I don't suppose a scientific study has been done yet to determine if today's meth makers are descendants of yesterday's moonshiners. Once Harvard, Yale or Princeton is mindful of this deficit, the race will be on. Results might go something like this: children of itinerant moonshiners found responsible for 90 percent of meth labs across the country. Belief is in the mind of the reader. Studies and surveys aside, our lovely triangle of the state apparently has its share of these modern-day lawbreakers. Hardly a week goes by that an incident isn't reported, sometimes with the heartening news that a confidential informant helped police make arrests. [continues 527 words]
Rogers Gets Funds For UNITE Program PIKEVILLE - A federally funded anti-drug program has entered what U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers called the "most expensive and most difficult" phase of its war on Eastern Kentucky's drug epidemic. After helping arrest nearly 1,300 street-level drug dealers since 2003, UNITE officials joined Rogers yesterday to help launch at least two drug-treatment centers in the mountains. "If our people cannot access the treatment they need, we will not be successful," Rogers told a crowd of local and state officials at Pikeville College. [continues 516 words]
HARLAN - Some judges in Eastern Kentucky are feeling pressure to release non-violent offenders because jails in the region aren't large enough to hold them all. "The system is packed," Harlan County Circuit Judge Ron Johnson said. "It puts a great deal of strain on a jail." Authorities have been making mass arrests of street-level drug dealers in some mountain counties. The anti-drug task force UNITE alone arrested 550 people in 29 counties last year. A drug bust last month helped to push the number of prisoners in the Harlan County Detention Center to 124, twice the number it was built to accommodate. [continues 214 words]
$9.5 Million To Go To Treatment Facilities PIKEVILLE - Gov. Ernie Fletcher unveiled a $9.5 million initiative yesterday to help pay for the construction and operation of 10 recovery centers across the state for drug addicts, especially those who are homeless. "We are engaging in a new strategy to overcome drug abuse in Kentucky with the establishment of housing recovery centers," Fletcher said in Pikeville, one of five stops he made yesterday to discuss the plan. Fletcher said he expects two of the recovery centers, part of a program he calls Recovery Kentucky, to be in Eastern Kentucky, where police are combating "an epidemic" of prescription drug abuse. [continues 368 words]
BOWLING GREEN - Studies have found that Kentucky's publicly funded system of drug and alcohol treatment is effective in helping methamphetamine abusers put down the powerfully addictive drug. Advocates say the state should dedicate more money for the programs. The University of Kentucky's Center on Drug and Alcohol Research studies of the past two years found that treatment helps significant numbers of addicts stop abusing all drugs, find full-time jobs and stay out of trouble. The studies also show that the treatment programs save the state money by cutting prosecution costs. [continues 490 words]
LOUISVILLE - Prosecutors say a court ruling has crippled their ability to punish people who make methamphetamine, an illicit drug that has become a scourge in many parts of Kentucky. The ruling by the Kentucky Supreme Court involved Ronald Kotila, who was found with 288 antihistamine tablets and most other ingredients to make meth. In reversing his conviction for manufacturing meth, the court said the law did not apply to him because he did not have a crucial ingredient in the meth-making recipe -- anhydrous ammonia. [continues 500 words]
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In the space of only a few years, methamphetamine has become an epidemic in Kentucky, splitting up families and wrecking lives. Since abuse of the drug began to increase in the late 1990s, the number of indictments for manufacturing and trafficking the drug has increased more than 450 percent, according to an analysis of court records by The Courier-Journal of Louisville. Louisville Metro Police Sgt. Adam Houghton likened the drug's rise to the emergence of crack cocaine in 1992. When crack first hit, police were unaware of the problem or what it would do. [continues 741 words]
Drug A Growing Danger To Ky.'s Young People Children scavenging for food in chaotic homes; burned or hurt by dangerous chemicals or explosions; so contaminated they have to be stripped and washed when they are found. These are not images from Fallujah or Calcutta, Afghanistan or the Congo. These are images from Kentucky. This year. Today. An initiative announced last week to train people to identify and help children who have been exposed to methamphetamine and its toxic production brought into focus some rarely seen victims of Kentucky's latest illegal drug of choice and profit. [continues 482 words]
Big Caseloads Threaten Quality Of Work, They Say SOMERSET - Public defenders pressed their case yesterday for more funding, saying large caseloads are threatening the quality of legal help for indigent people accused of crimes and causing great stress for attorneys who represent them. The caseload for attorneys in the Department of Public Advocacy jumped 12 percent, to an average of 489 cases per public defender, the most recent fiscal year. That is nearly twice the recommended level, said Ernie Lewis, head of the department. [continues 380 words]
In a major victory for the maker of OxyContin, the Ohio Supreme Court yesterday downgraded a closely watched lawsuit that accused the company of over-promoting the narcotic pain killer, injuring many people who took it. The state's high court, in a 4-3 decision, stripped away class-action certification granted to the suit in 2002 by a trial court in Butler County, near Cincinnati. That earlier decision had exposed Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut drug company, to a potentially huge damages verdict on behalf of every Ohio resident who claimed physical or emotional harm from the drug. [continues 481 words]
Louisville Owners Say Nothing Illegal Sold There LOUISVILLE - Two-foot-long papier-mache joints rest above one of the restaurant's doors and TV set. The menu offers Thai Stick, White Widow and Northern Lights -- sandwiches and salads, not strains of marijuana. Next to the cash register sits a 4-inch figurine of a man smoking a joint and a basket filled with "hemp brownies" and Rice Krispies bars. Pictures of men in Afros getting high decorate the walls. There's a marijuana leaf clock and a poster of a 1950s-style salesman with "marijuana" printed at the top and "Proud sponsors of ... um ... we forget!" on the bottom. [continues 505 words]
30,000 In State Likely Exposed To Toxins Thousands of Kentucky children may live inside hidden drug-producing labs, exposed daily to extremely dangerous chemicals and the risk of deadly explosions. Identifying them -- and giving the best medical treatment and support to children discovered during methamphetamine lab busts -- is the aim of a new partnership announced yesterday: Kentucky's Alliance for Drug Endangered Children. Some 66 children have been found living in 515 meth labs discovered in Kentucky, according to Kentucky State Police statistics through Dec. 6. It is thought that for every known lab, 10 to 15 more remain undiscovered. [continues 543 words]
They Often Prey On The Poor WHO Have Right To Protection I hope the critics of incarcerating violent and repeat offenders aren't suggesting that it is too expensive to try to protect everyone's safety. Residents of neighborhoods which are plagued by high crime rates are just as entitled to protection from crime as anyone else. As it is, far too much crime is committed by these violent and repeat offenders in less affluent neighborhoods. Furthermore, studies both in America and abroad have confirmed that a small percentage of criminal offenders are responsible for committing a large percentage of the crimes. [continues 640 words]
TRENTON, N.J. - New Jersey's heroin was found to be the purest in the nation for the second straight year, a dubious distinction that has sparked concern in the medical and law enforcement communities. Federal Drug Enforcement Agency tests of heroin samples obtained from New Jersey streets showed 71.4 percent purity in 2002, nearly twice the national average. In the 2003 report, due out soon, New Jersey again will hold the top spot, DEA spokesman Rusty Payne told The Star-Ledger of Newark. [continues 181 words]
Joshua's Dream Leases Motel As Faith-Based Reform Center One of Eastern Kentucky's most prominent faith-based recovery programs for drug addicts is planning a significant expansion. Joshua's Dream Foundation has signed a lease on a former Holiday Inn motel in Corbin and will begin moving in male residents Monday to start cleaning and preparing the facility for others, said Jeff Coots, executive director of the foundation. The foundation now has one residential facility atop a mountain in Perry County that can accommodate a total of about 50 men and women. [continues 480 words]
Officials For 3 States Hold Summit To Keep Mines Drug- And Alcohol-Free HAZARD - There are no statistics yet to show, or even estimate, how many coal miners in Eastern Kentucky have been injured or killed while high on drugs. When mining officials from three states met yesterday for an ambitious summit titled, "Keeping America's Mines Drug-and-Alcohol Free,"only one West Virginia miner showed up to talk about overcoming his addiction to the pain killer OxyContin. "When you're on it, you don't really think you're impaired," Danny Osborne Jr. told about 130 people at Hazard Community and Technical College. "You go to work to make money so you can buy more." [continues 365 words]
MCKEE - Drug detectives with a federally funded task force began investigations in Jackson County before the date a judge ruled they had jurisdiction to do so, raising questions on whether a number of cases or charges will be dismissed. Defense attorneys in the other 10 counties in Operation UNITE's Cumberland region could file similar challenges to the agency's authority, calling scores of drug arrests into question. "I do think there will be the same or similar challenges in those other counties," said Sharon K. Allen, a McKee attorney who contested UNITE's jurisdiction in Jackson County. [continues 717 words]
CANCUN, Mexico - Behind the glitzy playgrounds of Cancun is a growing drug war, fueled by widespread police corruption, the partial disruption of once-popular trafficking routes through Haiti, and a sudden turf battle between two of the country's main drug gangs. Three years after authorities thought they broke up the cocaine trade in Cancun, nine people have turned up dead. Investigators found a smuggling ring involving corruption at all levels of government, and it took even federal investigators by surprise. [continues 610 words]
Drug Task Force's Authority Is Upheld In the first ruling in state court on challenges to the authority of Operation UNITE, a judge yesterday ruled the federally funded drug task force had complied with the law and could make arrests in Owsley County. Defense attorneys had argued that UNITE had not properly filed agreements with county governments in its area before officers started investigations, meaning they had no authority to make the arrests. That challenge, along with similar ones pending in Jackson and Breathitt counties, had raised the potential for a number of drug cases or charges to be dismissed in the 29 counties UNITE covers in Eastern and south-central Kentucky. However, special Circuit Judge Lewis G. Paisley ruled yesterday that UNITE's officers had jurisdiction to make arrests in Owsley County because the fiscal court had approved agreements with the task force in 2003, before agents began investigating cases, according to Tom Jensen, UNITE's attorney. The issue in Owsley County, as in the others, was the interlocal agreement between UNITE and the county. [continues 231 words]
Msha, Mining Agencies Schedule Meetings HAZARD - Coal miners and mine operators will meet next week to discuss drug and alcohol abuse on the job. The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in conjunction with state mining agencies in Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia scheduled the daylong meeting for Wednesday at the Hazard Community and Technical College. Public health experts as well as representatives of industry, labor and state governments also are encouraged to attend the meeting, which begins at 8 a.m. [continues 131 words]
WASHINGTON - Many teen drivers say it's less dangerous to drive after smoking marijuana than after drinking alcohol, a perception the government wants to change. "Driving sober means no alcohol, no marijuana, no drugs," John Walters, the Bush administration's drug policy director, said yesterday as he showed a new television ad aimed at stopping teens from driving after smoking pot. Walters' office is spending $10 million on the ad and other efforts to teach teens and their parents about the danger of drugged driving. There also are brochures that are being distributed in high schools and state motor vehicle offices. [continues 207 words]
The saying that it is easier to be critical than correct comes to mind when reading Fayette County Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson's Nov. 22 commentary. Larson incorrectly asserts that the State Office of Drug Control Policy and I "appear to be seeking support of incarcerating fewer criminals who commit crimes because they are drug addicts." Let me set the record straight. In 2004, the State Office of Drug Control Policy led a Statewide Drug Control Assessment Summit, with 16 public meetings held from February through May. Input was received from more than 3,000 law enforcement and other interested citizens. (Larson, for whatever reason, did not attend the Lexington meeting.) In addition, 1,952 surveys on how to combat drug abuse were completed as part of the initiative. [continues 164 words]
It saddened me to read Ray Larson's Nov. 22 commentary, "Tough sentences make state, nation safer," in which he quoted cold statistics about how the mandatory minimum guidelines have helped cut crime. These statistics represent real people who have children and parents. I know law-breaking should be punished. But the long sentences given to first-time non-violent offenders are increasing the prison population at an alarming rate. An editorial from the Los Angeles Times gave a case in point about a first-time, non-violent offender -- Weldon Angelos, 25, of Salt Lake City -- who was given 55 years because he refused to plea bargain. The judge decried the required term as "unjust, cruel and even irrational." He has appealed to President Bush to commute the sentence. [continues 146 words]
Fund, Expand Drug Treatment Program When Lt. Gov. Steve Pence says that "we cannot and will not incarcerate our way out of this drug problem," people should sit up and listen. A former federal prosecutor, Pence has spent the better part of a year leading a search for answers to Kentucky's drug abuse crisis. Any effective solution, he says, will require a greater commitment to education, demand-reduction and treatment, while continuing to stress enforcement. Incarceration alone may not be the answer, but it can provide a perfect opportunity for the other critical elements: education, demand-reduction and treatment. [continues 341 words]
Justices Seem Skeptical Of Proponents' Arguments WASHINGTON - The effort by advocates of the medical use of marijuana to link their cause to the Supreme Court's federalism revolution appeared headed for failure yesterday. During a lively argument, the justices expressed little inclination to view drug policy as an issue of states' rights by which California and other states that have adopted "compassionate use" marijuana measures can displace federal regulation of homegrown marijuana distributed to patients without charge and without crossing state lines. [continues 636 words]
Program Targets Hard-Hit Areas SOMERSET - Schools in an area of the state hit hard by substance abuse will soon have counselors available to help students who have problems with drugs. The federally funded Operation UNITE program will pay for 31 counselors to work in its 29-county area of Eastern and south-central Kentucky. The counselors will try to intervene in cases where students are using drugs, and will work with students who have problems because of substance abuse in their families. [continues 678 words]
Issue Is Federal Law Versus State Law WASHINGTON - The marijuana she smokes every two waking hours makes life bearable for Angel Raich. It eases the pain from an inoperable brain tumor, scoliosis and several other permanent disabilities. It's the only thing her doctors will prescribe, because she has severe allergies that cause violent reactions to traditional medicine. In Oakland, Calif., where Raich lives, that's no problem. A 1996 state law permits patients to grow and smoke marijuana on doctors' recommendations. [continues 389 words]
OWENSBORO - A pair of Kentuckians looking to get ingredients for methamphetamine traveled to Atlanta, where they bought nearly 7,000 pills containing pseudo-ephedrine from a wholesaler, court documents show. Now Dennis B. Cartwright, 51, and Vanessa Lynn Jennings, 25, are facing charges of criminal attempt to manufacture methamphetamine and unlawful possession of a methamphetamine precursor. Police in Kentucky have found that, since stricter laws regulating meth ingredients were passed, more people are traveling outside the state to gather ingredients to make the drug that has fueled an epidemic in rural Western Kentucky. [continues 318 words]
But Success Story Could Have Sad Ending For Lack Of Funds When William Holland arrived at the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center, he had a habit of half-an-ounce of crack cocaine a day. His emotions were roiling, he said. He couldn't wait to get out. In August, Holland, 34, enrolled in the Hope Therapeutic Program, which provides drug and alcohol treatment inside the jail. Five days a week, he takes classes that break down the 12 steps of recovery. [continues 868 words]
2 Agree Robbery to Get Money for Meth Went Bad CHEYENNE, Wyo. - In their first public interview since attacking gay college student Matthew Shepard, his killers said they were motivated not by homophobia, but the prospect of robbery to fuel a methamphetamine binge. "He was pretty well-dressed, had a wallet full of money," Aaron McKinney said of meeting Shepard at a Laramie bar in October 1998. "All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him. ... Seemed like a good idea at the time." [continues 341 words]
The term "criminal justice" sounds strange to me; but unfortunately, it's accurate. Criminals usually do receive justice, but their victims don't. It seems sure that University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson, who wrote Kentucky's penal code, has not lost a loved one to someone who has been in our penal system for a so-called minor crime, such as a drug offense. Drug offenders are given many chances to rehabilitate themselves. The court system gives the drug offender every possible break. Criminals almost always return to the same old lifestyle and end up hurting other individuals and not themselves. [continues 78 words]
I fear that Kentuckians are about to repeat the horrible mistake we made when we stopped sending criminals to prison in the 1960s and '70s. It has taken law enforcement 20 years to bring the crime rate back down, but either we did not learn our lesson or today's criminal justice policy-makers don't rank the public's safety and security as a priority. Lt. Gov. Steve Pence and state Office of Drug Control Policy appear to be seeking support for incarcerating fewer people who commit crimes because they are drug addicts. And Robert Lawson, a longtime University of Kentucky law professor who has studied the prison population rates in Kentucky over the past 30 years, says we are incarcerating too many convicted criminals. [continues 600 words]
Kentucky seems disinterested in saving the many lives lost each year to alcoholism and drug dependence. For most people -- including adolescents or mothers of infants -- there's no such thing as treatment on demand, much less free or affordable treatment on demand. There is at least a one-to four-month waiting list for treatment beds. It's usually impossible for alcoholics and addicts needing treatment to stay sober and clean for even a few days. Those who must wait for a month or longer to get in-patient help often die before they get in. In my practice in New Jersey, one of my clients -- an employed but uninsured 24-year-old -- hung himself four days before a new fiscal year started, four days before there would have been a treatment bed for him. [continues 478 words]
30 Of 60 Killings Involved Use, Trafficking LOUISVILLE - Drugs are playing a major role in the increased rate of killings in Louisville this year, police say. Of the city's 60 homicides this year, police say 30 were related to drug use or trafficking. Last year, the city recorded 51 homicides. Police Chief Robert White said last week he doesn't believe the number of killings warrants a new approach. "For the most part our approach is sound. It's enforcement, intervention and prevention." [continues 254 words]
Legal Experts Revising Federal Guidelines WASHINGTON - Judges and legal scholars are working on new federal criminal sentencing guidelines, in anticipation that the Supreme Court will strike down a 17-year-old system that has been challenged as unconstitutional. Since last June's high court decision raised questions about the legality of the system, 30,000 cases have backed up. The court now is considering whether the guidelines must be replaced because they call for judges, not juries, to consider factors that can add years to prison sentences. [continues 597 words]
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Afghanistan is on its way to becoming a "narco-state" and U.S. and NATO-led forces in the country should get involved in fighting the drug trade as well as terrorists, according to a U.N. report released Thursday. "It would be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it from the Taliban and al-Qaida," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The agency found that this year's cultivation of opium - the raw material for heroin - was up by nearly two-thirds. Bad weather and disease kept production from setting a new record, although it still accounted for 87 percent of world supply, up from 76 percent in 2003. [continues 394 words]
State Must Assess High Incarceration Rate As the principal drafter of the state's penal code and its rules of evidence, Robert Lawson wrote the book on criminal justice in Kentucky. Now, the longtime University of Kentucky law professor has written a report that suggests we are throwing the book at too many convicted criminals, locking them up at unnecessarily high rates and for unnecessarily long sentences, thereby driving the state's incarceration costs to unsustainable levels. Although prosecutors say the increased number of people being held in the state's prisons and jails translate to increased public safety on the outside, the numbers Lawson cites in his report make a compelling argument that the "lock them up and throw away the key" mentality has gone a bit overboard in Kentucky. [continues 371 words]
Jurisdiction Challenge Shouldn't Disrupt Drug Cases We're all for protecting the public from vigilante police swooping down and making arrests where they have no authority. Such disrespect for jurisdictional boundaries would threaten civil liberties. But no such threat is apparent in the questions being raised about a regional drug task force's jurisdiction in 10 southeastern Kentucky counties. The legal challenge to the task force's authority is based on a technical foul up: The required cross-county operating papers were filed with the wrong clerk in the Jackson County Courthouse. [continues 254 words]
Today's topic: Rimonabant NEW YORK - A pill that helps you lose weight and quit smoking? That was amazing enough to capture headlines last week. But scientists say the experimental drug might be even more versatile, providing a new tool to help people stop abusing drugs and alcohol, too. It's called rimonabant, or Acomplia, and last week, researchers reported it could help people not only lose weight but keep it off for two years. That burnished the drug's reputation after two studies in March suggested it could fight both obesity and smoking, two of humanity's biggest killers. [continues 409 words]
State Laws Filling Prisons, Straining Taxpayers LOUISVILLE - Kentucky's prison population has exploded by 600 percent since 1970 and will keep growing because of "irrational" penalties enacted by lawmakers, a study by a respected law professor says. The study by University of Kentucky law professor Robert Lawson, who wrote Kentucky's penal code, says the burden on taxpayers has increased exponentially. The state's budget for housing state prisoners has risen from $7 million to more than $300 million since 1970 and is threatening to bankrupt the system, Lawson wrote in the 72-page report. [continues 347 words]
NEW YORK - A pill that helps you lose weight and quit smoking? That was amazing enough to capture headlines last week. But scientists say the experimental drug might be even more versatile, providing a new tool to help people stop abusing drugs and alcohol, too. It's called rimonabant, or Acomplia, and last week researchers reported it could help people not only lose weight but keep it off for two years. That burnished the drug's reputation after two studies in March, which suggested it could fight both obesity and smoking, two of humanity's biggest killers. [continues 421 words]
Proposal Is Aimed At Curbing Meth EVANSVILLE, Ind. - A proposal to help authorities crack down on the illegal methamphetamine trade by restricting access to over-the-counter medications would mean longer waits for cold medicines at Indiana's pharmacies. People suffering from the common cold can currently buy medicines containing pseudoephedrine, an essential ingredient of meth, by grabbing a package off a pharmacy's shelf and paying for it. But a state task force has proposed tight restrictions that would require a customer to go to the pharmacist's window, sign a log book and present a valid photo ID before getting the sniffle-relieving drug. [continues 250 words]
RICHMOND - Madison and Clark counties, which together have the state's highest rate of drug-related juvenile offenses, are creating a court to try to solve the problem. The counties recently received a $450,000 federal grant to set up a Juvenile Drug Court. District Judge Brandy O. Brown, who has worked with District Judge Jeffrey Walson to create the court, said she hopes it is fully running in both counties by January. There are 11 juvenile drug courts and 16 adult courts in Kentucky, serving 55 counties. They are becoming popular for treating, rather than simply punishing, offenders. [continues 177 words]
Task Force Seeks To Quantify, Solve Problem FRANKFORT - State and federal mining officials are forming a task force to analyze the extent of on-the-job drug and alcohol use in mines -- and find a way to stop it. They're also teaming up for a campaign aimed at educating miners about the dangers of being impaired at work, officials said yesterday at a news conference. "Miners who are sober and straight are in the mines, and they're afraid," said LaJuana Wilcher, secretary of the Kentucky Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet. [continues 272 words]
LOUISVILLE - An Eastern Kentucky coal company has been fined more than half a million dollars for violations stemming from a June 2003 explosion that killed a miner, injured two others and renewed focus on drug use in mining. The $536,050 fine is the largest federal penalty ever in the state and the third largest in the nation against a coal operator or contractor, a federal mining official said. Investigators cited Cody Mining last year for violations that they say contributed to the miner's death, including poor mining practices, failure to identify obvious hazards and detonation of an excessive amount of explosives. [continues 522 words]
I was disappointed that the Herald-Leader does not support my decision to establish a Kentucky Bureau of Investigation within the Office of the Attorney General. I am convinced that consolidating investigative personnel into a single unit will greatly promote the management of law enforcement operations and training, particularly in the fight against the illegal drug trade and public corruption. My office is charged with joint enforcement of the Uniform Controlled Substances Act and has long been active in combating drug crime. The structure of the KBI is designed to enhance this duty, as well as to provide other critical services. [continues 367 words]
Most people stop and stare, then express some sort of displeasure. But the reaction Fayette Commonwealth's Attorney Ray Larson ultimately hopes to acquire from a ghoulish-looking woman pictured on a new anti-methamphetamine poster? Fear. At 10 a.m. today, Larson will be at the Fayette County Schools central offices to discuss the launch of a new drug-awareness program to help educate high school students about the dangers of using methamphetamine. Meth labs have been springing up throughout Kentucky, and Larson hopes the new program can deter drug use. [continues 171 words]
Lawyer Says Task Force Paperwork Is Faulty A legal challenge to the authority of some drug detectives in southern Kentucky raises the threat of charges being dismissed in numerous cases. The issue centers on whether Operation UNITE properly filed the agreement under which local officers work as part of the federally funded multi-county task force. McKee attorney Sharon K. Allen has argued that UNITE officers did not have jurisdiction to investigate cases in Jackson County or arrest a woman she represents, in part because the agency filed its operating agreement with the county in the wrong courthouse office. [continues 718 words]
Stumbo Diverging From State Anti-drug Team Attorney General Greg Stumbo certainly has a right to restructure the various agencies in his office. Within limits, he also has a right to plug whatever names he chooses into the slots of his new organizational chart. What Stumbo ought not do, though, is to start an unnecessary turf battle in this state's war on illegal drugs. Unfortunately, that appears to be what Stumbo is doing by reorganizing several divisions of the attorney general's office into something he calls the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation and by making drugs the main focus of the new agency. [continues 246 words]
CHICAGO - Mayor Richard Daley, a former prosecutor, runs the nation's third-largest city with a pragmatic, law-and-order style. He wears his hair short, and you'll never catch him in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. So when he starts complaining about the colossal waste of time and money involved in prosecuting small-time marijuana cases, people take notice. "This is absolutely a big deal," said Andy Ko, director of the Drug Policy Reform Project for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington state. "You've got a mayor in a major American city ... coming out in favor of a smart and fair and just drug policy." [continues 656 words]
