Iowa historically has been an island of sanity on prisons, especially when compared to states such as Texas and California. Iowa long believed that prison should be the last option. That has changed in recent decades, however, and Iowa has racked up some of the fastest prison-growth rates in the nation.

In the past 20 years, the state's prison population has tripled - to 8,727 inmates as of Tuesday. At the same time, the number of convicts in community-based corrections programs has doubled, to more than 30,000. In the past decade alone, those two populations combined increased by nearly 60 percent.

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Waterloo, Ia. -- Barack Obama said today that he doesn't believe Americans see his teenage drug use as relevant to his candidacy as president.

"I can't say how Americans think generally about it. I do think that the average American believes that what somebody does when they were a teenager 30 years ago is probably not relevant to how they are going to be performing as commander in chief and president of the United States," Obama said during a press conference. "I think people have pretty good judgment about that."

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Democratic presidential contender Chris Dodd said Monday that he thinks children should hear warnings about the dangers of drugs as early as first grade.

His comments on expanding drug education came after an Urbandale teen told Dodd she is troubled that she knows a lot of people who use or have used methamphetamine, including her brother.

Dodd, a U.S. senator from Connecticut, held a campaign discussion about policies to help women and families at the House of Mercy, which provides drug rehabilitation and other services for women in Des Moines.

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It seemed like such a sure-fire concept when founded in 1983: Have cops teach kids about the dangers of drugs in hopes they'll never use them.

But the facts are that DARE - Drug Abuse Resistance Education - isn't as effective as once thought.

That's why we agree with the Mason City School District's decision to end the program after more than 20 years.

As is often the case in operating schools, it came down to the best use of available personnel.

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Grinnell, Ia. - America needs to reconsider its punitive approach to "the so-called war on drugs," presidential candidate John Edwards said here today.

"We're not going to build enough prisons to solve this problem," he told a crowd of about 800 at Grinnell College.

The former North Carolina senator grinned when a young man sitting behind him on stage asked about drug policy. "Only on college campuses," Edwards joked before answering.

He said he's especially concerned about mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug offenders, which he said should be reconsidered. He added that too few drug offenders get treatment.

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MASON CITY - After more than 20 years as part of the fifth-grade curriculum, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program is gone from Mason City public schools.

The program was suspended five weeks ago when the officer teaching the course was placed on medical leave.

The absence left the district with a choice: Use one of its two school resource officers to teach the program or discontinue the program. All of the officers are employees of the Mason City Police Department.

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Despite what might be perceived as University of Iowa students dotting the police blotter for alcohol-related citations every weekend, the number of students with non-traffic criminal offenses fell to its lowest number in six years last year.

Twenty-five percent fewer students were charged in 2006-07 compared with the previous academic year, falling from 1,678 to 1,274. Of those, there were 1,239 alcohol-related charges, including 400 for public intoxication and 621 for underage drinking topping the list.

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Iowa still ranks in the nation's top 10 for the rate of addiction, and the number of people seeking treatment has gone down only slightly.

Iowa's meth problem - once among the worst in the country - hasn't disappeared even as meth lab seizures have plummeted.

Since Iowa enacted a pseudoephedrine-control law in 2005, meth lab seizures in the state dropped 77 percent in 2006 compared with two years before, according to the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy.

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Troops who are fighting the war on drugs across Iowa gathered Wednesday night for a round-table discussion with the state's drug czar.

About 20 people turned out at Ankeny City Hall to talk with Gary Kendall, director of the Governor's Office of Drug-Control Policy. The meeting was billed as the first in a series of sessions for sharing information and comparing strategies in the pursuit of cleansing Iowa of drug and alcohol abuse.

"Many of you are in the trenches, dealing with people," said Peter Komendowski, president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free Iowa, a co-sponsor of the event. "It's very important to hear what you have to say."

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Thank you for your article "Prisons' Racial Disparity Raises New Debate" (Oct. 5). Your article highlights one of the most significant problems with our drug laws: If your drug of choice happens to be out of favor with the current lawmakers, then you are a criminal. But if your drug of choice is in favor, like alcohol or tobacco, then you have no problem.

Excessive or addictive drug use may be a problem for many individuals and families, but it should not be considered by society to be a crime unless it affects others in a criminal way. Wrongful acts committed against others, such as assault or theft, should be prosecuted as crimes whether or not a person was under the influence of illicit drugs. Driving while intoxicated, which poses a great risk to others, should be prosecuted as a crime regardless of whether the person was using alcohol, illicit drugs or prescription drugs.

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Return Federal Courts to Original Purpose.

While the U.S. Supreme Court wrestles, again, with the issue of criminal sentencing in federal courts, Congress should revisit the disaster it created in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984.

The law was meant to address perceived sentencing disparities among federal courts. Instead, it flooded federal prisons with inmates serving very long sentences with no hope of early release - most of them caught up in the "War on Drugs."

Congress established the U.S. Sentencing Commission to create sentencing "guidelines" that dictate precise sentences in every case (down to months) based on a complex matrix of factors. Early release on parole was abolished, and reductions for good behavior were nearly eliminated, meaning the sentence handed down is the sentence served. At the same time, Congress has gone on a bender passing mandatory-minimum sentences for a growing list of crimes that further restrict judges' discretion.

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The U.S. Supreme Court begins its 2008 term this week. Tomorrow, the justices will hear arguments in an Iowa case that could affect criminal sentences in every federal courtroom in America.

The outcome of Gall v. the United States will have a particularly profound impact on Brian Gall, a native of Eldridge and graduate of the University of Iowa who made what he freely admits was a poor choice in 2000 when, as a 21-year-old student, he got involved with a drug conspiracy as a low-level dealer of so-called "ecstasy" tablets.

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Q: What is the Combat Meth Act?

A: The devastating impact of meth spreads well beyond just drug users. Meth hurts families, particularly the children of meth users, as well as the larger community that gets hit with the damage this terrible drug inflicts on our society. Unlike other drugs, meth can be home cooked from easily accessible ingredients which has lead to meth labs and "super labs" in rural communities.

Iowa recognized this problem early andEenacted strict stateElaws controlling the sale of precursor chemicals, reducing the availability of necessary ingredients for meth. Recognizing the early successes of Iowa's law, I co-sponsored the Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005 at the federal level to bring similar controls to all states across the country. This legislation limited the amount of drugs that can be used to make meth that a customer can buy and mandated that pharmacies keep written or electronic logbooks recording the purchase of these drugs.

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Vehicle Gained From Forfeiture in Drug Bust by Canine

Whoever said that crime doesn't pay hasn't talked to the officers from the Forest City Police Department.

OK, it doesn't pay a lot, but the money taken in from drug bust forfeitures has helped the department buy necessary equipment and will definitely add a new car to the fleet.

The timing couldn't have been better. Just when the police department needed to replace the 1999 Ford Expedition, used by officer Andrew Klein and his drug dog Ceaser, the department took possession of a 2006 Dodge Charger the dog caught in one of his drug busts.

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Who decides the street value of confiscated drugs? In the Quad-Cities 119 kilos is said to have a value of $11.9 million. Yet, in Chicago, at O'Hare International Airport, in the same week, a bust of 20 kilos was valued at $400,0000. That is a difference of $80,000 per kilo. Are we to believe that it costs that much more in the Quad-Cities than in Chicago or is it just because $11.9 million sounds more impressive than $2,325,000?

Eugene Jansma

Morrison

[end]

DAVENPORT -- A verdict of not guilty on money laundering charges Thursday brought a short-lived smile of relief to the former mayor of Wilton, Iowa, who was convicted later in the day on drug conspiracy charges.

Outside the U.S. District courtroom in Davenport where his three-day trial was held, Richard "Dick" Summy said he was "a little surprised" by the jury's guilty verdict on conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. The jury deliberated about two and a half hours before reaching a decision at about 3:30 p.m.

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Wilton Mayor Richard Summy balked at making a phone call to set up a marijuana supplier and asked for a lawyer during an interview with law enforcement officers shortly before his arrest last September.

A video recording of the Sept. 25, 2006, interview was played Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Davenport, where Summy is on trial for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute a controlled substance and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Summy, Wilton's mayor of two years, was arrested three days later in Coralville, Iowa, where he was attending an Iowa League of Cities conference. The case is expected to go to the jury today after defense testimony.

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The drug manufacturing and distributing conspiracy trial of former Wilton, Iowa, mayor Richard "Dick" Summy began Tuesday with jury selection in U.S. District Court in Davenport.

Summy, 56, was indicted on charges of conspiring to manufacture and deliver marijuana. He was arrested in September 2006 on the federal charges at an Iowa League of Cities meeting in Coralville.

After two years as mayor of the city, Summy resigned in October 2006, less than a month after he was charged.

Law enforcement officers involved in a year-long investigation allege Summy worked with a Keokuk, Iowa, businessman to grow and deliver more than 100 marijuana plants between January 2003 and September 2006.

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There was once a theory in the social sciences that traditional morality is held by the middle class. The rich could be sexually promiscuous and the poor could be promiscuous, but the middle class would find that unacceptable. If we assume this to be true, and if we assume that the rich are thieves as the left typically affirms, should we not then see the poor as thieves as well?

No, because political correctness does not allow that conclusion, irrespective of any findings that it may be true or false.

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There's another war that seems to never end - the drug war. The July 27 Register carried an article regarding a recent marijuana study published in the prestigious medical journal the Lancet ("Study Links Pot Use To High Risk of Psychosis").

The story says scientists have now found that the use of pot causes long-term psychosis. The researchers admit that other factors might be involved, and they are not sure marijuana is causing the problem.

Who would have thought being labeled a criminal by the rest of society would cause long-term psychosis? In the last paragraph of the article, it says several of the researchers were paid by drug companies to attend meetings related to marijuana. I wonder if they had a motive in trying to make marijuana look bad, considering it's a top competitor against their pharmaceutical poisons?

Carl Olsen

Des Moines

[end]