Monticello - Fifth-grader De'ja Taylor is this year's DARE essay contest winner at K.L. Rutherford Elementary School. KLR fifth-grade students spent several weeks studying with Officer Luis Velasco about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. The following is De'ja's winning essay: "I am fifth-grade student at Kenneth L. Rutherford School. I am in the DARE program at my school. DARE is a program that teaches kids the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol on the human body. Officer Velasco talked to us about staying drug-free, avoiding violence and not hanging out with people who use drugs or smoke tobacco. [continues 328 words]
This letter is in response to the New Paltz teacher accused of getting her student to buy marijuana for her. Not to excuse her alleged negligent actions, but it is sad to see someone in so much pain and fear be driven to such desperate measures for medicine. It is also sad to know that it is easier for a 14-year-old to get marijuana than an adult. Every time a politician tries to justify the war on drugs, he claims it is about protecting the children, or sending the wrong message. But an illegal drug market-place does not ask for ID, listen to messages or have any safety measures in place. [continues 60 words]
Highland Falls -- Enrique "Kiki" Camerena gave his life to keep drugs out of the United States. Twenty years ago, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration agent was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Mexico at the hands of drug traffickers. This was done in retaliation for a successful attack that he led on one of Mexico's most notorious drug traffickers. To memorialize his life, Red Ribbon, a national drug awareness campaign, was formed by National Family Partnership as a way for people to take a visual stand against drugs. [continues 539 words]
Goshen - What if you could search every person who enters a secure facility for explosives and drugs? What if you could do so without jeopardizing anyone's civil rights? The Orange County Sheriff's Office hopes two new devices it will soon employ to screen inmates and visitors at the county jail will move the agency one step closer to that scenario. With the ion mobility spectrometers, officials hope to curb the flow of contraband into the 753-bed jail and avert another drug outbreak like the one that led to the high-profile overdose death of 27-year-old inmate Kathleen Brennan in 2003. And they hope to do so without violating a federal court order that bans strips searches on certain low-level inmates without probable cause. The spectrometers are less threatening than a drug-sniffing dog and no more invasive than the metal detector wands one might see at an airport or rock concert. "This was a great solution for us because, if it's noninvasive, it's likely constitutional," Undersheriff Kenneth Jones said. "We don't make the rules but we have to follow them. So, we adapt." Even before the post-9/11 security push brought larger, walk-through spectrometers to airports and government buildings, prisons and ports across the country had begun using similar devices to combat drug trafficking. Locally, sheriff's officials sought out the technology after a federal class-action lawsuit brought by several former inmates resulted in the strip-search restrictions. The decision to buy the machines was clinched in November 2003, after an inmate smuggled more than 80 bags of heroin into the jail, which led to Brennan's overdose. The incident is the subject of a $5 million wrongful death lawsuit by her family. The spectrometers, which are scheduled to be in use by summer's end, may well provide a way to tighten security without skirting strip-search rules. As long as the machines are accurate and used uniformly, James Monroe, the Goshen attorney litigating the strip-search suit, said a positive test "would be a basis for further inquiry." New civil rights issues could arise, however, if correction staff use positive spectrometer results as the sole reason to ban jail visitors. That's what the New York Civil Liberties Union says was happening to seemingly innocent people who underwent ion scans while visiting the state prisons that employ them, Green Haven and Elmira. "The problem has been in New York, that if somebody tests positive, they're turned away, banned from seeing their loved ones and entered into the file as a drug user," said Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU's associate legal director. "We don't have a problem with the technology. It has to be used sensibly." [continues 149 words]
It was always a belief I've held, learned sometime in grade school, that the states had the right to be self-governing. Without interference from the federal government. Now, the feds are weighing in on overruling state laws regarding medicinal marijuana. Gay marriages and or domestic partnerships are also in the wings on the federal level, while states are deciding on this subject, too. It's said those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. One of the last times the federal government trounced on the states' rights, there was this little disturbance we call the Civil War. Maybe the slavery issue overshadowed this item, but it, too, was a leading cause of this war. My thoughts? Legalize marijuana across the board! It is no more addictive or habit-forming than either cigarettes or alcohol. This way the states (and feds) could not only regulate it, but also collect taxes on it to help reduce their budgets, without raising taxes. [continues 60 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Advocates for medical marijuana hope a recent setback in the Supreme Court will boost their strength in Congress, and a New York and California lawmaker plan to force a House vote on the issue Tuesday. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, has long supported allowing patients to use marijuana in states where it can be legally prescribed by a doctor. He will offer an amendment to a spending bill Tuesday that would bar federal authorities from making arrests in such cases. [continues 487 words]
The justices should have left the issue where it belongs, with individual states. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling giving federal authorities the right to prosecute people whose states allow their use of marijuana for medical purposes is disappointing on several fronts. First and foremost, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said in her dissent, the federal government ought not be rooting around in people's lives to the point where it is "a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use." [continues 496 words]
The first campus rally of the spring is set for today, with students threatening an eventual sleep-in at the college president's office to protest his policy toward illegal drug violations. Student leaders want SUNY New Paltz President Steve Poskanzer to enact a moratorium on the mandatory expulsion of students who have been accused of two marijuana offenses. Justin Holmes, the president of the student government, said the rally is the culmination of longstanding opposition to the mandatory expulsions. "No other SUNY state college is so draconian in its policies," he said. Students caught using marijuana or with drug equipment are automatically expelled after two such incidents without legal or in-house review, he said. Expulsion is quicker for incidents involving other controlled substances, one time and you're out. [continues 54 words]
The awards ceremony for the 11th annual countywide alcohol and drug abuse poster contest was held Friday in the lobby of the Sullivan County Government Center. The contest, sponsored by the Recovery Center and Sullivan County Cares Coalition, honors students who design posters alerting kids to the dangers of drugs and alcohol while providing a hopeful message. In total, 70 awards were presented to school children from every school in the county. The judges chose two grand prize winners -- one in English and one in Spanish. Judges felt that posters by Allison Jones, a fifth-grader at Benjamin Cosor Elementary School, and Brittany Flynn of Sullivan West's ninth grade best promoted this year's theme -- "We Are the Future; Let's Make It Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Free." [continues 68 words]
If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican migration during the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. Whites did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched government bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. [continues 59 words]
Albany -- A leading law-and-order Assembly Republican says it's high time New York made marijuana available for medicinal use. Assemblyman Tom Kirwan, a former State Police lieutenant who is considered one of the most conservative members of his house, joined a growing number of Republicans yesterday in co-sponsoring a Democratic bill to legalize medicinal marijuana. The bill, first introduced in 1997, would allow doctors to prescribe pot for patients suffering life-threatening, degenerative or disabling diseases such as cancer, multiple sclerosis and AIDS. [continues 233 words]
More often than not, this page finds itself on the opposite side of social issues with Assemblyman Tom Kirwan of Newburgh. Occasionally, though, we find that, in his no-frills manner of speaking, he sizes up a situation perfectly. On the matter of reforming the state's Rockefeller drug laws, we find ourselves in both positions simultaneously. Kirwan thinks Gov. Pataki is going too far in trying to reform the antiquated drug laws, which carry stiff mandatory sentences for sale of drugs. He thinks the problem is being overstated. [continues 225 words]
Port Jervis is next on the list for a drug treatment court, joining Orange County and the City of Newburgh. And Middletown isn't far behind. The drug courts, which are increasing in number across the state, offer alternative treatment for nonviolent drug offenders. Orange County's drug court, which began in January, handles felony drug cases. Newburgh's court, which kicked off last month, and Port Jervis' court, which is still being developed, will handle misdemeanor offenders within their city limits. [continues 379 words]
The New Paltz Police Department recently received nearly $10,000 worth of new crime-fighting surveillance equipment that will hit the streets immediately. "It's no secret. The drug dealers already know we have more equipment," Detective David Dugatkin said. "The equipment will enhance our investigations and deter crime, and for more than just drug cases," Dugatkin said. The surveillance apparatus was purchased through District Attorney Don Williams' drug seizure program. The program seizes assets from drug dealers previously convicted in Ulster County. The Village of Ellenville Police Department received a similar equipment donation this spring. [end]
Pataki, Bruno And Silver Cut A Demo Disc For Def Jam. All you need to know about the recently concluded state legislative session is that, in the closing days, when intense negotiations were going on over several important issues, Gov. George Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver were holed up behind closed doors debating reform of the Rockefeller drug laws with hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons. It was a jive session. Even Simmons' special appearance, at Pataki's request, was jive because the three wise men of Albany had already informed the press that, although they had never been "so close" to an agreement on reforming the harsh drug laws, there wasn't enough time in this session to get it done. [continues 445 words]
Local Methadone Clinic Sees Growing Numbers Newburgh - He was middle class. A single parent with three kids. Handsome, he was a fast lane kind of guy. Lawyer girlfriend. Country club social life. Sure, he'd had trouble with painkillers. But he never saw himself as weak enough to go on hard dope. Today, Frank's one of a growing number of white, middle-class heroin addicts checking in at the drab, pink, one-story building on Commercial Place, right off busy Walsh's Road in Newburgh. [continues 861 words]
Invented by the Germans during World War II, methadone is basically in the same family as heroin with a big difference: It blocks the narcotic effects of heroin but doesn't give a high. Since methadone can be given in exact amounts, people can be weaned from it under supervision. For instance, the average length of treatment at St. Luke's Unity Center for Recovery's methadone maintenance treatment program is 1.7 years. But experts say numbers don't tell the whole story: Patients often need many tries before sticking with methadone; others stay for 20 years or so. [continues 143 words]
The DEA Keeps Busting Medicinal Marijuana Co-Ops, but Has Filed No Charges. Cocaine, much of it bound for the United States, retains its position as Colombia's largest cash crop. Illegal drugs still pour into this country from Mexico. Heroin is back. Ecstasy is still here. And pushers still provide teen-agers with marijuana to escape the rigors of school. The U.S. "war" on drugs - which continues to emphasize interdiction, arrest and prosecution rather than education, treatment and rehabilitation - has enough frontiers to keep the Drug Enforcement Agency busy for, well, forever. So long as there is enough demand and enough illegal profit to be made, there will be enough bad guys ready to make it. [continues 641 words]
