Three Israelis accused in NY of Ecstasy smuggle

NEW YORK, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Three Israeli nationals were arrested and accused of trying to smuggle $42 million worth of hallucinogenic Ecstasy pills to the United States from Belgium, the largest such drug seizure ever in Europe, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday.

The three men tried to smuggle 1.4 million pills inside diamond polishing tables bound for New York by ship from Antwerp, according to a statement from the office of Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Tipped off by witnesses who saw two of the men stuffing the pills into three tables inside an Antwerp warehouse in August, authorities allowed the tables to be delivered -- without the pills -- to New York where they were put under surveillance.

The three men were arrested on Tuesday as they were retrieving the tables and trying to deliver the drugs to a buyer, the statement said.

The case marks the largest Ecstasy seizure in Europe and the third largest such seizure in the United States, with a wholesale value of about $14 million and a retail value of about $42 million, officials said.

Arrested were Nachshow Sinvanni, who allegedly wanted to buy 900,000 of the pills for distribution; and Ofir Lebar and Ofir Weizman, who were spotted packing the tables with drugs in Belgium, officials said. All three men live in Israel, authorities said.

They each were charged with conspiring to import MDMA, the technical name for Ecstasy and, if convicted, face a possible prison sentence of 20 years and a $1 million fine. ((New York newsdesk, 646 223 6280))

You cannot refute my point

The burden is on you to support YOUR claim, not on me to refute YOUR claim. As it stands, your claim is unsupported and has no weight.

If you come up with a plan of how narcotics could be legalized without goverment controls and the FDA being involved,or private business being able to control and promote substances,I am listening.

Here's the plan: treat drugs exactly like alcohol.

[Deleted by Rocksalt with no reply:] "I am not advocating goverment controls over our freedoms."

Yes you are---you want the government to continue to restrict our freedom to put what we choose into our own bodies.

Do you concede that you are advocating goverment controls over our freedoms?

Would you also be in favor of abolishing police forces because they interfere with our rights to travel freely?

I favor restricting police to their legitimate duty of protecting individual rights.

Many other conservatives feel this way as well.

But none of them has been able to rationally square this with their professed love of freedom.

Most charitys are goverment funded

They shouldn't be.

I can't help but have sympathy for the parents of a young person who might end up dead as a result of the perils of narcotics.

I thought it was liberals who held that "sympathy" trumps rights, such as sympathy for the parents of a young person who might end up dead as a result of the perils of handguns.

what system of dispersal would take it's place?

As I say in post 61, the same sort of system that disperses the deadly addictive drug alcohol.

"I thought it was liberals who held that "sympathy" trumps rights, such as sympathy for the parents of a young person who might end up dead as a result of the perils of handguns."

No,sympathy does not trump rights,but laws of this country must be rooted in common sense.Narcotics kill far more people than guns.Facilitating personal freedoms is obviously a good intention,but lets do it without ending up with millions of addicts and casualties.

"As I say in post 61, the same sort of system that disperses the deadly addictive drug alcohol."

That would mean state control as well as private companys promoting use,and producing the product.You talk about citizens rights to be free from state controls in one sentence,and then advocate state controls in the next.

"The burden is on you to support YOUR claim, not on me to refute YOUR claim. As it stands, your claim is unsupported and has no weight."

This is from the very first drug resource website I tapped into:www.getgoing.com Drug treatment specialists.

" Yet marijuana is a far less addictive and dangerous drug for most people than cocaine or heroin. These drugs are so pleasurable that for some people, it is not safe to try them even once. Using heroin or cocaine, powdered or crack (rock), even one time causes such intense cravings for some individuals that they use it again and again, rapidly becoming addicted.

Crack is the most highly addictive of all the drugs available because it is smoked and therefore stimulates the brain directly. The high lasts only a few minutes, so the user soon needs more in order to sustain the energized, grandiose, and powerfully euphoric feeling it produces. Some people cannot give that feeling up and sacrifice their jobs or lives to keep using crack. Recreational use of heroin and cocaine, particularly crack, is the way many people get addicted."

Now you tell me how common it is for people to become late stage alcoholics in the same amount of time.

"Here's the plan: treat drugs exactly like alcohol."

That would mean goverment control.ATF,state agencys,etc.You explain how it could be otherwise.

"I favor restricting police to their legitimate duty of protecting individual rights."

And what if this will of course include protecting individual citizens from the crazed speed freaks who will have easy access to it and then turn violent.

I favor legal access for a system of registered addicts,and do not feel it is wise to facillitate narcotics addiction for the general populace.

laws of this country must be rooted in common sense. Narcotics kill far more people than guns.

Provide evidence for your claim.

Then explain why, with 500,000 traffic deaths per year, "common sense" doesn't dictate that we ban cars.

That would mean state control as well as private companys promoting use,

If a ban on advertising were the cost of legalizing drugs, I'd accept it; politics is the art of the possible.

and producing the product.

What's wrong with that?

You talk about citizens rights to be free from state controls in one sentence,and then advocate state controls in the next.

I advocate a LESSENING of state controls. As I said, "More freedom is better than less. Respect for freedom does not obligate one to make the best an enemy of the good."

for some people, it is not safe to try them even once.

For SOME people, fine. SOME people are susceptible to sugar addiction; should we ban sugar?

Now you tell me how common it is for people to become late stage alcoholics in the same amount of time.

Why compare the ONSET of crack addiction to LATE STATE alcohol addiction?

"Here's the plan: treat drugs exactly like alcohol."

That would mean goverment control.ATF,state agencys,etc.

As I say in post 65, "I advocate a LESSENING of state controls. As I said, 'More freedom is better than less. Respect for freedom does not obligate one to make the best an enemy of the good.'"

And what if this will of course include protecting individual citizens from the crazed speed freaks who will have easy access to it and then turn violent.

Police should protect individuals from all violence.

From the U.S. Department of Justice's National Criminal Justice Reference Service (publication NCJ 145534): "Of all psychoactive substances, alcohol is the only one whose consumption has been shown to commonly increase aggression. [...] Marijuana and opiates temporarily inhibit violent behavior [...] There is no evidence to support the claim that snorting or injecting cocaine stimulates violent behavior. [...] Anecdotal reports notwithstanding, no research evidence supports the notion that becoming high on hallucinogens, amphetamines, or PCP stimulates violent behavior in any systematic manner."

I [...] do not feel it is wise to facillitate narcotics addiction for the general populace.

So your "wisdom" trumps individual rights?

Some apologosts herein would like you to believe that this is just a harmless act and that these people meant no harm to America's young people....just some harmless shady business to make a little money. 'Ecstasy' Drug Damages Brain

WASHINGTON, June 14, 1999

Ecstasy, a so-called designer drug favored by club-goers, can cause long-lasting damage to the brain, researchers said Monday.

Experiments on monkeys showed that as little as four days of using Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, can cause damage lasting six to seven years later.

"People who take MDMA, even just a few times, are risking long-term, perhaps permanent, problems with learning and memory," Dr. Alan Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the study, said in a statement.

MDMA, used at "rave" parties and other large gatherings, has a stimulant effect. Users report a sense of euphoria and well-being, but it has been associated with some deaths -- some of them immediately after use.

It affects serotonin, an important brain signaling chemical associated with mood, among other things.

"The serotonin system, which is compromised by MDMA, is fundamental to the brain's integration of information and emotion," Leshner said.

George Ricaurte and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore gave either salt water or Ecstasy to some squirrel monkeys twice a day for four days.

Two weeks later, they looked at the brains of half of the monkeys, and found damage to neurons associated with serotonin.

Areas particularly affected, they reported in the Journal of Neuroscience, were the neocortex, the outer part of the brain which is associated with conscious thought, and the hippocampus, associated with long-term memory.

Six to seven years later, the scientists examined the rest of the monkeys' brains. Richaud said they had not recovered from the damage.

"Some recovery of serotonin neurons was apparent in the brains of the monkeys given MDMA previously but this recovery occurred only in certain regions and was not always complete," Richaud said.

"Other brain regions showed no evidence of recovery whatsoever."

George Ricaurte and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore gave either salt water or Ecstasy to some squirrel monkeys twice a day for four days.

"Scientists have expressed strong criticism of a new report about MDMA to be published in the journal Science on September 27. The primate study, by Dr. George Ricaurte and colleagues, reports that MDMA - or Ecstasy - damages dopamine neurons in the brain, and suggests that such damage indicates that MDMA may cause Parkinson's disease in humans.

"Critics, pointing to questionable assumptions in Dr. Ricaurte's report, say it suggests no such thing. And they express concern about the hysteria often generated by exaggerated estimates of drug-related harms - which, they say, can hinder the efforts of parents and teachers to establish open, honest dialogue with young people about drug use.

"Dr. Juan Sanchez-Ramos, Ellis Professor of Neurology, University of South Florida, and an expert in Parkinson's and dopaminergic neurotoxicity, said, "The multiple dose regimen of injected MDMA administered by Dr. Ricaurte to primates does not simulate human exposure, does not cause cell death, and does not predict anything about human vulnerability to Parkinson's as a result of MDMA. In fact, Dr. Ricaurte's study shows that it is far easier to kill whole animals than to kill neurons." [...]

"Scientists pointed to several important flaws in the Science report:

"1) The doses administered are not representative of human doses [...]

2) Data from actual human studies shows no dopamine reductions from MDMA [...]

3) There is no proven link between Parkinson's and amphetamine or methamphetamine [...]

"Risk/Benefit Analysis for MDMA/PTSD Psychotherapy Research

"The FDA has approved a study into the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in the treatment of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). [...] According to Rick Doblin, Ph.D., [...] "It has taken 17 years since MDMA was made illegal in 1985 before a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of the therapeutic use of MDMA has been approved by the FDA. During that time, over 260 people worldwide have already been administered MDMA in clinical research studies focused on evaluating various aspects of the safety of MDMA, without demonstrating evidence of harm to those human subjects. [...]""

"To date, George Ricaurte and his team at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland have carried out the most influential research. In the early 1990s, they began a long-term experiment with squirrel monkeys. Twice a day for four days, they gave one group of monkeys ecstasy, another salt water.

"[...] But not everyone thinks losing these transporters is a sign of nerve damage: the nerve fibres themselves may remain intact. One such dissident is James O'Callaghan, a neurotoxicologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. O'Callaghan has long maintained that MDMA does not provoke the crucial inflammatory response expected from a chemical that injures nerve cells-the build up of star-shaped cells known as glia.

"And some animal studies have failed to find any lasting biochemical changes. A team at the US National Center for Toxicological Research in Arkansas gave a range of ecstasy doses to rhesus monkeys but found no significant effects nearly two years later. What's more, few studies to date have reported long-lasting behavioural problems in animals exposed to ecstasy." - New Scientist, 20 April 2002

re your # 75:

Like most medical reserach, there are those pro and con on conclusions. The following is what I have gleaned from various studies and bulletins on this dangerous drug. Some of this comes from just typing in the words: Ecstasy-harmful-effects under the google search engine.

The bulk conclusions are these:

Harmful effects of Ecstacy include: panic attacks, paranoid states, episodes of confusion, permanent visual changes, depression and the risk of psychotic illness. Deaths have occured from its use mainly due to overheating (hypothermia). Some medical opinion is that the drug causes pernament damage to the heart and liver although I saw no data on the backup.

I typed in www.schziophrenia.com and got the following: "Users of Ecstasy are prone to panic attacks, depression, and psychotic illness. The finding was reported to the health minister (in the UK) from scientists on the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs. The report stated, " ... Ecstacy can be very damaging to your physical and mental health." The unpredictable harmful effects of ecstasy include epileptic fit, panic attacks, paranoid states, episodes of confusion, permanent visual changes, depression and the risk of psychotic illness. Ecstasy has been linked to 60 deaths (in the UK). The drug has been suggested to cause direct damage to the liver and heart."

I followed the link to www.angelfire.com and received the following:"MDMA is also related in structure and effects to methamphetamine. Methamphetamine has been shown by the Chicago researchers to cause degeneration of neurons containing the neurotransmitter dopamine. Damage to these neurons is the undelightful cause of the motor disturbances seen in parkensons disease."

Followed this with http://sano.camh.net and got the following opinion on their info bulletin:" There is extensive evidence in animals that recreational doses of Ecstasy can cause permanent neurological damage.

Higher doses of Ecstasy may intensify the negative effects described above and possibly produce a distortion in perception, thinking or memory. It also may produce psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations, and long lasting bouts of anxiety or depression in susceptible users.

Johns Hopkins report headline is:" Recreational Use of Ecstasy Causes New Brain Damage Trend to sequential doses of popular drug can have long-term lasting effects" You are no doubt aware that this was not a single man's effort at this prestigious University. The researchers at Johns Hopkins have found that doses of the popular recreational drug Ecstasy similar to those that young adults typically take during all-night dance parties cause extensive damage to brain dopamine neurons in nonhuman primates. Contributiong to the study were Jie Yuan, George Hatzidimitriou, Branden J. Cord and Una D. McCann, all from Johns Hopkins. The study was funded by the U.S. Public Health Service.

My own opiunion is that Johns Hopkins is one of the most highly respected medical research organizations in the world....a level I think not yet achieved in the South Florida medical circles.

There are just too many respectible medical people who conclude that this drug is very dangerous.

"For SOME people, fine. SOME people are susceptible to sugar addiction; should we ban sugar?"

Your comparisons are degenerating at a progessive rate.I'm sorry about that.

"Why compare the ONSET of crack addiction to LATE STATE alcohol addiction?"

Any stage of crack addiction is comparable to late stage alcoholism,in fact it is worse,as alcoholics are not known nearly as much for their criminal behavior relating to their addiction.It takes alot more money to fuel a crack addiction than an alcohol addiction.

"As I say in post 65, "I advocate a LESSENING of state controls."

You merely advocate a shifting of state control,and at the same time would favor greater availability of deadly poisons to youth,if you are willing to admit that or not.

"Police should protect individuals from all violence."

Too bad they can't be everywhere at once.Pipedream.

"There is no evidence to support the claim that snorting or injecting cocaine stimulates violent behavior. [...] Anecdotal reports notwithstanding, no research evidence supports the notion that becoming high on hallucinogens, amphetamines, or PCP stimulates violent behavior in any systematic manner."

That is goverment horsepucky.Likely written by a liberal researcher who is making a hundred grand a year to spit that garage out.Any 15 year old kid in Riverside CA.,the crank capitol of the US can tell you meth freaks commonly get very violent.I have seen PCP users who spin out of control,and it sometimes takes 6 cops to control their superhuman strength.

"Narcotics kill far more people than guns."
"Provide evidence for your claim."

Actually I found guns do kill slightly more people than drugs-big deal-What is the value of drugs to society,compared to the value of firearms for personal protection.Drugs are a drain on society,with many hidden costs,lost work,diseases,deaths,hundreds of thousands of emergency room visits,wasted lives etc.

"Then explain why, with 500,000 traffic deaths per year, "common sense" doesn't dictate that we ban cars."

Autos serve an actual useful function,whereas drugs detract from peoples functions most of the time.Lousy comparison.

"If a ban on advertising were the cost of legalizing drugs, I'd accept it; politics is the art of the possible."

Possible,true,smart and reasonable,possibly not.

"and producing the product."

"What's wrong with that?"(your statement)

Leaving it up to private industry or the goverment to produce and control the production of narcotics would only give them incentive to promote and profit off their use.
If we are going to cease the WOD,lets just cease it and let natural forces take over,NO GOVERMENT CONTROL.That would be the only true way to insure freedom from further goverment control over our lives.Otherwise let's just let registered addicts have access at registered pharmacys.

"I advocate a LESSENING of state controls"

I'm sure you do.I think we would be better off with none rather than a shifting of controls.

You raise good points and questions,thanks for debating this with me.I respect your opinions and continue to evaluate the points you raise.Happy Halloween.-RS

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