Drug Epidemic

In the late 1800s, Americans sipped Coca-Cola for a cocaine high, used the drug to fight hay fever and considered heroin the most effective cough remedy money could buy. By 1915, the President declared drug abuse the most pressing domestic problem in the country. Despite conventional wisdom, today's drug epidemic is not the nation's first, a Yale University professor told 200 state and county leaders gathered for a daylong conference at California Lutheran University on Friday.

For the first time in more than four decades, Los Angeles is on track to end the year with fewer than 300 killings, a milestone in a steady decline of homicides that has changed the quality of life in many neighborhoods and defied predictions that a bad economy would inexorably lead to higher crime. As of mid-afternoon on Sunday, the Los Angeles Police Department had tallied 291 homicides in 2010. The city is likely to record the fewest number of killings since 1967, when its population was almost 30% smaller.

How ironic! North has been sentenced to 1,200 hours of community service to help alleviate our nation's drug epidemic. This comes after coordinating illegal CIA activities to run arms to the Contras and to return with addicting drugs from Latin America. And his $150,000 fine presumably will be paid by right-wing "patriots" who place his criminal activities above the laws of the land. JIM HUCHTHAUSEN Simi Valley

The Bush administration's effort to shift federal money away from traditional police programs and toward anti-terrorism measures is running into a tough obstacle: the growing "meth caucus" in Congress. The group, which has more than 100 House members, is waging an increasingly effective fight to counter the president's proposed budget cuts and to funnel more money -- not less -- into domestic law enforcement.

Most of my law enforcement colleagues with whom I speak are shocked by the April 20 Times editorial ("Good Cause, Wrong Target"). You leave your readers with a dilemma--too many drugs and the inference that nothing can be done about our predicament. Last year in Orange County, there were 180 cocaine- or heroin-related deaths. How many were there throughout the United States? How many are there that we don't discover? Where's the sensitivity for the people who have died from drugs?

Your editorial (Aug. 6), "Kicking the Habit," realistically evaluated President Reagan's six-point program to fight drugs--a program that lacks meat. I'm very pleased, however, that the President is now talking about the drug problem. Southern California parents recognize the drug epidemic in their schools and agree with his goal of drug-free schools, but, at the same time, not kicking kids out of school for using drugs. Sadly, some secondary school administrators advocate kicking kids out of school.

In Santa Ana and Anaheim, church and state are not as separate as they used to be, and the result, without compromising any bedrock Constitutional concepts, promises to produce a healthier, more livable and crime-free community. In a coordinated effort prompted by a mutual concern over the growing drug problem and local government's failure to adequately address the issue, members of 15 churches in Santa Ana and Anaheim have successfully banded together to secure a commitment from the Anaheim and Santa Ana city councils that they would launch a coordinated effort to help eradicate drugs.

A group of church congregations that have battled local officials the last 2 years over such matters as stoplights and park patrols will hold a mass meeting on countywide drug problems Thursday with the mayors of Anaheim and Santa Ana. More than 1,000 members of the Orange County Congregation-Community Organizations, an interfaith federation of 15 congregations, are expected to attend the 7:30 p.m. meeting at Servite High School in Anaheim, group...

In an atmosphere charged with the excitement of a political convention, 1,200 church members packed an Anaheim auditorium Thursday and won commitments from the mayors of Orange County's two largest cities to do more to combat drugs in their communities. Mayors of Anaheim and Santa Ana promised the crowd that they would take to their city councils a resolution declaring the existence of a "drug epidemic" and calling for coordinated action by local police, prosecutors, judges, educators and elected officials to eradicate it. To the delight of the crowd, Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter and Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young put their promises in writing on a blackboard wheeled out to the school auditorium stage by Father John Lenihan of St. Boniface Church in Anaheim.

Yet another record-breaking drug bust made local headlines this week. The Los Angeles Police Department seized more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine on Monday, bringing the city's 1987 cocaine confiscations to a record 9,000 pounds--a 30% increase over the same period last year. But U.S. drug-enforcement officials say that the amount confiscated represents only 12% to 14% of the cocaine currently on the streets of Los Angeles.

Art and poetry by clients of the Van Ness Recovery House will be on display in City Hall throughout July as part of the city's campaign to publicize the dangers of methamphetamine, or "crystal meth." Mayor Steve Martin described crystal meth use as "epidemic" in West Hollywood. "The people who are casual users of this drug really have no idea how addictive it is and the kinds of neurological damage it can cause," Martin said.

"Bad Blood." "The Big White Lie." "American Apartheid." "Two Nations." "The Assassination of the Black Male Image." These books and dozens of others with similar themes cry out from the shelves of Eso Won, a black-oriented bookstore in southwest Los Angeles. They recall a shameful national legacy of racial injustice that many whites consider past, but most blacks see as a pattern that still rings true.

Some suffer strokes in the womb. Others are born with a birth weight of as little as a pound and a half. Some are unable to stop kicking and moving their arms. Many have skin so sensitive that they cannot be touched or held by anyone. Their high-pitched cries distinguish them from healthier, more fortunate babies. Imagine, for a moment, being born in this condition in a hospital or garage or back yard to parents unable to parent--in a society with little idea of how to help you.

In the late 1800s, Americans sipped Coca-Cola for a cocaine high, used the drug to fight hay fever and considered heroin the most effective cough remedy money could buy. By 1915, the President declared drug abuse the most pressing domestic problem in the country. Despite conventional wisdom, today's drug epidemic is not the nation's first, a Yale University professor told 200 state and county leaders gathered for a daylong conference at California Lutheran University on Friday.

Is the modern university sufficiently engaged in service to the nation? Are today's scholars too much in the ivory tower, unresponsive to national and world affairs? These questions, never wholly dormant, recently have been raised with renewed intensity.

How ironic! North has been sentenced to 1,200 hours of community service to help alleviate our nation's drug epidemic. This comes after coordinating illegal CIA activities to run arms to the Contras and to return with addicting drugs from Latin America. And his $150,000 fine presumably will be paid by right-wing "patriots" who place his criminal activities above the laws of the land. JIM HUCHTHAUSEN Simi Valley

Art and poetry by clients of the Van Ness Recovery House will be on display in City Hall throughout July as part of the city's campaign to publicize the dangers of methamphetamine, or "crystal meth." Mayor Steve Martin described crystal meth use as "epidemic" in West Hollywood. "The people who are casual users of this drug really have no idea how addictive it is and the kinds of neurological damage it can cause," Martin said.

Some suffer strokes in the womb. Others are born with a birth weight of as little as a pound and a half. Some are unable to stop kicking and moving their arms. Many have skin so sensitive that they cannot be touched or held by anyone. Their high-pitched cries distinguish them from healthier, more fortunate babies. Imagine, for a moment, being born in this condition in a hospital or garage or back yard to parents unable to parent--in a society with little idea of how to help you.

In Santa Ana and Anaheim, church and state are not as separate as they used to be, and the result, without compromising any bedrock Constitutional concepts, promises to produce a healthier, more livable and crime-free community. In a coordinated effort prompted by a mutual concern over the growing drug problem and local government's failure to adequately address the issue, members of 15 churches in Santa Ana and Anaheim have successfully banded together to secure a commitment from the Anaheim and Santa Ana city councils that they would launch a coordinated effort to help eradicate drugs.

In an atmosphere charged with the excitement of a political convention, 1,200 church members packed an Anaheim auditorium Thursday and won commitments from the mayors of Orange County's two largest cities to do more to combat drugs in their communities. Mayors of Anaheim and Santa Ana promised the crowd that they would take to their city councils a resolution declaring the existence of a "drug epidemic" and calling for coordinated action by local police, prosecutors, judges, educators and elected officials to eradicate it. To the delight of the crowd, Anaheim Mayor Fred Hunter and Santa Ana Mayor Daniel H. Young put their promises in writing on a blackboard wheeled out to the school auditorium stage by Father John Lenihan of St. Boniface Church in Anaheim.