NEWPORT, Ark. (AP) - The Arkansas Department of Correction has reprimanded one of its math instructors after he substituted units of cocaine and methamphetamine while testing inmates on their multiplication skills.

Instead of using apples and oranges to calculate ratios, the instructor at the Grimes Unit prison used rocks of cocaine and meth ingredients. Among the questions: . "Rico sells 422 rocks per week in four different territories. He wants to expand to seven different territories. If he continues to sell at the same rate how many rocks per week will he sell in seven territories?"

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Rock musician and avid sportsman Ted Nugent will speak out against alcohol and other drugs in Russellville during a regional planning meeting aimed at addressing the methamphetamine problem in a 10-county area. The meeting will be held Sept. 29 at Tucker Coliseum at Arkansas Tech University.

The event is being hosted by the prosecuting attorneys in three judicial districts -- David Gibbons (5th District, which includes Pope, Johnson and Franklin counties), H.G. Foster (20th District, Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties) and Tom Tatum II (15th District, Conway, Yell, Logan and Scott counties).

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Four fifth grade students at Pinkston Middle School were treated to a limo ride Monday for their efforts in D.A.R.E. class -- Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

Allison Bonner, Kasey Hutson, Maddie White and Michael Nuzum won first and second place honors for their posters and videos. Each project was aimed at preventing their peers from abusing drugs and alcohol, according to D.A.R.E. officer Sgt. Ralph Bird.

"These projects were fantastic," Bird said. "With the newer technology the videos keep getting better and better, and the artwork on the posters was great." The winners were treated to a limo ride courtesy of Sundowner Limousines and lunch at Pizza Inn. Wal-Mart also contributed to the day's events.

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You know, I've always liked Rush Limbaugh, I began listening to him probably more than 15 years ago. I thought at first he was a joke, a parody of conservatism, whose sole purpose was to inflame and incite discussion and debate.

To tell you the truth, I really don't know that I was wrong. Sure, Limbaugh was bombastic, egotistical, and sometimes more than a little hard to live with. But, he was entertaining, which is why he became a virtual one-man industry, besieged by imitators but never matched for pure virtuosity of the medium he has commanded so well for so long.

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Red Ribbon Week Festivities Are In Full Swing At Rector Elementary School This Week.

On Monday, Oct. 27, the school was decorated with red ribbons on "Let's Color The School Red" Day. Ribbons were handed out to all students and staff members to wear during the week.

Tuesday, Oct. 28, was "Put A Cap On Drugs" Day. Students and staff were asked to wear their favorite hat or cap.

Days remaining in the week are as follows:

- -- Wednesday, Oct. 29, is "Take A Stand For A Drug-Free Land" Day. Students and staff are asked to wear red, white, and blue to show pride for a drug-free country.

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Despite the recent creation of a drug task force in the Benton County Sheriff's Department, the drug problem in the county is getting worse, Sheriff's Department Captain Tom Brewster said Oct. 14.

Brewster addressed the drug problem in Benton County and northwest Arkansas during a talk at the Senior Protection Academy in the Sheriff's Department headquarters.

The academy is one of a series of periodic seminars held by S.A.L.T. (Seniors and Law Enforcement Together), a group of citizens selected on the basis of leadership abilities from communities throughout the county.

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BULL SHOALS - A group of people from law enforcement and other public service agencies sat around tables at a resort here last week, a view of trees changing into fall colors and Lake Bull Shoals picturesque all around.

Most were from various agencies across the 14th Judicial Circuit, covering Baxter, Boone, Marion and Newton counties, and they'd been invited to discuss the ever-growing problem of methamphetamine. As the day wore on, Lyle Scott, assistant chief of police at Mountain Home, brought reality into the discussion. He said that after doing preliminary figures he could count about 12 different meth labs that had been busted within a one-mile radius of the resort, which resulted in numerous arrests, during the last year. "I don't think people understand how devastating this is to our community," echoed Baxter County Sheriff's Sgt. Ralph Bird. The summit was a day-long meeting of many people from agencies concerned with drug abuse in the area, but all agreed that methamphetamine is the worst problem of all illicit substances abused. To make that even more believable, Duane "Snowball" Griffin with OMART Chemical Free Living Center said that during the 2002 fiscal year some 46 percent of participants entering the program listed methamphetamine as their drug of choice and 58 percent listed it as number two on the list As the meeting began, officials explained it was arranged by the North Arkansas Drug Awareness and Prevention (NADAP) council. Marion County Sheriff Carl McBee thanked everyone for attending the seminar and asked them to be creative in coming up with ways to fight the growing meth problem. "'Just say no' is not going to work," he said. Keith Rutledge, state drug director, explained that the state Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention (ADAP) council had received a $500,000 grant to find a way to stop methamphetamine abuse. NADAP received some of that money to fund last week's meeting, NADAP director Andrea Parton said. Rutledge told the group that most addicts are finally influenced by the "two Js," which he explained stood for the "judge" and "Jesus," adding that most addicts have a spiritual vacancy that led them to drug abuse. He also said that addicts must be taught the four Rs before they can be ready to kick the habit, which include responsibility, restitution to community and family, respect for themselves and others and restoration to reality to confront the other three items. Rutledge said the best "soldiers" in the war on drugs are those addicts who have recovered from being a "casualty" of the war itself. Parton offered a presentation on ways to fight drug abuse in general, including tobacco and alcohol. She said the more people from different walks of life that are involved in the fight the better the chances of winning. But before the group could discuss ways to fight the problem, it first needed a basic understanding of the drug and manufacturing process.

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Guidelines Seen As Too Rigid, Unfair

U.S. District Judge Stephen M. Reasoner recently shook his head from the bench, looked out across his Little Rock courtroom and asked a question more and more federal judges are contemplating: "Why am I here?"

Little Rock attorney John Wesley Hall Jr. recalled the judge uttering those words in frustration at a sentencing hearing last month for one of Hall's clients, who had been convicted of a drug charge.

Reasoner was reacting to the rigid mandates of federal sentencing guidelines, which judges must follow except in rare circumstances. While the guidelines are designed to give judges some leeway within a mathematically deduced penalty range, in this case the range was narrow: 120 to 121 months.

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Between a Rock and a Hard Place

'Tough-On-Crime' Hits the Bottom Line.

Larry Norris's job is to keep some of the toughest, most dangerous criminals in Arkansas locked up. "Skittish" is not a word that applies to the director of prisons.

So it was significant last May, when Norris told state legislators that the situation he faces is "scary."

After 30 years of policies born out of promises to be "tough on crime," Norris and other state officials are finding themselves in a corner. They are surrounded on all sides by numbers - and the numbers relating to prisons are menacing.

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Regarding your article, "Deputy smells marijuana in vehicles" (June 17):

This is a common tactic of law officers, whether they actually smell marijuana or not. Predatory policing like this is common, usually directed at the young and/or minority drivers. A friend of mine here in Wisconsin recently was subjected to a similar arrest, despite the fact the car did not smell like pot.

All the folks described in their story, and anyone who may be a target of this kind of predatory enforcement should exercise their Constitutional rights to decline consent to a search, and to remain silent. Law officers have plenty of real crime to attend to, and targeting youth for unconstitutional searches does nothing to address the real threats to public safety.

Know your rights and exercise them. File a complaint if you believe you have been mistreated, and file suit if you have a case. This kind of abuse will continue only if we allow it.

Gary Storck

Madison, Wis.

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Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Correction, talks recently about the impact methamphetamine cases are having on the prison population. A new law requires those convicted on meth-related charges serve no less than 70 percent of their sentence.

Inmates convicted of methamphetamine-related drug charges are stacking up in Arkansas prisons.

And a strict, new sentencing law for methamphetamine-category convictions that requires the convict to serve no less than 70 percent of sentences given by the courts has put nearly 600 meth dealers in prison with sentences that run an average of seven years longer than those being served by non-meth drug offenders, according to Larry Norris, director of the Arkansas Department of Correction.

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Inspired by a new nationwide study reporting that drug testing does little to curb student drug use, a Conway man says he wants the Conway School District to reconsider its drug-testing policy.

But board members, who voted 4-3 in August to approve a policy to randomly test students involved in extracurricular activities, have no plans to reconsider, School Board President Terry Fiddler said.

So far, less than a year after implementation, administrators consider the program a success, Fiddler said.

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Thanks to Tammy Keith for her May 23 article concerning drug testing. It puzzles me as to why, after seeing massive evidence that student drug testing does not work, any school board member would want to keep the Conway School District's drug-testing policy, rather than put money spent on drug testing to better use on truly educational programs.

Instead, however, the school board members quoted in Ms. Keith's article seem unconcerned that drug testing doesn't work, and they seem willing to ignore scientific evidence that substantiates this.

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A new study that claims drug testing students doesn't curb drug use is "overwhelming evidence" that the Conway School District's Board of Education should repeal the drug policy, Conway resident Bruce Plopper believes.

The University of Michigan study, published in The Journal of School Health, surveyed 722 schools. It found that drug use was the same in grades 8, 10 and 12 in schools that have drug testing and schools that don't.

"This is the best evidence we have - it may not be perfect, but it's strong evidence that we need to revisit the idea," Plopper said.

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MAP has given me links to sites, I have more information now than I ever thought I could have. I have been able to get to sites about laws, bills, people in congress I could write to help, or just voice my opinion.

This is a good site, and I look forward to the emails, every day the first thing I do is check my email for the news from MAP, and other sites that keep me informed of what is going on, and what is going to happen. I love the emails, and hope they keep coming.

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LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- A state senator who has led the legislative crackdown on methamphetamine won a committee endorsement Thursday of a bill that would shorten the sentences of some convicts doing time for meth trafficking.

Sen. Jack Critcher (D-Grubbs) said he offered his bill to pre-empt other legislation that might do more to weaken sentencing laws requiring convicts to do 70 percent of their time.

"It's an effective tool for the prosecutors. They've got to have it, and I don't want to see 70 percent repealed," Critcher said. "But if this is not passed, then something stronger is going to be passed to make it retroactive or repeal it altogether, and I don't want that to happen."

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LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- A long-shot effort at legalizing marijuana for medical use went up in smoke in a House committee Tuesday.

The panel heard from Dr. Jocelyn Elders, the former U.S. surgeon general, who said people with serious illnesses should have the chance to use the treatment that works best for them, including marijuana.

"If you can have someone smoke a joint and not worry about being busted by the cops, it would be a real advantage," Elders said.

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LITTLE ROCK - They often arrive anonymously, dumped in the hospital's emergency room bay with burns over their bodies.

Some become blind because they won't tell a doctor how they were burned, afraid that if they mention any of the chemicals used to make methamphetamine they'll be prosecuted.

As the number of burn victims from methamphetamine lab explosions and fires rises, doctors at burn units say they've had to take a new approach to treating patients.

"They hardly ever say, 'I was working on my meth lab,' " said Jimmy Parks, a nurse in the burn unit at Arkansas Children's Hospital. "Usually, 'The water heater blew up.' And then it kind of comes along when we finally work it out."

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Football: Rancho Cucamonga High Grad Reaches Plea Bargain on Drug Charges.

Former Rancho Cucamonga High and University of Arkansas football player Jermaine Brooks agreed to a plea bargain with the Washington County (Ark.) prosecutor's office Wednesday on four felony drug charges.

Washington County Circuit Court Judge William Storey sentenced Brooks to 10 years in prison on three of the counts, with the prison terms to be served concurrently.

"It could have been a lot worse," Brooks said Wednesday night by phone. "I don't think anybody's ever happy that they have to go anywhere other than their house. I'm a man. I feel that what I've done is wrong, I'm going to accept it and do what I have to do to get my life back on track."

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Saline County Prosecuting Attorney Robert Herzfeld, Jr. is working on his first project to fulfill his drug crime-fighting objectives promised during his election campaign.

Herzfeld and Saline County Circuit Judge Gary Arnold announced Wednesday their intentions to work together to bring into being an adult drug court to serve the county.

With a proposed completion date in the earlier months of 2004, the drug court would provide an 18-month drug rehabilitation program to eligible candidates - criminals charged with a second drug-related offense - in lieu of serving prison time.

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