COMMUNITY ERUPTED WITH CONCERN FOLLOWING 1970 BUST

Four students from a local high school are arrested and charged with
selling marijuana. The community gathers law enforcement officials,
attorneys, elected officials, school superintendents, and local ministers
together for a community meeting to discuss the tragic circumstances.

The teenagers in question could be slammed with two decades behind bars and
up to $20,000 in fines.

A little excessive?

By today's standards, maybe. But when the situa-tion occurred in May 1970,
some in Elizabethtown deem-ed the presence of marijuana a problem that
would affect the entire city, both its present and its future.

The public outcry in 1970 was drastically different from the response today
when marijuana was discovered in two local high schools after drug searches.

In January, five students from Elizabethtown High School faced possession
charges after police discovered drugs and drug paraphernalia at the school.
Last week, two students from LaRue County High School were charged after
police found marijuana in their cars on school property.

Instead of a panicked outcry as happened in 1970, the public reaction last
month was supportive but still concerned toward the drug raids,
Elizabethtown High School Principal Ruth Sorace said.

"I think there's been a public showing of support beyond what I expected,"
she said, referring to those people applauding schools for inviting cops to
perform raids.

Sorace said the early '70s was a time when people had just begun
experimenting with marijuana, and hearing that the drug had infiltrated a
small town in Kentucky was probably big news because people thought it
could never happen to them.

The idea about obtaining marijuana is different today.

"Now we know that it has touched every community or city in the country,"
Sorace said.

In 1970, after news of the arrests, then-Elizabethtown Mayor James
Pritchard rallied city and county attorneys, representatives from the
sheriff's office, state police, Elizabethtown and Hardin County school
superintendents and community college officials for a meeting that he said
"affects our whole city, its present and its future."

At the time, detectives placed the number of local high school marijuana
users close to 100. The late James Scudder, the county attorney at the
time, called drug use a big problem.

R.R. Thomas was Hardin County's judge-executive at the time. He remembers
the case and the four Elizabethtown High School students who were arrested.

"I recall the furor in the community," he said. "There were some people who
thought there should be some harsh punishments."

But Thomas disagreed. While he said the situation was handled well at the
time, he thought that the community's reaction went a little overboard.

From what Thomas remembers, there was no evidence that showed the four
students were selling drugs, but rather passing it among themselves.

"These were not purveyors of drugs or drug lords," he said. "They were
experimenting."

Thomas placed the juveniles under supervision. They never went to jail or
received any other sort of punishment from the courts.

Thomas is still in contact with two of the men and said they never had any
other brush with the law, nor has he heard of any illegal activity from the
other students involved.Elizabethtown Mayor David Willmoth vaguely recalls
the 1970 incident. He remembers the community holding a special meeting,
but not details.

"I think it was maybe a shock to the community more then," he said. "Now
people get arrested every day for drugs. I don't think the community
accepts it any more, but it is a part of our society today."

Hardin County Sheriff Charlie Williams said marijuana use has become more
prevalent since the 1970s and more communities have become used to hearing
about the drug.

"The difference today is sadly that it's socially acceptable to a degree,"
he said.

He said he wouldn't expect the same kind of public outrage today, but in
1970 it was completely understand-able for marijuana to cause such a level
of reaction.

"It was the scary drug of the day," he said.

Now marijuana has been replaced by cocaine, methamphetamine and other
"hard" drugs. It's almost like a lot of the public has become complacent
when they hear teenagers have been charged for possessing pot.

"I think people today are more conditioned," Sorace said. "There's not as
big a shock or not as great an outcry."

Although the response to marijuana may have lessened over the years, it
doesn't mean the drug is no longer a problem. Sorace said that instead of
community meetings, today's community needs parents or other students with
information about drug use to step up.

"I think there's some education that we could give to parents," she said.
"We need groups of parents working together."

Willmoth agrees that marijuana, or other types of drugs, continue to be a
problem for the community, even though marijuana may not have much shock value.

"The difference between 1970 and 2004 is that it's more prevalent and some
people don't realize that it's a serious problem," he said.