But for the 30 or so people who gathered at University Congregational Church to memorialize Prosser on Wednesday, it's easy to see how her hand was forced.

By pain. By depression. By poverty. By her own government. * "We can't properly honor Robin and her life without recognizing the truth of what the government's marijuana prohibition policy did to her, physically, emotionally, spiritually," said Tom Daubert. "We can't properly honor what Robin struggled for years to achieve without crying out in rage at the forces of insanity and even sadism that destroyed her."

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However, Rate Remains More Than Twice That Of All High Schoolers

Gazette State Bureau HELENA - Montana's American Indian high school students report using the drug methamphetamine at more than twice the rate reported by all Montana students.

However, meth use among Indians has fallen dramatically since 1999, when more than one-fourth of Indian high school students on Montana's reservations reported using meth at least once.

Almost 11 percent of Indian high school students on Montana's seven reservations reported using meth at least once in their lives in the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a routine questionnaire distributed to high school students around the state every two years. For American Indian students in Montana's urban areas, the rate was 10.5 percent.

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HELENA - Montana's American Indian high school students report using the drug methamphetamine at more than twice the rate reported by all Montana students.

However, meth use has fallen dramatically since 1999, when more than one-fourth of Indian high school students on Montana's reservations reported using meth at least once.

Almost 11 percent of Indian high school students on the state's seven reservations reported using meth at least once in their lives in the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a routine questionnaire distributed to high school students around the state every two years. For Indian students in urban areas, the rate was 10.5 percent.

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Fewer high school students in Billings use tobacco than their peers across the state and report less frequent use of alcohol, according to a recent Billings School District 2 survey.

More Billings students, however, have driven drunk, attempted suicide and reported being raped than people their age in the rest of the state.

Those were some of the findings in the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which was administered this fall to a random selection of 100 students in each SD2 high school.

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On most days, Kristine and Trista wake up in fear.

Kristine fears she won't be one of the few drug addicts who live life sober.

Trista knows that fear. Not just for her, but for her 13-year-old son. She's afraid he's headed for a life of struggle, much like her own, and she mourns not being there to mother him.

"That's my problem," she said. "I'm always incarcerated. I can't even count how many times I've been to jail.

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BOULDER -- Inside the Elkhorn Treatment Center, the 43 women live austere, fairly structured lives.

They're all convicted felons, but have been given a second chance here in Boulder in a therapeutic community for female addicts, which provides residential treatment for chemical dependency in a minimum-security facility.

The facility is a private, nonprofit agency ran by Boyd Andrew Community Services that opened in Boulder earlier this year. The agency contracts with the Department of Corrections, which decides who can come here, and the residents are paid a daily wage just like inmates in jail. Some of the earned money goes toward restitution and fines residents owe, but the rest can be used to purchase items at the commissary.

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WHITEFISH - For years, backpacks crammed with cash have slipped north into Canada, followed closely by hockey bags packed with premium marijuana skating south into Montana.

A favorable exchange rate (not long ago, one American dollar bought one and a half Canadian dollars) made the smuggling profitable, and thus popular.

But last month, for the first time in more than 30 years, the two currencies were at par, matched in value, and today a Canadian dollar buys $1.10 U.S.

The financial tables have turned, and global economics have done what U.S. law enforcement could not: Capitalism has stopped the smugglers in their tracks.

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Regarding Tom Daubert's Oct. 30 op-ed, while there have been studies showing that marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug. If a doctor recommends marijuana to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and it helps them feel better, then it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality of life issue best left to patients and their doctors.

Federal bureaucrats waging war on noncorporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention. The federal government's prescribed intervention for medical marijuana patients is handcuffs, jail cells and criminal records. This heavy-handed approach suggests that drug warriors are not well-suited to dictate health care decisions.

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The nation's Drug Enforcement Administration agents can sleep a little easier tonight. They now have one less medical-marijuana patient to worry about policing.

That's because Montana's leading medical marijuana patient-activist took her own life two weeks ago, a direct result of DEA actions earlier this year. Every patient in the state and all their relatives and friends grieve the loss of Robin Prosser.

It's time for our federal government to end its anti-scientific and brutal war - a war not on drugs, but on sick people like Robin.

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LIVINGSTON -- Three years ago, Montana voters decided by a 62 percent margin that marijuana should be available for medical purposes.

No issue or candidate had received that sort of statewide endorsement for 25 years.

Since then, a network of suppliers and users has been created around the state, working under new laws that limit the amount of marijuana that can be grown and sold and who can do it.

Mostly, it's been done quietly, under the radar, in part because providing marijuana remains a federal crime.

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The nation's DEA agents can sleep a little easier tonight. They now have one less medical marijuana patient to worry about policing.

That's because Montana's leading medical marijuana patient-activist took her own life last week, a direct result of DEA actions earlier this year. Today, as the sad news spreads, every patient in the state and all their relatives and friends grieve the loss of Robin Prosser.

It's time for our federal government to end its anti-scientific and brutal war -- a war not on drugs, but on sick people like Robin.

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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized."

. Fourth Amendment, U.S. Constitution

Can citizens just say "no" to police searches, or should they consent to an officer's request?

"I can't think of a good reason to give an officer consent to search anything," said Andrew King-Ries, a criminal law professor at the University of Montana. "There is no good reason to say 'yes.' "

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Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded.

After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain.

That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a law allowing medical use of the drug.

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Robin Prosser didn't look or sound much like a fighter, but she was. A mother and a musician, the Missoula woman also acted as Montana's most outspoken advocate for medical marijuana, the only remedy that could ease the ravaging pain of the lupus-like immunosuppressive disease she endured for 23 years. Prosser's fight ended Oct. 18 when she took her own life.

In recent months, Prosser, 50, would sit at the kitchen table in her small apartment, pain welling up in her eyes, and talk quietly about the victories and defeats the last several years had delivered. Allergic to nearly every pharmaceutical that could render her chronic pain bearable, she had learned that the political fate of medical marijuana also carried intensely personal implications.

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Missoulian MISSOULA - Nearly a year after voters asked county law enforcement to ignore adult marijuana offenses, Missoula's top prosecutor has adopted an official policy to uphold the referendum.

"In the interest of compliance with the 2006 voter initiative on marijuana .. we are asking law enforcement officers to stop arresting individuals or writing and submitting tickets (with mandatory appearance dates) where the offense committed is solely possession of marijuana in misdemeanor amounts or possession of drug paraphernalia intended for use of marijuana," according to a draft of the policy by Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, an outspoken opponent of the measure.

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Nearly a year after voters made the Garden City a little greener by asking county law enforcement to ignore adult marijuana offenses, Missoula's top prosecutor has adopted an official policy to uphold the referendum.

"In the interest of compliance with the 2006 voter initiative on marijuana . we are asking law enforcement officers to stop arresting individuals or writing and submitting tickets (with mandatory appearance dates) where the offense committed is solely possession of marijuana in misdemeanor amounts or possession of drug paraphernalia intended for use of marijuana," according to a draft of the policy by Missoula County Attorney Fred Van Valkenburg, an outspoken opponent of the measure.

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Most of the drugs confiscated by federal agents in Montana come from people crossing the border at legal ports of entries, which begs the question: Do most smugglers try to sneak their wares into the United States from Canada through these legal crossings, or are the agents just not finding those who are crossing illegally?

The answer seems to be a little of both, according to Mike Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

He notes that the vast majority of people coming into the United States do so at legal border crossings, which could be part of the reason for the larger number of drugs confiscated there.

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The Montana Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council (MT-WY TLC) is proud to announce that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has funded a Tribal Access to Recovery Program. The grant's mission is to address the gaps and barriers that impede access to a continuum of care for American Indians that is culturally competent and effective.

Gordon Belcourt, executive director of the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council, said, "We are pleased and honored to receive notification that SAMHSA has awarded the Montana-Wyoming Tribal Leaders Council this major grant. We are working to address the devastating impact of drug abuse, especially methamphetamine abuse on the reservations of Montana and Wyoming. This program will provide important additional resources and tools to combat substance abuse in Indian Country, and we thank the Montana and Wyoming Congressional delegation for their continued support in this battle against abuse."

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About three or four years ago, Gateway Community Services began to see a growing demand for its services.

Before long, they had outgrown their 7,650-square-foot building located north of the Cascade County Courthouse, said Judy Kolar, Gateway's executive director.

Gateway Community Services, which is an umbrella agency for the Gateway Recovery Center, Grace Home and drug and alcohol prevention services, leased some extra space downtown for a time. About three years ago, Gateway administrators and its board of directors started looking for a new building.

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HAVRE - Just as cocaine originates only in South America, the potent marijuana known as "B.C. bud" is grown only in British Columbia.

Demand for the two illicit drugs creates a steady crossover at the U.S.-Canadian border.

In the past, the typical barter involved a pound of the Canadian cannabis for an ounce of cocaine, but the exchange rate fluctuates drastically, Havre Police Chief George Tate said.

Havre, a north-central Montana border town of about 10,000, sees its share of marijuana trafficking. About 75 percent of that is B.C. bud, said Havre Police Lt. Jerry Nystrom, who is the Tri-Agency Safe Trails Task Force team leader.

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