applicants to compete for jobs under the five-year contract, which was awarded by the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. That agency supports the U.S. Department of Defense Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office.

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Sitting in his office at the Frederick Rescue Mission on South Street, executive director Arnold Farlow frequently sees drug deals from his window. Drug activity in the neighborhood has increased in the past seven or eight months, he said.

Men live at the mission because drugs have shattered their lives, Farlow said. It's frustrating that they could walk across the street and easily buy more.

The Christian-based rescue mission runs the Beacon House, a three-phase, faith-based drug and alcohol recovery program for men. It also operates a soup kitchen, food pantry and a clothing and furniture recycling service.

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Stacia Cosner, a university senator and head of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, she has spent two years struggling to see marijuana users treated less like violent criminals by the university.

Now, Resident Life's administrators have, perhaps half-heartedly, relented. The department's associate director, Steven Petkas said Resident Life will give more leeway to community directors to decide punishment for students evicted from housing because of drug violations.

The fight's not over, but Cosner feels vindicated.

"They're punished by the school, the state and the county," said Cosner. "If I can take away one of those, or lessen the impact, I've done my part."

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2 Women Get Apologies, Are Awarded $285,000 For Experience During High School Drug Sweep

Three years after they were strip-searched during a drug sweep at Kent County High School, two former students have been awarded $285,000 in damages, plus apologies from school and Sheriff's Department officials.

The American Civil Liberties Union Monday announced the terms of the agreement to settle a lawsuit filed by the students, Heather Gore and Jessica Bedell. They were 15-year-old sophomores when they were searched by a female sheriff's deputy April 16, 2004.

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Red Tape, Doctors Say, Cuts Buprenorphine Prescriptions

Faced with Medicaid's low payments and bureaucratic red tape, some Maryland doctors are reluctant to prescribe buprenorphine for heroin addicts, even though the drug has been promoted as a potential magic bullet in the war against addiction, according to a survey set for release today.

The survey, commissioned by the Center for a Healthy Maryland Inc., found that doctors were not always sufficiently reimbursed for their time and services and that there were other "hassles," including medication preauthorization, a process that in some cases can take 48 hours, and varying and confusing protocols among Medicaid providers.

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The first interim report on Baltimore's efforts to reduce heroin addiction through expanded use of a promising drug shows that the city's strategy is working relatively well, but that results could be even better with broader participation by doctors and hospitals. In a city with such abundant medical talent, that should not be an impediment to helping eliminate a major scourge.

Baltimore's buprenorphine initiative is a worthy effort, led by the city's Health Department, to help addicts by using a synthetic opiate that is an effective antidote to heroin. Buprenorphine is not as habit-forming as methadone and can be managed more privately under medical supervision, through teaching hospitals, community health centers and group practices. The state has also been reaching out to private physicians and training them in prescribing the drug and managing patients who take it.

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Sharfstein Says Progress Made On Bupe Treatment, But Hurdles Still Remain

Baltimore health officials are heralding early successes in their effort to combat heroin addiction with a new drug, but say that the novel program faces several obstacles to better achieve its objectives.

The city's health commissioner, Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, unveiled yesterday his agency's progress report on the Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative, which has spent more than $900,000 since October to shepherd heroin addicts into drug treatment, find them health insurance and match them with personal physicians.

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