Michele Leonhart | Wikipedia

Pay close attention to the video below, and you will see a career cop who has risen through the ranks of the Drug Enforcement Administration, acting like she stepped outside to smoke a joint or two before she went in to answer some questions before Congress.

Her name is Michele Leonhart (and I was just kidding about the joint). She got her start in law enforcement as a cop in Baltimore. She’s a DEA holdover from the administration of President George W. Bush.

It’s possible that Bush regarded her as brilliant, and that might actually be true, comparatively. But for the administrator of a $2 billion, 10,000-employee narcotics-fighting agency, she doesn’t seem to know jack about the relative dangers of illegal (or legal) drugs.

She can’t even answer a simple question about whether methamphetamine is a more dangerous or addictive drug than marijuana.

Really? She doesn’t know the answer to that question? Most third-graders who have been through DARE do.

(She is incorrect that all Schedule I drugs are addictive, by the way).

Why isn’t she just candid? Why doesn’t she say, “For God’s sake, congressman, everybody knows that methamphetamine is more dangerous. Everybody knows that crack is more addictive. Everyone knows that heroin is, too.”

At the worst, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., was setting her up to ask, “Then why are you still enforcing laws against pot?” And in that case, she could have said, “Because Congress has elected to keep it illegal.”

That’s as bad as it could have been for her. Now she has made it worse, by trying to be clever.

Obama should get rid of Leonhart and find someone to run the DEA who knows  a little bit more about the substances the agency is supposed to be fighting.

It started as a local judge’s idea: Why not produce a humble video about the successes of Drug Court in the Roanoke Valley?

The budget was modest — only $25,000. So Circuit Judge Jonathan Apgar called up an old high-school thespian pal who was in the television production business.

Was he interested in making the documentary for relative peanuts? The answer was yes.
You can see the 27-minute result on You Tube today: “The Arrest is Only the Beginning: How Virginia Drug Courts Succeed.”

Barely two years after its debut, the video has won six national and international film and television awards.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE

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This year a Virginia lawmaker is calling for a study of the legalization of marijuana in the commonwealth and the sale of it in state liquor stores.

The proposal, outlined over on Blue Ridge Caucus, is from Del. David Englin, D-Alexandria.

Don’t forget, folks, where you read a slightly different version of this legislation first. That was in my column, 18 months ago.

I’m normally pretty modest. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that the General Assembly and governor in recent years have an interesting track record of taking cues from my columns.

They should make me an honorary member of the General Assembly, or something. I’ve gotten way more bills through than Del. Greg Habeeb, R-Salem. Read more »

As you may or may not know, Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants the sunshine state’s welfare recipients to pee in a cup to prove they’re not on drugs. A court has issued an injunction against that law.

The Daily Show’s correspondent Aasif Mandvi interrupted a Scott press conference to ask if he would do that same. Watch:

From Talking Points Memo:

Later, the Herald reports, Mandvi tried again to pass the cup forward: “I hate to keep harping on this, would you pee in a cup?”

Scott fired back: “You don’t get to run this.”

(Missouri is also making welfare recipients pee. And in Georgia, which has also proposed the Orwellian practice, a Democratic state lawmaker has introduced a bill requiring state legislators to take urine tests, too.)

Which lawmaker is going to propose pee-for-welfare it here in Virginia?

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Midnight Wednesday was the deadline for Medicare recipients to sign up for their annual Part D insurance plans. That covers prescription drugs.

If you’re a senior or you’re close to one, you’ve heard about the frustrations with Part D. There are 30 different plans sold throughout the valley, and there’s the confounding “doughnut hole” that costs some seniors thousands of dollars every year.

Betty Price’s concern is different. Beginning next year, her medicine will cost more with her insurance than it would without it. It’s a 50-year old medication and her insurance company has jacked her out-of-pocket cost 419 percent.

They also raised the price of her insurance. So in terms of rip-offs you could consider this one a two-fer.

READ THE REST OF THE COLUMN HERE.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Bassford:

“We have had a major uptick with kids at Cave Spring High School and places like that using heroin, and it’s spreading.”

Read the heartbreaking story by my colleague Laurence Hammack.

The Gonzo blogger known as Suzie managed to procure some dimethyltriptamine (aka DMT) Friday, and she’s been smoking it all weekend, chasing each hit with a slug of Popov vodka, unchilled.

How else could anyone explain the set of bizarre generalizations that appears below?

DMT, for those of you unfamiliar with hallucinogens, is a super-psychedelic. The “super” is not a subjective judgment on my part; rather, it describe the incredible potency and bizarre, dimension-changing effects of the drug.

DMT is to LSD what the painkiller heroin is to aspirin. You smoke it or inject it and the stuff blasts your mind into space and an alternate reality. But the effects are quite short-lived. 15 to 30 minutes later you are back to reality, slugging down the vodka and putting another dose in the pipe.

Perhaps there are other ways to explain Suzie’s pap, and the errors in fact that she makes below. But I can’t think of any others — it must be the DMT.

Here goes, folks:

From my time on here and from personal experience, I’ve noticed somewhat consistent patterns between Roanoke City people vs. Roanoke Country people. By city folks, I’m talking about those who live in Old Southwest, Raleigh Court, and some areas of South Roanoke (the wannabes). These are the Roanokers Dan writes about. It’s his world. Let’s look at a few very generalized comparisons:

The city resident votes Democrat. Couples, if they have kids give them names like Hunter or Evan who play PC sports like soccer or lacrosse. No football or hoops for these boys. The parents aren’t real big sports fans. These people like to sit on their porches; the men wear loafers with no socks. The wives aren’t big on makeup. Their teenage sons wear plaid shorts from Abercrombie. Lawyers and teachers dominate the professional ranks. The few businessmen sprinkled in run maybe a trendy restaurant or some off-the-wall shop.

For the wealthier city folks, their kids go the North Cross or Governor’s School route. They aren’t excited about their kids rubbing shoulders with the PH riffraff, although they talk a good game. For college, it’s Roanoke College with some UVa thrown in. These kids are into liberal arts, not so much the hard stuff. Not many Hokies out of this group.

City folks dutifully put out their recycling bins, walk their dogs on the greenway, and attend every imaginable outdoor event. These people LIVE for downtown festivals.

The ones who go to church belong to some Unitarian or mainline protestant denomination like Presyterian. Nothing too harsh or demanding. They like a feel-good message, and they don’t want any action judged.

They invariably see themselves as urbane and cultured because they eat downtown fairly often, go to a few outdoor concerts, and force their brood to weather the Taubmann once in a while. Their houses are old, drafty, and in constant need of upkeep and repair, but that’s OK because they have “character”.

__________

Roanoke County people vote Republican. They have the nerve to live in newer houses, many of which resemble each other. They don’t have sidewalks, so they use more fossil fuels and drive more often. Their yards are well-tended, but nothing fancy. These are people whose main focus is their work and families and charitable functions. Lots of volunteer work and contributions. They aren’t really into trying to impress each other; they don’t have time. The adults dress well for work; sneakers and jeans or shorts at home. Again, nothing fancy. While some teens wear designer clothes, many are content with Wal Mart’s brands.

Many county people work for companies. They may have been transferred here; that’s why in many county subdivisions, everybody is from somewhere else. Their kids are Matt and Katie. They play football, volleyball, and like cheerleading. The families go to VT football games, high school sporting events, and Salem Red Sox games. The kids go to Virginia Tech and become engineers, management, or marketing majors. They usually work during the summer.

County people sometimes go to downtown events, but it doesn’t consume them. They eat out as a family at buffet somewhere or at just a plain chain restaurant. They tend to travel out of town more often. They’re more likely to be Catholic or Baptist; churches where you’re asked to be accountable for your actions.

Many take their recyclabes to area bins. Some don’t. No biggie. These people are good stewards of the environment with energy-efficient homes, but as with everything, they don’t talk about it much. They just do it.

It was horrible and tragic when a 3-year-old Pulaski boy died last September after drinking methadone left by his mom in a cough-syrup measuring up on the kitchen counter.

You would have thought that Lisa Hylton’s conviction last week in the death of her son, Trevor, would have reinforced the utter negligence of leaving that powerful narcotic lying around, where a child could get his hands on it.

Sadly, that’s not so. Another Pulaksi mom apparently did the same thing this week. WTF?

At least she took her little boy to the hospital and he survived.

Moms on methadone: don’t leave it lying around where your kids can get to it.

As if that needs to be said.

The “stars” of this documentary produced recently in the Roanoke Valley are black and white, male and female, older and younger.

They probably look like your friends and neighbors.

What they have in common is each of their lives spiraled out of control and into crime because of addiction.

Now, each is sober and productive thanks to drug court, a program that began here and has spread across the commonwealth over the past 15 years.

As certain state lawmakers make an attempt to cut funding for that program, its graduates are speaking out and telling their stories in the documentary, “The Arrest is Only the Beginning – How Virginia Drug Courts Succeed.”

The DVD has been distributed to our state lawmakers in Richmond. And you can see it above.

• There’s the three-decade heroin addict, now in his 50s, who’s been in recovery since 2000 and now has a master’s degree and is a drug counselor.
• And a small business owner who employs 12. She got into cocaine in her 30s and used to spend weekends alone at home, with the blinds drawn, smoking crack.
• And the young woman who got hooked as a college student. She’s now a registered nurse.

Their names are not important for this column, although they’re in the video.

What is important is the story they tell about what saved them from prison and their formerly addicted selves.

It was drug court.

READ MORE

When Attorney General Eric Holder announced in March that the federal government would stop prosecuting medical-marijuana cases, Elliston resident Michael Krawitz cheered.

Krawitz did it again when Holder renewed that pledge in a written directive in October.

He cheered again this month, when the American Medical Association reversed its longstanding opposition to expanded research into marijuana as a treatment for pain, glaucoma, HIV wasting syndrome and certain other maladies.

Krawitz, 47, is a disabled American veteran. He’s disabled as a result of a bad motorcycle crash he had in Guam while stationed there by the U.S. Air Force.

He also is a Virginia medical marijuana activist.

Read more here.

Comment below! Should Virginia expand it’s medical marijuana law?