Over the past few weeks in my weekly column "From the Capitol," I've been looking ahead at a few of the challenges that I'll be focusing on heading into a new legislative session in 2014.

I opened this series of columns two weeks ago by putting a spotlight on where I believe we need to begin: revitalizing upstate manufacturing. Read my August 19th column, "Agenda 2014: Upstate manufacturing." 

Then I turned my attention to another critical quality-of-life crisis across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions: illegal drugs and drug trafficking, particularly meth and heroin. Read my August 26th column, "Drug-free futures."