US KY: PUB LTE: Remove Criminals From The Equation

REMOVE CRIMINALS FROM THE EQUATION Concerning the Rev. Dr. Ted Beams' view on the legalization/regulation of marijuana, I would like to say that during Prohibition, when we tried to legislate away alcohol, we instead created huge criminal organizations which benefited from huge profits. Today, we have created a similar situation wherein similar organizations have affected the world even our grandchildren will inherit. Now, we should embark on a strategy against drug prohibition and strengthen education, which proved successful in reducing tobacco use. If we wish to protect our children - a goal that God would certainly support - then we should invest in policies that remove criminals from the equation, something that prohibition has always failed to do. Malcolm Kyle The Hague, Holland








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US DC: Residents Say Drug Roundup Gave Some Relief

RESIDENTS SAY DRUG ROUNDUP GAVE SOME RELIEF

Standing in the middle of a courtyard yesterday in the Woodland Terrace public housing complex, a 24-year-old mother said life in the Southeast neighborhood was a little better these days -- ever since police started taking down the drug dealers who have long operated openly in the complex.

"Before, this whole place would be crowded with people, with boys that don't even live around here," the mother said late yesterday afternoon, her son and daughter at her leg clamoring to go home.

Gone, she said, are the buzzing motorbikes that would crisscross the courtyards and alleys of Woodland Terrace, often driven by drug dealers and their accomplices around what has been a busy market for PCP, cocaine and marijuana.

Yesterday, authorities explained how the change happened, announcing that a five-month-long undercover investigation by D.C. police, D.C. housing police and the U.S. attorney's office had led to charges against 24 people.

Taken into custody over 12 days this month, the suspects have been charged primarily with drug distribution offenses, most of them felonies, and the effect at Woodland is evident, people who live there say.

"It's good," said the young mother who grew up in Woodland Terrace. "We can rest. Our kids can rest. You don't have to worry about your kids."

But the sense of liberation only goes so far. Like other people interviewed yesterday at the complex, the mother was too fearful of drug dealers to give her name. Things are better, she said, but not that much better.

The investigation is part of a federally sponsored push to target drug trafficking and violent crime in public housing. The District is one of 20 jurisdictions nationwide selected for the Public Housing Safety Initiative.

News of the arrests in Woodland Terrace came a day after the D.C. Housing Authority, aided by D.C. police, staged a crackdown of their own at the Park Morton public housing complex in Northwest -- another hot spot for drug dealing.

Responding to complaints from Park Morton residents, the Housing Authority went door-to-door looking for people not listed on leases and told them they have to leave. In dozens of cases, authorities changed locks on apartment doors in an effort to keep out unauthorized tenants. Resident leaders say such tenants are a big part of the crime that has made Park Morton notorious.

Over the years, some of the city's public housing complexes have been razed and replaced with mixed-income development. But as the city struggles to preserve affordable housing for the poor and for working-class people, improving the public housing that is left has taken on greater importance.

Woodland Terrace is one of those places. Spread over a maze of two- and three-story buildings, the 234 garden apartments sit in an area bordered by Ainger Place, Bruce Place, Reynolds Place and Langston Place.

The buildings are faded, and the gardens are bare. "Adrian Fenty for Mayor" signs pop up here and there. It was at Woodland Terrace that Fenty, who won the Democratic primary, and opponent Marie Johns staged their one-on-one debate a few weeks ago.

As nearby schools let out yesterday, children made their way home through the alleys and courtyards that perhaps were envisioned as welcome open space but that ultimately became accomplices in the drug trade.

The courtyards are hard to see from the street, making it harder for police to observe illegal activity, and the warren of alleyways makes it easy for people to make quick getaways.

"It was something like a fortress," said Cmdr. Joel Maupin, whose 7th District station sits barely a block away from Woodland Terrace.

And that is why it took a lot of stealth work, he said. "You have to infiltrate the interior and make your buys in the interior of the complex," Maupin said.

Undercover officers from the 7th District made 63 drug buys in designated "drug free" zones from April to August, many of them in open areas where children were playing. Using video surveillance equipment provided by the U.S. attorney's office, investigators were able to record drug buys to use as evidence in the cases.

Another woman, who is 44 and has lived half her life in Woodland Terrace, said the difference is unmistakable. Sitting in front of her Langston Place home, the woman said the blocks around her home are much quieter these days, with less traffic, less fighting, less gunfire.

"It's changed a lot," she said. "It's quiet."
















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US OR: Legal Green

LEGAL GREEN Robert Kridel Is 53 Years Old, Confined To A Wheelchair And In Constant, Agonizing Pain. Eight years ago he cut off his finger while working on an engine and after it was sewed back on he contracted tetanus, the bacteria that causes what used to be known as lockjaw. "My muscles have been turned into rope," he said. "They don't respond. I can't believe the pain I experience." He takes a host of pharmaceutical drugs to reduce the pain and discomfort. To deal with the side effects of the pharmaceutical drugs, he smokes marijuana. Kridel is one of the 1,038 Jackson County residents -- there are 11,143 state-wide as of July of this year -- who can legally use marijuana for medical reasons. "It's a tool in the tool box that people should be able to use," he said. "When you look at all the narcotics I take every day, pot is a non-issue." He smokes pot for the nausea his pharmaceutical drugs cause. Without it, he said, he would have no appetite and would slowly waste away to nothing. In November of 1998, Oregonians passed a law that stated, in part, "Patients and doctors have found marijuana to be an effective treatment for suffering caused by debilitating medical conditions, and therefore, marijuana should be treated like other medicines." But after eight years of being legal in Oregon, medical marijuana is still largely misunderstood. Federal law considers marijuana to be illegal, despite the fact that 11 states have approved it for medical purposes. And many mainstream doctors refuse to endorse it, even though it was listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, the official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, from 1850 to 1942, and a recent Supreme Court decision -- Conant v. Walters -- protects doctors from prosecution. Despite the law, and the numerous sick Oregonians who benefit from it, law enforcement is still largely unconvinced. Detective Randy Snow of the Ashland Police Department thinks most people in the state medical marijuana program are using the system to obtain otherwise illegal drugs. "It definitely increases the difficulty for us because of those who would abuse the system," he said. "That is what is mostly happening with medical marijuana." Jeanette Carpenter disagrees. She said most people -- police included - -- don't understand the extent of marijuana's medicinal properties. She smokes pot to relieve her asthma. Though this may seem counterintuitive, marijuana acts as an expectorant. In other words, the quality of marijuana that makes people cough actually helps to clear her lungs of her sickness. "Some mornings I have a hard time breathing until I expel the mucous in my lungs," said the 63-year-old grandmother of six. "Generally I don't have to smoke too much." Carpenter tries to live a healthy lifestyle and eats mostly organic, whole foods. For this reason, she prefers using marijuana to the albuterol asthma inhalers that mainstream doctors prescribe. "It kept congestion in my lungs," she said. "Why should I want to use something that would worsen my medical condition?" Though she has used marijuana recreationally since the 1960s, the plant took on a different meaning to her when she learned it could help with her asthma. "Over time I have learned to respect the medicinal properties of marijuana," she said. "I think we should all try to get away from the recreational aspect of it and come to understand the medicinal properties." According to Geri Kulp, a former Ashland resident who helped to write the initial medical marijuana law in Oregon, Carpenter and Kridel are some of the more lucky ones because they know someone who will produce pot for them. A big shortcoming in Oregon's medical marijuana law, she said, is that patients either have to grow it themselves or recruit someone to grow it for them for free. The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act does not allow growers to be compensated for their efforts. "There are a lot of people who see it as a calling," she said about these good-natured growers. Kulp is a volunteer with Voter Power, an organization that hosts medical marijuana clinics around the state, including in Medford. She said they have set up a network of growers to produce pot for needy patients. "We give it to them," she said, noting that she has met people with their medical marijuana cards who couldn't obtain it. Voter Power is currently working to institute a dispensary system in Oregon, as is used in California. A dispensary would give patients a place where they could legally obtain medical marijuana, Kulp said. "The biggest stumbling block to someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer is they can't get it," she said. "Under the current law you need to either grow it yourself or have someone give it to you." Kulp said it is largely untrue that many people in the program aren't really sick. "You can't legally grow enough to make it profitable," she said. "Unless someone is really sick, they aren't going to go through the trouble." But she admitted, "It hasn't deterred the people who were growing and selling marijuana illegally before the medical marijuana act was passed." Perhaps the one point activists like Kulp and law enforcement officers like Detective Randy Snow can agree on is that everyone would benefit if greed and marijuana could be separated. Kulp said the abuse that does happen "all gets back to greed." Snow agreed. "We don't have any problems with people who truly need medicine," he said. "If we could take the greed out of it, it wouldn't be an issue for us."















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US CO: Foes, Supporters Spar on Amendment 44

FOES, SUPPORTERS SPAR ON AMENDMENT 44 As election time draws near, the debate concerning a marijuana amendment on the ballot is heating up. Drug enforcement officials say Amendment 44, which would legalize adult possession of less than one ounce of pot, would increase demand - -- and hence, supply from violent, organized crime units. There are also health concerns, particularly such as those related to children. "As a federal executive branch agency, we're not for or against legislation. My opinion is it's a mistake, but the DEA's opinion is this would be a very dangerous thing for Coloradans," said Jeffrey Sweetin, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency's four-state Rocky Mountain Division. "There's no discussion about where people would get their drugs. They're going to continue getting their drugs from organized crime." Locally, the Delta/Montrose Drug Task Force opposes 44 and was in the process Thursday of preparing a letter to be signed by a number of chiefs and sheriffs in the 7th Judicial District. Proponents, however, said inaccurate language in the state's "blue book" voting guide had created misconceptions about the amendment. "It stated it ( amendment ) would make it legal to transfer under one ounce to people 15 and up," Mason Tvert of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation Colorado said Tuesday. Tvert said that wasn't the case, as the amendment does not affect existing statutes concerning contributing to the delinquency of a minor. "It will remain a class-4 felony to give any amount of drugs to a minor. That's the big discrepancy that's primarily led to all these issues." Some of the measure's critics initially claimed that since giving pot without accepting payment can be defined as possession, adults could provide marijuana to 15- to 17-year-olds -- language that made it into the blue book. SAFER's attempt to have the courts address that language was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds earlier this month. "They want this to be an argument about young people, when it's about adults," Tvert said. The amendment would allow people 21 and older to possess less than one ounce of marijuana. SAFER said it would remain illegal to use it in public or to provide it to those under 21 and that the proposal does not remove criminal penalties for driving under the influence of pot, or for distributing it. The amendment would change existing statute to make possession of less than one ounce by those under 21 a class-2 petty offense, punishable by a $100 fine. The change would mean the simple possession law only applies to those under 21, while now it applies to people of any age. Tvert also said Amendment 44 would not prevent local home rule governmental entities from enacting their own ordinances concerning marijuana possession. Instead, it would prevent prosecution for low-level possession on a state-level charge. But drug enforcement officials said the amendment sent a message that would undo years of successful drug-awareness education. "This is a stepping stone path to legalize drugs at all levels," Sweetin said. "Ounce possessors of marijuana don't go to jail. Anywhere." He also questioned the logic of decriminalizing only quantities under an ounce. "Why the ounce? If it's so safe, why isn't SAFER trying to legalize it ( pot ) at any level?" Sweetin said. "It's a silly law. It's not going to change anything. ... Even SAFER would admit there would be more marijuana users in Colorado if they legalize this." Marijuana possession would remain a violation of federal law regardless the amendment's fate. Both sides agreed federal agents would not have the resources to enforce those laws. Federal agents, Tvert said, would have the power to arrest anyone for possession, but it would require federal prosecution. "It's not going to happen," he said. "We will have conflicting laws. We have various levels of government." "When we work marijuana, we work in bales of marijuana," Sweetin said. "Unfortunately, the organizations running meth and heroin into Denver are the same ones running marijuana." Tvert said it wasn't necessarily true that all pot ultimately comes from major dealers. "How is it that a 21-year-old kid growing pot in Boulder is contributing to any other drugs? If that ( organized crime ) is their biggest problem, we need to regulate it." He contended the initiative's opponents have a financial interest in keeping all pot illegal and said 50 percent of the nation's drug budget goes toward fighting marijuana. Sweetin called the idea that police want the drug to remain illegal so they can keep their jobs "a ludicrous argument." "We're not trying to keep ourselves employed. We're working meth, coke, heroin."













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