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MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2011
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BREAK ON THROUGH
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The No. 14 Rutgers wrestling team stormed out of the gates and upset No. 3 Virginia Tech Friday night at the RAC, 24-7, by winning eight of a possible 10 bouts in front of a crowd of nearly 3,000.
Federal study says prescription drugs up hospital visits BY ANDREA GOYMA CORRESPONDENT
While television’s “House, M.D.” may glamorize protagonist Dr. Gregory House as he diagnoses some of the world’s rarest diseases with bursts of creative insight and a bottle of Vicodin, a recent federal study shows the misuse of prescription drugs accounts for about 2.1 million emergency room visits in the country. According to data found by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, (SAMHSA) the number of emergency room visits related to prescription drug abuse has increased to 1,244,679 visits in 2009 from 627, 291 visits in 2004. The findings also show that about one half of those emergency room visits in 2009 most commonly involved narcotic pain relievers like Oxycontin and Vicodin. “There are some people who speculate that younger people tend to trust pills that are FDA approved more than they trust street drugs,” said Lisa Laitman, director
CAMERON STROUD / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Middlesex county Democratic leaders listen to New Jersey residents express their opinions on the recent $1 billion cut to public education at Edison High School. Sen. Barbara Buono plans to take their comments back to her colleagues in the state senate.
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Residents voice education budget concerns BY CLIFF WANG CONTRIBUTING WRITER
NICHOLAS BRASOWSKI / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Federal data indicates that annual emergency room visits related to perscription drug abuse have doubled within the past five years.
INDEX METRO A hearing discusses how state government should act on charter schools.
OPINIONS Former Mexican President Vincente Fox has publicly renounced the war on drugs in favor of legalization.
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In response to Gov. Chris Christie’s $1 billion public education budget cut in grades K-12 this month, Middlesex Democrats Sen. Barbara Buono, Rep. Patrick Diegnan and Rep. Peter Barnes III held a public hearing in the Edison High School auditorium to give New Jersey residents an opportunity to voice their opinions. The budget cut, aimed at reducing the state’s large debt, attracted hundreds of people, from students, parents and school officials to Edison residents, who discussed how Christie’s budget cuts have cost teachers their jobs, resulting in increased class sizes and reduced extracurricular opportunities.
“I decided to hold this hearing today because I have been inundated with devastated people expressing the severity of the cuts,” Buono said. “Gov. Christie’s decision is not reform. It’s an abandonment of public education.” The audience also included representatives from Save Our Schools New Jersey, a grassroots organization that encourages increased funding to public schools. “In February 2010, the state confiscated $475 million that school districts had set aside for necessary capital improvements, and this year’s budget cuts an additional $820 million from the state’s schools,” according to the Save Our School New Jersey website.
Anne Marie, principal of Washington Elementary School in Edison, said she felt a great need to stand up for her profession and her colleagues. “We need to fight to withhold the quality of education that New Jersey is known for nationally. Remember, silence is agreement,” Marie said. Many audience members discussed the budget cuts’ effects in their own school districts. “I want to explain to whoever will listen and tell them how important the cocurricular activities were for the kids,” said Catherine DiGioia, a biology teacher from John P. Stevens High School
SEE BUDGET ON PAGE 5
U. student advocates fair labor abroad PERSON OF THE WEEK BY ANASTASIA MILLICKER STAFF WRITER
While some students at the University took off for vacations abroad with friends and family earlier this month, the goal of School of Arts and Sciences junior Richard Garzon’s trip to the Dominican Republic was reform, not relaxation. Garzon’s involvement in the University’s chapter of United States Against Sweatshops led him to join seven other students from across the United States as they explored the factor y of newly unionized Alta Gracia, a college apparel company whose mission is to give its workers a living wage, or enough money to provide for food, clothing, shelter and other necessities. “What interested me most with [USAS] is things like sweatshops and the structural problems that occur within them, and having the ability to work with a charity system that keeps people and their situations in mind,” Garzon said.
Through USAS, Garzon are not just supporting a was able to explore his company — they are options in activism. He has improving its workers’ qualworked heavily in the past ity of life. few months with the Alta “The tenet of this camGracia project in conjuncpaign is to encourage booktion with Workers Rights stores to increase orders to Consortium (WRC), which Alta Gracia apparel,” he ensured workers satisfactosaid. “As of now, Duke ry work and wages. University has the highest RICHARD Garzon said this factory sales of Alta Gracia apparel, GARZON in particular was signifiand is at the forefront of cant because it came into the ethical consumers.” Dominican Republic and listened to The Rutgers University Bookstore in the people’s needs. Ferren Mall on Albany Street sells Alta “Alta Gracia is important because Gracia apparel at an average cost, cheapit is the only factory in the world that er than some of the other brands sold supplies universities with ‘living there, with $20 for shirts and $30 for wage,’ [which is] more than triple sweatpants, Garzon said. The company the legal minimum wage and union- does not increase the cost for labor. made apparel,” said Gena Madow, an Garzon continues his activism with Alta Gracia representative. “Alta USAS at the University and is now Gracia costs no more than other well- working on a campaign to push the known brands.” University to cut contracts with the Garzon wants the University com- Fair Labor Association. munity to understand that when they “We are running a current cambuy clothing from Alta Gracia, they paign to cut contracts with Fair Labor
Association,” Garzon said. “Companies such as Nike subcontract out to factories that do not always abide by labor laws, leaving for questionable practices.” Garzon and other students visited factor y workers and union leaders in their homes and listened to stories of what happened in the old factories owned by BJ&B, a company once under scrutiny for alleged workshop labor. Mar y Yanik, a University of Maryland senior, was also a student selected to visit Alta Gracia’s factory. “Workers were sexually abused and exploited in the old factory and when the factor y closed, some employees turned to prostitution in order to make money,” Yanik said. Before Alta Gracia, another factory in the “free trade” zone of the Dominican Republic disregarded factory workers’ rights. “[The factory] was found guilty of
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