Ismael Gonzalez-Gonzalez was supposed to be deported nine years ago, but Cuba wouldn't take him. Instead, he wound up in Louisville and, police say, emerged as a local boss directing the flow of drugs in the Louisville area and beyond for a Mexican cartel. It's unclear how Gonzalez, a convicted felon who was arrested in a surprise drug raid last summer, first entered the United States before he ended up in Louisville, where he settled into a house in Jeffersontown. Many details about his case remain hidden in sealed federal court records. [continues 769 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - No one knew what was in the baggie. It was just a few tablespoons of crystalline powder seized back in April, clumped like snow that had partially melted and frozen again. Emily Dye, a 27-year-old forensic chemist at the Drug Enforcement Administration's Special Testing and Research Laboratory, did not know if anyone had died from taking this powder, or how much it would take to kill you. What she did know was this: New drugs were appearing in the lab every other week, things never before seen in this unmarked gray building in Sterling, Virginia. Increasingly, these new compounds were synthetic opioids designed to mimic fentanyl, a prescription painkiller up to 50 times stronger than heroin. [continues 2297 words]
Police chief says intervention, education key to tackling problem For the first time under Chief Clive Weighill's tenure, crime in Saskatoon is going up. This city has the highest murder rate in the country and thefts and break-ins are spiking. The StarPhoenix sat down with the city's police chief to talk crime and what's next for 2017. Q The rise of methamphetamine is well documented in Saskatoon. You've said it's a main contributor to the city's crime rate. How are you going to combat it? [continues 745 words]
Authorities in the Philippines say a series of drugs raids have netted nearly a tonne of methamphetamine, with a street value of UKP#120m ($147m). Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said the haul was the biggest in the country's history. Mr Aguirre said 10 people had been charged. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has pursued a bloody war on drugs since taking office six months ago, encouraging police to shoot on site. More than 6,000 drug users and dealers are suspected to have been killed by both police and vigilantes since the crackdown began. [continues 193 words]
Hooded killers have turned the bloody anti-illegal drug war of the Duterte government into an art form. That's no exaggeration. One stark evidence is the front-page photograph by Raffy Lerma -- a sidestreet Filipino Pieta -- that shows a grieving wife, rain-soaked and in rags, cradling her bloodied freshly murdered husband. This picture also threatens to be the emblem of the Duterte regime's deathly drive against illegal drugs. Last weekend, this grim theme dimmed a bit with the start of the dawn masses, the Simbang Gabi, that also ushered in the official period of holiday caroling, a season of good tidings. [continues 319 words]
SECRETARY of Justice Vitaliano N. Aguirre II surmises that the government is winning its controversial war on drugs as he, together with officials of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), presented yesterday evidence of what he called the "biggest drug bust" so far in the country. "Malamang sa malamang, nananalo na tayo. (It's more than likely, we are winning)," the secretary told reporters when asked for his assessment on whether the government is winning in its drug campaign that has been strongly criticized for the alleged rise in extra-judicial killings that it has spawned. [continues 484 words]
After what happened on the night of Nov. 8, 11-year-old John Ryan and his nine siblings are spending their first Christmas as orphans. They were all asleep when armed men barged into their shanty at the Market 3 area of the Navotas Fish Port Complex and grabbed Joaquin Garbo. The siblings saw how their father was dragged out of the house while still in his underwear. John Ryan's mother and eldest sister, aged 17, immediately went to the Station Anti-illegal Drugs (SAID) unit of the Navotas police, but the officer who faced them said Garbo wasn't there. [continues 1277 words]
Around 40 parents and youth attended a recent community street drug trends presentation at Fox Run School. Organized by the Sylvan Lake RCMP the presentation aimed to equip parents with skills to allow recognition of street drugs and theparaphernalia associated with drug use. Sylvan Lake RCMP School Resource Officer,Constable Michael Lee in partnership with Constable Kevin Lintott of the Organized Crime and Intelligence Unit out of the RCMP's Red Deer City Detachment provided information to parents on various street drugs including cocaine, heroine, marijuana,methamphetamine and MDMA. In addition, the officers also touched on the impact fentanyl is having in North America and Central Alberta. [continues 420 words]
Calgary's police chief is open to introducing supervised facilities for drug users, so long as such programs are part of a larger strategy to lower addiction rates and address problems that accompany drug dependency, such as crime and joblessness. "It always makes police chiefs look resistant when they say no to these things. My answer has been: 'Sure, as long as it is part of a better strategy,' " Calgary Police Service Chief Roger Chaffin said in an interview this week. [continues 912 words]
Defending the government's classification of marijuana as one of the most dangerous drugs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration declares on its website that pot causes mental illness and lung cancer and leads youths to heroin and cocaine. But an advocacy group says the DEA, in a legal filing in August, said it found no evidence to support any of those conclusions. The group, Americans for Safe Access, has asked the agency to remove discredited claims from its Web page. [continues 522 words]
CBSA guards have good reason to fear wave of incoming cartels, he says Canada's border guardians have reason to fear an influx of drug cartel operatives following the elimination of visa requirements for Mexico, says a former DEA agent. But while the Liberal government action on visas will ease the way for drug traffickers, Mike Vigil said Canada is already ripe for the ruthless cartels. "It will definitely be a factor but not the only factor," said Vigil, who battled Mexican drug cartels in the Latin American country for 13 years, four of them along the border with the U.S. [continues 489 words]
Police chief blames drug gangs for near doubling of cases A dramatic spike in home invasions in Saskatoon is contributing to the city's nation-leading crime rate, according to Saskatoon's Police Chief Clive Weighill. Home invasions where people are home when burglars break in have nearly doubled since 2009. Police say there were 154 home invasion cases in 2009. In 2014 that number spiked to 301 before dipping down to 276 in 2015. "Since 2009 it's almost doubled. I know that is a scary term when we are talking about home invasions," Weighill said at a police board meeting last Thursday. [continues 659 words]
At one time in Canada, marijuana possession and or trafficking was punishable by a jail sentence or even deportation. But soon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will live up to his promise to legalize marijuana consumption and possession. However, Daniel Leblanc organized a poll through theglobeandmail.com, that states nearly half of Canadians still don't support the legalization of the drug. Despite the support, weed will become legal, so the last thing to do is address the last percentage of unsure Canadians that this is the right choice. [continues 646 words]
The popularity of cocaine with 18 to 25 year olds in Huron County is growing, said Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Detective Constable Max Miller of the Huron County Drug Office, Community Drug Action Team. All street drugs are present in Huron Count y , but cocaine is becoming more popular with this demographic because it is seen as a party drug that has fewer negative side effects than methamphetamine, the detective said during a public forum the night of Oct. 19. "It's hard for us to combat cocaine usage because you can be a functioning addict but hold down a 9-to-5 job. So it's hard for us to kind of get into the cocaine scene because it's not like methamphetamine where people are doing anything they have to to get it," he said. [continues 789 words]
Manitoba stands on the edge of a opioid crisis that promises tragedy for families across the province and we're about to tumble into that dark abyss. Fentanyl is ripping through Winnipeg streets and is so prevalent and dangerous that the Winnipeg Police Service is considering having officers carry naxolone, an opiate antidote. That news comes on the heels of a pair of deaths that were linked to carfentanil, which is touted as 100 times as potent as fentanyl, which is itself already said to be 100 times stronger than morphine. [continues 347 words]
Father hopes to make care for youth a ballot-box issue in next election This government has had 10 years to do something and they haven't done it. The father of a 15-year-old drug-addicted boy whose death has sparked calls for government-funded services says he will push for change in the run-up to a provincial election so other youth can get the help they desperately need. Peter Lang spoke out Thursday after British Columbia's representative for children and youth released a report on his son's June 2015 death. [continues 560 words]
NCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. - An 8-member panel of students and experts spent two hours Tuesday night exploring the individual views of those in favor of and against Nevada's Measure 2 - which proposes the legalization of marijuana for recreational use for those 21 and older. Dr. Andrew Whyman hosted the forum at Sierra Nevada College, opening up the discussion with topics surrounding marijuana about stigma, social justice, criminal justice, how it impacts youth, regulation, legislation and more. As for panel members, despite their titles, some said they came on their own accord, and thus their views do not represent the views of their organizations. [continues 1134 words]
Pop-up facility in Downtown Eastside may be illegal, but it has been welcomed by addicts who don't feel comfortable at nearby Insite Sarah Blyth was weary of rushing to counteract an overdose every time someone screamed "Narcan!" from a nearby alley in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, so she joined other activists to set up a supervised drug-consumption tent for addicts. Ms. Blyth acknowledges the so called pop-up site is illegal, but said she couldn't stand by and watch as people overdosed. [continues 380 words]
If you were in possession of marijuana and didn't want to face criminal charges in 2015, statistics show Kingston was the place to be in Canada. Postmedia Network analyzed 1,132 municipalities going back to 2005, looking at marijuana-related incidents and charges. In Kingston, while there were 15.63 incidents of marijuana possession per 100,000 people in 2015, there were only 13.55 resulting charges. The years with the most incidents were 2007 -- 76.61 per 100,000 people resulting in 44.95 charges -- and 2008 -- 73.45 per 100,000 people resulting in 52.38 charges. [continues 1206 words]
EAST VANCOUVER: Activists running dispensary on city-owned land claim 'constitutional right' to be there "We're here, we're high and we aren't going away." With those words, pot-purveyor Bruce Myers explains the sudden emergence of a marijuana dispensary operating like an old-fashioned fruit stand on the southeast corner of Renfrew and Hastings streets in East Vancouver. Myers, 55, of Surrey said the popup pot tent and table complete with scales, bongs, pipes, grinders, papers and blowtorches was first moved onto the City of Vancouver-owned property in August to coincide with the PNE. They plan on keeping the stand running 24-7 right through until the Fright Night Halloween attraction is over across the street at the PNE. [continues 819 words]
