To The Editor: Your urgent call for our state's lawmakers to outlaw the sale of urine ("State should outlaw urine kits," Thursday), is devoid of evidence or reasoning to support the necessity, practicality or effectiveness of such a measure. Monkey-see monkey-do imitation of our neighbor and a local policeman's off-handed opinion hardly justify plunging further into this sort of legislative dadaism. We're not talking about banning the sale of heroin to schoolchildren here. This is truly world-class idiocy, even to a public whose senses have been narcotized by the unceasing procession of loopy laws, asinine acts, silly statutes and ridiculous regulations characterizing the unsurprisingly unsuccessful war on drugs. [continues 86 words]
North Carolina should follow the example set by South Carolina and make selling urine to defraud a drug screening test illegal. There's something wrong when a person can be convicted in South Carolina of a felony for selling urine to help probationers, prospective employees and others fraudulently pass drug tests, but the same act is legal in North Carolina. A Greenville, S.C., jury convicted Kenneth Curtis on Friday under a 1999 South Carolina law that makes it illegal to sell urine to help people beat drug tests. [continues 422 words]
To The Editor: Regarding the story of Mr. Kevin Collins' receiving a letter from the Hendersonville Police Department informing him that he had been observed in a high crime area late at night, I have to agree with his objections. While not a perfect parallel it immediately brought to mind those situations where women are blamed for their own rapes because they exercised their constitutional rights to travel through the "wrong" neighborhoods. Another sore point for me was raised in the police's rationale for warning car owners about lending a car that could be used in a drug transaction. The car can be seized. [continues 53 words]
Kevin Collins thought it was a joke when he received the bright yellow index card from the Hendersonville Police Department in the mail. "Mr. Kevin Alexander Collins, it was reported to the Police Department that your vehicle, a silver 1988 Mazda ... was recently observed in an area of Hendersonville known for illegal drug activity," according to the message on the index card. "We feel that you should be made aware that this area is being watched by law enforcement and also that your vehicle is subject to seizure and forfeiture if illegal drugs are found to be in the vehicle." [continues 927 words]
GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) A judge has sentenced a man to six months in prison for selling urine to beat drug tests. Jurors took two hours Friday to make Kenneth Curtis the first person to be convicted under a 1999 South Carolina law that makes it illegal to sell urine for defrauding a drug tests. He used to operate out of Greenville, but has moved to Hendersonville. Curtis also was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. [continues 240 words]
Two Hendersonville men were sentenced to time in prison recently after they pleaded guilty to drug crimes and being habitual felons. The men, 34-year-old Kenneth Mathis of High Point Apartments and 23-year-old Darius Powers of 717 Conner Ave., pleaded guilty Oct. 12 in Henderson County Superior Court. Mathis pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and to being a habitual felon, Assistant District Attorney Corey Ellis said. He was sentenced to between eight and 10 years in prison after pleading guilty. [continues 117 words]
Large numbers of Henderson County children need help that the community should be providing, but there are gaps in service some children are falling through. Good thing a group of civic-minded people are evaluating where those gaps are and developing a plan for filling them. Such a plan is necessary to assure that Henderson County is doing all it can to give children a chance to succeed in life. The Strategic Plan for Children was requested by the Henderson County commissioners earlier this year. A committee formed of members from The Children and Family Resource Center board, Juvenile Crime Prevention Council and the community is putting the plan together. [continues 357 words]
To The Editor: Last week, the Bush administration announced that the United States is giving Afghanistan a gift of $43 million. The Taliban controls this country. These people enslave their girls and women. This government also provides sanctuary to Osma bin Laden, one of the world's most dangerous terrorists. The United States government has publicly denounced the human rights practices of the Taliban. Our government has also publicly denounced Afghanistan for its association with Osma bin Laden. It seems to me that this so-called gift is directly supporting the enslavement of females in Afghanistan and terrorism at the same time! [continues 67 words]
To The Editor: On March 25, I went to see Traffic, a film that later that evening won four Oscars. I was surprised to see the majority of the audience was 60 and older. The film showed a realistic view of one corner of the drug war. Many great points were made, but they're too numerous to list. I am in my 40s with two school-age children, and I see the drug war as a failed effort. It was a hard decision to come to as, like most all parents, I'd like to see our children grow up without confronting drugs. However, like the decision Michael Douglas comes to in the film, I find it disturbing that our longest war in the history of the United States is waged against our own family members. [continues 164 words]
To The Editor: I am responding to Stephen Black's article "The real way to fight drugs," published last Saturday. I respect Stephen so for this article of "truth." There are so many hypocrites out there preaching to everyone about addictions. Now, in my opinion, there are hundreds of addictions -- food, tobacco, alcohol, antidepressants, sex, shopping, exercise, rage, etc. The list goes on and on. These are all as serious as the "drugs" that we parents, pastors, teachers, law officers, doctors, are referring to with Just Say No To Drugs bumper stickers on our cars. [continues 150 words]
Just say no to drugs." I see where the DARE program is considered a failure by many. I don't know if we can judge the program without taking in more factors. The DARE program was never meant to be a panacea for all human trouble and pain. Any drug program can only work in conjunction with a drug-free home life. I don't know how many times I've seen a car sporting a DARE bumper sticker, and the driver is smoking a cigarette. [continues 505 words]
To The Editor: Susan Hanley Lane's Nov. 20 column on the passage of Proposition 36 in California, which will divert nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison, was right on target. In prioritizing approaches to drug abuse, she was right to put education and treatment at the top of the list. The growing support for public health approaches to substance abuse is long overdue. With violent crime rates continuing along a downward trend, the drug war is the main reason the Land of the Free now has the highest incarceration rate in the world. [continues 185 words]
One thing we can all bow our heads and give thanks for this Thursday is the light shining at the end of the tunnel, all the way from California. With the passage of Proposition 36, the citizens of California have finally given their state government permission to open up a new front in the war on drugs. Anyone who has ever watched a loved one go through the nightmare of drug addiction can testify that most addicts are not hardened criminals. A great many of the addicts who waste their days in prison cells would be far better served with treatment for their addiction. [continues 859 words]
Are harsh sentences for all drug offenders wise? Voters in at least two states will decide that this fall, even as Congress and many state legislatures debate the issue. Billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who bankrolled successful ballot drives for legalizing medical marijuana, is financing the latest initiatives. In California and Massachusetts, voters are being asked to create new laws that would require the option of treatment alternatives, not mandatory sentences. Massachusetts also would place stricter controls on law enforcement's ability to seize cash and property during drug arrests. [continues 595 words]
HINDMAN, Ky. -- Call it green lightning, the seedling crop of countless hidden marijuana patches now stippling the springtime "hollers" of Appalachia the way moonshine stills used to when Sheriff Wheeler Jacobs was a boy. "Moonshine's a lost art around here," said Sheriff Jacobs, driving up a back road near Yellow Mountain, a remote place he has watched blossom as a local cornucopia of marijuana. "Moonshine went out in the late 70's, just when marijuana started big around here." As the sheriff wheeled about his domain recently, he could think of only two tired old moonshiners left in these hills, in contrast to the 54 youthful "holler dopers" arrested the last two years here in Knott County alone. [continues 1029 words]
Raleigh (AP) - Splitting with the federal courts, the state Court of Appeals has ruled again that North Carolina's taxes on illegal drugs are not a criminal penalty. Joan Gore Milligan sued the state for a refund of the $12,252,95 in taxes and penalties she was charged after drug agents seized more than 2,200 grams of marijuana in a 1995 raid at her home. She paid the taxes under protest. In her lawsuit, she said the state taxes on marijuana and other drugs amount to a criminal penalty that is levied without due process, which would place her in unconstitutional double jeopary when criminal charges also are filed. [continues 111 words]
