Marijuana has been in the news an awful lot lately. The ballot referendum in California. Medicinal marijuana becoming legal in many states, including New Jersey. Philadelphia's decision to downgrade the possession of a small amount of marijuana from a misdemeanor to a summary offense. Cable TV shows that tell us how marijuana has become mainstream in America.

But in the rest of the state, and particularly here in Bucks County, sorry guys, it is still a crime.

It used to be that clients who sat across my desk from me were more than a bit embarrassed after being arrested for possessing weed. But in the past year or so, perhaps because of the public debate or from watching too many Judd Apatow movies, my prospective clients from teens to seniors, now look at me like I have a third eyeball in the middle of my head when I tell them about the long list of penalties and expenses they are facing.

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As in many other areas, the government needs to look at these designer drugs as a problem that cannot be solved by threat of jail time. For one thing, the current generation has a different perception of jail. It has become an accepted and even expected part of growing up. For another, in this time of unemployment, we have to expect that people will continue to use ingenuity to solve their fiscal crisis. Government will never keep up with the manufacturers, no more than our "war on drugs" has cured the past situation.

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HARRISBURG - With new types of dangerous synthetic drugs quickly appearing on the market, state lawmakers and law enforcement officials face a challenge to keep legislation banning their sale up to date.

The House plans a final vote the week of April 4 on a bill to ban the sale of "bath salts," which mimic the effects of cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as other synthetic narcotics. This bill is a conglomeration of proposals to add various synthetic narcotics sold in different parts of the state to the list of controlled substances. Once approved, this bill would go to the Senate, which has bills of its own.

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Grieving Mom Screams at Him on Courthouse Steps

SCRANTON -- Leaving a courtroom where he had just been convicted of racketeering for taking a $1 million kickback from the builder of the for-profit lockups, a former juvenile court judge defiantly insisted he never accepted money for sending large numbers of children to those detention centers.

Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted Friday in what prosecutors said was a "kids for cash" scheme that ranks among the biggest courtroom frauds in U.S. history. Ciavarella, 61, left the bench in disgrace two years ago after he and a second judge, Michael Conahan, were accused of using juvenile delinquents as pawns in a plot to get rich. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has dismissed 4,000 juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella, saying he sentenced young offenders without regard for their constitutional rights.

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As much as officials agree a danger lurks in bath salts and synthetic marijuana, they do not believe those types of "legal highs" are widely used in this region.

While synthetic marijuana has been around for a while, bath salts are relatively new on the scene. Both can be easily obtained locally.

"I know it's here, but I haven't seen it a lot," said city police officer Ken Mains.

Mains believes it is critical that parents are aware of the products.

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Bangor School Board President Joseph BoyleThe Bangor Area School District has taken an important first step toward protecting students from teachers who have problems with drugs or alcohol by implementing a drug testing policy for new hires.

But that's all it is. An important first step.

The next step must be a screening program for existing teachers, an idea the school board has supported in theory but has not yet approved.

Superintendent Patricia Mulroy says the policy will be part of labor negotiations with the teachers union sometime later this year. The board's solicitor has reportedly shared concerns about whether a random drug testing policy for teachers would be constitutional. So the board is aiming for a policy where teachers would be tested if there's just cause, according to board President Joseph Boyle. Boyle said the school district doesn't want to waste taxpayers' money or administrators' time defending the policy in court.

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Upon reading Pete Blanchard's letter to the editor ("Was drug arrest just a big show?" Jan. 16), I felt that a response was needed. I couldn't believe that Pete apparently felt the incident involving the alleged selling drugs out of Ali Abualburak's house was a "small case."

I was astonished to read how insignificant it was viewed by this young person.

Selling drugs in any form is against the law and, more important, it can affect the "customers" redirecting them from healthy and productive lives to ones of social and financial destruction. Once they become "hooked," it's now the taxpayers who will be required to finance the burden to meet all the social and medical issues associated with these customers' use of drugs.

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HARRISBURG -- Some call it "K2." Others call it "genie," "spice" or "legal bud."

State Rep. Jennifer Mann calls it dangerous.

The Lehigh Valley Democrat is renewing her effort to criminalize possession of synthetic marijuana.

A similar proposal overwhelmingly passed the House this fall but the legislative session closed before the bill could come to a vote in the Senate.

The product, which sells online and in smoke shops for $10 to $20 an ounce, is made from plant products sprayed with chemicals that, when smoked, mimic the effects of marijuana.

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The Inquirer hit a bull's eye with the editorial "Sell drugs or go jobless" (Tuesday), and it's not just locally. It's throughout North America and beyond. You say that "there must be consequences for people who violate the law," but "war on drugs" laws are discredited and unaffordable and create contempt for government. It's time for credible drug-law reform, and at the very minimum that means legalizing the relatively safe, extremely popular, God-given plant cannabis (marijuana). Legalizing and regulating cannabis will create jobs, increase tax revenue, lower crime rates, lower hard-drug addiction rates, add credibility to government drug messages, open the door to hemp farming, and bring dozens of other benefits.

Cannabis should have never been prohibited from the beginning.

Stan White

Dillon, Colo.

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I applaud Alfred Lubrano's recent article ("The drugs dilemma," Sunday) for its insight into the complex challenges associated with breaking the stronghold of the drug trade and the cycle of addiction in Kensington. One key barrier that the article fails to mention, however, is the difficulty many face accessing quality substance-abuse treatment. There are many reasons for this among substance abusers: reluctance to take the first step to enter treatment; uncertainty about how to navigate the treatment system; and limited treatment options in the Kensington section of the city, particularly for youths. Programs like New Pathways, which actively recruits drug users on the streets to help them enroll in treatment and supports their recovery when they return to their neighborhoods, can help address these barriers.

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Many government officials are finally admitting the war on drugs is a costly failure. That lesson is on display daily in this city.

Inquirer reporter Alfred Lubrano, in an article Sunday, detailed the devastation and despair wrought by the illicit drug trade in the Kensington neighborhood. Generations are being lost to cycles of addiction, violence, and a shortage of legal alternatives.

The article is part of an ongoing series on poverty and hunger in the city's First Congressional District, the second-poorest in the nation. In the article, University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Philippe Bourgois, who's living in Kensington part-time, chronicles the lives of drug dealers.

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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently issued a temporary emergency action order to ban five chemicals used to manufacture a substance called " synthetic marijuana." Synthetic marijuana is a legal, yet incredibly dangerous, drug made of plants soaked in harsh chemicals and marketed directly to teens and young adults.

The DEA is going to use the temporary ban for a one-year study to determine if these chemicals should be treated the same way as controlled substances like heroin or cocaine.

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By Vincent Walsh and Signe Hoover

The essay below derives from recent discussions in my English 1 class, otherwise known as "The Fam Jam," about the unfortunate incident on campus several weeks ago when a male student, tripping on LSD, burst into a dorm room and allegedly engaged in extremely offensive, highly aggressive behavior, which resulted in his being arrested and confined in a local jail on half a million dollars bond.

I went through college during the psychedelic frenzy of the '60s. I witnessed the deterioration of several truly great minds among my peers, brilliant young people who fell unwitting victim to contaminated versions of this brain-bending substance; the fact is, one never really knows the actual ingredients or size of dose with any street drug. Such ignorance can lead to tragedy, as I believe it has with this recent event in our community: a young man's promising future in ruins, several young women badly traumatized, all of us left deeply troubled - and, yes, profoundly embarrassed by having a story like this splashed all over local news outlets. This is not the image of Lehigh any of us wants to convey.

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FRANKLIN COUNTY - A woman accused of tending an allegedly religion-based marijuana crop in Fannettsburg last winter was given local jail time for her part in the operation.

Karen L. Sheaffer, 47, Carlisle, was sentenced Wednesday to nine to 23 months in Franklin County Jail by Judge Shawn Meyers.

Her three co-defendants -- Robert G. Henry, Carl Goshorn and Cynthia Ritchie -- are scheduled to go to trial in January.

Henry, 50, Fannettsburg, is accused of directing the pot-growing operation from his Cumberland County jail cell last winter. He gained notoriety three years ago when he claimed his marijuana possession and use was part of a religious practice.

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Court Celebrates 10-Year Anniversary Thursday Afternoon

HOLLIDAYSBURG - Wayne Weaver told a courtroom full of Blair County Drug Court participants on Friday that for 30 years he didn't know life held anything but drug addiction.

He didn't pay support for his children in Michigan.

"My priority was doing drugs," he said.

Weaver was one of several court graduates who addressed participants as the county's drug court celebrated its 10th anniversary. He is one of 186 addicts to graduate from the courts since its inception.

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Allegheny County prosecutors plan to review court cases involving two Pittsburgh police officers accused of wrongfully arresting a pair of men at a North Side car wash.

"I'm shocked that these people we're used to looking up to made up a story like this," said Karen Kelly, 55, of McCandless, whose son Tim Joyce was arrested on drug charges during the bust in question. "How many other innocent people are sitting in jail today?"

District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.'s office on Friday charged officers Ken Simon and Anthony Scarpine with fabricating reports and information -- and Simon with stealing money -- when they arrested Joyce, 22, and David Carpenter, 38, in July.

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The results of the midterm elections significantly altered the spectrum of power in the legislative branch from overwhelmingly Democratic to Republican. But it was not only politicians who Americans were asked to vote for, ballots in various states also included several propositions. One was California Proposition 19.

Prop 19, an initiative to reform marijuana regulation laws, only needed a simple majority (more than half) to be passed and instated the day after the elections. This would be a giant step for the legalization of marijuana in the country. Unfortunately, the proposition was defeated with the final count at 54 percent of California voters voting 'No', and 46 percent voting 'Yes'.

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For some California residents, The Man has once again reared his ugly head.

By a convincing eight-point margin, voters in the Golden State rejected a measure last week that would have allowed adults aged 21 or older to grow and possess small amounts of marijuana. It failed in every demographic category except for voters under 30.

California was first out of the box legalizing the use of medical marijuana in 1996, and 13 states have followed in its wake. If voters had approved last week's proposal, it's probably inevitable that it would have ended up on the ballot in other states in 2012 and beyond.

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First things first: I don't smoke tobacco. I don't chew it, either.

I tried that once when I was a teenager, maybe 13 or so. I filled my cheek with some of my grandfather's chewing tobacco -- it came in a red pouch as I recall -- and I darned near choked to death on the juice. I literally turned green and purple trying to get that nasty stuff out of my mouth.

The only stuff I've ever put in my mouth that tasted as bad as chewing tobacco was liquid Geritol, liver and Brussels sprouts. And I once took a single sip of whiskey -- again, I was a stupid teenager -- which was enough to convince me I never wanted to try it again.

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In 2000, Hollywood released a critically acclaimed and (I thought) important movie, Traffic, about the futility of the so-called war on drugs. I was naive enough to believe it would spark a national conversation about the stupidity of our generations-long policy of drug prohibition.

It didn't. We continued as we had since the 1960s: locking up drug offenders, spending countless billions on police and prisons, and abetting the devastating violence that attends the market in illegal narcotics. The United States, with about 5 percent of the world's population, accounts for nearly 25 percent of its prisoners - largely as a consequence of draconian drug laws.

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