To the editor, I'm writing about D. David Darcy's thoughtful letter: "Nation's war against drugs has never worked" (12-30-06). Our so-called drug war and our war and occupation of Iraq are very similar. Both were started with lies and false pretenses. The war in Iraq is over. We won. What we have now is an occupation of Iraq. Occupations cannot be won. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty? The so-called war on drugs cannot be won. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty? The war on drugs is an occupation, a career, an industry and huge bureaucracy. The goal of the drug war is not to win, but rather to continue and expand. [continues 63 words]
To the editor, Redford Givens, in his letter, wants the rest of us to believe that the current war on drugs should be given up. "After 92 straight years of failure," he states, "it is amazing that The Daily News Journal still thinks there is any virtue in a lunatic drug crusade. Rather than saving kids from dangerous drugs, drug prohibition exposes everyone to a dangerous criminal black market that functions in the shadows of Murfreesboro and every other city in Tennessee." [continues 287 words]
Parents must talk with their children about all kinds of drugs. When parents are having "drug talks" with their children, they need to include legal pharmaceuticals in the warnings. A national survey on teen use of drugs in 2006 found that while abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol is on the decline, high school and middle school misuse of prescription narcotics and over-the-counter cough and cold medicine is still going strong. Regular marijuana use among teens has declined for the fifth year in a row, according to the annual survey conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other drugs on a decline are methamphetamine and crack cocaine. Unfortunately, the use of LSD, inhalants, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, narcotics other than heroin, tranquilizers and sedatives remained steady. [continues 200 words]
It's one thing to have criminals in jail, they belong there. But crime in jail is something different. Gibson County residents should be outraged by news of illegal drug activity in the Gibson County Correctional Complex. Fortunately, a crack down has begun. It should continue until all signs of illegal drug activity are removed from the jail. A county mechanic and two inmates were charged Tuesday with various illegal drug crimes involving introducing drugs into the jail complex. Later in the week, a third inmate was charged with possession of illegal drugs in the jail. The arrests came following an investigation and thorough searching of inmates. Gibson County Sheriff Chuck Arnold said jail and inmate searches would continue. [continues 191 words]
But Most Don't Volunteer To Pony Up; Collections Usually Come After Arrests NASHVILLE -- Tennessee's tax on illegal drugs was a head-scratcher when the state legislature enacted it in 2004 -- What drug dealer would pay it? -- but it netted nearly $1.8 million in 2006, state tax collectors announced Tuesday. The Department of Revenue said it collected $1.774 million in "unauthorized substances tax" last year, up from the $1.715 million the tax generated in 2005, the first year it was collected. [continues 288 words]
To the editor, Mr. Sharpe's article was right on the money for such a short piece. Unfortunately, at some point in the future, history will record America's 20th century as the nation hiding its head so far in the ground that only its shoulders kept it all above ground. From January 1990 through December 1999, because of Iraq, America was NEVER at peace with itself. First, we fought ourselves over booze as we created some form of Al Capone in every city. No, not just major cities; every city in America, as gangsters and innocent citizens died in gang wars over the underground rights to selling booze. Almost as the anti-booze war ended, World War II brought some peace or at least a semblance of it, but McCarthy created his own era of Nazi fear as his "committee" lynch mob raided America's entertainment industry. [continues 344 words]
To the editor, Regarding your Dec. 15 editorial: Rutherford County's police-state approach to substance abuse will make for an interesting class discussion when the Bill of Rights is covered, but it won't likely impact rates of drug use. The steady rise in drug-sniffing dogs in schools, warrantless police searches, and random drug testing have led to a loss of civil liberties in America, while failing miserably at preventing drug use. Based on findings that criminal records are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents, a majority of European Union countries have decriminalized marijuana. Despite marijuana prohibition and perhaps because of forbidden fruit appeal, lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than any European country. [continues 129 words]
To the editor, After 92 straight years of failure, it is amazing that The Daily News Journal still thinks there is any virtue in a lunatic drug crusade. Rather than saving kids from dangerous drugs, drug prohibition exposes everyone to a dangerous criminal black market that functions in the shadows of Murfreesboro and every other city in Tennessee. History shows that no one was robbing, whoring and murdering to get drugs when addicts could buy all of the heroin, morphine, cocaine and anything else they wanted cheaply and legally at the corner pharmacy. A legal heroin habit cost less than tobacco addiction (25 cents per week) and "drug crime" was unknown. [continues 365 words]
$4.7b Estimate Exceeds Top 3 Legal Crops By Jennifer Brooks, Staff Writer Tennessee's biggest cash crop isn't cotton or soybeans or corn. It's marijuana. State officials have known this for years and responded with an ever-escalating war on the drug -- patrolling the skies, searching remote mountainsides with heat sensors, sending in the National Guard, burning the crops to the ground and casting a wide net to catch the drug as it moves across the state. Using law enforcement's own records of marijuana seizures, a group dedicated to the legalization of marijuana has released a new report, ranking Tennessee number two in the nation in marijuana cultivation. [continues 366 words]
$4.7b Estimate Exceeds Top 3 Legal Crops Tennessee's biggest cash crop isn't cotton or soybeans or corn. It's marijuana. State officials have known this for years and responded with an ever-escalating war on the drug -- patrolling the skies, searching remote mountainsides with heat sensors, sending in the National Guard, burning the crops to the ground and casting a wide net to catch the drug as it moves across the state. Using law enforcement's own records of marijuana seizures, a group dedicated to the legalization of marijuana has released a new report, ranking Tennessee number two in the nation in marijuana cultivation. [continues 366 words]
DeSoto County officials bailed out an endangered drug enforcement squad that roots out dealers and traffickers in Hernando and rural areas. The Board of Supervisors OK'd $150,386 Monday to offset a loss of federal funds that threatened to shut down the Metro Narcotics Task Force after Jan. 1. The funding will keep the team going through Sept. 30, 2007. The action came after Dist. Atty. John Champion and Sheriff James Albert Riley made strong pitches for county taxpayers to pick up a tab left unpaid by a federal grant. [continues 438 words]
$4.7b Estimate Exceeds Top 3 Legal Crops By Jennifer Brooks, Staff Writer Tennessee's biggest cash crop isn't cotton or soybeans or corn. It's marijuana. State officials have known this for years and responded with an ever-escalating war on the drug -- patrolling the skies, searching remote mountainsides with heat sensors, sending in the National Guard, burning the crops to the ground and casting a wide net to catch the drug as it moves across the state. Using law enforcement's own records of marijuana seizures, a group dedicated to the legalization of marijuana has released a new report, ranking Tennessee number two in the nation in marijuana cultivation. [continues 364 words]
High school students don't have much to complain about when it comes to random law enforcement sweeps for drugs and weapons. There's no place on our campuses for these things, and we support efforts by the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department to make sure schools are clean. Law enforcement officers using K-9s searched Blackman and Oakland high schools Monday, asking schools to keep all students in classrooms until the sweep was complete. No illicit items were found at Oakland, but authorities arrested three students at Blackman on drug charges after finding marijuana in their cars. Under the school system's zero-tolerance policy, all three were expelled along with another student whose car had knives in it. [continues 370 words]
As part of on-going efforts to provide safe learning environments in the Rutherford County Schools system, two high schools were scanned today for drugs using specially trained K-9 units. The two schools -- Blackman High and Oakland High -- were selected at random, and similar scans are planned for all other high schools in the county sometime this school year, Director of Schools Harry Gill Jr. said. The operation was part of a joint effort between the Rutherford County Schools system and the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department School Resource Officer program to emphasize the school system's strict anti-drug stance. [continues 183 words]
53-Year-Old 'Sweet Lady' Has Run Crack House For Decade It was justice meted out with a big dose of reluctance. Faced with the prospects of putting a 53-year-old woman behind bars for more than 16 years, Senior U.S. District Judge James H. Jarvis on Monday was clearly troubled. "If you were a big burly man standing out there, this would be so much easier," Jarvis told Jamsey L. Foster. "You're a sweet lady, but I'm going to have to put you in the penitentiary." [continues 300 words]
How should Tallahassee respond to the growing use of methamphetamine? During the crack epidemic of the '80s, New York City chose the zero-tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack, and America's capital had the highest murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. Simply put, the younger generation saw what crack was doing to older brothers and sisters and decided that crack was bad news. This is not to say nothing can be done about methamphetamine. Access to drug treatment is critical for the current generation of meth users. Diverting resources from prisons and into cost-effective treatment would save both tax dollars and lives. Robert Sharpe Policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy www.csdp.org [end]
It was Thanksgiving eve as I sat in the living room of my son's suburban Atlanta home having a conversation with him as he and his wife's 26-month-old son moved happily about the room. Suddenly, my son asked me, "Did you hear what happened here last night?" No, I replied. What my son told me seemed almost unbelievable: Using a no-knock warrant obtained after claiming they had purchased drugs there earlier in the day, three Atlanta undercover police officers burst into an 88-year-old woman's house before identifying themselves. The officers were met by gunfire from the woman who apparently thought her home was being burglarized. [continues 478 words]
Department of Energy officials are further postponing cleanup work at an Oak Ridge National Laboratory facility on a project already 20 months behind schedule and $10 million over budget. The latest delay at the Molten Salt Reactor is because of suspected drug use and other personnel issues, The Knoxville News Sentinel reports. The cleanup project has been halted since a fluorine leak in May. "It's one of the harder decisions I've had to make," said Steve McCracken, who heads the environmental management program in Oak Ridge. "This thing is costing me money, and I can't seem to get it done. I need to get it done. I would very much like to get it done." [continues 226 words]
JOHNSON CITY - What started out as a small marijuana bust in Johnson County has since led to major recoveries of the drug in both Johnson City and Abingdon, Va. The investigation into possible drug activity started when the Johnson County Sheriff's Department provided information to the 1st Judicial District Drug Task Force that led to the successful execution of a search warrant there. During that investigation, the DTF received information that a 26 year old man would be traveling through Johnson City to conduct marijuana transactions in early October. [continues 194 words]
Inside Tennessee
