JOHNSBURG - A high school vocational teacher pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapon possession charge last week and received two years' probation.

Neither Robert W. Kerrigan's Sept. 1 arrest nor the conviction affected his teaching status, District 12 Superintendent Dan Johnson said.

"We're glad that the system was allowed to run its course," Johnson said. "We're looking forward to moving forward."

Mundelein police arrested Kerrigan, 49, of 121 N. Greenview Ave., Mundelein, after he allegedly threatened his brother with a shotgun during an argument, and dented his brother's truck fender Sept. 1.

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A federal bill would require school boards to establish a policy allowing teachers to search students they suspect of carrying drugs or weapons.

The Student and Teacher Safety Act passed the House on a voice vote in the fall, but the American Civil Liberties Union and National School Boards Association oppose the bill, which they say violates students' civil rights.

The most vocal critics of the proposal have called it a "strip search bill."

Lawmakers say the bill would help protect students and teachers and shield staff members who search students from being sued.

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HILLSBORO -- How much do you know about methamphetamine?

In Jefferson County, which has led the state since 2003 in the number of meth lab raids, the Methamphetamine Action Coalition is planning to survey county residents next spring to gauge public knowledge and attitudes about the drug. The aim is to help develop education, prevention and treatment programs.

In 2005, a total of 2,252 meth labs were seized in Missouri; 256 of those labs were in Jefferson County.

Lt. Tommy Wright of the Jefferson County sheriff's office said county narcotics officers expected to exceed that number this year. Part of the problem, he says, is a lack of understanding about the drug and how dangerously addictive it can be.

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Kudos to Bruce Mirken for debunking the "gateway" myth. There is a big difference between condoning marijuana use and protecting children from drugs. Decriminalization acknowledges the social reality of marijuana and frees users from the stigma of life-shattering criminal records. What's really needed is a regulated market with age controls.

Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as marijuana distribution remains in the hands of organized crime, consumers will continue to come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine. This "gateway" is the direct result of a fundamentally flawed policy.

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ST. CHARLES - After a young St. Charles man was found dead on a park bench on June 16, two of his friends were charged with leaving him there to die of a drug overdose.

Clinton Eash, 30, and Joseph Estok, 29, each face drug-induced homicide charges in 27-year-old Matthew Thies' death.

Both have pleaded not guilty and remain in Kane County Jail.

Three children found Thies on a bench behind Fox Ridge Elementary School in St. Charles. He was alive when he was placed on the bench, but died soon after from a cocaine and heroin overdose, prosecutors said.

It is only the second time the charge has been filed in Kane County.

[end]

As the nation ponders its lost cause in Iraq, it's past time to reconsider yet another misbegotten crusade: America's 35-year-old "War on Drugs." Conceived by President Richard Nixon in 1971 partly as an attack on the anti-Vietnam war "counterculture," like most governmental efforts to abolish sin and folly, it's a complete failure. For different reasons, Democrats and Republicans alike refuse to acknowledge reality.

I yield to none in my contempt for the romance of narcotics. Like alcoholism, illegal drugs have brought misery, sorrow and death to millions. Few American families are untouched. Prohibition and criminalization, however, have proven a miserable failure, making traffic in illicit substances infinitely more profitable, enriching organized crime, corrupting governments and police and turning drug addiction into a contemporary plague. The United States now has a higher percentage of jailed citizens than all but a few police states. Yet heroin, cocaine and crystal meth are cheaper and more ubiquitous than ever.

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Lots of people knew James Wilson Jr., whether they knew him as Jimmy Wilson, Urbana's three-sport star; Rasta James, the reggae promoter; H. Rap Wilson, the radical; or Chef Ra, the High Times food columnist.

"If you're from Urbana and you don't know him, you don't get out much," said Maarten De Witte, an old friend who usually called him Jim.

Mr. Wilson brought reggae to Champaign-Urbana, set a high jump record that lasted for years, was known internationally for his cannabis-infused recipes and ran for president on a legalize-marijuana platform.

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Lynsi Donnelly sat on a couch between her mother and her mother's boyfriend playing with a cell phone.

A Christmas tree, trimmed neatly with lights and baubles, stood next to the living room's front window in the Hegeler home. Carefully wrapped presents lined the walls along the side, some stacked underneath.

For 15-year-old Lynsi, this Christmas is the first she'll celebrate with a sober mom in her new house and in her new life. Her mother, Becki Donnelly, graduated from the Vermilion County drug court program in December – drug-free for 15 months.

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Two New Studies Show Marijuana Is Not A 'Gateway' To Harder Drugs

Two recent studies should be the final nails in the coffin of the lie that has propelled some of this nation's most misguided policies: the claim that smoking marijuana somehow causes people to use hard drugs, often called the "gateway theory."

Such claims have been a staple of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy under present drug czar John Walters. Typical is a 2004 New Mexico speech in which, according to the Albuquerque Journal, "Walters emphasized that marijuana is a 'gateway drug' that can lead to other chemical dependencies."

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State Legislature Toughens Sentences For Convicted Manufacturers

Around 5:30 p.m. on May 4, 2001 then-deputy Joe Halbrooks noticed a man driving away from anhydrous ammonia tanks parked in rural Marine where he was on patrol.

The man fled north on Humbolt Street. Halbrooks followed. The pursuit followed Route 143, Interstate 255, Interstate 270 and wound up at Troy Road and Montclaire Avenue in Edwardsville, where the deputy had radioed ahead to have "stop sticks" strung across the road. The triangular pointy sticks punctured the vehicle's right front tire, although the man continued driving west to Second Street. He fled on foot, but Halbrooks was able to handcuff him after he tripped.

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EAST ST. LOUIS - An Alton man was acquitted on a major federal drug charge Friday after convincing a jury he had attention deficit disorder and did not understand what was being asked of him when he confessed.

Victor Wiley, 30, of the 400 block of Alice Drive in the Enchanted Village mobile home park, was on trial this week in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis on a charge of possession of 35 grams of crack cocaine, which could have gotten him a 30-year prison term if convicted.

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The Issue: US Leads The World In Prison Population

Our view: We can't afford the soaring human and financial costs.

With scant media coverage beyond an official press release, the U.S. Justice Dept. recently announced that a record 7 million people, or one in every 32 American adults are behind bars, on probation or on parole - an increase of 2 million. Of those 2.2 million are in prison or jail somewhere in the United States, giving us the highest rate of prisoners per 100,000 in the world. Isn't it ironic then that, with so many prisons and prisons so wretchedly overcrowded nationwide - Illinois' 130-year-old Menard prison houses 3,315 in space built for 1,983 - we still can't get a new, $140 million prison open in Thomson?

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Join 4 Others Charged From Elite Unit

A Chicago Police sergeant and two officers were arrested Monday in a widening corruption investigation of the elite Special Operations Section -- bringing the total number of officers charged in the case to seven.

Sgt. James McGovern, 40, was charged with official misconduct, and his bond was set at $50,000. He's been on the force for 13 years.

Officers Margaret Hopkins, 32, and Frank Villareal, 38, were charged with home invasion and official misconduct, and Villareal was charged with armed violence. They will appear in bond court today. Hopkins joined the department seven years ago and Villareal, 12 years ago.

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No snitching is no joke. What "no snitching" means is that a lot of murderers, rapists and street thugs are able to get away with their crimes. You'd have to be demented to think that's funny.

But two years ago a group of 'hood rats in Baltimore exploited their homeboy rights by getting Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony to appear in a six-minute DVD titled "Stop Snitching."

Since then, other street hustlers have taken up the mantra. "Stop Snitching" T-shirts have been sold in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and several Web sites are devoted to ratting out so-called snitches.

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We don't have a black and white problem as much as we have a black and blue problem. While the race of police officers who have been involved in questionable, high-profile shootings have been black, white and Hispanic, the race of the citizens who have been shot by police have been the same: black. In most instances, those citizens have also been males.

Whether we're talking about police shootings in L.A., Cleveland, Chicago, Atlanta or New York, the common denominator has been race.

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BLOOMINGTON -- Prosecutors dropped charges Tuesday against a [redacted] accused of being caught with 10 pounds of marijuana in his car trunk.

The move followed a judge's ruling earlier this month that a police search in the case was illegal.

[redacted], was arrested following a traffic stop Feb. 8 on West Market Street. Court records say [redacted] car did not have a functioning light over the rear license plate.

After stopping him, Bloomington police patted him down and found 4.6 grams of marijuana in a plastic bag in one of his pockets, according to court documents. A subsequent search found 10 pounds of marijuana in the trunk of his car.

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I'm writing about Travis Morse's Nov. 17 story: "Defenders, critics assess drug laws in Illinois." Last week our nation lost an intellectual giant with the passing of economist Milton Friedman. In 1972, Friedman wrote an oped in Newsweek magazine titled: "Prohibition and Drugs." Friedman's essay was written before crack cocaine was invented, before methamphetamine was a household word and long before the United States became the most incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization. Friedman also wrote in the Sept. 7, 1989, edition of The Wall Street Journal: "An Open Letter To Bill Bennett." Both of these works are available to read online.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

In recent weeks, it has come to my attention that the Pentagon is drastically changing its strategy in the war on terror and the war on drugs. Apparently, the Pentagon seems to be consolidating the two.

The current policy regarding both wars is an apparent failure. The war on terror relies on drawing out the war, straining the armed forces, leaving the army weak and striving for more forces. The situation has become hopeless enough that a draft has been proposed by a leading Democratic congressman, and will likely be voted upon come January. (You're off to a great start, guys.)

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How should Freeport respond to the growing use of methamphetamine? During the crack epidemic of the 80's 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. Simply put, the younger generation saw firsthand what crack was doing to their older brothers and sisters and decided for themselves that crack was bad news. This is not to say nothing can be done about methamphetamine. Access to drug treatment is critical for the current generation of meth users. Diverting resources away from prisons and into cost-effective treatment would save both tax dollars and lives.

Robert Sharpe,

Policy Analyst,

Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, D.C.

[end]

In October 1976, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in economics to Milton Friedman. At the time, I was working at my first job out of college on the staff of the National Taxpayers Union, a libertarian lobby group in Washington, and my sister was a graduate student of Friedman's at the University of Chicago. Hearing of this connection, my boss had an idea: send me to Chicago to get Friedman to endorse NTU's proposed constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.

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