KALAMA -- The police department has high hopes that its newest officer will take a bite out of this small town's oversized drug problem.

'Bati," a 65-pound German shepherd nearly two years old, is Kalama's first drug-sniffing canine, though he still needs to complete 80 hours of training and pass a state certification exam before going on the job.

"When we're doing patrols, we should have more than enough work" for Bati, said Police Sgt. Steve Parker.

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The owner of an Evergreen Shores home where detectives found more than $450,000 worth of marijuana on Christmas Day lives in Worcester, Mass., and was renting the house to a man named Hung, the owner said Thursday.

"Oh, wow," said Bao Vo, who owns the home on 77th Court Southwest in the Black Lake area, when told that detectives found 300 pot plants at the home. Vo, who did not speak English fluently, passed the phone to his daughter, June.

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On Dec. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court gave judges some discretion in sentencing for crack cocaine offenses. One day later, the U.S. Sentencing Commission, intending to narrow the stark disparity between sentences for crack versus powder cocaine, revised sentencing guidelines in order to make them retroactive.

Why should anyone care about a bunch of drug users -- crack users at that -- who might receive two years off their sentences? It matters because of the racial inequities in our system.

It takes the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine (picture more than two cups full) to earn a five-year prison sentence. It takes only 5 grams of crack cocaine (picture half a teaspoon) to earn a five-year sentence. It is much easier for crack cocaine users to be sentenced to five years of prison. In fact, 85 percent of all federal prisoners in custody for crack cocaine are African American, and the overwhelming majority of them are there for the nonviolent offense of simple drug possession.

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As a policy analyst for Common Sense for Drug Policy, I'm writing in response to the Dec. 17 editorial, "Solid sentences." Mandatory minimum prison sentences have done little other than give the land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world. The deterrent value of tough drug laws is grossly overrated.

During the crack epidemic of the '80s, New York City chose the zero tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack and America's capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously.

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Recently I heard a speech about legalizing the distribution of marijuana and putting a tax on the substance to raise money for government. I have never really been on the "legalize marijuana" side. I have always thought of it as a negative drug. After more thought and a more realistic sense of what the drug really does to your body, I started thinking, "Maybe it should be legalized."

Much as alcohol was available back in the day when it was illegal, pot is being grown and distributed illegally today. After the Constitution was changed to make alcohol legal again, the illegal sale of it was eliminated almost entirely. This made it significantly safer to drink alcohol because safety standards were placed on the companies that mass-produced it. So why would it not be the same for marijuana?

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Little Effect Seen

Regarding Lynne K. Varner's column, "Common sense replaces hysteria with high court's cocaine rulings," Opinion, Dec. 18:

Mandatory minimum prison sentences have done little other than give the land of the free the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The deterrent value of tough drug laws is grossly overrated. During the crack epidemic of the '80s, New York City chose the zero-tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many offenders as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack and America's capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously.

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Young black and Latino men imprisoned during our 20-year war on crack cocaine see the U.S. Supreme Court's rulings allowing trial judges to show more leniency in drug-related cases, plus changes in the federal sentencing guidelines, as a holiday-timed offer of freedom.

Let others debate whether the court's 7-2 majorities in two cases -- including one involving a crack-cocaine-related sentence -- represent a civil-rights triumph unseen since Brown v. Board of Education. To really extend the historical imagery here, it is worth noting that this week in 1865 the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery, went into effect.

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The movement to legalize drugs employs sly marketing strategies to desensitize society to the enormous harm caused by the self-indulgent and illegal use of psychoactive and addictive substances.

Proponents claim that imposing legal consequences on users, dealers and traffickers brings greater harm to society than would the allowance of wholesale use. Hundreds of thousands of victims and families and friends of victims know this is utterly false.

The devastation and heartbreak related to lost and/or degraded lives, child abuse, child neglect, child pornography, unemployment, workplace accidents, lost productivity, poverty, embezzlement, academic underachievement and failure, increased medical costs, social welfare costs and crime, cost society hundreds of billions every year - and that is before adding in the cost of treatment and expenses associated with law enforcement and incarceration.

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The County Drug Court is definitely a step in the right direction, but an arrest should not be a necessary prerequisite for drug treatment. Would alcoholics seek help for their illness if doing so was tantamount to confessing to criminal activity? Likewise, would putting every incorrigible alcoholic behind bars and saddling them with criminal records prove cost-effective?

The United States recently earned the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world, with drug offenses accounting for the majority of federal incarcerations.

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Supreme Court Ruling Gives Judges Necessary Discretion When Sentencing

Drug addicts and drug dealers wreck lives - their own and others'. Neighborhoods are ruined by drug activity, and in the most tragic cases children are hurt.

The economy is impacted by addiction. Jails are bursting with people convicted of drug crimes, at great cost to taxpayers. And because violent crimes and property crimes such as burglary are often drug-related, just about every person is a potential victim of drug abuse.

The damage drug abusers cause is the reason police, prosecutors, legislatures, Congress, governors and presidents fight a war on drugs. It's a noble fight, even if the weapons and strategies used are often wrong for the job. One of those misguided weapons is a set of drug sentencing guidelines that have proved unfair, blind to extenuating circumstances and detrimental to long-term life changes. But last week, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 7-to-2 vote, retooled the weapon, bringing it back to a more useful state.

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Last week's article chronicling the struggles of a young Longview woman trying to break free of meth addiction ought to serve as a powerful deterrent for other youth who may be tempted to experience with meth and other dangerous drugs. Daily News reporter Amy M.E. Fischer's comprehensive report also suggests the value of what this county's Drug Court has to offer -- the drug treatment, counseling and careful monitoring. The story of Cara Lowery's battle with addiction demonstrations nothing so clearly as the need for a strong support network.

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Silja J.A. Talvi of Seattle is a 21st-century muckraker. The 37-year-old native of Finland is an independent investigative reporter with an intense dedication to exposing societal wrongs in hopes of affecting change.

Some of her work is published by "In These Times," a progressive monthly on the East Coast where she is a senior editor. But two years of travel, research and writing have just produced Talvi's first book -- "Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System" (Seal Press, 295 pages, $15.95). This comprehensive and passionately argued indictment of the inhumane treatment of female prisoners is the sort of shocking expose too seldom seen in these media days of so much celebrity fluff.

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There's one thing not to like about binding arbitration: If the arbitrator gets it wrong, you're still bound by the results. And that's the case with a ruling last week that the city of Yakima cannot impose mandatory random drug testing on its police officers.

For the life of us, we can't figure out why this is such a controversial subject when it should be a slam dunk in the name of common sense and public trust.

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Attorneys for the city of Yakima and its police union battled in court Tuesday over an arbitrator's decision to reinstate a fired officer in a longstanding case that the union contends was retaliation for its refusal to go along with random drug testing of officers.

Officer Mike Rummel was fired in July 2005 for failing to comply with a disciplinary agreement that followed a series of alcohol-related incidents and contact with a former girlfriend.

The agreement went into effect after Rummel pleaded guilty to negligent driving.

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An arbitrator has ruled that the city of Yakima cannot impose a mandatory random drug testing program on its police officers, handing Police Chief Sam Granato and City Manager Dick Zais a big setback. Seattle arbitrator Mike Beck nixed the proposal because no comparably sized city has random drug testing, and because the city failed to prove that a drug problem existed on the police force or that mandatory testing would deter drug use. It was the one major issue left over from a lengthy contract negotiation.

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Pain advocates feel that governmental limitations on medication will affect patient health care

When Brenda Sutherland stepped up to renew her prescription for her pain medications at a local drug store, she said the pharmacist sneered and made comments about "all of her drugs."

"He immediately copped an attitude," the Puyallup resident said. "He started asking me a bunch of personal questions about my medical history. His job is just to fill prescriptions."

He didn't lower his voice and made his opinion known to all who were in earshot.

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The 15-year-old high-school sophomore speaks in a lifeless monotone as he tells a room full of police officers and school officials that he smokes pot every day, as much as he can.

His eyes are vacant. His voice lacks any emotion. He says he smokes marijuana daily, sometimes at school, and does other drugs, such as cocaine and Ecstasy on special occasions.

There's no reason to stop, he says. Drugs make it possible for him to get through the day.

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Emerald Cross, a cannabis club run by a Port Orchard woman, is closed and its future uncertain after the organization lost its lease.

The club, which dispensed marijuana as medicine to people with physician authorizations, occupied a building in an industrial neighborhood of Seattle. Director Sue Watson located the dispensary in Seattle because she was told by the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office that the operation would not be tolerated here.

Seattle is, by reputation and law, more accepting of medical marijuana use. Voters there in 2003 passed a measure that makes arresting and prosecuting individuals with less than 40 grams of marijuana the "lowest law enforcement priority."

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Derived From a West African Root, Ibogaine May Be a Pain-Free Drug Detox - but in the U.S. It's Highly Illegal.

They've given you the pills and now they're checking your heart rate - it's skyrocketing - when you see it in the corner of your eye. It could be a caterpillar, a cat, your first bicycle. It's growing, and then there's another - a lion? A tiger? A bear? - and soon that's all you can see. It begins: a kind of "movie" of your life, things you didn't know you remembered, drawn out from your mind like barbed wire. A comedy, maybe; a tragedy, definitely; and yours alone. It will stay this way for a good, long while.

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Lawyer, Probation Officer Call for End to Criminal Penalties.

Voices boomed and passions flared at Keystone Church last Friday night, but God had little to do with this spirited debate. It was drugs that drew over 100 people to the Wallingford church, or rather, the failure of America's war against drugs and a chance to discuss the next step forward for narcotics policy in this country.

The event, orchestrated by Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice, included the showing of a film and a panel discussion that featured several prominent drug policy reform advocates.

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