We should all be concerned that proven programs that effectively treat rather than just warehouse drug addicts and youth are on the budget chopping block. Drug court in Durham may have resulted in only 11 successful "graduates," but there are around 50 in the Raleigh program and many more in Charlotte. Yes, the program costs the state court system, but what was the dollar figure saved by the Department of Correction? Because the court costs and prison savings come out of different pockets, the overall economic efficiency of this program is not readily apparent. In addition, calculate the savings in human lives: healthy babies, working and tax-paying citizens and fewer customers for dealers. [continues 66 words]
Your May 6 editorial on a Durham public housing resident's close call highlighted one of the more glaring examples of out-of-control zero tolerance. The "one-strike, you're out" policy of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requires that entire families be evicted from public housing if anyone, even a guest, uses drugs. The youthful indiscretions of a rebellious teen-ager could result in homelessness for an entire family. According to a survey by Monitoring the Future, more than half of all high school seniors have tried an illegal drug at least once. Exposing 50 percent of all families living in public housing to the dangers of living on the street is not the answer to America's drug problem. [continues 61 words]
GREENSBORO -- Two of three men charged with stealing marijuana from the Chatham County landfill pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday in federal court, and the third man is expected to do the same today. The men will be sentenced on Aug. 12 after a probation officer prepares presentencing reports on them. Jody Mitchell Brafford, 31, of 436 Wall Road, Goldston, and Gary Leslie Causey, 39, of 8224 Holman Mill Road, Snow Camp, pleaded guilty during the short hearing in the U.S. Middle District Federal Courthouse in Greensboro. [continues 596 words]
District Court Judge Marcia Morey did justice a good turn when she refused to permit the eviction of a McDougald Terrace woman and her children who were unwittingly caught up in a failed drug bust on her back porch. The Durham Housing Authority (DHA) had sought the removal under a zero-tolerance policy that allows people in public housing to be summarily evicted if any family member or guest is involved in drug activity - whether the head of the household knows about it or not. [continues 315 words]
Cutting substance abuse treatment in the N.C. Department of Correction may seem like a cost-cutting measure to many. It certainly is not! Cut treatment and you will increase crime, the cost to the taxpayer for arrest, trial, incarceration, and support of the inmate's family while the inmate is being warehoused without appropriate substance abuse treatment. When people suffering from addictive disease receive appropriate substance disorder treatment, they just don't commit as many crimes. The streets get safer, and little boys and girls have mommies and daddies at home, instead of in prison. North Carolina needs more substance disorder treatment in the Department of Correction. It saves money in the long run. [continues 57 words]
Whose fault is it if a person living in the same house is involved in narcotics? According to the Supreme Court, the entire household is at fault. On Tuesday, the court backed rules that permit evictions of families of federally subsidized housing if any family member or guest is involved in drugs. Public housing directors can evict entire families for drug use by one member, regardless of whether the use was on public housing property or if anyone else knew about it. [continues 766 words]
I have been amazed at the response from the NAACP and others in reference to the raid that took place at 1835 Cheek Road. I'm a uniform patrol sergeant for the Durham Police Department, and I work the North-East Central Durham area, which includes 1835 Cheek Road. I have been on the force for 15 years, and there have only been three locations that I can think are worse than 1835 Cheek Road. If you ever watched the movie "New Jack City" starring Wesley Snipes as Nino Brown, then you know what I'm talking about. I had never felt as much frustration than when watching lookouts holler "man down!" every time we tried to enter 1835 Cheek Road for calls or other services. Upon spotting our patrol vehicles, drug dealers in the parking lots ran to designated apartments to hide themselves, their weapons and their drugs. For the first time, I ordered my squad not to go to 1835 Cheek Road unless another patrol car was with them. [continues 183 words]
Jena Matzen has a carousel of slides from her trip to Colombia, and she's giving slide shows throughout the Triangle. These are not your standard shots of smiling couples standing in front of national landmarks. One image shows a farmer at the center of his 12-acre field, a former corn crop now utterly decimated. Another shows a white flag raised over a black pepper crop, as a signal to airplanes that this is a legal crop. According to Matzen, a Hillsborough resident, the white flag did not have the desired effect; the pepper crop was destroyed nevertheless, by planes dropping enormous quantities of an herbicide called glyphosate -- marketed by Monsanto in this country under the brand name Round-Up -- as part of the U.S. war on drugs. [continues 1299 words]
PITTSBORO -- Former Chatham County deputy Dan Phillips, who claims he was unjustly fired because he tried to reveal racism in the Chatham County Schools, won a pretrial victory Monday when a judge said he would allow Phillips to amend his lawsuit to claim he also was fired because he helped instigate an FBI investigation into 5,000 pounds of missing marijuana. Phillips is suing Chatham County Sheriff Ike Gray, and during Monday's hearing in Chatham County Civil Superior Court Judge Wade Barber ruled that Phillips could add Chief Deputy Randy Keck's name to the lawsuit. Barber, however, said Keck could not be sued as an individual. [continues 818 words]
CARRBORO -- Attracting a rehabilitation program to help people with drug problems and subsequently reduce crime will be one of the new items the Carrboro Board of Alderman voted to look at this year. At a retreat Monday, the aldermen decided to add to their priorities this and other items for consideration -- including reducing the number of times they meet each month. "Crime is connected to substance abuse," Alderman Jacquie Gist said. "It's a public health problem that becomes a crime problem. [continues 715 words]
PITTSBORO -- Attorney by his side, Chatham County Sheriff Ike Gray formally announced his candidacy for office and responded for the first time to a lawsuit against him. "I'm just here to let everybody know that I would be on the ballot in the primary," Gray told several reporters gathered Thursday morning at the Sheriff's Office. Gray said he made the decision to run about a month ago, shortly after Christmas. Earlier in December, Gray told The Chapel Hill Herald he would not run for office, saying, "I will not be on the ballot in 2002." [continues 916 words]
DURHAM -- Despite the civil rights movement, the majority of black Americans have not prospered, according to prominent political writer Randall Robinson, who urges successful members of the black community to recognize their obligation toward those trapped in poverty and violence. Robinson spoke to more than 60 people at Barnes & Noble bookstore Wednesday night about his recent book, "The Reckoning." Generations of black men and women are growing up without opportunities for positive advancement, ignored equally by the government and wealthier black Americans, he said. [continues 579 words]
On a late winter evening, two men are shooting a basketball in the gymnasium of the CIS Academy on Driver Street in East Durham. In not much time, one of the men starts to hit shot after shot from long range. Herb Sellers, Leisure Coordinator for the Durham Parks and Recreation Department, breaks into a smile and yells to Bobby Moore, who was quite a player in his day. Moore is a member of the Shaw University Basketball Hall of Fame and now also is a leisure coordinator. [continues 754 words]
