A MySpace page for Ohio University's student center included an ad for a Web site that appears at first glance to sell marijuana.

A student employee of the center created the MySpace page to promote concerts at the Athens university's Baker Center, but the official university Web site for the student center included a link to it.

After being notified of the ad, which was posted on Dec. 6, the university took the link to the MySpace page down, said George Mauzy, an OU spokesman.

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LANCASTER - Drinking and illicit drug use by teens has continued to decline, according to a recent survey of high school students in Fairfield County.

However, parents still have cause for concern, officials say. But a new program at Fairfield Medical Center is teaching parents how to help their children make healthy choices when it comes to drugs and alcohol.

Results from the 2006 Youth Survey indicate that about 80 percent of high school seniors have drank alcohol and about 40 percent have smoked marijuana. Although fewer teens reported regularly using alcohol and marijuana, most said those substances were easy to obtain and not particularly harmful. Trisha Saunders says that is the wrong attitude to have.

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An area service agency has received statewide recognition for addressing the needs of local youths struggling to deal with issues of alcohol and drug abuse in their homes.

Recovery and Prevention Resources of Delaware and Morrow counties' YES Program is one of two prevention programs serving elementary students to be named an "Exemplary Prevention Program" this year by the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services.

This is the fourth year RPR of Delaware and Morrow Counties has offered YES, also known as the "You're Extra Special" program. It partners with local schools to identify students ages 5 to 13 who live in homes where alcohol or other drug abuse is believed to be a problem.

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MANSFIELD -- Richland County Common Pleas Judge James Henson knew the "war on drugs" needed to change.

"Sending young people to prison for using drugs wasn't working," he said. "We were getting the same people out that we were sending in."

Chief probation Officer Dave Leitenberger agreed. "We've seen so much growth in drug crimes over the last two decades," he said. "The long-term problem has to be solved through behavior change and treatment. You have to offer them treatment and an opportunity to live a normal life."

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Do as we say, not as we do" appears to be the philosophy of some members of Ohio's Education Standards Board in regard to ethical behavior by public school teachers.

That may be a bit harsh, given the fact that the board's lapse involved state public meetings law -- while the subject of its improper gatherings was criminal misconduct by educators. Still, members of the board should have deliberated the issue in public, if only to obtain input from Ohioans.

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MANSFIELD -- Meth-amphetamine presents special risks for law enforcement.

"Meth labs are extremely dangerous and volatile given the chemicals and methods used to manufacture the drugs," METRICH Commander Lt. Dino Sgambellone said. "Meth abusers exhibit extreme chronic effects and are prone to paranoia and violence among other physical characteristics."

Meth use can be highly addictive, even lethal. Its effects are similar to those of amphetamine but are more damaging to the central nervous system. Meth can be smoked, snorted or taken orally, but it's most frequently injected. The user experiences an intense rush.

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The survey of Licking Valley High School students regarding use of drugs, alcohol and tobacco was disappointing in many ways. Just as disturbing, it is not unique to Licking Valley.

The November survey indicated more than 55 percent of LV high school students tried alcohol within the past year. For seniors, the number came out to 70 percent.

About 33 percent of the students have used tobacco and almost 18 percent used marijuana within the past year. A 2006 survey at Newark High School found that 62 percent of the students said they had tried alcohol at some point in their lives.

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MOUNT VERNON - According to court officials, there are 24 juveniles enrolled in the Knox County Juvenile Drug Court Program for various drug-related crimes. This represents the highest level of participation at any one time since the program's inception.

Created by Juvenile Judge James M. Ronk in March 2001, the drug court program was designed to specifically address the intervention needs of the growing body of Knox County teens exhibiting addictive or potentially addictive drug-related behavior.

"Throughout the time I've been judge, there have been teen drinking parties and smoking marijuana," said Ronk. "[At the time], I wasn't happy with our response. We were looking around for evidence-based programs that offered the opportunity for more effective interventions."

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Prosecutor: Informant Set Up Four People

A federal informant staged drug deals with friends while investigators watched but disguised the identities of the friends to frame innocent people and get them sent to prison.

Informant Jerrell Bray gave drugs to friends and arranged for them to make sales to undercover federal officers. Then, Bray testified in court or gave sworn statements identifying others as the parties in the deals, said Bruce Teitelbaum, a federal prosecutor investigating how a controversial drug case spun out of control.

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The Feds Offer An Incentive To Collaborate On Fighting Drug Use

The effects of methamphetamine production and use are well-known to local law enforcement agencies, the toll measured in ruined lives, properties contaminated by illicit labs, roadsides turned into dumps for poisonous chemicals. Akron and Summit County lead the state in the number of meth-lab related prosecutions, 16 from October of 2006 through September.

The vigilance is a good start. Even better is that local efforts will be bolstered through a new, federally funded initiative that stresses a cooperative, regional approach. Another key aspect of the Ohio Methamphetamine Pilot Initiative is an emphasis on stopping drug use before it gets started.

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Luther Ricks Sr., to put it mildly, is living the American Nightmare. What else can you call it when police take your money because they're suspicious you're selling drugs, then fail either to file charges or to return your money?

Public pressure isn't likely to help Ricks get back what is his. Ricks needs a lawyer - but the government has depleted his means of hiring one. What he also needs is his congressman to try to intervene on his behalf. U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, should involve himself in pressing the FBI to return the money to his constituent.

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LIMA - Two robbers who broke into Luther Ricks Sr.'s house this summer may have not gotten his life savings he had in a safe, but after the FBI confiscated it he may not get it back.

Ricks has tried to get an attorney to fight for the $402,767 but he has no money. Lima Police Department officers originally took the money from his house but the FBI stepped in and took it from the Police Department. Ricks has not been charged with a crime and was cleared in a fatal shooting of one of the robbers but still the FBI has refused to return the money, he said.

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Clermont Receives Grant To Combat The Drug

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann will be in town Monday to announce a major campaign against methamphetamine, which Sheriff A.J. "Tim" Rodenberg said is the most devastating illegal drug in Clermont County.

Dann lined up a $450,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department to help police in Clermont County battle meth, Rodenberg said.

That's about $100,000 more than the annual budget of the Clermont County Narcotics Task Force, and Rodenberg said it will be the largest grant his office has received in his 11 years as sheriff.

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Ashtabula County Taking Part In Pilot Program To Combat Problem

JEFFERSON -- "It is a life-death struggle to get meth labs wiped out, says Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann.

To help counties like Ashtabula County Dann and his staff helped obtain $1.8 million in federal grants to start methamphetamine pilot initiative program.

Ashtabula County Sheriff's Department received a $449,661 portion of the total for its model initiative in eradicating, enforcing, preventative and education awareness program on the growing meth drug problems here. Dann along with staff members and Special Agent Supervisor Scott Duff with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation spent part of Friday morning at a press conference in Jefferson to explain the federal grant goals.

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ZANESVILLE -- Zanesville Police Chief Eric Lambes said he is confident that no more officers with his department will be charged with conspiracy or drug charges as a third officer was arrested this morning.

Donald E. Peterson, 33, who has been with the department for a couple of years, Lambes said at a press conference at the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office, was arrested early this morning along with four other individuals on two federal charges.

"The Zanesville Police Department is a dedicated group of officers," Lambes said. "I still lay claim to that."

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PROTECTING the public health is one of the basic charges of government, making it incomprehensible that a bill to mandate the cleanup of former methamphetamine labs in homes, apartments, vehicles, or hotel/motel rooms before people are allowed to take up residence has been stuck in an Ohio House committee for more than eight months.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Dyer (D., Green), would require the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency to establish cleanup standards and the Ohio Department of Public Safety to create a public database of properties used as meth labs so that people could check online about potential health risks before buying or renting. Properties that have met the cleanup standards would be dropped from the Web list.

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A New Position In Prosecutor's Office Will Focus On Specific Crimes.

SPRINGFIELD -- Clark County will receive more than $70,000 in federal money to create a position in the county prosecutor's office.

The Clark County Commission passed a resolution accepting the funds last week.

The money will be used to finance an additional assistant prosecutor who will handle cases involving drugs and guns, said Clark County Prosecutor Stephen Schumaker.

"We are very pleased to get this," he said. "We've had a lot of cases dealing with guns that are related to drugs and we hope to make a further dent in it."

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COLUMBUS - A former Zanesville police officer has to stay in jail until his trial in March, a federal judge ruled Tuesday because of the severity of the charges.

Sean Beck, 28, was indicted by a federal grand jury Oct. 25 on six federal charges - two counts of drug trafficking in Percocet, three counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a drug trafficking crime and one count of conspiracy to traffic drugs.

On Friday Beck was in Judge Terrance Kemp's court asking to be allowed out of the Franklin County Jail on bond to await his trial. According to Kemp's ruling, he took into consideration that the charges had risen out of a pattern of criminal activity involving the seizure of drugs and re-distribution of those drugs from suspected drug traffickers in the Zanesville area and a plan to obtain additional drugs by stealing them from a drug supplier.

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Family Fled Their Contaminated Home, But Kids Still Suffer

Cindy Wilson's kids aren't happy with their new toys. The old ones went out to the curb with most of the family's belongings last spring after their mother decided they weren't safe.

But whiny children are the least of Wilson's worries.

Spasms of coughing and an occasional nosebleed still plague three of her children, she said, nearly four months after she moved the family out of her country dream home in far western Hamilton County once it was discovered that she was renting a former methamphetamine lab.

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JUSTICE is supposed to be blind, especially color-blind. But legal and civil rights advocates have agreed that hasn't been the case in sentencing crack cocaine offenders. Usually they have been black, and usually they have received harsher penalties than middle-class white offenders convicted in powdered cocaine cases.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission, an agency of the federal judicial branch, is finally moving to correct this inequity.

For years, groups have lobbied for parity in sentencing for crack and powdered cocaine offenders. Crack cocaine is potentially more addictive, but its chemical properties are the same as powdered cocaine. Crack appeals more to the poor, many of whom are minorities, because it is less expensive. It's only right that the commission try for consistency in sentencing. Last spring it set more lenient sentencing guidelines to be issued to crack cocaine offenders in the future. Now it is weighing retroactively reducing sentences of crack inmates in federal prisons.

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