More Portable Production Adds to Drug's Popularity, Police Say

In the past three years, Augusta saw a 79 percent increase in the number of methamphetamine labs found by police.

Georgia saw an 82 percent increase.

"We've been on a surge recently," said Richmond County sheriff's Sgt. Allan Rollins. "(The labs are) getting much more portable and easier to carry. It used to be you almost had to have a high school chemistry laboratory to make, but now you can basically make it out of a suitcase in a jar."

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After telling him he has "a scarlet letter chiseled on his forehead the rest of his life," a federal judge sentenced disgraced ex-jurist Jack Camp to 30 days in prison for committing repeated crimes with a stripper.

"He has disgraced his office," Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said of Camp, the ex-federal judge from Newnan. "He has denigrated the federal judiciary. He has encouraged disrespect for the law."

Camp, who was arrested Oct. 1 in an undercover drug sting, pleaded for leniency. He asked to be allowed to remain in his home and community to repair his marriage and rebuild his name.

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No Money Left to Dismantle Toxic Meth Operations and State Looks for Way to Cover Costs

Federal money for cleaning up toxic methamphetamine labs has run out, leaving police agencies across Georgia wondering how they're going to pay a tab that amounted to more than $500,000 last year.

The Drug Enforcement Administration had $2 million at the start of the fiscal year to reimburse local governments for meth lab cleanup costs. Congress was expected to appropriate an additional $10 million through the remainder of the fiscal year.

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ALBANY, Ga. -- After several high-profile busts of marijuana "grow houses" in metro Albany over the past few years, Georgia Bureau of Investigation special agents told the Dougherty County Rotary Club Tuesday that growers don't meet any particular profile and could be living right next door.

"We've taken down veterinarians, doctors, college students and all kinds of different people growing marijuana," GBI special agent Stripling Luke said of the people practicing indoor marijuana cultivation. "We've shut down grow houses in Calloway Lakes, Terrell County, nice neighborhoods and places out in the country. There is no profile.

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I find it sad, if not amusing, that Catherine Meeks waits until the last few lines of her dribble on the Opinion page to mention that "each person has to take responsibility for their behavior." If she has proof that the CIA or President Ronald Reagan, for that matter, is/was the cause of so many "people of color" being incarcerated, she should come forward with that proof. To simply put her own racial spin on the subject is sickening, but expected of her.

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The drug war has been waged in a racist manner since its inception. The Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 was preceded by a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Opium was identified with Chinese laborers, marijuana with Mexicans and cocaine with African-Americans. Racial profiling continues to be the norm, despite similar rates of drug use for minorities and whites.

Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities. The drug war is a cultural inquisition, not a public health campaign.

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I think I understand why some Georgia lawmakers are reluctant to crack down on sleazy doctors and pill pushers who are making fortunes by addicting people to dangerous narcotics.

They don't talk to the right people.

Otherwise, State Sen. Buddy Carter, a Pooler pharmacist, wouldn't have to push watered-down legislation, out of political necessity, to create a statewide computer database that would track prescriptions of oxycodone, Vicodin, Percocet and other addictive painkillers.

Consider his bill that recently cleared the Senate and is now awaiting action in the House. It includes this limp-noodle language -- immunity for all doctors and pharmacists who didn't check the database but had a patient or customer who got popped on the street for peddling $30 pain pills or died of a drug overdose.

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ATLANTA -- A former veteran judge who pleaded guilty to drug-related charges involving a stripper owes a "debt to society" and should serve at least 15 days in prison, prosecutors said in court documents.

Prosecutors urged Senior Judge Thomas Hogan to overrule Jack Camp's request that he be sentenced to probation, a fine and community service. Camp's sentencing is schedule for March 11.

Camp should face between 15 days and six months in prison to "reflect the seriousness of the offense, promote respect for the law and provide just punishment," prosecutors said in documents filed Friday.

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Scrubbing out the toxic sludge of a methamphetamine lab isn't cheap or easy.

Until recently, though, law enforcement nationwide and in the Augusta area could count on federal dollars to pay the bill.

That changed when Congress didn't appropriate those dollars for meth lab cleanup to the Drug Enforcement Agency in the first proposed budget.

Furthermore, "we don't anticipate that happening," said Rusty Payne, the DEA spokesman.

The ripple effect has been felt across the country.

News stories in states including Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana all quote sheriffs and police chiefs citing the difficulties this will present.

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As a police detective, I learned that every drug dealer ever arrested was replaced within days. What Chief Justice Hunstein meant about "always having criminals" was that drug dealers are created by the job opportunity when a current dealer is arrested.

Many dealers now come from Mexico and other countries. Thus the supply is endless. Since dealers accept as a condition of employment possible death and long prison terms, nothing the courts can do will deter their actions.

Drug prohibition is the basic problem, same as it was in 1933. We need to abandon the concept that the government can fix stupid. My colleagues should not be going into homes to stop adults from putting something in their bodies. That task is best left for family and friends.

Howard Wooldridge

Albany

[end]

How many more lives have to be ruined by marijuana prohibition before we step up and legalize marijuana?

Why is the most useful plant known illegal? Because crooked corporations that buy crooked politicians fear competition from superior, safer and more environmentally friendly hemp products -- and because the government loves to oppress, jail and steal from the people!

Alcohol, tobacco, petroleum, cotton, timber, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, just to name a few, all see marijuana as unwanted competition. The best way for we the people to regain our constitutional rights and liberties is to demand a complete ban on corporate lobbying. We are supposed to have Government of, for and by the people , not of, for and by corporations! Corporations are not people!

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"The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander, professor of law at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, "is written for people who care deeply about racial justice but who, for any number of reasons, do not yet appreciate the magnitude of the crisis faced by communities of color as a result of mass incarceration.... as well as people who have been struggling to persuade their friends, neighbors, relatives, teachers, co-workers, or political representatives that something is eerily familiar about the way our criminal justice system operates. Also for all those trapped within America's latest caste system. You may be locked up or locked out of mainstream society, but you are not forgotten."

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CRITICS OF state Sen. Buddy Carter's bill to help track drug prescriptions in Georgia are right about one thing: Its voluntary nature may lessen participation and might provide an out for shady doctors or pharmacists who dish out addictive pain pills like candy.

Still, one must consider the difference between what might be preferable in a perfect world, and what has a better chance of passing the state legislature.

As passed in the Senate, Mr. Carter's bill provides for a computerized database to make available information now filed only on paper forms.

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Georgia's Court System: Criminal justice needs alternatives A lock-them-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach to all crimes, including the nonviolent, is a cost-prohibitive stance the state no longer can afford.

Georgia's courts are overburdened and underfunded. Meanwhile, paying the bill for the state's prison system has become much tougher during these cash-strapped times.

For the sake of public safety and fiscal prudence, there has to be a better way.

In his inaugural address, Gov. Nathan Deal, a former prosecutor, may have started the state down the road to cost savings and better results when he implored Georgia to rethink its habit of locking away many nonviolent criminals, drug addicts or the mentally ill. Sentencing reform is not a feel-good topic for an inaugural, but it is a necessary one in a state that spends about $3 million a day on prisons.

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Does Georgia have a higher percentage of criminals in its population than any other state? Let's hope not. Let's even be optimistic and insist on believing not.

What it does have, according to a study by the Pew Center on the States, is the highest incarceration rate in the country. Whether that means Georgia has more crooks and thugs per capita than any other state, or just that we're habitually inclined to jail more of them, it's a dreary statistic.

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We can't continue to afford to keep all these folks in jail, and it really isn't too bright to release them into society without some changes. The change we need is to legalize simple drugs, just like beer and booze.

Make it cheap enough where they don't have to steal to get it, but put half the profits from it back into a fund for the medical attention the users might need in the future.

Think of the savings between policing, courts and prison. Plus, right now the justice system has been unable to slow down, let alone control drugs. The intercept rate can't be higher than 15 percent. So we turn a draining loss into a profit center. The DUI laws, public intoxication and theft laws will still be in place.

Maybe I don't like it, but to me it makes more sense to divert the profit from the drug cartels to our government.

Walt Specht, Leesburg

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The new governor of Georgia has formed a commission to "review Georgia's tough sentencing law to determine what changes can be made to protect the public" in order to reduce the cost of Georgia's prison population by releasing "non-violent" offenders to local communities. Many of the released are drug offenders.

It was nice to learn that people in prison for drug offenses are considered "non-violent."

I wonder who decided drug offenders are non-violent? So just where does such thinking believe these users get their drugs? I suppose they think that after a hard day's work at a legitimate job, they go to the corner store and buy their drugs, just like visiting a store that sells legal alcohol. They buy from a drug cartel, which is nothing but violent (think Mexico). These non-violent offenders who are released back into local communities, more than likely have long histories of drug offenses and will continue their use by buying from local distributors who are linked to the cartels.

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The Feb. 9 story of Catoosa County magistrate judge accused of using drugs, pointing guns as well as other bizarre behavior is the best example one can think of for the need to expand mandatory drug testing. For some reason, such efforts in the past have been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Why is it acceptable for 90 percent or more of the working population to be routinely tested, yet there is an upper stratum that seems to be, how shall I say, above the law of reason? Don't get me wrong, I'm not against drug testing. I tested positive once, lost my job and it eventually turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me. I just think we need to level the playing field on this issue.

- -- Dwight Hirschinger

Macon

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A 10-member commission has been appointed to review Georgia's tough sentencing laws to determine what changes can be made to make protecting the public ... well, more affordable.

Gov. Nathan Deal, Georgia Supreme Court Justice Carol Hunstein, House Speaker David Ralston, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams attended a news conference Wednesday, where Deal announced the formation of the sentencing reform panel that will look into the issue this year and make a recommendation to the General Assembly for its 2012 session.

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Why covet alcohol when marijuana doesn't kill?

I'm aghast at the furor concerning Sunday liquor sales. This substance is responsible for thousands of deaths each year from DUIs, organ failure and violent disturbances. Sometimes, it kills binge drinkers on the spot. But I would be grateful if I had 10 minutes a week where I could legally purchase marijuana - a substance so benign neither the government nor the medical community can directly attribute one death to it.

The hypocrisy is stupefying. My fellow citizens fight for more booze to kill themselves and others with, yet there's not a peep about unjust laws that can lock me up in prison for 10 years.

Michael Honohan, Marietta

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