Lewisville: Case Involved Middle-Schooler Who Smelled Teacher's Sanitizer

Denton County prosecutors decided Friday to wash their hands of a case against a Lewisville middle school student accused of trying to get high by sniffing his teacher's hand sanitizer.

Three days after filing delinquency charges against the youth, prosecutors did a turnaround and decided that the common cleaning gel is not an abusive inhalant under the Texas Health and Safety Code.

"It's not a crime. Hand sanitizer does not fall within that statute," said Jamie Beck, first assistant district attorney in Denton County. "The police agency brought it up mistakenly thinking it was."

[continues 580 words]

Increase in Discipline for Possession, Sales Not Pegged to Just One Cause, Educators Say

More students in North Texas -- and across the state -- are being disciplined for having used, sold or possessed drugs or controlled substances on campuses, according to information released by the state.

In the Texas Education Agency region that includes Dallas, Collin and Rockwall counties, the number of incidents in which students were disciplined for drug infractions rose 13 percent between 2005-06 and 2006-07, according to data compiled by the TEA.

[continues 759 words]

Criminal offenses are up, and felony drug cases are down in Nacogdoches ISD schools, according to a fall semester report issued by the NISD Police Department.

Twenty-nine citations were issued to Nacogdoches ISD students during the fall 2007 semester, which is four more than were issued during the fall 2006 semester, according to the first-semester report.

NISD Police Chief Doug Ploch said the citations were written for any offense that could have been considered a class C misdemeanor.

[continues 359 words]

If the term "war on drugs" is supposed to be a mere slogan, nobody told Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Mexico is at war with the drug cartels, and the president, raising the stakes in his bold assault against the criminals, has taken his fight to the U.S.-Mexico border.

From Nuevo Laredo to Reynosa, soldiers patrolled the areas in armored cars, surrounding the very facilities dedicated to fighting the gangs -- the police stations

For brave, responsible officials like the president, the battle is complicated by a cruel phenomenon that has hindered law enforcement for decades: In Mexico, badges are often shields, providing protection for dirty cops who work for the drug lords.

[continues 248 words]

Prosecution On Drug Charges A Ridiculous Misuse Of Law

There are all kinds of Christian ministries and some of them go beyond the "norm." Some minister in prisons, some go to bars, others go to foreign countries, some work in small rooms just translating Bibles into rare languages.

Bill Day, goes along the streets of San Antonio trying to ease the suffering of "the least" and now he and members of his group are threatened with going to jail themselves.

Day, 73 and a retired real estate appraiser, co-founded the Bexar Area Harm Reduction Center some years back, with the idea of handing out clean syringes to poor diabetics and, yes, intravenous drug users.

[continues 462 words]

Not A Homegrown Problem Anymore

It's not just here.

Law enforcement agencies in small towns and rural settings across the state have been slammed with the ever-growing manufacture and relative easy availability of methamphetamine.

Previous research showed the problem centered around clandestine manufacturing labs in largely unpopulated areas.

That's not the case any more.

The menace has gone international.

Parker County Sheriff Larry Fowler, who has seen his share of fly-by-night drug operations, said the manufacture of meth in small rural labs had an easy explanation.

[continues 715 words]

Pilot Plan For Breaking Addiction Attracts Texas Funds, Skeptics

AUSTIN - It was added to the Texas budget with little notice and no objection: $2 million for an obscure medical treatment touted as a cure for the worst methamphetamine addictions.

But months later, the pilot program for the drug therapy, called Prometa, has yet to get off the ground, halted by skepticism and safety concerns. Several smaller probation departments have applied to the state to offer the Prometa treatment as a condition of release, but some experts continue to question Texas' judgment.

[continues 1275 words]

Despite being the sole D.A.R.E. officer in booming Comal County, James Moorerefuses to miss a beat - or admit to being overwhelmed.

"I'm able to handle it right now," said Moore, a sheriff's deputy who taughtthe national drug resistance program to a whopping 1,200 fifth-gradestudents last year.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., began in Los Angeles in 1983as a federally funded initiative to reduce drug use and crime. According toD.A.R.E. literature, the program's curriculum, which faced particularscrutiny in the mid-90s, is updated regularly to incorporate the latestscientific data and cultural trends.

[continues 424 words]

It Is Time to Debate Policies, Not Personalities

For the first time in many years, the voters in Harris County will have real choices in the race for district attorney. Republicans will have a contested primary with experienced candidates, Jim Leitner and Kelly Seigler, as well as Houston police Capt. Doug Perry and former Judge Pat Lykos. The winner of that race will have to face former HPD Police Chief Clarence Bradford on the Democratic ticket. Perhaps now we can, or at least should, finally focus on the actual day-to-day policies of this office, rather than the personal lives of its recent occupant. Here are questions to ask these candidates to see if voters can support more of the same or real change.

[continues 1346 words]

To the editor:

There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalization. Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. Addicts would not be sharing needles if not for zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean syringes, nor would they be committing crimes if not for artificially inflated black market prices.

Providing addicts with standardized doses in a clinical setting eliminates many of the problems associated with heroin use. Heroin maintenance pilot projects are under way in Canada, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin-trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations addiction.

[continues 135 words]

Two wild shootouts last week involving Mexican federal agents and soldiers and suspected drug traffickers just a few short minutes from Lower Rio Grande Valley communities demonstrates how close to the United States the drug war is raging. And the incidents shows how far Mexico is from quelling the violence.

Mexican authorities have been waging a courageous fight against drug traffickers and now President Felipe Calderon's administration is taking the fight to the drug lords. Mexico needs American help in clamping down on the flow of firearms south that gives the drug lords the firepower of small armies.

[continues 441 words]

It May Be Time To Get Rid Of Drug Laws -- Or At Least Change Them.

If the drug-war violence that erupted this week across the border in Rio Bravo and in Reynosa leaves you apprehensive, your head is probably in the right place.

It is a very scary situation akin to the Capone-era gangland wars in Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s, which left scores of bad guys and innocent bystanders dead and injured.

Although we would like to think not, there is a distinct possibility - -- because of the extreme mobility of the cross-border illicit drug trade and its practitioners -- that more of this violence could spread to the U.S. side. We say "more" because if you think it isn't already happening here, you're deluding yourself. Many of the stories we have covered regarding home invasions, burned bodies found in cars, corpses discovered here and there around the Valley and instances in which U.S. Border Patrol officers have been fired on from across the Rio Grande have been associated with cross-border drug trafficking.

[continues 529 words]

As a Christian, I strongly disagree with the assertion, "not arresting people for drug possession is sending the wrong message" (Marijuana Possession Still Means Jail Time, Jan. 7, 2008). Cannabis (kaneh bosm / marijuana) isn't a drug but rather a relatively safe God-given plant.

One reason to stop caging responsible adults for using cannabis that doesn't get mentioned is because it is Biblically correct since Christ indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they are all good, on literally the very first page. The only Biblical restriction placed on cannabis is that it is to be accepted with thankfulness (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5).

Truth is, it sends the wrong message when government cages humans for using what God says is good.

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

Legislators hoped to alleviate jail overcrowding across the state by allowing peace officers to issue citations to those found with less than 4 ounces of marijuana and for other misdemeanors, but local authorities say not arresting people for drug possession is sending the wrong message.

With two failed bonds and overcrowding plaguing the Smith County Jail, each person arrested on drug possession adds to the daily total of inmates in jail and that translates to as much as $41 per day that a person is confined.

[continues 928 words]

Why I - and a Surprising Number My Friends - Smoke Pot

Ahh, cancer. One learns so much from being diagnosed with a death-sentence disease.

Of course, 95 percent of it is stuff you would rather not know, but that other 5 percent is downright interesting. For example, America's Next Top Model is much more fun to watch when you've lost 15 pounds without trying. During chemotherapy, vanilla smells good, but vanilla wafers taste disgusting. And eyelashes really do have a purpose.

[continues 721 words]

Re: "Marijuana tickets not catching on - Law designed to free jail space not used by N. Texas counties as prosecutors question propriety," Monday news story.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has brought honor to his office with his smart-on-crime approach to the job. He should extend it to setting up a system for processing misdemeanor citations.

Consider two scenarios:

A student is caught with a small amount of marijuana. She is arrested and taken to jail where she is subjected to the humiliation and degradation that is unavoidable in the situation.

[continues 134 words]

Baylor Doctors Say Shots Block the Drug's High

The needle may be one of addiction's enduring symbols, but two Houston researchers hope injections of modified cocaine actually provide the first-ever medication for people hooked on the destructive drug.

The Baylor College of Medicine scientists have developed a cocaine vaccine, currently in clinical trials, that stimulates the immune system to attack the real thing when it's taken.

As a result, cocaine no longer provides a kick.

"For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful," said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who was assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. "At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get high and will lose interest."

[continues 1028 words]

Well, Happy New Year.

For those of you who had too much cough syrup last night, just pretend I whispered that.

I wished a friend of mine a happy new year last week, and he began to muse about why the new year always seems to bring the same old problems, and since that seems to be generally true year to year, then why do we bother to call it a "new" year?

As I thought about this exchange, I was fascinated at the possibility that we might actually face new problems in a new year. So here are some of the problems I would like to see us let go of, in no particular order.

[continues 728 words]

(Re: Dec. 28 letter, "Drug legalization isn't the answer," by Wayne C. Williams.)

As another former law officer, I understand the need to justify helping send people to prison for decades.

Williams' statement, "Surely (former Officer Howard J.) Wooldridge has worked cases where lowlifes commit crimes in order to feed their habit," misses the point. The criminal justice system treats drug-users like lowlifes whether they have committed other crimes or not.

Dec. 17 marked 93 years since the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act. Since then, more than 38 million Americans have been arrested for plant products in their pockets.

[continues 130 words]

Everyone seems to have ideas about the drug problem - some good, some bad. No wonder none of them works. The only time most lawmakers have been on the street is walking from their car to their house. They try to make laws regarding things they know nothing about.

They talk about people being hooked on street drugs while taking the little pharmaceutical wonders they can't get through the day without.

I remember when the government was so proud of the machines and computers that would "take the place of so many people" and were so cheap to run.

[continues 128 words]