Americans have a right to move about without fear of being groundlessly stopped by law enforcement. As far as we know, that constitutional right applies to all Americans, not just the minority who live far removed from the nation's borders.

In what is proving to be a sweeping Bush administration security initiative, the Department of Homeland Security has expanded use of its authority to operate within 100 miles of the border. That has come to include increasingly frequent use of roadblocks in Western Washington.

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If it weren't for Family Services, one of 13 agencies aided by The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy, a mother of three doesn't know how she could have taken the steps toward reclaiming her life from the grip of drugs.

Tericia Mitchell will never forget the Christmas she didn't remember.

She was staying at a cheap motel on Aurora Avenue, her mind a blur of fortified wine and crack cocaine.

She didn't give much thought to the colored lights in the lobby window, until she overheard someone looking for drugs say they might get a little extra, because it was Christmas.

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WENATCHEE -- The men who sat around Table 5 at the Hospitality House homeless shelter Monday came in for a hot meal on a 14-degree night. But not all of them planned to stay. Domingo Solis, 48, said he'd sleep in his car that night. Another man, a recovering alcoholic who declined to give his name, said he'd sleep outside. Edwin Argueta, 51, said he'd spend the night at the shelter, but head out the next day to wander around the city. He hopes to find pruning work in an orchard. Many complained of health problems and hinted at troubles with alcoholism. Others have mental health challenges. But Monday night they and the other men sitting at tables in the shelter's dining room had a hot turkey-and-dressing dinner in common. They're part of the estimated 758 people who make up the Wenatchee area's homeless population, according to the most recent homeless census, taken last January.

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LYNDEN -- As the presidency of George W. Bush nears its final days, a number of high-profile convicts, including former track star Marion Jones and a former Louisiana governor, are seeking presidential pardons.

While Lynden resident Marie E. Eppens cannot, by most standards, be considered high-profile, Bush an-nounced Tuesday, Dec. 23, that he has pardoned her 1992 conviction of conspiracy to deal marijuana.

Eppens was one of 19 people Bush pardoned Tuesday before leaving for the holidays at Camp David.

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"Although virtually all mothers and fathers are concerned about the challenges of raising their kids in today's world, many fail to take essential actions to prevent their kids from smoking, drinking or using drugs," according to a report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA).

Using data from a telephone survey of teens and parents, the organization defines "problem parents" as those who fail to 1) monitor their children's school night activities; 2) safeguard prescription drugs in the home; 3) address the problem of drugs in schools; and 4) set a good example.

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Drug prohibition is a cure worse than the disease ["It's time to end the war on drugs,"Neal Peirce syndicated columnist, Dec. 14]. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

With alcohol prohibition repealed, liquor bootleggers no longer gun each other down in drive-by shootings, nor do consumers go blind drinking unregulated bathtub gin. While U.S. politicians ignore the drug war's historical precedent, European countries are embracing harm reduction, a public-health alternative based on the principle that both drug abuse and prohibition have the potential to cause harm.

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SEATTLE -- Abuse of drugs and alcohol is on the rise in Washington state, including one of the highest rates of non-medical use of prescription pain relievers in the nation, according to the state Department of Social and Health Services.

In the agency's 16th annual report on drug and alcohol abuse trends, the good news is that smoking and methamphetamine abuse are on the decline.

Washington state ranks sixth among the states in non-medical use of pain relievers by people 12 and older, after Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia. The prescription pain relievers being abused are mostly opiates.

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Pia Marshall awoke to the familiar sound of her son's voice calling out from his nearby bedroom.

Trudging down the hallway on a pre-dawn morning last March, Pia fetched her 6-year-old and guided him toward the bathroom.

Passing a window, the Redmond mom of three caught the unmistakable sight of a man creeping up her driveway.

"Call the police!" Pia hollered repeatedly, instinctively pulling her son toward her.

But as Scott Marshall awoke and grabbed a telephone, the ski cap and sweatshirt-wearing stranger approached instead of retreating.

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In his Dec. 6 response to my letter of Nov. 22, Mr. Glenn V. Hoyt defends prohibition of street drugs by saying that alcohol is destructive and that street drugs are "not benign." He worries that decriminalizing street drugs "would create more access to persons susceptible to addiction."

We do not regulate alcohol. We allow alcohol to be controlled by companies whose only interest is to maximize profits. Nor do we regulate street drugs. Street drugs are controlled by criminals.

We must work toward a society where addictive, intoxicating substances are controlled by the people. Government, rather than private enterprise or criminal enterprise, should control addictive, intoxicating substances. That way, the people will be better positioned to do effective intervention, treatment, rehabilitation and education.

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Washington - Are we ready to repeat repeal?

Dec. 5 marked the 75th anniversary of America's decision, in 1933, to re-amend the Constitution and set ourselves free from alcohol prohibition, a 13-year failed experiment.

So is it time to free ourselves once more from an impractical and misguided prohibition effort - the ill-starred "war on drugs" of punitive federal and state laws passed since the 1970s? Yes, argued two groups - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation - at a press event here last week. They are urging, instead, legalization and careful public regulation of mind-altering drugs.

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Pia Marshall awoke to the familiar sound of her son's voice calling out from his nearby bedroom.

Trudging down the hallway on a pre-dawn morning last March, Pia fetched her 6-year-old and guided him toward the bathroom. Passing a window, the Redmond mom of three caught the unmistakable sight of a man creeping up her driveway.

"Call the police!" Pia hollered repeatedly, instinctively pulling her son toward her.

But as Scott Marshall awoke and grabbed a telephone, the ski cap and sweatshirt-wearing stranger approached instead of retreating. To her horror, Pia saw the intruder's silhouette through the front door's frosted windows. He jostled the handle, attempting to enter the house.

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America ended Prohibition 75 years ago this past week. The ban on the sale of alcohol unleashed a crime wave, as gangsters fought over the illicit booze trade. It sure didn't stop drinking. People turned to speakeasies and bathtub gin for their daily cocktail.

Prohibition -- and the violence, corruption and health hazards that followed -- lives on in its modern version, the so-called War on Drugs. Former law-enforcement officers gathered in Washington to draw the parallels. Their group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), has called for nothing less than the legalization of drugs.

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Students fighting for free speech rights on Oak Harbor campuses were recently backed by a powerful advocate which convinced the school district to amend its policy.

Attorney Rose Spidell from the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Superintendent Rick Schulte objecting to Oak Harbor High School's "harsh disciplinary actions" and "censorship" during a campus-wide protest.

Last month, six students participated in a sit-in to appeal the school's discipline of their classmate, who was given a one-year expulsion for allegedly selling marijuana at a location off school grounds. When the teens refused to return to the class, or leave the lunchroom, officials had the students arrested by Oak Harbor police for disrupting the school.

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It is ironic that Mr. Byron in his Nov. 22 Saturday Soapbox letter used the 75th anniversary of the ending of prohibition of alcohol to advance the decriminalization of street drugs. I presume that this includes cannabis, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and combinations thereof -- a notion that is either naive, wantonly self-serving or just plain galactically stupid.

While decriminalization might magically transform criminals into law-abiding citizens, it would not so magically transform addicts. Forget making "fewer criminals"; let's make fewer addicts.

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America ended Prohibition 75 years ago this week. The ban on the sale of alcohol unleashed a crime wave, as gangsters fought over the illicit booze trade. It sure didn't stop drinking. People turned to speakeasies and bathtub gin for their daily cocktail.

Prohibition - and the violence, corruption and health hazards that followed - lives on in its modern version, the so-called War on Drugs. Former law-enforcement officers gathered in Washington to draw the parallels. Their group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, has called for nothing less than the legalization of drugs.

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The stir around high school protesters is all about student rights. No doubt about that. But not necessarily in the way you might think.

The Supreme Court has ruled that one student right trumps all others when it comes to schools - the right to a safe and productive learning environment. A student's right to free expression ends as soon as it becomes a disruption to learning or promotes illegal activity. Here's how those rights clashed in Oak Harbor.

The protest and the issues surrounding it have many sides. At its core is a story about the sale and distribution of illegal drugs. Offshoots of that event include whether the school district has the right to discipline students for illegal activity occurring off campus and whether all students were treated equally.

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In the ongoing War on Drugs, zero tolerance is the common mantra.

That applies to everything from heavily addictive heroin and crystal meth to a substance that most Europeans consider no worse than a stiff whiskey.

We're talking here, of course, about marijuana.

"Generally, in Europe it's sort of laughable that anybody would do hard time for marijuana," said Rick Steves, the prolific travel writer and, of late, a supporter for the decriminalization of marijuana.

Steves will share his views during a screening of the film "Marijuana: It's Time for a Conversation" at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bing Crosby Theater.

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This year, we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of alcohol prohibition. Prohibition lasted from June 16, 1920, to Dec. 5, 1933. Between those dates, the manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing of alcoholic products was in the hands of criminals.

Criminals regulated and controlled an illegal alcohol market. They provided all of the alcohol that could be consumed by anyone who wanted to buy it. People did not go without.

On Oct. 27, 1970, President Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act. He claimed that we could control cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other street drugs by prohibiting their use. Instead, just like alcohol, we have given up control of these substances to criminals.

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A group of 20 students held protests signs to passing traffic at the intersection of Whidbey Avenue and Oak Harbor Street, under the bruise-colored clouds of Thursday afternoon. Their signs were scrawled with "Free Speech" and the sign on the building behind them read "Oak Harbor School District Office."

"This office is the dead-center of the district. What better way to send a message," student Dustin Gehring said.

Students assembled at this intersection for three days, and argued their free speech rights had been violated by Oak Harbor High School staff.

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Federal prosecutors have dropped drug charges against a card-carrying medical marijuana patient detained and cited at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint on the Hood Canal bridge in August.

Stephen Dixon, of Brinnon, was riding in a car en route to the Kingston ferry Aug. 22 when he was stopped at the checkpoint on Highway 104 just west of the bridge. He was cited by border patrol agents for misdemeanor possession of marijuana, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Western Washington.

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