Two years ago, on a bright spring evening, hundreds of fifth-graders and their families piled into the Duluth Auditorium.

On stage, then-Police Chief Roger Waller was praising the benefits of DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education - and how the program was able to "teach young people to say no to drugs, to resist peer pressure and to find alternatives to drug use." Then-Mayor Herb Bergson followed, extolling DARE's knack for forging "life-long friendships" between students and police officers, relationships that sometimes helped "kids who were on the edge [get] back on track."

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In Paulo Ceolho's "The Alchemist," a young man learns a secret never realized beyond the realm of fantasy: How to turn lead into gold.

While alchemy in real life failed, humankind has mastered the creation of another substance, as intoxicating, as valuable and more plentiful.

Narcotics.

"It really is like gold dust, and injecting it or snorting it," said Austin Police Detective David McKichan, chief drug investigator for the department.

"You're working with something that on a weight-to-weight basis is more valuable than gold," he said.

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Of all the presidential contenders, Barack Obama has been the most forthcoming about his past drug use.

In his autobiography, he admits to having smoked marijuana, using some cocaine, briefly flirting with the idea of trying heroin (although he never used any) and imbibing a fair amount of alcohol when he was in high school and college.

Quizzed about his past drug use, he confessed to having inhaled the marijuana smoke, unlike Bill Clinton, who when faced with a similar question years ago, claimed that while he had smoked marijuana, he didn't inhale.

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WORTHINGTON -- When Congress unveiled the proposed omnibus appropriations bill for the fiscal year of 2008, law enforcement officials looked on in dismay. The bill cut the Byrne/Justice Assistance Grants (JAG) program from $520 million in 2007 to $170.4 million in 2008 -- a 67 percent cut from a program crucial to state and local jurisdictions that depend on the funds to fight crime.

Just two years ago, it was a Byrne/JAG grant that helped give the Buffalo Ridge Drug Task Force (BRDTF) its start. A total of $150,000 in funding was approved by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, with $100,000 of that funding coming from Byrne/JAG.

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State officials recently reported that fewer students are using methamphetamine than compared to past years, a trend local officials are also seeing.

The state Department of Human Services (DHS) reported that 2.2 percent of high school seniors in the Twin Cities metropolitan area used meth in 2007, compared with 4.8 percent in 2004 and 5.3 percent in 2001.

Carol Falkowski, director of the DHS Chemical Health Division and author of the report, credited community awareness with the decline in meth use.

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Like Eden Prairie, Web Has Alerted Administration To Some Wrong-Doing.

Days after students at Eden Prairie High School were interviewed about suggestive photos on the social networking site Facebook, administrators at Fergus Falls High School say they, too, share concerns about what students post on the Internet.

In the case of the Eden Prairie students, photos on Facebook suggested students were consuming alcohol at a party, prompting interviews and disciplinary action on the part of administrators and a walk-out by roughly a dozen students Thursday.

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A strengthened police force in 2007 led to better customer service in Fergus Falls. In Otter Tail County, progress was made last year curbing narcotics violations.

Three officers hired last year brought the Fergus Falls Police force up to 23 full-time officers, allowing for three officers on duty at a time, rather than two.

"We have more presence on patrol now and we're able to catch things as they happen," Police Chief Tim Brennan said.

Backing up that statement, in 2006, officers responded to 9,016 calls for service - that includes everything from traffic stops and citations to domestic assaults. That number jumped to 10,671 in 2007.

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While local results of the 2007 Minnesota Student Survey are similar to the statewide data, Shakopee Superintendent Jon McBroom isn't sure he wants the district to be considered "normal."

"We know the behavior of young people here is not a lot different than other places," McBroom said, noting that none of the results were surprising.

However, the district had hoped to reduce the level of drug and alcohol use among its students, McBroom said. "I'm a little disappointed that our attempts to reduce alcohol and chemical use through education and support hasn't helped us lower those numbers."

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St. Cloud State University is reviewing what circumstances can allow the university to legally contact parents about their child's behavior.

State law limits university officials' contact with parents or guardians of students to cases in which there is a health or safety emergency.

Federal law is much less restrictive and allows institutions to notify parents when their child is in violation of alcohol or drug policies, said Mike Gillilan, interim associate vice president for student life and development.

But the more restrictive state law trumps the federal law, he said.

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District 834 students are more likely to use drugs and alcohol than their peers across the state, according to results from the latest Minnesota Student Survey.

Drug use was down in both groups, but alcohol use stayed steady and an increasing number of students reported "binge drinking" in the past year.

The survey is administered to sixth-, ninth- and 12th-grade students throughout the state once every three years. It asks questions on a variety of topics, ranging from attitudes toward school to exercise habits, extracurricular involvement, drug use and sexual activity.

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Two-thirds of Minnesota's high school seniors may be making pretty good decisions about alcohol, marijuana and seat belts. We have lots to do with at least one-third.

And, more than half of Minnesota's 12th graders are not big fans of their school.

Those are some of the key findings of a survey involving about 135,000 Minnesota 6th, 9th and 12th graders, released last week.

The Minnesota Departments of Education, Health, Human Services and Public Safety cooperated in the 2007 Minnesota Student survey, More than 300 Minnesota school districts participated on a voluntary basis.

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Damon Fuseyamore vividly recalls smoking "my last nickel of crack" on June 16, 1997, while sitting on the steps outside his New York City residence.

He said he owed loan sharks money and had been arrested two weeks before "with six nickels of crack and a bunch of money."

He was charged with selling crack and was looking at two to seven years in prison. But he had another option.

"I had a choice of doing jail time or changing my life and going through treatment," he said. "If you have a choice between doing two to seven or going through the program and going into treatment, any smart person would take the program."

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Look at the numbers for teenage cigarette smoking. Now look at the numbers for teenage marijuana use. Folks, there's a lesson here.

Last week, President Bush touted new survey results showing a modest drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make some troubling comparisons.

Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996, but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy.

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Teens take a lot of very important tests as they move through the school system.

But the results of new tests offered through a Wisconsin school district may be the most important. The Maple school district is offering parents of students in grades 6-12 vouchers for a free drug-testing kit.

The district received $5,000 worth of free vouchers for the test from the company that sells them on the Internet. The vouchers available from the district are for a drug test kit that tests for cocaine, amphetamine, marijuana, opiates, methamphetamine, barbiturates, and several other illegal drugs.

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Homeowner Vang Khang and two cops could have left a North Minneapolis home in body bags early Sunday morning instead of by their own power.

But they didn't. Praise the Lord, I say. But, hey, stuff happens during apparent "no-knock" police raids of private residences.

No harm, no foul. Right?

Wrong.

What occurred inside a two-story home in the 1300 block of Logan Avenue North should concern us all, whether we live in crime-plagued areas or low-crime and idyllic-sounding places like Golden Nirvana or Apple Pie Way.

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Hennepin County narcotics officers are busting more home-grown marijuana operations -- sometimes in upscale suburbs.

One reason for increased home production is the decreased flow of high-grade pot from Canada since border controls tightened up after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, said Sheriff Rich Stanek.

Another factor is more indoor cultivation of higher-grade marijuana that's is up to six times more potent than that sold years ago, he said. Higher potency raises dealer profits and also may increase addictiveness, a drug expert said.

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After the countless, monotonous lectures and educational pamphlets I've received over the years, I like to think of myself as pretty well-informed when it comes to illegal drugs. I've heard all about the effects of cocaine, marijuana, LSD, methane and speed. I know grades drop, concentration diminishes and relationships suffer. I even have a brief notion of how some of these drugs work at the neuronal synapse level.

In other words, I know how drugs would affect me if I chose to take them. This is the goal of the bulk of education about illegal drugs, especially in high school. Adults (parents in particular) want kids to know how horrid life will become for the addict if they begin consuming. The information people receive about drugs mainly concentrates on the effects on the individual.

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Ask around and what New York Mills is best known for is Lund Boats, girls basketball of the 1970s and '80s, and the biggest marijuana bust, at the time, in state history. Twenty years later and the famous drug bust still comes up in conversation, with locals joking and carrying the state's largest marijuana bust of 1987 as a sort of badge of honor for the community.

Boats. Basketball. Drug Bust.

Twenty years ago last week -- Oct. 24, 1987 -- law enforcement agents raided a farm north of New York Mills and seized 20 tons of marijuana with an estimated street value of $20 million. According to newspaper reports at the time those figures later doubled to 40 tons and $40 million after federal officials seized the farm and fields.

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Hazel Park Middle School in St. Paul has a drug problem that's probably no worse than most other metro-area middle schools -- or many other schools in the rest of Minnesota for that matter. But last week, Hazel Park was in the spotlight after seven students ingested crystal meth on school grounds and had to be hospitalized.

Given that those involved were juveniles, we might learn little more about what happened Tuesday. Hopefully, these middle-schoolers will get the help they need and will be able to return to school, having learned a hard, valuable lesson.

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I'm writing about Eric Sjolin's thoughtful letter: "The failing War on Drugs" Sept. 12. I agree that the so-called war on drugs is a complete failure in preventing drug use or in reducing the harms from recreational drugs. However, the drug war is very successful in creating taxpayer paid jobs for the so-called drug warriors.

The goal of the drug war is not victory. The DEA is a huge bureaucracy. And like all bureaucracies its real goal is its continuation and expansion.

Without marijuana prohibition we would need far fewer so-called drug warriors like DEA agents and no jail or prison builders. Without marijuana prohibition many DEA agents would be looking for a job or washing cars for a living.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

[end]