Police officers should be subjected to random drug testing.

The recent arrest of a Moss Point police officer is an indication of how critical such a simple procedure such as frequent and random drug tests may be for public safety.

Police officers are not immune from the ills of life, such as substance abuse. Law enforcement officers are in a unique position because they are entrusted to carry weapons in the course of their work. Police officers and deputies also are called upon to make life and death decisions from the use of a weapon to even how a vehicle is driven. The public ought to be assured all reasonable safeguards are taken to make sure the person given such authority is not impaired by substance abuse. Testing would be a reasonable safeguard.

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Mississippi has one of the highest inmate incarceration rates in the country, and the state's prison population keeps growing, amid concern about pending budget woes and a shortage of inmate beds.

Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said his staff expected the inmate population to grow by 594 between July 1 and June 30, 2007.

Instead, the inmate tally hit 610 additional prisoners Dec. 10.

"I can't tell you what the next six months is going to bring," Epps said.

House Corrections Chairman Bennett Malone, D-Carthage, said the number of empty beds in state prisons went from about 1,200 earlier this year to fewer than 200, Malone said.

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Arrest Numbers Relatively Low, but Higher Profile

Statistics show a large increase in the number of Mississippi law enforcement officers who have crossed the line and turned to the wrong side of the law.

Since July, at least 17 officers statewide have been arrested on criminal charges. There have been five arrests in South Mississippi since 2000.

The numbers are enough to raise this question: Have cops gone wild?

Not at all, said law enforcement officials and consultants, who say the number of recent arrests is small considering the state has more than 10,000 sworn officers.

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It has become a familiar scene on the evening news across the country: Neighbors watch in stunned silence as police raid the house next door and the nice couple who for the most part kept to themselves is hauled away for running a methamphetamine lab in their basement.

How could this happen, the neighbors ask, in our neighborhood? Isn't this the kind of thing you only see . . . somewhere else?

Compared to marijuana, heroin or cocaine, methamphetamine, or "meth" as it is commonly known, is relatively new in the headlines. But this drug has had a tremendous and terrible impact in a short time.

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Public Safety Commissioner George Phillips was right to reverse a recommendation to cut funding for the state's largest narcotics task force.

A committee appointed by Phillips earlier turned down a $228,000 grant application for the North Central Narcotics Task Force, citing a cut in federal funding to the state.

The U.S. Department of Justice cut the state's funding from $5.3 million to about $2 million, saying money was shifted from drugs to homeland security needs.

That is a shortsighted shift in priorities, especially for rural states like Mississippi. Much crime is driven by drugs, as Phillips points out. Federal funding is needed for this overwhelming task.

Second District U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Bolton, will be assuming chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee and says he supports restoring the law enforcement grant funding.

That would help Mississippi do what it must to fight drugs.

[end]

National Celebration Honors Fallen Hero

CARRIERE -- Pearl River Central Upper and Lower Elementary Schools celebrated National Red Ribbon Week October 23-27, 2006. This week is celebrated throughout our country as a tribute to a fallen hero, DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena. He grew up very poor and vowed one day to make a difference. He was tragically murdered by drug traffickers in Mexico in February of 1985. In his memory, friends and family began to wear red badges of satin.

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Is America giving up on the "drug war" in favor of fighting the war in Iraq?

Mississippi's 14 multijurisdictional narcotics task forces were told on Sept. 29 that their federal funding was being cut. Cuts are blamed on the Iraq war.

The U.S. Justice Department's Byrne Justice Assistance Grant used to fund the task forces has dropped from $5.3 million in 2003 to about $2 million this year, forcing some to shut down already.

It's particularly acute in the Delta, where the state's largest task force - the eight-county North Central Narcotics Task Force - is losing its $280,000. It netted 162 drug arrests in the past fiscal year.

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STARKVILLE - Students at Henderson Intermediate School in Starkville got the drug-free message loud and clear Friday, not only from their own classmates, but from a convicted and rehabilitated drug offender as well.

"I think the worst thing that happened was watching my mom cry in court," said Heath Kleinke, 31, from Hattiesburg, and a trustee with the Oktibbeha County Jail, who is serving six years into a 12-year sentence for multiple drug-related crimes, including drug possession and selling.

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Former Biloxi police officer Darrell D. Cvitanovich Jr. has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for selling Ecstasy.

Harrison County Circuit Judge Roger Clark on Monday suspended 10 years of the sentence, giving Cvitanovich five years to serve.

Cvitanovich pleaded guilty earlier this month to one of two drug charges.

The 14-year veteran resigned following his arrest in June after a raid at his home turned up several tablets of Ecstasy and a small amount of methamphetamine.

Clark agreed to give Cvitanovich until noon Nov. 15 to turn himself in to go to prison.

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Area students wore caps, ties and mismatched socks and also planted flowers during Red Ribbon Week. Observed each year from Oct. 23-31, the Red Ribbon Campaign is the oldest and largest drug prevention program in the country.

"Our highlight for the week was the whole school planting red tulip bulbs," said Jennifer Homan, counselor at Parkway Elementary in Tupelo.

The Red Ribbon Campaign was started after drug traffickers in Mexico City murdered Kiki Camarena, a DEA agent, in 1985. In honor of Camarena's memory, friends and neighbors began to wear red badges of satin. Parent coalitions took note, adopting the red ribbon as a symbol of the fight against drugs.

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The dangers from substance abuse are as real today as they were 21 years ago when Red Ribbon Week began after drug traffickers in Mexico City murdered Drug Enforcement Administration agent Kiki Camarena. The red ribbon is used as a symbol of the commitment against drug abuse.

Red Ribbon Week is scheduled from Oct. 23 to Oct. 31. A look through the newspaper from the arrests by police and sheriff's departments to even the sports pages shows that substance abuse is, unfortunately, part of daily life. From illegal drugs to legal substances such as tobacco, substance abuse robs individuals from becoming full participants in the world around them.

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JACKSON COUNTY - Every K-12 student in Jackson County received a red ribbon last week as part of National Red Ribbon Week, which is the largest drug prevention event in America.

Singing River Services Prevention Department passed out more than 3,000 red ribbons with the phrase "Drug Free 24/7 - 365."

National Red Ribbon Week was a campaign started when drug traffickers in Mexico City murdered Kiki Camarena, a DEA agent, in 1985. The continuing tradition of wearing red ribbons symbolizes the intolerance towards the use of drugs and to present a unified commitment toward a drug-free America.

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MOSS POINT -- By the end of school Friday, every child in a Jackson County public school should have a red ribbon to proudly wear to show their courage to say "no" to drugs.

Singing River Services, a mental health and drug-treatment facility in Gautier, is participating in the national campaign for its third year in a row to kick off Red Ribbon Week from Oct. 23-Oct. 31. The facility will send representatives to every school in the county to hand out red ribbons to students.

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Owner Also Forbidden From Providing 'Harassing' Information

Jackson officials are prohibited from referring to a Virden Addition duplex the mayor allegedly damaged as a crack house, Hinds County Circuit Judge Tomie T. Green ruled Tuesday.

"Unfettered use of the terms 'drug house,' 'crack house,' 'dope house' or 'drug distribution center' publicly and before the media has the effect of unfairly swaying the opinions of potential jurors who may be called upon to try the issue in related litigation," Green wrote in her ruling.

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You and your law-abiding neighbors in Mississippi might be just one street address away from a life-threatening, midnight raid by a local paramilitary police unit.

As these so-called SWAT squads increasingly become America's favored search warrant delivery service, bungled raids - including many to the wrong address - have skyrocketed. In these assaults on private property, scores of innocent citizens, police officers and nonviolent offenders have died.

In a recent CATO Institute report titled "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," Radley Balko describes how, "Over the last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing militarization of its civilian law enforcement, along with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of paramilitary police units (most commonly called Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for routine police work. The most common use of SWAT teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the home."

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As a retired police officer with 18 years experience, I am surprised that in 2006 you still say that "crime is driven by drugs" ("Budget cuts: What happened to drug 'war?' " Oct. 5 editorial).

It is the prohibition of drugs which causes 75 percent of felony crime - not the use. If we were as wise as our grandparents and ended the new prohibition, we would experience a tremendous drop in felony crime.

Also, a serious drop in DUI deaths would result because then officers could focus on drunk drivers instead of Willie Nelson.

As Thomas Paine wrote in The American Crisis in 1776: "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

Howard J. Wooldridge

Member

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Frederick, Md.

[end]

The News That Two Drug Task Forces In Mississippi Are Shutting Down Couldn't Come At A Worse Time.

Crime is on the increase, nationally and here in Mississippi. Much of the crime is driven by drugs. It is a problem not limited to urban areas. In fact, rural areas of the state have unique and difficult drug problems that require special enforcement.

Yet, at the time crime is on an increase, much-needed federal grant money is being cut.

The North Central Narcotics Task force and the Metro Narcotics Unit in DeSoto County have been informed that the federal grant money that funds the state's 14 narcotics units is drying up.

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Two drug task forces in the state will be shut down because of cuts in a federal grant program.

Law enforcement representatives for the eight-county North Central Narcotics Task Force and the Metro Narcotics Unit in DeSoto County received word this week that they had lost their funding. At least six employees of the North Central Narcotics Task Force will be left without a job.

"We kind of knew it was eventually going to come," said DeSoto County Sheriff's Department spokesman Chief Steve Atkinson. "We didn't know it was going to be this year."

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VIDALIA -- After completing the two-week training program, Officer Bobby Sheppard said he is proud to be Concordia Parish's newest D.A.R.E. officer.

Sheppard teaches classes for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Ferriday Lower Elementary School every Wednesday.

After taking his own classes to prepare to teach, Sheppard said he has an appreciation for what the parish school teachers go through on a day-to-day basis.

Sheppard said each day his class had instructors come in and teach the officers from different parishes lessons on different aspects of education, from child behavior to adjusting from the field to a classroom environment.

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Cory Maye's version of an incident five years ago sounds like a compelling argument for the Castle Doctrine, the controversial law that gives Mississippians broader authority to defend their homes and other property.

Maye said he was home with his 18-month-old daughter when he fell asleep in a chair. He said he was awakened by what he believed were intruders and, like most people, wanted to protect his home and his family. He reached for a nearby handgun and shot Ron Jones as Jones entered Maye's duplex.

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