To The Editor: Normally the legislator is asked by one member of the other to vote on an issue that is of interest, sometimes parochial, sometimes universal, but always not within our power to initiate. Just such an occasion presented itself with regard to the Patriot Act. The principal concern involving a purported clash between civil liberties and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. To this moment not a single example of investigational over-reaching has been cited. There is good reason why. Put plainly and simply because there has not been any. [continues 238 words]
MIAMI - Fabio Ochoa, once a feared leader of Colombia's deadly Medellin drug cartel, was sentenced Tuesday to more than 30 years in prison for returning to the drug trade after winning amnesty at home. Ochoa, who helped transform cocaine smuggling into a tightly run, billion-dollar business in the 1980s, was sent to prison for joining a network capable of moving 30 tons monthly from 1997 to 1999. "In this world of narcotrafficking and what it did to this country, the defendant is one of four or five people who literally changed the world as we knew it," lead prosecutor Ed Ryan said. [continues 837 words]
OTTAWA'S LAST-minute retreat from its pot plan would seem to be an example of comedian Bill Maher's theory of settling. We wanted legalization. We would have settled for decriminalization. What we got was a whole new raft of punitive laws aimed at growers and users. Or maybe the real problem is as follows: We wanted "the true north, strong and free." We would have settled for "a nominally independent nation." What we got was "Canada, the country so polite it gave George W. Bush veto power in its own Parliament." Robert Charles Wilson Concord (Uh, who's "we"? Our poll showed only 20% of Canadians favour full legalization - though 83% want the laws changed) [end]
Re: Ottawa backs off pot law plans Ottawa's last-minute retreat from its pot plan would seem to be an example of comedian Bill Maher's theory of settling. We wanted legalization. We would have settled for decriminalization. What we got was a whole new raft of punitive laws aimed at growers and users. Or maybe the real problem is as follows. We wanted "the true north, strong and free." We would have settled for "a nominally independent nation." What we got was, "Canada, the country so polite it gave George W. Bush veto power in its own Parliament." Robert Charles Wilson Concord, Ont. [end]
MIAMI, Fla. -- One of the biggest Colombian druglords ever brought to the United States to face justice goes on trial today under security so tight that the anonymous jurors will be driven back and forth to court in vans with tinted windows to protect their identities. Fabio Ochoa Sanchez is accused of getting back into the cocaine business in the late 1990s, after serving time for his role as one of the bosses of the now-defunct Medellin cartel, one of the most powerful drug networks of the 1980s. [continues 248 words]
MIAMI -A jailed cocaine kingpin wrote a Colombian paramilitary chief asking for help settling a $14 million drug debt and reminding him of past support in the form of military rifle deliveries, according to court papers released Tuesday. The letter offered by prosecutors going to trial next week against Fabio Ochoa Sanchez, a leader of the defunct Medellin cartel, solidifies evidence of ties alleged for years between top Colombian traffickers and the country's right-wing paramilitary leaders. Alejandro Bernal, an admitted Colombian kingpin now cooperating with U.S. investigators, wrote the unaddressed and unsigned letter in 2000 to Carlos Castano, indicted head of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, prosecutors said. [continues 423 words]
Federal prosecutors charge bad cops planted guns on the unarmed victims of four police shootings, and their police buddies covered it up. The officers' defenders say it never happened and it wasn't proven during a 10-week trial. Jurors will be asked this week to decide the corruption case involving 11 Miami officers who face possible 10-year prison sentences and loss of their careers. None of the defendants testified, but two officers on their special teams broke the police "code of silence." [continues 785 words]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - NBA players on Olympic teams will face out-of-competition random drug tests for the 2004 Athens Games starting July 1 as part of a global program that is expected to be approved today. Under the system, which applies to athletes in all Olympic sports, drug testers can show up unannounced at a player's house at any time to ask for a sample. This is the first time NBA stars will face such comprehensive, pre-Olympic testing, U.S. drug officials said. ``There will be no differentiation between a team handball athlete and an NBA professional,'' said Terry Madden, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. [continues 444 words]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Sports or countries that fail to comply with global drug rules should be excluded from the Olympics, IOC president Jacques Rogge said Monday. Opening a three-day summit on drugs in sports, Rogge also said countries refusing to fall into line should be barred from hosting or even bidding for the games. Rogge wants sports bodies and governments to adopt the World Anti-Doping Agency's uniform code, with sanctions applied across all sports and countries. His intervention seemed to have an effect: Later in the day, soccer's governing body settled its differences with WADA over two-year suspensions. The international cycling federation also signaled its intent to back the code despite continuing to criticize the sanctions and exemptions of U.S. pro leagues. [continues 551 words]
Irving Lorenzo was born in Hollis, Queens, in 1971, the youngest of eight siblings who, 12 years later, pooled their money to buy the boy his first D.J. rig. "D.J. Irv" became a minor star in Queens before crossing the East River and establishing himself as a producer with a golden ear, a star maker at Murder Inc., a gritty boutique label under the legendary Def Jam records. One day, a rapper called him "Gotti" in homage to the former Mafia boss; he has gone by the name ever since. [continues 1874 words]
Hip-hop insiders said yesterday that the investigation into the Murder Inc. label and its brash mogul, Irv Gotti, will involve separating fact from fiction in an industry of blurs, where the songs often read like police blotters. Federal agents and the police raided the Eighth Avenue offices of Mr. Gotti, 31, on Friday morning, investigating his relationship with a convicted Queens drug dealer, Kenneth McGriff, 42, who is known as Supreme on the Hollis streets where he and Mr. Gotti grew up. [continues 510 words]
Accused In Coverups Of Shootings That Left Three Men Dead MIAMI - The late 1990s in Miami was marked by high violent crime rates, with street gangs that stalked tourists, but prosecutors say the violence also included acts committed by the police. Based on information from two retired officers who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in September 2001, 11 other officers were indicted on federal corruption charges alleging coverups in four police shootings in which three men were killed. The 11 were scheduled to go on trial today on charges of planting guns, manipulating evidence, or covering up crimes by others. The two who pleaded guilty are to be the prosecution's star witnesses. [continues 417 words]
PAWLEYS ISLAND - Death flirted with Glenn Brown one day before lunch, and the encounter shook him with fear. The heroin dealer was ready to kill him, and he pressed a gun against Brown's head to prove it. Feeling the cold steel on his flesh made Brown, a special agent working the streets of Baltimore for the Drug Enforcement Administration, plead and pray for his life. "Take my car," Brown begged. "Take my money. Take my wife. You can take anything I have. Just don't shoot me. Please don't pull that trigger." [continues 687 words]
Fifth- And Sixth-graders Complete Anti-drug Education Drugs and violence can permanently derail anyone's future. That was the message communicated to some 270 fifth- and sixth-graders who graduated Friday from the Bristol Virginia Drug Abuse Resistance Education program at Virginia High School. Students who completed the 17-week course were taught about the dangers of drugs and violence through a variety of life skills and lessons, said city sheriff's Maj. David Maples. The Sheriff's Office initiated the city's program in 1987. [continues 271 words]
MIAMI - Two dozen jury candidates asked Monday to speak privately about problems they might have if they were chosen to hear the witness-killing and jury-bribery trial of a 47-year-old reputed cocaine kingpin. Most raised their hands to indicate problems after the judge outlined plans for sequestering Sal Magluta's jury. Prospective jurors who cleared individual questioning were told to return today with a packed bag for final selection on a trial expected to last three to five months. [continues 179 words]
INDIANAPOLIS -- The head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began a cross-country tour focusing on methamphetamine abuse yesterday in Indianapolis, which authorities say is a hub for transportation of the illegal drug across the nation. Meth production is a booming cottage industry -- Indiana State Police reported dismantling 681 meth labs last year. But as much as 70 percent of the drug sold in the state is cooked in "super labs," mostly in California, DEA Director Asa Hutchinson said at a statewide conference. [continues 279 words]
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration began a cross-country tour focusing on methamphetamine abuse Thursday in Indianapolis, which authorities say is a hub for transporting the illegal drug across the nation. While meth making is a booming cottage industry -- Indiana State Police reported dismantling 681 meth labs last year -- as much as 70 percent of the drug sold in the state is cooked in "super labs," mostly in California, DEA Director Asa Hutchinson said at a statewide meth summit. [continues 345 words]
Being tough on criminal behavior in public housing helps keep residents living there as safe as possible, said area executive directors who support aggressive eviction policies. "I think it will be very beneficial overall in keeping drugs out of housing authorities," said Jane Hilburn, executive director of the Myrtle Beach Housing Authority, which has 18 single-family public housing homes. "I think it is a good law. You get the proof, and that is it." The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that government agencies can use aggressive eviction policies to get rid of drug users in public housing. Justices, without dissent, said they had no problem with a law that allows entire families to be evicted from public housing for drug use by one member. [continues 244 words]
MIAMI - An ecstasy dealer supplied the illegal party drug to retired football star O.J. Simpson and six other people, an FBI agent testified Monday at the trial of an Ohio developer. Five of them, but not Simpson, received the pills in amounts indicating they were distributing them, FBI Agent Chris Piersza testified during the federal drug trial of Mark Nowakowski. Simpson received smaller amounts, Piersza said. Simpson's attorney, Yale Galanter, denied his client received even a single ecstasy pill from the admitted dealer, Andrew Anderson, who was known to Simpson as Adrian Burke. [continues 95 words]
Our Police Department does a much-needed and welcomed job of protecting the city. But, Chief, tell me how important is a drug bust or a gun raid if you can't tell the citizens who broke into their homes, stole their cars, or robbed them or their family members at gunpoint? Chris Wilson Clarksdale [end]
CONWAY - Yvonne Grissett was bound by alcohol and crack cocaine for more than 10 years, but she is set free now and hoping to get others loose from substance abuse. "I lost four friends because of alcohol and crack cocaine addiction," said Grissett, 38. "They were good people at heart who got caught up in a lifestyle they never could get out of, and they died in it. I don't want to lose any more of my friends." To help those still trapped in their addictions, Grissett has launched Set Free, the birth of an idea she said came from God. [continues 606 words]
Most people who grow marijuana would probably keep quiet if they got their plants stolen. But not one Oak View woman. Andrea Nagy has been legally cultivating cannabis in her backyard greenhouse since she moved into her Oak View home this past May. She said she even went to the Ojai Police Department and told them of her plans to cultivate before she began growing. Under California's Medical Marijuana law, she has a legal right to possess, use and grow marijuana for medical necessity because her doctor gave his approval. [continues 624 words]
To the Editor: We are bombarded daily with news of our so called ''war on terrorism.'' We are told all about the latest anthrax scares. We are constantly reminded of the looming possibility of another threat. I only have one concern - that this prolific war in which we are engaged will become a mockery like our supposed ''war on drugs.'' It was a tragedy to have citizens killed in New York and Washington. Anthrax does pose a problem. It would be safe to say though that cocaine, marijuana, meth and a host of readily available pills have killed more people, cost more money and tied up more of this great country's resources than all of the terrorists in history. I know of many families who have had tragedy in their lives from illegal drug use and have never met a single anthrax victim. [continues 120 words]
MIAMI - Two current and former Hialeah police officers were charged Friday with setting up three robberies, serving as lookouts and providing a police badge, handcuffs and pepper spray to help pull them off. The retired officer also offered his services to protect cocaine in Hialeah and suggested deliveries be wrapped as gifts so whoever was holding the drugs could deny knowing what was inside, an investigator said. The investigation, nicknamed "Bad Apple," was organized by a task force of federal and state agents targeting corrupt officers. The Hialeah department cooperated with the investigation. [continues 329 words]
Supporters of industrial hemp say they will pursue a temporary restraining order and other legal action to halt implementation of federal rules issued yesterday that would ban edible hemp products. The rules by the Drug Enforcement Administration, published in the Federal Register, give merchants 120 days to dispose of food products such as beer, pasta, tortilla chips, candy bars, salad dressing and cheese when the items contain tetrahydrocannabinols, known as THC. Exemptions apply to products such as paper, animal feed, clothing and rope, and personal-care items such as shampoos, soaps and lotions. [continues 311 words]
Federal drug enforcement officials are proposing new regulations that would outlaw food and body-care products that contain hemp. Hemp products are sold in Hawai'i through major retail chains such as The Body Shop, which offers hemp-based soaps and lotions, and smaller stores like Hemp House in Pa'ia, Maui. Hemp House owner Kathy Barr said she uses hemp oil in her lotions because it is a long-lasting moisturizer that is easily absorbed into the skin. "It's our best-selling product and to have that cut out would have a big impact on us," she said. [continues 957 words]
MIAMI -- A co-defendant of a former Medellin drug cartel kingpin pleaded guilty Tuesday to helping launder profits from drugs shipped to the United States and Mexico. Hernan Abelardo Gomez Moreno came to court a day after Fabio Ochoa, a one-time leader of the cartel, made his first appearance in the case. Ochoa is accused of running a 30-ton-a-month smuggling operation in 1998 and 1999. Gomez, 43, a Colombian citizen extradited to the United States, was accused of picking up drug money in Colombia and converting it from dollars to pesos. [continues 121 words]
MIAMI -- A leader of Colombia's Medellin cartel pleaded innocent Monday to charges that he helped smuggle 30 tons of cocaine a month and spirited away the profits. Fabio Ochoa, 45, was flown to Miami over the weekend to face the charges. He is being held without bond and his attorney said he will not seek it for now. Ochoa has immunity on crimes committed before an extradition treaty was signed in 1997, but could face a life sentence if convicted of three conspiracy counts charging he helped smuggle tons of cocaine in 1998 and 1999. [continues 302 words]
MIAMI - In the city's worst police scandal since the days of "Miami Vice," 13 current and former officers were accused by federal prosecutors Friday of planting guns, lying to investigators and otherwise trying to cover up four shootings in which three people died. In one of the shootings, a SWAT team fired 123 bullets into an apartment during a 1996 drug raid and then lied about finding a gun in the hand of the dead 73-year-old man inside, the FBI said. [continues 654 words]
WAILUKU, Maui -- Maui's Drug Court, which gives nonviolent offenders a chance to avoid jail by enrolling in strictly supervised substance abuse treatment, has been awarded a two-year $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice. Maui Drug Court coordinator Lillian Koller Schmidt said the federal money will allow the program to take on an additional 40 clients and fill gaps in services, namely housing. She said a number of Drug Court clients have been living at the Ka Hale A Ke Ola Homeless Resource Center in Wailuku. The program would like to rent separate houses for male and female clients, she said. [continues 291 words]
MIAMI - An Aruban businessman accused of climbing to the heights of the drug-money laundering world has reached a plea bargain calling for an 11-year prison term instead of risking a life sentence at trial. Randolph Habibe, who was extradited after losing a five-year legal battle, acknowledged laundering $11 million in drug profits in his guilty plea Thursday to racketeering conspiracy rather than the $800 million initially alleged by prosecutors. Attorneys on both sides will recommend an 11-year prison term at sentencing April 27, but U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages has discretion over the prison time. By treaty, Habibe would be allowed to serve the balance of his term in Aruba. [continues 226 words]
Three months ago, Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson discontinued the 15-year-old Drug Abuse and Resistance Education (DARE) program. Since then, parents of elementary-school students have worried that their children won't be properly informed on peer pressure and refusal skills. To explore these family worries, a Pulse reporter for the Deseret News asked East High School students, "Just how effective was your fifth-grade DARE program?" "It made me curious, not in a good way, about drugs." -- Hillary Herron, senior [continues 134 words]
I was disgusted, but unfortunately not surprised, to hear that Nicholas Eyle and Dr. Eugene Tinelli were denied positions on the Syracuse-Onondaga Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission. It is disgraceful that our government is willing to sacrifice free speech and open dialogue, rights essential for a functioning democracy, to prolong a war on drugs that was lost before it started. The reason that I was not surprised to hear of this is a bill currently before the House Judiciary Committee, known as H.R. 1428, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act. The provisions of this bill are frightening to anyone who believes in freedom. [continues 211 words]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States faces an uphill fight to contain the flow of drug traffic from Panama -- the Western hemisphere's main crossroads for narcotics smuggling, money laundering and other transnational crime, senior U.S. officials told a congressional panel on Friday. The sprawling Panama Canal container ports, together with the country's position between North and South America and its long border with Colombia, make it arguably the region's most strategically located center for drug trafficking and other organized criminal activities, the officials told a House of Representatives Government Reform subcommittee. [continues 390 words]
Initial OK From Regulators For AIDS Program PENINSULA -- A plan by San Mateo County health officials to give marijuana to AIDS patients as part of a controlled study has won tentative approval from federal regulators. San Mateo County officials said they see no substantial hurdles to beginning one of the nation's few studies of the effects of medical marijuana. County health officials proposed the study after the 1996 passage of Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative. The study is seen as both a way to find out once and for all whether marijuana relieves pain and promotes appetite as well as proponents claim, and to discover if patients can follow a strict regimen and control access to the drug. [continues 346 words]
PENINSULA -- San Mateo County prosecutors are charging a man with driving under the influence of kava tea, a first in California. Taufui Piutau of San Bruno faces the same penalty as if he drove while drunk. His attorney says Piutau lost his job as a Federal Express driver because of the charge hanging over him. Piutau, 46, had sipped kava tea for hours while sitting cross-legged with fellow parishioners at his church, according to his attorney, Scott Ennis. As Piutau drove home in the early morning hours, he was weaving on Highway 101 and drew the attention of a police officer. [continues 720 words]
Re the Nov. 20 article, Agonizing over Ecstasy. Exactly what was The Star's intent with this article? It certainly wasn't to discourage anyone from taking or even manufacturing an illegal substance. The article makes this illegal drug sound very inviting: It's less noxious than alcohol and makes one feel wonderful. Oh, if you take massive doses, then maybe it will do some damage to serotonin nerve endings in the brain and chronic and long-term use could possibly cause cognitive damage. [continues 136 words]
Warned that hepatitis C may be killing more San Mateo County residents than AIDS, county supervisors yesterday agreed to spend $200,000 to test those most at risk. ``Hepatitis C is an epidemic we largely missed and are dealing with after the fact,'' Scott Morrow, the county's public health officer, told supervisors at a hearing in Redwood City. Morrow estimated that up to 13,000 residents may carry the hepatitis C virus, or 10 times as many as those infected with HIV. Hepatitis C is a leading cause of chronic liver disease. Supervisors voted unanimously to start voluntary testing of jail inmates, drug users at needle-exchange programs, patients at the county's AIDS clinics and others considered at high risk for contracting the virus. [continues 463 words]
Narcs Accused Of Bogus Traffic Stops A lawsuit that alleges California Highway Patrol and state narcotics officers single out minorities was broadened yesterday to include more people who claim they were harassed on the state's highways because of their race. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the original suit against the CHP and the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in June, asked that the suit be made a class action on behalf of minorities who have been unjustly pulled over near the Highway 152 and Interstate 5 interchange in Merced County. [continues 548 words]
I was diagnoscd with cancer of the stomach three-and-a-half years ago. At the time I was given three to six months to live. I think my youth and fitness has kept me alive for so long - I used to run for Scotland. But in the last six months, I've started to decline quite rapidly. My cancer has now spread to the liver and colon. There is only so much I can do mentally. I'm starting to get tired, I'm sleeping longer, I'm needing stronger pain medication. I find myself talking more slowly and slurring a bit. [continues 479 words]
Britain will back the U.S. proposal for a drug agency that is not controlled by the International Olympic Committee. Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House drug policy office, is touring Europe to build support for an independent international agency to lead the fight against performance-enhancing drugs. McCaffrey opposes the IOC' s plans for such an agency, contending it would lack independence and accountability. But the IOC said Tuesday it plans to set up its agency next month and have it operating by the end of the year. [continues 483 words]
3,600 Plants Found In Remote Location In Record Year For Operation California's continuing war on marijuana arrived on foot and by helicopter yesterday at a steep, muddy hillside laden with poison oak, thick brush and leafy green cannabis. State and local narcotics agents found 3,600 plants nearly ready for harvest on the no-name remote hill straddling the San Benito-Fresno county line. State officials said it was yet another large farm that has replaced the smaller pot farms of years past. [continues 570 words]
So called compassionate liberals want to help save lives of drug addicts by providing them with clean needles[News,Aug. 26]. One has to wonder how long it will be before we, in the name of compassion, start providing them with drugs and teaching them "safe drugs." One thing that is abundantly clear today is that "common sense" is not common. Harry H. Wilson, Cerritos [continues 5 words]
To the editor Your Aug. 1 editorial "Drug War" questioned the role of U.S. soldiers in Colombia(R)MDNM- and elsewhere as drug agents -- and rightfully so. The question is: Who in their right mind actually believes that anyone - -- especially the U.S. government -- can totally eradicate the plants used to produce illegal drugs? Most Americans cannot keep crab grass out of their own back yards. And yet the expectation is that U.S. and Colombian(R)MDNM- officials will honestly and successfully extract acre upon acre of concealed coca, opium and marijuana from armed rebels entrenched in mountainous jungle terrain. Did I miss something? [continues 75 words]
LONDON - Javier Sotomayor, who tested positive for cocaine at the Pan American Games, still hopes to defend his high jump title at the World Championships this month. But track and field's world governing body said Monday that it could ban Sotomayor from the Aug. 20-29 championships in Seville, Spain, if Cuban officials don't take any action by then. While Sotomayor faces a possible two-year ban, no suspension has yet been imposed and his status for the World Championships remains uncertain. [continues 498 words]
Thankfully, most Americans do not share Edwin Dorn's opinion of U.S. Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey: "I want our students to begin to appreciate the very high quality of people who are involved in public service," he said referring to the General's Aug. 9 address (Daily Texan, Aug. 6). Quality? McCaffrey? "Pinocchio McCaffrey" at http://www.csdp.org/ads/ says it all. General McCaffrey's drug policy blatantly conflicts with all credible scientific review on medical marijuana, needle exchange programs, and the successes of Dutch drug policy. [continues 102 words]
Private Pledges May Help Pay To Screen Athletes GASTONIA -- Gaston County school board members decided Monday to push forward with plans to test student athletes for drugs, despite the county commissioners' decision last week not to pay for it. In separate actions, the board voted to schedule the first round of drug tests this spring and to ask the Gaston County Educational Foundation to channel donations pledged by private citizens to pay for the tests. "Our coaches and athletic directors feel we have the need," board chairman Annette Carter said. [continues 535 words]
Attorney General Bill Lockyer is attempting to clear up legal clouds caused by the passage of the medical marijuana initiative. Lockyer invited about 35 law enforcement, health and elected officials and advocates for medical marijuana to the Justice Department's Sacramento office yesterday for the first meeting of a new task force. In contrast to his predecessor, Dan Lungren, Lockyer supports Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medical use under certain circumstances. California voters passed Proposition 215 in November 1996. Yet Lungren and the federal government moved quickly to shut down loosely organized pot clubs. [continues 260 words]
