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The coronavirus pandemic is driving up the price of heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl as Mexican cartels scramble to get their hands on Chinese-manufactured chemicals now in short supply. “The cartels are having a lot of difficulty producing drugs right now, and when the supply is low the price always goes up,” a US federal law enforcement source told The Post. “China has pretty much stopped production on the chemicals they need to do business.”

“Gray Death” is a particularly dangerous mixture of heroin, fentanyl, carfentanil and other synthetic opioids, and it has made its way to Indiana. Carfentanil, which is used as a tranquilizing agent for elephants and other large mammals, is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times more potent than fentanyl, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. They say a persistent increase in opioid overdoses tied to carfentanil have been seen around the country. Carfentanil and other fentanyl-related compounds can be absorbed through the skin or accidentally inhaled, making them dangerous to first responders and other medical personnel....

Washington, DC ~ Wednesday, March 11, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryGood afternoon, everyone.  Thank you for joining us.Today, we are announcing the results of Project Python, a multilateral interagency operation targeting the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also known as CJNG.  This operation was led by the DEA, and on behalf of the Department, I want to thank Acting Administrator Dhillon for his strong leadership in the fight against transnational organized crime. And I want to express my appreciation for the courageous law enforcement professionals of the DEA – the men and women who, day in and day out, put...

**SNIP** To recap, Buttigieg is saying possession of heroin and meth would be legal, but the distribution would not be legal. Wallace pressed to ensure that Buttigieg was being understood correctly. “You would say that possession of heroin is not illegal,” the Fox News host said, to make clear. “Not going to be dealt with through incarceration,” Buttigieg replied, coming up just short on saying it would be legal, but stressing there would be no punitive action that involves jail. Wallace noted that the candidate’s website says decriminalize it, prompting more doublespeak from Buttigieg. “Yes,” he answered. “Or it could...

Officials with the St. Mary Parish Sheriff's Office in southwest Louisiana issued the warning last week after making arrests in connection to the new drug. It's called gray death and is a lethal combination of "some of the most deadly opioids including heroin, fentanyl and various fentanyl analogues," officials said on Facebook. According to the Sheriff's Office, the new super drug began to surface in the South, first in Alabama and Georgia. Investigators said a "minuscule amount of this drug" can kill. Sheriff's Office investigators released photos of what gray death looks like after suspects were taken into custody with...

The DEA's Emergency Prohibition of Fentanyl Analogues expires at Mid-Night 2/6/20 unless renewed by the Congress. With the Senate fixated on the Impeachment Hoax it is practically impossible to get that renewal done in time. The distributors of this "Made in China" synthetic Opiate are much smarter than the Congress Critters. The stuff is almost certainly being packed for distribution as of Mid-Night Thursday. The Divided States of America is facing chaos and anarchy and political corruption in "unprecedented" ways. I am 26,392 days old as of today...so I will probably miss the unhappy ending. "The tree of liberty must...

Two former federal agents accused of stealing bitcoins have been charged with wire fraud, money laundering and related offenses, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement. Carl Force, a former special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Shaun Bridges, a former Secret Service special agent, were both part of a Baltimore task force investigating Silk Road, the online marketplace often labeled the eBay of the drug trade. Force was given the task of establishing communications with Ross Ulbricht, aka "Dread Pirate Roberts," the San Francisco man who has been linked to Silk Road. Ulbricht was convicted last month...

Fentanyl, a highly addictive synthetic drug primarily manufactured and shipped from China, is now blamed for nearly half of all overdose deaths in the United States. Mexican criminal groups like the Sinaloa cartel and the Cartel Jalisco New Generation are now heavily involved in smuggling the drug into the United States, according to experts.

Failure to enforce basic standards of public behavior has made one of America’s great cities increasingly unlivable. Everyone’s on drugs here and stealing,” an ex-felon named Shaku explains as he rips open a blue Popsicle wrapper with his teeth. Shaku is standing in an encampment of tents, trash, and bicycles, across from San Francisco’s Glide Memorial Church. Another encampment-dweller lights a green crack pipe and passes it around. A few paces down the street, a gaunt man swipes a credit card through a series of parking meters to see if it has been reported stolen yet.

Today, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Director Jim Carroll released the following statement after the Chinese government announced the conviction of multiple suspects charged with production and trafficking of illicit drugs, including fentanyl and its analogues.“The concrete action taken by China is a direct result of President Trump’s strong leadership on this issue, and the personal engagement by many members of Congress in communicating our entire government’s commitment to saving American lives. China’s fentanyl trafficking and production prosecution is a positive step in following through on the pledge secured by President Trump. We look forward to...

Of the 2916 people who died in Massachusetts between 2013-2015 (and had complete toxicology reports): 1789 (61%) had heroin detected. 1322 (45%) had fentanyl detected. Only 39 (1.3%) of the decedents who had a prescription opioid detected in their body had an active (legal) prescription for that opioid on the day they died. In other words, 98.7% of the people who died and had a prescription drug in their body obtained that drug illegally (not by prescription). This confirms that it is (and has been) the abuse, not the use of opioids that is killing people. Properly managed pain patients...

Methamphetamine was the drug most frequently involved in overdose deaths in the regions that include Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada and Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Typically, fentanyl, along with white powder heroin, has been more common east of the Mississippi River, and Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin has been more commonly found west of the Mississippi. In 2017, the latest year for which complete data is available, more than 70,000 people died from drug overdoses. Opioids such as fentanyl and heroin represented about...

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — An autopsy report shows a North Carolina judge died of a fentanyl and heroin overdose. The News & Record of Greensboro reports District Court Judge Tom Jarrell was found unresponsive on the bedroom floor of his home in High Point on Aug. 3. The report from the N.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also says the 56-year-old Jarrell had alcohol in his system. According to the report, Jarrell had a medical history with an irregular heartbeat, but police found a plastic bag with a powdered substance in his pocket. The autopsy found that there was...

Authorities in Southern California's Orange County last week seized roughly $1.25 million worth of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, a quantity large enough to create four million deadly doses,...They also found a semi-automatic handgun, heroin, methamphetamine and $71,000 in cash,...Between 2015 and 2018, damage from the drug cost at least $631 billion...

Fentanyl is quickly becoming America’s deadliest drug. But law enforcement couldn’t trace it to its source — until one teenager overdosed in North Dakota. Around 3 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015, Laura and Jason Henke awoke with a start at their home in Minot, N.D. Their dog was barking wildly. At the door, in the early morning shadows, they found a police officer and, behind him, a pastor. The officer asked to see Laura’s ID to confirm that he was at the correct address. Then he told them that their 18-year-old son, Bailey, was dead. The officer didn’t have...

A Los Angeles Angels employee provided oxycodone to Tyler Skaggs and told two team officials about the pitcher’s drug use before his death, according to an ESPN report. The employee was identified as Eric Kay, the team’s director of communications. According to ESPN, he told federal investigators that he abused opioids with Skaggs and provided them with the names of five other players who he alleged to be using opiates. Skaggs died on July 1 at age 27 after he was found in a hotel room in Texas with a mixture of fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol in his system, according...

TEMECULA, Calif. — U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested a man near Temecula with fentanyl and cocaine hidden inside his car Wednesday afternoon. On Oct. 9 at approximately 5:15 p.m., agents stopped on a 2009 Ford Escape and conducted a canine sniff prompting agents investigate further. Agents searched the vehicle and noticed the headrests of the backseats were unusually solid. Further inspection revealed two metal boxes fixed in the headrests. Inside the boxes were 12 plastic wrapped packages were nine packages of fentanyl, weighing 22 pounds. This quantity contains enough doses to kill more than 5 million people. The remaining three...

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Ohio Fentanyl can be mixed with cocaine and methamphetamine to create a deadly combination, the coroner said. The last peak of overdoses that the coroner's office posted about was in August 12, when six people died in less than 24 hours. "The majority of overdose deaths continue to be fentanyl related," the coroner said in the statement. That same year, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a national alert that said "drug incidents and overdoses related to fentanyl are occurring at an alarming rate ." Opioids -- drugs that replicate the pain-reducing properties of opium -- include both legal...

Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs died from a toxic mix of the powerful painkillers fentanyl and oxycodone along with alcohol in an accidental overdose, a medical examiner in Texas said in a report released Friday. The 27-year-old Skaggs was found dead in his hotel room in the Dallas area July 1 before the start of what was supposed to be a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. The first game was postponed before the teams played the final three games. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office issued a technical report that said Skaggs died as a result of "mixed...

Law enforcement officers in Virginia have seized enough fentanyl to kill 14 million people, busting a massive three-state drug ring as part of what they called "Operation Cookout." Thirty-five suspects were arrested, and four others are on the run. "This opioid crisis is not an issue that is happening someplace else, or to someone else. It's happening right here in Norfolk," said G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. In total, authorities seized over 30 kilograms of fentanyl, 30 kilograms of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine and over $700,000. It's the largest drug takedown in Virginia...