Students Declare War on Bandh, Drugs, Ragging & Private Tuition Students of Guwahati's 10 leading colleges today resolved to put up a joint fight against bandh culture, ragging, private tuition and drug abuse. A resolution to this effect was taken at a meeting organised by the Assam unit of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) at Sudmerson Hall of Cotton College this afternoon. The NSUI, the students' wing of the Congress, also felicitated the office-bearers of the students' unions of the colleges. [continues 316 words]
Crystal meth has yet to establish a toe-hold in Fredericton, says Fredericton police Chief Barry MacKnight. But the force is ready just in case. "Crystal meth -- we're not seeing it," MacKnight said. "Crystal meth seems to have crested to a large degree in Ontario and, I think, they see some in Quebec. We have the odd little pockets here and there." The bitter-tasting, synthetically produced crystalline powder, or "meth," can be taken through the nose, injected, smoked or dissolved in a glass of water. It's designed to stimulate the heart, increase breathing and keep the user awake. [continues 224 words]
Youth should not be using cannabis, but isn't there a conflict of interest when Marian Catholic High School says cannabis is bad ("Marian Catholic to test all students for drugs," Dec. 18) and Christ God Our Father, the ecologician, indicates He created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they all are good, on literally the very first page of the Bible? Why does a Catholic school discriminate against the relatively safe God-given plant cannabis, which is safer than alcohol, and not test for alcohol use? Isn't this drug testing policy going to lead toward more life-long alcoholism problems in the long run? Stan White Dillon, Co. [end]
The provincial electricity provider is powering up a program to eliminate grow-ops. B.C. Hydro is partnering with Crime Stoppers in establishing a tip line to report people who may be stealing electricity, a common activity of people with indoor marijuana plantations. Hydro's energy diversion investigators can now receive addresses of suspected grow-ops reported to the Crime Stoppers tip line. Where evidence of theft is found, B.C. Hydro lays complaints with law enforcement agencies, which in turn obtain search warrants and recommend charging suspects. [continues 290 words]
Watchdog Asks Officials to Rethink Use of Statistics Document Obscures Policy Failures, Say Campaigners The Home Office has been accused of misusing its statistics on drugs in order to cover up failures in policy. The independent body responsible for providing and assessing government statistics has now asked the Home Office to "carefully consider" its handling of the figures. In July the Home Office released a consultation paper - Drugs: Our Community, Your Say. It contained a section called "key facts and evidence" in the annexe which put a very positive gloss on the government's policies. [continues 435 words]
If we really want to control marijuana and keep it away from kids, why not try a method that actually works? President Bush recently touted new survey results showing a modest drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make some troubling comparisons. Citing the results of the annual Monitoring the Future survey, Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996, but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy. [continues 585 words]
OPIUM SEASON: A Year on the Afghan Frontier. Joel Hafvenstein. Lyons. 336 pages. $24.95. The author describes the dangers of helping ease Afghan farmers out of the opium business. This real-life story, which provides a chilling sense of deja vu, offers a perfect example of the old saying: Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. It's a lesson author Joel Hafvenstein relearns as a condition of employment in perhaps the "dirtiest job" in foreign service -- as a contractor in the Taliban/Khan-ruled poppy fields of Afghanistan. [continues 394 words]
Willie Mays Aikens is a part of baseball lore. As a member of the 1980 Kansas City Royals, he became the only man to hit more than one home run in two games of the same World Series. But 27 years after his feat, Aikens languishes in a federal prison in Jessup, Ga., brought low by cocaine addiction and a federal law that mandated long prison sentences for crack cocaine offenses. From a face on a baseball card, Aikens is now a poster child for what some jurists and civil rights activists say is the absurdity of the difference between the way federal law treats people convicted of crack cocaine offenses and those found guilty of crimes involving powder cocaine. [continues 1157 words]
If the rationale for drug testing students is it will reduce drug use in high school, then I think administrators and teachers should lead by example and submit themselves to the same tests. Since all of the "druggies" will be weeded out of the private schools like Marian Catholic High School and "forced" to attend public high schools or be home schooled, I suppose it would make perfect sense not to allow any teachers or staff who work with these students to be treated any differently. After all, these folks are the role models students spend their days with. [continues 136 words]