Tag: the war on (some) drugs

“Grandma of the Police Officers Association” in California Arrested for Importing Fentanyl From China and Other Countries

As the drug crisis in America rages on as opioids and fentanyl pour across our unsecured border from the Mexican drug cartels supplied by Chinese “pharmaceuticals,” an unsuspecting trafficker has emerged.

San Jose Police Officers Association police union executive Joanne Marian Segovia was arrested on Wednesday for attempting to import a synthetic opioid called Valeryl fentanyl.  If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Police union president Sean Pritchard told the New York Post that Segovia was like “the grandma of the POA…this is not the person we’ve known, the person who has worked with fallen officers’ families, organized fundraisers for officers’ kids…”

Segovia was allegedly importing packages of drugs from China, Canada, India and other countries and disguising them as common items such as makeup, chocolates, and food supplements.  She has received at least 61 packages at her home from 2015 through 2023.

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Gov. Hochul Proposes Heavy Fines for Illicit Cannabis Shops

Illegal cannabis sellers could see sky-high fines under new legislation proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday, giving state officials greater power to crack down on New York’s illicit pot market.

The bill would set fines up to $10,000 a day for shops that sell cannabis without a license, and businesses found possessing illegal marijuana plants or products could be hit with penalties as high as $200,000, according to the proposed rules.

It would also give the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), the state agency overseeing marijuana retail licensing, the authority to seize illegal products and allow OCM to shut down unlicensed cannabis retailers. 

“The continued existence of illegal dispensaries is unacceptable, and we need additional enforcement tools to protect New Yorkers from dangerous products and support our equity initiatives,” Hochul said in a statement.

Under the proposed law, OCM could investigate any location growing, distributing or selling cannabis that has not been sourced from a legal distributor and taxed. OCM, the attorney general or local police would be able to enforce a preliminary injunction to stop businesses suspected of selling cannabis without a license, according to the bill.

Hochul’s proposal is the latest move in a state and city effort to shutter the thousands of illegal pot shops that have cropped up in New York City, threatening its fledgling legal market. 

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Shoddy Research Reinforces Anti-Vaping Narrative

In 2019, The Journal of the American Heart Association published a study suggesting that nicotine vaping doubles the risk of a heart attack. The authors claimed e-cigarette use is “independently” associated with a heightened risk of myocardial infarction, which is “similar” to the risk among cigarette smokers.

Three years later, the World Journal of Oncology published a study that claimed vapers face about the same cancer risk as smokers. The authors said “prospective studies should be planned to mitigate the risk.”

Both studies were later retracted, largely because they shared the same glaring weakness: The researchers failed to consider whether the medical problems that survey respondents reported were diagnosed before or after they began vaping, a minimum requirement for inferring a causal relationship. As University of Louisville researchers Brad Rodu and Nantaporn Plurphanswat showed in a 2022 Internal and Emergency Medicine article, that failure is characteristic of studies that allege a link between vaping and smoking-related diseases, including several articles that so far have not been retracted.

In all of these cases, the researchers seemed so eager to discredit vaping as a harm-reducing alternative to smoking that they overlooked a fundamental methodological flaw. So did the peer reviewers and journal editors.

This sort of tendentiously sloppy research compounds a problem that harm reduction advocates have been decrying for years: Although the evidence indicates that vaping is far less dangerous than smoking, most Americans think vaping is just as dangerous, if not more so. And while public health officials could help correct that misconception, which undermines the lifesaving potential of e-cigarettes, they frequently contribute to the confusion by obscuring the difference between these two modes of nicotine consumption.

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Abrupt closure of ketamine clinic chain blindsides veterans and others with severe depression and chronic pain

Military veterans across the country are scrambling after more than a dozen clinics that had been providing them with free ketamine treatments for severe depression, chronic pain or post-traumatic stress disorder suddenly closed.

Patients and employees of the Ketamine Wellness Centers, or KWC, said they were blindsided when the company, one of the nation’s largest operators of ketamine clinics, announced on its website on March 10 that it had shuttered all 13 of its locations in nine states.

“I cried for days,” said Travis Zubick, a U.S. Navy veteran, who was a patient at the company’s Minnesota location. “They packed up and left town, and that’s over.”

Zubick and about 50 other former service members had been relying on KWC’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for free ketamine treatments.

Now, many are rushing to find another facility that takes their VA insurance before the effects of their last treatment wear off.

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Toronto wants to expand drug decriminalization to cover all ages and substances

Toronto updated its 14-month-old decriminalization request to the federal government Friday, clarifying it wants a Health Canada exemption to cover young people as well as adults, and all drugs for personal use.

The city’s submission, an update to its initial January 2022 request, indicates Toronto wants the federal agency to go further than the exemption it recently granted to British Columbia under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

It makes clear the city wants its exemption to apply to all drugs for personal use and shield young people from criminalization, a departure from the B.C. exemption, which only applies to adults and lists a select number of substances. 

Medical Officer of Health Dr. Eileen de Villa says the submission sent to Health Canada, co-signed by the city’s police chief and city manager, is a “made-in-Toronto” model reflective of a months-long consultation process. 

“We’re talking about a matter of health and a matter of human rights, not one that really is meant to be addressed or is best addressed with a criminal justice approach,” she said in an interview. “That’s why we’re pursuing this route.” 

B.C.’s three-year exemption under the Act was granted in June and came into force Jan. 31. While that exemption caps possession at 2.5 grams, the Toronto submission does not outline a specific threshold for what constitutes personal use.

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Wyoming Passes Bill Banning Sale of Abortion Pill

On March 17, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) signed a bill into law that will make it illegal to prescribe, sell or use “any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.” The abortion pills, misoprostol and mifepristone, have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

While more than a dozen states have effectively banned abortion pills with their prohibitions on all forms of abortion and 15 states currently restrict access to abortion pills, Wyoming is now the first in the country to specifically ban abortion pills. People who violate the law, which goes into effect on July 1, will be charged with a misdemeanor and punished with up to six months of incarceration and a fine of $9,000.

“These abortion bans should alarm everybody in every corner of our country,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement in response to the abortion pill ban. “There’s no stone that anti-choice extremists will leave unturned as they seek to do everything they can to ensure that abortion is banned across the nation. This first-of-its-kind ban on medication abortion, as well as the total ban, are just the latest proof.”

Gov. Mark Gordon also allowed HB0152, dubbed the “Life is a Human Right Act,” to go into effect without his signature, immediately banning all abortions in the state with exceptions for rape, incest or dire risks to the pregnant patient’s life. People who violate this law will be charged with a felony, fined up to $20,000 dollars, and face a prison sentence of five years.

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Hospitals Are Still Reporting New Mothers for Neglect Based on Drug Tests Triggered by Poppy Seeds

Before Kate L. gave birth to a baby girl last September, a nurse at New Jersey’s Hackensack University Medical Center collected a urine sample from the soon-to-be mother. Kate thought nothing of it, because she was accustomed to having her urine tested for protein levels during her pregnancy. She had no idea that her urine would be tested for drugs, which resulted in a terrifying, monthslong investigation aimed at determining if she was a fit mother.

Kaitlin K. had a similar experience when she gave birth to a baby boy at Virtua Voorhees Hospital in Camden County, New Jersey, the following month. The immediate culprit in both cases seems to have been a poppy seed bagel that triggered a false positive for opiates. That, in turn, led to state investigations of alleged child neglect. But the real blame, according to complaints filed this month by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey, lies with the hospitals, which it says conducted nonconsensual, medically unnecessary, and woefully inadequate drug tests, then reported the erroneous results to the New Jersey Department of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP).

The ACLU, which is asking the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety’s  Division on Civil Rights to stop that practice and award compensatory damages, argues that a policy of “drug testing perinatal patients on the basis of sex and pregnancy” constitutes illegal discrimination under state law. Whatever the legal merits of that claim, the sneaky, arbitrary, high-handed, and cruel treatment described in the complaints shows what can happen when medical personnel forsake their ethical responsibilities in service of the war on drugs.

“No one should be subjected to unnecessary and nonconsensual drug tests,” says ACLU of New Jersey staff attorney Molly Linhorst. “Our clients are sending a clear message to hospitals that these testing and reporting policies are unacceptable. Discriminatory testing policies like these upend what should be a time of joy for families, and so often subject them to further trauma and unwarranted investigation by the state.”

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Afroman sued by law enforcement officers who raided his home

Seven members of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office who raided Joseph Foreman’s home last year are now suing him claiming, among other things, he invaded their privacy.

Four deputies, two sergeants and a detective are claiming Foreman (a.k.a. “Afroman”) took footage of their faces obtained during the raid and used it in music videos and social media posts without their consent, a misdemeanor violation under Ohio Revised Code.

They’re also suing on civil grounds, saying Foreman’s use of their faces (i.e. personas) in the videos and social media posts resulted in their “emotional distress, embarrassment, ridicule, loss of reputation and humiliation.”

The plaintiffs say they’re entitled to all of Foreman’s profits from his use of their personas. That includes, according to the complaint, proceeds from the songs, music videos and live event tickets as well as the promotion of Foreman’s “Afroman” brand, under which he sells beer, marijuana, t-shirts and other merchandise.

They’re also asking for an injunction to take down all videos and posts containing their personas.

Cincinnati attorney Robert Klingler filed the suit in Adams County Common Pleas Court on March 13 against Foreman, his recording firm and a Texas-based media distribution company. Not every law enforcement officer involved in the raid is named as a plaintiff.

Foreman on Wednesday posted to Instagram promising to countersue “for the undeniable damage this had on my clients, family, career and property.”

The sheriff’s office conducted the armed raid of Foreman’s Adams County home last August. [Bodycam video]

Sheriff’s deputies acted on a warrant claiming probable cause existed that drugs and drug paraphernalia would be found on Foreman’s property and that trafficking and kidnapping had taken place there.

“They come up here with AR-15, traumatize my kids, destroyed my property, kick in my door, rip up and destroy my camera system,” he said in August.

The suspicions turned out to be unfounded. The Adams County Prosecutor’s Office said the raid failed to turn up probative criminal evidence, according to attorney Anna Castellini. No charges were ever filed.

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The DOJ Says Forbidding Pot Users To Own Guns Is Like Telling People Not To Carry Guns When They’re Drunk

Every state prohibits driving while intoxicated, recognizing that alcohol use impairs the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle and increases the risk of potentially lethal accidents. Using a cellphone also impairs the ability to safely operate a motor vehicle and increases the risk of potentially lethal accidents. It therefore makes sense to prohibit cellphone users from owning cars.

That faulty syllogism bears more than a passing resemblance to the Biden administration’s defense of the federal law that makes it a felony for cannabis consumers to possess firearms. That law, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argues in an appeal brief filed last week, is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test established by the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. To make its case, the government cites laws passed in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that prohibited people from carrying or firing guns while intoxicated, which it implausibly argues are analogous to the gun ban for marijuana users that Congress imposed in 1968.

The DOJ is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to uphold a 2022 decision in which Allen Winsor, a federal judge in Florida, dismissed a Second Amendment challenge to that gun ban by state-authorized medical marijuana patients. In the 10th Circuit, meanwhile, the Biden administration is appealing a contrary 2023 ruling by Patrick Wyrick, a federal judge in Oklahoma who concluded that the law, 18 USC 922(g)(3), is unconstitutional.

The government’s 11th Circuit brief wisely eschews the DOJ’s earlier reliance on what Wyrick called “ignominious historical restrictions” that disarmed slaves, Catholics, loyalists, and Native Americans. Those precedents, the government had argued, showed that legislators have the authority to withhold gun rights from any group they deem “untrustworthy.” But the DOJ is still arguing that “the people” protected by the Second Amendment are limited to “law-abiding, responsible citizens,” a category that it says does not include cannabis consumers or anyone else who breaks the law, no matter how trivial the offense.

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D.A.R.E. Cop Gets Decades in Prison for Busting Young Boys for Weed, Raping Them Afterward

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program could be referred to as an exercise in how not to convince kids to keep away from substances the state deems illegal. As cops hopped on their high horses and had children pledge not to do drugs, the rate of drug use skyrocketed — thrusting the country into one of the worst drug epidemics in human history. The hypocrisy of the cops who pushed the D.A.R.E. program has been well-documented over the years, explaining, at least in part, why the program was such a failure from the start. Now, another cop who pushed kids to “just say no” has given D.A.R.E. a bad name for a totally different reason.

Warminster Township Police Officer James Carey swore an oath to protect the children of Doylestown, and instead of protecting them, this cop preyed on them. Adding to the insidious nature of Carey’s crimes against children is the fact that he committed them while pretending to be a role model as the school district’s D.A.R.E. officer.

As we reported in 2021, Carey, 54, was charged with over 100 counts. A grand jury presented a whopping 80-page indictment against Carey detailing 122 counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and other related charges.

As we reported at the time, police believed there may have been other victims, and there were. After yet another victim came forward, Carey was hit with a slew of new charges and now he’s pleaded no contest.

A judge sentenced Carey to 24 1/2 to 55 years in state prison before sending him off with a scathing rebuke.

“Your badge and uniform became weapons of your depravity,” Judge Wallace Bateman Jr. told the former Warminster Township officer. “You preyed upon the most vulnerable of the community.”

Carey was accused of raping multiple boys while working as the D.A.R.E. officer at elementary, middle and high schools in the Centennial School District. The incidents allegedly spanned the course of decades taking place between 1987 and 2009 and involved at least five boys, maybe more.

“Carey ingratiated himself into the lives of minor children, in particular, those who were already facing challenges in their lives,” the Bucks County District Attorney said in a statement, according to NJ.com. “He used his position and authority to groom, not only the children, but their adult caregivers. The grooming tactics he used were pervasive, manipulative and calculated such that he not only lowered the minor’s guard but also attempted to provide an assurance that his crimes would go unreported and if reported, not believed.”

Carey met his victims at school and would lure them to places outside of campus to prey on them, including on overnight camping trips to the Poconos and to Camp Ockanickon, a Boy Scout facility in Medford, Burlington County, according to the district attorney.

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