20,000 Wrongful Drug Convictions Overturned

This one makes you think. It seems awfully easy in our Justice System to convict somebody – but the system can drag its feet for years when proved wrong. Maybe they need to throw some of these prosecutors in jail.

Prosecutors Move To Dismiss Largest Number Of Wrongful Convictions In U.S. History

Some 20,000 convicted drug offenders’ cases are being thrown out thanks to a rogue chemist.

Convicted Felon Annie Dookhan got less time than many of those she put in jail, after wrecking 20,000 lives. So much for justice.

Thousands of people at the center of one of the largest drug lab scandals in U.S. history can breathe a collective sigh of relief thanks to former Massachusetts state chemist Annie Dookhan.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, prosecutors in seven districts on Tuesday moved to dismiss criminal cases in which Dookhan fabricated evidence.

“Today is a major victory for justice and fairness, and for thousands of people in the Commonwealth who were unfairly convicted of drug offenses,” said Matthew Segal, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts ACLU estimates roughly 20,000 cases have been tossed out, making it the single largest dismissal of wrongful convictions in U.S. history.

The dismissals came after nearly five years of legal wrangling between the prosecutors who fought to preserve the convictions and defense attorneys and civil rights groups who argued they should be tossed.

“Unfortunately, the victims of this crisis waited far too long for justice,” Segal said. “It shouldn’t have taken years of litigation by the ACLU, public defenders, and pro bono lawyers to address this stain on the Commonwealth’s justice system.”

Authorities in 2012 discovered Dookhan had been falsifying test results and tampering with evidence for nearly a decade. The discovery was made after she was fired from her job at a Boston lab operated by the state Department of Public Health.

Carl Williams, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said Dookhan was involved in roughly 24,000 questionable drug cases involving about 20,000 defendants. The cases were prosecuted in the Bristol, Cape & Islands, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Plymouth and Suffolk districts.

In January, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court gave the district attorneys’ offices until April 18 to notify them which of the cases involving Dookhan could be retried without drug lab evidence.

According to The Associated Press, the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office has acknowledged dismissing 1,500 of its 1,612 cases that were affected by January’s ruling. The Essex County District Attorney’s Office is reportedly dismissing all district court cases and all but 55 of 150 Superior Court cases, the AP reported.

An exact number of dismissals for the remaining five districts has not yet been released.

For her part in the scandal, Dookhan pleaded guilty to multiple charges in 2013, including 17 counts of obstruction of justice and eight counts of tampering with evidence. She was ultimately sentenced to three to five years in prison.

Dookhan was released on parole last year after serving less time than many of the people she helped victimize.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the cases were particularly damaging to “low-income and black and brown” communities.

“Although the so-called ‘Dookhan defendants’ completed their lengthy prison sentences, they continued to suffer the harsh collateral consequences of their tainted convictions, which limited employment prospects, diminished housing opportunities and threatened lawful immigration status,” said Boston trial lawyer Daniel Marx, of Fick & Marx LLP.

“Now, a majority of these wrongfully convicted individuals will have the opportunity to clear their records and move on with their lives.”

 

The Real Reason White Folks in the Red Zone are Losing Their Jobs to Immigrants…Drugs

The meme is thousands unemployed by factory closings. Jobs taken by profiteering companies moving work overseas.

But why is it the companies which stay are having such a hard time finding workers?

The heroin/meth epidemic in rural America is doing more damage than just the never-ending overdoses…It is stealing people’s ability to work. Factory work can be dangerous, with moving machinery and heavy items being trasnsported from place to place. The transportation industry also uses rigorous drug testing because of the danger to the public of an impaired, bus, train, or tractor-trailer driver to the safety of the public. While off-work Marijuana use seems not to be a problem, a remarkably high percentage of at-fault accidents involve operators/drivers who are impaired by drug use.

I have heard this before from a friend who works for the FBI, where they had thousands of jobs open, and not enough people who could pass the background investigation and drug tests to get the security clearances needed.

 

Suburban kids are most likely drug users

As more Americans fail drug tests, employers turn to refugees

Inside a factory near this lakeside city, a man holding a blowtorch is putting the finishing touches on a plastic rain barrel that will soon make its way to a home and garden section somewhere in America.

He is Talib Alzamel, a 45-year-old Syrian refugee who arrived here last summer with his wife and five children. He can’t speak much English, but neither can most of the 40 refugees who work at Sterling Technologies, a plastic molding company based near the shores of Lake Erie. They earn $8-14 an hour.

The refugees at Sterling come from all over the world, from Syria to Sudan, Chad to Bhutan. And they’ve all passed the company’s standard drug test.

“In our lives, we don’t have drugs,” said Alzamel, who was hired within three months after arriving in Pennsylvania. “We don’t even know what they look like or how to use them.”

But for an increasing number of American-born workers, passing drug tests is a big problem.

The percentage of American workers testing positive for illegal drugs has climbed steadily over the last three years to its highest level in a decade, according to Quest Diagnostics, which performed more than 10 million employment drug screenings last year. The increase has been fueled in part by rural America’s heroin epidemic and the legalization of recreational marijuana in states like Colorado.

With roughly half of US employers screening for drugs, failed tests have real consequences for the economy. More than 9% of employees tested positive for one or more drugs in oral fluid screenings in 2015, the most recent year for which data was available. And the problem is even worse at places like Sterling Technologies.

“Twenty percent of the people are failing,” said Cary Quigley, the company’s president. “We’re seeing positive tests anywhere from marijuana through amphetamines, right all the way through crystal meth and heroin.”

Which is why refugees like Alzamel, despite some language barriers, are quickly snapping up jobs.

“The big factories … they have a problem with the drugs, so like every time they fire someone, they replace him with the refugee, to be honest,” said Bassam Dabbah, who works at a US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants field office in Erie. “The only barrier is the language, but they are picking it up very quick.”

The status of refugees in the US has been under scrutiny since President Donald Trump’s executive orders limiting the number of immigrants to the country. On March 6, Trump signed a new order that bans immigration from six Muslim-majority nations and reinstates a temporary blanket ban on all refugees.

But because of the increase in positive drug tests, the refugees who have reached America in recent years are finding a more welcoming hiring climate, at least for menial manufacturing jobs.

Nearly 6,000 refugees have settled in the last five years in Louisville, Kentucky, helping companies hire workers for jobs that had gone unfilled. Methamphetamine use is so high in Louisville that the number of people testing positive for meth in workplace drug tests is 47% higher than the national average, according to Quest Diagnostics.

Inside the White Castle food processing plant, where they make 50,000 hamburgers per hour, “it’s become like the United Nations,” says Jamie Richardson, a company vice president.
Antigona Mehani, employment services manager at Kentucky Refugee Ministries, says she can usually find a refugee a job within three days.

Employers tell her, “send us as many as you can,” she said. “I hear this every single day.”

CNN’s reporting discovered a similar dynamic in many parts of the country, from Columbus, Ohio, to Albany, New York, to a company in Indiana that supplies parts for Ford cars.
While many employers insist that drug testing keeps the workplace safe and ensures a productive and stable work environment, there is no conclusive evidence that it’s necessary for all jobs or that it lowers risks or reduces drug use.

And workers flunking drug tests is not a new problem, said Calvina L. Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation.
But it’s a problem that is getting worse, she said. Fay said employers are especially concerned about the increasing failure rates in “safety sensitive” workplaces, where a lapse by a employee under the influence of drugs could cost lives. “They’re frustrated for a number of reasons. In some cases they are having trouble hiring drug-free workers,” Fay said. “They can’t drug-test people every day, so there will be people who slip through the cracks.”

In Colorado, where marijuana is legal, some businesses have told Fay, “they see employees smoking pot on their lunch break and then going back to work.”

One oil and trucking company in Colorado did random drug screening last year and flunked 80% of their employees, mostly for marijuana, Fay said. Colorado’s Supreme Court has ruled that companies may fire employees who smoke pot, even if legally.

“They had to replace everyone,” she said. “The employer was glad he found the problem because his employees do extremely dangerous work. He was shocked and disturbed.”…

 

Columbia Professor – Safer For Black Kids to Use Drugs Than Interact With Police

I think the Professor’s point here is that the common narrative utilized by Police of the “Drug crazed” perpetrator is just so much bullshit. In fact, many of the people the Police have violent interactions with suffer from Mental Illness, not crack overdose.

In the recent Keith Scott Murder by Cop, the Police tried to justify their actions with the victim smoking a blunt. Well…I went to college in the late sixties, and remember walking into more than one concert at an indoor pavilion where you could just about get a contact high from the thousands of folks lighting up. I certainly don’t recall white folks going crazy at the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Concert, or the more diverse crowd at a WAR concert whipping out their guns and shooting at each other. Indeed, about the only thing that happened in those days smoking a joint was to get paranoid, get the munchies, and giggle a lot.

Smoking a joint ain’t Armed Bank Robbery.

Police are trained in this country to take absolute control of a situation (except when dealing with white folks). Unfortunately the  folks who train these Cops don’t do much to train them to de-escalate a situation…Or where use of force is appropriate. If your Police force is slamming people to the ground and locking them up for Jaywalking, or any of the thousands of minor Civil Violations typically handled by a ticket…

You have a PROBLEM. And that is exactly the problem we have in this country between Police and minorities. For every one of these Murders by Cop, there are tens of thousands of interactions by minorities  with Police which go off the rails in substantive ways.

So the breakdown in trust between the Police and the community comes to this – fear of calling the Police to handle an issue. You as a citizen don’t know whether you are going to get that “Good Cop”, who is helpful, deescalates the situation, and handles things appropriate to the severity of the situation – or the “Bad Cop” who rushes in with guns drawn because you have a dispute with your neighbor over his dog coming into your yard.

Ivy League professor: ‘I would much rather my own children interact with drugs than with the police’

Carl L. Hart was surprised when a student in one of his classes at Columbia University wrote an essay for The Washington Post about the effect of having him speak frankly about his past and the importance of having non-white faculty members.

Hart took the opportunity to respond with his thoughts on race and higher education, in the midst of the national debate over police violence. 

For the past few years, like academic semesters, the killing of black people by the police has been on a regular schedule.

The explanation script, always controlled by the police, is familiar and tired. The deceased person’s reputation is dragged through the mud. He had a gun or she was under the influence of some drug; therefore, deadly force was necessary.

Video footage almost always contradicts this official account. But it doesn’t seem to matter because the police are rarely held accountable in such cases.

As a result, there is community outrage that sometimes reaches the level of unrest. Authorities call for calm and peace — rather than justice — and then we are forced to have the same national conversation about race and diversity that we have had for more than 50 years. The only thing that changes is the names of the pundits paraded before the public.

As a professor, a black professor, I often think about the impact that this has on my students, especially the black students. What messages does it send to them? I suspect, with horror, it sends the same ones that I received when in their seats some 30 years ago: “Your life is worthless compared with a white person’s. They are superior to you by the mere fact that they are white in a white-controlled world.”

Faced with this wretched reality, every Monday and Wednesday morning, I stand before my Columbia University students honored to have the opportunity to present information that challenges society’s views about black people as well as the perceptions held about drugs, their effects and their role in crime.

I speak candidly about my past and who I am. In fact, “High Price,” my science memoir, is one of the required readings for the course. In it, I detail my imperfections and past drug use and sales. I also lay out a blueprint for how one can succeed as a scientist and academic in a world that despises one’s people.

I explain how for more than 25 years, I have studied the interactions between the brain, drugs and behavior, trying to understand how drugs influence the function of brain cells, how this and other social factors influence human behavior, and how the reverberations of morality regarding drug use are expressed in social policy.

And, as a part of my research, I have given thousands of doses of drugs, including crack cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine, to people. By the way, I have never seen a research participant become violent or aggressive while under the influence of any drug (at doses typically used recreationally), as police narratives frequently claim.

My research has taught me many important lessons, but perhaps none more important than this — drug effects, like semesters, are predictable; police interactions with black people are not. In encounters with police, too often the black person ends up dead. That is why I would much rather my own children interact with drugs than with the police.

I am certain that my white colleagues, when faced with an emergency situation, wouldn’t think twice about calling the police. This, however, may not be the case for their black and Latino students. These students may be faced with the dilemma of not calling for police assistance even when they are in need of help for fear that the police will make the situation worse, and may even kill them or their loved one.

We need our universities to comprise historically excluded faculty to represent these and other perspectives. For this reason, I served on Columbia’s Task Force on Diversity in Science and Engineering, working to increase the number of diverse faculty in the sciences.

Initially, I was excited to participate because I thought the goal was to increase the number of faculty from those groups historically excluded from the academy as a result of discrimination.

It turns out that the term “diversity” can be anything from black faculty to military veterans. Well, I am both, but have yet to be subjected to discrimination because I’m a veteran.

I now cringe whenever subjected to meetings or speeches about the importance of having a diverse campus community. I’m even more appalled when I hear some vacuous university administrator touting their school’s diversity accomplishments. Of the nearly 4,000 faculty members at Columbia, only about 4 percent are black. Yet, we have been honored for our diversity achievements.

When compared with similar institutions, our low number of black faculty looks impressive. But when you consider that black people make up 25 percent of the population of New York City, where Columbia is located, 4 percent seems meager. I recognize that New York City might not be the most appropriate comparison, but neither are other exclusive universities whose numbers of black faculty are abysmally low.

Teaching university students affords me the opportunity to demonstrate to young adults that they don’t have to be perfect to make contributions to their country.

This responsibility also requires me to impress upon my students that they must obtain the necessary critical-thinking skills to be informed and that they should be courageous, especially in the face of injustice.

If only more of our university and national leaders did the same, I might not have to look out into the sea of predominantly white faces and hold back tears as I think about the fact that Ramarley Graham and Michael Brown would have begun their junior and senior years, respectively, this semester.

 

“War” on Drugs in the Philippines Kills 1900 in 7 weeks

A different kind of “War” on Drugs in the Philippines…Their version of the Chumph has urged killing Drug dealers.

Philippines war on drugs: ‘1,900 killed’ amid crackdown

The head of the Philippines police has said more than 1,900 people have been killed during a crackdown on illegal drugs in the past seven weeks.

Ronald dela Rosa was speaking at a senate hearing into the sharp rise in deaths since Rodrigo Duterte became president.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, their country’s Chumph (Trump) urged people to shot and kill drug dealers.

He said police operations had killed about 750 people, but the other deaths were still being investigated.

Mr Duterte won the presidency with his hard-line policy to eradicate drugs.

He has previously urged citizens to shoot and kill drug dealers who resisted arrest, and reiterated that the killings of drug suspects were lawful if the police acted in self-defence.

He also threatened to “separate” from the UN after it called his war on drugs a crime under international law.

The US has said it is “deeply concerned” by the increase in drug-related killings.

The senate joint inquiry is being conducted by Senator Leila de Lima, who has called on authorities to explain the “unprecedented” rise in deaths.

It is also hearing from the relatives of some of those killed.

Mr dela Rosa told the inquiry on Tuesday that a total of 1,916 deaths had been recorded during the crackdown, 756 of which were during police operations.

He said the number had gone up even since he gave evidence on Monday, where he gave a figure of 1,800 deaths.

“Not all deaths under investigations are drug-related,” he told news agency Reuters, saying about 40 killings were due to robbery or personal disputes.

However, Mr dela Rosa said there was no declared policy to kill drug users and pushers, saying police were “not butchers”.

The police director-general also added that about 300 police officers were suspected to be involved in the drugs trade, warning that they would be charged and removed from their positions if found guilty.

Nearly 700,000 drug users and peddlers have turned themselves in since the launch of the campaign, Mr dela Rosa said.

He also said that there was a decrease in overall crime, though the number of homicides and murders had increased.

On Monday, Mr dela Rosa told the inquiry: “I admit many are dying but our campaign, now, we have the momentum.

 

Yet Another Tea Bagger Trumpazoid Busted

Another typical lowlife Teabagger criminal. Just like the Chumph – who is now looking down the barrel of a possible Felony Fraud charge for stiffing his various “charities”. Maybe he will get to share a cell with the Chumph…

Tea Partier who nearly destroyed Kentucky’s libraries busted for selling opiates

A Tea Party activist who frequently argues against anti-drug measures at government meetings has been arrested for illegally selling prescription drugs.

John “J.R.” Roth was arrested Thursday night in Highland Heights, Kentucky, and charged with felony trafficking in a controlled substance after police said he sold 10 oxycodone pills to an informant, reported the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The 60-year-old Roth, who is a Donald Trump supporter and promotes “birther” conspiracy theories, is a fixture at local government meetings in Campbell County, where he complains about government spending for almost anything.

He was one of three plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit in 2012 to repeal the property tax that funds the county’s libraries.

Roth and two other members of the Northern Kentucky Tea Party hired a lawyer the year before, when the county library was considering a plan for a new branch, to investigate whether the library board was violating a state law regarding its debt level.

The lawyer determined the library had not exceeded its debt limit — but he found another statute that appeared to prohibit the library board from raising taxes without voter approval.

Roth filed a lawsuit, along with Erik Hermes and Campbell County Commissioner Charlie “Coach” Coleman, seeking to repeal the property tax that funds libraries in Campbell County.

Similar lawsuits were filed in other counties throughout the state.

The tax repeal would have dramatically cut library funding and would have resulted in branch closures, reduced hours and services, and the loss of jobs.

Tax opponents argued that library patrons wouldn’t miss much because books and movies are readily available online sellers such as Amazon — although many patrons rely on libraries for free computer and Internet access.

The lawsuit ultimately failed, after the Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed two circuit decisions last year that had found library districts in Campbell and Kenton counties had improperly raised taxes for decades.

The appeals court ruled that libraries may raise taxes without voter approval as long as the amount does not bring in 4 percent more revenue than the previous year.

Roth, who has been previously cited for animal cruelty and accused of domestic violence, was released from jail on bond.

If convicted, the Tea Party activist faces up to five years in jail.

 

High School Suspends Student For “Smelling Like Drugs”

This one is pretty sick. A black teen was suspended from High School, because a teacher though her hand smelled of Marijuana. The School is supporting the suspension even though the girl tested clean on a Drug Test, and had no drugs in her possession!

High school suspends drug-free black teen for ‘drug possession’ — after sniffing her hand

A High school in Wake County, North Carolina has suspended a student for “drug possession”—even though she did not have any drugs on her and passed a drug test.

The reason given by Garner Magnet High School for suspending 15-year-old Jakaya Johnson was that a school resource officer smelled marijuana in the hallway and followed her into a classroom. An assistant principal then determined that her hand smelled like marijuana. How these two officials acquired their expertise in the scent is unclear. Johnson subsequently took a drug test which determined that she had no drugs whatsoever in her system

Johnson has been suspended and compelled to participate in a counseling program—to counsel her, presumably, for her lack of drug use.

While the school has stuck by its arbitrary decision, it has informed Johnson and her understandably furious mother that she can appeal the suspension through an incredibly complex process which places the burden of proof on her, even though she has already proved her innocence.

Like most other manifestations of bad drug policy, people of color are disproportionately affected by school suspensions and expulsions.

 

Pill Mill Doctor Goes Down for 30 Years

After the Vietnam War tens of thousands of injured soldiers came home, some with major long term injuries. An unusually high number became addicted to opioids. As a result, thinking on the prescribing of pain medication shifted towards very conservative provision of pain meds. In the early 2000’s medical research found that pain actually inhibited healing and recovery. Patients who were under-prescribed pain medication took substantially longer to recover than patients receiving larger doses. This led to new pain management strategies, and an admission by the medical profession that it really didn’t make any difference if a dying cancer patient became an addict.

This new rationality has helped.  BTx3 had major open heart surgery a few years ago. I can tell you from time spent in that recovery ward that it is amazing people get up from that. The morning after the operation they get you up and walk you around (complete with a couple of carts of tubes and IVs attached to your body trailing along). Of course you are so zorked out from the pain medication you can’t feel the pain. After four days of that, I refused to take the pain meds anymore. The effects of the meds bothered me worse than the pain from a 12″ hole in my chest and other assorted holes for tubes in my stomach, thigh, and legs. Yeah it hurt, but it wasn’t debilitating. Which makes me believe that some folks may be less susceptible to pain medication addiction than others, and such may just be genetic. Science knows that alcohol addiction is passed down by generation – perhaps the same is true for other types of addiction? They sent me home with a bottle full of Oxycontin. I never opened it and threw it away.

The following remarkably sympathetic article about a Dr in LA whose patients were overdosing and dying on pain meds misses one key point. Over-prescription may result ina Dr’s patients becoming addicted. It is a known risk in any aggressive pain management strategy. Prescribing large quantities of drugs to addicted users far beyond that needed to support their well being, and or people who are going to sell those drugs on the illegal market…Is a crime just like that of any street corner drug pusher.

The only differences being, the Drug Pusher doesn’t have a fancy degree from a top University, and nobody claims the Pusher isn’t in the business of crime. They are both i it for the money!

Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng, unidentified heroin dealer…One and the same.

Doctor gets 30 years to life for murders in L.A. case tied to patients’ overdoses

A Judge on Friday sentenced a Rowland Heights doctor to 30 years to life in prison for the murders of three of her patients who fatally overdosed, ending a landmark case that some medical experts say could reshape how doctors nationwide handle prescriptions.

The sentence came after a Los Angeles jury last year found Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng guilty of second-degree murder, the first time a doctor had been convicted of murder in the U.S. for overprescribing drugs.

Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli said before sentencing Tseng that she had attempted to blame patients, pharmacists and other doctors rather than take responsibility for her own actions.

“It seems to be an attempt to put the blame on someone else,” he said. “Very irresponsible.”

Tseng, wearing blue jail scrubs, apologized to the victims’ families, her family and “medical society.”

“I’m really terribly sorry,” she said, before addressing the courtroom audience, which was crowded with victims’ relatives. “I have been and forever will be praying for you. May God bless all of you and grant comfort to all who have been affected by my actions.”

The 46-year-old former general practitioner is among a small but growing number of doctors charged with murder for prescribing painkillers that killed patients. A Florida doctor was acquitted of first-degree murder in September.

Some experts fear that Tseng’s conviction will usher in a precarious new reality – a scenario in which doctors fearful of prosecution are hesitant to prescribe potent painkillers to patients who need them.

See the most-read stories this hour >>

Attorney Peter Osinoff, who represented Tseng before the state medical board, told the judge during Friday’s hearing that the doctor no longer represents a danger to society since she surrendered her medical license in 2012.

The trial had already had a “deterrent effect” on other doctors and has captured the medical community’s attention.

“More primary care physicians no longer accept or treat chronic pain patients in their practice,” he told the judge.

Outside the courtroom, Osinoff said Tseng’s prosecution has had a negative impact on physicians and patients.

“The doctors are scared out of their minds,” he said. “The pendulum has swung so far. The people who need [pain medication] can’t get it now.”

Other medical experts have echoed his concerns since Tseng was charged in 2012.

“When you use the word ‘murder,’” said Dr. Peter Staats, president of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, “of course it’s going to have a chilling effect.”

Staats said he believes an aggressive medical board – not prosecutors – should go after reckless doctors. But, he added, any doctor who is prescribing pills knowing that they are being abused or diverted shouldn’t be called a doctor.

“That’s not the practice of medicine,” Staats said.

Dr. Francis Riegler, a pain specialist who works in Palmdale, said he has followed Tseng’s case and talked about the prosecution with fellow doctors across the country.

“We agree,” he said, “that if you’re doing the right thing – if you’re one of the good guys, if you will – you don’t need to worry about being prosecuted for murder.”

During Tseng’s trial, Deputy Dist. Atty. John Niedermann told jurors that there were “red flags” in her prescribing habits.

More than a dozen times, the prosecutor said, a coroner’s or law enforcement official called with the same stark message: “Your patient has died.”

Her prescribing habits, Niedermann said, remained unchanged.

The prosecutor told jurors that Tseng wrote a man’s name on prescriptions so his wife could get twice as many pills, openly referred to her patients as “druggies” and sometimes made up medical records.

Her motivation, Niedermann said, was financial.

Between 2007, when Tseng joined the Rowland Heights clinic where her husband worked, and 2010, tax returns show that their office made $5 million, he said.

Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey said the conviction sent an unflinching message to medical professionals.

“In this case,” Lacey said, “the doctor stole the lives of three young people in her misguided effort to get rich quick.”

Tseng was convicted of murder for the deaths of Vu Nguyen, 28, of Lake Forest; Steven Ogle, 25, of Palm Desert; and Joey Rovero, 21, an Arizona State University student who prosecutors say traveled more than 300 miles with friends from Tempe, Ariz., to obtain prescriptions from Tseng at her Rowland Heights clinic.

The jury also found Tseng guilty on more than a dozen illegal-prescribing counts.

 

 

Stoned White Rabbits

Rabbits basically only do two things…munch on green leafy things close to the ground, and make more rabbits. Now, in portions of the western US, Marijuana grows wild. It is far from the engineered stuff that is sold as medical or recreational marijuana though … Hard to believe that the government has paid $18 million a year for DEA agents to wander the mountains and deserts of the western states to weed-whack native marijuana plants. Sad really, as the plant is part of the environment in that small segment of the world, and probably the over-hyped DEA agents are wrecking the local ecology. And there is scant evidence that anyone is wandering the hills to gather native plants for retail as the active ingredient is probably about 1/100th of commercially grown plants…

Meaning Bugs would have to smoke half the mountain…

The notorious Hippity-Hop Gang

DEA Agent: Rabbits Are Getting Stoned

This DEA agent’s surreal argument against medical marijuana may be the the strangest one yet.

“I come to represent the actual science”—it was a bold opener for testimony that was to include the clear and present danger of bunnies getting too high.

The man giving that testimony was Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Matt Fairbanks. He argued that legalizing medical pot in Utah could have a powerful effect on the state’s ecosystems. One of the threats: dazed and confused rabbits would abound.

“I deal in facts,” Fairbanks said during the surreal hearing last March. “I deal in science.” Suprised by his continued reference to “science,” FOIA expert MuckRock requested that the agency hand over any and all documents showing the effects of marijuana—and its legalization—on rabbits.

This week in a brief letter, the DEA’s answer arrived: There is none.

“After reviewing your request,” the FOIA letter reads, “no responsive records were located.” The absence of any documents doesn’t mean no studies on rabbits and weed exist (they do) just that none prove legalizing medical marijuana would cause bunnies to get high.

Fairbanks, when reached by The Daily Beast for comment, was surprised to learn about the FOIA. “That was merely an observation,” he says. The larger goal was to show that the bill was lacking any type of enforcement in terms of cultivation. The bunnies, he said, were an aside.

“Everyone latched on to that one bit,” he says. “Maybe they should listen to the rest.”

The rest—being cannabis’ ability to wreak havoc on ecosystems—is something that he says “no one has looked at.” Asked why he kept saying his arguments were based in facts and science if no one had looked at it, he pointed me to the DEA website where he said it was listed.

Side note or not, Fairbanks’s bunny claims are worth revisiting, if for no other reason than a look inside a modern argument against legal medical weed. His theory stems from his time “up on [the] mountains” in Utah protecting the environment as a member of the DEA’s Cannabis Eradication Team.

This DEA agent’s surreal argument against medical marijuana may be the the strangest one yet.

“I come to represent the actual science”—it was a bold opener for testimony that was to include the clear and present danger of bunnies getting too high.

The man giving that testimony was Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Matt Fairbanks. He argued that legalizing medical pot in Utah could have a powerful effect on the state’s ecosystems. One of the threats: dazed and confused rabbits would abound.

“I deal in facts,” Fairbanks said during the surreal hearing last March. “I deal in science.” Suprised by his continued reference to “science,” FOIA expert MuckRock requested that the agency hand over any and all documents showing the effects of marijuana—and its legalization—on rabbits.

This week in a brief letter, the DEA’s answer arrived: There is none.

“After reviewing your request,” the FOIA letter reads, “no responsive records were located.” The absence of any documents doesn’t mean no studies on rabbits and weed exist (they do) just that none prove legalizing medical marijuana would cause bunnies to get high.

Fairbanks, when reached by The Daily Beast for comment, was surprised to learn about the FOIA. “That was merely an observation,” he says. The larger goal was to show that the bill was lacking any type of enforcement in terms of cultivation. The bunnies, he said, were an aside.

“Everyone latched on to that one bit,” he says. “Maybe they should listen to the rest.”

The rest—being cannabis’ ability to wreak havoc on ecosystems—is something that he says “no one has looked at.” Asked why he kept saying his arguments were based in facts and science if no one had looked at it, he pointed me to the DEA website where he said it was listed.

Side note or not, Fairbanks’s bunny claims are worth revisiting, if for no other reason than a look inside a modern argument against legal medical weed. His theory stems from his time “up on [the] mountains” in Utah protecting the environment as a member of the DEA’s Cannabis Eradication Team.

The $18-million program relies on 120 different agencies to demolish marijuana grow sites nationwide—a mission which is hugely successful. In 2014 alone, the program led to the eradication of 4.3 million marijuana plants, just shy of the 4.4 million that were eliminated the year before.

While digging up marijuana plants, Fairbanks apparently noticed that rabbits had “cultivated a taste for marijuana”—which he suggested was to the detriment of their brains. “One of them refused to leave us and we took all the marijuana around him,” Fairbanks said. “His natural instincts to run were somehow gone.”

It’s unclear whether Fairbanks actually witnessed the bunny eating marijuana or whether its failure to run means it was high. According to Indiana Public Media, wild bunnies sometimes freeze when scared and can stay motionless for minutes at a time. In her bookRabbits, Janice Biniok says a rabbit that is startled will either “freeze” or scurry to safety.

If Fairbanks was grasping for straws in the fight against marijuana legalization, the agency behind him is too…

The DEA might want to be more concerned about the little guys…drinking Viagra in the water supply.

 

Man Found With 7,000-10,000 Guns in His House

An accused Drug Dealer and Fencer of stolen merchandise was arrested by police, and when they searched his house they literally found enough guns to fill a tractor trailer.

Most of the guns were stolen, likely as payment for drugs – and the majority were hunting rifles and shotguns. According to the first reports very few pistols were found. It is unknown whether he just sold off the handguns.

A second tractor trailer was required to haul away the ammunition.

 

Neighbor speaks, man arrested after 7,000+ stolen guns found near Pageland

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, SC (WBTV) –

Deputies estimate that they’ve seized between 7,000 and 10,000 stolen guns from a house and warehouse near Pageland. Brent Nicholson was arrested in connection to the stolen goods.

Chesterfield County Sheriff Jay Brooks says the seized guns, ammunition, and hundreds of other items were all found on a single property off of Highway 9 outside of Pageland city limits.

Brooks says the guns and ammunition filled multiple tractor trailers.

Nicholson was arrested and charged with trafficking opium and heroin, earlier in the week in Union County. Deputies reportedly went to serve him with a subpoena Friday and noticed what appeared to be stolen goods in his front yard.

The deputies say they wrote out the reports for the stolen property just days before.

The raid started Friday night, according to SLED. It’s reportedly part of an ongoing investigation involving multiple jurisdictions that could have ties to counties in North Carolina as well. Sheriffs from other jurisdictions were there as well as SLED and ATF.

“None of us have ever seen anything anywhere close to this,” Brooks said. “No telling how many break-ins this will held wrap up.”

Over 100 law enforcement officials were on the scene Friday and Saturday. Brooks says 20 agents will be sifting through the evidence “piece by piece” starting Monday. Their goal will be to eventually find the rightful owners. Deputies estimate that 99 percent of the seized goods were stolen.

Brooks says Nicholson lived at the home where the items were found. It is believed that other people stole the guns for him.

Rusty Fender says he has lived next to Nicholson his entire life and never suspected the hoarding of weapons.

“He’s always been a good cat, but you know, people do things,” said Fender.

Fender said the discovery of the weapons scared him and explained that the recent investigation has raised a lot of questions.

“What was you thinking? Why was you collecting that many firearms? What was you planning on doing with them? I mean was you planning on starting a riot?” questioned Fender.

When asked what Nicholson was doing with so many guns, Brooks said, “(he) looks like a gun hoarder to be honest with you.” Deputies have found no evidence that he ever sold any of the guns.

“You know he just had 7,000 guns,” Brooks said. “99.9 percent are hunting rifles and shot guns.”

Brooks called the items found a “menagerie” of stolen property which also includes 150 chainsaws, 4-wheelers, and taxidermy supplies.

Fender said he can’t remember a bigger event happening near Pageland during his years living in the area. He explained that ultimately he is happy the weapons have been seized.

“I don’t understand why he done the things he done, but I’m glad it’s off the streets.”

Nicholson and his father ran a liquor store in Pageland, but according to Brooks it’s been on his radar for a long time in connection to cases of stolen property.

Warrants were also drawn up for his fathers home, their liquor store, and a farm that Nicholson owned.

 

 

Machete Wielding Man Attacks Cars in Oakland

Not sure whether this guy is naturally crazy or had chemical help…

And the driver of the red car is obviously going after the guy.

 

NYC Activist Takes on Bill O’Reilly

This is a fun one. Bill the O’Bigot gets a lesson on stereotyping from New York Civil Rights Coalition president Michael Meyers. Michael Meyers called Bill O’Reilly and his network out to his face on Monday, accusing Fox News of engaging in a pattern of demonizing black men “You are painting black men as society’s moral monsters,” said Meyers…

Another Bill the Bigot lesson was given in December of last year by Russell Simmons on the show:

Simmons and Murray make a key point, thet the creation of the carceral state more than any other cause is the source of many maladies affecting poor black communities – Best summed up in Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics, by Marie Gottschalk and described in this review

 Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics – Pathology of the Carceral State

For 40 years now the United States has been creating a vast and unprecedented carceral machine. Its size and reach stagger the imagination: jails and prisons, immigration detention and deportation centers, parole and probation offices, digital, electronic, and human surveillance. Its human costs are enormous — federal and state prisons and jails hold over 2 million people in custody at any time; if you include those under parole, probation, or other forms of government surveillance for crime the number exceeds 8 million. Tens of millions of Americans have some form of criminal record. Their families are drawn in to the reach of the carceral state along with them. In global terms the United States stands alone. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Its penal practices are brutal compared to Europe. It deepens the racial divide in the country. It distorts the economy and polity. Above all it degrades lives and the country as a whole.

To understand this machine means holding a series of seemingly contradictory notions at once. Mass incarceration extends long-standing tendencies in American penal history while being a bold departure from previous practice; it has at its core a system of racial subordination, although race is now arguably less important than previously; it has marked an expansion in state power but is driven in important ways by the search for private profit; it is an instrument of law and order that operates in arbitrary and uncontrolled ways. Incarceration, originally justified as a defense of human dignity against the bodily brutality of ancien regime punishments, has now become the site of physical and psychological torture. And there is no end in sight to either mass incarceration or the wounds it imposes on human beings and American society…

The broad history of mass incarceration is well known. Prior to the 1980s the size and reach of imprisonment in the United States was not significantly different from its western European counterparts. For most of the 20th century the United States sent slightly more than 100 per 100,000 people to prison. (That number is now over 500 in prison and over 700 if you include jails.) The death penalty had been in long secular decline and the Supreme Court suspended it in 1972. Courts began to take steps to ensure minimal constitutional standards for prisons and protections for prisoners. Serious criminological and legal opinion believed that there was a real possibility that the prison would soon fade away.

Of course past is not always prologue. At precisely the moment when the country’s use of imprisonment appeared to face the possibility of serious reduction, states began a new expensive spree of prison construction. In 1976 the Supreme Court approved the restart of the death penalty. A bipartisan move toward determinate sentences (supported by liberals who thought it would curb the arbitrary authority of prison officials and by conservatives who aimed to curb the power of judges), combined with increasing lengths in mandated sentences, helped trigger vast expansion. Prison officials drew upon fears of riots and “revolutionary” inmates such as California’s George Jackson to justify intensified control over their prisons and increased use of solitary confinement. In the early 1980s the “war on drugs” took off and with it not only a rise in the size of the federal prison system but also the exacerbation of extreme racial inequities in sentences and prosecutions…

These developments, to be sure, did not emerge out of thin air. Instead they built upon initiatives begun earlier under the Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. In particular Johnson’s signing of 1968’s Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act dramatically increased federal engagement with local policing and punishment. One effect of the act was to encourage the growing militarization of police forces, primarily through the Law Enforcement and Assistance Administration. Johnson and his allies may have thought that by imposing new federal standards they would help protect minorities from local abuses (as well as preempt more radical conservative proposals) but as Naomi Murakawa has argued, this liberal emphasis on procedure and uniform standards helped legitimate the idea that new regulations could justify and control the expansion of the prison state. As the continual revelations of prison abuses show, this hope was a false one…(…More…)

 

More Baltimore Jail Indictments

This one is going to be a movie. What has been going on in the Baltimore Detention Center – and perhaps other Jails in the State of Maryland is unbelievable. The inmates truly were running the prison…

 

Really Bad week for Congressmen in DC

First we have the Tea Party Republican from Florida buying cocaine…

Federal law enforcement officials released new details this morning of U.S. Rep. Trey Radel’s arrest on charges of buying cocaine in Washington, D.C. earlier this fall.

In a press release put out just moments ago, agents indicate that the FBI and DEA had been watching Radel because they had learned he “would purchase cocaine for his personal use and sometimes share it with others.”

Radel, R-Fort Myers, entered a guilty plea this morning in court.

U.S. Rep. Trey Radel was sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor cocaine possession — a charge that authorities say came after he bought a small amount of cocaine in a sting in the nation’s capital last month.

Radel, a 37-year-old first-term Republican from Florida, said at his sentencing in D.C. Superior Court that he plans to enter an inpatient drug treatment program in Naples, Florida. It wasn’t immediately clear how long he would be in treatment.

The plea and sentence were part of a deal that Radel’s attorney struck with federal prosecutors. He could have received a maximum sentence of 180 days imprisonment or a $1,000 fine, or both. Instead, he was placed on one year probation, and if it is “successfully completed,” his guilty plea will be cleared from his record.

Then the brutal case of Congresswoman Grace Meng who was mugged last night on the way home –

Rep. Grace Meng attacked, robbed

Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), a freshman lawmaker from the New York City area, was attacked and robbed Tuesday evening in the Eastern Market area.

Meng said she had just said goodnight to a friend she had dinner with in the neighborhood about 8:30 p.m. when she was attacked from behind.

Responding police officers found Meng disoriented at 2nd St. and Independence Avenue SE with bruising and swelling to the back of the left side of her head, and injuries to her left knee, hand and face. Meng was not able to remember where she was robbed or describe her assailant or assailants, according to a D.C. police report.

All Meng could tell police was that she had dinner on 8th Street SE and her black Gucci tote bag was stolen during the attack. Medics evaluated her at the scene then took Meng to George Washington University hospital. The report described her injuries as abrasion, swelling, bruises and unconsciousness.

No arrests have been made in the case, but an “active, open investigation” is underway, according to U.S. Capitol Police spokeswoman Lt. Kimberly Schneider.

By Wednesday, she was back on Capitol Hill for a series of procedural votes in the afternoon. She missed the first two votes of the day in the 1 p.m. hour, but arrived in time to cast votes all afternoon. As she left the House Chamber Wednesday evening, she told reporters she was “just taking it a little slower today.”

“I’m from New York City and I have not been mugged like that. But the Capitol Police were great, the D.C. Police Department was very helpful,” she said.

 

 

 

Chaka Khan, Chaka Kan, Chaka!

Take a list among black men of age in the early 70’s of the 10 sexiest female R&B vocalists – and you can bet Chaka Khan is at or near the top of the list.

The little woman with the big voice rocked stages around the world, before drugs and alcohol took a toll on her body, looks, and voice.

Chaka is back (looking damn good!) and last night at the newly reopened Howard Theater in DC, she brought down the house!

This is Chaka from the 70’s, with Rufus – doing one of her signature tunes –

This is the “new” and improved version from last night –

A svelte and sexy Chaka brings down the house

Chaka Khan takes crowd at Howard Theatre ‘Through the Fire’

In the middle of her hit “Through the Fire,” R&B powerhouse Chaka Khan stopped to give a personal testimony Saturday night at the Howard Theatre.

“I used to be a bad, bad, bad girl,” the 10-time Grammy winner told the sold-out show. “I used to party back in the day. I’d get off the road, and say to myself, ‘I need a break today.’ And I would leave my two kids with my mother and go AWOL.”

As she partied, Khan said, she carried her cellphone but would not answer it.

“Why wouldn’t you pick up the phone?” someone in the audience yelled at the diva on stage.

“Because,” Khan said, “when you are out there doing that stuff you don’t pick up the phone.”

But one night, “I was so high, I picked up.”

 

A Cure for the Common Conservative?

Looks like the cure for conservatism will actually beat a cure for cancer… Yup – “There’s a pill for that!”

Blood pressure drug ‘reduces in-built racism’

A common heart disease drug may have the unusual side-effect of combating racism, a new study suggests.

The beta-blocker drug can reduce ‘subconscious’ racism, the Oxford University study found.

Researchers found that people who took propranolol scored significantly lower on a standard test used to detect subconscious racial attitudes, than those who took a placebo.

Propranolol is most often used to reduce high blood pressure by lowering the heart rate, as well as angina and irregular heartbeat. It is also used to manage the physical symptoms of anxiety, and control migraine.

It is thought to work by blocking activation of the peripheral ‘autonomic’ nervous system, and in areas of the brain involved with formulating emotional responses, including fear, called the amygdalae.

The researchers believe propranolol reduces racial bias because such subconscious thoughts are triggered by that autonomic nervous system.

Their small study took 36 white student volunteers, gave half a single 40mg dose of propranolol and half a placebo, and asked them all to undertake the Implicit Association Test – designed to test “subtle and spontaneous biased behaviour” – two hours later.

The test requires participants to visually sort particular words like ‘joy’ ,’evil’, ‘happy’ and ‘glorious’, as well as black and white faces, into the correct categories.

Sylvia Terbeck, lead author of the study, published in the journalPsychopharmacology, said: “Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias.

“Implicit racial bias can occur even in people with a sincere belief in equality.

“Given the key role that such implicit attitudes appear to play in discrimination against other ethnic groups, and the widespread use of propranolol for medical purposes, our findings are also of considerable ethical interest.”

Professor Julian Savulescu, of the university’s Faculty of Philosophy, and a co-author of the study, said: “Such research raises the tantalising possibility that our unconscious racial attitudes could be modulated using drugs, a possibility that requires careful ethical analysis.