Al's Morning Meeting

The story focuses on what is happening in the St. Petersburg area. But, as I often find, whenever one city sees a big spike in a problem, others usually do too.

The Times reports:

In Pinellas County last year, it was the most commonly detected prescription drug among those arrested for impaired driving, according to the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiner's Office, which tracks the statistics. The drug was found in 177 drivers suspected of driving under the influence.

That's a sharp increase from 1998, when the drug turned up in just four cases. Then, experts say, doctors were writing prescriptions much less frequently.

The drug isn't as potent as methadone, and not as well known as painkillers like OxyContin. But it is widely prescribed and reacts so strongly with alcohol so that people taking Xanax become incapacitated with fewer drinks.

The drug, known generically as alprazolam, exacerbates alcohol's intoxicating effect.

"One plus one may equal three or more," said Dr. Raphael Miguel, the program director of pain medicine at the University of South Florida College of Medicine.

Xanax, also used to treat panic disorders, gives users a feeling of euphoria, said Dr. Bruce Goldberger, a toxicologist and director of forensic medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine.

"That's why it's abused," he said.

The pills can be bought from friends who have prescriptions or illegally from an online pharmacy advertising "Anxiety Drugs with Discounts this Week!!!" But the drug is widely available legally too.

Alprazolam is the fifth-most commonly prescribed drug in America, according to data from IMS Health, a health care information company. In 2006, 37.5-million prescriptions for it were dispensed, up from 29.9-million in 2002.

"People aren't any more anxious," said Goldberger. "But patients are being prescribed more and more medication in the past decade."

The Denver Post has produced a remarkable project documenting the lives of innocent people nationwide who may be sitting in prison, and criminals who may be running free because police have either lost or thrown out vital DNA evidence. This is not some "gotch ya" story involving one case -- this is a problem that affects tens of thousands of cases. The Post discovered that rape evidence kits are routinely trashed.

Read this passage:

Rape evidence destruction, the most common evidence loss discovered by The Post, represents a hidden crucible for countless sex-assault victims in the U.S.

Behind 5,515 rape evidence kits destroyed or lost by authorities nationwide in the past decade are thousands of women like Joanna who endured the scraping of fingernails and the swabbing of their most private parts, only to be cheated of justice and, often, true healing.

And behind those evidence purges are thousands of offenders who escaped prosecution.

The full scope of the lost specimens and their impacts may never be known because most state governments don't require that police, hospitals and other public agencies report the evidence they toss.

The problem flows from widespread ignorance, rape-crisis experts say. Ignorance about the kits' forensic value. Ignorance about rape trauma. Ignorance about the small spaces the kits consume. And ignorance about how DNA may render rape statutes of limitations obsolete.

"The destructions defy belief because (biological evidence) is the cleanest, least emotional, most unbiased and least politically fraught evidence there is," said Kim Tolhurst, a Washington, D.C., attorney.

A Minnesota Internet marketer has pulled together a remarkable collection about everyday folks who contributed to our understanding of the Twin Cities bridge collapse a couple weeks ago.

These folks posted songs about the tragedy, debated the politics of bridge safety, shot video and photos, built discussion groups and e-mail lists and poured photos onto Flickr. Folks also used Facebook to find loved ones as they did after the Virginia Tech shootings.

MySpacers also have been very active in the weeks after the bridge collapse.

I am doing some research on working journalists who also keep personal blogs, including blogs that have nothing to do with journalism.

If you would like to help me and are willing to be "on the record," drop me a note and a link to your blog.

The Boston Globe did some research and found that the Department of Homeland Security has spent at least tens and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars helping cities to install camera networks.

The Globe reports:

The department will not say how much of its taxpayer-funded grants have gone to cameras. But a Globe search of local newspapers and congressional press releases shows that a large number of new surveillance systems, costing at least tens and probably hundreds of millions of dollars, are being simultaneously installed around the country as part of homeland security grants.

In the last month, cities that have moved forward on plans for surveillance networks financed by the Homeland Security Department include St. Paul, which got a $1.2 million grant for 60 cameras for downtown; Madison, Wis., which is buying a 32-camera network with a $388,000 grant; and Pittsburgh, which is adding 83 cameras to its downtown with a $2.58 million grant.

Small towns are also getting their share of the federal money for surveillance to thwart crime and terrorism.

Recent examples include Liberty, Kan. (population 95), which accepted a federal grant to install a $5,000 G2 Sentinel camera in its park, and Scottsbluff, Neb. (population 14,000), where police used a $180,000 Homeland Security Department grant to purchase four closed-circuit digital cameras and two monitors, a system originally designed for Times Square in New York City.

"We certainly wouldn't have been able to purchase this system without those funds," police Captain Brian Wasson told the Scottsbluff Star-Herald.

Other large cities and small towns have also joined in since 2003. Federal money is helping New York, Baltimore, and Chicago build massive surveillance systems that may also link thousands of privately owned security cameras. Boston has installed about 500 cameras in the MBTA system, funded in part with homeland security funds.

It is sort of like "recycling," but with "freecycling" you offer whatever you don't need anymore to anybody else who will take it for free. The idea has been around for a while, but it seems to be growing more popular lately. Last month, Yahoo users increased their search of the word "freecycling" by 48 percent last month.

Find a "freecycle" group near you.

Few things make me happier than when the government opens their databases to the people. The good people at ResourceShelf recently wrote about this beautiful wiki collection of state databases that includes information on businesses, licensed professionals, plots of land and even dates of fish stocking. Some of this content is available on search engines, but much of it is part of the invisible Web.

While I am at it, let me mention one of the few "for-pay" sites that I rely on for state records lookups. Searchsystems.net (which costs me $4.95 per month) includes 39,000 public record databases in all 50 states and beyond. The collection includes business information, corporate filings, property records, deeds, mortgages, criminal and civil court filings, inmates, offenders, births, deaths, marriages, unclaimed property, professional licenses and much more.