Dear Editor, What is Mitchell County thinking? All the students at Mitchell High must now check their constitutional rights at the door of the school? Every time government encroaches on our civil liberties it is always in the name of a "good cause." DSS and the DEA can suspend constitutional rights in the name of the "child" and "a drug free" country? Now, it is our local government in the disguise of concern over drug use in public schools! This is socialism and communism, take away the rights of all because of the supposed actions of a few. [continues 499 words]
Mitchell County Board of Education Looks to Test All Students in Extracurricular Activities Starting Next Year The Mitchell County Board of Education is leaning towards installing a drug testing policy for the 2009-2010 school year that tests Mitchell High School students who participate in interscholastic athletics and all extracurricular activities. The board is still considering more comprehensive policies that test students who are granted the privilege of parking at school, and attend middle school, but decided against including these two groups of students because of a lack of money, and legal issues. [continues 607 words]
School Board to hold special meeting about drug testing students at Mitchell High School The Mitchell County Board of Education made a goal on Jan. 15 to eliminate illicit drug use at the high school. They offered proof at their regular session on Feb. 16 that they are serious about making this happen. The board voted unanimously to set up a special session with its legal counsel to determine which students are to be included and what the system can afford. [continues 642 words]
Mitchell County's School Board is working on a new drug testing policy for Mitchell High School. They will have a hearing for the public to comment. We encourage all parents of older children to attend. This is a policy that will directly affect your children. In our opinion, the policy does not go far enough, and we are not sure that it can legally. Here are our changes: All students at the high school need to be candidates for random testing. [continues 251 words]
Mitchell County Sheriff says 75 percent of drug cases involve prescription drugs Ten years ago drug cases in Mitchell County dealt mostly with illegal drugs like marijuana, methamphetamines, and cocaine. Maybe even a little white liquor. Now, prescription drugs dominate the scene. "I'd say about 75 percent of our cases deal with prescription drugs," said Mitchell County Sheriff Ken Fox. And the hardest part about working the cases is that at some point the drugs were obtained legally with a prescription. There are no illegal labs to bust, no shipments to stop, and no main source to go after. [continues 750 words]
Think of four teens. The likelihood is that one of the four has used prescription drugs illegally. According to a study released by the North Carolina Healthy Schools Initiative, 24.6 percent of teenagers in the state's western region have, at some point, taken prescription medication without a prescription. An easy reaction would be, "Well, not in my county," but Mitchell High School Principal Jack Brooks said that is unrealistic. "Anybody who says that there aren't drug abuses, in even a small system like this, is sticking their head in the sand," Brooks said. "What we've seen in the past five years is a trend away from illegal drugs and more towards illegal use of legal prescription drugs." [continues 434 words]
If you said: methamphetamines marijuana cocaine heroin You are wrong. The drug of choice these days may be sitting in your medicine cabinet. Prescription drug abuse is the biggest drug problem. Here are some facts from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration based on 2006 figures: Nearly 7 million Americans are abusing prescription drugs - more than the number who are abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy, and inhalants, combined. That 7 million was just 3.8 million in 2000, an 80 percent increase in just 6 years. [continues 219 words]
Officials Say Possession by Students Is a Reflection of Community Problem For the first time in three years Mitchell County leads the surrounding counties in numbers of controlled substance possession cases in its schools. For the 2006-07 school year - a report compiled by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction - show 20 cases of possession in two schools: 18 at Mitchell High School and two at Harris Middle School. Neighboring Yancey County had six incidents that year - two at Cane River Middle School and four at Mountain Heritage High School - and Avery County reported seven incidents, all at Avery Middle School. All counties posted average daily memberships - the seven month average attendance of students - within 60 students of each other. [continues 379 words]
Prescription Drugs Have Played A Part In 16 Deaths By Overdose In The Last Four Years In Mitchell When asked about the Mitchell County's biggest problem, Sheriff Ken Fox has two words: prescription drugs. Of all the illicit drugs available in Mitchell County, Fox said black market pills are consistently lethal. "People just don't realize how dangerous it is," he said. And too often, they never learn. In the last four years, overdoses from prescription pills have killed 16 people, Fox said. [continues 324 words]
During the crack epidemic of the eighties, New York City chose the zero tolerance approach, opting to arrest and prosecute as many users as possible. Meanwhile, Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry was smoking crack and America's capital had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Yet crack use declined in both cities simultaneously. Simply put, the younger generation saw first hand what crack was doing to their older brothers and sisters and decided for themselves that crack was bad news. This is not to say nothing can be done about meth. Access to drug treatment is critical for the current generation of meth users. Diverting resources away from prisons and into cost-effective treatment would save both tax dollars and lives. The following U.S. Department of Justice research brief confirms my claims regarding the spontaneous decline of crack cocaine: http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/nij/187490.txt Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy [end]
This week we printed a column from Scott Mooneyham, "Today in NC", that talks about a move N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper is asking legislators to make. Cooper is asking for the N.C. Legislature to enact a law making it harder for customers to buy cold medicines with ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, such as Actifed and Sudafed. Mooneyham is against the measure. Cooper doesn't want to make it tougher for sick people to get better. He wants to make it tougher for criminals to make methamphetamine. A key ingredient in a common meth recipe is ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. [continues 277 words]
Dear Editor, Student involvement in after-school activities like sports has been shown to reduce drug use. They keep kids busy during the hours they are most likely to get into trouble. Forcing students to undergo degrading urine tests as a prerequisite will only discourage participation in extracurricular activities. Drug testing may also compel marijuana users to switch to harder drugs to avoid testing positive. Despite a short-lived high, marijuana is the only illegal drug that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent. Marijuana's organic metabolites are fat-soluble and can linger for days. Synthetic drugs are water-soluble and exit the body quickly. A student who takes methamphetamine, ecstasy or heroin on Friday night will likely test clean on Monday morning. If you think students don't know this, think again. [continues 79 words]
Board sets vote on policy to test athletes and coaches at high school level Nathan Hall Following a one-hour closed session, the Mitchell County School Board took its first look at a drug testing policy for school athletes. Mitchell High Principal Jack Brooks developed the policy, which he said has been used in several Western North Carolina Schools. Under the policy, athletes would be tested at the start of the season, with some team members selected for testing at random times during the season. [continues 234 words]
As of this editorial, the school board had not yet voted on the drug testing proposal for Mitchell High School. New principal Jack Brooks has brought forward a policy modeled on one used in other Western North Carolina schools. Our first thought when someone says drug testing is "rights violation." It is a knee-jerk reaction. The more we think about it, drug testing can be a good thing for the high school. Problems that can be caught early can be headed off before they get completely out of hand. [continues 290 words]
Governor Mike Easley signed a new proposal on Aug. 3 to toughen penalties against N.C. methamphetamine manufacturers. The proposal, co-sponsored by N.C. Senator Joe Sam Queen, will crack down not only on manufacturers, but also on those possessing the ingredients to make the drug and those who inadvertently injure law enforcement officials in the case of explosions or meth lab fires. Punishments will now be more severe for those who make meth when a child is present. Twenty-five percent of N.C. homes containing meth labs were found to have children residing in them during 2003. The new bill also adds meth to the list of illegal drugs like opium and cocaine where, if overdosed on, the provider may be charged with second-degree murder. [continues 210 words]
N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper hosted a methamphetamine summit at McDowell Technical College last Thursday. The event, entitled "Combating North Carolina's Fastest Growing Drug Problem" and coordinated in part by Senator Joe Sam Queen, focused on meth manufacturing in western N.C., as well as the drug's dangerous long term effects, not only on users, but also on children who inhabit the homes containing many labs scattered across this part of the state. Scores of law enforcement and medical officials from the region attended, including the Mitchell County Sheriff's Department and Spruce Pine Police. [continues 568 words]
It's time to get tough on criminals who manufacture and distribute methamphetamines says N.C. Attorney General Ray Cooper. Cooper unveiled a preliminary report last week on the progress N.C. has made in fighting the epidemic that has, along with prescription drugs, become one of the main concerns for rural counties. Though the report stated that N.C. has met the drug challenge with multiple arrests, on many levels, Cooper says, the state can do more, such as inflicting harsher penalties, promote more public awareness and education and better training on the local level. [continues 330 words]
Dear Editor, Keith Buckner (letter, Oct. 15) fails to accept that as bad as alcohol is, prohibition proved far worse. Major differences include purity of product and confronting irresponsible users instead of all users. It would be a mistake to ignore the amount of deaths attributed to people using drugs tainted only because of the nature of the black market realities. Like the original prohibition the sequel is responsible for deaths due to impure or inconsistant product. America needs credible drug law reform. Stan White, Dillon, CO [end]
Dear Editor, Keith Buckner's observations concerning the problems that alcohol causes our society are indeed valid. I would argue that we haven't yet begun to take some of the steps necessary in "deglamourizing" alcohol use and reducing possible harms as has been done with cigarettes (only after billion dollar settlements forced them to). Our federal government spends millions of taxpayer dollars on anti-drug ad campaigns that are actually anti-marijuana campaigns. Children see these commercials and the next thing that comes on is a beer commercial. Now why haven't we started to remove this type of advertising from television and radio? Of course the reason is money! The negative effects of alcohol on our society could surely be reduced by using what we already know works and getting the alcohol lobbyist out of Washington. Criminalizing adults for using other substances is not the answer to our problems. It has in fact created more crime, corruption, death and disease than we would have in a legally regulated environment. And no, there wouldn't be any commercials advertising cocaine in a legal environment. Nobody, even "Legalizers", advocate drug use. They advocate the right for an adult to choose what they put in their body without fear of incarceration. Our current system is the one which allows any man, woman or child to obtain these substances without any control or regulation. But have you ever wondered why our government hasn't bombarded television with anti-drug ads on heroin or cocaine as they have with cannabis? I think our "leaders" need to find the courage to end the hypocrisy in our laws and let's start using logic and science to guide the law making process. Not lobbyists and propaganda. Scott Russ Baton Rouge, LA [end]
Dear Editor, Keith Buckner's observations concerning the problems that alcohol causes our society are indeed valid. I would argue that we haven't yet begun to take some of the steps necessary in "deglamourizing" alcohol use and reducing possible harms as has been done with cigarettes (only after billion dollar settlements forced them to). Our federal government spends millions of taxpayer dollars on anti-drug ad campaigns that are actually anti-marijuana campaigns. Children see these commercials and the next thing that comes on is a beer commercial. [continues 211 words]
