Plan Would Put Pot Cases In Municipal System

It's like the difference between a four-course meal and a stop at McDonald's for a cheeseburger.

At Douglas County's District Court, the prosecution of a misdemeanor crime can drag on for months or years. A half-block down New Hampshire Street at municipal court, however, the cases are often disposed of in a single court appearance or two appearances -- the judicial equivalent of a trip through the drive-through.

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Marijuana Possession Cases Could Land In Municipal Court

Lawrence police officers shouldn't decrease their efforts to find marijuana users, a majority of city commissioners said Tuesday night.

Commissioners did direct staff members to research a proposal by the Lawrence-based Kansas Drug Policy Forum that would allow people charged with marijuana possession to be prosecuted in Municipal Court rather than Douglas County District Court. But three commissioners said they had concerns about a second part of the proposal that would direct Lawrence police officers to make marijuana possession a low enforcement priority.

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Rising medical expenses are taking a bigger chunk of the Pratt County Sheriff's Department budget.

Medical expenses this year are at a point that if they continue at the present rate, they will double the total for 2004, said Pratt County Sheriff Vernon Chinn.

The medical expenses have reached $12,000 this year. The total for all of 2004 was $10,500 so with four months of the year left the final amount will approach if not surpass the 2004 amount.

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To the editor:

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (of marijuana), or LEAP, has more than 2,000 members. Members include prison wardens, judges, mayors and former cops. California judge James Gray advocates decriminalizing marijuana. "That would generate $2 billion annually in tax revenues that could be spent on education and drug treatment," he says (Progressive, August 2005).

Jack Cole, former policeman and co-founder of LEAP, believes that by legalizing drugs and having them supplied by the government, "organized criminals and world terrorists would be monetarily crippled for many years to come."

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If city commissioners decide to take a new approach to handling marijuana crimes, the impact -- in terms of sheer numbers of cases -- wouldn't be huge.

Dist. Atty. Charles Branson had estimated his office would be spared two or three cases per week if marijuana-possession and drug- paraphernalia cases were directed to the more informal, streamlined municipal court rather than District Court.

But the actual number of cases might be more like one or two per week.

According to a review of court files Wednesday by the Journal-World, there were at least 139 marijuana-related cases -- including simple possession, cultivation and drug dealing -- filed in District Court during 2004.

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Police Chief, However, Says Idea May Have Merit

Lawrence's police chief thinks it could have "great merit." The mayor supports it, and so does the county's top prosecutor.

But George Bush's White House says a proposal to take a streamlined approach to marijuana-possession crimes in Lawrence is a dangerous idea.

Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, D.C., told the Journal-World on Thursday that marijuana was a "harmful drug" that should be strictly regulated.

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Group Seeking Municipal, Not State, Prosecution Of Offenses

If a newly formed group gets its way, marijuana will become a low priority for Lawrence police.

Getting busted for pot would be similar to getting a speeding ticket. And, marijuana-possession cases would be resolved in a streamlined fashion in city court.

The changes, which are supported by the city's mayor, have been proposed by a group called the Drug Policy Forum of Kansas, which formed in May and has an office at 941 Ky.

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NEWTON, Kan. - When police found a methamphetamine lab in a home two years ago, they arrested two adults living there but didn't know what to do with the two children. They called Harvey County Attorney David Yoder, but he didn't have the answer.

"The police officer asked what they should do with the children," Yoder said. "I asked what the protocol for that was. He said, 'We don't have one.'"

That's when Yoder realized something needed to be done.

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"We have a wide array of incentives at our disposal. Can you think of any place that is more deserving of these tools than the Prospect Corridor?" Troy Nash, Kansas City council member

On a recent day, a stone church on Prospect Avenue maintained its dignity in the rain, surrounded by a closely clipped lawn.

But next to the church parking lot an out-of-town trash hauler had deposited an entire dumpster's contents - piles of wood and old window frames, tires, a filthy blanket, black garbage bags and fast-food waste.

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They're meant to be taken as prescribed pills and absorbed by the body gradually.

But OxyContin, Vicodin and similar prescription painkillers are increasingly being abused in the Lawrence area, police and substance-abuse counselors say - often by young people.

"One of the things they're doing now is taking these pills, crushing them and snorting them," said Lawrence Police Sgt. Tarik Khatib, head of the joint city-county drug unit. "You basically bypass the time release, and it's a much quicker onset. My personal view is that It's just coming, and it's been underreported so far."

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The ability of Wichita police to find illegal drugs is moving one more set of paw prints forward.

The Police Department is getting a third drug-sniffing dog, which will allow the department to have a canine drug detector on the job seven days a week.

The new dog is a 1-year-old, 40-pound Belgian Malinois named Kelly.

She and her handler, Officer Chad Cooper, will be based at the community policing office in Old Town, probably by August. First, she must undergo two months of intensive training.

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I'm writing about your top story: "DARE students pledge to avoid drugs" (5-03-05).

Common sense tells us that the DARE program should deter our youth from using illegal drugs. But it doesn't. DARE graduates are more likely to use illegal drugs--not less.

Common sense tells us that the Earth is the center of the universe and our solar system. But it's not.

Common sense tells us that prohibiting a product should substantially reduce the use of the product that's prohibited. Actually, prohibition tends to substantially increase the desire for the product that's prohibited.

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As many as 5,000 screaming elementary school children will flock to Verizon Wireless Amphitheater next week to celebrate their commitments to resisting drugs and violence.

The students, mostly metro area fifth- and sixth-graders, will participate in the annual Metro D.A.R.E. Fest beginning at 10 a.m. May 12. There, a host of entertainers, celebrities and government leaders will congratulate the students on their recent D.A.R.E. graduations and echo the program's core message of resisting drugs and violence. D.A.R.E., a program used by schools across the country, stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education.

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WICHITA — A judge troubled by a defense lawyer's behavior in a murder case declared a mistrial after a urine test indicated the lawyer had used marijuana and cocaine.

Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess took the action Thursday, a day after he sent jurors home for the day and held a hearing on the performance of the lawyer, Michael Lehr.

Lehr was representing Joseph Sutton, charged with second-degree murder in the shooting Dec. 5 of Tyrone Lewis.

The judge was concerned after getting three reports suggesting the lawyer could have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs on the first two days of the trial.

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Here are some things Aaron Long learned from the program he and dozens of other youngsters recently completed:

Marijuana smoke contains 50-75 percent more cancer causing chemicals than tobacco smoke.

Too much alcohol can slow down the body and lead to coma and even death.

Per serving, beer, wine and liquor all contain about the same amount of alcohol; "there are so many alcohol advertisements," he said, "and I think that's horrible."

There are 200 poisons in cigarette smoke, "and that can harm you even if you don't smoke."

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They may have been a small class, but fifth-graders from Saint Paul Lutheran School appeared to make up for it in enthusiasm as they celebrated their culmination in the DARE program.

County commissioner Don Navinsky, a guest at Friday's ceremony, noted after the culmination that the Saint Paul students were the liveliest group he's ever seen during the years he's attended such events for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

The students offered loud cheers throughout the ceremony for each other, their teacher and others.

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TOPEKA - Cold sufferers will find it a little more inconvenient to obtain a box of Sudafed or Actifed tablets in Kansas after Wednesday.

That's when a new law limiting access to products like those containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine goes into effect. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed the bill Friday.

Currently, those over-the-counter medications can be purchased in convenience stores and supermarkets. Under the new law, however, they can only be purchased at pharmacies and, then, only from behind the pharmacy counter.

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Judging by the official numbers, Kansas has made steady progress in shutting down methamphetamine labs over the past four years.

But those numbers almost certainly understate the meth problem in Kansas, officials said this week, and the error potentially costs the state millions of dollars in federal money that could be used to find and clean up meth labs.

Missouri, on the other hand, keeps strict records that rank the state first in the number of meth-lab seizures. Those records have made it easier for Missouri to win $8 million more in federal Midwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area awards than Kansas has since 2003.

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Bills In Two States Would Restrict Sale Of Pseudoephedrine

Proposals to restrict the sale of popular cold tablets used to make methamphetamine were approved Wednesday by the Missouri House and the Kansas Senate.

The Missouri House gave unanimous first-round approval to a bill to restrict the sale of medicines with pseudoephedrine. Drugs that contain pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed and Actifed, could be sold only at pharmacies.

A customer would have to produce a photo ID and sign a log for each purchase. Customers would be limited to 9 grams of the medicine, or about 300 pills, per month.

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TOPEKA - The Senate on Wednesday named a bill aimed at reducing access to cold and allergy medicine used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine after a sheriff who was shot to death last month while serving a warrant at a suspected meth lab.

The bill, SB 27, will be named the Samuels Act after Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels. Samuels was killed Jan. 19, the same day a Senate committee was hearing testimony on the new bill.

The Senate gave the bill first-round approval Wednesday. Samuels' family is expected to be in Topeka today when the Senate takes a final vote on it.

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