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Heroin seized at YVR, two men arrested One of the men worked in the cargo warehouse Sonia Aslam June 11, 2014 1:03 pm RICHMOND (NEWS1130) - It’s one of the largest drug seizures at Vancouver International Airport in recent history. Two men have been arrested and charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking after 35 kilograms of heroin were seized. The drugs were hidden amongst other goods. The investigation was a coordinated effort between the RCMP, Vancouver Police, and the Canada Border Services Agency. One of the men worked in the cargo warehouse at the airport but police won’t...

In a proposal that could have a far-reaching impact on the Black community, Attorney General Eric Holder is urging the U.S. Sentencing Commission to cut the sentences of as many as 20,000 federal prisoners serving time for nonviolent drug offenses. It is Holder’s latest move to reform the sentencing guidelines that he has said disproportionately affect African-American males. The Justice Department appealed Tuesday to the U.S. Sentencing Commission to make some prisoners retroactively eligible for reduced sentences. The commission has already approved a measure to reduce drug sentences for future nonviolent offenders. This would apply to offenders already in federal...

Darcy Olsen, president of the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute, and Richard Garr, president of Neuralstem, a biotech company, wrote "Right to Try experimental drugs" in USA Today (5/28/2014). They pointed out that "this year, more than 5,000 Americans will lose their battle with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease." Up until recently, there was no medicine on the market that significantly improved the lives of ALS patients. But now there is one in clinical trials that holds considerable promise, but it has not been granted Food and Drug Administration approval. The average amount of time it takes to get a...

SEATTLE — The man charged with killing one student and wounding two others at a small Seattle college last week had stopped taking his medications because he "wanted to feel the hate," and he detailed his plans in a handwritten journal for two weeks before the attack, a prosecutor said Tuesday. "I just want people to die, and I'm gonna die with them!" Aaron Ybarra wrote the day of the shooting, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said. Satterberg released new details of the allegations as he filed charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault against Ybarra, 26. Satterberg is...

An entire first-grade class was bused to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for monitoring Tuesday after a 6-year-old was spotted with packets that police said likely contained heroin. The incident happened when a teacher at John Barry Elementary at 59th and Race Streets in West Philadelphia noticed one of her students playing with small plastic packets she had brought to school.

Drugs and politics Police investigations have uncovered links between political leaders, businessmen and drug smugglers. In December last year, Jagdish Bhola, a suspended deputy superintendent of police accused of drug trafficking, revealed as he was being escorted in handcuffs from a court hearing in Mohali: "I am just a pawn in the hierarchy of drug trade in the state - the real kingpins are politicians." Bhola is accused of masterminding a huge synthetic drug racket and investigating officers claim his entourage had provided significant levels of campaign funding during Punjab's last state assembly elections. Based on Bhola's revelations, police arrested...

Smoking cannabis as a teenager lowers IQ into adulthood and could have a lifelong impact, researchers have warned. U.S. researchers found the damaging effects of the drug remained even if users stopped smoking marijuana as adults. They said teenagers face increased risks from smoking cannabis, because the brain is rapidly developing at this time. The scientists, from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the U.S., added that smoking cannabis affects critical thinking and memory during use, with the effects persisting for days. Reviewing a range of studies on marijuana smoking, they reiterated that cannabis impairs driving and increases...

When 43-year-old Silvester Padilla Romero from Tucson was caught at the U.S.-Mexico border with more than 545 pounds of marijuana in his truck, federal agents were quick to pass on his case. A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent said that federal prosecutors would "decline such a case due to a medical condition that the driver of the vehicle containing the contraband was claiming to have." It is unclear, however, what "condition" Padilla has, if any. Nogales International reported that since federal prosecutors declined the case due to "a mental condition," Padilla was convicted in a local court instead....

Maureen Dowd, author of “Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk”, speaks during a panel discussion during a luncheon at the Book Expo America convention, Saturday, June 5, 2004, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey) I never smoked marijuana before, and Maureen Dowd‘s haphazard experience with a weed-laced candy bar in her Denver hotel room certainly isn’t motivating me to book a plane ticket to what is soon to be dubbed the “Mile High State.” The New York Times columnist was in Colorado reporting on the state’s first months of legalized marijuana use when she decided to take what she later learned...

Alexander Shulgin earned his nickname, the Godfather of ecstasy, after honing a way to make the drug - and testing it out on himself to check it had worked. A Facebook post by his wife and research partner, Ann, said he died "surrounded by family and caretakers and Buddhist meditation music". He lived out his final years at his home in Northern California. Shulgin began his study of organic chemistry at Harvard University in his teens and, after a stint in the US Navy during World War Two, returned to Berkeley to get his PhD in biochemistry at the University...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Among the most tantalizing mysteries surrounding Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s departure from his U.S. military base in 2009 is this: Was he trying to find the Taliban? Or did he simply wander away and get captured? Politicians and members of the military have criticized the Obama administration’s decision to swap five jailed Taliban leaders for Bergdahl, saying the soldier may have deserted. Until now, few details have emerged about the circumstances of Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base. But The Washington Post has reached Afghan villagers who spotted Bergdahl shortly after he slipped away from his base. To them, it’s clear something...

Five people were killed and at least 15 others have been wounded in separate shootings across the city since Friday evening, including eight shot within the first 30 minutes of June. The most recent fatal shooting happened early Sunday in the Austin neighborhood, when a teenage boy was killed and five others were wounded. The six were standing in a group at the intersection of West Ferdinand Street and North Lavergne Avenue about 12:30 a.m. when several shooters emerged from a nearby alley and opened fire, police said.

When Australian farmer Tony Knight first saw a purple-flowering plant growing across the bushfire-scarred terrain where his sheep grazed, his first thought was that it looked like “good stock feed.” However, the “pleasant-looking plant” was far from the nutritious food his livestock needed after their paddocks were razed bare by the fires that swept through the northwest region of New South Wales state last year. Instead, the native weed known as the “Darling pea” contained a toxin that affected the sheep’s nervous systems, killing hundreds by triggering mental and physical deterioration. “To start with, they will do quite well when...

In a historic vote, Congress voted to support states on legalized medicinal marijuana. The measure will not allow the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to spend federal funds to interfere with states that have legalized medicinal marijuana. "The states have spoken, the American people have spoken and now for the first time the U.S. House of Representatives have spoken on allowing medical marijuana," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the sponsor of the measure, in a press conference on Friday.

Israel, Iran mafia flood Saudi market with fakes Substandard and fake products worth billions of dollars are being dumped in the Kingdom by mafias in Israel and Iran, said Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil, president of the Council of Saudi Chambers (CSC). Al-Zamil urged the cooperation of Saudis and expats to prevent such products from entering the market. “You can see such products everywhere and most of these products come from Israel and Iran with the support of mafias,” Al-Zamil told Arab News. He urged expats to be cautious of such products. “Ignorant consumers purchase these products, only to bin them after...

Masters Pharmaceutical Responds To FDA On Ohio Drug Seizures By Cyndi Root Masters Pharmaceutical issued a press release disputing the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) position on the raid at Master’s subsidiary RXTPL. The FDA and U.S. Marshalls went to RXTPL’s logistics facility in Fairfield, Ohio on Thursday, May 15, 2014. The government had a search warrant based on a November 2013 inspection at Ascend Laboratories, which showed the use of unapproved drugs. Masters says that RXTPL cooperated with the government in quarantining the drugs at the facility. However, Masters takes issue with the FDA press release that states that...

Nearly five months into Colorado’s great pot experiment, the early returns are good. In Denver, home to the bulk of the first-in-the-nation retail stores, violent crime fell by 5.6 percent over the first four months of the year, with major property crimes down nearly twice that, according to the city’s police. State coffers, meanwhile, are flush with tax revenues from the nearly $50 million worth of recreational weed that was sold through March, the last month for which official estimates are available. Those sales translate into $7.3 million for the state, a number that jumps to $12.6 million when you...

The Sinaloa Cartel, headquartered on Mexico's northern Pacific Coast, is constantly exploring new ways to launder its gargantuan profits. The State Department reports that Mexican trafficking organizations earn between $19 and $29 billion every year from selling marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines on the streets of American cities. And Sinaloa is reportedly the richest, most powerful of them all, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The capture last month of the Mexican druglord Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman has cast a spotlight on the smuggling empire he built. One key to the Sinaloa Cartel's success has been to use the global banking...

A Texas teenager whose date died in their hotel room after her senior prom has sent a series of emotional text messages to a friend suggesting she passed away following an overdose. The unidentified date frantically called 911 on Saturday morning after waking up in a North Houston Hyatt to find that 17-year-old Jacqueline Gomez was not breathing. Investigators said that the MacArthur High School senior showed no outward signs of injury and the results of her autopsy are pending. They added that her boyfriend is not suspected of any crime. Now text messages that he sent to one of...

How crazy is it to drug babies? ……… An adventurous group of cowboy child psychologists invented a new and untested diagnostic category (with the ridiculous name 'Sluggish Cognitive Tempo') that would be a wonderful target for additional inappropriate stimulant use. …. "Treating babies with stimulants is based on no research, is reckless, and takes no account of the possible harmful long-term effects of bathing baby brains with powerful neurotransmitter drugs."