Say The Ingredients Are Common Shelf Items Walter Faulkner has a photo of former Mayor Charles Wylie cutting a ribbon at the grand opening of Faulkner's Central Food Mart on Alexandria Drive in 1970. City officials were celebrating the opening of the business. But 35 years later, officials are accusing Faulkner of illegally selling kits used to smoke crack cocaine. The accusations anger the 71-year-old Faulkner, who maintains that he is innocent and has always run an honest, clean business. He was among 34 either arrested or cited on allegations of selling so-called brown bag specials, consisting of a vial used for smoking cocaine, scouring pads and a lighter. [continues 724 words]
MANCHESTER - If he wasn't at rock bottom, Steve Collett wasn't far from it, shivering inside a portable toilet that served as his shelter on a cold winter's night. Fresh out of jail with nowhere else to go, Collett started praying to Jesus, seeking help from the shambles he had made of his life because of drugs and crime. When daylight arrived, Collett stepped out of that plastic privy into a new day, having made peace and vowing never to return to his old ways. [continues 774 words]
Abuse Adds To Peril In A Setting That's Already Dangerous PINEVILLE - Inspectors responsible for finding loose rocks and malfunctioning equipment inside coal mines now have a different sort of hazard to look out for -- drug addicts. The Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing has for the first time begun training its inspectors to identify miners who might be under the influence. "We realize the drug culture is out there in our society," said Paris Charles, head of the state agency. "So, it stands to reason that it's in the mines also." [continues 290 words]
Message To Congress: 'This Is Really So Simple' WASHINGTON (AP) - Talk-show host Montel Williams joined a group of medical marijuana advocates yesterday in imploring Congress to allow him and other sick people to use the drug without fear of prosecution. "This is really so simple it's ignorant," said Williams, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999. He said legal drugs do not help the pain. "I'm hurting right now. I'm hurting. Why? Because I knew I had to come to Washington, D.C., and I can't carry anything because I know I'd get busted," he said. [continues 132 words]
Today's topic: Medical Marijuana SEATTLE - Betty Hiatt's morning wake-up call comes with the purr and persistent kneading of the cat atop her bedspread. Under predawn gray, Hiatt blinks awake. It is 6 a.m., and Kato, an opinionated Siamese who Hiatt swears can tell time, wants to be fed. Reaching for a cane, the grandmother pads with uncertain steps to the tiny alcove kitchen in her two-room flat. After Kato gets his grub, Hiatt turns to her own needs. [continues 831 words]
PIKEVILLE - A private hospital will receive public funding from coal severance tax revenues to treat young drug addicts in Eastern Kentucky. Pikeville Medical Center will receive $750,000 over the next two years to help pay for a juvenile drug rehabilitation center, state Sen. Ray Jones II, D-Pikeville, said yesterday. Coal severance tax money historically has been used for economic development, including development of industrial parks and extension of municipal water lines into communities where mining has fouled wells. Jones said the state budget included an additional $1.5 million in coal severance tax revenues to Operation UNITE, an anti-drug project in 29 mountain counties. [continues 238 words]
Arrests in sales of 'crack' kits send clear message Lexington police made a strong statement last week with the arrest of 24 people for selling pre-packaged works for crack cocaine use. The "paper bag" order -- a glass vial used for smoking, scouring pads to clean the vial and a butane lighter -- is packaged to sell to addicts quicker than a Happy Meal. The fact that such marketing is so widespread and open -- sold at gas stations and corner markets -- makes it clear that these arrests were long overdue. [continues 152 words]
Like Explosives, Statistics Should Be Kept Out Of The Hands Of The Unqualified. Unfortunately, user-friendly statistical packages now let anyone take a data set and crunch a few numbers to reach a misleading and inflammatory conclusion. The user understands neither the difference between correlation and causation nor the critical distinctions between independent and dependent distributions that may account for the results. So it was when the Herald-Leader recently stirred the Fayette County schools' black-white disciplinary pot in an article about the Kentucky Center for School Safety's 2004 report and the so-called racial disparity in discipline rates. [continues 691 words]
Did anyone notice that Kentucky's growth rate among Ohio Valley states clearly beats all the surrounding seven states in at least one area: growth in prison population? In the number of prisoners in state and federal corrections, Kentucky's rate of growth, compared with the average of the seven surrounding states, is not twice, not three times, but almost four times the average rate of all seven surrounding states, up 8.5 percent from 2003 to 2004. Our prison population has increased four times as fast as that of the surrounding seven states. Is this because we have that many more criminals in Kentucky? Or possibly because our sentencing policies are now the harshest in the region? [continues 160 words]
Shops Accused Of Selling Drug Paraphernalia In a citywide crackdown, police yesterday raided 24 convenience, grocery and liquor stores they say were selling illegal kits used for smoking crack cocaine. By late afternoon, 24 suspects had been arrested on Class A misdemeanor charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, Capt. John Jacobs said. Twelve others were issued citations for the same charges in a daylong raid that involved 50 officers at sites scattered throughout Lexington. More stores could be raided in the coming months as police try to wipe out what they describe as a widespread problem. [continues 456 words]
ATLANTA - For a growing number of students, the easiest way to make a couple of hundred dollars has nothing to do with chores or after-school jobs, and everything to do with informing on classmates. Tragedies like last month's deadly shooting at a Red Lake, Minn., school have prompted more schools to offer cash and other prizes - including pizza and premium parking spots - to students who report classmates who carry guns, drugs or alcohol, commit vandalism or otherwise break school rules. [continues 506 words]
CHICAGO - She gets her latest grade from her theology professor -- it's a "check-plus," the highest mark she could've received. The tall, fair-haired student, older than most of her classmates, smiles slightly and shrugs it off, as if it's not such a big deal. But she knows better, especially given her circumstance a year ago, even little more than two months ago. Her name is Robin, and she's a 35-year-old mother of three and college student earning an undergraduate degree on scholarship. [continues 446 words]
Sometimes, after dragging yourself from what seems like the depths of hell, just the breathing of fresh, clean air is enough to shout about for years to come. That's what Debbie Dumas and Beverly Martin thought, anyway. That's what any of us would think had we managed to wrench free from the demands of alcohol or illegal drug addictions and settle into a stable lifestyle. But sometimes other folks think people like Dumas and Martin should be rewarded with more than a new life. They want them to have an abundant new life. [continues 691 words]
Black Professionals Need To Plug Drain On Family, Community In a restaurant that valued presentation over portion size, and with a jazz singer crooning in the background, four people prattled on about a favorite topic of the middle class: finding reliable domestic help. Chatter continued until one woman explained why she needed it: She was rearing alone the four children of a drug-addicted sister. Suddenly, talk got real. The man in the group had sole custody of his children because his ex-wife was a heroin addict. [continues 627 words]
Drug Devastates Young In Certain Areas LAKE ELMO, Minn. - They sit at a cafeteria table, gossiping and snacking during a school field trip. "Have you seen him? Has he gained the weight back?" one girl asked. "Yeah, he looked so good," replied another from across the table. "His cheeks filled in." It's no casual lunchtime conversation. The teen they're talking about is a recovering methamphetamine addict -- and so are several of the teens at the table, all of them students who attend alternative high schools in the St. Paul, Minn., area and who are trying to get their lives back on track. [continues 644 words]
Harlan Boy, 14, Puts Anti-Drug Logo On His Race Car CORBIN - No license. No worries. Fourteen-year-old Nathan Vanover simply slammed his foot on the pedal, gunned the engine and took off. His only concern was whether he was going fast enough. Vanover, a Harlan County resident, took to the Corbin Speedway yesterday to prepare for the track's opening race in his '80s-model Camaro. From the stands, it's impossible to tell that Vanover is two years away from being legally able to drive on the roads. On the track, he's just another racer in the stock car Pure Street division. [continues 676 words]
In response to Gary L. Tracy's March 26 letter, "Change the law": The letter writer apparently has only secondhand information. No one is rewarded or encouraged to smoke crack cocaine. Crack is a national problem, an addiction that is found everywhere. It's wonderful when a child born to an addicted woman has a chance to be with a good family while the mother is on the mend. Sure, the baby does go through withdrawal, but that doesn't mean the child will become an addict later in life. [continues 83 words]
Larger Lockups Paid To Keep State Inmates JACKSON - Breathitt County has become the 37th Kentucky county to lose its jail since 1983, when the state began enforcing new standards on old jailhouses, some of which were compared to medieval dungeons. That was then. Now officials in counties with small jails say they're closing their doors because they can't afford to keep them open. "Every one of us has got a bigger pipe going out than we've got coming in," Breathitt Judge-Executive Lewis Warrix said Tuesday, referring to costs. [continues 795 words]
Interns From UK Will Help Prosecuters University of Kentucky law students will team up with law professionals to help combat a growing drug problem in rural Kentucky. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell joined University of Kentucky President Lee Todd yesterday to announce that $1 million in federal funds has been earmarked for the UK College of Law Rural Drug Prosecution Assistance Project. Through the program, students will work as summer interns in offices for commonwealth's attorneys, U.S. attorneys, the state attorney general and circuit court judges. The program provides some stipends. The project also offers salary grants and tuition aid for graduates to work with the legal system. [continues 387 words]
Allegedly Told Suspect about DEA Agents LONDON - The onetime lead sheriff's detective in Harlan County gave the target of an investigation information about federal drug agents and agreed to hide assets for the suspect while she was in prison, according to federal charges. Roger Dean Hall, 37, also lied to the FBI about having a relationship with the woman, Edna Harris, according to documents filed in the case against Hall. U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell yesterday sentenced Hall to serve 15 months in federal prison. He is to report to prison June 22. [continues 811 words]
