CHARLESTON -- A federal judge on Monday stopped the Kanawha County school system from implementing a new drug testing policy, saying it would force teachers to submit to an unconstitutional and unjustified search.

U.S. District Judge Robert Goodwin granted a temporary injunction sought by the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, which argued that the policy was illegal and unnecessary.

The policy would have allowed random drug testing of 25 percent of Kanawha County's school employees, including teachers, each year. The Kanawha County Board of Education approved the policy in October and planned to implement it Jan. 1.

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Charleston, W.Va. -- A federal judge today halted a West Virginia school district's plans to randomly test its teachers for drug use.

Nearly all school employees were to be tested under the Kanahwa County School Board's policy, which is similar to a Western North Carolina school system's policy that is also being challenged in court.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which sued along with the state teachers' association to stop the West Virginia policy, said a U.S. District Court judge suspended the policy pending a final ruling.

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Americans have a right to move about without fear of being groundlessly stopped by law enforcement. As far as we know, that constitutional right applies to all Americans, not just the minority who live far removed from the nation's borders.

In what is proving to be a sweeping Bush administration security initiative, the Department of Homeland Security has expanded use of its authority to operate within 100 miles of the border. That has come to include increasingly frequent use of roadblocks in Western Washington.

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A federal judge halted the Kanawha County school system's plan to randomly drug test teachers.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Robert Goodwin said the drug testing plan would force teachers to submit to an unconstitutional and unjustified search. He also gave a scathing rebuke of the policy and the school board that approved it.

Goodwin said the Kanawha school system's plan to randomly test 25 percent of its teachers and other school personnel each year was made even though it does not appear that there is a pervasive drug problem in the county.

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In Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley's chaotic courtroom, the bulletin board tells the story.

The thank-you notes. The crayon drawings from grateful children. The Polaroids of former defendants who've regained the ability to smile.

They are all telltale signs seldom found elsewhere in the local criminal justice system, where drama and sorrow ordinarily drown out the kind of hope Manley sells inside his courtroom every day. Manley believes in reclamation projects, and he sees hundreds of them each year as he runs one of the most unique courtrooms in California for defendants facing drug addiction and mental illness.

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A federal judge in West Virginia on Monday dealt a legal setback to random drug testing of teachers, which is also being challenged in a Western North Carolina school system.

U.S. District Judge Robert Goodwin granted a temporary injunction sought by a teachers' union preventing the Kanawha County, W.Va., school system from implementing a new drug policy Jan. 1.

Goodwin said random testing would force teachers to submit to an unconstitutional and unjustified search.

He rejected the school board's argument that the policy was needed because teachers hold safety-sensitive jobs, a stance also taken by the Graham County, N.C., school board. The judge questioned why the Kanawha board didn't also test teachers for tropical diseases.

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SOUTH LAKE TAHOE -- A purported medicinal marijuana provider has opened, and at least one city official and one resident are expressing concern about the new business.

Patient to Patient Collective opened early this month at 2314 Lake Tahoe Blvd. A post on a message board at cannabis.com says the collective is distributing marijuana for medical use.

A man who answered the phone at the collective and identified himself as a manager also said the collective is distributing marijuana to medical patients.

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State lawmakers are looking at legislation to create stricter standards for the use of young people as confidential informants.

State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, is working with an attorney for the family of Rachel Hoffman to craft the legislation. Hoffman, 23, of Clearwater, was fatally shot in May while helping Tallahassee police with a drug investigation.

Hoffman agreed to work with police after she was arrested on drug charges, including possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana and possession with intent to sell Ecstasy.

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Re: "Mexico crisis is deepening," Monday:

Seventy-five years ago, we ended the violence caused of alcohol prohibition by ending alcohol prohibition.

The violence in Mexico will continue until we terminate the root cause: drug prohibition.

Will ending drug prohibition solve our drug problem? No. It will however, dramatically reduce the U.S. and Mexican crime rates.

Kirk Muse

Mesa

[end]

Re: "Goddard might consider legalized marijuana" (Letters, Dec. 23):

Of course, many drug war cheerleaders will claim that re-legalizing marijuana will be giving into the drug cartels. Seventy-five years ago, when we re-legalized the drug alcohol, did we give in to the alcohol cartels?

No, we put them out of business.

Cartels exist because our stupid marijuana prohibition policies make an easy-to-grow weed almost as valuable as pure gold.

Kirk Muse

Mesa

[end]

Gregg Allman Talks (And Laughs) About Music And A Bunch Of Other Stuff

8 p.m. Dec. 30. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Rd., Ridgefield. (203) 438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.com.

I've got Gregg Allman on the line and he's telling me a story about the time he and the rest of the Allman Brothers Band lived together and ate psilocybin tablets (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) every day for eight weeks.

Suddenly I realize that he misunderstood my question. It's not that I don't want to know about the drug-filled life of a rock star, but I haven't asked about it yet.

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Two Quebec men admitted in federal court to possessing about 100 pounds of marijuana after a traffic stop in the village of Canton.

Sebastien Fredette, 21, and Mathieu Langlois, 22, each pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Syracuse to conspiring to possess with intent to distribute marijuana. Both will be sentenced April 10.

St. Lawrence County sheriff's deputies stopped them May 28 near P&C Foods on Route 11 for erratic driving, federal court records show. A deputy noticed a large hockey equipment bag on the back seat and asked to search the vehicle. Mr. Fredette allegedly declined the request.

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The reality of human decision-making is really not all bad news. The reason is the human mind is an amazing synthesizer of information. We are genetically programmed to behave in ways that maintain our species.

Most negotiators, in both the public and private sectors, are expected to be wary of decision traps set by management on both sides of the aisle who wish for quick and partial solutions.

In Hawaii, the public sector is advancing toward a management trap. The Hawaii State Teachers Association (HSTA) is expected to begin talks this week for a new contract. This, after a deadline requiring random drug testing of all public school teachers passed almost six months ago, with no teachers being tested. Last year teachers ratified a two-year contract, which included generous pay raises and a random drug testing requirement that should have been implemented by June of this year. Their current contract expired in June, and the state paid the teachers most of their 11-percent raise. But HSTA continues to oppose drug testing, citing privacy concerns.

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Senator Proposes National Panel

Somewhere along the meandering career path that led James Webb to the U.S. Senate, he found himself in the frigid interior of a Japanese prison.

A journalist at the time, he was working on an article about Ed Arnett, an American who had spent two years in Fuchu Prison for possession of marijuana. In a January 1984 Parade magazine piece, Webb described the harsh conditions imposed on Arnett, who had frostbite and sometimes labored in solitary confinement making paper bags.

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Drug Enforcement Administration agent Daniel Dunlap seems to think he knows better than doctors when it comes to patient care and medical marijuana. While there have been studies showing that marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug. If a doctor recommends marijuana to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and it helps them feel better, then it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life issue best left to patients and their doctors.

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Mr. Tolbe, the issue is not about teachers' unwillingness to participate in a drug testing program, the issue is that the governor has required the expense be placed upon an already stretched school budget. ("Drug test teachers," Letters, Dec. 21)

The elementary school in your neighborhood is already cut to below even the barest of necessities but would have to accept the additional financial burden of covering the cost of testing its teachers.

You should sit in on a faculty meeting at one of the local schools to witness the reality of today's challenges. We are being asked to raise the bar in education by meeting specified standards, however the resources in which to do this are being decreased with budget cuts.

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In common lore, cocaine in powder form is for celebrities and elites, in rock form it's for the inner-city poor while homemade crystal methamphetamine is the narcotic of choice for the pickup truck crowd.

Based on arrest patterns here during the year, there's more than a little truth to the lore.

Meth is insidious. There are no multinational meth cartels. There are only recipes - chemical processes, sometimes explosive, to refine the drug in almost any kitchen. Addiction is immediate, strong and destructive. Meth-heads will do anything to get the drug, which means most robberies and burglaries can be traced to this poison.

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Under recently enacted legislation, nonviolent, drug- or alcohol-addicted criminals can reduce their minimum prison stays if they participate in prison treatment programs.

The Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive program was enacted Nov. 24, giving county judges a new sentencing tool to help drug-addicted offenders kick the habits that lead them to commit crimes.

Eric Herman, 23, a serial burglar whose heroin addiction fueled his desire to invade numerous homes in eastern Montgomery County, has become the first criminal in the county to be sentenced under the new program.

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To the Editor:

On Dec. 8, you wrote a piece applauding the state patrol in keeping illegal drugs off state highways.

Please allow me to object to your statement because it might lead some weak-minded people to think that stricter law enforcement would do some good regarding our illegal drug problem. That is just plain wrong. Prohibition does not work.

The same law that made alcohol illegal also made heroin illegal. It did not work for alcohol and it will never work for heroin. The lawmakers, those gutless politicians, again made alcohol legal in 1933 but they did not make heroin legal.

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Officials hope the newly implemented tactic will help tackle an intersection's long-standing problems with crime.

In an effort to keep repeat criminals away from East Rundberg Lane and Interstate 35, an area of North Austin that has been a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes and a source of neighbors' complaints, Austin police and Travis County district attorney's officials have teamed up to start using "stay-away orders" in the area.

While their criminal cases are pending and they're out on bail, suspected drug offenders with stay-away orders aren't allowed in the area. Violating the order could land them back in jail, and their behavior would be considered in assessing their sentences.

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