Proposed Bill Cost-Effective

About 1.4 million New Jerseyans lack health care coverage and our governor says we can't afford the solution. ("New Jersey eyes other states as it weighs health care coverage," Dec. 24.) Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, has been working on a plan that would require all state residents to have health care coverage that could cost the state $1 billion but we don't have the money to implement it right now.

There is another health care proposal that sat on Vitale's desk this legislative session. As chairman of the Senate Health Committee, he refused to post it for a floor vote. It's the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. The program's cost would have been negated by the registration fees charged to participants. It would have cost the state virtually nothing. It would have saved New Jersey money in other areas. Not only is the proposed bill financially feasible, it would have eased the suffering of so many seriously ill and dying residents.

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MILLVILLE -- You could hear it from a block away.

The sound of about 100 parishioners clapping, dancing and singing in the new year emanated from In His Presence Worship Center, on East Broad Street, Saturday night as the church's yearly Pre-New Years Celebration sought to welcome 2008 on a positive note.

Another goal of the holiday celebration, according to Deacon George Jamison, was to help keep people -- especially young people -- "off the streets.

"We're trying to save as many souls as we can, trying to stop all the drug dealers and drug addicts and robberies we see in our community," said Jamison, who serves as president of deacons at In His Presence. "The more people we get in here, the less are out on the street."

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So Many Crimes, and Reasons to Not Cooperate

CAMDEN, N.J. -- When her 16-year-old son was shot dead on a street corner here in June, Rosalynn Glasco became the latest mother left to search for justice in a world without witnesses -- where the stigma of being seen as a snitch or the fear of retaliation prevents many from testifying about even the worst crimes.

But Ms. Glasco held out some hope, all the same. Determined not to let her son's killer go unpunished, she urged her daughter and other relatives to work the grapevine in the neighborhood where he was killed, Whitman Park, searching for evidence, and maybe somebody willing to share it.

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AS he drove slowly along the streets he first traveled more than 40 years ago, when he was still a young parole officer who wished he could do more than just check in and move on, David Kerr was looking for a sign.

"It's been a while since I've seen one," he said about the signs that are meant to mark the 1,000-foot perimeter around all schools within which the penalty for dealing drugs is mandatory and more severe than elsewhere. "The problem is, there are schools everywhere. 'Entering Newark, Drug-Free School Zone,' that's what the signs should say."

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Board to Disclose Policy on Random Student Drug Testing at Next Month's Meeting.

HILLSBOROUGH -- The public can voice opinions on plans to implement random student drug testing at Hillsborough High School next month before the Board of Education makes a final decision about it.

Scheduling conflicts had caused Board of Education members to move the public hearing from this month to the 7:30 p.m. work meeting on Jan. 3. School board member David Kanaby, chairman of the board's Policy Committee, said the board's attorney is drafting a policy for the random drug testing which, if approved, would be implemented in the 2008-09 school year.

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PASSAIC - In the last 12 months, the city's Housing Authority has put 30 families on an eviction list and more than 150 people on a "no-trespass" list as part of a tougher stance against drugs and crime on its premises.

And while some are lauding the program, others say it does nothing more than uproot families or tear them apart.

"I try to tell him don't go out there and get into trouble, but I can't control what he does," said Margaret Jackson, whose son, Calvin Stegal, 19, has numerous arrests for drugs and one arrest for beating up another tenant, according to Jose Colon, the authority's security director. Jackson sobbed when she learned she has been put on the authority's eviction list.

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Drug trafficking in Camden's Whitman Park may hit a speed bump, thanks to a partnership among Camden officials, residents and the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Louis Street, in the heart of crime-ridden Whitman Park, will be converted into a one-way, southbound thoroughfare, to allow police to monitor drug dealers' activities more effectively and reduce traffic accidents. A date for converting the street has not been determined.

City Council adopted an ordinance to make the change on Dec. 11, but the measure grew from a year-long effort by police, Whitman Park residents and the prosecutor's office to address crime and safety concerns in the neighborhood.

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Camden Residents Hope A Change Limits All Kinds Of Traffic.

Making his daily rounds delivering mail, Steve Carmichael walks some of the meanest streets in Camden.

Open-air drug sales, violence, music blaring from cars - the Whitman Park neighborhood has it all.

"It's a war out there," Carmichael said last week.

But it's also where he and his family live.

Carmichael, who returned home to Camden in 1999 after 13 years in the military and five years in South Carolina, had to make a choice. Should he do nothing, or should he get involved?

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Sparta - Four months after the intended September start date, the Sparta High School random drug testing program finally got the green light.

School officials announced at the Board of Education meeting Monday, Dec. 17, preparations are underway to begin random testing sometime after the new year. With board of education approval in the spring, the program was to be implemented by the start of school. However, the state Department of Education said last summer that it would reevaluate sample collection and testing procedures with an eye toward consistent policies. Sparta opted to put the program on hold until it could determine if additional costs would be incurred.

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Counseling, Tests and Other Services Are Offered, Too, Trying to Stem a Major Source of HIV Infection.

ATLANTIC CITY - Bobby Jones, a self-described heroin addict, had never been to the Oasis Drop-In Center on Tennessee Avenue before.

But last month, when word on the street spread that the social service agency was offering drug users salvation in the form of the state's first legal needle-exchange program, Jones was among those lined up at the former union hall waiting for clean syringes.

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There is talk of shrinking drug-free school zones because of unfair social consequences.

But some police officers looking at the issue purely from a law-enforcement perspective say the only thing lawmakers should shrink is the possibility of a drug dealer facing less time in prison.

The current law increases penalties for anyone found selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or 500 feet of a park, public building or public housing.

A proposal from a state commission now being pushed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine and supported by all 21 county prosecutors in New Jersey calls for reducing the various zones to 200 feet.

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WITH ALL the potential criminal justice reforms being announced in recent months, it looks like there's some sort of tailwind driving the ship of state toward more realistic processing of felony offenders.

Retroactive sentence reductions are being sought to address sentencing disparity for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. Also at the national level, passage of the Second Chance Act would provide money for states to coordinate reentry programs for ex-offenders.

At the state level, recommendations were made to expand eligibility requirements for the drug courts, proven successful at salvaging wasted lives and diverting thousands from prison. In addition to those advances, Governor Corzine's administration and Newark's mayor promised thoughtful programs to redirect the paths of recidivists.

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Co-Founder of Pro-Marijuana Group Travels Across New Jersey to Spread Information on Subject

The Coalition for Medical Marijuana.

Ten years ago, the sight of those words may have prompted a response of confusion, intrigue and maybe even snickers. Today they may still do so, but with the growth of the Internet, changing social attitudes and the visibility of the lucrative pain relief industry, interest in this uncommon pain relief treatment has been picking up.

And the support that the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey has been receiving is a testament to that, co-founder Ken Wolski said.

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TRENTON - New Jersey's current drug-free school zones are ineffective and should be reduced in size and require stiffer penalties for offenders, said a panel advising Gov. Jon S. Corzine is a report released Tuesday.

Corzine's Task Force on Sentencing and Corrections recommended reducing drug-free school zones and other drug-free zones from 1,000 feet of public property to 200 feet while upgrading drug-free zone violations from third-to second-degree offenses.

The report said the two-decade old law had unintended consequences that "diffused" the impact of the law. Mainly, the report said, the large number of schools and public properties in urban areas created large portions in cities falling into these zones.

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Federal agents yesterday dismantled a major North Jersey drug trafficking ring authorities said flooded the streets with $2 million of heroin per month and then laundered the profits through Atlantic City casinos, sham businesses and the purchase of luxury cars and real estate.

After a three-year investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, authorities moved in yesterday morning to seize its assets and arrest its alleged leaders in Essex and Union counties.

Chief among them was Rasheem "Rosco" Small, a 30-year-old Newark man who authorities say built the city's premier heroin ring in recent years to finance his taste for expensive jewelry, big-money gambling and the white Bentley he drove.

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THE FAILURE of the war on drugs has been known for many years, but the impact that it causes in poor, urban black and Latino communities is an issue that deserves urgent attention.

The Justice Policy Institute says in a new report that the United States has 19.5 million users of illegal drugs. About 1.5 million of them were arrested for a drug-related offense, and 175,000 people went to prison in connection with a drug offense. More than half of those sent to prison were African-American.

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Atlantic County ranks second among the nation's nearly 200 largest counties for its disparity in the number of blacks jailed for drug-related crimes compared with whites, according to findings of a study released by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute.

The study found that 97 percent of the nation's counties with 250,000 or more people incarcerated blacks at a higher rate than whites. Kern County, Calif., has the highest drug-admission rate with 320 per 100,000 people, while ranking fifth in the nation for the number of blacks in the jails as opposed to whites. Atlantic County has the second-highest drug admission rate, with 256 drug offenders admitted per 100,000 people and 960 blacks admitted per 100,000 black residents. Camden County ranks fifth in the nation for admission of drug offenders and 14th for racial disparity, while Ocean County ranks 122nd for drug offender admission and 40th for disparity.

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But Some Lawmakers Aren't Sold on Changes

Gov. Jon Corzine, a state panel he appointed, his attorney general and all 21 county prosecutors yesterday endorsed a proposal to shrink the "drug-free zones" around schools and public buildings to make them more effective.

They said the current zones are so large they blanket entire sections of many cities, defeating their purpose of giving drug dealers a reason to move while creating racial disparities in sentencing. They reasoned that tighter drug-free zones -- with harsher penalties for dealing inside them -- would better protect children from exposure to illegal drugs.

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We're glad Atlantic City has finally launched its long-needed clean-needle program.

Last week, Atlantic City became the first city in New Jersey to launch a needle-exchange program. The idea of the program is to stop the spread of AIDS, hepatitis and other deadly diseases that can be transmitted when illegal-drug users share needles.

We're glad this long-needed program is finally under way in Atlantic City, and will soon be under way in Camden, Newark and Paterson, where AIDS kills too many people. New Jersey, foolishly, was the last state in the nation to allow access to clean needles.

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PEQUANNOCK -- Local residents may have to cover the costs next fall for the school district's model drug and alcohol testing program.

The district is in its final year of a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education that provided $40,000 annually for the program.

The Board of Education would have to approve paying the program costs until additional grant money could be found. Board President Megan Hollberg said she is "pretty confident" it would have support.

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