A consensus stretching from one end of the ideological spectrum to the other has coalesced in support of the view that the war on drugs, as currently waged, is not working. Despite millions of arrests and billions in expenditures, the country's punishment-only approach has failed to stem drug use.

Some states, including Virginia, have launched alternative approaches such as drug courts - a reform this newspaper has reported on at length. Now localities are getting in on the act.

[continues 235 words]

In the Colonies' early years, Virginia's House of Burgesses required planters to grow hemp. The plant - a close relative of marijuana - can be used for a variety of purposes, from the medicinal to the industrial. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other notables farmed the stuff. Hemp's utility remained unquestioned through WWII, when the federal government ran "Hemp for Victory!" propaganda campaigns.

But then came the War on Drugs, and suddenly hemp became suspect - even though it contains so little THC you'd have to smoke a whole bale to catch a minor buzz. Lumped in with psychoactive marijuana, industrial hemp became verboten.

[continues 217 words]

To the Editor:

Heroin has made a comeback - oddly enough that has happened since we have been in Afghanistan. Why?

Is our law enforcement that ineffective? Are our legislators paying more attention to re-elections, pay raises and lobbyists? Is there no enforceable plan to stop the terrible destruction caused by the use of this drug? Where is the "War on Drugs"? Do more "people of power" need to lose loved ones to this?

Where does heroin come from? How is it that the media never tells us that 90 percent or more of the heroin found on our streets and in the arms of our dead young people comes from Afghanistan! The very place where our soldiers are dying to keep Afghanis free! No wonder the tribal leaders of

[continues 80 words]

The trouble with government, P.J. O'Rourke once observed, is that nobody ever wants to say, "Stick a fork in it - it's done." In support of that thesis Virginia has recently provided Exhibits No. 3,487,912 and 3,487,913.

Exhibit No. 3,487,912: Last week, the state's congressional delegation - both senators and every congressman except Bobby Scott - wrote a letter to Gov. Terry McAuliffe urging him to set up a task force to address the "growing heroin epidemic in Virginia." Many localities, they note, "are on track to see double the number of heroin overdose deaths over last year."

[continues 834 words]

Regarding Reihan Salam's June 1 commentary ("Bring back Prohibition"):

Ending marijuana prohibition makes more sense than revisiting alcohol prohibition. States with medical marijuana access have seen a drop in fatal car accidents. Researchers believe that consumers are substituting marijuana for alcohol, leading to a reduction in drunken driving deaths. Marijuana is easily safer than alcohol, and the substitution effect is well documented.

The days when shameless politicians can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidize violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply-and-demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees. If the goal is to deter use, marijuana prohibition is a catastrophic failure. The U.S. has almost double the rate of marijuana use as the Netherlands where marijuana is legal.

[continues 71 words]

America is rushing headlong toward legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. A growing majority - 54 percent as of a Pew survey released in April - favor legalization, and an even larger majority of millennials (69 percent) feels the same way. Colorado and Washington are the first states to move decisively in this direction, but they won't be the last.

I basically think this is an OK development. Like Mark Kleiman, a public policy professor at UCLA who is my guru on the regulation of controlled substances, I see full commercial legalization as a truly terrible idea, while I think noncommercial legalization, ideally via monopolies owned and operated by state governments, would be an improvement over the status quo. Regardless, marijuana legalization is coming, one way or another.

[continues 836 words]

If Americans honestly want to lower heroin addiction rates as last week's story suggests ["Heroin: It's here, and there are consequences"], they should end marijuana prohibition. An important reason to end marijuana prohibition that doesn't get mentioned is because a ban increases hard drug addiction rates by putting citizens who choose to use the relatively safe plant into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs.

Furthermore, the government claims heroin is no worse than marijuana - and that methamphetamine and cocaine are less harmful drugs - by insisting marijuana is a schedule I substance (alongside heroin), while methamphetamine and cocaine are only schedule II substances.

How many citizens tried marijuana and realized it is not nearly as dangerous as claimed and believed other substances must not be either - - only to find themselves addicted to hard drugs? Can the message from marijuana prohibitionists be any worse for vulnerable citizens?

Dillon, Colo.

[end]

Today, heroin is cheaper and, being illegal, easier for addicts to obtain than prescription painkillers. The consequences - a dramatic nationwide rise in overdose deaths since last year, increased thefts and related crimes, crowded jails, overtaxed social services - are not just making headlines across the country and in the neighboring counties and cities of Virginia's Piedmont. They're here. "It would be a mistake to think Rappahannock County is somehow immune," said Virginia State Police Captain Gary Settle, a Rappahannock native who heads the VSP's Bureau of Criminal Investigations at its Culpeper Division headquarters, at a roundtable discussion and interview last week with the Rappahannock News - a forum attended by Rappahannock County Sheriff Connie C. Smith and other state police special agents and investigators who lead VSP's drug-enforcement efforts in the region.

[continues 1160 words]

Rehab, drug court gives NN teen new life

NEWPORT NEWS -- Spice took over his life in middle school. Nothing else mattered. Being high became the norm.

At 12, he picked up his first cigarette. Soon the Newport News teen, now 18, was smoking marijuana, too. "Cigarettes and weed," he said in a single breath, making no distinction. "Weed was just part of life. I smoked weed all the time -- after school, every weekend."

Halfway through eighth grade, he moved on to spice, which had the advantage of being cheaper and, at the time, both legally obtainable and undetectable in drug screens.

[continues 955 words]

Police Mum on Potential Investigations

NEWPORT NEWS -- If you listen to the U.S. Navy, Newport News and Hampton are problem cities for the retail sale of spice.

But unlike nearby counties the two cities haven't raided stores that sell spice, which a local prosecutor and a defense attorney both say has everything to do with a state statute that makes convictions tricky.

There's one standard for sailors and another one -- a higher one -- for a prosecutor seeking a conviction, said Anton Bell, Hampton's commonwealth's attorney.

[continues 614 words]

Rep. Morgan Griffith is a pretty straight-laced fellow, and that may well make him the right person to take up the cause for medical marijuana.

The 9th District Republican has filed a bill that would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana in 21 states, including Virginia, with laws permitting its use for medicinal purposes.

Those state laws are largely meaningless now because physicians who recommend marijuana to their patients could be charged under a federal law that still bans it.

It's a serious cause, and a personal one, for Griffith, whose support for using marijuana as a painkiller traces back to his experience with a cancer patient whose friends smuggled the drug to him while he was in the hospital to help stimulate his appetite.

[continues 282 words]

I ask my fellow residents of the Roanoke Valley to contact their U.S. representative and senators and ask them to support Rep. Morgan Griffith's bill (HR4998) to legalize the use of medical marijuana.

This legislation is very similar to that passed last year in Colorado. The system Colorado is using is a perfect example of what could be done across the U.S. It's treating patients with AIDS, HIV, seizures, glaucoma and many others extremely painful illnesses.

Oh, did I also mention it pulled in $2 million in revenue? In the first month. Think about how many schools and roads we could fix.

[continues 74 words]

The War on Drugs Should End Because It Is Costly, Anti-American and Unnecessary

The purpose of this piece is not to disprove the widespread notion that drug use is bad; rather, I want to illustrate how legalization is the best way to limit the social, human and economic costs of drug use. As a clarifier: this argument covers recreational drugs like marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, MDMA, LSD and heroin.

A brief outline of theoretical, economic and public health and safety arguments will demonstrate how legalization is the best approach to taking on the enormous challenge presented by the growing illicit drug trade and the War on Drugs that is spiraling out of control - both in lives lost and tax dollars wasted.

[continues 677 words]

Average THC Levels Up 400 Percent in Last Eight Years, Expert Says

Although it has been decriminalized and even made quasi-legal in some states, the dangers of marijuana have not gone away.

That was the message March 27 in Annandale at a presentation made by the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County titled "Marijuana Harmless? Think Again."

Community leaders including health care professionals, counselors and law enforcement officials joined parents and students who related their own unfortunate experiences with marijuana and other drugs.

[continues 452 words]

But Recreational Marijuana Is Still Opposed In Virginia

A new poll finds that Virginia voters support legalizing medical marijuana by an overwhelming 84 percent to 13 percent, but support for recreational marijuana is divided with 46 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed.

Thirty-nine percent of Virginia voters say they have tried marijuana, according to the survey released Monday from Quinnipiac University.

Dick Kennedy, with Virginia NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said Monday that the poll numbers show that Virginia "is moving toward more sensible drug policies, along with the rest of the country, and the overwhelming support for medical marijuana is something the legislature can't ignore in 2015."

[continues 588 words]

The war on drugs has failed. This is one of the conclusions we are forced to draw from our in-depth article chronicling drug use in Frederick County schools, which detailed just how easy it is for students to get hold of heroin, LSD, ecstasy and marijuana.

One way to hit back is to target the source of the supply line by making marijuana legal, regulating the trade and taxing it. In early February, The News-Post's editorial board hosted two representatives of the movement to legalize marijuana in Maryland -- Neill Franklin, a 33-year veteran officer and executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and Rachelle Yeung, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project. We've taken on board and debated what they said, and it's convinced us there's a stronger case for legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana than simply decriminalizing it.

[continues 514 words]

WASHINGTON - One of the nation's top scientists raised concerns about the nationwide move to legalize marijuana, saying regular use of the drug by adolescents had been tied to a drop in IQ and that a possible link to lung cancer hasn't been seriously studied.

"I'm afraid I'm sounding like this is an evil drug that's going to ruin our civilization and I don't really think that," Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Thursday. "But there are aspects of this that probably should be looked at more closely than some of the legalization experts are willing to admit."

[continues 316 words]

The Epilepsy Foundation of Virginia has joined its national counterpart in supporting improved access and research into medical marijuana to treat epilepsy.

In a statement released Friday, the leading advocacy group for people with epilepsy in Virginia said it backs the national Epilepsy Foundation in calling for an end to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration restrictions that limit clinical trials and research into medical marijuana for epilepsy.

Specifically, the Virginia group said it will:

* ask the DEA to implement a lesser drug schedule for marijuana so it can be more easily accessible for medical research;

[continues 91 words]

Never let it be said that the General Assembly is a do-nothing legislature. Lawmakers have been doing a great deal in the short time since they convened.

Herewith, some brief comments on a few items:

Hybrid Tax: Both chambers have approved a measure to repeal the $64 tax on hybrid vehicles passed as part of last year's transportation package. The rationale for the tax - hybrids use less gasoline, so their gas taxes don't cover the costs they impose on the road network - - makes sense, but applies to more than just hybrid vehicles.

[continues 394 words]

To the Editor:

When asked, "Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal, or not?" a 2013 Gallup poll found that 58 percent of American adults responded, "Yes," compared to 31 percent in 2000 and only 12 percent in 1969.

Let's consider two ways this huge shift in public opinion might be explained. One contends that misguided and lopsided enforcement of the marijuana prohibition laws is the cause. The other, more fundamental view contends that Americans simply no longer see any reason to continue outlawing this relatively benign substance.

[continues 621 words]