Two Washington state men with gold teeth who smuggled guns into Canada and drugs into the U.S. have been jailed.

Donald Jamar Lewis, 27, was sentenced Friday to 16 years and Flenard Neal, 25, got 14 years.

"We hope that we never find a person was killed by one of the guns you trafficked up there [to Canada]," Judge Ronald Leighton said in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

Neal was arrested in December 2005 trying to enter the U.S. with marijuana and ecstasy pills stuffed into the doors of his car.

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An Everett medical marijuana advocate is outraged that drug agents served a search warrant on his home, confiscated hundreds of marijuana plants, and took computers and other records.

Steve Sarich said those records contained personal information of about 200 people associated with his organization CannaCare.

The raid was Friday at his north Everett home, where he runs the organization. He gives marijuana starter plants to people eligible to use medical marijuana under state law.

"We don't sell any pot," Sarich said. "What they were doing is harassing us to get patient names. It was a political assassination."

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When a drug task force raided the homes of Steve Sarich and John Worthington last week, the two men loudly proclaimed it was retaliation for their support of medical marijuana.

It was a "political assassination," said Sarich, who runs an advocacy organization called CannaCare.

Some might say the two men are misplacing blame, especially considering the size of Sarich's marijuana garden, which at one point filled almost a full floor in his Northeast Everett home. But a close look at court documents suggests that, in some ways, their activism did lead law enforcement straight to their doors. According to court documents, a multiagency drug task force found and confiscated more than 1,500 marijuana plants in Sarich's home and a handful in Worthington's. Neither man has been arrested or charged.

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Plants, Computers and Cash Seized in Everett

Drug enforcement agents raided the Everett headquarters of an advocacy group for medical marijuana patients, confiscating what police documents say was more than 1,000 plants and computers that the owners say contain personal information of about 200 men and women authorized to use the drug for medicinal purposes.

So far, no one has been arrested or charged with a crime. Fearful of potential repercussions and unsure of the officers' ultimate aim, patients in the CannaCare network of marijuana users have been "laying low," said one, terrified that they may be prosecuted for using a substance authorized by their physicians.

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Emergency department physician Jack Stump, who first sounded an alarm about methamphetamine in the early 1990s, shows a PET scan reflecting how drugs erode the brain. The red-colored portions are the most damaged. (DAVE OLSON/The Columbian)

Years before brain scans proved his theory, Dr. Jack Stump figured the toxic brew known as methamphetamine irreversibly damaged the areas that control behavior and emotion.

An emergency room doctor in Medford, Ore., in the early 1990s, Stump saw a steady increase in meth users.

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I'm writing about Don Jacobson's Jan. 11 letter, "End this war." The war in Iraq is over. We won. What we have now is an occupation of Iraq. Occupations cannot be won. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty?

Our so-called drug war and our war and occupation of Iraq are very similar. Both were started with lies and under false pretenses. The so-called war on drugs cannot be won. Who is going to surrender and sign the peace treaty?

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War on drugs? Please. This is Seattle. You know how we roll. You don't? According to one recent nationwide survey, we're not the sorts to be high on life.

If you live here, you're among the country's second-most-frequent users of some illicit substance or the other. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health released this month shows that among the 15 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, Seattle ranks second in drug use. Note that the study considers marijuana an illicit drug, along with the likes of crack and heroin.

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Washington asparagus growers might get a break in the new Democrat-controlled Congress.

They sure need it.

The industry has been decimated by a U.S. drug policy designed to encourage Peruvian coca-leaf growers to switch to asparagus. Passed in 1990 and since renewed, the Andean Trade Preferences and Drugs Eradication Act permits certain products from Peru and Colombia, including asparagus, to be imported to the United States tariff-free.

The act was set to expire Dec. 31, but Congress approved a six-month extension to make time to negotiate a proposed free-trade agreement.

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The recent demise of the popular DARE drug education program in West Richland illustrates the challenges small cities face as costs rise beyond their ability to bring in money, city officials said.

The city council approved its $26.5 million 2007 budget, minus DARE. Although cutting DARE was a cost-saving measure, the real issue was how the police department should allocate its limited number of officers, said City Administrator Mark Panther.

Small cities such as West Richland have struggled since voters approved a spate of initiatives between 1999 and 2003 that limited state and local governments' abilities to levy motor vehicle and property taxes.

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What could possibly be the connection between school desegregation and the mystifying phrase "Bong Hits 4 Jesus?" Something critically important, it turns out. Both have spurred legal battles that have risen to the U.S. Supreme Court, and both demonstrate that a public school system that demands everyone's support but can only reflect some people's values will inevitably lead to conflict.

In mid-December, the Court heard arguments on school integration cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., in which plaintiffs challenge enrollment policies that consider race in deciding who can attend specific public schools.

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As 2006 draws to a close, drug-enforcement officials in Washington say they have destroyed more than 130,000 marijuana plants this year as part of a joint state and federal eradication effort.

That's nearly the same as last year, when a record 135,000 plants were destroyed under the Washington Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said in a news release.

This year's seizures have led to more than 340 arrests and 190 weapons seizures.

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CLATSKANIE - Oregon State Police, following up on a tip from the Washington State Patrol, seized approximately 105 marijuana plants Friday afternoon from a Clatskanie-area residence. No arrests were made but the case is being referred to the Columbia County District Attorney's Office for review.

According to a news release from OSP, on Friday WSP troopers stopped a 2006 Dodge Ram pickup driven by Darrel R. Lundeen, 58, of Clatskanie, for speeding on Interstate 205 southbound near milepost 35. During the stop, WSP troopers arrested Lundeen after finding individual packages of marijuana totaling 175 grams, as well as drug paraphernalia, in Lundeen's vehicle, the news release said

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Pick your week or month, the evidence keeps rolling in to show this country's vaunted "war on drugs" is as destructively misguided as our cataclysmic error in invading Iraq.

There are 2.2 million Americans behind bars, another 5 million on probation or parole, the Justice Department reported on Nov. 30. We exceed Russia and Cuba in incarcerations per 100,000 people; in fact, no other nation comes close. The biggest single reason for the expanding numbers? Our war on drugs -- a quarter of all sentences are for drug offenses, mostly nonviolent.

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I used to think that I wanted to be famous. Really famous. I wanted to be so famous that kids dressed up as me for Halloween. I wanted to be so famous that Dale Chihuly would beg me for permission to create a life-sized ornate art-bong in my likeness. Not that I would know anything about that sort of thing, of course.

Well, that's not fully true. I know a bit about the marijuana thing. I know, or rather, I believe that the stuff should be undemonized, decriminalized and, yes, even fully legalized. If marijuana were legal, about a billion Christmas present dilemmas would be solved.

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This is about me, my mugger and Milton Friedman.

I was alone on a New York subway platform, when a man started toward me. His glassy eyes foretold what was to happen. He pointed at the flute case I was carrying and said, "Give it to me."

Pulling the case back, I said "no," at which point he snapped open a knife and pointed it at my ribs. I then held out the flute, squeaking, "Take it." He grabbed the instrument and ran off.

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The 84-Month Jail Term Is Due to a Law That Allows Drug Dealers to Be Punished When Their Clients Die.

Shane Jesmer was an expert snowboarder who dreamed of someday competing in the Olympics.

When he broke a collarbone in 2004, he made the mistake of seeking out a drug dealer to help him cope with the pain.

The dealer, Raoul Mahon Keith, sold him a lethal amount of methadone and on Wednesday was sentenced to 84 months in prison under a seldom-used state charge, "controlled substance homicide."

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OLYMPIA -- A voter-approved initiative allowing doctors to recommend medicinal marijuana does not apply to cases where the doctor is licensed outside of the state of Washington, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

"The initiative could have, but did not, define a qualifying doctor as one with a valid license from any state," Justice Tom Chambers wrote in the 6-3 majority decision.

Initiative 692 passed in 1998 with 59 percent of the vote. It gives doctors the right to recommend -- but not prescribe -- marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other conditions that cause "intractable pain."

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Doctor Approval - Washington's Top Court Rules on Who Can Give Recommendations for Use

OLYMPIA -- A voter-approved initiative allowing doctors to recommend medicinal marijuana does not apply to cases where the doctor is licensed outside the state of Washington, the Washington Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

"The initiative could have, but did not, define a qualifying doctor as one with a valid license from any state," Justice Tom Chambers wrote in the 6-3 majority decision.

Initiative 692 passed in 1998 with 59 percent of the vote. It gives doctors the right to recommend -- but not prescribe -- marijuana for people suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other conditions that cause "intractable pain."

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As a representative of the Drug Policy Forum of Oregon, I can attest to the fact that as cannabis research continues, we find more medically viable uses for this ancient friend of humanity. This research is carried out mostly on foreign soil because the U.S. government will not fund studies looking for positive aspects to cannabis. There are many medical uses for cannabis. Recent findings show cannabis may be effective in stopping or slowing memory loss in Alzheimer's patients. Cannabis is useful in treating multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, in treating the nausea of cancer and HIV patients who rely on heavy toxic pharmaceutical regimens and many other conditions.

Even the Drug Enforcement Administration's own administrative law judge, Francis Young, stated in 1988 that cannabis "in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

Allan Erickson

Eugene, Ore.

[end]

Regarding Lea Palleria Cox's Nov. 14 letter, "Marijuana is not 'medicine,'" if Cox thinks marijuana is not medicine, she is certainly free to not use it. Hopefully Cox will not become a victim of multiple sclerosis, AIDS, glaucoma, arthritis or have cancer and need chemotherapy treatments that cause acute nausea and total loss of appetite. Because marijuana treats all of these diseases and many more.

Marijuana is a natural herb. Like many other natural herbs, it has medicinal qualities, but because it's a natural product it cannot be patented. So the pharmaceutical industry cannot profit from it.

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