BALTIMORE - The strict anti-crime measures proposed by Philadelphia's likely next mayor, Michael Nutter, are also sparking a sharp political debate - 90 miles to our south.

The No. 2 lawmaker in the Baltimore City Council says he will introduce an anti-crime bill in the Maryland city next week that is closely modeled after Nutter's proposals, including the "stop-and-frisk" plan for high-crime neighborhoods.

"Desperate measures are needed when we're in desperate situations," the city council vice president, Robert W. Curran, told The Baltimore Sun. "What I'm trying to do is give the mayor additional tools."

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People suffering from the ravages of chemotherapy, glaucoma, HIV, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy or terminal illnesses sometime turn to marijuana - as a last hope for relief. Yet, under current law, these patients are subject to arrest, criminal prosecution and incarceration. Even their doctors can find themselves under fire from prosecutors should they promote the medicinal benefits of pot.

It just doesn't make sense.

Some studies have found that a component of marijuana may help fight lung cancer, while others suggest that the cannabis compound could help patients with brain, prostate and skin cancers. For the gravely ill, taking a few whiffs of pot hardly makes for a party. Withholding any substance that could have lifesaving properties for them seems markedly criminal.

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In recent years, K-9 sweeps of schools by police have raised concerns that these searches may violate students' constitutional rights. While some area school districts have allowed sweeps, others have not embraced the practice.

In the past year, the Colonial Board of School Directors has resisted requests by local police to perform K-9 searches of hallway lockers in district schools.

A letter from the school board's attorney claims that merely having a suspicion and not hard evidence of student drug use on campus is an insufficient reason to let the police dogs routinely search school lockers.

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The violent turf wars being waged on Pittsburgh streets are a direct result of drug prohibition ("Police: Pittsburgh street war risks innocent lives: Drugs and rivalries are blamed for the violence that's killed 23 this year," May 2 and PghTrib.com). Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs such as heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime; it fuels crime.

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Increasingly sophisticated and aggressive Mexican drug cartels are expanding in Southeastern Pennsylvania, flooding the market with high-grade cocaine at low prices, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. told state legislators yesterday.

Montgomery County's Narcotics Enforcement Team has seized 2,400 pounds of marijuana and 313 pounds of cocaine from Mexican-based drug organizations since 2004, said Castor, who showed legislators a cache of semiautomatic weapons, bags of cocaine and marijuana, and several talismans used by drug dealers for good luck when transporting drugs.

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Greg Skrepenak said he would continue fighting Luzerne County's drug and crime problem if he's elected to a second term.

Major cities are doing a better job of policing and pushing crime to the "path of least resistance," which includes the county because of its access to major highways, the Democrat said during an interview Thursday with the Times Leader Editorial Board.

The county is particularly vulnerable because policing systems are different in each of the 76 municipalities, and police aren't sharing information or effectively communicating with colleagues outside their boundary lines, he said.

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Israel's IBA Network Films a Special. Students and Staff Well-Used to Dealing With the Media.

HACKETTSTOWN - Hackettstown High School gained a statewide reputation for student drug testing when it became one of New Jersey's first high schools to start random testing.

The reputation became national when former Principal Chris Steffner became a regular speaker at Office of National Drug Control Policy conferences.

Hackettstown's reputation will soon be international.

A five-person news team from Israel's Channel 2 came to the high school for more than two hours Tuesday to film a segment on the school's drug testing. The segment will be part of a primetime series on balancing privacy and security.

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Moore Sixth-Graders Complete 12-Week D.A.R.E. Program.

MOORE TWP. - Robert "Officer Bob" Peloquin stood on the small stage Monday at Moore Elementary School and applauded 76 sixth-graders graduating from a 12-week Drug Awareness and Resistance Education program.

Peloquin placed both hands on the thin podium, leaned over the microphone and explained to the students, their teachers and families why, after 12 years and handing out more than 1,200 diplomas, he's still a D.A.R.E. educator. "You need to do more with students then just tell them no," he said.

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Although it is touted on the Internet as a way to beat a drug test, taking large doses of the over-the-counter supplement niacin, also known as vitamin B3, is both ineffective and potentially dangerous, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania warn.

Emergency physician Manoj K. Mittal of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and her colleagues reported last month in the Annals of Emergency Medicine that they had treated four patients for niacin overdose during the past two years. All had taken large quantities of the vitamin after using marijuana or cocaine, and all recovered from the overdose of niacin.

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Rival groups and drug dealers are using Pittsburgh's streets to fight a war, with retaliatory shootings that put innocent people at risk, police and violence prevention experts said Tuesday.

A fatal shooting last month outside a busy Downtown daycare center -- which led to a Washington County man being gunned down in a case of mistaken identity -- was one of 23 homicides in the city this year, compared to 13 at this time in 2006, according to Pittsburgh police.

In April, city police responded to nine homicides and more than a half-dozen shootings that critically injured the victims.

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KITTANNING -- More than 70 borough residents came prepared to take a bite -- out of crime that is -- at yesterday's Crime Watch meeting held at the Church of God on Woodward Avenue.

One of the Crime Watch organizers, Frank Soloski, said the borough has a major problem and that problem is the borough's top concern, drugs.

Police chief Ed Cassesse said the drug problem is rampant not only in Kittanning, but all boroughs in the county and he explained the importance of Crime Watch to law enforcement agencies.

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Brian Peters testified he first met "Will" about two years ago when he was buying crack cocaine from a man he knew as "Mike."

He said if he couldn't get in touch of Mike, he would contact Will instead. And about once a week, they would pick a location where he would hand over the money in exchange for the cocaine, Peters testified Wednesday.

Then "I would smoke it," the 35-year-old New Oxford man said. "I was an addict for a good while."

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The stereotypical drug addict doesn't exist. Instead, think Little League, Boy Scouts, cheerleaders, soccer practice, piano lessons. The truth is, nice kids next door do drugs and die of them.

I should know - I lost my 25-year-old son to drugs.

Yet we parents are often the worst-equipped to help because we don't want to believe our kids are on drugs. We don't want to believe that with our nice homes, hard work and anti-drug education in schools, and giving them the best we can think of, they can still head down the path to self-destruction.

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Eastern York's Case Like 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' Case, They Say

David Hudson said he doesn't know whether the Eastern York School District would have a legal leg to stand on if it had continued a ban on students' magnets in schools, or just the magnet that said, "Smile God Loves You." He's waiting to hear how "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" turns out.

That case, which awaits a Supreme Court ruling expected in June, started five years ago when a high-school principal confiscated a student's banner bearing the drug and religious references. And it has a lot in common with the issue at Wrightsville Elementary School, said Hudson, a lawyer and scholar at the First Amendment Center.

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With all of the alcohol-related incidents that happen both in State College and around the United States, one would think that making alcohol illegal might be a good idea. Certainly, there would be fewer traffic-related deaths if alcohol were illegal, as the National Transportation Safety Board said that about 16,000 fatalities on the road are caused by alcohol each year.

Why, then, if alcohol causes so many problems, is deterring pot smoking the main focus of most drug education programs?

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COUNTYWIDE -- The percentage of Clarion County students who have tried or regularly use alcohol and other types of drugs is above state and national averages, according to a recent study.

Pa. Youth Survey

The Pennsylvania Youth Survey was taken at five of the seven school districts in Clarion County . At those schools, sixth-, eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders were polled and 1,194 surveys were deemed valid.

Sheila Snyder, representing Clarion Family Net and Clarion County's Promise which is under Family Net, and Patricia Anderson of the Clarion County Cooperative Extension are visiting Clarion County schools trying to garner support for partnerships which could obtain after-school grants aiming to keep students from falling into drug use.

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At a town hall meeting Monday in Towanda hosted by U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, local officials discussed how methamphetamine is becoming less of a problem in Bradford County, while crack cocaine and prescription drug abuse are on the rise locally. Much of the discussion at the town hall meeting was on the local drug problem and what to do about it.

Bradford County Drug & Alcohol Program Director Phil Cusano, Bradford County Children & Youth Services representative Kelly Smith and Bradford County Commissioner Janet Lewis sat alongside Carney at the front of the meeting, and offered their views on the drug problem.

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Youth advocates are trying to stem the destructive drug use trend in Clarion County.

CLARION -- Youth advocates in Clarion County are moving into the next phase of a concerted effort to stem the disturbing and destructive drug use trend in the area.

Sheila Snyder, executive director of the Clarion County Family Net, said her agency is working with the Penn State Cooperative Extension to secure grant funding for prevention programs in local schools.

It will likely involve the formation of a task force with partnerships in the county.

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MOORESTOWN -- No drugs were found during a police sweep of Moorestown High School last week, but administrators said later they know they need to remain vigilant.

Interim Superintendent Timothy Brennan and other district officials reviewed recent problems at the school with parents during a Board of Education meeting Wednesday, a day after the unannounced sweep of the school campus on Bridgeboro Road.

Parents expressed a variety of reactions to the search by police and nearly a dozen K-9 units for drugs, weapons and other contraband. The students were held in homeroom classes for more than two hours during sweep.

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Regarding the March 29 editorial ("Case important step for students' rights"), alcohol kills more people each year than all illegal drugs combined. Prescription overdose deaths are now second on the list of causes of death from unintentional injury -- only motor-vehicle crashes is higher. Television is filled with sophisticated pro-drug messages paid for by alcohol and pharmaceutical companies. The Bush Administration doesn't have a problem with corporate drug pushers. But hoist a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at an off-campus high school rally in Alaska, and they will fight you all the way to the Supreme Court. It is not clear how this nonsensical phrase somehow merits limiting free speech. Culture warriors in the White House seem to think the war on pot is more important than the Constitution. It doesn't stop there. By raiding voter-approved medical marijuana providers in California, the very same Bush Administration that claims illicit drug use funds terrorism is forcing cancer and AIDS patients into the hands of street dealers. Apparently, marijuana prohibition is more important than protecting the country from terrorism.

Robert Sharpe

Policy analyst for the Common Sense for Drug Policy

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