North Texas Regional Drug Task Force investigators walk through a trash pile left from meth cooks. Investigators called the find one of the largest labs they've seen in years. A North Texas Regional Drug Task Force investigator shows the remains of filtered cold pills. Methamphetamine cooks filter out the pseudoephedrine and leave the unwanted chemicals and trash behind. Friday morning North Texas Regional Drug Task Force inspectors stumbled across a pile of trash in a clearing of a mesquite field inside Wichita Falls. [continues 379 words]
Wichita County will receive about $345,000 in grants to fund the area drug task force, according to an announcement released by Gov. Rick Perry Monday. But the money the Governor's Criminal Justice Division is giving to area agencies through federal grant programs marks a flat line in funding, according an investigator at the North Texas Regional Narcotics Task Force. The grant allots $345,340 to the task force, exactly the same amount as last year, according to a spokeswoman at Perry's office. [continues 356 words]
Prosecutors Believe County Residents Sick, Tired Of Area's Meth Problem People in and around Wichita Falls know about the area's meth problem. And they're sick of it. That's what Wichita County prosecutors believe. Hearing about another meth fire or drug bust has grown old to people, and they're ready to send that message, Assistant District Attorney Dobie Kosub said. That's why on July 11 a Wichita County jury sentenced Brian Keith Kinnett to 85 years in prison after convicting him of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. [continues 521 words]
Coaches are human. They, like all of us other mortals, have sinned and come up short. Drinking, smoking, gambling and fooling around - hey, most us can understand that kind of sinning. It cost coaches like Larry Eustachy, Mike Price and Rick Neuheisel some high-paying jobs, but all three will soon find steady employment somewhere else. Boys will be boys. All will be forgiven. But the Dave Bliss story is a whole different ballgame. This is not "boys will be boys." It's snakes will be snakes. [continues 347 words]
It's not every week you get to climb into the cockpit of a fighter jet, go rock climbing and have fun meeting new people. But that's what many area youth are doing this week as part of the Drug Education for Youth's camp. The DEFY program, established in 1993 by the Navy's Drug Demand Reduction Task Force, is a program similar to the D.A.R.E. program that is often taught in public schools but is more like a camp than a teaching program. [continues 301 words]
First-Time Drug Offenders Need a Chance at Recovery Perhaps the nation's almost irrational, utterly closed-minded view of how to deal with illegal substances and drug offenders is beginning to become a little more enlightened. There's evidence of that out of Austin, of all places. Gov. Rick Perry recently signed into law a bill that requires first-time drug offenders convicted of the lowest-level drug possession offenses to submit to probation with mandatory treatment programs that reduce recidivism, according to information on the action from the NAACP National Voters Fund and the Texas American Civil Liberties Union. [continues 423 words]
A three-day conference hosted by TurningPoint is trying to help community members be aware of drug and alcohol issues in the area. The group is running the 29th Annual Conference on Alcohol and Drug Abuse at the Multi-Purpose Event Center, which will conclude today. "Historically this used to be (only) for drug and alcohol counselors and social workers," said Steve Rueschenberg, TurningPoint executive director. "Now we're trying to open it to the public. This is an effort to try to bring it to the community level." [continues 205 words]
Hello, I am a "drug" user. But my "drug" use will never put me in danger of contracting Hepatitis C, the HIV virus or any other fluid- transmitted disease. I smoke marijuana. That's it. I don't like to drink. I have an addictive personality, alcoholic parents, alcoholic siblings, alcoholic aunts and uncles. I have smoked weed for almost 10 years. In that time, I graduated both high school and college and have a job many people would love to have. My marijuana use has not negatively influenced my career. However, I recently heard through the grapevine that there are signs posted all around the Dallas area stating, "You think it was dry this month? Wait until next month," with an X-ed out marijuana leaf on it. [continues 155 words]
I am so disgusted with both Sanchez and Perry and their TV campaigns, I could just scream. They are so busy trying to undermine, belittle and smear each other that no one knows what each stands for. How do they feel about important issues at hand concerning our state and our nation? Who knows? No wonder people don't bother to vote! Our choices boil down to who is furthest away from a prison term at the time of election. Lowering the voting age should have pushed the voting places to standing room only, but how many young or old, are interested in even getting involved in a political discussion over candidates ripe with drug war, money laundering, tax evasive representatives. Let's get back to basics, people. If you're close to being convicted of a felony, please don't run for office, just run. Please give us some better choices, or Mickey Mouse gets my vote - again! Caroline M. Grimsey, Wichita Falls [end]
Two men who were charged and later pleaded guilty to hauling 1,300 pounds of marijuana had their cases dismissed Thursday. U.S. District Judge Robert Dawson signed the order of dismissal after federal prosecutors of U.S. District Court in Fort Smith filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Andrew Belcher and Garfield Walters, both of Maryland. Belcher and Walters entered guilty pleas after being arrested at a weigh station in Crawford County on Feb. 8, 2001. Those pleas were conditioned on the outcome of the men's claim that they were the victim of an illegal search by Sgt. Tim Culver of the Arkansas Highway Police. [continues 279 words]
Supreme Court Pleases, Displeases In Three Key Rulings The U.S. Supreme Court issued rulings in three important cases on Thursday, one involving school vouchers, one involving student drug searches and one involving what judicial candidates can and cannot say. They clearly made the right decision on one case, but we're less enthusiastic about the other two. The ruling the justices are to be commended for concerns candidates for state judicial offices. In this ruling, the justices said that states overreached when telling those candidates what they could and could not say when running for office. [continues 453 words]
Drug-Testing High-Schoolers Places State In Parent's Role The governing body with oversight of high school athletics proposed this week to test student athletes for steroid use, basing its actions on rumor and assumption. While recent reports estimate steroid use among professional athletes as high as 50 percent, the number of high-schoolers taking performance-enhancing drugs is unknown, the Associated Press stated. Unknown because high-schoolers are not tested. Yet. University Interscholastic League officials said this week the committee was considering drug-testing high-school athletes, perhaps starting with random postseason testing of teams participating in the playoffs. [continues 222 words]
The point of comparing chemical illness to diabetes was not to discount this illness. The very fact people still think the chemically ill are "weak-willed" and immoral people is uneducated and uninformed of current discoveries. The facts are that mood-altering drug, which includes tobacco, coffee or caffeinated drinks, chocolate, alcohol, prescription and illegal drugs, alter the chemistry of the brain. Most all of us have natural chemicals at birth known as serotonin and dopamine, as well as other chemical players that affect mood and perceptions. We know serotonin is a leading contributor to depression. The use of Prozac or like medications is commonly used successfully to combat this mental illness. [continues 255 words]
Your editorial, "Bad business: U.S. throwing money away fighting this aspect of drug war" (May 21), clearly reveals why the prohibition of drugs, has, will, and can never work, and why we should never consider connecting the war on terrorism to this other continuing policy disaster, the drug war. If we fight the war on terrorism like we've fought the war on drugs, can we expect the same results? Will terrorists multiply exponentially, be more powerful than ever, cheaper to deploy and far deadlier than before? Can we expect terrorists to flood across our borders in an unstoppable deluge? How many more prisons will it take to hold all these terrorists, when we already lock up more of our people than any nation on earth, thanks to the drug war? Will the few civil liberties remaining after the war on drugs, now fall prey to the war on terrorism? [continues 213 words]
U.S. Has No Clear Idea Where To Focus Global Efforts Six months after the terrorist attacks on the United States, we're calling ourselves the world's first and only hyperpower. The nomenclature is less important than the reality, and the reality is that as a nation we continue to grow stronger as time goes by, by just about any measure you can come up with. But naming what we are is not the same as defining what it means to be a hyperpower, and we continue to struggle with identifying precisely what our role in the world should be or needs to be. [continues 516 words]
I am writing this letter to draw attention to a problem I have not seen discussed in this paper before today. It is an issue of prejudice. I have a friend who has, unfortunately, an addiction to intraveneous drugs. I do not condone the use of such drugs at all; in fact, the very idea is abhorrent. But my friend developed an infection around her heart due to this habit and was forced to check into the emergency room this past Saturday at the Eighth Street campus of United Regional Health Care System. The nurses there treated my friend horribly due to the condition of her arms - one woman even went so far as to REFUSE to give my friend a much-needed injection because of the state of her arms. [continues 199 words]
Scott Davison's column on our failed war on drugs was right on target. But it will take more than good logic to persuade our government to abandon this madness. Over the decades we have seen a huge increase in the number of drug war-related agencies and industries, the prison system being one of the biggest. This nation is literally "addicted" to fighting drug use, so much so that Americans have been willing to torch the Bill of Rights in their ignoble crusade. And the hypocrisy of our drug war is not lost on our youth, who readily point out that drug war politicians often take donations from the tobacco and alcohol lobby. What will it take for our nation to kick the drug war habit? The answer seems to be as elusive as a drug-free America. Mike Wiley Marshall, Texas [end]
Thanks to Scott Davison for his insightful column. Think of all the manpower, resources, time and effort devoted to cannabis prohibition. If we devoted those people and resources to the interdiction of terrorists and terrorism over the last 10 years we would likely still have a World Trade Center and the more than 5,000 souls who perished inside while the drug warriors used politics and propaganda and profane amounts of money to lie and perpetuate their budgets. Maybe the corrupt politicians and media are required to adhere to the party line of prohibition because law enforcement, customs, the prison and military industrial complex, the drug testing industry, the "drug treatment" industry, the INS, the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, the politicians themselves, et al, can't live without the budget justification, not to mention the invisible profits, bribery, corruption and forfeiture benefits that prohibition affords them. The drug war also promotes, justifies and perpetuates racist enforcement policies and is diminishing many freedoms and liberties that are supposed to be inalienable according to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Myron Von Hollingsworth, Fort Worth, Texas [end]
The reactions to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have been many and varied. There was the understandable horror and shock of a nation taken completely by surprise. There was the typically American outpouring of generosity and sympathy. New York was inundated with money, blood and volunteers. The United States military has its response underway, and you can be sure the task is difficult. For the last eight years, our military's main function has been to distract the public's attention away from the excesses of a monumentally self-absorbed and hypocritical Commander-In-Chief. [continues 734 words]
Bush's Creation Of New Office Raises Questions The United States government's efforts at anything with a "czar" at the helm have not been stellar. Former president George Bush appointed a drug czar, and we're still fighting that war. President Bill Clinton allowed his wife to be the health-care reform czar, and look what happened to HMOs. Both were worthy efforts, fighting drugs and reforming health care. But perhaps no appointed czar will ever have a more daunting task than Tom Ridge, in charge of Bush's recently created Homeland Defense Security Office. [continues 339 words]
