As the parents of two school-age children, we recognize the responsibility we have in raising them. If our child develops a substance abuse problem, it is our job, as parents, to see that she receives testing, treatment and other appropriate intervention. If we fail in that job, law enforcement, social services and the courts may - - and should - intervene to see that our child receives needed care and services. When we unnecessarily mix the roles of parents, educators and law enforcement, each of them is reduced in legitimacy. Williamsburg [end]
My 24-year-old daughter's take on the issue of student drug testing opened my eyes to a new angle on the situation - that of the students' futures in our work force. She is firmly on the side of drug testing, not because it could save students with drug problems and their families years of living the nightmare of drug dependence and its consequences, but because employers require drug testing of employees. Drug testing is going to be a part of the future, so students had better get used to it. [continues 82 words]
Concerning drug testing for teens in any county anywhere: We adults are worried; we do not really know what to do to help teens make the right decisions about illegal drugs. As I told my daughter when she was 3 and did not want to hold my hand as we crossed a busy street: "This is not about power; this is about safety and health; it is about keeping you alive long enough so that you begin to see the value of health." Of course, at 3, she did not understand that. But she did grab my hand, and we did cross the street safely. I have taught teens for 34 years and know that, from the 1970s until now, we have a health and safety problem in our nation because of drugs. One of them is alcohol. Lives are destroyed. [continues 106 words]
I am writing to express my deep support for the random student drug testing policy that has been submitted by the Williamsburg-James City County school Superintendent Gary Mathews. During my many years of helping the school system and its students, I have seen a trend of younger students using and becoming addicted to more powerful and addictive manufactured drugs. A great number of students and parents have been working together for almost two years to come up with a better way to help prevent substance abuse. Although the proposed policy may not be the total answer, it will have a positive impact in helping students avoid substance abuse or get help if they are falling through the cracks. As an active parent in the life of my daughter (a freshman at Lafayette High School), I am pleased that this program is aimed at helping students and families. [continues 70 words]
Here's What Random Drug Testing Will Teach Students If the Williamsburg-James City County School Board adopts the random student drug testing program recommended by Superintendent Gary Mathews, a few years from now a student applying to college may submit an essay, like the hypothetical creation below, that paints a dismaying picture of the consequences. What Doesn't Have To Be The topic for this essay is "A new kind of education: What I learned when my school district instituted random student drug testing." It will explain why, on my admission application, you will not see any extra-curricular activities that involved competition or fell under the auspices of the Virginia High School League. I did not join any sports teams or work on the yearbook or play in the band, as taking part in any of those activities, or many others at my school, would have made me subject to the random testing the School Board implemented in 2006. [continues 698 words]
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Some parents are criticizing a school system's proposal to randomly test many high school students for drugs and alcohol use, saying it would violate privacy rights. Gary Mathews, superintendent of Williamsburg-James City County schools, has asked that all students who participate in extracurricular activities or who use a permit to park their cars on school property be tested. The School Board is scheduled to vote March 7 on the proposal, which could affect roughly 2,000 students at the county's two high schools. It would affect members of science and debate clubs as well as athletes. [continues 383 words]
Parents And Officials Debate The Right To Privacy Versus The Privileges Of Driving Cars And Playing Sports WILLIAMSBURG -- After several parents told the School Board that a random drug policy would invade the privacy of their children, high school officials told the board the students are already being assaulted by widespread drug and alcohol use. "Kids stay home because they don't want to face it," said Jamestown Athletic Director Tom Dolan. "We have students who basically shut themselves in their homes on weekends to avoid this. That's how prevalent it is." [continues 677 words]
W-JCC Should Act Now To Block Student Drug Testing The Williamsburg-James City County School Board put off until March 7 a vote on a proposal to subject most of the students at Jamestown and Lafayette high schools to random drug tests. That gives parents and other concerned adults plenty of time to contact board members and urge them to vote against it. And there is abundant reason for thoughtful people in the city and county, whether they have children in the schools or not, to be concerned about the community's young people being subjected to the kind of testing program being proposed. [continues 887 words]
The Initiative, Set for a March 7 Decision, Would Affect About 1,000 Students at Each High School. WILLIAMSBURG -- Five of seven Williamsburg-James City County School Board members objected when one urged the board to move ahead to vote on approving the superintendent's random student drug testing proposal Tuesday night. School Superintendent Gary Mathews recommended last week that high schools randomly drug test all students who participate in extra-curricular activities or obtain permits to park their cars on campus. That would equal approximately 1,000 students at each W-JCC high school - about two-thirds of the student body, according to Steve Chantry, W-JCC's director of student services. [continues 382 words]
Random Drug Tests Don't Belong In Schools The Williamsburg-James City County School Board must resist the proposal, which will be put before it by the superintendent tonight, to undertake random drug testing in the high schools. There's no evidence the program will be effective at getting at the problem the community is concerned about - drug use among teens. But it is likely to cause damage in another area - to students' understanding of what it means to live in a free society. [continues 399 words]
ROANOKE, Va. -- A methadone clinic that opened one year ago to treat western Virginia drug addicts has not brought higher crime to its northwest neighborhood, as residents had feared. Police were called to the Roanoke Treatment Center 34 times last year, but 70 percent of the calls were for burglar alarms set off accidentally by the staff, police spokesman Aisha Johnson said. The rest were for minor incidents such as reports of suspicious activity. A nearby business had 49 police calls. [continues 482 words]
A Former Self-Admitted Hellraiser Is Now A Major In The Salvation Army Thanks To A Conversion Experience SPOTLIGHT: HARVEY JOHNSON -- Maj. Harvey Johnson was high on cocaine when he had what he calls a spiritual awakening. That's when he decided to quit dealing drugs, flush his last $800 worth of coke down the toilet and turn his life around. More than 30 years later Johnson, 53, heads the Salvation Army Peninsula Command, a post he took on in July. Little more than a month after taking over on the Peninsula, Johnson packed up the command mobile canteen and drove to Biloxi, Miss., to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. He still gets tears in his eyes when he talks about his experiences there. [continues 1065 words]
For The Past Five Years, Fernando Groene Has Been Leading Federal Prosecutions On The Peninsula. NEWPORT NEWS -- Assistant U.S. Attorney Fernando Groene has prosecuted some of the Peninsula's most notorious criminals - high-level drug dealers, money launderers, murderers, gun traffickers and white-collar thieves. On Sept. 26, trials will start in Norfolk for the remaining defendants in Operation Blowfish - a joint investigation of the Peninsula Narcotics Enforcement Task Force and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The investigation exposed an international drug network that imported millions of dollars in cocaine and marijuana from Mexico, across the border to Texas and then into Hampton Roads and Richmond. [continues 932 words]
People Suffer Withdrawal While Fleeing Hurricane, Search For Treatment Before Katrina hit, untold numbers of its victims already were suffering a different kind of wrath: drug addiction. Now, thousands of addicts are thought to be among the hundreds of thousands displaced by the storm, seeking drug fixes, recovery or simple compassion in the new places they are temporarily calling home. The diaspora has created challenges in communities from Alexandria and Baton Rouge, La., to Houston and San Antonio, where taxed addiction counselors already have full caseloads and, in some cases, all staffed treatment beds are full. In communities where addicts are arriving, there is concern about the long-term worsening of local drug problems, but also stories of heroic compassion. [continues 1023 words]
NEW YORK -- Though state governments are no longer fueling a private prison boom, the industry's major companies are upbeat -- thanks in large measure to a surge of business from federal agencies seeking to house fast-rising numbers of criminals and detained aliens. Since 2000, the number of federal inmates in private facilities -- prisons and halfway houses -- has increased by two-thirds to more than 24,000. Thousands more detainees not convicted of crimes are confined in for-profit facilities, which now hold roughly 14 percent of all federal prisoners, compared to less than 6 percent of state inmates. [continues 820 words]
I have been under the delusion that the Supreme Court had been established to protect the human rights of a free people. Not so, as I see it has begun further inroads on denying the people rights to certain medicines and procedures recommended by doctors. The Supreme Court should have ruled in just the opposite direction which would allow the use of marijuana and other medication deemed necessary by a physician. This is a protection of human rights. Page Laubach Warden Williamsburg [end]
When a group of high school students were brought together for a focus group to discuss the proposal for random drug testing in Williamsburg-James City County schools, they hit on one of the big problems: It isn't fair to test just athletes. They're right. However, according to the United States Supreme Court, such programs can't test all students. They can only go after students involved in competitive extracurricular activities. Which is, on its face, absurd. If a community wants to get at a drug problem, why single out young people who are full participants in school life, who are involved in positive activities that require discipline and commitment? They're probably not the ones likely to have drug problems. [continues 336 words]
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." The same might be said of Supreme Court justices. Take, for example, Gonzales vs. Raich, the Supreme Court's medicinal marijuana case. The commerce clause in Article One of the Constitution could hardly be more clear in limiting federal power to commerce among the several states, not within a state. But in Gonzales vs. Raich, a 6-to-3 majority has stretched commerce to mean just what they choose it to mean - far enough to let the faraway feds, not the close-to-the-people state governments, decide whether their ailing residents should be allowed to grow their own medicine under a doctor's care. [continues 515 words]
Tuning in to watch one of my favorite medical dramas, I expected to see the usual plethora of traumas: broken bones, gunshot wounds, collapsed lungs. Instead, I viewed a person with sickle cell disease being portrayed as a drug-seeking menace. Television programs have always influenced the thought process of viewers, and those who may not be aware or informed about sickle cell anemia may base their opinions and feelings solely on what they see, not taking the time to research the pathology of this disease. As a young African-American woman with this inherited blood disease, I have had the displeasure of being in torturous pain and having an emergency physician look me over as though I were less than human. I have even heard a doctor, when he thought that I was out of earshot, say, "She's just another one of 'them.'" [continues 184 words]
Afghan Women Take Up Arms In War On Narcotics KABUL, Afghanistan -- Faozia Mirakai grinned widely and held her gun as if she might drop it. But if threatened, she said, she could be a killer. Mirakai wore a green camouflage uniform and tan boots. The young woman punched her fists into the air alongside the Afghan men training to be anti-drug officers. She walked with a slight swagger. She jumped with the men, tried to do one-armed push-ups with them and marched with them. She made faces at the men and joked around. [continues 1114 words]
Recent reports of a local physician's legal and practice problems with the use of opioid medications makes for quick, catchy headlines. However, ongoing reports have failed to give perspective to the underlying problem. The emerging problem is how do physicians treat acute and chronic pain patients in today's regulatory and legal environment? Today's laws are little more than blunt instruments that leave every party to the decision of chronic pain treatment poorly served. Primary care doctors and their patients are especially left in a legal limbo. Precedent has already been set in North Carolina, Michigan and Oregon, where doctors have been sued by patients or their families for failing to use narcotic medications or "under-treating" for pain. Primary care physicians who have skills and resources to manage chronic pain in their patients may be put in an untenable situation should they choose to treat their patients. Concern for patients should never have to be compromised because physicians fear loss of livelihood and licensing. [continues 100 words]
Virginia's Drug Arrests: Numbers Doubled Between 00 And 04 Virginia's War On Drugs: Police Pessimistic About A Speedy Victory Marijuana And Crack Cocaine Are The Top Illegal Substances Involved In Arrests Across The State. In less than four years, drug arrests in Virginia have increased by about 20 percent, from 23,181 in 2000 to more than 28,000 in 2004 - largely as a result of increased marijuana and crack cocaine arrests, the Virginia State Police report. Peninsula police officers said the numbers reflect aggressive enforcement, effective regional drug efforts and population increases. [continues 1082 words]
The authors' support for random student drug testing is unfounded ("Crisis calls for random drug testing," April 18). While we share their concern regarding alcohol and substance abuse among young people, the enactment of suspicionless student drug testing is not the solution. According to a recent federal study of 76,000 students by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, there is no difference in illegal drug use among students in schools that drug test as opposed to those that do not. "At each grade level - 8, 10 and 12 - the investigators found virtually identical rates of drug use," the study concluded. [continues 190 words]
Peter Christ Tells William And Mary Students That "Prohibition Created Al Capone." WILLIAMSBURG -- The federal government's decades-long attempt to prohibit the use and sales of illegal drugs only fuels more crime and societal problems, a retired police captain told students at the College of William and Mary on Thursday night. Peter Christ is a member of Massachusetts-based Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates the decriminalization of drugs. He addressed about 30 students at Millington Hall, and many were members of a group called Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. [continues 263 words]
Hungry? Here, have some "ice." If you're like me, you didn't know that "ice" is slang for methamphetamine, a.k.a. "crank," "speed" or "glass." This combustible and highly addictive brew is cooking up in labs big and small all across this great land of ours, using common household items like cold and asthma tablets containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, acetone, rubbing and isopropyl alcohol, iodine, starter fluid (ether), gas additives (methanol), drain cleaner (sulfuric acid), muriatic acid, brake cleaner, lithium batteries, rock salt, matchbooks (red phosphorus), lye and paint thinner - yum! [continues 688 words]
In a Utopian world, a child's alcohol or drug use would be addressed by parents, churches, courts, law enforcement and substance abuse experts. But we don't live in Utopia - we live in Williamsburg/James City County where none of us have gained ground on a major health crisis: the widespread use of alcohol and illicit drugs by our students. Consider the 2002-2003 WJCC survey statistics applied to actual enrollment: of 1,361 total students in the sixth and eighth grades, 190 kids (one out of seven) were drinking at least once a month - what substance abuse experts call "chronic usage." And 114 kids (one out of 12) were chronic users of illicit drugs. Keep in mind we're talking about youngsters 11 to 14 years old. [continues 656 words]
I was dismayed to read the Daily Press editorial "Scary thought" (March 20) refer to nonpunitive random student drug testing as a "specter" and to dismiss the initiative as "an awful idea." Nonpunitive random student drug testing has definitive judicial and legislative support and merits serious consideration by the Williamsburg-James City School Board. Both the U.S. Supreme Court and the Virginia General Assembly have sanctioned such testing. In two opinions, one in 1995 and one in 2002, the Supreme Court held that nonpunitive random student drug testing does not constitute an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In both opinions, the court balanced the student's Fourth Amendment rights against the school's legitimate interest in detecting and deterring drug abuse among student athletes and students participating in extracurricular activities, and found drug testing to be a reasonable means to protect the safety and health of the students. Subsequently, in 2003, the General Assembly passed a statute authorizing local school districts to establish drug testing programs. The Virginia Board of Education has since published guidelines for local school districts to follow in establishing such programs. Thus, there is strong judicial and legislative authority for the initiative. [continues 133 words]
The Area's Methadone Treatment Center Has Seen More People Hooked On Prescribed Pain Medicine. Lee is a Peninsula woman in her 40s who once thought Vicodin would help her handle her pain - until she found out she just couldn't get enough of the drug. She's one of an increasing number of local residents now taking methadone for addiction to prescription pain medicine. She requested that her last name not be used to protect her privacy. About three years ago, Lee's marriage was falling apart. Her father was dying of cancer, and she had to face his suffering daily while she helped care for him. [continues 1065 words]
Numerous Williamsburg and James City County citizens worry that too many of our young people abuse illegal drugs and alcohol. As profiled in past articles, in presentations recently offered in our high schools, in data from professionals at Bacon Street, and in conversations with many teenagers, the drug and alcohol problems within our community only worsen. The harsh struggles caused by the abuse of alcohol and drugs will not evaporate with our simple wishes. Adults must be more comprehensive in our care and attention to this urgent matter. [continues 240 words]
Thanks for the conservative editorial ("Scary thought," March 20) opposing radicals' promotion of random, suspicionless drug testing in schools. My daughter Sarah Frances Corneliussen, a student who disdains drugs but loves the Constitution, notes that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting from a judicial-activist decision authorizing the unreasonable searches, worried about government perversely teaching kids to see constitutional guarantees as mere lip service. Steven T. Corneliussen [end]
A Parent-Based Taskforce Calls On The School Board To Consider Changing Its Policy At High Schools To Combat Substance Abuse JAMES CITY -- A group of parents called the Random Student Drug Testing Parent Task Force wants the Williamsburg-James City County School Board to consider a proposal to randomly test students for drugs. At a work session of the School Board Tuesday night, taskforce co-chair Dee McHenry cited continuing drug and alcohol violations as part of the inspiration for the plan. [continues 407 words]
The Supreme Court's decision delays federal cases, as lawyers ask for time to examine the 200-plus page document. A defendant in one state gets a sentence twice as high as a defendant in another state. A white-collar criminal or a drug offender might not get much time at all. Those are the worst-case scenarios imagined by Paul McNulty, the U.S. Attorney for the state's Eastern District. Twenty-four hours after the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the way judges decide federal sentences is unconstitutional, McNulty and staffers at the federal office were contemplating the fate of future cases. [continues 409 words]
