Columbia, SC - It is good news that legislators are considering a law to allow doctor-prescribed use of marijuana. More than 20 states that have approved its use for nausea. The primary reason, as I understand it, is that most pain medication has after-effects of severe nausea. I am prescribed several medications to eliminate the pain I experience due to neuropathy; however, they cause extreme nausea. I certainly would appreciate being able to use medical marijuana to relieve severe nausea, as I am sure many others would be. I believe that legislators will find more and more states approving marijuana for the treatment of nausea. Ronald B. Bolton Aiken [end]
Never mind that Roger Goodell didn't officially open the door to medical marijuana use within a National Football League beset with concussion controversy. The drive-by mention by the NFL commissioner at the Super Bowl struck a chord. Pro football players, agents and media types continue to chime in, most without scientific input. Before this goes too far - indeed before the notion of pot as concussion treatment trickles into a serious college football discussion - it might be beneficial to seek actual medical facts. [continues 782 words]
Columbia - With little debate but many qualifications, a state Senate panel Thursday advanced a bill to allow the cultivation of hemp in South Carolina. That's industrial hemp, not marijuana. The distinction is why qualifications came with nearly every statement in the Senate agriculture subcommittee meeting. "This has nothing to do with legalizing marijuana," was the opening statement of subcommittee chairman Sen. Yancey McGill, D-Williamsburg. The bill, S.839, makes the difference clear. Industrial hemp is genetically different from the hemp plants that produce the quality of tetrahydrocannabinol that gives marijuana its mind-altering properties. The S.C. legislation also would remove industrial hemp from the state's current definition of marijuana. [continues 655 words]
Where does the Herald-Journal get these columnists, such as Kathleen Parker (Jan. 22 edition), who advocated legalizing marijuana? She describes forming this opinion through maturity and experience. She rightly says that alcohol or any drugs are bad for children. Then why are drugs OK for adults? The truth is that they are harmful to adults as well. One of the arguments made against the drug war is that it is ruining young lives by giving them criminal records. Our law enforcement officers are not giving our young people criminal records. They are doing this to themselves. [continues 98 words]
I believe marijuana should be legalized. Legalizing pot and taxing it would generate millions in extra revenue to help provide health insurance for the poor and help maintain Social Security. Pot is no more harmful than alcohol. If it's legal for bars, stores and restaurants to sell alcohol to rake in money, legalizing pot seems logical. Marijuana users should have the same freedom as the millions of alcohol users. A person should be able to make his or her own choice. [continues 126 words]
LEXINGTON COUNTY, S.C. - Shortly after midnight on June 5, Lexington County sheriff's deputies and narcotics officers swooped down on a single-story home in one of the county's rural areas. Acting on a tip that people were inside cooking up batches of methamphetamine in not one but two kitchens, officers surrounded the house. Deputies tiptoed to a window and peered inside. "I was at this time able to detect a strong chemical emitting from the residence," investigator M.L. McCaw later wrote in his report. [continues 1280 words]
Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon says accusations that his deputies are arresting too many blacks on pot charges are part of the American Civil Liberty Union's agenda to get marijuana legalized in South Carolina. What's next? NAACP leaders are holding a town-hall meeting to talk about racial disparities in marijuana arrests at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Morris Brown AME Church, 13 Morris St. in downtown Charleston. "I think they make it pretty clear that South Carolina ought to decriminalize marijuana," Cannon said at a press conference outside his office Tuesday. "This is their method of promoting that agenda." [continues 386 words]
PICKENS - Employees of Pickens County schools will soon have to undergo random drug testing if the school board votes to follow the recommendation of its policy committee. The proposed policy could go to the board for approval at its Oct. 22 meeting. Plans to rewrite the district's drug policy were already in action before Saturday, when two employees were charged with multiple counts of distributing marijuana near a school. The employees were Kimberly Dawn Anthony, 43, and Daniel John Fahey, 48, Fahey resigned from his job as the district's school-to-work program coordinator, said John Eby, spokesman for the school district. Fahey was released from the Pickens County Detention Center Monday on $10,000 worth of surety bonds. Anthony, a computer keyboarding teacher at Gettys Middle School, was at the detention center Tuesday with bail set at $250,000. She is on suspension from the district. [continues 600 words]
Regarding the recent column "Drug dealers protecting their turf" by David Sirota, published in the AikenStandard on Tuesday, his proposition to legalize marijuana seems to make sense. He supports his position stating: 1."Marijuana is already 'almost universally available.'" 2."Because it is available but not legal ... (it is) not adequately regulated for quality, and ... poses safety hazards." 3."It makes no sense health-wise to only let users choose a dangerous substance (alcohol) rather than a safer alternative (pot)." Add to this several other considerations: [continues 217 words]
Lawmakers Urged to Make Ingredients Prescription Only Drug control experts and prosecutors are calling for federal lawmakers to require prescriptions for medications containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to help stop the "meth epidemic." The number of methamphetamine cases are up nationwide -- specifically in South Carolina -- despite federal purchasing restrictions on cold medicines containing ephedrine and psuedoephedrine, which also are used to make meth. Prior to 1976, medications containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine were available only by prescription. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 limits an individual's ability to buy more than 3.6 grams of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine daily and nine grams per month. The law also requires retailers to keep records on who buys those products, and police have access to those records. [continues 1176 words]
End Prohibition Now Thomas Ravenel in the Visitation room at The Federal Correctional Institution in Jesup, Ga., with his mother and sister in the summer of 2008. The most obvious racial divide in America is the one between black and white incarceration rates. By ending the failed War on Drugs, we would effectively end the most glaring example of government-sanctioned racism remaining in America today. Many Americans today blindly believe that all of our laws are just. They believe these laws, drafted by imperfect human beings, are somehow perfect rules and regulations. Americans seem to forget that at one time our country legalized slavery, promoted Jim Crow segregation, and criminalized homosexuality. [continues 1625 words]
Former state trooper Kurt Steffen used his badge to shield himself from scrutiny while he and others grew marijuana on his Dorchester County land and ferried it about in his police cruiser. But the tarnish on his shield worked against Steffen on Monday as a judge sentenced him to five years in federal prison for his crimes. Steffen, 30, pleaded guilty in February to growing and possessing at least 100 marijuana plants with intent to distribute. He entered his plea on the day jury selection was to have begun in his case. [continues 422 words]
Legislative action is needed in the fight against synthetic drugs. As soon as a substance is controlled, someone changes the compounds to make it legal again. The news is filled with frightening tales about the problem caused by bath salts, spice and other synthetic drug threats. Last year I introduced legislation to combat this threat, H.3793. There are 65 co-sponsors to my bill, which enjoys bipartisan support in the House. Working with my fellow lawmakers and law enforcement, an important amendment has been crafted to keep our laws light years ahead of the criminals. This amendment, which will be before the House Judiciary Committee today, is a crucial step in making sure law enforcement has the tools it needs to combat the synthetic drug threat. [continues 58 words]
They're said to cause psychotic episodes and belligerent behavior well beyond a hit of cocaine. And now the synthetic drugs labeled as "bath salts" can lead to a prison sentence. "As soon as the emergency law was passed by DHEC, we went out to all of our convenience stores," said Commander Ronda Bamberg of the Orangeburg County Sheriff's Office. "All of them had already pulled it from their shelves." On Oct. 21, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classified what authorities call synthetic cocaine and marijuana as illegal drugs. If a drug becomes illegal under federal law, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control can make it illegal under state law, too. It followed the DEA within days. [continues 484 words]
Group Says Rural Areas Could Benefit Dezz Archie, the executive director of the Columbia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, doesn't want you to think his nonprofit group is all about half-baked ideas on how to make it legal to puff and grow the green stuff - it's more interested in using weed to grow the state's sputtering economy. "We're really changing up our approach to how cannabis could affect South Carolina," Archie, 22, said on a recent Sunday over coffee at Cool Beans near the University of South Carolina campus. [continues 643 words]
Abuse of a dangerous, highly- addictive recreational drug called "bath salts" sold on the Internet and at some gas stations and convenience stores has made its way to the Lowcountry. Some local doctors, including Summerville Medical Center emergency department physician Tim Osbon, worry bath salt abuse is on the brink of spiking in the Palmetto State, following the trend nationally. "It's going to be a real problem," Osbon said of the powerful new stimulant with side effects he compared to those of methamphetamine. "It's about to get out of control. We're going to see a lot of it in the next year." [continues 506 words]
My letter for today is to inform the great citizens of South Carolina about the benefits of medical marijuana. Many of you know that medical marijuana, also known as cannabis, has been helping people in states that have passed laws to allow it. What many of you don't know is that South Carolina has had a similar act on the books for over 30 years. It's called the South Carolina Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act. Approved in February 1980, it makes marijuana available to cancer chemotherapy patients, radiology and glaucoma patients under certain conditions for the purpose of alleviating the patient's pain and discomfort. [continues 70 words]
GREENVILLE, S.C.-The first debate of the Republican presidential race featured a series of spirited exchanges, with five largely lesser-known candidates taking shots at President Barack Obama on foreign policy and the new health-care law while showing differences among themselves. Just days after Mr. Obama scored one of the biggest triumphs of his presidency with the killing of Osama bin Laden, several of the candidates laid into Mr. Obama for actions taken elsewhere in the world. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty congratulated Mr. Obama on the bin Laden killing but complained that the president had deferred to allies in the intervention in Libya. "If he said [Libyan leader] Moammar Gadhafi must go, he needs to maintain the options to make Gadhafi go. And he didn't do that," Mr. Pawlenty said. [continues 512 words]
Required Stamps Once Raised More Than $31,000 COLUMBIA --- In South Carolina, even drug dealers are expected to pay taxes. Perhaps more surprising: Some of them do. Or at least they used to. The Department of Revenue collections from the Marijuana and Controlled Substance Tax Act has evaporated to almost nothing during the peak recession years. The last fiscal year brought in just $149 from people purchasing an official stamp to place on their products or to add to their stamp collections. [continues 347 words]
Inside South Carolina
