Thanks for publishing Richard Page's thoughtful letter, "Legalizing Drugs" (Nov. 16). I am sure that many will claim that legalizing our now illegal drugs will increase drug usage. I submit that it will not. Before marijuana was criminalized via the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, the commissioner of narcotics, Harry Anslinger, testified before the U.S. Congress that the United States had a total of 100,000 marijuana users. Now the U.S. government estimates that at least 107 million Americans have used marijuana. People, especially children, want what they are told they cannot have. The lure of the "forbidden fruit" is very powerful. Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
I believe in the legalization of all drugs that are currently - -illegal, such as marijuana and cocaine and everything else. Any reasonably intelligent person understands that organized crime has made a world of money off the drug business for many years. I favor putting illegal drugs under the control of the states, just like alcoholic beverages, and thus making them legal. Such action by the states would do severe and almost instant economic damage to the white collar criminals, some of whom have been lawyers. This result would please me and other concerned citizens very, very much indeed. James Richard Page Aberdeen [end]
One lesson America is reluctant to learn: Wars are easer to declare than to win. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya elude the kind of total victory our country achieved in World War II. And we have other declared wars that command national resources even though finding a strategy for a decisive victory has been elusive. War on poverty. War on cancer. War on crime. War on terror. These wars confound us because we can find no way to total victory. [continues 594 words]
Regarding Florence Gilkeson's thoughtful Nov. 13 column, 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 him or her feel better, then it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life issue best left to patients and their doctors. Drug warriors waging war on non-corporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention. [continues 71 words]
The Obama administration has announced that federal agencies will no longer pursue criminal charges against people who use or supply medical marijuana in states where it is legal. (Note: North Carolina is not among those 14 states.) I have long wondered why marijuana cannot be legally used to relieve the pain and discomfort of cancer patients suffering debilitating nausea after chemotherapy. Why should marijuana be different from other prescription painkillers, many of which are dangerous and addictive and also subject to abuse? [continues 578 words]
Illegal prescription pills, rather than such common illicit substances as marijuana, represent the most serious drug abuse in Moore County, a group of county and municipal leaders were told Thursday. Capt. Jerrell Seawell of the Moore County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit told the gathering at the Aberdeen Recreation Center that Percocet, a prescription painkiller, is one of the most commonly abused street drugs and causes the majority of the drug abuse problems in the county. "We need to get the word out that we're facing a dangerous situation," Seawell said. [continues 950 words]
Moore County Sheriff Lane Carter should be commended for his handling of his son's drug arrest. A less honorable man may have been tempted to look the other way or call off his investigators. That was never an option for our sheriff. Many families in Moore County share Carter's plight as they have watched a loved one spiral through the downward cycle of prescription abuse -- for many, a certain path into the -criminal justice system. Prescription narcotics can be more addictive than illegal street drugs. Many people falsely believe that because a drug is prescribed by a doctor, it must be safe. A narcotic is a narcotic, whether obtained from a pharmacy, street--corner drug dealer or family medicine cabinet. [continues 182 words]
Marijuana may still be king, but prescription drugs are gaining ground as the most abused illegal drug in Moore County, acccording to Sheriff's Detective Sgt. Kip Dennis. That was the message Dennis delivered Saturday during a community forum sponsored by Drug-Free Moore County to kick off Red Ribbon Week. It was held at Sandhills Community College's Dempsey Student Center and Van Dusen Hall. Dennis, a drug officer for the Moore County Sheriff's Office, said prescription medication abuse has overtaken cocaine as the second-most abused drug in the county. Dennis talked in detail about drugs, drug abuse and the county's effort to combat illegal drugs. [continues 869 words]
If I read the March 9 Pilot article correctly, Police Chief Mike Conner of Aberdeen made this comment: "It's kind of disappointing to know drugs are that readily accessible in the school system." I'm appalled and very angry. It is far more than kind of disappointing. It's absolutely inconceivably terrifying that any child in one of our local schools could have an opportunity to sell, purchase, or otherwise obtain drugs. I am not angry with Chief Conner, I'm angry that this is such an accepted situation in our society as a whole. [continues 62 words]
Meth labs in North Carolina are continuing to drop under a new law that makes it more difficult for criminals to get the drug's main ingredient, Attorney General Roy Cooper said. SBI agents responded to 11 labs producing the synthetic drug methamphetamine in May 2006. That's the fewest number of meth labs discovered in the state in any one month since December 2003 and a 69 percent drop compared to the 35 labs discovered in May 2005. "We fought hard for this law, and it's paying off," Cooper said. "Cutting criminals' access to the key ingredient they need to make meth is helping to drive these dangerous drug labs out of our communities." Since the new law took effect on Jan. 15, the SBI has seen a 35 percent overall drop in meth labs compared to the same time period in 2005. In 2005, SBI agents busted 172 labs between Jan. 15 and May 31. In 2006, agents busted 112 labs between Jan. 15 and May 31. [continues 81 words]
You don't have to be somewhere outside Barstow to realize that small talk is much easier and more enjoyable when you're on painkillers. I made that discovery myself over the Christmas weekend. I was heavily medicated throughout the holiday after having four wisdom teeth taken out on Dec. 23. In my entire life, I'd never taken anything stronger than an aspirin for pain and have as a matter of course tried to avoid taking medication even when sick. When I had my appendix removed in the seventh grade, I never popped the top of the bottle of Codeine the doctor prescribed for me. The pills sat in my parents' medicine cabinet until I threw them away one weekend when I was home from college. [continues 564 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent right-to-die decision was narrow and specific rather than broad and general. But it came down on the correct side. When the court last visited the subject in 1997, it ruled that there is no constitutional "right to die" at the federal level, and that the matter of physician-assisted suicide should be fought out in "the laboratory of the states." One of those states, Oregon, had adopted the so-called Death With Dignity Act in 1994. It lets doctors prescribe (but not administer) lethal drugs when they have been asked for by patients who have been certified by two physicians to have less than six months to live and who are found to be mentally competent. [continues 200 words]
This is in response to Ms. McCormick's Dec. 16 column opposing the legalizing of drugs. It always amazes me that those who oppose the decriminalization of "drugs" fail to reference the Constitution of our country. The 18th Amendment was ratified on Jan. 16, 1919, and repealed by the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933. In the near 15 years of the prohibition of alcohol, our country saw an astonishing rise in lawless behavior by its citizens and a concurrent rise of organized criminal enterprises to supply the demands of the imbibing public. [continues 58 words]
I'm writing about Maryann McCormick's guest column (Dec. 16), "Legalizing Drugs Is a Really Terrible Idea." My question for McCormick: Why does she want our now illegal drugs to remain completely unregulated, untaxed and controlled by criminals? Norm Stamper is the former chief of police of Seattle, Wash., and he wrote in The Seattle Times: "Legalize drugs -- all of them." Stamper is a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition). Four years ago, LEAP didn't exist. Today they have more than 4,500 members who are current or former drug warriors (law enforcement personnel, DEA agents, judges and prosecutors). Why do so many drug warriors want to end our drug prohibition policies? Could it be that they know from personal experience that our drug war is counterproductive and not winnable? Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
On Dec. 2, I opened my Pilot to the opinion page and read the editorial regarding "Burley Mitchell's Surprising Question." I read it the second time and knew that I had to respond. The very idea of the decriminalization of drugs sends great shudders through me. I think first of the scenes I saw in the detoxification units of the hospitals in which I once worked. I think of the haunted look in the eyes of those who thought they had kicked their habit only to find that the habit was stronger then they were. [continues 618 words]
The recently reported decline in the crime rate for both Moore County and North Carolina is great news in anybody's book -- as long as we remember that statistics may not tell the whole story. As an extreme example, the murder rate for Moore County can be said to have declined by 62.5 percent from 2003 to 2004. That sounds pretty dramatic. But all it really means is that there were only three murders last year, as opposed to eight the year before, when there happened to be a couple of horrendous multiple slayings. The numbers are so small as to be statistically meaningless. And, since most murders are totally unpredictable crimes of passion, a year-to-year fluctuation in their number is more an act of God than anything law-enforcement agencies can point at with pride. [continues 283 words]
Moore County's crime rate dropped 11 percent in 2004, something Sheriff Lane Carter attributes to a direct result of efforts to weaken the illegal drug trade. The number of violent crimes dropped from 3,128.5 per 100,000 population to 2,779.4 per 100,000 last year, according to the Index Crime Rate compiled by the state attorney general's office. "If it's down and you're keeping it down, it says two things," Carter said. "It says you've sent people to prison who need to be in prison and you're controlling the environment in which crime grows." [continues 685 words]
Moore County Has A Drug Problem. Agencies that deal with the problem work full-time on remedies, but the issues are overwhelming. At their May meeting, members of the MooreHealth Board of Directors heard a first-hand overview of the drug situation from three agencies that deal with victims and perpetrators. "It's not slowing down," said Detective Lt. Gerald Seawell, supervisor of the six-member drug unit of the Moore County Sheriff's Office. "There's so much out there on the street, it's unreal," [continues 973 words]
North Carolina can stop its growing meth lab problem before it becomes an epidemic under a bill that passed the N.C. Senate last week, according to state Attorney General Roy Cooper. The state Senate approved the Meth Lab Prevention Act. It now goes to the House. "These deadly drug labs destroy families and communities," Cooper said. "We've got to pass this law now to stop our meth lab problem from turning into a crisis." Cooper has pushed for the new law as a way to fight the spread of dangerous meth labs in North Carolina by controlling the sale of key ingredients used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine. [continues 436 words]
Officers were moments away from storming the largest known methamphetamine lab in Moore County. There were snipers in the woods on both sides of the compound, observing the movements of several foreign suspects. Intelligence leading up to this point seemed to indicate that there might be a link to terrorism. Suddenly, two well-known Southern Pines men -- Police Chief Gerald Galloway and Town Manager Reagan Parsons -- strolled up to the first building and stuck their heads in the door. "Over here," Jack Donovan said. [continues 782 words]
