Alcohol

Our marijuana laws are the real travesty The Baltimore Sun made a number of valid points in its editorial about Michael Phelps ("Snark attack," Feb. 6). But there is more that needs to be said. No one would bat an eyelash if Mr. Phelps had been photographed hoisting a Budweiser. Yet the data show unmistakably that alcohol is more addictive than marijuana, vastly more toxic and orders of magnitude more likely to make its users aggressive or violent. Given the laws, Mr. Phelps took a big risk.

Fans at two Howard County high schools are being told to leave all beverages at home when they attend athletic events in an effort to combat what one school official called an alarming level of drinking among students. Administrators at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia and Centennial High School in Ellicott City separately instituted the ban in the past two weeks. The edicts, which apply to both students and adults, allows fans to possess only beverages that have been purchased from concession stands.

Coffeehouse concert -- 333 Coffeehouse will present Geoff Kaufman in concert at 8 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 333 Dubois Road, Annapolis. The 333 Coffeehouse provides quality acoustic music in a non-alcohol, smoke-free setting on the third Friday of every month. Dessert and coffee are available. The cost is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for students. 443-786-0463 or www.fsgw.org/333.

Fire auxiliary plans bridal event The New Windsor Fire Company auxiliary is seeking wedding-related vendors for its Bridal Extravaganza Jan. 13 at Windsor Station fire hall. Interested vendors should call 410-635-2756 or 410-635-6179 by Oct. 1. Reverse 911 includes cell, Internet phones Carroll County's nearly two-year-old Reverse 911 system has been expanded to include residents and businesses who depend primarily on cellular or Internet-based telephones. The system had been programmed with the numbers of all land telephone lines in the county to quickly and automatically notify residents in an emergency.

The Naval Academy has recently seen what a high-ranking midshipman called an "unacceptable" increase in alcohol rules infractions, despite the launch last fall of a strict policy that put the school at the forefront of efforts at colleges nationwide to curb binge drinking. In a memo sent yesterday to all 4,400 midshipmen and obtained by The Sun, senior Rachel Barton, the drug and alcohol education student officer, said that in the past six weeks, midshipmen had violated the new rules as much as they did in the previous six months.

A Glen Burnie father shouted "It's not fair!" and kicked his chair away yesterday after an Anne Arundel County judge sentenced him to 18 months in jail for a drunken-driving crash that killed two youngsters, one of them his. At one end of the courtroom, Michael L. Green, 26, wept as a sheriff's deputy prepared to lead him to a holding cell and his lawyer tried to calm him. At the other, his wife -- mother of the two dead children -- sobbed, saying that...

The Naval Academy is investigating allegations that uniformed midshipmen on a spring break cruise in the Caribbean drunkenly groped women and offered alcohol to teenagers. In an e-mailed complaint that prompted the investigation, a female passenger on the Carnival ship Glory two weeks ago, said the group of eight to 10 male midshipmen also displayed "lewd" behavior in bikini swim trunks and cowboy boots and hats - earning them the nickname "the Speedo Boys." "I was `felt up' by one of the very drunk men and I was given the misfortune of watching them grab and disrespect every woman they could get close to as well as seeing them offer the underage (15 and 17 year old)

A recent alcohol party at a private home that led to 42 Westminster High students being ruled ineligible for extracurricular activities worries authorities and professionals striving to curb underage drinking in Carroll County.Heroin abuse has grabbed much attention in the past year, but underage drinking is Carroll's most widespread problem, affecting more than half of the county's high school seniors, said Olivia Myers, executive director of Junction Inc., a substance-abuse treatment and prevention facility in Westminster.

Three soccer players from the Severna Park boys varsity team were suspended for the remainder of the season after recently violating the county's drug and alcohol policy, according to Falcons coach Don Gregg.Two juniors and one senior were removed from the team in what Gregg called an "alcohol-related" matter during the school's homecoming celebration this past weekend."This was poor decision-making," said Gregg. "It's not good for the team, the players or the families. After 26 years of coaching, there are no surprises but certainly disappointments.

Howard County police have charged 22 youths with underage drinking, saying officers caught them with alcohol at a Glenelg residence after a high school homecoming dance.The youths -- who were given written citations requiring them to appear in court -- were drinking in the basement of a home in the 14600 block of Mustang Path about 12: 45 a.m. Sunday after attending the Glenelg High School dance, police said.Police, who said they heard rumors at the dance about a party afterward, knocked on the door of the Mustang Path residence and an adult allowed them to search the house.

Thomas Meighan Jr. was well-acquainted with accusations of recklessness and dangerous driving, long before Baltimore police charged him with a string of traffic offenses related to the hit-and-run death of a Johns Hopkins University student two weeks ago. He got his first traffic ticket before he even had a driver's license, for speeding and driving without supervision on a learner's permit when he was 17. Within a year, his license was revoked, the...

Baltimore police arrested a Sykesville man Saturday in the hit-and-run death of a Johns Hopkins University student eight days ago. Thomas Meighan, 39, of Sykesville was picked up between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m., said Detective Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman. The charges were not released. After police sought the owner of a pickup truck involved in the accident, Meighan turned himself in on Tuesday and was released as detectives continued to investigate the death of Miriam Frankl, 20, who was hit Oct. 16 in the 3500 block of St. Paul St. at University Parkway.

Drunken driving laws that go into effect Wednesday are missing a key component - mandatory treatment for offenders - according to those who have had a vested interest in reducing alcohol- and drug-related traffic fatalities in Maryland. Michael Gimbel, the former Baltimore County director of substance abuse whose program was used as a model by the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, contends that legislators should make treatment mandatory for all first-time offenders. In fact, Gimbel said, the term "first-time offender" is a misnomer when it comes to drunken drivers.

All Mark Emon, owner of St. Michaels Winery, wanted to do was ship to a customer from New York who loved his Maryland-made wine. But since Maryland doesn't permit direct shipment of wine within the state, New York ruled this summer he could not ship out of it. The result? No sale. "This is St. Michaels. We get tourists," says Mr. Emon, who employs nine people at his Eastern Shore winery, one of the state's top five producers. "How much business do I lose? I'm asked several times a day if we can ship, whether in state or out of state.

Standing before a judge and facing 60 days in jail, Baltimore County Councilman Stephen G. Samuel Moxley admitted publicly for the first time Wednesday that he is an alcoholic and needs help. Moxley was accused of being drunk shortly before midnight July 23 when he caused a four-car pileup in West Baltimore that injured 44-year-old Justine Matthews. A police officer described him as "stumbling," "swaying" and smelling of alcohol when he emerged from his badly damaged Toyota Highlander.

Michael Phelps, who holds the Olympic record with 14 gold medals for swimming, was shaken but apparently uninjured Thursday night when the late-model Cadillac Escalade he was driving in Mid-Town Belvedere collided with another vehicle, seriously damaging Phelps' vehicle, the other car and a parked vehicle, police said. The female driver of the Honda Accord was taken to an area hospital as a precaution, police said. Shortly before 9 p.m., Phelps, 24, was driving the Cadillac east in the 100 block of E. Biddle St. when he entered the intersection at the 1100 block of N. Calvert St. and collided with a Honda Accord driven north in the 1100 block of N. Calvert St. by a woman.

A Howard County judge sentenced an illegal immigrant from Mexico to three years in prison Monday after the 21-year-old man pleaded guilty to two counts of negligent vehicular homicide while driving under the influence of alcohol. Jose Rosendo Algomeda-Santiago will be deported once he serves his prison term, public defender Lou Willemin said after the sentencing. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that. Circuit Judge Louis A. Becker III rejected a request from the families of the two passengers killed - both of whom were Santiago's cousins - to deport him immediately.

The owners of a popular Columbia nightspot were fined $500 for serving alcohol to minors after a fight in the parking lot led police to two underage men who had been drinking inside before the altercation. The incident at 2 a.m. May 10 brought several officers to Nottingham's, in the 8800 block of Stanford Blvd., where they found a semiconscious man in the parking lot and three people in a silver Honda trying to drive away. The Honda driver sped in reverse at high speed after seeing the patrol car, hitting a curb, Officer Timothy Kane testified.

U.S. swine flu cases may have hit 1 million mark, officials say Health officials estimate that as many as 1 million Americans now have the new swine flu. Lyn Finelli, a flu surveillance official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, voiced the estimate at a vaccine advisory meeting last week in Atlanta. The estimate is based on mathematical modeling. Nearly 28,000 U.S. cases have been reported to the CDC, accounting for roughly half the world's cases. The U.S. count includes 3,065 hospitalizations and 127 deaths.

The family of the truck driver who was killed last August when his tractor-trailer crashed through the side of the Bay Bridge filed a $7 million lawsuit Tuesday against the young woman whose vehicle was found to have crossed the center line, setting off the events that led to the fatal plunge. The widow, children and father of trucker John R. Short Sr. allege that Candy Lynn Baldwin, who was 19 at the time of the crash, had been drinking illegally before attempting to drive from Baltimore to the Eastern Shore the morning of Aug. 10. According to the suit filed in Queen Anne's County Circuit Court, the 1997 Chevrolet Camaro driven by Baldwin crossed the center line of the eastbound span, which at the time was in two-way operation.