A national organization that has raised $8 million over two years to fight substance abuse is urging West Virginia legislators to pass two laws designed to reduce drug overdose deaths.

Shatterproof, a nonprofit headquartered in Connecticut, supports a "Good Samaritan" law that would give immunity to people who call 911 to report a drug overdose. Another measure would expand the availability of a life-saving medicine called naloxone, which reverses the effects or heroin and prescription painkillers.

West Virginia has the highest drug overdose death rate in the United States.

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Most Americans realize that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and tobacco - yet booze and cigarettes are lucrative legal products, while pot-puffers face jail. This contradiction makes no sense.

The New York Times, America's flagship newspaper, finally has launched an all-out crusade for legalization of marijuana. It declared:

"It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol."

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Many Areas Make Peace With Pot, but Some Cops Ramping Up Arrests

WEIRTON, W.Va. - Taped to the wall of pride inside the Hancock County drug task force's bare-bones office, a snapshot of eight marijuana plants draped over coat hangers serves as evidence of one more small triumph in the war on weed.

That same image of a drug-filled closet is seared in Ryan Neeley's memory, but with a very different meaning. To Neeley, the photo is proof that in the same country where a town in Colorado features a marijuana vending machine, the same country with a president who said it is wrong for "only a select few" to be punished for smoking pot, possession of the drug can still be a life-altering experience, and not in a good way.

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WEIRTON, W. Va. - As marijuana use grows - the number of smokers jumped 20 percent between 2007 and 2010 - enforcement of laws against the drug is diminishing in most places.

But there are exceptions. In West Virginia's northern panhandle, marijuana possession arrests soared by more than 2,000 percent in the first decade of this century. It was the biggest jump in arrest rate of any locality in the nation, although in a county of just 30,000 residents, that amounts to only a few dozen cases.

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Steep Rise in Arrests Reveals Disparities in Legal Approach

Weirton, W.VA. - Taped to the wall of pride inside the Hancock County drug task force's bare-bones office, a snapshot of eight marijuana plants draped over coat hangers serves as evidence of one more small triumph in the war on weed.

That same image of a drug-filled closet is seared in Ryan Neeley's memory, but with a very different meaning. To Neeley, the photo is proof that in the same country where a town in Colorado features a marijuana vending machine, the same country with a president who said it is wrong for "only a select few" to be punished for smoking pot, possession of the drug can still be a life-altering experience, and not in a good way.

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Mingo County Schools Department of Student Services will be expanding the Random Drug Testing Program to the six middle schools beginning with the 2014-2015 school term.

The Office of Student Services and Attendance has scheduled parent orientation sessions at each middle school to discuss the Mingo County Schools Student Drug Testing Policy 5530.01. The policy will cover students in grades sixth through eight participating in athletics, extra-curricular activities and opt-in participants.

The Random Drug Testing Policy has been in effect during the 2013-2014 school term for the two high schools, Mingo Central Comprehensive and Tug Valley. At this time, no positive results have come from the testing.

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Illegal drugs have become a deadly merry-go-round in West Virginia. Just when the authorities believe they are making a dent in one form of abuse, another one comes around to take its place. Sometimes the cycle repeats itself.

Police and prosecutors seem to be having some success in cracking down on methamphetamine labs, synthetic drugs and prescription pill abuse. But some say that has resulted in more trafficking in heroin.

Price seems to be a factor. In part because arrests of prescription painkiller pushers have made the law of supply and demand kick in, the pills have become more expensive in some places. Heroin actually is cheaper.

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Already this year, 160 methamphetamine "labs" have been found in Harrison County, Sheriff Joe Myers reported this week. That amounts to more than one illegal drug manufacturing operation for every 100 people who live in the county.

And for every meth lab law enforcement officers find, there may be four to 10 others escaping detection, Myers added.

As a description of a problem that ought to worry the public, the word "epidemic" probably is overused. Not in this situation. Illegal drugs have become an epidemic in Ohio.

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Already this year, 160 methamphetamine "labs" have been found in Harrison County, Sheriff Joe Myers reported this week. That amounts to more than one illegal drug manufacturing operation for every 100 people who live in the county.

And for every meth lab law enforcement officers find, there may be four to 10 others escaping detection, Myers added.

As a description of a problem that ought to worry the public, the word "epidemic" probably is overused. Not in this situation. Illegal drugs have become an epidemic in Ohio.

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The number of heroin overdose deaths in West Virginia tripled between 2007 and 2012 from 22 to 67, according to the latest figures from the West Virginia Health Statistics Center. During that same five-year period, the number of fatalities caused by prescription pain pills declined for the first time in five years.

Those who monitor these statistics say more West Virginia residents, just like those in surrounding states, have turned to heroin because it is not only cheaper but also often more potent than prescription painkillers.

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The nation's growing movement to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use is no doubt sending the message to many that the substance is harmless.

But that would be an incorrect assumption, according to a growing body of research that suggests use of marijuana can damage brains, particularly those of youth and young adults.

A study released this week found that using marijuana a few times a week can alter brain structures in a way that could pose risks to the casual user. "Just casual use appears to create changes in the brain in areas you don't want to change," Hans Breiter, a psychiatrist and mathematician at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told The Associated Press. Breiter led the study, which was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University.

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CVS Pharmacy sales of a cold medication that's also used to manufacture illegal methamphetamine have doubled over the past year in West Virginia, according to a Charleston Gazette analysis of sales data released last week.

CVS stores are now West Virginia's No. 1 seller of pseudoephedrine, a key meth-making ingredient sold under brand names such as Sudafed and Allegra-D.

"CVS stores are really crowding the top of the list," said Mike Goff, a state Board of Pharmacy administrator and former State Police meth lab investigator.

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CHARLESTON, West Virginia - Some states, including West Virginia, are reporting a rise in heroin use as many addicts shift from more costly and harder-to-get prescription opiates to this cheaper alternative. A look at what's happening in West Virginia:

West Virginia's prescription opiate addicts are following a national trend as they shift to heroin, said Kenny Burner of the state Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Burner said the numbers of seizures and overdoses have been steadily increasing over the past three to five years. Burner overseas drug task forces in major northern cities in West Virginia, where heroin comes straight into Appalachia through Detroit, Columbus, Chicago and Pittsburgh.

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GREEN VALLEY - A proposal to allow the legal cultivation of medicinal marijuana in West Virginia received mixed reviews Friday when area residents voiced their opinions.

House Bill 2230, now before the West Virginia Legislature, would allow the cultivation and use of medicinal marijuana. Introduced by Delegate Mike Manypenny, D-Taylor, the bill has some support from fellow legislators. Delegate Clif Moore, D-McDowell, said a close relative could have benefited from access to medicinal marijuana.

"That's a personal issue for me," Moore said. "My oldest sister died of lupus. I know she was in constant pain, and the research I've been able to do says it would sort of soothed their pain, ease her pain, and allow her to function on a daily basis. She couldn't do the normal, simple things everybody else does if she had an episode. If she had an episode, she was rendered immobile."

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