Supporters of reduced penalties for possessing marijuana shouldn't celebrate yet - City Council members made clear the ordinance approved Monday won't survive long in its current form.

Several council members said Tuesday they don't intend for the bill, advanced by initiative petition, to survive at all. They'll try to repeal the ordinance within the next 30 days, before it has a chance to take effect.

It isn't the first time council has considered approving an initiative petition just to amend it.

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Local efforts to roll back harsh penalties for marijuana possession reached the public discussion stage Monday night at the Springfield City Council meeting.

The initiative landed on the council's public agenda via a petition drive launched in part by Show-Me Cannabis Regulation. It seeks to reduce the penalty for possession of 35 grams or less of marijuana or related paraphernalia.

The initiative requests an amendment to an existing ordinance so that adults are not arrested but face only community service or counseling for a misdemeanor possession amount of marijuana. The most severe penalty would be a fine up to $150.

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Lee's Summit Students, Business Leaders Convened for a Talk on Marijuana Use

The goal was to simply open dialogue between business leaders in the community and area teenagers.

A summit sponsored by Community of Character Business Sector and Lee's Summit Cares to address marijuana use among teens resulted in both sides coming away with a better understanding of what goes into the thinking process of those who choose to be under the influence.

"It's not as simple as you're going to blow through (marijuana) and it's going to be OK," said Charlie Johnson, a Lee's Summit businessman. "It leads to other things."

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MARYVILLE, Mo. - Some students in the Maryville R-II School District will have to take a new test this coming school year: a drug test.

In May, the board of education approved a drug testing policy drafted by school administrators that would randomly test students in grades 7 through 12 who take part in extracurricular activities or who park on school grounds.

Steve Klotz, assistant superintendent, said the measure will affect most of the 700 middle and high school students in the district.

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To grow up in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s, as I did, wasn't your typical American childhood experience. Back then the area was known as the most dangerous place in the country.

Carnage from the drug wars filled the local news long before "Miami Vice" became a hit TV show. By elementary school, my friends and I knew some of the lingo. A Colombian necktie wasn't a piece of clothing, but a gruesome execution method. When I was 7 years old my barber was murdered in his shop, apparently over a drug deal.

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A petition to decriminalize marijuana has been certified by the city clerk's office and will move forward to City Council.

Springfield City Clerk Brenda Cirtin said the petition was certified late Thursday afternoon with 2,132 certified signatures. The office stopped the process soon after it passed the 2,101 signatures needed for certification.

"I'm so excited," said petition organizer Maranda Reynolds.

Reynolds and the Show-Me Cannabis group was notified a little over a week ago that an estimated 649 additional signatures were needed for certification. The group had until Aug. 7 to submit additional signatures but needed to turn them in earlier to make the City Council's Aug. 13 meeting agenda and stay on track to get the initiative on the ballot.

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School board unanimously voted to approve district's first drug-testing policy which will require enrollment in random program to participate in state-sponsored activities like sports as well as other extracurriculars

The Kirksville R-III School Board approved the district's first drug-testing policy with the plan of instating the policy in time for the semester's start in less than two weeks for students either involved in state-sponsored activities like athletics, music, speech or debate but also cheerleading and dance as well as an option for voluntary participation.

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Bob Parker Bob Parker is adamant -- he doesn't think drugs should be legal. But the Republican challenger to U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson's 8th District Congressional seat says it is not the federal government's role to decide and should be a matter left to individual states. But the Texas County rancher stopped short of calling for a federal decriminalization of drugs on Monday, a fact that had Emerson's camp criticizing him for holding a "reckless position" and failing to properly understand the legislative process.

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Could Kansas City be next in Missouri to lighten up on lighting up?

In 2004, Columbia residents passed a measure that greatly relaxed penalties for marijuana smoking and possession. The advocacy group Show-Me Cannabis Regulation said last week that it may soon mount similar efforts in Kansas City and Springfield.

"We think those are incremental steps that could really help in getting a statewide measure passed," said Amber Langston, the group's campaign director and leader of the Columbia effort.

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Smoking marijuana can adversely affect your physical and mental health, as well as interfere with your ability to function in social and occupational settings, according to recent clinical studies published in the latest issue of Missouri Medicine.

The negative data far outweigh the few documented benefits for medical and psychological treatments, according to the article written by Dr. Dragan M. Svrakic of Washington University School of Medicine.

In recent years, there has been a strong pressure on state legislatures across the U.S. to legalize or decriminalize use and possession of specified amounts of cannabis and/or to pass laws that allow smoking of crude cannabis plant.

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Amelioration of today's drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80-20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people - less than 1 percent of America's population - - consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

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Meth lab seizures increased 6 percent in Missouri last year, illustrating a problem that has grown despite a law that limits access to over-the-counter medicine used in the drug's production.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported 2,096 seizures in 2011, up from 1,960 in 2010.

In a press release, the patrol said Missouri saw a drop in the number of meth lab seizures in 2006, after anti-meth lab legislation was enacted.

However, from 2007 to 2011, the number of meth lab incidents in Missouri has increased steadily, from 1,285 in 2007; to 1,487 in 2008; 1,774 in 2009; 1,960 in 2010; and then 2,096 in 2011. That makes an increase of 63.1 percent since 2007, which includes operational labs, chemical or equipment seizures and lab dump sites.

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Sixteen states, as well as the District of Columbia, have legalized the use of medical marijuana. A statewide group is looking to take it a step further, however, and legalize all marijuana use in Missouri.

A group of about 65 volunteers have been hitting the streets in St. Joseph, looking for supporters of Show-Me Cannabis, an association that seeks to legalize and regulate marijuana use in the state. Missouri's Secretary of State requires 150,000 signatures on a statewide petition by May 6 in order for a legalization measure to appear on November's ballot.

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COLUMBIA - A low turnout didn't keep Missouri cannabis supporters from discussing marijuana legalization on Friday.

The Show-Me Cannabis Regulation ballot initiative campaign held a signature drive outside the Missouri state Capitol in Jefferson City.

The drive aided the campaign in its goal to obtain 144,000 valid signatures by May 4. The signatures, gathered by about 1,000 unpaid volunteers, are required to qualify the campaign's proposed constitutional amendment. Signatures from six out of nine congressional districts are needed.

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The media have no bleepin' clue how to cover the death of Whitney Houston. That's because she was slowly dying for years and many in the media simply averted their eyes.

It was ultra-disturbing that a beautiful woman blessed with an extraordinary singing voice chose a self-destructive path in full view of the world. I mean, here is a person who signed a $100 million recording contract, actually sold 170 million albums and commanded high six figures to deliver a 90-minute concert. Houston was a genuine international star, and yet she often was seen in public disheveled and confused, her substance addiction apparent. The media simply did not know what to say.

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The ramifications are "huge" if Missouri voters would approve a proposition to legalize marijuana in the state, the head of Franklin County's drug task force said.

A group of citizens under the title of Show Me Cannibis are collecting signatures on petitions to put the initiative petition on the ballot in November.

If approved it would, among other things, legalize the possession of marijuana for people 21 years old and older, allow for the state to collect a $100 per pound tax on marijuana sold at licensed cannabis stores, allow individuals to grow marijuana on their property for personal use in a 10-by-10 plot, and mandate the release of all people serving time in prison for nonviolent possession or sale of marijuana and expunge the conviction from their records.

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Moberly, Mo. - The Westran school district held a public forum Monday night at the high school to discuss implementing a student drug-testing program for students entering grades 7-12 who participate in activities outside of regular coursework.

The program included a presentation from Westran football coach Curtis Jasper, as well as information from John Throckmorton, of Employee Screening Services. A little over 40 people attended the forum, and they were able to ask questions and make comments.

Jasper shared the proposed policy, and added that nothing is set in stone yet. The school district first looked at the issue with a Student Drug Testing Committee. He said the reasoning for considering student drug testing was pretty basic.

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It would be great if our state went to pot Bernice and Wylie Williams walked along Delmar Boulevard in the Loop in University City late Thursday morning. Because they approached everybody they saw, they seemed, at first glance, to be panhandlers. But unlikely panhandlers. Respectable-looking. Kind of old for that sort of thing, too.

They were trying to collect signatures on a petition to put a measure on the November ballot that would legalize marijuana in Missouri. They are unlikely activists in this cause. Wylie is 73. Bernice is 69. They grew up in Texas and met at Texas Christian University. They married after Wylie graduated in 1961. Let me explain something to young people. What we now call the '60s did not start until 1966 or 1967.

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Booze and dope are evil. Kids have that drummed into them from grade school on.

Yet while teenage drinking continues a steady decline, marijuana use is on the rise among American teens, who see the warning message as bogus when it comes to pot.

"Marijuana has become the drug of choice," said Raytown schools Superintendent Allan Markley.

A new national study attributes increased marijuana use among America's youth to the common perception among teens that marijuana is less harmful than adults make it out to be, reinforced by the changing attitudes of the American public to pot.

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