When Len Bias died in his Washington Hall dorm room 20 years ago this week, a sea of questions emerged. Some wondered about the university's future and many said college athletics had to change.

But whatever reforms at this university that would take hold over the next several years would be dwarfed by what members of Congress would steamroll through the House of Representatives in Washington that summer, part of a legislative frenzy in the wake of Bias' shocking and tragic death.

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WASHINGTON -- Twenty years have passed since the cocaine-induced death of basketball wizard Len Bias touched off a war against drugs. His legacy, in the odd way that politics plays out, is harsher penalties for crack cocaine, which is not quite the same drug that he used.

On June 19, 1986, two nights after the Boston Celtics selected him as a first-round draft pick, he died of a cocaine overdose. He was 22. Eight days later, Don Rogers, a defensive player for the Cleveland Browns, also died of a cocaine overdose.

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Judge Says Harsh Mandatory Sentence Warrants Supreme Court Review

A disgraced Baltimore police detective was sentenced this morning to 315 years in prison for shaking down drug dealers, but the federal judge called the term, which he had to impose by law, "inappropriate" and said it should be reviewed by the Supreme Court.

Detective William A. King, 35, showed little reaction as U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz imposed the lengthy prison sentence. Almost as an afterthought, Motz ordered King to serve four years of probation if he is ever released.

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He Stayed On Job In City Until Sentencing

A Baltimore special education teacher caught by police with several pounds of cocaine in his car continued to teach for a year after he pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court, right up until he was sentenced yesterday to seven years in prison, his lawyer and school system officials said.

City school system administrators would confirm only that Martius Harding, a former wrestling champion at McDonogh School, had taught at Govans Elementary School since 2002 and that his status was in doubt because of the court case.

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EX-CITY OFFICER SENTENCED TO MANDATORY 315 YEARS FOR GUN CRIMES, ROBBING DRUG DEALERS

Judge Criticizes Ex-Officer's 315-Year Sentence

A federal judge in Baltimore criticized a Supreme Court ruling that forced him yesterday to sentence a former city police detective to spend the next three centuries in prison, urging the nation's highest court to revisit the issue of mandatory sentencing for gun crimes.

Dressed in prison garb, William A. King, 35, showed little reaction as U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz reluctantly imposed the lengthy prison term - 315 years and one month.

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As Drug Creeps In, DEA Teaches Police How To Deal With Labs

QUANTICO, VA. -- In World War II-era Quonset huts deep inside this sprawling Marine Corps base, two Harford County sheriff's deputies spent a week learning how to cook methamphetamine.

The illegal drug recipe isn't hard or especially secret. The primary ingredients are cold medicine, denatured alcohol, phosphorus, reagents and iodine.

"It's not rocket science," Deputy 1st Class Greg Young said.

Still, for the 35-year-old deputy, the final white powdery product was striking to see for the first time. Young wants to be able to recognize the ingredients of a drug that has been popping up in his largely rural county with increasing frequency.

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I applaud Steve Chapman's call for decriminalizing drug use ("The phony threat of liberal drug laws," Opinion * Commentary, May 22). Prohibition did not work for alcohol, and it is not working for illegal drugs today. Decriminalizing drug use would free the police to fight real crime and might also save thousands of young men who die as a result of the illicit drug trade each year. More important, America was founded on the principle of individual rights - and adult citizens have the right to ingest whatever they choose.

Manfred Smith

Columbia

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Columnist Steve Chapman should be commended for exposing the myth that laws criminalizing drugs deter their use ("The phony threat of liberal drug laws," Opinion * Commentary, May 22). The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, which is by far the most popular illicit drug. The University of Michigan's "Monitoring the Future" study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the U.S. than in any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis.

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Most Respondents View Programs As Prison Alternative For Addicts

Poll Shows Public Support For Expanded Drug Treatment

A recent poll suggests that a majority of Maryland voters believe that treatment is a viable alternative to prison for substance abusers and that the state's alcohol tax should be increased to pay for expanded drug treatment programs.

The Open Society Institute-Baltimore commissioned the poll, which was released today. It comes as OSI prepares to co-host a national conference on successful drug treatment strategies that is slated to open this week in Baltimore.

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SNOW HILL -- The Worcester County Drug Court program has already earned a statewide award, just six months after opening for business.

"You are model participants and collaborators in the criminal justice system," said Maryland District Court Chief Judge Ben C. Clyburn. "I am just amazed at the feeling of family in this room."

Clyburn presented the award, honoring the Worcester County Drug Court as Maryland's Most Innovative Drug Court, this week at a gathering at Worcester County Jail.

"You're probably the model in the state of Maryland at this time," said Clyburn. "You're the only jurisdiction that has all of the different types of drug courts. It's amazing. I'm going to take from your program and spread it throughout the state of Maryland."

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The former tenant who beat and stabbed social activist and U.S. Senate candidate A. Robert Kaufman at his Baltimore home last year pleaded guilty today to attempted second-degree murder.

Henry Leon Davis, 42, was sentenced to 30 years in prison, with all but 12 years suspended, and five years of probation.

Kaufman, 75, has suffered numerous complications since the near-fatal attack last June. He went into a coma and contracted blood poisoning, leading to kidney failure. He gets dialysis three times a week and needs a kidney transplant.

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Recently, Mexican President Vicente Fox vetoed a bill passed by the Mexican Congress that would have removed criminal penalties for people caught with small amounts of marijuana or other drugs. This came after the Bush administration vigorously complained, predicting it would encourage Americans to pour southward as "drug tourists."

But that option is off the table for the moment. So Americans who want to get high without fear of going to jail will have to go some other place where cannabis can be consumed with impunity. Such as Nebraska.

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Substance-abuse counselors and others interested in tracking drug use have long considered a periodic report hospitals generate about drug use to be a valuable tool.

Then last summer, substance-abuse counselors in the program's Baltimore region, which includes Carroll Hospital Center, noticed that the reports stopped coming in.

"We are not getting up-to-date information," said Mark Yount, substance-abuse prevention coordinator for the drug treatment facility Junction Inc. "Trying to get up-to-date information is really hard these days, so we are kinda behind."

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Conference to Focus On Law, Culture, Protecting Children

Gangs are a growing problem in Maryland, from international networks such as Mara Salvatrucha to loosely affiliated groups selling drugs on street corners, said Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein.

His office, along with the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention and the Maryland Crime Prevention Association, will sponsor the state's first gang summit next month to bring together law enforcement officials, juvenile justice agents, corrections workers, educators and others to address the issue. The summit will be June 1 in Columbia.

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Members of the University of Maryland chapters of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Students for Sensible Drug Policy are to be commended for their efforts to reduce marijuana penalties.

Marijuana prohibition has done little more than burden millions of otherwise law-abiding citizens with criminal records. The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study reports that lifetime marijuana use is higher in the United States than any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis. The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to many Americans.

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Major kudos to Dmitri King for his outstanding op-ed: "The Unwinnable War" [May 4]. In 1970, the United States was not the most incarcerated nation in the history of human civilization. We are today, thanks mostly to the policies of our so-called war on drugs.

Even though we in the United States have fewer than 5 percent of the world's population, we have more than 25 percent of the world's prisoners. In other words, one out of every four prisoners in the world is locked in an American jail or prison.

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For 70 years the government has waged a war against drugs.

After 70 years and nearly a trillion dollars spent, this war has accomplished nothing other than imprisoning innocent people based on the personal choices they make regarding what to put into their own bodies.

The drug war has not stopped people from wanting drugs or getting drugs. Yet, when faced with the undeniable failure of the drug war, supporters say we need to throw more money at the problem. Haven't we spent enough money? Haven't we destroyed enough innocent lives? How much longer does this have to go on before we recognize the failure and try a new approach? The war on drugs has never worked and never will work. Human nature leads people to seek pleasure and novelty, and laws of economics dictate that when a demand exists, a market will rise up to supply that demand. An attempt at prohibition ignores those two fundamental principles. It should come as no surprise that drug prohibition has failed. History provides a clear case of the devastating effects of prohibition: the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s. The alcohol prohibition wasted taxpayers' money, ruined innocent lives and created a black market that put people at risk of injury or death from impure or poorly made products. The prohibition was actually responsible for the rise of organized crime. After many years, the mistake was realized and prohibition was repealed. Why have we not learned from this history lesson?

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Students Attend Forum About Looser Pot Punishments

Pro-pot student activists discovered this weekend they have much more support than anticipated in their quest to loosen penalties on marijuana-related offenses, after meeting dozens of other supporters at a conference in New York.

Leaders of the campus' National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Students for Sensible Drug Policy convened at the Northeast Regional SSDP conference in New Paltz, N.Y., to meet with other students and have information sessions with drug reform leaders to discuss activism tactics on loosening pot policies on campuses.

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SALISBURY -- The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene is conducting tests to see if heroin used by six people who ended up at Peninsula Regional Medical Center on Thursday was laced with a substance even more dangerous than the drug itself.

The tests followed an unusual day for Wicomico health officials, who were notified of the rash of hospital cases that afternoon. Dr. Judith Sensenbrenner, director of the county's health department, said six people with similar symptoms arrived at the hospital between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. Thursday, with difficulty breathing and unconsciousness.

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WASHINGTON -- University of Maryland students celebrated student government election results last week with a bottle of bubbly -- nonalcoholic, of course -- and a freshman broke into a mellow Phish sort of victory dance.

Not only had they elected new student leaders, but nearly two-thirds of the undergraduates who voted endorsed a referendum to reduce penalties for students caught with marijuana so that they would be treated the same as alcohol violations -- a result with much symbolic weight but no actual power to change the school's policies.

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