Carolyn Hauser said that when an Evergreen police officer handcuffed a friend of hers and escorted him out of the Dead Prez concert early Friday morning, members of the hip-hop duo said words to the effect of "are you going to let this happen at your school?" and "what are you going to do about it?"

Outside the concert at The Evergreen State College's Campus Recreation Center, hundreds of young people blocked the officer's patrol car after she put the young man in the back seat. The crowd later rioted, throwing bottles, trash and rocks after backup law enforcement units arrived, police said.

[continues 1049 words]

Dear Abby: You were right to tell "Just Saying No" that his pot-smoking classmates could be headed for addiction or other problems. I worry that marijuana poses more risks to teens than they - or their parents - recognize. More kids need professional help kicking marijuana than for all other drugs combined. It is not a "harmless" drug.

School failure, which you mentioned, could be only the first of many problems daily pot smokers may experience. Researchers have a long way to go in understanding the complexity of brain function, but we know that illicit drug use changes the developing brain. Many young people smoke pot before their brain development is settled, and their chronic use of the drug can affect certain centers in the brain that control emotion and reason.

[continues 139 words]

In the last decade, when pot-law reform advocates have faced off with the status quo on equal footing, pot reform has won. Initiative backers in a dozen states, for instance, have spent big bucks passing medical-marijuana measures despite fierce opposition from federal officials. Nevertheless, the adult recreational use of pot (as opposed to medical use) doesn't have majority support to pass in any state. Before voters will ever approve that sort of proposal, pot advocates must first change attitudes toward the drug by going toe to toe with the White House's multimillion-dollar antidrug media campaign.

[continues 580 words]

TV Show to Call for Serious Talk on Issue

Travel guru Rick Steves wants America to take a cue from Europe and start talking seriously about marijuana.

Too many lives, according to Steves, are ruined by criminal penalties associated with pot possession, and too much law enforcement and too many court resources are tied up focusing on cannabis as a legal problem instead of a health issue.

Steves, who built his Edmonds travel business into a nationally known television show with travel books and tours, is now taking his marijuana message to the masses, too.

[continues 298 words]

Travel writer Rick Steves and the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington have formed an unlikely partnership to tackle a topic they call the equivalent of the alcohol-prohibition laws of the 1920s -- the criminalization of marijuana.

Steves, who five years ago openly admitted to his own use of marijuana while in Europe, says he's not "pro marijuana" but in favor of discussing the laws that affect the 830,000 Americans who are arrested annually under existing marijuana laws. About 90 percent of the arrests are for possession.

[continues 162 words]

OLYMPIA - Yakima citizens will have to wait awhile if they want to see their police officers randomly drug-tested.

Proposed drug-testing legislation sponsored by Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches, would have allowed voters to pass local laws imposing random drug testing on police officers and sheriff's deputies with a simple majority vote.

Yet, with a bill cut-off date of Friday, and no hearing scheduled, it is almost certain that House Bill 3178 will not see the light this session.

[continues 611 words]

PORT ORCHARD - A county judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a woman who was fired for failing a drug test, even though she claimed she was using medicinal marijuana legally under state law.

The woman had sued Colorado-based TeleTech, which has a call center of almost 700 employees in East Bremerton off Highway 303. She worked there briefly, but after a drug test in October 2006, she was fired, although she told her employers that she was recommended to use pot by a physician.

[continues 283 words]

Allan Erickson's Jan. 10 letter, "Prohibition ineffective," and Kirk Muse's Jan. 2 letter, "Legal pot builds roadblock," tout the Czech Republic as doing it right, regarding handling problems with marijuana.

If they'd rather deal with the former satellite nation, passports are easy to obtain - for non-criminals. These two are either claiming they're sick enough to need a bogus cure like pot, or they support a criminal act.

Illegal crops making illicit money, (while destroying lives of users and families) is no reason to legalize or decriminalize them.

John English, Eugene, Ore.

[end]

P-I Review Finds 2 Dozen Cases Where Officers Weren't Fired

Lying by police officers is considered a cardinal sin in law enforcement, a so-called "death penalty" offense that collective wisdom holds will automatically result in a cop's termination.

But a P-I review of internal police documents in Seattle and other Washington agencies reveals that's hardly the case.

In the five years ending July 2007, just 13 police officers statewide had been terminated and disqualified to serve again as police officers in Washington state because of lying, including the case of a Seattle officer cheating on an exam.

[continues 2065 words]

A couple weeks ago police raided the house of a man in Chesapeake, Va., on the suspicion that the home contained a hydroponic marijuana growing operation. A single officer forcibly entered the house, unannounced, in plainclothes - and was shot and killed by the frightened owner, who had reported a robbery the previous week. The hydroponic marijuana plants turned out to be Japanese Maples. The police entered only on the word of a single informant and did not try to get a confirmation before raiding the house. Nevertheless, the man sits in jail charged with first-degree murder.

[continues 486 words]

BISMARCK, N.D. - Two North Dakota farmers who received the nation's first state licenses to grow industrial hemp have been granted renewals, though forces outside the state will largely decide whether the farmers will ever get a crop in the ground.

David Monson and Wayne Hauge had state licenses in hand last year but never got approval from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. This year, they are hoping for a favorable ruling from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a change of heart by DEA or action by Congress. None is likely by spring planting season.

[continues 286 words]

Four men who told police they'd moved to Seattle because they thought it was legal to smoke pot openly here were detained this week by police for marijuana-related offenses.

Initiative 75, which was approved by almost 59 percent of voters in 2003, requires Seattle law-enforcement officials to make marijuana offenses their lowest priority if the marijuana is intended for adult personal use.

But the initiative did not legalize marijuana, and possession of the controlled substance remains a crime.

[continues 297 words]

Alisha Smith-Page smiled as her son pulled colorful toys out of a basket under the TV.

He just turned 1 and has blond hair that curls at the nape of his neck. "I love them," Smith-Page said of the curls as she gently smoothed them. Caleb giggled and picked up a stuffed spider.

He's an easy baby, and life with him is good, said the 31-year-old mom from Kennewick.

Life is so different now. Smith-Page is a recovering meth addict and has been clean for 21 months. She has a job and a plan for her life.

[continues 1093 words]

In a future time, hopefully not too far from now, we will look back on today and see how ironic it is that our country wants to jail Marc Emery (" 'Prince of Pot' given prison time," Jan. 16).

Emery, whose mission has been a peaceful revolution to educate people about the various benefits of marijuana, will be hailed one day as a man who helped the world by spreading the genetics of many different cannabis varieties. There are many thousands of patients in our country that are being relieved from their pain and it is all thanks to the courage of Marc Emery. All of us know someone or may some day become someone with cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, Crohn's disease, glaucoma, severe nausea, hepatitis C, osteoporosis or one of the many other diseases that cannabis can help.

[continues 82 words]

Tacoma's plan to eliminate homeless encampments seems so straightforward: Get people out of squalid camps and into housing with supportive services.

Who, after all, would not be eager to move up from a freezing, filthy, dangerous camp?

To those living in the mainstream, it's a no-brainer.

To those interviewed this week for the 2008 Pierce County Homeless Survey, it's a complex question of habit, hope, grief, guilt, addiction, opportunity and timing.

Meet Mike Wahl.

At midmorning Thursday, Mike, 34, was sitting on a fallen tree, sipping from a tall, cheap can of Olde English malt liquor. The spot, along Tacoma Rail tracks inside the city, has been living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom to heroin users for years. It's illegal to live there now, though a woman was doing so, huddled in a pup tent rigged out of blue tarps and heated by a candle.

[continues 536 words]

High school drug users beware.

Education officials in school districts throughout the state are exploring a random drug testing policy being promoted by the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). The federal government is offering funding assistance to school districts that choose to implement the program.

In Des Moines last week, representatives from local school districts, including Federal Way, attended a regional summit hosted by the ONDCP to discuss strategies for implementing a drug-testing program.

Twenty-seven percent of twelfth-grade students in Washington state showed up to school drunk or high in the past year, said Bertha Madras, deputy director of demand reduction for ONDCP.

[continues 395 words]

We suppose we shouldn't be surprised that the Bush administration would like to institute random drug testing in high schools. It already listens in on our conversations and asks our banks and businesses for our private records while doing all that it can to conceal its own e-mails and guest list from us. And now, it wants the right to draw bodily fluids from teens, at random.

Of course we trust the government when it says that the results would be kept confidential, and that a positive test wouldn't result in punitive measures. Indeed, why stop there? Why not institute random neighborhood drug tests?

[continues 82 words]

Random student drug testing can help Mid-Columbia school officials prevent drug use among teens, a White House official said Friday.

"Everyone must join together to prevent teen drug use. Random student drug testing is a component of prevention," said Bertha Madras, deputy director for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

She spoke to about 70 Mid-Columbia educators who attended a conference in Pasco aimed at giving school leaders information on how testing programs work in districts across the country.

[continues 408 words]

Still bristling over an arbitrator's ruling that didn't go their way, Yakima officials are seeking legislation that would give voters across the state the option of requiring random drug testing of police officers in their communities.

Rep. Charles Ross, R-Naches, said late Monday that he's agreed to take the city's draft proposal and use it as the basis for a bill.

On Monday, Mayor Dave Edler unveiled a proposal that -- if approved by the 2008 Legislature -- would allow voters to pass local laws imposing random drug testing on police officers and sheriff's deputies with a simple majority vote.

[continues 618 words]

Kirk Muse, in his Jan. 2 letter, "Legal pot builds roadblock," effectively counters the letter from professional anti-drug advocate Sandra S. Bennett. One positive point in Bennett's Dec. 19 letter, "Urge prevention education," was in focusing on the need for education. But it should be education, not incarceration, that drives our efforts against the abuse (as opposed to the use) of cannabis (marijuana) and all substances.

Muse points to another nation (the Czech Republic) that does not have anywhere near the problems with drugs and drug-related crime as we do, and they accomplish it without relying on punitive, prohibitionist policies.

[continues 69 words]