SPRING CREEK LODGE SUIT

[Anonymous]

SPRING CREEK SUIT
Montana is home to more than 30 residential ?behavior modification? or boarding schools, thanks in part to remote locales and lack of government oversight. Spring Creek Lodge Academy near Thompson Falls, the largest such program in the state, houses 400 to 500 children and grosses more than $20 million a year.

In May, 26 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in a California court against Spring Creek and other member facilities of the World Wide Association of Specialty Schools and Programs, accusing the programs of negligence, child abuse, fraud, assault and battery and false imprisonment, among other charges. If you didn?t read about it in the Independent?s June report, you never would have known, such was the curiosity of Montana?s media watchdogs.

Allegations of abuse and neglect led to two legislative efforts to regulate Montana?s teen industry. A bill that would have put oversight authority in the hands of the Department of Public Health and Human Services was killed in the House with industry representatives battling hard against it. The Legislature adopted a competing House bill that was drafted by Rep. Paul Clark, the owner of Galena Ridge Wilderness Program for Teens in Trout Creek. That bill created the Private Alternative Adolescent Residential Program board, which is now considering whether regulation of the industry is needed.

Parties on both sides will spend the coming year gearing up for a renewed battle in 2007 Legislature.

http://www.missoulanews.com/News/News.asp?no=5433

[WWFSMD]

From the same page  :lol:  :lol:

MEDICAL MARIJUANA IMPLEMENTED
More than a year after Montana?s medical marijuana program began, Roy Kemp, licensing bureau chief of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, says the program is running strong and smooth. The initiative voters overwhelmingly approved in 2004 made Montana the 10th state to allow the terminally and chronically ill to alleviate their suffering with marijuana, and created a registry for patients and caregivers allowed to ingest and grow the plant legally. Over the summer, after program costs turned out to be less than expected, the $200 state fee was even dropped to $100. Currently, 176 patients, 66 caregivers and 98 physicians are registered in 27 counties, Kemp says.

And though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that federal authorities may prosecute medical marijuana users despite state laws that shield them, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath said the state isn?t budging. Fewer than 20 federal prosecutions of medical marijuana use have occurred since 1996, according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

Being a street cop, witnessing the tragedy firsthand, I've become
convinced that drug prohibition -- not drugs themselves -- are driving the HIV epidemic and the systemic crime that has swamped our criminal justice systems.
--Vancouver Police Const. Gil Puder