The Issue: Lawsuit Seeks to Stop Prison Privatization

In preparing a massive change to shave $22 million from its prison budget, the state is overlooking other reforms that could save plenty more money.

The state Department of Corrections is readying to complete the largest prison privatization project in the country. On Jan. 1, if all goes according to schedule, 29 state prisons in 18 Florida counties, including South Florida's, will be operated by private companies.

The operative word is scheduled. The process could be halted by a lawsuit filed by the Florida Police Benevolent Association on behalf of unionized prison guards.

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Any year would produce thousands of candidates for Most Overhyped Political Press Release. More than four months remain in 2011, but a clear favorite in Florida will be one that came out last Monday: "Governor Scott: Strike Force Winning Pill Mill War."

The release accompanied a media event in Miami that featured the governor, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey and others dragooned into appearing. The intent was to give credit for Florida's fight against prescription-drug trafficking to those who came late, and in some cases reluctantly, to the fight.

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Some Pleased; Others Squeezed

TAMPA -They walked into the clean, red brick medical offices and demanded prescription painkillers.

The doctor shoppers and drug addicts thought the Tampa Pain Relief Center on East Fletcher Avenue was just another storefront clinic that freely dispensed powerful painkillerswithout proper background checks.

When they were turned down by the nurse at the front desk, they grew angry, refused to calm down and were removed from the lobby by police.

'Some patients were threatening,' said Douglas Constant, a pain management physiA-cian and anesthesiologist at the practice. 'We've had some people come in thinking they can get anything.' It's a common occurrence in a town known as a hotbed for so-called 'pill mills' and in asociety grappling with an epidemic of prescripA-tion drug addiction, law enforcement and health officials say.

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Sometimes it seems as if when it comes to our schools, we forget that we're dealing with children. We forget that the ultimate point is to educate them as an integral part of equipping them to arrive at adulthood poised to succeed.

So too often we focus on policies that punish them for making mistakes instead of creating conditions that help them succeed.

That makes the report from PNJ education reporter Erin Kourkounis that drug expulsions in Escambia County schools are down by half this year such good news. She reported that school officials credit the district's new drug policy.

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Florida banned the sale and possession of a class of designer drugs - - misleadingly marketed as "bath salts" - with little fanfare this year.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an emergency order in January, temporarily banning MDPV, one of the chemicals found in some of the products.

The Legislature subsequently passed a bill that permanently makes it illegal to distribute or possess bath salts laced with MDPV or one of five other man-made chemicals. Gov. Rick Scott signed the legislation in late May.

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There was a quake last week, but you likely didn't feel it.

See, this particular quake was not of the Earth, involved no shifting of the planetary crust. No, what shifted was a paradigm, and the implications are hopeful and profound.

On Tuesday, you see, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for an end to the War on Drugs.

Said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous in a written statement, "These flawed drug policies that have been mostly enforced in African-American communities must be stopped and replaced with evidence-based practices that address the root causes of drug use and abuse in America."

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A 23-year-old man pushing a toddler in a stroller threatened to shoot the pharmacist as he robbed a St. Petersburg CVS.

Another man stabbed a Tarpon Springs pharmacy clerk in the neck, demanding pain pills.

And in a recent Long Island case, a man shot and killed four pharmacy employees in a painkiller holdup.

Long considered a safe and sterile environment, pharmacies have become increasingly frequent targets among the growing number of painkiller abusers. As Florida begins cracking down on pill mills, doctor shopping and prescription fraud, many fear pharmacy robberies will increase.

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Rummaging through a garbage can may yield important clues about an individual - from reading habits to monthly bills to telltale signs of drug abuse. The unglamorous technique has long been part of the investigative arsenal for a reason: It gets results.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the FBI has given the thumbs-up to trash digs to check the credibility of possible informers - - so long as agents go through only garbage that has been left on the curb. This determination is one of many in a new set of rules the bureau is scheduled to unveil soon to govern the activities of agents in the field.

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Florida banned the sale and possession of a class of designer drugs - misleadingly marketed as "bath salts" - with little fanfare this year.

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an emergency order in January, temporarily banning MDPV, one of the chemicals found in some of the products.

The Legislature subsequently passed a bill that permanently makes it illegal to distribute or possess bath salts laced with MDPV or one of five other man-made chemicals; Gov. Rick Scott signed the legislation in late May.

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Once again, government servants have told Americans that marijuana ranks right up there with heroin. The Drug Enforcement Agency ruled July 8 that marijuana has "no accepted medical use" and will continue as a schedule 1 drug - the most forbidden category.

The DEA is a law enforcement bureaucracy. The medical opinions of law enforcement bureaucrats should be of little interest. We do not ask cops to make laws; we pay cops to enforce the laws established by constitutions or enacted by the people or the decisions of their representatives.

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In October 2009, medical marijuana advocates celebrated a U.S. Department of Justice memo declaring that federal authorities wouldn't target the legal use of medicinal pot in states where it is permitted.

The memo from Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden was credited with accelerating a California medical marijuana boom, including a proliferation of dispensaries that now handle more than $1 billion in pot transactions.

But last month brought a new memo from another deputy attorney general, James Cole. And this time, it is stirring industry fears of federal raids on pot dispensaries and sweeping crackdowns on large-scale medical pot cultivation.

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Voters in Miami Beach could make it the first city in Florida to decriminalize marijuana possession after campaigners announced Tuesday they had turned in more than double the number of voter signatures needed for their initiative to make the ballot. They needed 4,300 signatures and turned in more than 9,000.

The initiative is sponsored by the Campaign for Sensible Marijuana Policies in Florida. Under the initiative, people caught in possession of up to 20 grams of pot would face no more than a $100 fine. Under Florida state law, possession of up to 20 grams is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

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Regarding 'New laws require pension contributions, ultrasounds' (Metro, June 30): The new law that took effect July 1 requiring all state welfare applicants get drug-tested before they can receive assistance is a shameful and foolish precedent. Drug tests are notoriously inaccurate. Administering them will require more government bureaucracy, and studies show welfare recipients are no more likely to use drugs than the average person.

A federal court struck down a similar state law as unconstitutional, and lawmakers in Idaho recently determined that welfare drug-testing would cost their state more money than it would save. It is cruel to insist that the poor pay out of their own pocket for a drug test that cannot even tell the difference between the poppy seed bagel eaten for breakfast and street heroin.

GRANT SMITH WASHINGTON , D.C The writer is federal policy coordinator, Office of National Affairs, Drug Policy Alliance.

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A controlled drug sting in Miami-Dade' Redlands went awry and police opened fire, killing four armed men who showed up to rob a home owned by the county that was all part of the ruse.

Seven months after he was released from prison, Rosendo Betancourt helped Miami-Dade police infiltrate a gang of suspected home invasion robbers with a penchant for torture and mutilation.

The plan was to convince the gang there was a stash of marijuana inside a rural Redlands home that turned out to be owned by Miami-Dade County and set up for such a ruse.

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Hurray! Now that our good governor has signed into law a provision that will save us from the drug-ravaged poor who use public money to buy drugs, we must now go after the rest of those violent drug users.

By all means start with our teachers. They must be tested lest they corrupt our naive youth. And we must protect ourselves against those uniformed police and firemen. Who knows what they do when under the influence of drugs? None of us will be safe in our beds.

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It's an obvious point, but ex-felons need jobs when they get out of prison. To find jobs, some former prisoners will need to acquire professional licenses.

If ex-felons don't find jobs, they are more likely to become repeat offenders, returning to Florida's prisons and costing the taxpayers more money.

A number of Florida jobs -- even barbering -- require state licenses. But until recently, felons couldn't get those licenses. They carried a figurative ball and chain as they faced the challenge of re-entering society.

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Re: William Dicker letter "Marijuana Monopoly" 23 June: Excellent letter. It suggests we do what the 21st Amendment did: Get the feds out of the prohibition business and let the individual states do as they choose.

The rub is that marijuana prohibition has become a lucrative industry that alcohol prohibition never was. It enriches the careers, stock portfolios, egos and campaign contributions of pot fighters. It is so entrenched that the feds send money to fight drugs in 28 HIDTAs (High Intensity Drug Fighting Areas) comprising "..approximately 60 percent of the U.S. population," according to CNN this week.

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Re: Call off the global drug war June 20, commentary

The drug war started slowly about 100 years ago. A handful of prominent Americans wanted to restrict opium production so no colonial power could benefit from the opium trade, as England, France and Spain had done. Their motives were the best, but they didn't understand that restricting supply would enable a wealthy and violent illegal market. Even the failure of Prohibition didn't connect the dots for them. Emotion trumped reason. It was a=C2=80=C2=94 and is a=C2=80=C2=94 the fat al flaw of U.S. antidrug policy, with the destructive consequences described by Jimmy Carter in this column.

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A lot of people seem upset about the new law requiring potential welfare recipients to pay for drug testing before they can be approved. What these complainers don't realize is that the poverty-stricken have had it too easy for far too long.

The government is finally doing the right thing by assuming that every single one of them is guilty of using illicit drugs unless they are able to prove themselves innocent.

The idea that we are all innocent until proven guilty is antiquated and needs to be done away with anyway. Luckily, we are now seeing a reversal of that unfortunate belief, and this new drug testing law is merely the most recent example. Arizona's tough new immigration law assumes all people of possibly foreign origin are in this country illegally unless they can prove otherwise at any time.

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TAMPA - Attorneys for Buju Banton did all they could to remind jurors and a judge that their client was an international reggae star, not a drug kingpin.

They displayed his album covers during Banton's drug conspiracy trial in February. They called Bob Marley's son as a witness and told jurors Banton had won a Grammy.

And on the first page of a recent court filing, attorneys even included a photo of Banton performing on stage.

But it was convicted drug defendant Mark Myrie - Banton's given name - - that a federal judge sentenced to 10 years and one month in prison Thursday after his conviction for setting up a deal to buy 11 pounds of cocaine with the intent to distribute it.

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