Regarding the recent Los Angeles Times editorial advocating an end to the current approach in the "war on drugs" and reprinted in Sunday's Banner-Herald: There is a middle ground between drug prohibition and blanket legalization. Switzerland's heroin maintenance program has been shown to reduce disease, death and crime among chronic users. The success of the Swiss program has inspired heroin maintenance pilot projects in Canada, Germany, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would deprive organized crime of a core client base. This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable and spare future generations from addiction. [continues 153 words]
The Obama administration is saying all the right things about the jumble of ineffective and vindictive laws, policies and practices that have made up this nation's so-called war on drugs. Shortly after he was confirmed, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that he would halt Drug Enforcement Administration raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Then the Justice Department urged Congress to eliminate the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity in convictions for dealing crack and powder cocaine, which imposed long prison terms on predominantly black defendants. [continues 158 words]
Students To Take Another Test - One For Drugs For Those Who Play Sports, Park On Campus In Oconee County WATKINSVILLE - Oconee County high school students who play sports or park on campus will face random drug and alcohol testing next school year, according to a new district policy approved Monday. The Oconee County Board of Education voted unanimously for the policy, which board members say will help keep students safe and give them another reason to say no when pressured to use drugs or alcohol. [continues 680 words]
There's a very simple reason why we should oppose drug-testing our children: It doesn't work (Story, "Oconee school board may widen drug- test policy," Tuesday). The largest study of student drug testing ever - a National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded survey of 76,000 students in 2003 - found no difference in drug use rates for students subject to drug tests and those who aren't. The lead study author, Dr. Lloyd Johnston of the University of Michigan, concluded, "(T)here really isn't an impact from drug testing as practiced. ... I don't think it brings about any constructive changes in (students') attitudes about drugs or their belief in the dangers associated with using them." [continues 150 words]
The Oconee County school board's recent decision to consider expanding a proposed random drug testing policy to cover even more students might be more trouble than it's worth. The board had been scheduled to vote earlier this week on a policy that would have randomly tested high school student-athletes, and students who drive to school, for use of a range of drugs including marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine. However, the board decided Monday to postpone a decision on the policy proposal for a month. [continues 404 words]
Will Appeal UGA Decision A University of Georgia student group that advocates the legalization of marijuana must serve two years' probation for misuse of copyrighted UGA images, a student judiciary panel decided Tuesday. The UGA chapter of NORML sold T-shirts depicted a glassy-eyed bulldog holding a joint of pot, reading a book on human rights while sitting in front of a structure that resembled the famous - and copyrighted - UGA Arch. The group also posted the image on its Web site, and UGA officials said NORML didn't take down the offending images quickly enough after UGA ordered the group to stop. [continues 141 words]
New Proposal to Include More Students WATKINSVILLE - Oconee County school officials are holding back a proposed drug-testing policy for high school athletes and drivers, with plans to expand it to cover more after-school activities. The Oconee County Board of Education was set to vote Monday on the new policy but instead decided to consider it for another month, said school board Chairman David Weeks. "We want to expand the language and make sure, from a legal standpoint, we're doing it right," he said. [continues 380 words]
The first clue for the Oconee County Board of Education that it might not want to establish a drug-testing policy for some high school students is the fact that it takes three single-spaced typewritten pages to delineate that policy. The Oconee school board is scheduled to vote Monday on a random drug-testing policy for participants in the school's athletic programs and for students who drive to school. Such a policy isn't necessarily a bad idea; cogent arguments can be made that deterring student-athletes and young drivers from drug use will protect those students from harming themselves and others. [continues 538 words]
Marijuana Charge At High School Clarke Central High School administrators locked down the school Monday morning, while police searched for drugs. As part of an ongoing drug enforcement program, police with three K-9 units searched about a dozen Clarke Central classrooms, arresting a 17-year-old student on a marijuana charge. Authorities asked students about 9:15 a.m. to vacate one of the school's classrooms to let drug-sniffing dogs conduct a sweep of students' belongings. As students were leaving the class, the 17-year-old dropped two bags of marijuana into a nearby wastebasket, according to Clarke County School District police Chief Frank Platt. [continues 163 words]
If University of Georgia officials truly believe the campus chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws is infringing on a university trademark, why aren't they pursuing the issue in the regular court system, rather than through the university's student judiciary organization? While it's true the student judiciary can put the group on probation or suspension, or can disband it altogether, the student judiciary is not competent - or shouldn't be considered competent - to determine whether the NORML chapter, an officially recognized UGA student group, has misappropriated a UGA trademark. [continues 527 words]
Mexican Drug Violence Tied To Illegal-Drug Profits In The Spotlight Hillary Clinton is right. Right on target. Dead right, if you will. Before some of you Hillary haters begin convulsing, hear me out. After hearing our new secretary of state's recent comments in Mexico, I thought perhaps she had overheard a telephone conversation I had a couple of weeks ago with an obviously upset man. The tone of his voice - - the tremor of each word - was one of hurt and anger. The caller was a Hispanic with a deep love for Mexico. [continues 551 words]
For all of the keen intellect President Obama showed in his online town-hall meeting, he didn't seem to know much about reefer economics. When asked whether legalizing marijuana might be a stimulus for the economy and job creation, he played the question for laughs. "I don't know what this says about the online audience," he quipped as his studio audience chuckled and groaned. "But ... this was a fairly popular question. We want to make sure that it was answered," he said. [continues 721 words]
Of all the comments made recently about the drug-related murders in Mexico, among the most disappointing came from our new president. Speaking at his recent prime-time press conference, Barack Obama declared that his administration would take a greater role in battling Mexican drug cartels. The number of agents at the border will more than double; extra resources will go to damming up the flow of guns into Mexico; and enhanced cooperation with Mexican authorities is promised. Obama noted these measures would ensure "that the border communities in the United States are protected and you're not seeing a spillover of violence, and that we are helping the Mexican government deal with a very challenging situation." With all due respect, Mr. President, the violence already is here. Take in the nightly news broadcast in virtually any major U.S. city, and you'll see drug-related violence is rampant. For that matter, it spread long ago to such places as Omaha and Nashville and Kansas City. [continues 475 words]
Pro-Pot Chapter Gets Ally In Ex-Commissioner A former Athens-Clarke commissioner is representing a pro-marijuana student group in its fight against the University of Georgia. Civil rights lawyer Elton Dodson is defending the UGA chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a group that advocates legalizing marijuana, against sanctions stemming from the group using the image of mascot Hairy Dog in promotional materials. Dodson said he does not necessarily subscribe to NORML's beliefs, but he admires members' willingness to speak up. [continues 430 words]
A very real danger now exists along the border with Mexico, and I see little about that threat being published in the U.S. media. I'm more than a little worried about that. The U.S. military says Mexico is on the verge of collapse. Along comes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and denies that, stating there's nothing to fear and talking about getting control of America's problems with illegal drugs, and stopping the flow of illegal guns into Mexico. [continues 136 words]
When the intense violence of illegal drug trafficking was causing a commotion in places such as Colombia, Americans were not terribly concerned. But now that it's killing about 100 people a week in Mexico, spilling over the U.S. border with that country, being branded a top national-security threat and disrupting vacation plans, they are paying closer attention. Indeed, they are scared. They should be. At any moment - particularly in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas - Americans could come face to face with narco-trafficking's wanton ugliness, including savage gunfights by drug gangs battling for control. As they look to the Obama administration for protection and hope, Americans must prepare themselves: It is not enough simply to combat illegal drugs in the production and smuggling dimensions. It's also necessary to combat them on the demand side - that is, right here in the United States. [continues 380 words]
A March 13 Banner-Herald story, "Drug cartel linked to warehouse/Hefty load of marijuana stashed in Athens," is a prime example of our tax dollars being wasted on this nation's expensive and ineffective war on drugs. According to the story, more than 1,200 pounds of marijuana were transferred from a tractor-trailer truck from McAllen, Texas, into a cargo van in Athens on Feb. 20. On that same day, I witnessed at least four trucks transferring an equally intoxicating substance into legal establishments in downtown Athens in broad daylight. The trucks unloading in downtown were not even unmarked. They carried the logos of any number of beer companies. [continues 122 words]
Drug Cartel Linked To Warehouse Hefty Load Of Marijuana Stashed In Athens International drug cartels that use Atlanta as a major narcotics distribution hub apparently have expanded into Athens, according to documents filed this week in federal court in Texas. A tractor-trailer loaded with more than half a ton of marijuana left McAllen, Texas, on Feb. 17, and three days later arrived at a warehouse in an undisclosed part of Athens, according to an affidavit signed Monday by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. [continues 467 words]
When a pizzeria closes, the pizzeria down the block usually sees a surge in business. That principle applies to commerce in the larger North American neighborhood. Whenever the United States locks the gate on a plausible economic activity, Canadians move in and profit. The Bush administration's hostility toward stem-cell science created opportunity in Canada. Starved of adequate federal support, American labs doing this cutting-edge science shrank or closed down, and many of their researchers moved to Canada. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of American university professors and assistants relocating to Canada jumped 27 percent. Some were stars in stem-cell research. [continues 422 words]
Murder And Mayhem In Mexico PHOENIX - The U.S. State Department and universities around the country are warning college students headed for Mexico for some spring-break partying of a surge in drug-related murder and mayhem south of the border. "We're not necessarily telling students not to go, but we're going to certainly alert them," said Tom Dougan, vice president for student affairs at the University of Rhode Island. "There have been Americans kidnapped, and if you go you need to be very aware and very alert to this fact." [continues 553 words]
We've come a long way from "I didn't inhale," former President Clinton's rather lame attempt to explain away a marijuana toke. President Obama has been candid about his use of marijuana and cocaine as a young man, when he was grappling with his identity. In his autobiographical "Dreams from My Father," he wrote, "I got high (to) push questions of who I was out of my mind." The revelation barely caused a ripple during the campaign. Maybe America is maturing on the question of what to do about illicit drug use. When youthful experimentation no longer dooms a career in politics, it means that people have stopped equating former drug use with degeneracy. Most adults in our country either have used a banned drug themselves or know someone who has - someone perfectly upstanding today. And that will help us move beyond the sensational and destructive "war on drugs" rhetoric to a place where drugs are viewed primarily as a public health problem. [continues 515 words]
A former Jefferson police captain pleaded not guilty Friday to violating federal firearms laws for having a grenade and a handgun in his car when he tried to contact his estranged wife in violation of a protective order. Dennis L. Thomas, 49, appeared before a U.S. magistrate in Gainesville to plead to a federal indictment charging him with possession of a firearm while being a drug user and possession of an unregistered destructive device. Jackson County sheriff's deputies arrested Thomas Oct. 7 after he violated a court order barring him from contacting his estranged wife. After his arrest, deputies searched Thomas's car and home and found cocaine, a grenade and other weapons. [continues 222 words]
The land of the free is a nation of prisons. A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trusts has sounded the alarm on the high rate of prison growth in this country. By 2011, one out of every 178 U.S. residents will live in prison if current policies do not change, according to the study titled "Public Safety, Public Spending: Forecasting America's Prison Population 2007-2011." By that time, America will have more than 1.7 million men and women behind bars in federal and state prisons, an increase of nearly 200,000 from 2006. That increase could cost American taxpayers as much as $27.5 billion more - $15 billion for prison operations and $12.5 billion for beds - than they now are spending on prisons over the next five years, according to the report. [continues 509 words]
Athens-Clarke, Oconee, UGA Working Together Police seized 317 pot plants with a street value of $1.1 million in June when they raided an indoor marijuana farm in a house across from Oconee County Middle School. The raid was one of the successes of the Western Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, formed in January by the Athens-Clarke and University of Georgia police departments and Oconee County Sheriff's Office. A change in federal drug enforcement funding led locals to create the task force, since grants now go to regional enforcement units rather than to individual police or sheriff's departments, according to the unit's supervisor, Athens-Clarke police Lt. Mike Hunsinger. The task force opened 206 cases, made 114 arrests on 165 criminal charges, and seized drugs and drug-related assets with a total value of $1.6 million in the first six months of 2006, Hunsinger said. [continues 328 words]
For A Growing Number Of People In The Area, This Cheap, Easy-To-Make Drug Holds The Ticket To A Very Bad Trip - From A Seductive High To A Dramatic Descent Into Addiction And Loss For 20 years, methamphetamine gave Chuck Grier the boost he needed. But the drug had consequences - it cost Grier his marriage; his wife left him two years after they were married, now 19 years ago. Since then, his son has fought his own battle with methamphetamine, but has conquered the addiction, just like his father. [continues 2258 words]
While methamphetamine use is spreading across Georgia like a cancer, cocaine still rules as the drug of choice in Athens-Clarke County. "Where I come from, meth is the big thing," said Jason, a 19-year-old Commerce resident enrolled in a local drug rehabilitation program. "When you want coke, you come to Athens." Jason's excitement over making Commerce High School's varsity football squad was soon quashed after a teammate told him about the wonders of cocaine. He skipped practice one day and came to Athens with $50 in his pocket to experience it for himself. [continues 1412 words]
Rep. John Barrow, D-Athens, missed a chance to save taxpayer dollars and help thousands of students regain their financial aid last week during the House discussion over H.R. 609, the bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. The U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce voted against an amendment to the College Access and Opportunity Act that would lift the financial aid ban for students with past drug convictions. Instead, Barrow and the committee supported a partial repeal that would still cause thousands of students to be ineligible for aid every year. [continues 145 words]
Photographs on the front page of the Athens Banner-Herald's July 8 edition showed law-enforcement officers rounding up some of the dozens of suspected crack cocaine dealers who, until the day before, had been plying their illegal trade on the streets of Athens-Clarke County. The efforts of the law-enforcement community in rounding up the alleged dealers shouldn't be diminished. It takes long hours and savvy investigative and undercover work to develop cases strong enough to convince a judge to issue warrants for several dozen people. [continues 473 words]
It has only been two months since Melinda Payne and Janie Fulghum, two suburban mothers from Loganville, joined their close friend to search for her 17-year-old daughter. Their search for the girl, who had been using methamphetamine for more than a year, showed them a side of their community that they had never seen before. Motel rooms used as meth labs and houses filled with people using meth, contrasted with the manicured lawns and neatly built single-family homes that they saw in their daily lives. [continues 551 words]
Body Found To Produce Marijuana-Like Compound Wounded soldiers and badly injured athletes often report they don't feel pain for hours after being hurt, and now researchers are beginning to understand why - it's because the brain produces its own natural marijuana. Scientists already knew that pot can reduce some kinds of pain, and that the brain actually produces marijuana-like chemicals called cannabinoids. But now a team led by a University of Georgia researcher has found that those pot-like substances are crucial in blocking pain in the process called "stress-induced analgesia," according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. [continues 557 words]
Six months after the U.S. Supreme Court freed judges from the confines of mandatory sentencing rules, the nation's top lawyer is lobbying for their reinstatement. In a speech to a conference of the National Center for Victims of Crime Tuesday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called for requiring federal judges once again to adhere to mandatory minimum prison sentences. Gonzales argued that uniform sentencing policies are the only way to ensure judicial consistency across the nation's courtrooms. The January Supreme Court ruling meant federal judges no longer are required to follow sentencing guidelines but can now treat them merely as recommendations. The change allows judges to use their discretion in weighing the facts of each case in deciding whether an individual's sentence should be more or less severe than suggested by the guidelines. [continues 482 words]
Plaintiff Diane Monson sits next to her marijuana plants Monday at her Oroville, Calif., home. Federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe marijuana to ease pain, the Supreme Court ruled June 6 concluding that state laws don't protect users from a federal ban on the drug. Monday's Supreme Court ruling against medical marijuana was widely expected, but that doesn't make it defensible from a legal or moral perspective. Writing for the 6-3 majority in Gonzales vs. Raich, the 85-year-old liberal Justice John Paul Stevens solemnly counseled patients suffering chronic pain to turn to "the democratic process" for comfort. "The voices of voters," he mused, may "one day be heard in the halls of Congress" on behalf of legalizing medical marijuana. [continues 648 words]
Indictments Unsealed ATLANTA (AP) -- Forty-nine people and 16 corporations were charged in indictments unsealed Friday with supplying common everyday items from antifreeze to matchbooks to informants who had claimed they were using the products to make methamphetamine. The investigation, which began in early 2004, focused on convenience stores in six north Georgia counties and was based on complaints from the public. Authorities began arresting the suspects Friday. Businesses raided in the investigation ranged from small groceries or delis to tobacco shops. [continues 118 words]
Commerce Schools COMMERCE - With little discussion and no input from parents, a proposal to give random drug tests to students in Commerce City Schools cleared its first hurdle Monday. The Commerce Board of Education could implement the policy at its April 11 meeting. School officials say there is not a drug problem within the 1,425-student school system; rather, the policy to randomly test students is meant to give kids an excuse to say no if pressured to use drugs. Students with privileges, even as common as driving to school every day, would be subjected to the random tests, and the privileges could be revoked if they test positive. [continues 369 words]
Carlton E. Allen (Letters, March 4) is proud his son is in the Commerce school system, in which random drug testing is being proposed. Wonderful. But why stop there? Strip searches would be even more efficient. Sadly, there is that bothersome piece of fluff, the Fourth Amendment, which was probably sneaked into the Bill of Rights by liberal lily-livered, soft-on-crime pantywaists. It reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." [continues 51 words]
In its Feb. 25 editorial, the Athens Banner-Herald suggested the Commerce school superintendent's proposal to randomly test students for drug usage is not a proper policy. For 13 years, I served as a youth minister, and one of my children is currently a student at Commerce Middle School. While I was a youth minister, rumors surfaced that some young people had brought and used alcohol on a ski trip sponsored by the church, a trip for which I was not present. When we began planning the next trip, I brought the matter to our youth council, asking them how they thought we should try to ensure this would not be a problem. [continues 310 words]
It's certainly understandable a community would want to protect its young people from the risky behaviors that routinely tempt them. A look at the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey - conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and involving more than 15,000 middle- and high-school students nationwide - provides an interesting snapshot of the numbers of students engaging in such behaviors. The survey clearly shows drug use is an issue for teenagers. According to the survey, 22.4 percent of students reported using marijuana at least once in the month before the survey, 4.1 percent reported cocaine use during the same time and 3.9 percent reported using inhalants. [continues 528 words]
Break out the swabs. Commerce City Schools officials could begin to randomly drug test students' saliva - whether or not they show signs of using illicit substances. If the Commerce Board of Education approves the proposed policy at its April meeting, students could be tested as early as next year. "There's not a problem that's been pinpointed for us to initiate (random drug testing of students)," Schools Superintendent Larry White said. "There's a drug problem in our society. Anyone who won't admit that has their eyes in the sand." [continues 571 words]
As the recent election has shown, our country is extremely divided. There are almost no centrists left. Because of this, I propose a new treaty with Canada. All the liberals in the U.S. will be sent to Canada and in exchange, all Canada's conservatives will be sent to the United States. Democrats and socialists here would love Canada because it is a social welfare state, and Canada's Republicans and Libertarians would love America because it is conservative. While we're at it, we could reform the legal code so that after five years in jail, anybody with a death sentence or a life sentence is killed. That way, we wouldn't spent almost a million dollars keeping a mass murderer alive just so we can kill him in 50 years. The five years would be time enough to appeal, so appeals would still be available. Then, we could get the non-violent drug offenders out of jail, and we'd have plenty of space to put the real criminals. We could end the drug war, too, and save enough money so there would be no deficit. Collin Woodard [end]
Why am I such a party pooper? Trust me, I desperately want to be like those happy-go-lucky folks in the red states who apparently think things are hurtling along just fine. Unfortunately, the facts keep bridling my optimism. Take the United States' alleged great achievements in Afghanistan. Remember during the campaign how President Bush repeatedly celebrated the divinely inspired success of his administration toward turning Afghanistan into a stable democracy? "In Afghanistan, I believe that the freedom there is a gift from the Almighty," he said in the third presidential debate. "And I can't tell you how encouraged I am to see freedom on the march." As compared with Iraq, which Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" has aptly titled "Mess-O-Potamia," Afghanistan has claimed fewer American lives and taxpayer dollars, while managing to hold a presidential election since U.S. and warlord irregulars deposed the brutal Taliban regime three years ago. [continues 594 words]
An Athens Banner-Herald article (Nov. 21) quotes Clarke County Sheriff Ira Edwards as saying "he will continue exploring ways to address the overcrowding issue" in the county jail. How about ending the relentless determination to throw every minor drug offender behind bars? How about focusing more efforts on proven methods like treatment and prevention for offenders? Although the statistics vary, it's safe to say additional enforcement, including jail expansions, costs roughly four times as much as treatment for a given amount of user reduction, seven times as much for consumption reduction and 15 times as much for societal cost reduction. [continues 102 words]
ATLANTA - State leaders vowed an all-out fight against methamphetamine production and abuse Wednesday at a summit devoted to the topic recommended new restrictions on the distribution of some kinds of cold medicines. "This battle will be waged with legal, economic, social, medical, psychological and even spiritual tools," Gov. Sonny Perdue said in his second address to the two-day conference. "Whatever we need to bring to this fight, we must be prepared to bring." Casting the struggle against meth as a fight for the future of Georgia, Perdue said the state had to create hope as a way to fight "a despair that attracts death and feeds on it." [continues 476 words]
Plagued By Crime And Poverty, Athens Neighborhood Draws The Attention Of Police And Other Local Agencies A mere stone's throw from the state's premier ivory tower of higher education sits a pocket of extreme poverty in which the rocks of preference too often are hunks of crack cocaine. At any given time of day or night, the drug can readily be bought on street corners several blocks west of the University of Georgia campus in downtown Athens, in a neighborhood known as Henderson Extension. [continues 1875 words]
Marijuana Flushed No crime was committed when former Clarke County Department of Family and Children Services Director Gwen O'Looney flushed marijuana found on a juvenile DFACS client down a toilet, Western Judicial Circuit District Attorney Ken Mauldin said Tuesday. "We've had nothing referred to us," Mauldin said, responding to a story in Monday's Atlanta-Journal Constitution which stated the matter was being probed by Mauldin's office. O'Looney, who headed the Athens DFACS office since 1998, was fired May 18. No one from DFACS would comment on the reason for her termination, citing the secrecy of personnel records. [continues 578 words]
The west Athens neighborhood known as Henderson Extension may have its share of crime, poverty, blight and other serious problems, but that does not mean its residents have been forsaken by the larger community. In recent years, government agencies such as the Athens-Clarke County Police Department and Athens Housing Authority, as well as church and grass-roots organizations, have been developing ideas for breathing new life into the neighborhood, to make conditions better for those already living there and attract new residents. [continues 1915 words]
Despite concerns about drugs, violence and larceny in the Henderson Extension area, the neighborhood remains unable to get federal funds for community policing and revitalization because, paradoxically, its crime rate is too low. The federal Weed & Seed program - which provides money for communities to ''weed'' out crime and ''seed'' areas with economic and social development opportunities - still hasn't provided any funds for the Hancock Corridor section of west Athens, an area that includes Henderson Extension, Athens-Clarke Police Chief Jack Lumpkin told neighborhood residents at a Saturday forum. The crime rate in the area has been steadily declining from the mid-1990s, when up to half of all the homicides in Athens happened there, Lumpkin said. [continues 379 words]
As the car slowed to turn from Paris Street onto Henderson Avenue Extension one recent weekday morning, one of a group of young men standing on the corner shouted to the driver, ''Yo! What up?'' After a slight pause, he approached the car and asked, ''What you want? You want some crack?'' The driver declined the offer of cocaine, and after going once around the block he returned to the same corner, prompting the men to begin walking away, muttering, ''You're the police!'' [continues 1195 words]
Under the Influence WASHINGTON - Citing estimates that 11 million people sometimes drive under the influence of illegal drugs, a growing chorus in Congress wants the government to do something about it. The states are wary. Eight states now have specific laws on "drugged driving," but their statutes are vague. None specifies an equivalent level to the 0.08 percent blood content that Congress established as the legal level for alcohol impairment. That's partly because there's no roadside test to detect the presence of drugs in the body - no handy "breathalyzer" as there is for alcohol. And even if blood or urine samples taken at a hospital test positive for drugs, there's no standard for how high is too high to drive. "Zero tolerance" is the level some lawmakers want Con-gress to establish. A motorist found to have any controlled substance in his or her system would be considered unlawfully impaired. [continues 97 words]
I am writing in response to the Dec. 23 letter from an evidently privileged individual suggesting the Athens Housing Authority should drug test all of its tenants. The truth of the matter is most of the drug offenses that occur in "housing projects" are not committed by the people who actually live here. Most of us are either disabled or elderly. Those of us who are young and have children are actually working at jobs that do not pay us enough to cover rent and or utilities at an "average" apartment complex here in Athens. Perhaps the letter writer has never known a "poor" person. But the stereotype of a supposedly drug-addicted, shiftless and lazy tenant is outdated and completely lacking in veracity. It saddens me there is still such a stigma attached to public housing. [continues 203 words]
BRUNSWICK - Ray Starling built his career on secrecy. Many a night, he dozed on a surplus Army cot in a small, dingy office, waiting for word of someone looking to buy or sell some marijuana, heroin, crystal methamphetamine or cocaine. He has spent hours hunkered down in woods, cloaked in darkness and mosquitoes, patiently waiting for smugglers to come ashore with a clandestine cargo of pot. And for 30 years, Starling's easygoing demeanor and disarming grin were the downfall of more than a few drug traffickers. ''One of the things that I'm going to miss,'' he said, ''is the thrill and excitement of knowing that if you're a dope dealer and I've just bought from you ... you don't know it yet, but you're going to get busted.'' Starling, 54, retired this month from the Glynn County Police Department, where he worked his way up through the ranks to become captain and served as commander of the Glynn/Brunswick Narcotics Enforcement Team. He was recently honored with a retirement celebration by colleagues and area law enforcement officials. Starling began his 31-year career patrolling a beat in the county's toughest neighborhood. As a narcotics investigator and supervisor, he has worked some big drug cases. [continues 661 words]
