Law enforcement and neighborhood residents in Wisconsin are looking for nontraditional ways to rid their communities of drug users. Pinning property owners with the responsibility of curbing drug use on their property is becoming a recent trend in drug abuse abatement in the state. A neighborhood program implemented in November 2003 in Sheboygan supplies landlords with suggestions on how to rid drug users from their property. Ultimately, the program strives to empower neighborhoods to file civil suits against property owners that take no action against drug-using tenants. [continues 770 words]
Advocates for affording drug abuse treatment to nonviolent offenders as an alternative to sending them to prison pleaded their case during a news conference outside of the Brown County Courthouse on Wednesday. There are 22 organizations in Wisconsin that support the educational endeavor, Treatment Instead of Prison, that explores the benefits of using drug abuse rehabilitation instead of sending certain offenders to prison. The idea has been discussed in the Wisconsin Senate. A bill called the Addicted Offenders Accountability and Public Safety Act was introduced in the 2004-2005 legislative session. Wisconsin Sen. Carol Roessler was a spokesperson for a group of legislators that backed the bill. [continues 581 words]
Low Interest Rates Are Creating Both A Buyers' And Sellers' Housing Market Although Ed Thompson visited Washington, the epicenter of political power, last week, he was more impressed by the traffic than by the career politicians he calls "Republicrats" - including his own brother Tommy, the secretary of health and human services. "I don't want the damn power," Ed said while walking through steaming humidity on his way from one interview to the next. "I want to give it back to the people. That's where it belongs. Not in the hands of all these agencies and committees. That's what I did in Tomah, that's what I plan to do as governor." [continues 211 words]
The Brown County Sheriff's Department honors the D.A.R.E. DOZEN during a recognition program at MacArthur Elementary School Wednesday The Brown County Sheriff's Department on Wednesday announced the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Dozen, a compilation of area businesses and organizations that have contributed more than $100,000 to the program. In exchange, the businesses will advertise on the Sheriff Department's D.A.R.E. vehicles. The area businesses recognized are: Broadway Automotive, Brown County Home Builders Association, Brown County Tavern League, Greater Green Bay Community Foundation, Green Bay Packers players (defense, offense and special teams), H.J. Martin and Sons Inc., Howard-Suamico Optimists Club, Murphy Development Inc., the Oneida Nation and Van's Heating and Air Conditioning. For more information, call Captain John Gossage at 448-4204. [end]
It's hard to take a purely libertarian stand because of how far we have come from the concept of liberty and toward the concept of the benevolent, caring central government. Take the helmet law, for example. For a libertarian it's a no-brainer to oppose a law that would require a motorcyclist to strap on a helmet. Talk about your intrusion from the nanny government ...! But this assumes many things, first and foremost that cyclists will exercise common sense and responsibility for their own safety. Some obviously won't and will do severe damage to their heads and bodies. [continues 560 words]
Van Straten's Unit Is There When Education And Prevention Don't Work Gary Van Straten is a Green Bay native whose daily duty is getting drugs and drug users out of Brown County. As supervisor of the Green Bay/Brown County Drug Task Force, Lt. Van Straten of the Sheriff's Department has his binoculars on the channels that make Green Bay a distribution point for drugs to northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. "Ninety-nine percent of our cases never make the newspapers," he said. Patience, persistence and, ultimately, timing are what Van Straten said leads to drug arrests. The task force recently helped deal a fatal blow to an international chain, seizing 36 pounds of methamphetamines in possibly the state's largest drug arrest ever. [continues 1333 words]
The Interim Medical Examiner May Be Interim For Another Year More than half of a proposed cut in the DARE program was restored to the proposed Brown County budget, the sheriff's department received one more recommended full-sized squad car, and the Public Safety Committee decided Thursday to recommend a study of re-establishing the elected county coroner position. In a continuation of Monday's 2001 budget review meeting, the committee allocated $80,000 it had previously cut from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that sends deputies into schools to teach drug awareness. [continues 367 words]
A Brown County Committee Has Voted To Reduce The Prevention Program By Half [Photo caption - DARE officer Kevin VandenHeuvel talks to students during DARE graduation ceremonies at Kennedy Elementary School last spring (photo by H. Marc Larson).] Drug Abuse Resistance Education officers are feeding children misinformation and turning them against their parents, according to the director of the Wisconsin chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML. The Green Bay woman, who asked for personal reasons that her name not be used, said police officers wearing uniforms and guns exaggerate the effects of marijuana use, while not giving enough attention to harder, more dangerous drugs. [continues 1180 words]
The Sheriff's Department may have to switch to smaller squad cars and give them more miles By Jeff Decker News-Chronicle Times have been tougher, but Brown County gets a little closer to those times with every proposed new cut in the budget. The proposed halving of the county's DARE program - Drug Abuse Resistance Education - is not sitting well with educators. "Our DARE officer eats lunch with the kids, goes out to recess," said Nancy Schultz, principal of Webster Elementary school, 2101 S. Webster Ave., Allouez. "They look forward to attending the sessions." [continues 546 words]
Small, Poor, Remote Country History of political instability. Rich people still screwing over poor people as they've done from the Year One. Decades-old guerrilla war that began with machetes and shotguns now escalating to big-time weapons. US government sends money. Political advisers. Military advisers. More money. Now it's two kinds of military helicopters. Haven't we seen this movie before? The Americanization of Colombia's civil-drug war looks and smells like Vietnam all over again. Twenty-five years after Saigon fell like a rotting plum from the grasp of Uncle Sam and the corrupt and incompetent South Vietnamese regime, we're trying the same dumb thing all over again. [continues 841 words]
Four years ago, having decided to take a chance and pursue a longtime dream, I was seized with self-doubts and fear. I overcame those fears after I blundered into "Do It! Lets Get Off Our Buts," a book co-authored by John-Roger and Peter McWilliams. The title comes from the human tendency to let the word "but" get in the way of our dreams. "I want to start a business, but ...", "I've always wanted to study architecture, but ..." [continues 530 words]
