A federal judge Thursday sentenced the former director of the Lauderdale County Drug Task Force to a year and a day in prison for extorting money from a defendant in exchange for favorable treatment. U.S. District Judge Robert Propst sentenced David L. Scogin, who pleaded guilty in November to extortion, lying to the FBI and federal program fraud. Scogin also paid $10,000 toward the $20,000 in restitution he agreed to pay as part of his plea agreement. Scogin, who was forced to resign in March 2003 after serving as task force director since 1999, took $5,000 from a person in April 2002 so the person wouldn't be arrested. Prosecutors said Scogin also used money in 2003 that was intended for the task force and lied to the FBI. Propst on Thursday also sentenced James Timothy Montgomery of Tuscaloosa to a year in prison for fraud and ordered him to pay $222,000 in restitution. Montgomery's scheme involved car titles and financing from AmSouth bank. [end]
To the editor: Nearly every North American study, including government studies, indicate even the revamped model of DARE (Stepping Up Anti-Drug Message, Feb. 20, Capital News), is a failure and may be doing more harm than good. DARE teaches that medical use of cannabis is a hoax. It is commendable to help youth resist drugs, alcohol, cannabis, coffee and cigarettes until they are older and responsible for their choices, but caging responsible adult cannabis users is not the correct way to do it. As an obedient Christian I resist government teaching my children the plant cannabis is evil when we are taught God created all the seed bearing plants saying they are all good on literally the very first page of the Bible. Money used for DARE should be applied toward programs that work and have support from citizens. Stan White Dillon, Colorado [end]
Letter Cites Use Of Substance By Killer The men and women enforcing Columbia's new marijuana ordinance would very much like to see it overturned, according to the Columbia Police Officers Association, or CPOA. But to do that, they're asking city leaders for help. In November, voters in the city approved two ordinances, one that allows marijuana to be used for medical purposes when prescribed by a doctor and another that limits the punishment for possessing small amounts of the drug to a $250 fine in municipal court, leaving no criminal record. [continues 723 words]
BOSTON -- Blacks are contracting HIV at twice the rate they were in the late 1980s and early '90s, which researchers and AIDS prevention advocates attribute to drug addiction, poverty and poor access to health care, according to government statistics. At the same time, the HIV infection rate among whites has held steady, causing alarm among some health officials who say the racial gap in the epidemic is widening. Other troubling statistics indicate that almost half of all infected people in the United States who should be receiving HIV drugs are not getting them. [continues 314 words]
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is barring private American AIDS organizations from winning federal grants to provide health services overseas unless they pledge their opposition to prostitution, as part of a broader Republican effort in recent weeks to apply conservative values to foreign-assistance programs. The White House move comes as Republican lawmakers have been pressing the administration to cut off funds to private organizations that encourage clean-needle programs overseas for intravenous drug users -- a group at the center of the AIDS epidemic in Central Asia and other areas. [continues 1356 words]
Krawitz, of Elliston, is a disabled U.S. Air Force veteran and a Virginia Tech undergraduate student of computer engineering on extended medical leave. "Issues of drug use have always been morally tinged by politics and social conceptions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of addiction, an area that touches our deepest fears about our ability to manage ourselves, our children and our society." - - Stanton Peele, adjunct professor of social work, New York University. What do German scientists in 1937, Virginia legislators in 2005 and Blacksburg and Roanoke all have in common? Answer: polamidon! [continues 837 words]
A fire that destroyed part of a forest west of Napier yesterday could be linked with cannabis growing in the area. Detective Senior Sergeant Nick Reid, of Napier CIB, said a detective had gone to the forest about an hour from Napier today to investigate both the discovery of cannabis plants in the forest and the suspicious nature of the fire, which was reported at 6.23 yesterday morning, after a truck driver spotted the smoke from Puketitiri. Mr Reid did not know how much cannabis had been found, but sources at the fire scene yesterday said plants had been in several places. [continues 425 words]
Philippine National Police Ant-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AID-SOFT) chief Director General Ricardo de Leon proposed a "spray painting" campaign on houses of suspected drug lords, similar to the anti-drug campaign of former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim. During the Kapihan sa Manila Hotel, De Leon cited Lim's campaign in Manila and challenged local government units to show strong political will in the campaign against illegal drugs and study the possibility of passing an ordinance authorizing the "spray painting" of houses of suspected drug pushers. [continues 122 words]
A Kamloops program aimed at kicking crystal methamphetime has become a hot property. The Fifth Estate, CBC's premier investigative documentary program, has its lens set on Meth Kickers, a local pilot project aimed at helping young people quit the highly addictive drug. Bob Hughes, a youth addictions counsellor with the Phoenix Centre's Raven Program, said crystal meth is spreading west to east, across the country. "It's just beginning to slip into the niche markets of the drug trade of Ontario and Eastern Canada," Hughes said. [continues 185 words]
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- When federal agents tapping phones during a drug investigation heard a police detective talking about "Shrek" and "pressure treated lumber," they suspected he wasn't referring to the popular cartoon character or material for a deck. Detective Jeffrey G. Streck was speaking in code about OxyContin, a powerful painkiller that has been widely abused around the country, authorities said. "Significantly, Shrek the cartoon character, like the 80 milligram tablets of OxyContin, is green," an FBI agent wrote in Streck's arrest affidavit. "As a homeowner and frequent visitor to hardware stores such as The Home Depot, I know that the ends of pressure treated lumber are green as a consequence of their being treated with preservatives." [continues 331 words]
