The governor and Cabinet have an opportunity to right an injustice today. Sitting as the Florida Board of Executive Clemency, these officials will hear the petition of Richard Paey, a Pasco County man serving a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence essentially for trying to treat his own chronic pain. The right thing to do would be to commute Paey's sentence to time served and wipe away his $500,000 fine.

The largely wheelchair-bound Paey has already spent more than three years in prison for the crime of drug trafficking - though he never sold any drugs. As opposed to a drug kingpin, Paey is a patient who obtained large quantities of Percocets, possibly with tampered prescriptions, to address his unremitting back pain.

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The Governor and Cabinet Will Hear the Story of the Man With 700 Pills.

Richard Paey says he is not a drug trafficker. He needs drugs for chronic, debilitating pain.

But in 2004 he was convicted of illegally obtaining drugs, after being charged under laws designed to stop trafficking.

He has pleaded his case to anyone who would listen: jurors and appellate judges, 60 Minutes and the New York Times.

It has gotten him a lot of sympathy, a lot of attention, but so far it hasn't gotten him out of prison. It's 22 years and counting on a 25-year sentence.

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SARASOTA COUNTY -- The Florida Supreme Court has suspended a criminal defense attorney who tested positive for cocaine and opiates after a circuit judge forced him to take a drug test.

The emergency suspension of Lawrence R. Diamond, 50, is delaying about 30 pending cases in which he represented defendants, including several charged with cocaine trafficking or possession.

Several of his clients say they paid Diamond to represent them and have not been able to contact him since, according to Florida Bar records.

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In response to Kinlock C. Walpole's Sept. 8 Speaking Out: "Stop the prison pipeline": Mandatory minimum prison sentences have done little other than give the land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world. The deterrent value of anti-drug enforcement is grossly overrated.

Consider the crack epidemic of the eighties. New York City chose the zero tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack and America's capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously.

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BRADENTON -- Drug needles were scattered around the house and the refrigerator did not work. Rotten food clung to dirty dishes. A notice on the door said the power was about to be turned off.

The authorities called the living conditions at Luz M. Jaime's house in Bradenton deplorable, and Manatee County sheriff's investigators arrested Jaime, 40, on a child neglect charge.

A few miles away, Jaime's 11-year-old daughter was living at a reputed safe-haven for prostitutes. Jaime knew the man running the escort service there, and she believed her daughter would be safe in his company.

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How come nobody's writing about this? I wanted to thank you for writing about an issue that never gets any press here in South Florida ("Norm, Norm, and NORML," Tailpipe, August 30). I was associate director of the Coalition Advocating Medical Marijuana (CAMM). We started a medical marijuana referendum in Florida in 1997, and I was on a board of eight people, including Norm Kent and two federal medical marijuana recipients.

I had been an activist for many years and am a founding member of the University of Miami's Hemp Awareness Council. With CAMM, I began a Florida referendum. It was an involved process, forming a PAC and making the referendum legally binding, which meant a haircut and lots of trips to Tallahassee.

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I've read FLORIDA TODAY's Aug. 29 editorial about methamphetamines, headlined, "Battling the scourge," and pushing for more enforcement and tougher penalties.

I have been fortunate that I don't even know anyone taking such drugs, so I was amazed when I saw an article posted in my dentist's office recently.

The dental hygienist told me that dentists can tell immediately if someone is on meth, because it absolutely destroys one's teeth.

I feel many teenagers would benefit from seeing the physical results of this effect -- it looks awful.

I think it might serve as a deterrent to some young people thinking about taking it up, if they were to see this kind of picture displayed prominently everywhere they look.

Ruth Ceike Meier

[end]

DELAND -- The plan was to make a traffic stop on the outskirts of Daytona Beach and with the help of an accomplice rob a street-level drug dealer of money.

But the Volusia County sheriff's deputy accused of plotting the robbery did not carry out his plan as agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested him Tuesday afternoon.

Eugene Walton, a school resource deputy at Campbell Middle School in Daytona Beach, was charged with one count of unlawful compensation and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery, said Susie Murphy, FDLE spokeswoman.

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Trained Officers Evaluate By Behavior And Testing.

Officer Eric Schroeder talked calmly to the woman who was strapped to the emergency room bed. At times, she would mumble incoherently. Then she'd scream or weep. At one point, she was able to pull one arm free.

The woman had been in a traffic accident. Officers at the scene said she rear-ended another car. They had sent her to Northside Hospital to check for injuries.

Those officers also called in Schroeder, one of the Pinellas Park Police Department's six certified drug recognition experts. His job: to determine whether the woman was driving under the influence of either drugs or alcohol.

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Florida has had a higher ratio of crimes of violence than the nation as a whole for over 40 years. Think of the number of murders, rapes and armed robberies that occurred in our state because the Legislature was unable or unwilling to act.

There is a solution to this problem that will not cost the state a single tax dollar. Florida should be able to reduce violent crime and at the same time reduce spending. Currently Florida taxpayers spend more than $2 billion a year on prisons.

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NEW PORT RICHEY -- A 17-year-old student at River Ridge High School is accused of selling marijuana via text message. The teenage boy, whose name is being withheld because of his age, was arrested just after noon Tuesday and charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell on school property. According to an arrest report, authorities searched his vehicle and found 10.8 grams of marijuana, rolling papers, an electronic scale and 150 empty plastic baggies. The teen's case was connected with that of two others accused of illegally possessing prescription pills. According to a Pasco sheriff's incident report, one of the text messages went like this: "Yo ... there r 18 of em u will get em Tues." Another one: "Yo find me some of ur friends to buy bud i need to sel wat i have to get beaters s--- tomorow."

[end]

I was appalled to read that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement wants to drop the local DARE program ("Budget woes could spark DARE cuts," Aug. 17), citing cost savings and program ineffectiveness as their reasons.

From its inception the DARE program has not only educated the middle school children in this country but it is also responsible for diverting numerous children from drug and alcohol problems. Like any other program in existence this long (24 years) it has been revised and updated and is still effective in teaching the youth of today.

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September is "National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month," an opportunity to make people aware that quality substance-abuse treatment provided at the right time saves lives, lowers our taxes and creates a safer and healthier community.

Research conclusively shows that substance abuse and mental illness are medical disorders. Our medical community works hard to identity and treat conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes and asthma. Shouldn't we do the same for mental illness or addiction disorders?

It has been documented that more than 72 medical conditions have risk factors that can be attributed to substance abuse. An Institute of Medicine study documents that it costs society $43,200 per year for each person who remains untreated for addiction.

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I feel like the woman in this story (days where I just can't live like this anymore). Doctors blow me off even though I was diagnosed by a rheumatologist more than 20 years ago. In fact my last appointment I was blown off when I told them I sometimes feel like committing suicide because there are days I can no longer take the pain.

Most of the drugs that do come out, I can't take because of other medications I am on. Meanwhile, the doctors shiver in fear of giving their patients pain relief because of close scrutiny of the FDA.

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Orange County deputies were involved in a violent attack Thursday night when a drug sting at a south Orange shopping plaza turned violent.

Undercover narcotics agents with the Orange County Sheriff's Office said they planned to meet suspected drug runners Israel Salgado and Margaret R. Finnegan shortly before 11 p.m. at the shopping plaza at 12421 S. Orange Blossom Trail.

But when the undercover deputy approached Salgado, 23, the suspect pulled out a Taurus .357-caliber Magnum revolver and demanded money from the agent, the report shows.

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From time to time we hear drug use or possession is a victimless crime.

Then from time to time we hear of a case like the one in Bonita Springs the other day.

While Lee County Sheriff's officers were executing a meticulously planned cocaine dragnet, they discovered a 3-month-old boy in the back seat of a vehicle suspected to be involved.

The infant -- whose mother was charged as a suspected dealer -- was whisked out of harm's way.

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Sheriff Is Right to Make Fighting Meth a Top Law-Enforcement Priority

For more than 20 years, the curse of meth has been spreading across the nation, state and Space Coast.

The drug, often called the "poor man's cocaine," destroys lives, families and communities.

Its abuse is rising in Florida, and will only get worse unless all possible weapons are used to attack it.

Fortunately for Brevardians, that's what the Brevard County Sheriff's Office is doing.

Sheriff Jack Parker has made the battle against methamphetamine a top priority.

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Who's Smokin' Funny Cigarettes?

Lawyer and activist Norm Kent gets around. He made a flash in the news a few weeks ago, when Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle said that he felt most gay people were unhappy -- and that he was basing that statement on his friend, Kent, whom he's known for years through political circles. (Not so, Kent tells Tailpipe. He's actually gay and happy.)

Kent made even bigger headlines a month earlier -- in Minnesota, where he was shaking up the race for U.S. Senate.

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It's no secret that Florida's economy has taken it on the chin with regard to the distressed housing market. The downturn in such a key economic sector of our state has now compelled Gov. Charlie Crist to ask Florida lawmakers to return once again to Tallahassee to reduce the state's spending plan. But legislators will be faced with trimming a budget already pruned pretty tightly. It's not just fat that will be hitting the butcher's floor this time around. Budget reductions will affect programs and policies of great significance in the sunshine state.

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Rehab Can Do More Than Cut Costs

James McDonough is one of the longest serving top state officials in Florida, having been the so-called Drug Czar for most of the Jeb Bush administration and now serving as secretary of the Department of Corrections under Gov. Crist.

He is also a man who has the wisdom and the gumption to try to lead the leaders, coming up with proposals such as this week's suggestion that his agency can save 10 percent by moving thousands of state inmates from prisons to work release, substance abuse and education programs.

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