In response to Ari Schreiber's letter to the editor on Feb. 14: In incidents as severe as illicit drug use in the dorms, the problem does not solely lie in the illegality of marijuana, but also in the fact that these individuals are jeopardizing the safety of other residents. The dorms are equipped with sensitive sprinkler systems that, when set off, flood all the rooms on the individual's floor and every floor below. In addition to causing water damage, smoking in a dorm room could start fires. Students need to understand they are part of a community that includes more than 11,000 residents - decisions made by anyone in a dorm can directly affect the safety of the masses.

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To the Editor:

The level of interest in the related issues of drug abuse and gangs in our community that has been demonstrated by recent articles, letters to the editor, radio and online discussions is encouraging to see. We believe this reflects genuine concern on the part of community members who we have previously been unable to engage in addressing these important problems.

The Cumberland Neighborhood Advisory Commission (NAC) and the neighborhood organizations involved in the NAC partner with a broad range of groups in Allegany County who advocate not only working from the legal end to reduce drug abuse and its effects, but also with groups who assist persons with substance and co-existing mental problems and groups that teach developmental assets in youth to give them the ability and desire to live healthy, drug and gang-free lives. In fact, a person would be hard pressed to find a service organization in our county that the NAC or one of our neighborhood associations has not partnered with in some capacity or another. Our chief role is to promote stability and improve the quality of life in the neighborhoods of Cumberland and we realize that it takes a multi-faceted approach to curtail the detrimental effects of drug and gang related issues.

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Editor:

Dear Editor of the Baltimore Chronicle, When reading "The Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry" (Jan. 24, 2007), I'm reminded of the Nazi swastika, and the resemblance makes me associate SWAT with the newly-coined term SWATSTIKA.

America must stop using SWAT military-style power for the war on drugs. SWAT has a history: using Gestapo tactics and entering private homes to conduct drug war warrants, including too many raids at wrong addresses, with too many innocent citizens killed in as little as 11 seconds. Police are to serve and protect; SWAT is primed to kill.

SWATSTIKA; If the shoe fits and police doesn't like it, they should change shoes.

Stan White

[end]

The world owes no man freedom from strife, so we should have reason to think that the establishment of laws will not contribute to our daily woes. Unfortunately our good English Christian cousins passed down to us as much prudish law as prudence. The upshot being that we are strapped with a schizophrenic and archaic criminal justice system. Seeing that calls for resolution to the "drug problem" continue, as writers in the Times-News often refer to it, many people misdirect their proposed solutions to criminal justice alone, heedless of alternative perspectives.

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BALTIMORE - They are men connected through family and street culture but separated by paths chosen long ago: Benjamin (Eggy) Davis, the career heroin dealer, and Leonard Hamm, the Baltimore police commissioner who has now helped Davis change his life -- and the lives of others ruined by drugs and alcohol.

Once, they might have faced each other across a legal divide. But the other night they met at Sinai Hospital, where Davis was readying for back surgery after a bad fall, and Hamm was at his bedside to wish him well.

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BALTIMORE - The old man in the Sinai Hospital bed is Benjamin Davis, who was informally known as Eggy when he sold heroin in the city for half a century. The man at his bedside the other evening was Leonard Hamm, who is formally known as the police commissioner of Baltimore.

Davis is here for back surgery after a bad fall he took last week. He wears a neck brace and carries a history involving a€oeeight or ninea€ prison stretches for drug conspiracy. Hamm is here to wish him well. For the last few years, he has helped turn Davisa€TM life into a tale of personal redemption.

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There's a worthy effort in Annapolis to increase money for substance-abuse treatment around the state, using funds from the proposed $1 increase in the cigarette tax. A proposal that will be considered by the General Assembly would dedicate as much as $30 million a year to fighting drug and alcohol abuse - about half going to Baltimore - a desirable change from the yearly catch-as-catch-can funding that treatment typically receives.

It's another good reason, in addition to providing more money for health insurance, to support the cigarette tax increase.

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To the Editor:

The issues addressed by Melanie Michael - Neighborhood group says courts are too easy on drug dealers, Times-News, Dec.12 - was like reading a news article from the 1970s: Revolving-door courts, lenient sentences, weapons possession, gangs, blame the big cities, shortages of judges, fear of retribution and calls for a new approach. Nearly 40 years later not much has changed. Or has it?

What Ms. Michael didn't tell our Allegany readers is that 1 in 32 Americans were under criminal justice supervision last year. Thanks to tough mandatory sentencing that incarcerates record numbers of non-violent drug offenders who are not dealers, the United States has the highest prison population in the world. Admissions of inmates are rising faster than inmate releases. We have only 5 percent of the world's population, yet we have 25 percent of the world's prison population.

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The Neighborhood Advisory Commission (NAC) was established by the Mayor and City Council of Cumberland on Nov. 18, 2003. The commission is composed of one member from each neighborhood association recognized by the Mayor and City Council, as well as a member of the Mayor and City Council acting as an ex-officio member of the commission. The commission serves to maintain and improve the quality of life in the city's neighborhoods by coordinating the efforts of recognized neighborhood organizations with the Mayor and City Council and the city departments. At present our group represents Chapel Hill West Neighborhood Association, Inc., Decatur Heights Neighborhood Association, North End Watch, Rolling Mill Neighborhood Association, Inc., The South Cumberland Business and Civic Association, and Upper West Side Coalition of Active Neighbors. Our meetings are held the third Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. in the conference room of City Hall and are open to the public.

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I commend The Sun's editorial on Congress' decision to change the patient limit for physicians treating patients suffering from addiction with buprenorphine ("A promising treatment," Dec. 21). The change from 30 to 100 patients is a significant step forward for addiction treatment. But more must be done to make addiction treatment available to all who need it.

The disease of addiction, involving illicit drugs and alcohol abuse, strikes every community of our country and its effects permeate every aspect of our society.

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U.S. government statistics confirm that the drug war is being waged in a racist manner ("Young black men need help," Opinion * Commentary, Dec. 24). According to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 15 percent of the nation's drug users are black. But according to U.S. Justice Department figures, African-Americans account for 37 percent of those arrested for drug violations, more than 42 percent of those in federal prisons for drug violations and almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies. Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate that minority drug users are.

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Young black men in our communities are falling into a deep hole - a hole filled with crime, unemployment and despair. They are falling so far, and so fast, that extricating many of them might well be impossible.

And yet, for their sakes and ours, we must try.

Our personal lives and our many years spent as a Circuit Court judge and college professor, respectively, have caused us to question the destiny of the black community - particularly that of the black male. In December 2004 we independently published articles in a book titled The State of Black Baltimore. While one of our articles focused on the Circuit Court for Baltimore City and its continuing efforts to combat the nightmare of illegal drugs, the other focused on the job market and the overwhelming unemployment and underemployment in many black neighborhoods.

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BALTIMORE - Organizations such as Sheppard Pratt Health System can now treat more than three times as many heroin addicts with the highly effective drug buprenorphine, thanks to a move by Congress to amend the Controlled Substances Act.

The changes, approved Dec. 8, raise from 30 to 100 the number of patients a clinic or hospital can treat with the drug.

That is a boon to drug abuse counselors and to addicts in the Baltimore region, said addictions educator Michael Gimbel, of Sheppard Pratt. "This is a very important piece of legislation. It will immediately allow us to treat more heroin and opiate addicts. Buprenorphine seems to be a very effective alternative to methadone in treating addicts."

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BALTIMORE - In the shadow of the site of one of the greatest tragedies in city history, politicians and neighborhood residents gathered Monday for a ceremony to remember and search for hope.

The event was held to dedicate a recently completed community center on the site where seven members of the Dawson family perished in a fire set by drug dealers in 2002.

"On Oct. 16, 2002, the family of Angela and Carnell Dawson paid the ultimate price against evil," said Iris Tucker, pastor of the Knox Presbyterian Church, located across the street from where the Dawson home once stood.

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It Aims To Expand Aid For Heroin Users

Bill Aims To Expand Aid For Addicts

The number of heroin addicts receiving a revolutionary drug that is safer than methadone could triple under pending federal legislation -- a change that Baltimore health care advocates say could help the city combat addiction.

Physicians would be allowed to prescribe buprenorphine, commonly known as "bupe," to 100 patients -- up from the current 30-patient limit. Unlike methadone, bupe is taken at home and is less prone to abuse.

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Thanks for publishing Cynthia Tucker's outstanding column "88 year-old woman is latest collateral damage in drug war" (Opinion Commentary, Dec. 4).

The only thing unusual about the death of Kathryn Johnston was her age. Otherwise, this story would hardly have been news outside of Georgia.

Apologies will be offered and actions will be regretted. But Ms. Johnston is still dead.

Dead because Ms. Johnston was suspected of selling the wrong recreational drug to willing buyers.

Dead because Ms. Johnston probably assumed that someone breaking into her home in the middle of the night was up to no good.

Dead because Ms. Johnston tried to defend herself.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]

I was truly outraged by The Sun's article "'Pawns' in the drug game" (Dec. 3).

I was under the impression that we wage a war on drugs in this country so that these illicit substances stay out of the hands of children. Imagine my surprise to read about 9-year olds being charged with intent to distribute cocaine.

What is going on here? Are these our tax dollars at work?

When will people realize that as long as these drugs are unregulated they will continue to be bought and sold by anyone at any age?

Selling drugs certainly pays better than a paper route.

Joe Province

Pittsburgh, Pa.

[end]

The most-incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization has no right to call itself a "free society." Re: Sheldon Richman's outstanding commentary, "End the Other War Too" ( 12-01-06 ): I totally agree with Richman that "In a free society adults have the right to ingest whatever they want."

However, we are not a "free society." We are a dictatorship masquerading as a "free society." The most-incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization has no right to call itself a "free society."

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Mike Lewis Takes the Reins

SALISBURY -- A proud and energetic Mike Lewis took the Wicomico County sheriff oath shortly after 4 p.m. Monday with family, friends and about 75 deputies close by.

Wicomico County State's Attorney Davis Ruark said Lewis became sheriff by defining himself as a good man who will fight evil across the county. After taking the oath, Lewis said he is eager to work with his deputies and the County Council.

"You all make me so proud. The last eight months have been a very long road," Lewis said addressing his deputies. "I commend you for your diligence and being strong through this tough time."

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All wars have a way of creating collateral damage, as the desk-bound bureaucrats euphemistically call the dead innocents, destroyed buildings and decimated towns that just happen to be in the way of bombs and bullets. Kathryn Johnston was collateral damage in America's misguided "war on drugs."

On Nov. 21, the 88-year-old woman was shot dead by Atlanta undercover police officers who crashed through her door after dark to execute a "no-knock" search warrant for illegal drugs. Living in a high-crime neighborhood, apparently frightened out of her wits, she fired at the intruders with a rusty revolver, hitting all three. That's according to the police account, which says the officers then returned fire, striking Ms. Johnston in the chest and extremities.

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