A Pensacola tattoo shop owner wants Escambia County to ban the sale of drug paraphernalia, arguing that it is hurting his industry's image. Mike McClung has asked the County Commission to enact an ordinance prohibiting the sale of pipes and other possible drug paraphernalia that McClung believes are becoming part of the inventory at more local tattoo parlors. In October, Pinellas County passed an ordinance that made it more difficult to sell items that a person reasonably could assume would be used for drugs. [continues 360 words]
The Santa Rosa County Sheriff's Office is looking for the owner of 80 pounds of cocaine that washed ashore last weekend on Navarre Beach. It ranks among Santa Rosa County's largest drug hauls in value and quantity. A bale of 28 bricks wrapped in plastic and burlap was confiscated, similar to hundreds of pounds of cocaine plucked from Gulf of Mexico over the last month off south Louisiana, said Santa Rosa sheriff's spokesman Deputy Jerry Henderson. The cocaine is 90 percent pure, Henderson said. The estimated total value is $1.5 million. But if the cocaine would be "cut" and resold, its actual street value could be higher, he said. [continues 140 words]
Dr. James F. Graves is scheduled to be sentenced to prison on March 19 in the drug-overdose deaths of four patients. Circuit Judge Kenneth Bell on Wednesday set a hearing for 1 p.m. on the third Tuesday in March to mete out the punishment that the convicted Pace physician faces on four counts of manslaughter, five counts of unlawful delivery of a controlled substance and one charge of racketeering. A Santa Rosa County Circuit Court jury convicted Graves on Tuesday. [continues 699 words]
