A civil case filed by Ronda Mayor Victor Varela and his wife, Teri against Ronda Commissioner Kevin Reece and former commissioner Manuel Wood began in Wilkes Superior Court on Tuesday morning.

The suit charges Reece and Wood with invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. It revolves around a video taken secretly in the Varelas' home in the fall of 2012 showing Teri Varela smoking pot.

Presiding over the case is Superior Court Judge Todd Burke. Before the jury trial began, Burke asked both parties about the possibility of mediation. Both lawyers indicated mediation had not been successful.

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HICKORY -- Todd Stimson's potted marijuana plant is a plastic replica. But that didn't stop the afternoon U.S. 70 traffic from honking and yelling at the trio of men.

Hickory was another city they had to pass on their walk from Asheville to Raleigh. The march on the state's capital is in support of House Bill 1161 -- the controversial bill to legalize cannabis for medical use -- Stimson said.

As Stimson explained the group's purpose, a white SUV pulled into a parking lot, horn blaring. Girls jumped out of the car, expressed their support and snapped a couple photos before driving away. A few minutes later, another car pulled in. A woman hopped out to take a few pictures.

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MORGANTON, N.C. -- With the hot sun beaming on his back and sweat gathering on his forehead, Jason Humes marched along Fleming Drive carrying a skateboard in one hand and a sign in the other.

Humes walked through the heat Tuesday, not for himself, but for others to have a choice - the option to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana in North Carolina.

Humes and five other members of the March Against Fear 2014 group are walking from Asheville to Raleigh along U.S. 70 to raise awareness for House Bill 1161 - a bill that has been referred to as the North Carolina Medical Cannabis Act.

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If North Carolina and American citizens honestly want to "address the root problems contributing to prescription drug abuse" and hard drug addiction rates in the future (Editorial: Pitt fights overdose deaths, May 5, 2014) end cannabis (marijuana) prohibition. An important reason to end cannabis prohibition that doesn't get mentioned is because it increases hard-drug addiction rates. It puts citizens who choose to use the relatively safe plant into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs.

Further, government claims heroin is no worse than cannabis and methamphetamine and cocaine is less harmful by insisting cannabis is a Schedule I substance alongside heroin, while methamphetamine and cocaine are only Schedule II substances.

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Regarding your May 5 editorial commending the Pitt County Sheriff'=C2=80=C2 =99s Office for being the first law enforcement agency in North Carolina to equip its officers with the overdose prevention drug Narcan: Nasal administration of the Narcan reverses the effects of an opioid overdose.

This harm-reduction approach to a growing prescription drug abuse problem will save lives.

The drug war is part of the problem. Illegal drug users are reluctant to seek medical attention in the event of an overdose for fear of being charged with a crime. Attempting to save the life of a friend could result in a murder charge. Overzealous drug war enforcement results in easily preventable deaths.

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The Pitt County Sheriff's Office is to be commended for leading North Carolina law enforcement agencies in becoming the first to equip its officers with a drug that can save the life of someone overdosing on opioids.

Sheriff Neil Elks announced last week that his deputies will begin carrying Narcan, a drug that reverses the effects of an overdose of several opioid painkillers. Greenville Police Chief Hassan Aden said his department will soon begin carrying the drug as well.

The number of deaths from overdoses in the United States involving prescription opioids more than quadrupled between 1999 and 2010, according to an April 23 article in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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DURHAM -- Long before the overdose death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman thrust heroin back into the headlines this winter, the return of the potent narcotic was already known to police and public health officials in North Carolina. Heroin, which emerged in popular culture in the 1940s as an exotic product associated with jazz musicians and later became known as the dead-end drug of junkies in movies and songs, had never gone away. A few dozen people died of heroin overdoses in North Carolina each year since 2000, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services.

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DURHAM - Heroin may be a new drug for some who are switching from prescription painkillers. It is not new to April Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, 32, is a heroin addict. She grew up in East Durham in a family ravaged by drugs a father she described as a raging alcoholic, a mother hooked on prescription pills and an older brother whose addiction to crack keeps him in and out of prison. At her request, The News & Observer agreed not to use her full name.

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One "workable solution" to help lower heroin addiction rates that wasn't mentioned in the March 18 editorial "As long as demand is strong, heroin will continue to plague region" is to end cannabis (marijuana) prohibition. Cannabis prohibition ... puts citizens who choose to use the relatively safe plant into contact with people who often also sell hard drugs.

Further, government claims heroin is no worse than cannabis, and that methamphetamine and cocaine are less harmful by classifying cannabis as a Schedule I substance alongside heroin, while methamphetamine and cocaine are only Schedule II substances.

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The reality of the number of people tied to heroin trafficking - and, more generally, the drug trade - led the criminal justice system to shift its emphasis away from users.

"We're not fighting a war on drugs. That was lost years ago," said Ben David, New Hanover County's district attorney. "We're fighting a war against drug dealers."

As part of that effort, the district attorney's offices in Brunswick and New Hanover counties are willing to try cases in federal court, where there are stiff penalties and no probation, and to try dealers for trafficking, which, depending on the amount of drugs seized, carries minimum sentences of from five years and 10 months to 23 years and six months on a state level. Often, prosecutors see an overlap between gang activity and the heroin trade. "It's a bad guy drug, and it is something that a lot of the rich kids crave," David said. "It's that rare intersection of high demand with a ready supply. ... It's mixing people with money with people who are desperately poor, and that often leads to other crimes of violence like armed robberies, home invasions and sometimes murder."

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Heroin has made a comeback, and it is destroying lives in the Cape Fear region. It's cheap, plentiful, addictive - and deadly. What is most discouraging is that the experts admit demand for the opiate will ensure a steady supply, even as police take down major dealers and traffickers. Arresting key players disrupts the market for a while, but soon other suppliers will take their place.

StarNews reporters Mike Voorheis and Adam Wagner dug beneath the surface for a grim look into Wilmington's heroin problem and the people who can't function without it. It was a stark look at just how easy it is to get heroin, and how tough it is to kick the habit.

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Regarding Ned Barnett's March 9 column "When might N.C. go to pot?": The sooner the better.

Separating the hard and soft drug markets is critical. As long as criminals control marijuana distribution, consumers will come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Marijuana prohibition is a gateway drug policy. Marijuana is less harmful than legal alcohol. The plant has never been shown to cause an overdose death. It makes no sense to waste tax dollars on failed marijuana policies that finance violent drug cartels and facilitate the use of hard drugs.

Marijuana may be relatively harmless, but marijuana prohibition is deadly.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

[end]

The Durham boom has been something to behold, from the American Tobacco Campus to the ever-expanding reputation of Duke University in the City of Medicine to the Durham Performing Arts Center, drawing big shows and big performers and big audiences from all over. So why can't a city with so much going for it get the police department right?

Here we go again. Now a coalition examining drug law enforcement and punishment has offered documents it says support its contention that there is racial profiling in the Durham Police Department's drug enforcement unit. In the cases examined by the coalition, called Foster Alternative Drug Enforcement or FADE, all suspects were black or Hispanic.

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In September 2012, the then-captain of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office's Vice and Narcotics Unit predicted that efforts to curb prescription drug use could be a "double-edged sword" causing users to seek out heroin instead.

Now, 18 months later, that prognosis looks spot-on as the streets of Wilmington and highways of Brunswick County are awash with heroin, a drug Ben and Jon David, the district attorneys for New Hanover and Brunswick counties, respectively, both call "suicide on the installment plan."

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DURHAM -- A coalition presented evidence Wednesday that it says shows Durham police paid informants extra money for convictions in criminal cases without telling defense attorneys or the district attorney's office. The FADE (Fostering Alternative Drug Enforcement) coalition says the documents support its claims of racial profiling by the Durham Police Department's drug enforcement officers; all the suspects in the cases were black or Hispanic.

Ian Mance, an attorney for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, said the documents indicating $300 paid to informants as a "bonus" for convictions and/or testimony show the department participated in unconstitutional conduct.

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Polarization and gridlock create the impression of a nation stuck, but beneath the frozen political machinery cultural and demographic currents are shifting dramatically. The most obvious is the speed with which the nation is changing its mind about same-sex marriage. The next big sea change may be in attitudes about legalizing marijuana. Opposition to easing laws on marijuana has gone up in smoke in Colorado and Washington state. Last week, the Washington, D.C. city council voted to decriminalize small quantities of pot, joining 17 states. Since California voters approved the medical use of marijuana in 1996, 19 more states have followed. More than a dozen states are weighing doing the same this year.

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The death of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from an apparent heroin overdose is but a high-profile example of what plays out every day in Main Street America. The main difference is that most of those victims remain virtually anonymous, statistical casualties in a futile war on drugs.

Hoffman died Sunday in a New York, but our corner of North Carolina is not immune to the addiction that drives the illegal drug trade. Commenting on the latest crime report, Wilmington Police Chief Ralph Evangelous blamed heroin as a factor in the recent increase in violent crimes. It's cheaper than ever, and more potent. Also more deadly.

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Kathleen Parker ("Weed should be a choice," Jan. 20) scored lots of points, supporting the legalization of cannabis (marijuana). Another reason to re-legalize cannabis that doesn't get mentioned is because it is biblically correct, since God created all the seed-bearing plants, saying they're all good, on literally the very first page of the Bible. A sane or moral argument to continue punishing and caging humans for using cannabis simply doesn't exist. Stan White Dillon, Colo.

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Everybody's doing it - confessing their youthful, pot-smoking ways - so here goes.

I don't remember.

Kidding, kidding. Anyone over 30 recognizes the old adage: If you remember the '60s, you weren't there. Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.

It is true that marijuana smoking tends to affect one's short-term memory, but the good news is that, while stoned, one does relatively little worth remembering. At least that's my own recollection.

So, yes, I toked, too. This doesn't mean anyone else should, and I haven't in decades, but our debate might have more value if more of us were forthcoming.

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Everybody's doing it - confessing their youthful, pot-smoking ways - so here goes.

I don't remember.

Kidding, kidding. Anyone over 30 recognizes the old adage: If you remember the '60s, you weren't there. Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk.

It is true that marijuana smoking tends to affect one's short-term memory, but the good news is that, while stoned, one does relatively little worth remembering. At least that's my own recollection.

So, yes, I toked, too. This doesn't mean anyone else should, and I haven't in decades, but our debate might have more value if more of us were forthcoming.

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