BAMBERG - Bamberg County Deputy Adrienne Blume scoffs at criticism that a 24-year-old drug abuse prevention program doesn't produce effective results.

She has put too much time and effort - 17 years, to be exact - into teaching the smallest kindergarten students to the biggest fifth graders about the dangers of inhaling household products, smoking marijuana and, most recently, bullying.

Yes, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program has come under fire for a so-called flowery approach to drug prevention, lecturing kids without adhering to a research-based curriculum characteristic of stronger, evidence-based programs that produce real results.

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Meth Lab Bust -- Omen Of Future

According to the Anderson County Sheriff's Office, recent arrests for methamphetamine production and trafficking are the future of Anderson County, not the past.

"Methamphetamine is our No. 1 drug problem in the Upstate," said Mike Miller, director of the Anderson-Oconee Regional Forensics Laboratory. "Sixty-nine percent of my case load is methamphetamine .. We are the final East Coast version of every other state in the country."

In his 11th year as a law enforcement officer, Mr. Miller said he has been at 572 clandestine meth lab busts, predominantly in Anderson and Oconee counties. Across the state, he said, Anderson ranks No. 1 in the number of meth labs seized.

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KINGSTREE - Community members filled the Williamsburg County School District board/staff development meeting room during a regular meeting Monday to voice their concerns about several items including an incident where a Kingstree bus driver took her students to the Williamsburg County Detention center and had police search them for drugs.

During public participation Jeff Mayers, a parent of a 12-year-old who was on the bus, discussed the incident that occurred April 16, where a Kingstree bus driver took her students to the Williamsburg County Detention Center and had police search them for drugs before completing her route. "Our kids' rights were violated," Mayers said. "I don't think it's right to treat kids this way. I think they went too far. There's nothing stated in the handbook that the school can take my kid to a local jail." "We're outraged. Students feel uncomfortable about the situation," he said. "We're not going to let them sweep this under the rug." Mayers said he was told by students involved in the incident that the driver told police she smelled marijuana on the bus. Students were taken off the bus and told to open their bookbags, purses and pockets. Mayers said about 40 students between the ages of 11 and 17 were "patted down" by male officers, which made some female students uncomfortable. According to WCSC Live 5 News, Kingstree Police Chief Robert Ford says the search was legal because the driver smelled drugs, which gave them probable cause to search the bus. "The bus driver, because of what was happening on the bus, did what she felt was in the best interest of the safety of all the children on that bus," Williamsburg County School District Superintendent Ralph Fennell said.

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The war on drugs has been futile and costly. The cost in dollars is staggering. The costs of incarceration, personal freedom and liberty are intolerable. The violence and death to innocents caught in the crossfire are immoral.

Clearly the strategy used over the past 40 years is a complete failure. There are intelligent people in the medical field who could really make a difference if they could only be listened to and taken seriously.

Dangerous drugs such as crystal meth could be almost completely eradicated if not for the greed of pharmaceutical companies that ship over twice the amount of ingredients needed to make cold remedies to Mexico and all the outlets that refuse to monitor their sale in America.

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A man who police say injected a friend with a deadly dose of heroin and left her body in a Spartanburg motel room for at least three days has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Spartanburg Public Safety officers say Michael Hughey Parker, 36, continued to shoot heroin and was in and out of room 229 at the Villager Inn in the days after Kimberly Lee McFalls, 40, of Pauline died of an overdose. Police found McFalls' body on Nov. 13, 2006, lying on the floor of the East Main Street motel and covered in a blanket.

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Spartanburg County Detention Facility Director Larry Powers Says He Wishes the Movie "Field of Dreams" Had Never Been Made.

For him, the phrase, "If you build it, they will come," just hit a bit too close to home, since he figured at the time it had more to do with jails than baseball fields.

"When they built this jail, they all came," Powers said with a sardonic grin.

The county's current facility on California Avenue was constructed in 1994 to remedy chronic overcrowding. Yet within a month, every bed had been filled, and within four years the county was back to square one with the jail population again exceeding space. Today, there is an average of 800 inmates at any given time with room for only 586 at the main facility and its two small annexes.

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The White House sent a team of speakers to Charleston recently to persuade parents, educators and public officials that randomly testing public school students for drugs is a powerful tool to keep kids off drugs, (Post and Courier, Page 1-A, Sept. 25).

Horsefeathers! The truth is that testing students for drugs does not reduce drug use. Instead, it creates more problems than it solves, and it benefits nobody except the companies that do the testing. That's why the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the National Education Association, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, among others, all vehemently oppose it.

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Dozier Says It's Not Feasible for Georgetown County

Georgetown County School Superintendent Dr. Randy Dozier said there are no plans to implement random drug testing among district students because it would be too costly and time consuming.

Although there has been discussion among district officials and parents, and even support to begin such a practice, Dozier said, at this time, drug testing is not feasible.

"It's (drug testing) not as easy as people think," Dozier said. "It's costly. Our contract with the drug dogs is expensive too. You would have to choose."

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Federal Officials Lobby Educators

The near-absence of South Carolina school districts that randomly drug test students drew White House officials to Charleston on Wednesday to promote the practice to local educators.

Federal officials' stop in the Lowcountry also attracted drug testing opponents who say it's not an effective or cost-efficient way of preventing drug use among adolescents.

The tour puts a spotlight on the issue as school administrators nationwide grapple with ways to keep students away from drugs.

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Rep. Bill Herbkersman believes he has found a way to replenish South Carolina's farming industry, re-establish textile mills and do the environment some good in the process.

It's just not quite legal yet.

Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, is proposing a committee to study whether South Carolina should pursue "authorization of the cultivation and production of industrial hemp."

The challenge, he said, will be to convince lawmakers there's a significant difference between industrial hemp and its cannabis cousin, marijuana - and that the potential benefits are worth a deeper look.

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A new bill proposed this week by a South Carolina senator would legalize the use of marijuana for medical applications.

Sen. William Mescher, R-Pinopolis, introduced the legislation Tuesday, which has since been referred to the Senate's Committee on Medical Affairs.

Mescher said his reasoning behind the controversial concept stems from the death of his first wife about 24 years ago from lung cancer.

He said he recalled doctors at the time telling him some of her symptoms could have been eased with the use of medical marijuana, which has the effect of easing the nausea associated with cancer treatments such as chemotherapy.

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Not so long ago, police in the Lowcountry seemed to be facing a never-ending battle against underground methamphetamine labs.

In places such as Dorchester County, officers were donning protective suits with increasing regularity to clean up toxic messes left over from "cooking" the highly addictive stimulant.

Last year, Dorchester County sheriff's deputies raided 18 labs. Then the numbers dropped off. The Sheriff's Office reported raiding only five labs in 2006 as of last week.

The resident agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in South Carolina said similar trends are appearing throughout the country.

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But Treatments Centers Report Rising Admissions for Those Using The Drug

CHARLESTON - New state and federal laws targeting methamphetamine makers and users might be contributing to a decline in the number of labs in South Carolina, but officials warn that the drug is still affecting many people.

The top Drug Enforcement Administration agent in South Carolina said officers are seeing fewer meth labs nationwide.

"We're seeing the same results that other states have seen, that the meth lab numbers are going down," John Ozaluk said. But "that doesn't mean that our meth problem has gone away."

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Legislation could bring new meaning to phrase 'rolling a fatty' in time Let's face it, banning trans fats extends government power much too far into the private sector for comfort and takes nanny state-ism to a new extreme.

Give people the choice to be fat if they want - at least, that seems to be how many people on campus feel.

But many of these pro-personal responsibility advocates don't speak out against anti-drug legislation, and that just doesn't make sense.

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CHESTER -- Police in Chester County Realize That Interagency Cooperation Is Essential to Fighting Drugs.

But some agency heads disagree about how they should get along.

In the coming weeks, Sheriff Robby Benson says he'll send proposals to the police chiefs in Fort Lawn and Great Falls, asking them to allow their officers to work together as a drug unit with his agency.

Benson has had the same agreement with the Chester Police Department since 2003. Essentially, Benson says, the agreement means officers from Great Falls and Fort Lawn can work on cases outside of their towns as part of the drug unit. The chiefs and the sheriff would decide who heads the unit, and the agencies would divide the seized assets.

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School students in Northeast Georgia are getting an "up close and personal" look at the dangers of methamphetamine, thanks to a new program which brings former addicts into the classrooms.

The Faces of Meth program reaches throughout Northeast Georgia with a message - meth is dangerous and deadly.

According to officials, nearly 2 million Americans are addicted to meth and one out of every 10 teens becomes addicted after trying the drug just once.

"Northeast Georgia is no exception," said Sharon Lee, director of the task force. "The addiction rate is 95 percent after one try."

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DPS Kicks Off Red Ribbon Week

The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety kicked off its Red Ribbon Week celebration Monday at the department's headquarters. With approximately 50 people in attendance, ODPS Chief Wendell Davis welcomed and thanked them for participating in the celebration.

"The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety encourages the citizens of Orangeburg to support activities that raise awareness and encourage prevention of substance abuse," Davis said.

"We call upon every citizen to wear a red ribbon throughout the week in recognition of their commitment to a healthy, drug-free lifestyle and our commitment to a drug-free America."

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When Bryson Fowler was 8 years old, he encouraged his 19-year-old cousin to stop smoking cigarettes and cigars, because it was damaging the teen's health.

"My cousin almost died because he was coughing, and he collapsed," said Fowler, now 10. "When you take drugs, you lose all your energy."

Fowler, a fifth-grader at Jesse Bobo Elementary, learned the importance of saying no to drugs at a young age through his school's participation in Red Ribbon Week.

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Justice System Must Change,Mayor Tells Senate Task Force

COLUMBIA - Charleston Mayor Joe Riley proposed anti-crime legislation Thursday to a state Senate task force, but some questioned whether the threat of longer prison sentences would help.

Riley has responded to a surge in homicides and gun violence in Charleston by calling on the state to increase penalties for gun-related offenses and to pump money into South Carolina's backlogged courts, overwhelmed probation offices and overcrowded prisons.

The nature of crime has changed due to the illegal drug trade, Riley said, and the justice system must change in response.

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If students ("Students With Drug Offenses Lose Financial Aid," Wednesday) are convicted of murder or rape, they'd still be eligible for financial aid in school; this creates another facet of the Higher Education Act and aids policy discrimination that doesn't get mentioned by government supporters. Even if not convicted of a felony, but a misdemeanor, and charged for possessing the God-given plant cannabis (not a drug), one could lose their financial aid.

Would students have lost financial aid if caught with alcohol? This provision of the Higher Education Act is bad policy that should be amended or terminated.

Stan White

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