Free Republic

A sprawling fentanyl trafficking network stretching from Albuquerque to Salem, Oregon, has been shattered by federal authorities in what’s being called one of the largest operations of its kind in U.S. history. The takedown, made public this week, culminated in a massive sweep across New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Oregon. Federal agents with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seized staggering amounts of contraband: over 4 million fentanyl pills, $4.4 million in cash, 79 pounds of meth, along with heroin, cocaine, and more than 41 firearms, according to records from the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque. At the helm of...

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen. But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia. Drug seizures in Venezuela doubled in the past four years. There are mounting allegations of drug-fueled corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied...

Not In Our Name and the World Wide Terrorism WebBy Michael TremoglieFrontPageMagazine.com | March 19, 2003 In the run-up to this war, Not In Our Name became one of the major “peace” organizers and coalitions in the United States. Not In Our Name has spared no cost purchasing ads in newspapers around the world to publish its anti-American Statement of Conscience.  Its signatories include scores of Hate America bigwigs, like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Gloria Steinem and Barbara Kingsolver.  Hollywood icons (and many more has-beens) like Danny Glover, Jessica Lange, Tyne Daly, Martin Sheen and Ed Harris have...

SANTA CRUZ — Alix Tichelman, the heroin addict and prostitute convicted of felony involuntary manslaughter of a Google executive in 2015, was detained by Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after she was released from a Santa Cruz jail on March 29, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office. Tichelman has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada, according to a Santa Cruz County court documents related to her bail amount.

Alix Tichelman, the prostitute charged with killing a Google executive in a heroin-laced bender on a yacht, was sentenced on Tuesday to six years in prison by a Santa Cruz County judge. Tichelman pleaded guilty to two felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and administering drugs, according to NBC affiliate KSBW. She could have five a maximum 15 years in prison if she had been convicted of felony manslaughter and seveb itger other drug-related charges. \ Tichelman had been facing manslaughter charges for the death of Forrest Timothy Hayes, 51, a Google executive who died Nov. 23, 2013 from a heroin...

Joe Biden has issued a record-breaking clemency grant that benefits fraudsters, drug traffickers, cartel leaders, and crack dealers, court records show. The lame-duck president’s list of convicted criminals includes nearly 1,500 individuals who will have their sentences commuted. On Thursday, Biden announced he would commute sentences for individuals “who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities.” However, the list of commutations released by the White House includes several high-profile and dangerous criminals. One individual, Francesk Shkambi, was initially sentenced in July 2014 to 27 years in prison. According...

Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah’s drug empire could not be timelier or less controversial. An employee of the public prosecutor's office, the Department of Criminal Evidence, looks at illegal drugs, which are to be set on fire, in Sanaa February 29, 2012. (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI) Back in 1997, at the height of Hezbollah’s relentless campaign to drive the IDF out of Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon, I made an out-of-the-box suggestion. Along with attacking the terrorists head-on, I gave an opinion in The Jerusalem Post that Israel should strike at one of their principal sources of funding – drugs....

Opioids, like morphine, are effective painkillers but have led to widespread addiction and serious side effects like respiratory depression, notably seen in the U.S. opioid crisis that claimed nearly 645,000 lives from 1999 to 2021. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have identified a potential alternative, aniquinazolin B, from the marine fungus Aspergillus nidulans, which binds to opioid receptors and could replace opioids with fewer undesirable effects, after rigorous testing including over 750,000 calculations per substance using the MOGON supercomputer. Researchers at Mainz University have discovered a natural compound that could potentially serve as a long-term alternative to opioids and...

HONOLULU (KHON2) -- Drug cartels from Mexico are operating in Hawaii, making and pushing deadly drugs including methamphetamines and fentanyl. New tougher penalties akin to murder charges are aiming to take them down. Authorities told KHON2 that the big cartels are ramping up business not just south of the border but right here in our island state. The top federal law enforcement official in Hawaii warns of the dangers not just to drug users, but to drug pushers once caught. Authorities have seen a big shift in recent years to Hawaii’s most dangerous drugs methamphetamine and fentanyl especially coming mostly...

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan (AP) — Russia began deporting Tajik migrants Tuesday, the first in a wave of expulsions in apparent retaliation for the jailing of a Russian pilot in the Central Asian nation, officials in Tajikistan said. The spat threatens to imperil the livelihood of thousands of Tajik laborers and stir discontent in a country struggling to protect its border with Afghanistan. The former Soviet nation's economy relies heavily on the remittances provided by the many hundreds of thousands of Tajiks working in Russia. Over the past year, Moscow has been attempting to strong-arm Tajikistan into permitting Russian border troops to...

Maine’s taxpayer-funded “harm reduction” specialists call it “boofing” or “booty dumping,” but those are just pleasant euphemisms referring to the practice of sticking heroin, fentanyl, or meth up your butt. Maine Access Points, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit based in Bangor, as well as the city of Portland’s city-run needle distribution center are both offering extensive how-to guides and — even anal injection kits — to help drug users squirt narcotics into their anuses. In Portland, the “Portland Public Health Boofing Kit” comes with a needleless syringe and an informational flyer explaining the proper technique for putting drugs up your butt.

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - The U.S. Attorney’s Office-District of Oregon said four suspected drug traffickers are facing federal charges Thursday after they were caught transporting near 370 gallons of liquid heroin. Police said 44-year-old Marco Antonio Magallon, 26-year-old Luis Deleon Woodward, 25-year-old Jorge Luis Amador and 32-year-old Santos Alisael Aguilar Maya have ties to a Mexico-based transnational criminal organization. They have all been charged with conspiracy to distribute and posses with intent to distribute heroin and possess with intent to distribute heroin. Investigators watched Amador drive a rented moving truck alongside a red pickup truck west on I-84 near Bonneville....

Does texting erode language? One lazy day, my dog ate my dictionary. He really did. When I got to him, he had gone up to chewing up to “P”. But I had no choice after that but to throw away that humongous word library. One, because it (the dictionary, not my dog!) just had to be euthanized and second, well, there was an online, updatable, therefore more useful version. But come to think of it, why do we need dictionaries?

Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved over the years when naloxone — commonly known as Narcan — is administered to someone overdosing on opioids. Drugs Illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl can be mixed with xylazine, either to enhance drug effects or increase street value by increasing their weight. sedative/tranquilizer called xylazine to heroin, fentanyl and other opioids. And that’s bad news for addicts because naloxone doesn’t reverse a xylazine overdose. National Center for Biotechnology Information “You overdose on xylazine, and you’re going to die,” said the commander of the Greater Harrison Drug & Violent Crimes...

Three years after Oregon voted to de-criminalize drug offences - residents are now begging to reverse their decision after seeing an astonishing number of deaths from opioid overdoses. In 2020 - Oregon voters approved a measure to decriminalize the possession of all drugs including heroin and cocaine. The proposal, known as Oregon Ballot Measure 110, passed with 58.8 percent support. Now residents of the liberal state are crying out to their politicians to do something about the open-air drug markets that their cities have turned into. Opioid deaths in Oregon have gone up from 280, before the de-criminalization was voted...

Oregon’s first-in-the-nation law that decriminalized the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs in favor of an emphasis on addiction treatment is facing strong headwinds in the progressive state after an explosion of public drug use fueled by the proliferation of fentanyl and a surge in deaths from opioids, including those of children. “The inability for people to live their day-to-day life without encountering open-air drug use is so pressing on urban folks’ minds,” said John Horvick, vice president of polling firm DHM Research. “That has very much changed people’s perspective about what they think Measure...

In the late interwar period, a few years before the ascendency of Adolf Hitler to the Chancellery, the famed German film director Fritz Lang created a classic of the silent film era. Spione (English: Spies) is a thriller of international espionage, intrigue, and manipulation by a criminal mastermind. Playing diplomats, politicians, and detectives against each other, using prostitutes, opium, and blackmail to control his adversaries, Lang’s arch villain Haghi pushes the world to the precipice of total war before he is brought down by the film’s hero. There is a man operating like this today. He has control of vast...

RFK Jr. and Joe Biden are far more disgusting than most Americans realize...This goes way beyond politics. pic.twitter.com/RNJSHdcog4— Brenden Dilley (@WarlordDilley) October 23, 2023🔥 Hell is for children 🔥w:@BrandieWithABee @JScottHolt47 @itsreallyleah @miguelifornia @WarlordDilley pic.twitter.com/LMqKBxlx5q— littlememzz (@littlememzz) October 23, 2023

“I got along with everyone,” Curtin told People in a new interview. “But I did have problems with John,” the funny woman added. “But that was because John wasn’t John. He was an addict.” Belushi’s drug problem plagued his short life and career and he died via an overdose from a speedball mix of heroin and cocaine. Original “SNL” cast member Chevy Chase revealed last year that the “Blues Brothers” star’s addiction was so severe that he stole Chase’s own stash of cocaine.

Police officers allegedly stood by and watched for 15 minutes as a man who relapsed on heroin drowned in the Tennessee River after fleeing from them, according to a newly filed lawsuit. Kimberly Williams-Clabo claims her son, Mika Wheeler Clabo, would still be alive if it weren’t for the alleged negligence of the Knoxville Police Department, which encountered him “acting erratically” on the morning of July 25, 2022. Police said that when they approached Clabo, 30, who struggled with a heroin addiction, he ran from them and jumped into the river, where he got caught on vines and drowned. In...