HAMMOND -- Tangipahoa Parish deputies will soon begin random, weekly narcotics sweeps of public junior and senior high schools, officials said Monday.

About three schools will be checked each week with drug-sniffing dogs.

The searches are expected to begin in about two weeks and also will look for weapons and alcohol.

Deputies will be checking backpacks, lockers, classrooms and restrooms.

The searches, which will involve students and teachers, are being conducted in cooperation with school system officials.

Last school year, about six people were arrested on school grounds in drug-related incidents involving marijuana and pills, the Sheriff's Office said.

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Dealers Who Fled to Houston After Katrina Built Closer Ties With Suppliers

SLIDELL, LA. - It was just before dawn one day in May when the pickup truck arrived at the two-story house in this middle-class suburb, which had been hit hard by Hurricane Katrina.

But unlike most of the trucks in the city now, it was not carrying construction supplies.

Federal agents, who were hiding in the bushes, say the truck was bringing 50 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, from Houston to the murder-racked streets of nearby New Orleans. They also say that the shipment, seized May 18, was at least five times as large than the typical drug delivery before the storm.

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SLIDELL, La. -- It was just before dawn when the pickup truck arrived at the two-story house in this middle-class suburb, which was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina. But unlike most of the trucks here now, it was not carrying construction supplies.

Federal agents, who were hiding in the bushes, say the truck was bringing 50 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, from Houston to the murderous streets of nearby New Orleans. They also say that the shipment, seized on May 18, was at least five times as large as the typical drug delivery before the storm.

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The Lafayette Police Department announced today that it will drop the DARE program and instead will focus on beefing up its school resource officer program. Cpl. Mark Francis, spokesman for the Lafayette Police Department, said the department decided to discontinue the program after consulting with the Lafayette Parish School Board.

"See what's happening is, around the country everybody's moving to the school resource program," he said. "We don't have the officers to do both."

Francis said the department had three DARE officers who traveled to various middle schools around the parish throughout the school year. This fall, he said, the department will take those three officers and place them into a school resource position, bringing the total number of resource officers to four.

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LIVINGSTON -- An eighth-grade Doyle High School student expelled in October was allowed to take the LEAP test Friday after attorneys for the Livingston Parish School Board reached an agreement with the child's parents Thursday, the attorneys said.

The agreement came out of a show cause hearing before Judge Brenda Bedsole Ricks of the 21st Judicial District Court on Thursday, the attorneys said Friday.

The parents of the student sued the School Board on Wednesday to allow their child to take the test and have a chance to advance to ninth grade, court records show.

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'We're Not Going to Take It Anymore,' Nagin Vows

In an extraordinary move usually reserved for the immediate crisis after natural disasters, a detachment of at least 100 Louisiana National Guard soldiers and 60 State Police troopers will be sent to New Orleans today in an effort to quell the steadily rising tide of bloodshed in the city, a wave of violence that culminated Saturday with the shocking murder of five youths in Central City. The deployment comes just months after the Guard pulled its last post-Hurricane Katrina units out of the city and follows requests from law enforcement officials, Mayor Ray Nagin and the City Council, who are growing alarmed at statistics that indicate the murder rate in recent weeks has shot above the city's pre-storm pace.

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WASHINGTON -- Undocumented immigrants headed north, drug smugglers protecting their goods and law enforcement agents trying to secure the U.S.-Mexico border have damaged wildlife habitats in forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas and tribal lands in the Southwest, a lawmaker and several witnesses told a congressional panel Thursday.

They said illegal foot and car traffic has increased on federal and tribal lands as the Border Patrol has built double fences in the San Diego area and cracked down on illegal crossings at Southwest urban areas. People rove along the border looking for isolated areas where they can cross.

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WASHINGTON -- Undocumented immigrants heading north, drug smugglers protecting their goods and law enforcement agents trying to secure the U.S.-Mexico border have damaged wildlife habitats in forests, wildlife refuges, wilderness areas and tribal lands in the Southwest, a lawmaker and several witnesses told a congressional panel Thursday.

They said illegal foot and car traffic has increased on federal and tribal lands as the Border Patrol has built double fences in the San Diego area and cracked down on illegal crossings at Southwest urban areas. People rove along the border looking for isolated areas where they can cross.

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Activists, Lawyers, Feds See A Chance To Fix New Orleans' Judicial Problems

New Orleans police got a reminder of the challenges facing the local justice system two weeks ago, when they finally pried open the rusty doors of their department's evidence rooms, which had been flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year.

As was the case when a similar evidence vault was opened at the local courthouse six months earlier, much of what was inside was a moldy mess. A jumble of rusted guns was on the floor, and plastic bags of narcotics were stuck in the ceiling's rafters, left there when the water receded.

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Defendants' rights violated, lawyers say New Orleans plans to hold its first criminal trial since Hurricane Katrina as soon as next week, the first step in solving a judicial crisis in which thousands of suspects have been jailed for months without trials.

Criminal District Court Chief Judge Calvin Johnson says courts will reopen in the downtown courthouse, which was flooded after the Aug. 29 storm. He says 3,000 jury summonses have been mailed, and criminal trials could resume soon after Memorial Day weekend. It's unclear who will be tried or how they will be chosen.

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Task Force Formed To Handle Upswing

The influx of workers helping rebuild the region after Hurricane Katrina is driving a spike in narcotics activity on the West Bank, authorities say, prompting four law enforcement agencies to join forces to deal with the problem.

The New Orleans Police Department, Plaquemines Parish Sheriff's Office, Gretna Police Department and Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office have created a new narcotics task force that will target specific areas and offenders in each jurisdiction for intensive surveillance and patrolling, NOPD Deputy Superintendent James Scott said.

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Marijuana Users Nationwide Mark April As A Celebration Of The Illegal Drug

Weed. Pot. Reefer. Ganja. Dope. Mary Jane. Schwag. Cannabis. Chronic.

Artists from Willie Nelson to Dr. Dre have inundated American pop culture with these terms.

But even with the abundance of marijuana references in art, literature, music and film, many people woke up this morning without realizing today's significance.

Pot smokers nationwide acknowledge today ­ April 20 or "4-20" ­ as the day to celebrate marijuana use.

But few people ­ marijuana "tokers" or otherwise ­ can legitimately say they know how or why 4-20 came to be the marijuana holiday.

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Good intentions are no substitute for effective drug education. Independent evaluations of Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) have found the program to be either ineffective or counterproductive. The scare tactics used do more harm than good. Students who realize they've been lied to about marijuana may make the mistake of assuming that harder drugs like cocaine are relatively harmless as well. This is a recipe for disaster. Drug education programs must be reality-based or they may backfire when kids are inevitably exposed to drug use among their peers.

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I'm writing about Theresa Gardner's: "DARE TO SAY NO" (4-11-06).

Common sense tells us that the DARE program should deter our youth from using illegal drugs. But it doesn't. DARE graduates are more likely to use illegal drugs--not less. Common sense tells us that the Earth is the center of the universe and our solar system. But it's not.

Common sense tells us that prohibiting a product should substantially reduce the use of the product that's prohibited.

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Local students participate in anti-drug program

"I promise to never use drugs," was the pledge each fifth grader at Benton Middle School made as each of them read aloud what the D.A.R.E. program means to them. More than 20,000 Bossier Parish fifth grade students have been through the program since it began in the school system, and DARE instructor Judy Pate says she takes her job as their instructor very seriously.

"This program has been very successful in teaching these students to choose their friends wisely and avoid peer pressure," Pate said. "It is my job to make sure these students know the seriousness and consequences of using drugs and alcohol. When I hear one of the students read about how much they appreciate Miss Pate, that means a lot. But it also means a lot to hear some past students when they come up to me and say that they were in a situation where there were drugs and or alcohol and they remembered what they learned in DARE."

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Dept. Of Education Faces Lawsuit

Despite being passed six years ago, a higher education act continues to receive criticism. Under the higher education act, students with drug convictions are ineligible for federal financial aid to attend institutions of higher learning. Federal financial aid includes grants, loans and work study programs.

On Jan. 26, the Students for Sensible Drug Policy requested that the Department of Education release a state-by-state breakdown of students denied federal financial aid.

Tom Angell, campaign director for the SSDP, said the Department of Education tried to charge the SSDP $4,100 for the document. The organization threatened to challenge the charge in court, and the Department of Education dropped the fee.

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When I left the federal courthouse in Lafayette at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the lawyers were still hammering out language for the judge's charge to the jury. For all I know they are still at it.

With the jurors, spectators, court employees and defendants out of the room, Judge Tucker Melancon stripped off his snappy blue robe and rolled up his sleeves.

"I would like to ask the gentleman at the back of the room to identify himself," he said. The judge had been laboring under the mistaken impression that I was an expert of some kind.

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The Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), with help from the American Civil Liberties Union, are challenging a law that strips college aid from students with prior drug convictions.

Started in 1998 by students at college campuses around the nation, the goal of the SSDP was to challenge the bill, which later became a law by Indiana Republican Mark Souder, that strips financial aid from college students with drug convictions.

The bill has affected 200,000 college students that have mostly dropped out of college because they simply just couldna€™t afford it.

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Law, like the rafters of a home, is critical to the construction of our social house.

Laws create a structure in which the weak can move freely, unfettered by fear of persecution or the blind malice of the predatory. Faulty laws define periods of social error, periods we look back on with regret and confusion.

Those who mete out these laws must temper them with reason and justice.

Failure to make decisions with foresight and caution can only lead to social disintegration. We trust lawmakers with the same trust we offer our parents.

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Changes could mean chance to start fresh.

Changes in the Higher Education Act approved by Congress could mean a chance at federal money to help those recovering from a drug conviction and addiction pay for college, according to local case managers.

Since 2000, federal financial aid has been denied or restricted for people with drug convictions, depending on the number of offenses and other factors. Now, a change in the legislation means that students with prior convictions are eligible, but students who are convicted of illegal drug offenses while they are enrolled in college would be stripped of their federal aid.

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