Former Seattle Police Chief Calls for Legalization

BELLINGHAM -- Despite more than a trillion dollars spent, drugs are more available today at lower prices and higher potency than at the beginning of America's "war on drugs," the former chief of the Seattle Police Department argued Thursday.

Norm Stamper, chief of the department from 1994 to 2000, spoke at Western Washington University in an event organized by the school's Drug Information Center.

Speaking for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Stamper called the drug war an "abject failure" that has led to the unjust incarceration of millions and created a system that promotes a violent drug trade that has ravaged Mexico and the rest of Latin America.

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"I'm sorry I'm late, I totally forgot about this meeting," said a man in his 20s, out of breath from running up two flights of stair at the county courthouse.

"It's going to cost you," Superior Court Judge Michael Cooper said.

Cooper didn't sentence the man to jail or heavily fine him.

Instead, he issued work crew and public service. Here in drug court, Cooper and a panel of law enforcement and treatment experts guide felony drug offenders to recovery, not jail.

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Thurston County Superior Court Judge Richard Strophy surprised many in the community Tuesday with his announcement that he will retire at the end of his term in January. Strophy leaves after 37 years of outstanding public service.

Strophy, 63, who started his legal career in Thurston County as a prosecutor, has served for the past 25 years as a judge in District Court, then Superior Court.

While commendations will be forthcoming as he nears retirement, there is no argument that Strophy's primary contribution -- one that will last long after he has left the bench -- is the pivotal role he played in launching Thurston County's highly effective Drug Court.

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As a parent helping two children navigate their teen years, and as a travel writer who has seen firsthand how Europe deals with its drug problem, I've thought a lot about U.S. drug policy -- particularly our criminalization of marijuana.

Europe, like the U.S., is dealing with a persistent drug-abuse problem. But unlike us, Europe, which treats drug abuse primarily as a public health issue rather than a criminal issue, measures the success of its drug policy in terms of pragmatic harm reduction.

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Mandatory drug testing of students participating in extracurricular activities has been ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court, but that doesn't necessarily have to mean an end to the practice.

There may even be controlled circumstances where mandatory programs can meet constitutional muster. But if nothing else, why can't testing be done on a voluntary basis, backed by peer pressure to participate?

While the court decision was unanimous, Justice Jim Johnson wrote in a separate concurrence that a student's right to privacy is "not absolute and thus not all drug testing programs are invalid. Under carefully defined circumstances, a random suspicionless drug testing program for high school student athletes, in my opinion, might also be implemented that will meet applicable constitutional requirements."

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Rep. Rick Larsen wants to keep federal funds flowing to a program that offers an alternative to jail for nonviolent adult offenders.

A young man who used to sleep in a plywood box in a barn now has an apartment and is doing well.

He got a round of applause, even though he is behind paying for court-ordered drug tests.

Another man, a newcomer to the Snohomish County adult drug court, was asked by a judge how long he had been clean and sober.

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PORT TOWNSEND - Jefferson County Public Health is making an effort to keep recreational needle users safe by supplying them clean syringes for free.

To get clean syringes, the only thing required is old syringes.

When exchanging the needles, public health officials make sure they also offer information on drug rehabilitation, risk reduction education, HIV and hepatitis testing, counseling and referrals for treatment programs.

The program isn't new, it's just increasing in visibility.

In 2000 the program exchanged 506 syringes. In 2007, it exchanged 24,585 from 65 clinics in the county.

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AS HE TROOPS about Europe, with notebook and camera crew, guidebook author Rick Steves witnesses what the late historian Barbara Tuchman called "The March of Folly," the sites of wars and witch hunts waged by feckless rulers.

Steves has come home with a mind to take on our leaders' folly, the federal government's enduring, woefully unsuccessful War on Drugs, and the battle front against marijuana.

He would replace a strategy of locking people up with a policy designed to lessen harm. It's a lot like the "Four Pillars" approach to drug use adopted by Vancouver, B.C.: treatment, harm reduction, prevention and -- for profiteers of the business -- enforcement.

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Wahkiakum School Superintendent Bob Garrett says the drug testing policy the state Supreme Court struck down Thursday was helping keep students clean.

"Kids were telling us the policy's working," Garrett said Monday. "Because of the policy, they were using less or not using at all."

The state's high court ruled that random, or suspicionless, testing of student athletes violates personal freedoms protected by the Washington Constitution. The 9-0 ruling overturned a 2006 Wahkiakum County Superior Court decision in which Judge Douglas E. Goelz ruled the testing policy was justified because drug use was a "real and serious threat" to the school.

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LAKE STEVENS -- The Lake Stevens School District is suspending its controversial student drug testing program because the Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that testing of student athletes is unconstitutional.

Once the district's lawyer reviews the ruling, the policy could eventually be dumped altogether.

"On first blush, it looks like this ruling would impact our programs and we'd have to stop our random drug testing programs for grades nine to 12," district spokeswoman Arlene Hulten said.

Lake Stevens High School is one of just a handful of schools in the state that uses random drug tests.

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The state Supreme Court Thursday unanimously rejected the Wahkiakum School District's policy of random drug-testing student athletes, saying it violates personal freedoms protected by the Washington Constitution.

The decision will have statewide implications on just how far school districts can go to monitor student alcohol and drug abuse. A handful of public schools across the state had adopted similar drug testing rules.

"We're pleased," said Doug Honig of the Seattle office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "School districts around the state have been looking to this decision for guidance about whether suspicionless drug testing of students is constitutional. The answer is no." The high court's plurality opinion, written by Justice Richard Sanders, said students have "a genuine and fundamental privacy interest in controlling his or her own bodily functions."

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CLE ELUM -- The Cle Elum-Roslyn School District is suspending its random drug testing of high school students participating in extracurricular activities, in response to the state's high court ruled Thursday that testing students athletes is unconstitutional.

The policy could be abandoned all together pending legal counsel from the district's attorney.

Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court, responding to a lawsuit over a drug-testing program in the Wahkiakum School District, ruled unanimously that random drug testing of students violates the state constitution.

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Other states allow it. The U.S. Constitution allows it. But the Washington Supreme Court said Thursday that random drug testing of student athletes is not allowed under the state Constitution.

The decision involved athletes who sued the Wahkiakum School District in 1999 after the district began requiring students to undergo urine tests if they wanted to participate in sports. If the tests indicated drug or alcohol use, the student was suspended from sports but wasn't reported to police.

At the time, officials in the Southwest Washington school district felt there was a real problem with student drug use, especially among athletes. Public surveys named youth substance abuse as the No. 1 problem there.

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A court program that keeps some drug-using felons out of jail if they agree to a regimen of closely supervised addiction treatment will celebrate its 250th graduate Thursday.

Clark County's nine-year-old felony drug court requires accused felons to show up in court once a week, usually for more than a year, and to meet with probation officers and support groups.

Continuing drug tests are required, too. Two out of three people who start the program never finish. Since it began in 1999, 403 have been kicked out and another 101 have opted out of the deal. Leaving the program means jail or prison time.

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The artificial flowers packaged in a palm-sized glass tube cost less than $2, but at a North Seattle convenience store, the clerk keeps them in a Plexiglas case, knowing how easily the popular items can be shoplifted.

When a customer bought a few of the tubes, advertised as Wild Rose-brand novelties, the clerk made a suggestion.

"These ones are really good, too," she said, pointing to a box of pens with glass shafts.

When asked for what, the clerk hesitated. "I don't know what they're good for. They're just good."

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Kitsap's cities and county government have provided a financial Band-Aid of $30,000 for the drug court, which has faced an uncertain future since the loss of a critical federal grant in January.

Beyond those funds, however, local leaders have yet to find a long-term solution for the court.

"We're all going to work really hard to get this money reinstated on a permanent basis," said Bremerton Mayor Cary Bozeman, whose city contributed about $4,000 of the emergency funds. "But there are no easy answers."

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Re: "Smoking is healthy?" (editorial, 2-23).

Smoking may not be healthy. Then again, neither are criminal records. While studies have shown that marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug. If a doctor recommends marijuana to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and it helps that person feel better, then it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life issue best left to patients and their doctors.

Federal bureaucrats waging war on non-corporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention. The federal government's prescribed intervention for medical marijuana patients is handcuffs, jail cells and criminal records. This heavy-handed approach suggests that drug warriors are not well-suited to dictate health care decisions.

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Two Say They Were Forced To Work For No Pay

They came to Seattle Drug and Narcotic Center Inc. looking for help kicking heroin addictions, and were put to work.

Six days a week, they moved and sorted paper at SeaDruNar Recycling LLC, a for-profit recycling plant owned by the treatment center. They exhausted themselves week after week without a wage, keeping the multimillion-dollar operation going one pallet of paper at a time.

SeaDruNar managers called the program "work therapy" aimed at teaching ex-addicts how to work in the sober world. Some former clients take a different view.

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Well, no, smoking isn't actually healthy. But the American College of Physicians -- an association of internists -- recently decided that smoking marijuana is therapeutic, right?

Not quite. We need to draw a crucial distinction here. What a lot of people don't get -- and other people try to obscure -- is that the real argument about medical marijuana is about delivery, not content.

One guy who apparently doesn't get it is the writer of the Los Angeles Times article on the College's position paper. The story dwelt on marijuana advocates' glee that the ACP had joined their cause. It accurately noted the ACP's (accurate) conclusion that some of the chemicals in cannabis had medicinal value. But it left out a small detail: The College pointedly rejected the smoking of marijuana.

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Using addictive prescription drugs illegally is the same as using illicit drugs. Unless someone is bent on suicide, most deaths from either illicit or prescription substances are "accidental."

Those who use drugs to get high do so for amusement, not with death or addiction in mind. However, once under the influence of these mind-altering substances, they often do things they probably would never have done otherwise. In Heath Ledger's case, he likely lost track of what drugs, and how much of each, he had used.

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