SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal judge freed a convicted Australian drug smuggler after learning of a government program that paid cash to customs inspectors for making drug seizures. In a ruling made public Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker cut more than two years off the sentence of Michael Sanderson, saying that cash paid to inspectors amounted to "perverse law enforcement incentives." Walker's ruling was filed June 29. Sanderson was arrested in 1996 in San Francisco after two men told customs agents that Sanderson and another man gave them 17 pounds of cocaine for transport on a flight from San Francisco to Sydney. The men with the drugs were detained by customs agents before they boarded the flight at San Francisco International Airport. [continues 208 words]
The rescinding of the Public Order Act to allow anti-drugs marches and reform of the Garda Complaints Board are among the measures recommended in a policy document from one of the State's largest anti-drugs organisations. "Facing The Future: Policy 2000", published by the Coalition Of Communities Against Drugs (COCAD), was launched in Dublin last night by Minister of State Mr Eoin Ryan, who is chairman of the National Drugs Strategy. Founded in 1996, COCAD is an umbrella organisation of community-based, anti-drugs groups. [continues 264 words]
South Down MP Eddie McGrady has called for an "all-out war" against paramilitary "parasites" engaged in Northern Ireland's illegal drugs trade. Mr McGrady told the Commons that, as society moved "painfully and slowly" towards peace and normality, there had been an enormous rise in drugs trafficking. It had "penetrated our communities and led to beatings, petrol bombings and shootings". He urged Peter Mandelson: "Will you urgently examine that new cancer in our society, which is often promoted by erstwhile or so-called erstwhile paramilitaries, review the resources that he and the police have at their disposal, enhance those resources and start an all-out war on those parasites in our society, who are destroying our young people?" [continues 183 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia - Roberto Suarez Gomez, a drug trafficker who called himself the "King of Cocaine" and claimed to be the model for a character in the movie "Scarface," has died from a heart attack, his family said. He was 68. Suarez Gomez, who died in the city of Santa Cruz on Thursday night, was released from prison in 1996 after serving almost nine years for drug crimes. By his death, most of his vast fortune had dissipated and the one-time drug lord said he was repentant. Suarez Gomez played a major role in the expansion of cocaine trafficking in Bolivia, and gained notoriety in 1983 when he offered to pay the country's foreign debt of $3 billion with proceeds from cocaine trafficking. [continues 324 words]
San Antonio's criminals are less likely to be on drugs than criminals in other cities. That's according to a U.S. Justice Department finding that half of men and one-third of women arrested in the city, who agreed to be tested, had illegal drugs in their system. The numbers place San Antonio the lowest out of 34 cities for drug-usage rates among criminals. The study also found that male arrestees were more likely to use marijuana, but females were more likely to use cocaine, according to the 1999 Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program, officials said Friday. [continues 565 words]
LIMA, July 18 (Reuters) - Peruvian air force fighter jets have shot down a light plane on a suspected drug-running flight over the Amazon near the country's border with Brazil in the first such incident in two years, authorities said on Tuesday. The jets sprayed machine gun fire into the small plane after it ignored warning shots on Monday over the jungle about 520 miles (840 km) northeast of Lima around Ucayali, a smuggling area in this major drug-producing South American nation, an air force official said. [continues 129 words]
Student union leaders have called on dance clubs to take steps to deal with the growing use of drugs such as ecstasy, acid and cocaine on ``nights on the town''. There is a need for ``harm reduction'' policies because of the increasing popularity of the so-called class A club drugs among young people, according to the Union of Students in Ireland. USI leaders say that club owners should introduce a number of measures to make their premises safer for patrons, including: [continues 343 words]
It's been nearly a month since the state's top judges unveiled a plan to expand "drug diversion" courts, which steer addicted non-violent offenders into treatment instead of prison. The June 22 announcement promised a drug diversion program in every county in the state, a plan that is expected to reform addicts, curb crime, unclog overloaded courts and save the judicial system $ 500 million a year. The program gives drug users the option of undergoing rigid treatment or serving jail sentences if convicted. [continues 803 words]
WE WANT to place on record our support for the Abaleen detox service at Clayfield. (Raiders seize patient's record, July 9). Without any help from the government, this group of dedicated people has worked night and day to provide a service not adequately addressed by the government. Parents, carers and organisations such as ours can only assume the worst about the government's agenda. Its recent boutique brothel laws will help facilitate the laundering of drug money as the majority of prostitutes are entrapped by the "invisible chain" of their drug addiction. [continues 54 words]
July 22, 2000 - Capping a week of scandals, Denver police on Friday reassigned an officer who has been linked to a backpack containing drugs that mysteriously showed up at an RTD station in Boulder. The officer has been reassigned from the traffic division to a desk job pending the outcome of an internal investigation, officials said. "He is no longer on the streets," said police spokeswoman Virginia Lopez. Lopez declined to comment further, saying she couldn't discuss the case because it involves an ongoing investigation. The officer hasn't been publicly identified because of that. [continues 341 words]
A chaplain's volunteer at the Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno was accused Friday of trying to smuggle marijuana into the prison in her underwear. Ledema Seahmer, 50, of Gracemont was indicted by a federal grand jury in Oklahoma City Friday and accused with El Reno inmate Jesus Macias, 33, of conspiring to smuggle marijuana into the prison. According to court records, Seahmer is an ordained minister and leader of the Native American Indian Worship Services at the federal prison. [continues 147 words]
I am writing this letter in regards to the article printed July 13 entitled "Trying to save the raves." I think that in this article, as well as the articles that you have printed in the past on this subject, raves have been an unfair target. Why were raves the only event listed in this article? What about the Hunter Creek Classic? I am sure that the music is just as loud, the people are just as rowdy and there is a lot more alcohol. A state trooper even stated in the article that the number of tickets and arrests made were routine for a festival night at Hunter Creek. [continues 160 words]
