Cost of Program Was Reportedly a Concern for Teachers WHO Went On Strike Wednesday

PEORIA -- Two residents of the Illini Bluffs School District have contacted the School Board to say that they are willing to donate the total cost of a teacher drug-testing program for the next two years.

In a statement issued Friday by Karl Meurlot, attorney for District 327, the board said these individuals came forth separately. Both individuals were present at the Aug. 15 board meeting, where teachers expressed their concern that the cost of drug testing would divert dollars from classrooms and students.

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PEORIA -- Of all the reasons teachers in the Illini Bluffs School District might have to skip class today, is the School Board's insistence on random, ongoing drug testing of them a justifiable one?

That's why teachers in the Glasford district are on strike. From all indications, the board and administration are prepared to take a long one. All other contract issues - pay, benefits, etc. - have been resolved. The union offered a compromise - testing with probable cause - - but the School Board has not wavered, even though its members "believe," as communicated in a news release, that "all district teachers would satisfactorily pass a drug and alcohol test, just as all support staff employees passed the test this past year."

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It is common in many area school districts for certain students to be subjected to random drug testing. The proposed policy in Illini Bluffs District 327 to randomly drug test teachers is a first in the greater Peoria area.

Wednesday's return to classes was canceled over a division between teachers and the administration, which led to a teachers' strike.

Ray Roskos, a field service director at the Illinois Federation of Teachers for the Peoria area, said this was an issue he had not encountered before.

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Illini Bluffs Posts Openings for Temporary Jobs

GLASFORD -- For the second time in the past decade, classes at Illini Bluffs Community Unit District 327 have been canceled after talks between the administration and the teachers union failed to produce a new contract.

About a dozen teachers stood outside the entrance of the school district's administrative offices Wednesday morning during what was to be the first day of classes for students following the summer break.

"We're here to show the community we're there for them," said Keith Brown, a high school history teacher and lead negotiator for the Illini Bluffs Federation of Teachers union, which represents 63 full-time teachers in the rural Peoria County school district. "We want to be in the classroom, not in the street."

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Thomas Russell III describes watching a police officer shoot his canine "best friend" two years ago as "the scariest thing I ever saw."

On Thursday, a U.S. District Court jury decided Russell, 20, and his family deserved to be compensated for the Feb. 27, 2009, police search of the family's South Side home during which "Lady," the family's black Labrador, was shot dead. The jury awarded the family about $300,000.

"That was my best friend," said Russell, who was 18 at the time. "We did everything together. When I worked out, she'd be right there watching me. She'd sleep when I'd sleep."

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Arguing that current policies don't work, two more public officials are calling for serious changes in marijuana laws and their enforcement.

State rep La Shawn K. Ford and Alderman Walter Burnett Jr. told me in separate conversations that they not only favor decriminalizing marijuana possession to keep more pot smokers out of jail-as Cook County Board president Toni Preckwinkle has advocated-but are also open to discussions about legalizing it.

"We're putting so many people in jail, it costs us money, and it's just a waste because folks do it anyway," Burnett says.

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GLASFORD -- Members of the Illini Bluffs Federation of Teachers plan to be on the job Tuesday morning when the District 327 academic year begins with an institute.

Whether they'll be back at work Wednesday on the first day of classes for students depends on how negotiations go Tuesday night with the district board of education.

"If we have no contract, then that'll pretty much be the deciding factor," Keith Brown, lead negotiator for union, said Monday night at a regular meeting of the board.

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Since the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act that enabled a five-year minimum sentence for the possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine, equaling a 100-to-1 ratio compared to powder cocaine, unfair sentences have been given.

This disparity for this issue that contributes to overcrowding in our federal prisons, taxpayer money being wasted in the funding of housing these offenders with longterm sentences, has been ignored. Until the recent 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which is expected to benefit 3,000 offenders annually by decreasing their sentences, the ratio has dropped to 18-to-1. Although this is progress, it is not enough. Why is it that lawmakers took nearly a quarter century to address this injustice? The housing of these nonviolent offenders is costing an average of $87,665 per year for one offender, and yet this new law still holds an 18-to-1 difference for what essentially is the same drug in different form.

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GLASFORD - After agreeing to an 11th hour one-year deal in August 2010 that allowed the school year to start on time, a teachers' strike again threatens the school year in Glasford as negotiations between the Illini Bluffs District 327 School Board and the teachers union have reached an impasse over drug testing.

The Illini Bluffs Federation of Teachers filed their notice of intent to strike for the second year in a row, to protect the teachers' right to strike rather than begin the school year without a contract. Teachers are scheduled to report Tuesday, Aug. 16, while the first day for students is set to be the next day.

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Facing a Huge Budget Shortfall, Chicago May Switch to Issuing Fines for Marijuana.

Last year, police in Chicago arrested more than 23,000 people for simple marijuana possession, 78% of them black. But those charges are routinely dropped by judges, and the head of the Cook County Board, who is facing a serious budget gap, wants the police to knock it off.

Facing a $315 million shortfall, Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced a 5% spending cut and threatened layoffs if necessary. Preckwinkle last week discussed the idea of merely ticketing pot smokers with Chicago Police Superintendant Garry McCarthy, and while no decision has yet been taken, the notion is percolating through the police bureaucracy.

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Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of one of Mexico's biggest drug kingpins, lived in the lap of luxury and had 24-hour armed security.

Zambada-Niebla allegedly oversaw the export of tons of narcotics into Chicago and other cities, using trains, ships, Boeing 747 cargo jets and even submarines.

But now he says that he, as well as other top members of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, lived a secret life one that should give him a get-out-of-jail-free card: He says he was a golden snitch for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

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I applaud Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle and your editorial supporting the decriminalization of marijuana in Cook County.

My father, Frank Sain, when he was sheriff of Cook County, championed this effort in 1960. Like today, too many are seeking to keep the prohibition for untenable reasons. He served in the criminal justice system for more than 30 years, beginning as a guard. He became the warden of both the county and city jails before becoming sheriff.

He saw firsthand the injustice of treating most cannabis users as criminals and incarcerating them in jails. He also championed the need to take the criminal profits out from cannabis sales by making tolerable limits available through medical and pharmacy authorizations (this alone would reduce the threat of other more serious crimes against the public).

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Thank you for your editorial supporting Toni Preckwinkle's call for an end to the wasteful spending fueling the war on drugs ["Toni Preckwinkle targets waste in drug war," Thursday]. Alcohol prohibition failed, yet America's war on drugs keeps on going while yielding the same results -- corruption and gang violence. Moreover, the negative social costs of alcohol are far greater than cannabis.

Violence along the Mexican-American border is similar to the violence that occurred on the Canadian-American border during Prohibition.

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The Wrong Remedy for Drug-Using Drivers.

Someone who drinks to excess and gets behind the wheel of a car can be prosecuted and punished for driving under the influence. Everyone would agree that's as it should be. But what if the law included DUI to cover anyone driving sober who has had a drink in the last week?

That would make little sense, since the past drinking would have no effect on the motorist's fitness to drive. But under Illinois law, something very similar is the norm for drivers who have used illegal drugs.

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If you thumb through her reports and position papers, you'll see that Toni Preckwinkle has long been talking about pulling the plug on the drug war, at least as it applies to low-level, nonviolent users.

And now the Cook County Board president, to her credit, is backing up those words with action.

This week, she asked Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to stop making arrests for low-level marijuana possession.

Preckwinkle long has had her eye on the $142 a day it costs taxpayers for each inmate housed at the County Jail, which has an average daily adult population of about 9,000. The cost of incarcerating those prisoners is a big part of the county's $1.2 billion 2011 public safety budget.

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Drug Use May Have Gone Down Since the '70s, but How and Why Are Up For Debate

Jack Riley and Stephanie Schmitz have staked out opposite sides of the "War on Drugs" debate in Illinois -- whether it has been won or lost.

Yet they agree on certain points.

Riley, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Chicago, and Schmitz, associate director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy, say the three-word phrase oversimplifies the insidious nature of illegal drugs.

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Reducing Drug Abuse Requires More Help From Criminal Justice System, Ex-DEA Official Says

The debate over illicit drugs heated up in the last month when two groups -- a U.S. Senate subcommittee and a collection of prominent leaders from around the globe -- suggested the "War on Drugs" is a failure.

Locally, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told a lunchtime rally last month that "drugs and the failed war on drugs have devastated lives, families and communities. For too long we've treated drug use as a criminal justice issue rather than a public issue, which is what it is."

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If you were driving in Peoria at about 8 p.m. Monday night and happened by a pub in the 2500 block of NE Adams Street, you would have seen a slew of police cars and a taped-off side road and parking lot. That's where 43-year-old Pekin resident James C. Slater Jr., bleeding badly from a head wound, had collapsed following an altercation at a nearby residence.

He then was taken to OSF St. Francis Medical Center, where according to a Journal Star report, "police discovered two wads of bills totaling $2,216 and a plastic bag of marijuana inside Slater's pants." Peoria police say Slater told them he was trying to buy $20 worth of marijuana at a Peoria apartment when two men - one armed with a gun - walked in and tried to rob and beat him. The woman who lived at that address, Sylvia A. Litvin, 49, was arrested and charged with armed robbery and obstruction of justice for her alleged role in the incident.

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When it was announced recently that an interim legislative study committee was going to look at Indiana's laws governing marijuana, state Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, took a beating in some quarters.

Some jumped to the conclusion that Tallian's purpose for the study was to have marijuana legalized.

Although Tallian thinks marijuana ought to be treated like alcohol, it's not her intent to push for legalization. She knows it would be futile.

That's fine because there is much that can be done with Indiana's marijuana laws without seeking legalization. Tallian is a lawyer and has seen firsthand the impact of laws governing marijuana.

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CHAMPAIGN - Champaign Police Chief R.T. Finney was installed recently as the president of the 1,200-member Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the first Champaign police chief to hold that post in the organization's 70-year history.

Former Rantoul police chief Eldon Quick was the only other Champaign County law enforcement officer to hold the post. He was president in 1979.

Finney has been at the helm of the city's police force since November 2003. Before that he was police chief in Carbondale for four years and before that, served 17 years on the Quincy police department.

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