America Lost Its War Against Drugs and It's Time to Fight a Different Battle, According to a Group Advocating the Legalization and Regulation of Drugs. Peter Christ is treasurer of a group called LEAP, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. He will be in Wilkes-Barre next week to meet with community groups and Luzerne County Commissioner Greg Skrepenak. LEAP, a group of retired law enforcement officials from across the world, has a simple message. "Prohibition does not work," Christ said. "Not only does it not work, it also creates problems that exist in our society." [continues 330 words]
Editor, This is in response to your editorial on alternative sentencing, published Sunday, May 2. Pennsylvania is not the only state grappling with overcrowded prisons. Throughout the nation, states facing budget shortfalls are pursuing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. A study conducted by the RAND Corporation found that every dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.48 in societal costs. There is far more at stake than tax dollars. The drug war is not the promoter of family values that some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Not only do the children lose out, but society as a whole does, too. [continues 102 words]
Editor: There is no prison reform or drug court that will alleviate our prison problems until we reform our drug laws. Criminals aren't the only ones filling up our prisons. What do you think happens to a parolee that tests positive for marijuana or is caught possessing even a tiny amount of marijuana? Or a second or third time simple possession offender? He or she will be sent back to prison, and taxpayers will be paying for their room and board. [continues 236 words]
State Attorney General Jerry Pappert was in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday warning area residents of the possible wave of prescription drug addictions and overdoses in Pennsylvania. He also spoke out on the dangers from the possible introduction of a time-released, highly addictive form of synthetic morphine, known as Palladone, which is being researched and manufactured by Purdue Pharma, the same company the introduced OxyContin. He also accused Purdue Pharma of not living up to its public commitments to reformulate OxyContin with an anti-abuse drug. [continues 494 words]
Alternative sentencing is not a free ride for drug offenders. Pennsylvania legislators and corrections officials need to get serious about our overcrowded prisons. This very dangerous problem puts guards and the public at risk and can no longer be kept on the back burner, especially when viable solutions have been languishing in the state Legislature for several years. It's time for our elected officials to support an alternative sentencing bill that will help alleviate prison overpopulation, save money and enhance public safety by reducing the chances that offenders will commit another crime. Introduced by Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, the alternative sentencing bill would allow judges to sentence hundreds of nonviolent criminals to drug or alcohol treatment programs instead of mandatory prison terms. Alternative sentencing is not a free ride for drug offenders. Under the proposal, prosecutors must first request that non-violent offenders be evaluated for treatment. Those approved by a judge would undergo 15 to 24 months of rehabilitation, including six months in prison followed by participation in a community-based treatment program and then an outpatient program. Inmates who fail or are expelled can be sent to jail for their maximum sentence. Aggressively treating non-violent drug abusers will cost far less than sending them to jail for five-year mandatory sentences. [continues 303 words]
Those involved should see harm they bring upon others. If Roberta and Dominic St. George had been standing in their living room Wednesday evening at 8, instead of sitting, they would have been innocent victims of a gang-warfare shooting, they say. John Need, too, could have been wounded or killed by the bullets that smashed a window of the house of John Need. If anyone had been sitting at the table or in the chair for the computer of Quinta Krombel, she said, "they would have been hit." [continues 170 words]
Two lieutenants who publicly spoke out about alleged drug smuggling, drug use and inept management at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility were suspended indefinitely with pay Monday night. Lieutenants John Barry and Genny Butczynski said despite their suspensions, they've heard from other prison officials that they might be fired by the end of the week. "I'm not surprised," Lt. Barry said of the suspensions. "The public has a right to know what's going on so they want to get rid of us." [continues 640 words]
It's been a tough two weeks to work at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility. A high-profile inmate made a daring escape last week. And now three corrections officers have been arrested along with two inmates on drug-related charges. The arrest of three corrections officers, said prison Capt. Al Ottensman, "is embarrassing, to say the least." Ottensman, who helped found the 7-year-old Straight-Up anti-drug program, which takes inmates into area schools to teach children about the dangers and consequences of drug use, said the arrest of the three officers reinforces a message he and Straight-Up co-founder Paul O'Malia have been trying to get across for years: drugs are not dependent on age or occupation. [continues 384 words]
An undercover drug probe at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, under way since last July, has produced the arrests of three prison guards and two inmates. Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas Thursday said the prison drug investigation has nothing to do with last week's prison break involving Hugo Selenski and Scott Bolton. "It's a separate matter," Lupas stated. The DA commended Warden Gene Fischi for helping to trigger the investigation by coming to him with information last July. At about the same time, state police investigators were gathering their own information relative to suspected illegal drug activity inside the prison. [continues 839 words]
Mention The Words "Methadone Clinic" And Northeastern Pennsylvania Residents Say, "Not Near My House, Or Business." They fear the clinics for the treatment of heroin addicts would draw a criminal element to their neighborhoods and devalue their properties. Such strong opposition in 1999 kept New Directions Treatment Services in Allentown from opening a methadone clinic in Old Forge. And while one recovering addict's methadone success story, as told by her father last week, shows the drug's benefits, neighbors of a proposed clinic in Plains Township will likely oppose it. [continues 496 words]
The issue of the methadone clinic proposed for Plains Township has sparked substantial debate about the drug problem in the Wyoming Valley and what to do about it. Luzerne-Wyoming Counties MHC, also known as Choices, recently applied to the Plains zoning office for an occupancy permit to open an outpatient clinic, which would include drug and alcohol counseling and methadone dispensing. The site of the clinic would be the Interstate Industrial Park, 307 Laird St., in part of a building housing the FMC Dialysis center. [continues 694 words]
Of all the wars the United States has fought, the modern-day war at home could be chronicled as the nation's most frustrating and dismal failure. It was almost two decades ago that Congress championed a national war on drugs with the pledge America would be drug-free by 1995. In 2003, that failed promise is long forgotten and drug abuse is worse than ever. Count in millions the lives broken or ended because of drug abuse. Count in millions the families and friends who experience heartbreak because of it. [continues 1909 words]
