ASHEVILLE - While North Carolina's rate of violent crime surged in 2005, Asheville experienced a decline that Police Chief Bill Hogan said he believes might be attributable to a crackdown on the city's drug trade. A report released Monday by N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper shows the state's rate of crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault increased by 3.7 percent over the previous year. The increase was led by a 9.5 percent spike in homicides. There were 582 homicides last year, up from a low of 508 two years ago, but down 22 percent over the past decade. Cooper called the latest figures troubling. [continues 460 words]
Though I live in Bun-combe County, I read the story, "Haywood County schools to start random drug testing," (AC-T, June 6), with interest. I have one child at each level of schooling in Buncombe, and they are the kind of kids whose body fluids Haywood school administrators seek -- involved kids. On Monday, June 5, the Haywood County Board of Education (HCBoE) met and adopted a random drug-testing policy for kids who are involved in extracurricular activities or who have parking privileges. Starting with high-schoolers, the testing may later spread to Haywood's middle schools. They seek traces of cocaine, PCP, alcohol, methamphetamine, marijuana, Darvon, valium, opiates (Vicodin, Oxycontin), methadone, performance-enhancing drugs and masking agents used to beat drug tests. [continues 663 words]
Groups Get Funding To Help Victims, Increase Security Nearly $22 million in funding to improve community security and help crime victims is on its way to agencies and programs across the state. The money, a block grant from the federal government administered by Governor's Crime Commission, is awarded to state and local agencies for programs that fight juvenile delinquency and drug abuse, assist victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and buy modern equipment and technology for local law enforcement agencies. Multimedia Governor's Crime Commission grant list for WNC counties (61 KB) Advertisement [continues 319 words]
MARSHALL -- J.R. Shelton isn't the talkative type. He can sit in his car on Interstate 26 for hours, silently watching the cars go by. About the only words he says are to Ben, the drug dog in the back of his Madison County Sheriff's Department car. But Shelton doesn't need a lot of words. He has a sixth sense for which car, among the hundreds he sees every week driving through Madison County on I-26, is carrying drugs. And Ben has a nose beyond belief for finding them, once Shelton has stopped a car and had a look inside. [continues 1510 words]
For years the news on the methamphetamine front was about how many more laboratories police discovered cooking up the lethal potion. Finally North Carolina has some good news in the fight against meth: The number of meth lab busts declined by about a third in the first quarter of 2006, thanks to a law clamping down on retail sale of key ingredients. Meth is a highly addictive, easily manufactured illegal stimulant that worked its way east from the West Coast. "Cooked" up of readily available ingredients such as cold medicine, it spread like wildfire in North Carolina. State and local officials busted nine meth labs in 1999. Four years later, 177 labs were raided, and 322 in 2004. There were 328 labs found in 2005. [continues 331 words]
Criminals Have Less Access to Drug Ingredients RALEIGH -- The number of methamphetamine labs busted by police in North Carolina dropped by a third in the first three months of 2006, a decline officials credit to a new state law that restricts the sale of cold medicines used to make the highly addictive drug. Authorities discovered 62 meth labs between Jan. 15, when the law took effect, and the end of March, compared with 91 labs in the same period of 2005, Attorney General Roy Cooper said. [continues 615 words]
The unwinnable war that we have been fighting all of my life (I am 88) is this "war on drugs." It seems the war on alcohol, called Prohibition, taught us nothing at all. We support the drug lords and their prosperity by keeping drug use and marketing illegal. This enables them to sell at sky-high prices. Prohibition laws and enforcement made bootlegging profitable. Gangsters killed each other over territory. Not to mention consumers poisoned by their "rotgut." Eventually common sense brought about repeal of this ill-conceived legislation. What happened with Prohibition is now being repeated with drug laws and enforcement in our times. This law causes our police, local and federal, to be swamped with the problem of enforcing it. This keeps our prisons overloaded, costing $25,000 (and more) per prisoner annually. [continues 58 words]
ENKA -- Analysts at the SBI crime lab in Skyland are pulling fingerprints from evidence collected two years ago. They're scanning drugs from investigations of eight months ago.The lab's backlog persists, agent Brian Delmas said, despite an expanded facility where technicians have worked for about a month. Until five of its 12 full-time technicians finish training and two more are hired, the State Bureau of Investigation won't fill its new space. "We're basically at half staff," Delmas said. [continues 284 words]
Victim Hit With Stun Grenade ASHEVILLE -- A stun grenade thrown during a raid on what police called a crack house landed in a man's lap and exploded, an attorney for the injured man said Thursday. "That's pretty horrific," said Charlotte lawyer Java Warren, describing injuries that could leave the man unable to father children. "I know normally they just roll them in on the floor." Warren declined to name the man or say whether he plans any action against the Asheville Police Department. [continues 297 words]
ASHEVILLE -- Gerald Cowan knew his life was out of control. He was living in a run-down motel, unable to pay the rent and lying to the landlord about when he would have the money. That was just more than a year ago, before Cowan embarked on a new, sober life. "I was tired of living the way I was living," said, Cowan, 48, a resident of A Vet's Place at the Asheville-Buncombe Community Christian Ministry Men's Shelter. "I was working for a beer distributor, drinking on the job, drinking off the job." [continues 968 words]
ASHEVILLE -- Nearly a month after it started, a program that offers residents incentives for alerting police to drug activity has yet to net an arrest. But that doesn't mean the program isn't working, said Carl Mumpower, chairman of the Asheville-Buncombe Drug Commission and an Asheville city councilman. "These things take time to work," Mumpower said. "They don't happen overnight." The Dealer Down drug program aims to reduce the amount of hard drugs on the street by rewarding whistleblowers $1,000 if a dealer possessing half a kilogram, or 1.1 pounds of drugs, such as cocaine, crack or methamphetamines is arrested. Another $1,000 will be rewarded if the same person is convicted. [continues 128 words]
Asheville Vice Mayor Carl Mumpower evidently does not believe the adage, "Once bitten (Prohibition), twice shy (drug war)." He is fixated on the impossible - preventing drug use. Proof? After nearly a quarter century spending many billions and ruining millions of lives, the result is drugs - easily available - are cheaper and stronger than ever. Mumpower probably isn 't insane, but one definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly - when it has failed repeatedly - and expecting success. The reason for difficulty in stopping drug selling is the phenomenal amount of money involved. Dealers often don't count their gains - simply weighing bundles of cash. [continues 106 words]
CHEROKEE -- A na le ni sgi: In the Cherokee tongue, it means, "they are beginning." It's also the name of a program trying to offer a new beginning to drug users among the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Leaders of the tribe say expanding treatment for drug addicts is one of many signs the tribe has made its own promising beginning in the fight against methamphetamine. Tribal leaders saw meth use grow on the reservation -- as it has throughout Western North Carolina, where hundreds of meth labs have been discovered this year. Cherokee made changes in treatment, law enforcement and public awareness that state officials and experts hail as a model for other communities. [continues 662 words]
Drug Commission Offers $1,000 Reward For Sellers' Arrests, Convictions ASHEVILLE - Catching a big fish in a little pond might sound like an easy thing to do. But when the big fish are big-time drug dealers and the pond is Asheville, it's not that easy of a task for communities and police. The Asheville-Buncombe Drug Commission wants to give people an incentive for helping police arrest dealers who are selling large quantities of drugs, either directly to the public or to smaller, street-level dealers. The "Dealer Down" program was named to counter the phrase "man down" that dealers use when police are sighted near an area where drugs are being sold. The program will reward whistleblowers in the community $1,000 if a dealer possessing a half a kilogram, or 1.1 pounds, of hard drugs like cocaine, crack or methamphetamines is arrested. Another $1,000 will be rewarded if the same person is convicted. [continues 410 words]
In one picture, a bearded man sleeps on a couch. Nearby, a tiny figure huddles in a chair. The room is empty, but for a lamp between the couch and chair and what appears to be a rug in the foreground. To the side, almost out of the picture, is a window. Outside, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the grass is green. In another picture, an angry green monster with sharp claws and menacing countenance fills the page, an overpowering, dominating presence. [continues 809 words]
CULLOWHEE -- To illustrate how methamphetamine has grown into an epidemic in North Carolina, officials point to the surging number of meth lab busts: nine in all of 1999, five in the past week alone. But that's not the whole story, officials caution. As they take heart from predictions that meth production may be leveling off -- they've uncovered 294 labs so far this year, and may not surpass last year's total of 322 -- they warn about another problem. "We're going to turn (our) attention to targeting these kingpins who are bringing these drugs into our country," N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper said Wednesday while attending a summit on the meth problem. [continues 210 words]
Meth becomes dangerous before it's ever made. A toddler in a home being used as a meth lab comes across some lye and puts a little in his or her mouth. By the time Dr. Cynthia Brown and her colleagues see him, his mouth and tongue are severely burned. Brown's work with such victims at Mission Children's Clinic is one link in Western North Carolina's efforts to deal with methamphetamine addiction. Wednesday offers a chance for the public to see how the links fit together. [continues 225 words]
Hearing the poignant stories of young prisoners with lives devastated by methamphetamine helped convince Western Carolina University's Gordon Mercer that the illegal drug is a key problem for North Carolina. Mercer, a professor of political science and public affairs and director of WCU's Public Policy Institute, isn't alone in thinking so. He joins the growing ranks of health, public safety and judicial officials helping to sound the alarm regarding this scourge, which has been spreading like wildfire across Western North Carolina. [continues 554 words]
It truly pains my heart to see so many advertisements for medications which "lower the cholesterol," that "build your good cholesterol," that "fight inflammation" and then to hear of the deaths, strokes and heart attacks associated with these medicines. Natural hemp oil lowers bad cholesterol, raises good cholesterol, is full of protein, antioxidants, bioflavanoids, has omega 3, 6 and 9, essential oil in the exact ratio needed for humans. Hemp oil moistens your entire body from the inside out. Your skin is soft and moist and your digestive system is well lubricated, which helps us have a healthy colon. [continues 89 words]
N.C. Attorney General Says Federal Law Would Stifle Manufacturing Of Drug WASHINGTON -- North Carolina's top law enforcement official believes Congress could slow the spread of methamphetamine on the East Coast with a federal law limiting sales of cold medications that contain a key ingredient for making the drug. "I think ... Congress could provide a great preventive measure for the East Coast," N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper said. Cooper is following anti-meth legislation as it makes its way through Congress. [continues 545 words]
