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A while back, radio talk show host Michael Savage brought up the notion that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama couldn’t pass a background investigation to become an FBI special agent. He doesn’t know how right he is. Sen. Barack Obama wouldn’t pass a routine government background investigation, not only to become an FBI agent, but a police officer as well. If he were a soldier, his background would preclude him from obtaining a security clearance. He wouldn’t even qualify to be a support person in a federal agency, such as secretary, for that matter. His past cocaine usage disqualifies...

There is real danger that Islamic extremist groups such as al-Qaida and Hezbollah could form alliances with wealthy and powerful Latin American drug lords to launch new terrorist attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday. Extremist group operatives have already been identified in several Latin American countries, mostly involved in fundraising and finding logistical support. But Charles Allen, chief of intelligence analysis at the Homeland Security Department, said they could use well-established smuggling routes and drug profits to bring people or even weapons of mass destruction to the U.S. "The presence of these people in the region leaves open the possibility that...

Nine people have been arrested in connection with a drug importation ring that shipped cocaine from Puerto Rico to New York City hidden in boxes of children's toys and puzzles, officials said Tuesday. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent-in-Charge John Gilbride said the five-month investigation revealed that Jose Diaz, 28, of Bronx, N.Y., directed associates in Puerto Rico to ship kilograms of cocaine concealed inside children's toy tool boxes and large toy container boxes to New York City. The organization then used U.S. Postal Service Express Mail to deliver the packages to addresses in Manhattan and the Bronx

When Owen Beck was 17, doctors amputated his right leg to stop the spread of bone cancer. His parents, desperate to find a drug that would relieve their son's excruciating phantom limb pain, brought him to Charlie Lynch's medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, Calif., carrying a recommendation from a Stanford University oncologist. The marijuana not only eased the pain but also alleviated the nausea caused by chemotherapy. Called to testify as a character witness in Lynch's federal marijuana trial, Beck did not get far. When he mentioned his cancer, U.S. District Judge George Wu cut him off and sent...

WEST COVINA - Two men believed to be Mexican federal police officers were arrested along with two others Wednesday on suspicion of being part of a narcotics ring at a home in an unincorporated county area near West Covina, authorities said. Victor Manuel Jaurez, 36, and Carlos Cepano Filippini, 34, were taken into custody by a Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force, Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Jane Robison said. They are both believed to members of the Agencia Federal de Investigacion. Filippini is a commander in the AFI, she said. Juarez's rank was not clear Friday.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela said Thursday it arrested a man who identified himself as a U.S. anti-drugs agent, which if confirmed could inflame tensions between the United States and one of its biggest oil suppliers. President Hugo Chavez in 2005 ended cooperation with the the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), saying the agency was spying on him. The United States denied the charge and says Chavez does too little to stop trafficking from neighboring Colombia, the world's largest cocaine exporter. Gen. Gabriel Oviedo said the man was acting suspicious when he was detained close to the border with Colombia while...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

OPA-LOCKA, Fla. -- Federal agents on the hunt for criminals on Thursday raided the wrong house while searching for drugs. Police and federal agents raided 50 marijuana grow houses around Florida on Thursday, calling it "Operation D-Day." They seized $7 million worth of pot plants, but they also kicked in the door of Noel Llorente's Opa-locka home and found nothing but bewildered homeowners. "I was frightened for my husband because they threw him on the ground," Llorente's wife said. "I was scared. Llorente said he was just leaving for work when unmarked cars pulled up, Drug Enforcement Administration agents jumped...

Top drug agent tells area residents, however, that violence is likely to "get worse." The Drug Enforcement Administration is doing its best to keep Mexican border violence from spilling over to the U.S. side, DEA Special Agent in Charge Jack Riley told the Las Cruces Sun-News in an interview. "We're very prepared for it and I can assure you, you won't see an increase in violence in Las Cruces. We're all over it," said Riley, who heads the DEA's El Paso sector, which includes New Mexico.

ATF added another weapon to its gang-fighting arsenal Nov. 28 with the formal opening of a new facility in Northern Virginia that will house 80 intelligence analysts, agents, prosecutors and support personnel — all from different agencies — and all working together to investigate and dismantle the most violent gangs in the United States. “Coordination has brought us success in the past, and can yield even more in the future,” said ATF Acting Director Michael Sullivan, speaking during the formal opening of the new facility. The new site brings together two separate gang deterrence units — the National Gang Intelligence...

The Drug Enforcement Administration is losing more guns but fewer laptops than it was about five years ago, the Justice Department's inspector general said Friday.< >The majority of stolen guns had been left in an official's car, despite a policy prohibiting leaving a weapon unattended in a vehicle. The report cited examples of guns stolen from cars parked outside restaurants, hotels, schools and gyms. Some agents had their guns taken from their cars while they were shopping or getting coffee. One firearm was stolen while the car was at the body shop.< >

Now The Fun Begins With Russia Over Bout's Arrest By Douglas Farah It did not take the Russian government long to the Russian government friends and lawyers for the recently-arrested Viktor Boutto begin working to protect him again. The tactic now is to seek the extradition of Bout, arrested in Thailand in an elaborate sting operation run by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), back to Russia, rather than the United States. Of course, Bout, who has armed rebels, criminals and terrorists from the Taliban in Afghanistan to the RUF in Sierra Leone to the FARC in Colombia, has always...

In the slide show I narrated about the late William F. Buckley, Jr., I didn’t have room to get into a couple of issues we’ve been debating here at the Lab: the Drug Enforcement Administration’s campaigns against medical marijuana and against doctors who treat chronic-pain patients. Mr. Buckley was worried about the D.E.A. well before the OxyContin scare inspired the agency’s Operation Cotton Candy and led to doctors like William Hurwitz and Bernard Rottschaefer being sent to prison. In 1995, after criticizing presidents and members of Congress for pursuing a war on drugs he considered futile, Mr. Buckley wrote: But...

Former Federal Drug Agents Sue Over Their Depiction in Film "American Gangster" NEW YORK (AP) -- A group of retired federal drug enforcement agents sued NBC Universal on Wednesday, saying the movie "American Gangster" falsely portrayed them as villains in the story of a Harlem heroin trafficker. The suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, claims that the movie defamed hundreds of DEA agents and New York City police officers by claiming at the end that Frank Lucas' collaboration with prosecutors "led to the convictions of three-quarters of New York City's Drug Enforcement Agency." Lucas, played by Denzel Washington in...

Exclusive: 'American Gangster' Slapped by Feds' Lawsuit Former DEA Agents Say They Were Defamed By The Blockbuster Film ABC News has learned that a group of former federal drug enforcement agents has filed a class-action lawsuit against NBC Universal today, asserting they were defamed by the blockbuster flick "American Gangster." As the final credits roll on the flick starring Denzel Washington as Harlem drug thug Frank Lucas, a screen appears that states three-quarters of the drug enforcement agents assigned to New York were convicted as a result of Lucas' cooperation with "outcast cop" Richie Roberts, portrayed by Russell Crowe in...

For the past few months, the federal government has been celebrating the fact that U.S. cities are experiencing "an unprecedented cocaine shortage" due to increased law enforcement in the southwestern United States and Mexico. But fact-checking by NPR reveals that while there are indeed spot shortages of cocaine, they are neither nationwide nor unprecedented. And the scarcity may have unintended consequences. The price of cocaine is one of the main ways the government tallies the score in its war on drugs. The reasoning is that if prices go up, it means that agents are winning — they're squeezing the supply....

Two Drug Enforcement Administration agents who sued the U.S. Attorney General and the Justice Department for reverse discrimination were awarded $7 million in damages by a federal jury last Friday. But the agents will receive far less. Compensatory damages for employment-discrimination claims against the feds are capped by law at $300,000 per plaintiff. The jury found that the DEA through its supervisors had "intentionally discriminated" against George W. Marthers III and Jude T. McKenna by creating a hostile work environment because of their race. Marthers and McKenna are white; their former supervisors, Dempsey Jones and Johnny Fisher, are black. The...

QUITO, ECUADOR — The Ecuadorean government on Friday insisted on ending a cooperation agreement with the United States that allows the U.S. military to use a coastal air force base for anti-drug operations in the Andes. -snip- ...Galo Mora, a representative of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, told participants at a solidarity forum with Cuba. The 10-year agreement, signed by the United States and Ecuador in 1999, allows Washington to deploy up to 475 military personnel in Manta in support of counternarcotics operations.

Informer tells of corrupt Mexico October 25, 2007 By Jerry Seper - An informant who worked for U.S. authorities for more than four years says government, police and military authorities in Mexico have been corrupted by drug smugglers, often carrying out kidnappings and killings on the orders of drug cartel bosses. The accusations are outlined in sworn testimony before a U.S. immigration judge by Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, a former Mexican police officer who was paid $224,000 for information U.S. anti-drug agents used to convict dozens of high-ranking Mexican drug traffickers. Ramirez told U.S. Immigration Judge Joseph R. Dierkes in...

The vast majority of "high value targets" for U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Afghanistan are tied to the Taliban, which is using the country's rampant opium poppy cultivation to fund terrorist insurgencies. "We must make it clear to the Afghan people that we, the international community and the Afghan government are serious about this drug trade and corresponding terrorism," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "We are not just eradicating a few opium fields or arresting some local, midlevel drug dealers to show something is being done, but that is...

"Life or Meth" DVDs are heading to all of Idaho's secondary schools to use in education programs to combat the growing methamphetamine problem in the Gem State and retired teachers are paying the freight. State statistics show Idaho is in the top ten nationwide in methamphetamine abuse. Alarmingly, chocolate and strawberry-flavored methamphetamine wrapped like candy has been found in Idaho and the Idaho Education Association is sounding the alarm. The group's "Retired Task Force" is delivering "Life or Meth" DVDs to representatives of every secondary school in the state. Sherri Wood with IEA tells SVO teachers can use the DVD...

A new kind of methamphetamine that has a strawberry flavor and bright pink coloring was seized for the first time in Carson City during a search of a Como Street apartment on Saturday, an official said. "(We are) concerned that this new type of meth will be more attractive to a younger crowd and may surface in schools," said Sgt. Darrin Sloan, commander of the Carson City Sheriff's Department's Special Enforcement Team. "Parents and teachers, please be aware of this new kind of drug that is making its way into our culture." Sloan said SET officers served a search warrant...

It's a story that virtually begs for the "only-in-Santa-Cruz" eye-roll treatment - another item in a wave of wackiness over the years that has painted the beach town, fairly or not, as nuttier than a bowl of granola. Only this time, it might actually be true - the "only-in-Santa-Cruz" part, at least. That's because two cherished progressive ideals - smoking bans and medicinal marijuana - have collided in a cloud of, well, smoke. The city last year banned smoking in two city parks, citing the threat to public health. The city also is on record in support of the local...

EFF BINGAMAN, SENATOR, SENATE For Immediate Release Bingaman: Albuquerque Receives Funding to Combat Meth Contact: Jude McCartin (202) 224-5521 September 13, 2007 WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman today announced that the Albuquerque Police Department has been awarded a $446,454 federal grant from the Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to help fight methamphetamine use. Funding will be used to help combat the manufacture, use, and distribution of meth, and to collaborate with other entities in the prevention and treatment of meth abuse. ``The funding awarded today will help the Albuquerque Police Department continue its efforts...

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) recently said that, if elected president, he would end the federal raids on marijuana clinics in states that have legalized the drug for medical purposes. That makes the Democratic field unanimous now — all would end the raids and allow the states to craft their own medical marijuana policy, free from federal interference. By contrast, just two of the remaining GOP candidates — Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and Rep. Tom Tancredo (Colo.) — and none of the front-runners have promised to call off the raids. This is unfortunate for a party that once fancied itself the...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A trucker has sued the Drug Enforcement Administration, seeking to get back nearly $24,000 seized by DEA agents earlier this month at a weigh station on U.S. 54 in New Mexico north of El Paso, Texas. Anastasio Prieto of El Paso gave a state police officer at the weigh station permission to search the truck to see if it contained "needles or cash in excess of $10,000," according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the federal lawsuit Thursday. Prieto told the officer he didn't have any needles but did have $23,700. Officers took the money...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) - People in the United States are living in a world of pain and they are popping pills at an alarming rate to cope with it. The amount of five major painkillers sold at retail establishments rose 90 percent between 1997 and 2005, according to an Associated Press analysis of statistics from the Drug Enforcement Administration. More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during the most recent year represented in the data. That total is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person...

Jury finds couple guilty in pot case By: Penne Usher, Journal Staff Writer Two Cool residents were found guilty in federal court Thursday of manufacturing and selling large amounts of marijuana. But the Cool professionals, Marion "Molly" Fry, a doctor and her lawyer husband, Dale Schafer, say they are unfairly targeted and that the pot they were growing, completely legal, was allowed under the California Compassionate Use Act. "They were convicted by the jury of all charges in the indictment after three hours of deliberation," Rosemary Shawl, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office said Friday. "The are out of custody...

Governor Richardson is ordering the state Health Department to move ahead with planning of a medical marijuana program. That’s despite the agency’s worries about possible federal prosecution. The department announced earlier this week it would not implement provisions of the law that call for the agency to oversee the production and distribution of marijuana ...

McALLEN — Authorities have seized 21 tons of narcotics and indicted almost 50 members of an international drug trafficking organization with ties to the Gulf Cartel, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Thursday. The arrests come after a two-and-a-half-year investigation involving U.S. and Mexican authorities, aimed at destroying an operation accused of smuggling more than 2 tons of cocaine and 33 tons of marijuana from Mexico through the Rio Grande Valley. Dubbed “Operation Puma,” the investigation targeted the organization’s command structure, money laundering components and street-level dealers operating in Mexico, McAllen, Laredo, San Antonio and Dallas. “Operation Puma represents …...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said he does not trust the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration because its operations mask "unexpected interests" and "terrible things." During a celebration of the Nicaraguan Navy's 27th anniversary on Monday, Ortega remarked, "You have to be careful with the DEA. You can't be blind." The DEA has cooperated with Nicaragua's army and the police since 1990 in the fight against drug traffickers, but Ortega insisted that behind the DEA's operations exist "unexpected interests" and "terrible things." He did not elaborate. "We have to wage the war against drugs (but) don't come to us with stories about...

Representative Ed Royce (R-CA) is calling on Congress to investigate the ties between Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug gangs revelaed in a report by the Drug Enforcement Agency in yesterday's Washington Times. A ranking House Republican yesterday demanded a hearing based on recent reports that Islamic terrorists embedded in the United States are teaming with Mexican drug cartels to fund terrorism networks overseas. Rep. Ed Royce, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs terrorism and nonproliferation subcommittee, said the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) document — first reported yesterday by The Washington Times — highlights how vulnerable the nation is when...

A former director of the Drug Enforcement Administration warned federal officials shortly after the September 11 attacks that violent drug cartels from Mexico were teaming with Muslim gangs to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Asa Hutchinson, who also has been a Homeland Security undersecretary, said that in 2001, DEA agents uncovered the link between the drug cartels and terrorist groups but too few government officials listened. "I think it's important to recognize that the link between terrorism and drug trafficking exists," said Mr. Hutchinson in a phone interview from Arkansas. "While we are fighting terrorists, we should not neglect our fight...

There's good news, bad news and worse news on the immigration issue. The good news is that Congress and the White House are moving forward with prudent steps, gaining control of the border, securing the homeland against terrorism and reasserting American sovereignty. The bad news is that, in the past four decades, we've lost a lot of time fighting off the open-borders advocates and the anti-Western multiculturalists. Even as we now seek elementary homeland security measures - so that we can be safe in a world awash with jihadists, narcotraffickers and weapons-of-mass-destruction peddlers - we must first undo the grievous...

(Medford, Or) - Much of the day Friday, a helicopter brought out load after load of marijuana plants from hillsides in the Applegate... more than 10,000 plants, according to Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters. Winters says marijuana retails for about 5-thousand dollars a pound, street value. He says last year his department confiscated 27.6 tons of marijuana. The grows are not just valuable. They're also dangerous. Law enforcement officers say the grow is most likely part of a Mexican drug cartel. Winters says members of the cartel will fight in a gun battle to protect their crop... and to try...

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - A reputed leader of Colombia's biggest drug cartel, his features radically altered by plastic surgery, was identified by Brazilian and American anti-drug agents using advanced voice recognition technology, the suspect's lawyer said Friday. Brazilian police had difficulty making a positive identification of Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia while they investigated a money laundering scheme he orchestrated in hiding in Brazil, but got a break after taping him on the telephone and passing that information to agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, said the lawyer, Sergio Alambert. The recording was compared in the United States to...

Islamic extremists embedded in the United States — posing as Hispanic nationals — are partnering with violent Mexican drug gangs to finance terror networks in the Middle East, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report. "Since drug traffickers and terrorists operate in a clandestine environment, both groups utilize similar methodologies to function ... all lend themselves to facilitation and are among the essential elements that may contribute to the successful conclusion of a catastrophic event by terrorists," said the confidential report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. The 2005 report outlines an ongoing scheme in which...

At a recent congressional hearing, Joseph Rannazzisi, an official in the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion Control, proclaimed his agency's "firm commitment to the balanced policy of promoting pain relief and preventing the abuse of pain medications." The DEA, he said, wants to "help physicians meet the challenge of ensuring that people who medically need drugs get them, and that those who are diverting them don't."This "balanced policy" is a "challenge" because pain cannot be verified objectively. The only sure way of "preventing the abuse of pain medications" is to stop treating patients with them, which would leave millions...

The international street gang MS-13 is unifying its violent members across the U.S., including the D.C. area, attempting to strengthen its criminal operation by creating a single organization. "Traditionally, the gang consisted of loosely affiliated groups known as cliques; however, law enforcement officials have reported increased coordination of criminal activity among Mara Salvatrucha cliques in the Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York metropolitan areas," states a confidential letter sent out earlier this month from the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Illinois. "MS-13 is attempting to become a unified criminal enterprise operating under one leadership."...

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., told law enforcement officials Friday in Billings that he will continue to use "mongooselike tenacity" to secure funding for drug enforcement in Montana. Baucus, who was honored at a luncheon attended by about 30 area drug enforcement officers and agents, said he heard their message that they need more personnel and continued full federal funding. The tenacity, Baucus said, requires him to keep after leaders of various federal agencies and "just grab ahold of 'em until they say, 'Hey, let's do it and get this guy off our back.' "

JULY 2--Wrestler Chris Benoit was identified by Drug Enforcement Administration agents as an "excessive purchaser of injectable steroids" who, over the past year, was prescribed a 10-month supply of anabolic steroids every three to four weeks by a Georgia doctor who was indicted today on federal charges. Benoit, who last week murdered his wife and son before committing suicide, came to the attention of DEA agents probing a company called RX Weight Loss. It was during that investigation, which is "currently being prosecuted in the Northern District of Georgia," that narcotics agents discovered the World Wrestling Entertainment performer's steroid purchases,...

Yesterday afternoon in Norfolk, Virginia, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported that the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has developed a particular interest in People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals . On April 18 a dozen DEA agents searched PETA's headquarters for records related to how the group uses--and trains its staff to use--controlled substances. We already know what the drugs are used for: PETA has killed over 14,000 helpless dogs and cats since it started reporting the practice in 1998. But since the animal-cruelty trial of two PETA employees closed three months ago, we have been wondering whether the feds would...

A suspected international arms dealer was arrested yesterday in Spain and charged with conspiracy to sell millions of dollars in weapons to a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization in Colombia to kill Americans. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Karen P. Tandy said Syrian national Monzer Al Kassar, 61, of Marbella, Spain, along with suspects Tareq Mousa Al Ghazi, 60, of Lebanon, and Luis Felipe Moreno Godoy, 58, also of Marbella, were arrested as they prepared to finalize a multimillion-dollar deal with the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to pay for the weapons. Mr. Kassar was arrested...

The Venezuelan government responded yesterday to United States Drug Czar John Walters' criticisms that Venezuela is not cooperating with the United States in the fight against drugs by saying that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is a "drug cartel." The Venezuelan government rejected Walters' statements, saying that the U.S. has the intention of damaging Venezuela's reputation and intervening in its affairs. John Walters, who is the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington, made the statement in an interview with the Colombian magazine Semana last week. And today in Brussels, Walters made further statements about Venezuela...

Rudolph Giuliani and his consulting company, Giuliani Partners, have served as key advisors for the last five years to the pharmaceutical company that pled guilty today to charges it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic painkiller OxyContin. Federal officials say the company, Purdue Frederick, helped to trigger a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the time-release painkiller by failing to give early warnings that it could be abused. Prosecutors say "in the process scores died." Drug Enforcement Administration officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com Giuliani personally met with the head of the DEA when the...

The government will retry a prominent marijuana advocate on cultivation charges even though he faces no punishment if convicted, beyond the one day in jail he's already served, a federal prosecutor said today. Prosecutors decided on a second trial for Ed Rosenthal after a "thorough and careful review,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney George Bevan told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer... Defense lawyer Shari Greenberger said she would ask Breyer to order the government to reimburse Rosenthal for the time his lawyers spent getting the new charges dismissed.

Justice Department Announces $45 Million Multi-Ton Drug Bust Targeting Mexican Organization February 28, 2007 By Liza Porteus The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the largest drug bust in 10 years as it rounded up more than 400 members of a Mexico-based cartel distributing tons of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines in the United States. U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the roundup Wednesday during a press conference in San Diego. "Operation Imperial Emperor" targeted the Mexico-based Victor Emilio Cazares-Gastellum, a.k.a. "Victor Emilio Cazares-Salazar," drug trafficking organization, which Justice says has been responsible for supplying multi-ton quantities of cocaine, as well as...

The Mexican national shot by two Border Patrol agents in a drug-related incident in February 2005 brought a second van load of drugs into the U.S. while he waited to testify against the agents, according to Drug Enforcement Administration reports obtained by the Daily Bulletin. Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila - who was given immunity by U.S. prosecutors in exchange for testifying against former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean - is the focus of a November 2005 DEA report that identifies him as the person responsible for stashing more than 750 pounds of marijuana in a van parked at a house...

WASHINGTON -- Medical researchers need more marijuana sources because government supplies aren't meeting scientific demand, a federal judge has ruled. In an emphatic but nonbinding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration's own judge is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow a legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering from painful and wasting diseases, proponents believe.

DEA confirms nexus between Mexican narcotics traffickers and the FARC We know the contacts, they assure us; they are confident in the support of the new regime Jose Carreño El Universal (Mexico City) Wednesday 31 January 2007 WASHINGTON. - The United States anti-drug agency (DEA) assured [El Universal] that it knows who the contacts are between Mexican narcotics traffickers and the guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The head of operations of the DEA, Michael Braun, assured that the FARC obtains between 500 million and a billion dollars by their drug-related operations [annually]. Narcotics trafficking, he added,...