Recent U.S. efforts to disrupt drug smuggling routes through the Rio Grande Valley have prompted threats of retaliation against authorities on this side of the river, according to an FBI intelligence report.

Vowing to maintain control over valuable trafficking corridors such as those in Reynosa, Matamoros and Miguel Aleman, the Gulf Cartel and its paramilitary enforcement wing, Los Zetas, have begun stockpiling weapons, reaching out to Texas gangs and issuing orders to "confront U.S. law enforcement agencies to zealously protect their criminal interests," the report states.

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If your child attends school in the Amarillo Independent School District, chances are he or she will be allowed to wear a hat, sweats and even pajamas complete with house shoes to school this week.

No, the AISD is not getting lax in its dress policies.

The district is recognizing "Red Ribbon Week," a nationwide drug prevention program that is scheduled this week at several schools and campuses.

Schools have come up with individual drug-free themes for each day this week, with students encouraged to wear different clothes pertaining to the day's theme.

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Drug testing changes are on the horizon for Graham Independent School District.

The board of trustees met Tuesday and were questioned by Patricia Harris concerning her son testing positive for the use of marijuana and being suspended from band for 90 days.

She told the board she was unaware that the offenses accrued over the entire four years of high school. She said that is not information most parents have.

In a letter she wrote to the board she stated, "I want students and parents at GHS to know that this handbook is a four-year contract."

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Regarding Sunday's Outlook cover article "Getting to the root of crime / Next president must take action": Lee P. Brown has a wonderful idea when he suggests that the new president convene a Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Brown listed a number of important questions that he feels this commission should consider. He, however, omitted the most crucial question of all: "Does the current war on drugs reduce crime, or is it actually the cause of much of the violence we're experiencing today?"

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David Noblett -- and dozens of other patients -- just wanted their doctor back.

A white-haired little man with piercing blue eyes, wearing an Army cap and carrying a briefcase, came to the Fort Worth Weekly office a few weeks ago, entering what seemed to him a door of last resort. He hoped we'd help him expose something he considered an injustice, and he wasted no time launching into his story, speaking quickly, almost desperately, like a man who'd told it many times before to people who weren't interested, as indeed he had.

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High above the Pecan Street Festival, Texans for the legalization of marijuana showed their support Saturday night at the Third Annual Sixth Street Smokeout and 2008 Global Marijuana Music Awards at Momo's.

The Texas branch of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, hosted the event with proceeds funding efforts to decriminalize recreational marijuana use by responsible adults. The diverse lineup ranged from spoken poetry to swing music, country to reggae, but all advocated legal change.

The Broken Poetz drove their expertly spray-painted van five hours from McAllen to contribute their hip-hop-psychedelic sound to the lineup. The group addresses the problems surrounding current marijuana laws in their original songs. "Mr. Weedy" and "Two-Time Offender" received cheers of support at the smokeout.

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When Susan LeFevre was 19, she was arrested for selling drugs to an undercover officer in Saginaw, Mich. It was 1974, and she was a first-time offender. She believed that if she pleaded guilty, she would probably get probation.

She was wrong. After her guilty plea, she was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison.

One year later, Ms. LeFevre hopped a fence and fled the prison. She moved to California and adopted her middle name, Marie. Years passed. She eventually married and raised three children, dedicating herself to her family and charitable causes. She never committed another offense. Her husband and children knew nothing about her youthful conviction or prison sentence - until April, when, 32 years after her escape, she was arrested and extradited to Michigan.

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George Jung, played by Johnny Depp in the movie "Blow," made me and millions of Americans question the logic of our nation's drug laws. In the movie, Jung is sentenced to prison for possession of marijuana. After Jung is released, he said, "Danbury wasn't a prison, it was a crime school. I went in with a bachelor of marijuana, came out with a doctorate of cocaine."

Our country has one of the largest per-capita prison populations in the world, and taxpayers spend over $450 billion per year to enforce laws against consensual crimes, which is more than five times what we spend on education each year. We found out pretty quickly during prohibition how well those laws work. At least that time Congress passed a constitutional amendment.

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Random drug testing is now a fact of campus life for students on the junior high and high school campuses in Navasota, and students and parents were briefed on the procedures last week.

"The students were very interested and courteous as we went through the steps, then asked questions afterward," said junior high principal Amy Jarvis after the Sept. 4 assemblies in which students learned how the program works.

A similar assembly was held on the high school campus the same day, and another that evening in the junior high cafeteria. Parents, students and the public were invited to attend the Thursday night session, where Ron Davis of Forward Edge, Inc., presented the program Navasota will follow.

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For the mother who made a promise she couldn't keep, the reckoning arrives at 10:50 a.m. in a Travis County courtroom.

Papers relinquishing her parental rights are ready to sign, but letting go of her 2-year-old daughter is proving to be too much. Tears flow down both cheeks and onto her blouse. Words catch in her throat.

But for H, there's no way out. She promised to give up her daughter if her drug test came back dirty. It did.

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County taxpayers have every right to demand payment from ... somebody else ... when drug-war victims shot in Juarez are transferred to Thomason Hospital.

Hospital costs so far this year are at $2 million for medical care and security for some 30 drug-violence victims who crossed into El Paso over international bridges, according to Thomason spokesmen.

It's U.S. law that treatment be given to anyone showing up at a U.S. hospital in need of emergency treatment. And Thomason is the only Level 1 trauma center within 250 miles.

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I'm writing about, "FBI chief: Drugs fuel crime" on Aug. 12:

Even though caffeine is a drug, how much "caffeine-related crime" do we have? None. Countless millions of Americans are addicted to caffeine-containing products, yet we have no crime related to caffeine.

If we were to criminalize caffeine, the situation would soon change.

Please stop writing and saying "drug-related crime." Instead write and say "drug prohibition-caused crime."

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

EL PASO - Lorenzo de la Torre Torres was on the cusp of death.

Drug cartel hit men had pumped the deputy police chief with more than 20 bullets and slightly wounded his boss, after a wild car chase in Nuevo Casas Grandes, the Mexican city the two were supposed to control.

Paramedics airlifted the cops 130 miles to Ciudad Juarez. Within hours, however, the two men were taken by ambulance to El Paso's Thomason Hospital.

For the next two weeks, Mr. de la Torre was treated at taxpayer expense. El Paso police and sheriff's deputies stood guard around the hospital 24 hours a day, wearing bulletproof vests and holding semiautomatic rifles. All but one entrance to the building was closed, sending visitors through metal detectors.

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Some Say Making Hallucingenic Illegal Will Boost Popularity

MESQUITE - A Republican lawmaker from Waco is driving a campaign to criminalize salvia, an herb that can be bought legally but used as a powerful hallucinogenic drug.

"Parents are totally oblivious to what is going on," Rep. Charles "Doc" Anderson said Thursday at a public hearing about the drug.

Mr. Anderson introduced a bill during the 2007 legislative session to criminalize the drug, but it failed to get out of committee. When the Legislature meets again in January, he plans to introduce a new bill that would at least make it a misdemeanor to possess the drug.

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With about 1,800 to 2,000 students in the athletic department alone in CHISD, the implementation of a substance abuse program will be a daunting process.

The program will include random drug testing for students in grades 7 to 12 participating in extracurricular activities or those who drive to school.

This means with the start of school just weeks ahead, Drug Testing Coordinator, Sabrina Smith will certainly have her work cut out for her.

"Each time we have a random test it will be five percent of the student's in the program," she notes. She also adds that she is not sure exactly how many students will be affected overall by the program.

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Does An Unproven Treatment That Combats Drug Addiction With Drugs Promise More Than It Can Deliver?

His nightly transformation began with a twinge. Then, gnawing and relentless, it consumed him. At 45, "Steve" was a hard-charging sales manager who'd snagged two promotions in three years. After work one spring day in 2006, he picked up his infant and toddler from day care, had dinner with his family and retired to his office in their spacious Plano home.

His wife assumed he was wrapping up the day's projects. As he thought about her lying in bed downstairs, trying to calm the agonizing headaches that had plagued her since she'd delivered their second daughter the year before, he felt like a terrible husband and father.

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Mexican Organized Crime Needs Organized Resistance

When the United States sneezes, Mexico gets sick. Conversely, a spike in organized crime and kidnappings across our southern border provokes a shiver of apprehension in the United States.

It is a chilling time in Mexico. For years, the rich could mostly insulate themselves from the street crime and police corruption that made the poor so powerless.

In the last few years, however, power struggles between narco-traffickers, a wash of drug money used to bribe authorities and a president bent on fighting corruption have coincided with soaring levels of crime against the rich, as well.

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EL PASO -- Top U.S. law enforcement officials on Monday described drug cartels that are increasingly mobile, tech savvy, diverse and transnational, factors that are challenging efforts to curb border violence fueled by big profits.

Modern organized crime organizations are "borderless," said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, who added that the FBI is "deeply concerned about high levels of drug trafficking, human smuggling and gang activity," as well as with the surge in violent crimes linked to the drug trade such as homicides, kidnappings and extortion.

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US Officials Say Binational Response Can Curb Violence

EL PASO - Top U.S. law enforcement officials praised Mexico's anti-drug efforts Monday and urged more binational cooperation as an antidote to the drug-fueled violence along the border.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, addressing the fifth annual border security conference at the University of Texas at El Paso, said that is concerned with the high level of violence along the border and the drug and human smuggling and gang activity that generates it.

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EL PASO - Local officials received assurances from federal agencies Wednesday that there is no coordination between the United States and Mexican governments to transfer patients wounded in Mexico's drug wars to Thomason Hospital.

Thomason CEO Jim Valenti, the hospital's Board of Managers Chairman Ron Acton and County Commissioner Veronica Escobar traveled to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and leaders from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security to discuss the issue of people injured in Mexico crossing the border to receive treatment at the hospital.

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