Doctors Would Have More Autonomy In Dispensing Methadone, Used To Treat Heroin Addicts. In a change in approach that tips government policy toward the idea that drug addiction is a disease, federal officials announced yesterday a plan to give doctors greater autonomy in running methadone-maintenance programs - - treatment designed to keep addicts away from heroin. "We're talking about sensible drug treatment for 810,000 Americans," said Barry McCaffrey, chief of the White House Office of National Drug Policy. He made the announcement at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Philadelphia. [continues 414 words]
COLLINGSWOOD -- Police yesterday arrested a Collingswood couple who they said smoked marijuana with their 14-year-old son and five of his friends on at least six occasions between January and April of this year. Matthew Davies, 41, of the 700 block of Haddon Avenue, was charged with 12 counts of endangering the welfare of a child. His wife, Beverly, 38, was charged with nine counts of the same offense. While she was being arrested at 10 a.m. yesterday, Beverly Davies suffered a seizure and was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center; she later was released to police. Matthew Davies, a construction worker, surrendered to police yesterday afternoon after returning from work. [continues 136 words]
I know about "jury nullification" because of a field trip to Philadelphia that my parents took our family on in July 1976. I asked my mother, "Who's that statue on top of City Hall anyway?" She said William Penn. But when I asked who he was, she told me to look him up. Earlier that year, my parents had bought us the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so I read about Penn and the trial of his life, which eventually led to the First Amendment. It was a very appropriate project; America's Bicentennial celebration was going full-blast. [continues 661 words]
Seven conspirators in a cocaine and methamphetamine ring that featured the odd coupling of the Pagans motorcycle club and Lancaster County's Amish community were sentenced yesterday. U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer meted out sentences that ranged from six months of home confinement to seven years in prison, with most of those involved in the drug plot getting jail terms of four to five years. Still to be sentenced are the two Amish men who sold cocaine to other Amish youths at Lancaster County hoedowns. Abner Stoltzfus, 25, and Abner King Stoltzfus, 24, both of Gap, Pa., and unrelated, are scheduled for sentencing today. The drug conspiracy's identified ringleader, Emory Edward Reed, 48, of Millersville, Pa., is also awaiting sentencing. Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Dominguez said Reed, who was a leader in the Pagans' Chester County chapter, was cooperating in an ongoing investigation. Ten people were indicted in June 1998 in the drug conspiracy that operated in Chester and Lancaster Counties from 1992 to 1997, and all have pleaded guilty in the last year. Most of those sentenced yesterday were either Pagans members or Pagans hang-arounds, people who associated with club members and were sometimes considered for full membership. [continues 454 words]
Seven conspirators in a cocaine and methamphetamine ring that featured the odd coupling of the Pagans motorcycle club and Lancaster County's Amish community were sentenced yesterday. U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer meted out sentences that ranged from six months of home confinement to seven years in prison, with most of those involved in the drug plot getting jail terms of four to five years. Still to be sentenced are the two Amish men who sold cocaine to other Amish youths at Lancaster County hoedowns. Abner Stoltzfus, 25, and Abner King Stoltzfus, 24, both of Gap, Pa., and unrelated, are scheduled for sentencing today. [continues 507 words]
The united states is scrambling to locate new facilities in the region. Aerial surveillance has suffered. The May transfer of a U.S. military base to Panama has left a gaping hole in American counter-drug efforts in Central America and the Caribbean, forcing the Clinton administration to scramble for new facilities that can be used to track drug shipments from South America. All U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Panama, formerly headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command, by the end of the year under terms of the Panama Canal treaties. [continues 548 words]
At Issue Are "Sting" Techniques. Aid For Drug Programs Could Be Lost. Officials in Delaware and Schuylkill Counties are up in arms over federal regulations that could cost Pennsylvania $26 million in antidrug funding if it misses an August deadline to cut down on cigarette sales to minors. Two issues gall the officials, they say. First, their human services departments, which provide drug treatment and prevention programs, could be penalized for what they consider a law-enforcement-agency failure. Second, the state Department of Health has asked counties to use teenagers to try to buy cigarettes in "sting" operations, an enforcement tool that the two counties are refusing to use. [continues 475 words]
Five men who ingested illegal drugs in Camden in the last three days have been hospitalized with raging fevers and other dangerous symptoms, the result of additives, authorities said. Michael Chansky, director of emergency medicine at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center, said yesterday that he feared an epidemic, even though no other cases have surfaced. Whatever was mixed in with the drugs -- heroin and cocaine in the case of the five hospitalized men -- "severely impedes" the ability to sweat, which can be especially deadly during a heat wave, Chansky said. The additives were having other bad effects as well, he said. [continues 121 words]
The gentleman from Browns Mills misread the report from the feds on medical marijuana (letter, May 25). The study did say there can be medical benefits accrued from the ingredients in marijuana; however, it also said that smoking marijuana is not a good vehicle for its benefits. You can't get the medical benefits by smoking pot, sorry. Catherine Baggaley Browns Mills [end]
Addicts Don't Always Behave Like Barbie And Ken. The drug and alcohol counselors gathered yesterday in Oxford Valley recounted the horror stories. There was the recovering addict thrown out of the support group meeting because he was gay, and the edict from a group therapy counselor to keep the secret of sexual orientation hidden away. "A lot of people can't feel comfortable about who they really are in rehabilitation, therapy or Narcotics Anonymous meetings," said David Shaw, a therapist and addictions therapist, "and honesty and acceptance are key factors in sobriety." [continues 465 words]
JENKINTOWN -- School district officials have released the results of a drug survey that showed alcohol to be the drug of choice for the majority of students in grades six through 12. Alcohol use exceeded the national average among Jenkintown's eighth through 12th graders, district officials said at a meeting Monday. The PRIDE survey, conducted by the Atlanta-based National Parents' Resource for Drug Education, was administered to 285 Jenkintown students in February. This was the fourth year students in Jenkintown participated in the survey. The tiny district, which has only two schools, had a total enrollment of 610 this year. In addition to which drugs were used, the report also included statistics on when they were used, their accessibility, and students' perception of the danger of drugs. [continues 215 words]
He Answered A Question And Was Arrested. Police May Have Found Drugs. WALLINGFORD -- A 12-year-old Strath Haven Middle School student, arrested in class Thursday after making a remark construed as a threat against the school dean, has been scheduled to appear in Delaware County Juvenile Court on June 7. The student, a Swarthmore resident, is charged with the making of terroristic threats, possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia, and disorderly conduct. What is suspected to be marijuana and a pipe were found on him at the time of his arrest, according to a Nether Providence police report on the incident. [continues 277 words]
Alcohol and marijuana use topped U.S. average, according to students. JENKINTOWN -- School district officials have released the results of a drug survey that showed alcohol to be the drug of choice for the majority of students in grades six through 12. Alcohol use exceeded the national average among Jenkintown's eighth through 12th graders, district officials said at a meeting Monday. The PRIDE survey, conducted by the Atlanta-based National Parents' Resource for Drug Education, was administered to 285 Jenkintown students in February. [continues 399 words]
I was in a serious car accident on Jan. 5, 1997. I have chronic pain in my back and other complications. I have chosen to use marijuana as a natural but illegal substance for my medical needs. I, like millions of others, consider marijuana a much safer medicine than many that have been prescribed to me in the past. Last year, I was protesting Rep. Robert E. Andrews' planned vote against the "Medical Marijuana Bill" before Congress. I demonstrated my use of marijuana as a medicine twice, once at Andrews' office in Haddon Heights and again at the Democratic Party headquarters in Cherry Hill. I was arrested. [continues 74 words]
He Ran A Cocaine Ring In The 1980s And Got A 42-Year Term. He Says A 25-Year Deal Was Offered. Larry Lavin, the Ivy League-educated Main Line dentist who helped run a massive cocaine ring in the 1980s, was back in a Philadelphia federal courtroom yesterday, trying to shave time off the 42-year sentence he was handed in 1986. Gaunt and gray after 13 years in prison, Lavin, 44, testified that he was given bad advice by his then-attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, when Bergstrom told him "he could beat" a 25-year plea bargain being offered by prosecutors in 1986. But the prosecutor in the case testified that a 25-year deal was never on the table. Yesterday's hearing in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Diane Welsh was a step in a complicated legal process that Lavin hopes will lead to a federal judge accepting a 25-year plea bargain. That would allow Lavin, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, to possibly be released sometime next year with time off for good behavior. Without that reduction, a more likely date for parole would be in 2010. [continues 600 words]
Doris Leffler, 61, a nurse who wrestled with her own addiction before helping others in their fight, died Sunday of emphysema at Pennsylvania Hospital. Mrs. Leffler, a psychiatric nurse and a recovering alcoholic with 24 years' sobriety, was the director of the Alcoholism Recovery Program at Friends Hospital until late last year, when she became too ill to continue. She had worked at Friends since 1980. She founded the Philadelphia Recovering Nurses Association, a support group for chemically dependent nurses, in 1982. She also was a consultant to Pennsylvania's Impaired Professionals Program, a state organization she helped form. [continues 300 words]
A maintenance worker accused of nurturing 130 marijuana plants -- some as tall as eight feet -- in the courtyards of a Cinnaminson motel was spared at least temporarily yesterday when the jury considering his case deadlocked after four hours of deliberations. Richard Rowand Jr., 41, who lived and worked at the Garden State Motel on Route 130 when he was arrested last year, was charged with the first-degree crime of possessing marijuana with intent to distribute, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Rowand's attorney, James Logan Jr., had argued that his client "was the low man on the totem pole" and was made into a scapegoat after police discovered the plants on Aug. 18, 1998, while investigating a complaint of a Peeping Tom on the premises. No Peeping Tom was found. [continues 154 words]
Drug Policy And Loans Divide Council Candidates Michael P. Mcguire And Frank Fulbrook. CAMDEN -- As the city approaches Tuesday's nonpartisan Council election, one race in particular has turned ugly: the First Ward contest, pitting Frank Fulbrook against Michael P. McGuire. The two, in a slugfest of accusations, are competing for the seat held by Michael H. Devlin, who is not running again. It is one of four four-year terms, which pay $13,700 a year, that have drawn a field of 10 candidates. Fulbrook fired the opening shot by trotting out a senior citizen who accused McGuire, a Camden County housing inspector, of driving the senior into poverty by failing to repay a $60,000 loan. A 1997 Camden County Superior Court judgment found McGuire in default, but did not specify when the money was to be repaid. [continues 342 words]
It is not just for boys now. Two area girls talk about their stays. SANDY CREEK TOWNSHIP -- Cpl. Heather McIvor paced the barracks at 6 a.m. as 30 girls kicked up a cloud of dust while getting ready that morning. "WILLIAMS!" McIvor snapped. Although only 5-foot-2, the corporal, known as a tower of terror, can draw enough air and might from her lungs to project far beyond her petite physique and rattle the bones of those around her. "Ma'am, aye-aye, ma'am," Heather Williams responded, standing at attention. "Your foot display is off. Fix it," the corporal ordered, waving a dismissive hand to the 17-year-old. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am," Williams chanted as she dropped to her knees and slightly moved her camp-issued boots, sneakers and shower shoes until the toes were perfectly aligned. [continues 1565 words]
Surveillance has ended because the base will be given to Panama. Operations are to be restored at other sites. WASHINGTON - The administration said yesterday that antidrug efforts in Latin America had been weakened by the ending of surveillance flights from a U.S. base in the Canal Zone that is being transferred to Panama. State and Defense Department officials said that they planned to restore full operations within two years by building up three smaller staging centers in the region, but lawmakers at a House hearing said that the administration had handled the changeover badly. [continues 328 words]
