Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Feds Storm Skid Row with a 100-Vehicle Convoy to Take Down Drug Network Operating in Tents and Storefronts

Federal agents and Los Angeles police raided Skid Row before dawn Thursday, serving dozens of warrants in a takedown of dealers supplying fentanyl, meth, cocaine, and PCP to the blocks of homeless encampments that plague downtown Los Angeles.

Authorities called the raid Operation Skid Row, and targeted more than two dozen suspected street dealers and suppliers after a three-month investigation.

The FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the LAPD used phone taps, undercover officers, and drones to build the cases.

By morning, agents had arrested 28 people.

A convoy of roughly 100 law enforcement vehicles cordoned off blocks and parks around Fifth and Crocker streets, trapping dealers who had been working the sidewalks.

Investigators said the dealers were not standing on corners in the open. Some sold from a Mercedes. Some posed as homeless men living in tents that were in fact drug dens. Others used storefronts or posed as social workers and homeless-services providers.

Drugs were also stashed in single-room-occupancy units and low-income housing.

Agents seized narcotics, guns, and luxury cars.

Officials said homeless people were not the target. The warrants were for dealers, and multiple gang members are among those facing charges.

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Federal Judge Rules Warrantless Flock Search Unconstitutional After Deputy Pulls Month of Driver’s Travel History — Calls System ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’

A federal judge in Oklahoma just threw out a drug case after ruling that police violated the Fourth Amendment when they used Flock Safety’s automated license-plate cameras to pull a driver’s travel history for roughly a month, without a warrant, and without probable cause.

U.S. District Judge Sara E. Hill of the Northern District of Oklahoma ruled that Tulsa County sheriff’s deputy Freddie Alaniz conducted an “Unconstitutional Warrantless Search” when he queried Flock and other automated license plate reader systems on a Mazda SUV simply because it had a California plate.

According to 404 Media, the search returned more than 50 records of the driver’s whereabouts across the country. Hill suppressed the Flock records and everything that came out of the later search of the vehicle.

The defendant is Melisa Kyle, 46, of Crane, Missouri, charged with possessing methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

According to Law Commentary, the case began in May when Alaniz, who also served as a DEA task force officer, was parked along Interstate 44, saw the California plate, pulled onto the highway, and started following the SUV.

He later stopped Kyle for changing lanes without a signal, then used the Flock history to question her about her travel and to justify searching the car.

Authorities said they found about 91 pounds of methamphetamine packed in luggage, marijuana, and roughly $7,000 in cash. Hill ruled the constitutional violation happened earlier, when the deputy reached into the historical location database.

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Leaked memo reveals federal prisons handing out drug-testing kits to inmates as ‘authorized health materials’

A leaked internal memo posted on X shows Correctional Service Canada (CSC) is rolling out a new “harm reduction” supply program in federal prisons that includes paper straws for snorting drugs, foil for smoking them, and rapid test strips to check for fentanyl, benzodiazepines and xylazine — all handed directly to inmates by Health Services staff.

The internal FAQ document, dated April 2026 and set to take effect Monday, September 21, lays out exactly what the Liberal government is now supplying behind bars:

  • Paper straws, described as “biodegradable” and intended for “inhaling substances in powdered form or inhaling vapour from heated substances”
  • Foil, specifically manufactured “for smoking substances” and reportedly thicker than the ordinary household kind
  • Drug-testing strips for fentanyl, benzodiazepines and xylazine, so inmates can check the potency of their illegal drugs before using them

According to the memo, inmates are allowed to keep up to three pieces of foil, two paper straws, and two of each type of drug-testing strip in their cells at any time and handwritten notes on the document suggest these limits aren’t even strictly enforced, with one annotation reading “not one in one out just garbage.”

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Toronto Judge Acquits Man Who Attacked and Choked 7-Year-Old Girl While Shouting About Allah, Naked, Because He Was in a ‘Cannabis Psychosis’

An Ontario judge has acquitted a Toronto man who threw a seven-year-old girl to the ground, punched her, and choked her in her family’s driveway after he argued the attack was involuntary because he was in a cannabis-induced psychosis.

The man, Ahmed Baig, did not dispute that he attacked her.

Justice Mara Greene found him not guilty of assault causing bodily harm and assault by choking because he was so high at the time.

The attack happened August 2, 2023, in North York.

Greene wrote that Baig left his house wearing only a towel after vaping cannabis at home for anxiety. The towel fell off as he chased the child in the driveway.

“On August 2, 2023, Mr. Baig exited his residence wearing only a towel. He ran into the street, and as he did so, his towel fell off. Now fully naked, Mr. Baig chased a family who lived across the street. He ran into the driveway and picked up a seven-year-old girl. He threw her to the ground, punched her and strangled her. He then abruptly left the driveway, and a short time later was arrested by police. At the time of arrest, he wore only a t-shirt.”

The attack was captured on video.

The girl’s mother told the court he said both “I will kill you” and “I won’t kill you,” according to a report from the Toronto Star.

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HHS Awards $42.3 Million To Push ‘Treatment First’ Model For Homelessness & Addiction

A federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $42.3 million in new supplemental cash Friday to states and territories with the goal of speeding up the implementation of the Treatment First model for homelessness tied to addiction.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) funding supports the initiative falling under President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” and the relevant Best Practices Toolkit that followed. That order from July 2025 directed agencies to put treatment and recovery ahead of the old approaches.

“President Trump has directed us to break the cycle of homelessness and addiction by putting treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency first,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “These investments will help states move people from crisis into treatment and from treatment into lasting recovery, stable housing, and work. We are funding results that help people reclaim their health and independence.”

About $17.3 million of the funds went to Community Mental Health Services Block Grant recipients. Officials say it builds systems, partnerships, workforce capacity, policies, and the technical pieces needed to make Treatment First a success. The funds will go toward technical assistance, training, policy work, and coordination across systems.

Roughly $25 million went to Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant recipients to expand options for safe, licensed, certified, or chartered sober and recovery housing, as well as the requisite technical assistance to ensure that more recovery residences open and quality standards tighten.

“Treatment First means building a system that does not leave people cycling between homelessness, emergency rooms, and the criminal justice system,” SAMHSA Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Christopher D. Carroll said. “These investments will help states strengthen the infrastructure – partnerships, data, workforce, and recovery supports – needed to connect people with serious mental illness and addiction to effective treatment and support them on a path toward lasting recovery, stable housing, employment, and self-sufficiency.”

In June, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) published a $4.04 billion Continuum of Care notice. It walked away from the Housing First model, which provided permanent housing with no strings attached. Chronic homelessness climbed 81 percent from 2013 to 2025, despite the number of taxpayer-funded beds increasing 151 percent, HUD figures show.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner called Housing First a failure that “warehoused the vulnerable without results.” Housing alone will not fix a crisis driven by addiction and mental illness, he said.

Kennedy earlier this year announced more than $700 million for related work, of which nearly $100 million went to the STREETS program for homeless people dealing with addiction or serious mental illness. In February, he introduced the $100 million STREETS effort itself, built around continuous contact from the street through recovery, jobs and self-sufficiency.

A federal appeals court this week allowed HUD to forge ahead with funding shifts after lower-court challenges. The department has earmarked $1.3 billion for transitional housing and supportive services.

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Homeless Advocate Charged With Recruiting Teens To Make and Sell Drugs

Lisa Kinkade, the Brattleboro homeless advocate who was praised last year for helping create a downtown drop-in center for homeless people, has been arrested following a drug raid in which police say a large amount of crack cocaine and cash was seized.

Kincade, 46, was one of three people arrested Sept. 4 when Brattleboro police assisted the Vermont Drug Task Force in executing a search warrant at an apartment at 69 Elliott Street at about 9:15 AM, according to a Brattleboro Police Dept. statement. She pleaded innocent Tuesday to trafficking, manufacturing and sale of crack cocaine and fentanyl, and conspiracy to sell drugs.

In her arraignment Tuesday, Judge John Treadwell set bail at $ 50,000 for Kinkade, saying she allegedly recruited “young people from Connecticut to come to Vermont to manufacture and distribute regulated drugs in this community,” according to a Brattleboro Reformer report.

The other two people arrested were 18-year-olds from Connecticut: Darrius Tatum of Darien, and Xavier Burgos of Meriden. 

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Zelensky Sanctions His Ex-Spokeswoman Yulia Mendel, Who Revealed to the World the ‘Open Secret’ of His Drug Abuse

Sanctioned and included in the Ukrainian ‘kill list’, Mendel is in the crosshairs of Kiev.

Yesterday (13), it arose that Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky sanctioned his former spokeswoman, Yulia Mendel.

Mendel has left Ukraine, and gone public with a torrent of detrimental information about her former boss, including the fact that Zelensky profits from the continuation of the war, and – what’s even worse – she dared talk about the ‘open secret’ of his drug abuse.

Reuters reported:

“Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions on a former press secretary on Sunday, accusing her and nine others of spreading Russian propaganda and of supporting Russia’s aggressive policy toward Ukraine.

Yulia Mendel — who worked with Zelenskiy from 2019 to 2021, before Russia’s invasion — responded with a message on Facebook saying it was unconstitutional to impose sanctions on Ukrainian citizens. She did not comment on the specific accusations.

[…] The sanctions — announced by Zelensky in a decree — would last for 10 years and included asset freezes and restrictions on trade, the document read.”

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