A plague of heroin addiction is upon us. Another plague. Heroin was the crisis that prompted Richard Nixon to launch the war on drugs in 1971. Time marched on. Cocaine and then crack cocaine and then methamphetamine overtook heroin as the drugs of the moment. Now heroin is back - and badder than ever. The war on drugs also grinds expensively on, an estimated $1 trillion down the hole so far. Amid the triumphant announcements of massive drug seizures and arrests of the kingpins, heroin has never been more abundant or so easy to find, in urban and rural America alike. [continues 514 words]
Law Enforcement Often Arrives on Scene Before EMTs As Boston celebrated its World Series victory last fall with a grand parade through downtown, a distraught young man burst through the crowd in search of police. But he didn't want Boston police. He wanted an officer from Quincy, a Boston suburb. The man's girlfriend had overdosed on heroin. He had heard Quincy police carry naloxone, a drug that can reverse an opiate overdose instantly. Quincy officers, helping with security at the parade, administered the drug, reversed the overdose and saved the 20-year-old woman. [continues 443 words]
WASHINGTON -- In 2000, Hollywood released a critically acclaimed and (I thought) important movie, "Traffic," about the futility of the so-called war on drugs. I was naive enough to believe it would spark a national conversation about the stupidity of our generations-long policy of drug prohibition. It didn't. We continued as we had since the 1960s: locking up drug offenders, spending countless billions on police and prisons, and abetting the devastating violence that attends the market in illegal narcotics. The United States, with about 5 percent of the world's population, accounts for nearly 25 percent of its prisoners -- many of them drug offenders. [continues 573 words]
As if they were drug dealers in training, citizens learned Tuesday how to correctly weigh and package a QP, an OZ and an 8-ball of a certain white powdery substance. Though since this was a hands-on exercise for a class of the 19th Judicial District Drug Tasks Force's Narcotic Awareness and Resident Counterdrug Training, the powder was merely baking soda. Those in the class, beforehand, learned from Task Force agents about various types of street drugs, including the signs that someone may be using -- they might be disrespectful to others, depressed, angry, secretive, they may be stealing, have lots of money or be asking for money or may withdraw from friends and family. [continues 220 words]
Two years ago, Leigh Ann Nicholson and Nakita Meeks, both 18, attended the Governor's Tennessee Youth Drug Task Force and watched as former meth users told their stories about the drug destroying their family life. After hearing the daughter of an ex-methamphetamine user tell about how she was ripped from her home, Nicholson and Meeks decided to reach out to other children in the same situation. "It really touched me and Nakita to hear her talk about being taken away from her home with nothing and taken away from her mother that long," Nicholson said. [continues 519 words]
Social Drug Re-Emerging After Lull In Use, Drug Agent Says After a confidential informant equipped with an electronic hearing device bought several pills of the drug Ecstasy, agents with the Clarksville Police Major Crimes Unit and Tactical Unit executed a search warrant at 111 Azalea Court. Police found 150 multicolored Ecstasy pills and several pounds of marijuana, according to court documents. Ben Thomas Dowlen Jr., 31, was arrested in the August 2007 sting and charged with manufacturing, selling or possessing a controlled substance. In June, Dowlen pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 10 years. [continues 924 words]
Ecstasy Treatment Requires Getting To Root Of Cause For Use William Hobbs, drug and alcohol interventionist at Centerstone, specializes in treating meth addicts. But when he treats people who are hooked on Ecstasy, he sees similar reactions. Hobbs said the common ingredient in Ecstasy is methamphetamine, or meth. Ecstasy's formal name is methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. It is an illegal drug that acts as a stimulant and psychedelic, producing an energizing effect. "Ecstasy is meth with other ingredients and hallucinogens in it," Hobbs said. "Many young people know about the danger of taking meth, but because not much is known about Ecstasy, and it's not known it contains meth, they try it. [continues 786 words]
Long-Term Effect Of Use Is Memory Loss Getting ready for a night on the town, a woman who was 24 years old and a group of her friends decided to try a drug they thought would help them enjoy a club party. The woman and her friends tried Ecstasy for the first time. It was 2000, and the drug was a hot commodity in California, where they lived. The woman said the first dose of Ecstasy led her into a yearlong addiction. [continues 1068 words]
A table in front of Citizen Police Academy students was covered in drugs -- everything from Ecstasy to LSD, along with paraphernalia used to do drugs and common items people use to hide them. Agents Daryl Pace and Brad Crowe gave the students a crash course in drugs, beginning with a video of police using undercover agents to bust several sales. Crowe, who worked 12 years with the Clarksville Police Department Drug Unit, said that no matter what anybody thinks, drug use "is a problem." [continues 677 words]
Cocaine Supply In Cities Has Dropped, DEA Says Finally, some good news regarding the international war on drugs. A Drug Enforcement Administration analysis shows the cocaine supply in more than two dozen large cities, including Nashville, has dropped. Such cities serve as distribution sites for the rest of the country. DEA intelligence agents are crediting a crackdown in Mexico by President Felipe Calderon with the decrease. He sent in 3,000 troops to break up two drug cartels that were engaged in a turf war. [continues 207 words]
High Times Editor, DEA Agent To Face Off Whether you are straight-laced and against the legalization of marijuana, an advocate for the drug's medical purposes or a hippie-type looking to spark up without breaking the law, Wednesday's debate at Austin Peay State University could prove interesting. The APSU Govs Programming Council is sponsoring the debate at 7 p.m. Wednesday, in the Morgan University Ballroom on the legalization of the drug. The debaters are High Times editor Steve Hager and Bob Stutman -- a former officer with the New York City Drug Enforcement Agency. [continues 249 words]
Austin Peay State University will hold The Great Debate: Heads vs. Feds at 7 p.m. March 28 in the Morgan University Center Ballroom. The debate will cover the legalization of marijuana. Former High Times Editor Steve Hager will represent one side, while former Deug Enforcement Agent Bob Stutman will represent the other. For more on this story, see Saturday's edition of The Leaf-Chronicle [end]
Parents must talk with their children about all kinds of drugs. When parents are having "drug talks" with their children, they need to include legal pharmaceuticals in the warnings. A national survey on teen use of drugs in 2006 found that while abuse of illegal drugs and alcohol is on the decline, high school and middle school misuse of prescription narcotics and over-the-counter cough and cold medicine is still going strong. Regular marijuana use among teens has declined for the fifth year in a row, according to the annual survey conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other drugs on a decline are methamphetamine and crack cocaine. Unfortunately, the use of LSD, inhalants, cocaine, crystal meth, heroin, narcotics other than heroin, tranquilizers and sedatives remained steady. [continues 200 words]
Officials Also Renew Safe Driving Message to Local Students The "Meth is Death" campaign hit Clarksville High School Wednesday, illustrating the devastating effects of methamphetamines to students. "Meth is not a stranger to the United States, Tennessee or United States' citizens," District Attorney General John Carney said Wednesday. "It was used by the Germans to stay awake to fight the U.S. during the war, and it was used by kamikaze pilots. It is a killer -- explosive, dangerous -- and it will ruin your life." [continues 410 words]
Chief Prosecutor, Law Enforcement Educating Public About Grisly Drug Tell-tale signs of methamphetamine addiction, indicators of production labs and appropriate responses to both were were among information presented Wednesday during Clarksville Civitan's weekly meeting. Montgomery County District Attorney John Carney discussed the dangers of methamphetamine before screening an informational video, "Meth Destroys," which was created by the Tennessee District Attorneys General Conference. Carney, along with Sheriff Norman Lewis and other members of the local law enforcement community, have made similar presentations at high schools in Montgomery County. [continues 454 words]
Law officials are promising a crackdown at Bonnaroo festival. It's expected that the fourth annual Bonnaroo music festival that runs Friday through Sunday will bring in more than 90,000-plus attendees. That will provide an economic boost to Coffee County, where the concerts take place, but it also presents a challenge to its local law enforcement officials. At Bonnaroo III last summer, two people died from drug overdoses. Authorities arrested 27 people and cited 132 others for offenses. Almost all of those were drug-related. [continues 212 words]
Educators In Tennessee Are Learning To Deal With Problem. When it comes to the war on illegal drugs, it seems that it's one battle after another. Right now, forces are being drawn against methamphetamines, and the state's educators are being asked to do their part in the fight. Tennessee ranks second nationally, behind just Missouri, in the number of meth labs seized by law agents. While the percentage of teens trying the drug has remained at less than 10 percent, young people are being affected. [continues 237 words]
Local People Want To Learn More About Methamphetamines. Methamphetamine production and abuse are not things that happen "someplace else." They are occurring right here in Clarksville-Montgomery County, and this matter must be addressed by all levels of society. It's encouraging, then, to see that a group of local Christians is confronting meth head-on with an educational workshop on Saturday. The workshop will be at Hilldale United Methodist Church and led by Cumberland City Police Officer James Crow, who is certified as a meth lab technician through the Drug Enforcement Administration and is a member of the Clandestine Lab Response Team. [continues 206 words]
A New Sudafed With a Different Ingredient Will Soon Be Available Tennesseans will soon have access to over-the-counter cold pills that don't have the active ingredient used to make methamphetamine. Both the federal government and the state of Tennessee have looked into ways to keep pseudoephedrine, which is the main ingredient in many popular over-the-counter cold and allergy relief medicines, out of the hands of those who manufacture meth. Washington and Nashville have both considered following Oklahoma's example and requiring drugs with pseudoephedrine to be put behind pharmacy counters. [continues 196 words]
Drug dealers face new tax Idea might sound goofy, but it really makes sense in the end. The fact that Tennessee is going to require drug dealers to pay state excise tax on their illegal substances sounds, well, goofy at first. If you are a drug peddler, why in the world would you decide to become a law-abiding citizen when it comes to taxes -- even if the government says that state tax collectors would be constrained by taxpayer privacy laws from reporting them to police. [continues 268 words]
