Free Republic

One of the first Shelbyville confiscations of the African drug khat occurred early Sunday morning. "Approximately 11.26 grams of a green leafy substance believed to be khat" were found in a coat pocket of Mustaf Shire Abdi, 21, Anthony Lane, Officer Tracey Nelson said. Abdi tried to pull away as Officer Benjamin Burris was checking the pocket and was immediately handcuffed, Nelson said. "Khat use is most prevalent among immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia and Yemen," a May 2003 National Drug Intelligence Center bulletin said. "These individuals use the drug in casual settings or as part of religious ceremonies. "The use...

Paper on America's love affair with the SWAT team and "dynamic entry" raids. See scary accompanying map of botched no-knocks and other SWAT-style raids.

Limbaugh will not be charged over Viagra By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer 13 minutes ago Rush Limbaugh will not face criminal charges after authorities found he had a bottle of Viagra that was apparently prescribed to someone else, prosecutors said Wednesday. Limbaugh, 55, was detained for more than three hours at Palm Beach International Airport on June 26 after he returned on his private plane from a vacation in the Dominican Republic. Customs officials found Viagra in his bag, but his name wasn't on the prescription, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. Limbaugh's lawyer, Roy Black, has...

Hitmen strafe two women with machine guns, severed heads are dumped in garbage bags near the U.S. border and outside public offices in Acapulco, a police chief is gunned town in a Caribbean tourist resort. The grisly murders, all in the past week, are among the latest in an increasingly savage and spectacular wave of drug gang violence sweeping across Mexico as the country heads to the polls in a presidential vote on Sunday. The dead are victims of an all-out war between rival gangs for control of the multibillion-dollar cocaine, marijuana and amphetamine trade to the United States which...

Friends Say Buckalew Told Them He Did It Out Of Boredom POSTED: 12:52 pm EDT June 29, 2006 ST. JOHNSBURY, Vt. -- A Vermont teenager has been sentenced to prison for breaking into a tomb and cutting the head off a corpse. Nickolas Buckalew, 18, of Morrisville, Vt., pleaded guilty two charges. One was a felony count of intentionally removing or injuring a tombstone. The other was a felony charge of intentionally disinterring and carrying away the remains of a human body. Buckalew was sentenced to between one and seven years in prison and was given credit for serving 14...

Freudenschade, baby! They NEVER learn. Once again we had premature DUmmie celebrations over an event that fails to happen as you can see in this THREAD titled, "Limbaugh Detained At Airport (illegal prescription drugs...and viagra!)." In this case, the non-event that the DUmmies were celebrating was the "drug bust" of Rush Limbaugh yesterday at Palm Beach International Airport. I put "drug bust" in quotes because there was NO drug bust. What happened was that officials found Viagra in Rush's luggage, questioned him about it, and then released him. NO bust. The Viagra was prescribed by his doctor under his...

Pursuant to an agreement Rush has reached with state prosecutors in Palm Beach, Florida, they are finally abandoning their two-and-a-half year quest to criminalize a human tragedy—addiction to medication prescribed because of severe pain. Unlike most of us, who get to keep our private struggles private, Rush’s celebrity ensured that his would be played out publicly. With characteristic candor and humility, he admitted he had a problem. And he did it in a way that is rare today, although one that came as no surprise to those of us privileged to know Rush. He took real responsibility. He didn’t pretend...

An assassination attempt against a high-ranking Baja California official in Mexicali on Tuesday did little to alter perceptions about the border city as a safe place to travel through, many interviewed Wednesday said. In Calexico, a steady stream of U.S. citizens made their way across the border in vehicles and on foot. Imperial County officials and other Southern California county and city leaders met in Mexicali as scheduled for an economic summit. There were few signs that a broad-daylight, well-orchestrated ambush against the Baja California secretary of public safety had created any fear at all among border crossers. “I don’t...

In the ongoing battle over the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes, the Food and Drug Administration has now shown that ideology can bend almost anything to its will. Last week, the FDA claimed that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of the drug - flatly contradicting a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine. That seems strange, given that the Institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory agency. Could one group of scientists be so far off as to come up with a completely incorrect reading of the medicinal...

Looking for decongestants to relieve sinus and allergy symptoms soon could become a real headache. The same legislation that gives law-enforcement officials broad powers to identify terrorists now enables the government to track the sale of certain over-the-counter medications that can be abused or used by drug rings to manufacture methamphetamines.

Silvia Johnson, who became known as the "Cool mom" for partying with her children and their teenage friends, pleaded guilty this morning to a charge of violating bond conditions. Johnson, 41, is serving a 30-year sentence for plying high school boys with liquor, drugs and sex. She was charged with violating bond conditions and a protective order that barred her from contact with some of her children, while she was free awaiting sentencing. Johnson was arrested on the new charges after a Sept. 25 car crash in which a 14-year-old girl was driving. Johnson and a carload of teens, including...

A circuit judge in St. Louis has sentenced a woman who turned in voter registration cards in the name of dead local politicians to probation, community service and relaxation training using transcendental meditation. Michelle Robinson, 36, pleaded guilty Friday on charges of 13 violations of election law and of possession of crack cocaine and a crack pipe. Robinson worked for a campaign called Operation Big Vote that aimed to boost the participation of black voters in the 2001 St. Louis mayoral election. But some of the cards she turned in on Feb. 7, 2001, were made out in the names...

The stop-snitching movement has spread across the United States, worrying police and prosecutors who often use informants to win convictions, a report said. The movement got its start two years ago in Baltimore in an underground DVD featuring armed drug dealers. Since then, the movement and T-shirts that say "Stop Snitching" have gone nationwide -- being worn by a diverse group ranging from rap artists to college professors, USA Today reported. The code of silence, David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the newspaper, "is breaking out in a way we've never seen before."

SAN DIEGO - A Chula Vista man suspected of leading a methamphetamine trafficking ring that used juveniles to sell or smuggle the drug was in federal custody Monday after being charged in a two-count indictment, authorities said. Jorge Arreola-Gomez was among 19 people named in the indictment unsealed Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office alleging that the defendants used numerous couriers, many of them teenagers, to smuggle methamphetamine across the U.S.-Mexico border. An investigation led to the seizure of more than 140 pounds of methamphetamine, more than $25,000 in cash, a firearm and 20 pounds of pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant...

Spam king and online drugstore operator Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, 26, who is awaiting trial at the Sherburne County Jail, Elk River, Minn., used his phone privileges to arrange a hit on a witness and the witness's family. According to the indictment, Smith called an acquaintance from jail March 4 and allegedly stated he intended to threaten and intimidate a witness he expected would testify against him in his upcoming trial on drug and other charges. The indictment alleges Smith also said he intended to have the witness or the witness's family killed....

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will begin extraditing drug lords wanted in the United States within weeks and expects a violent backlash from the powerful cartels, President Vicente Fox said on Wednesday. Fox told Reuters the legal process of handing over traffickers on the U.S. government's list had already begun. "I am confident and convinced that very soon, and I am talking about weeks, we will start the first extraditions of these leaders," Fox said. "I am sure that will provoke additional violence. ... They will try to retaliate," he said. "It could be judges, it could be government officials,...

McAllen Texas - Travelers crossing into the United States from Mexico on Tuesday endured at least an hour-long wait after Mexican soldiers searched cars at the 11 international bridges between Brownsville and Laredo. The Mexican official in charge of his country’s federal bridges and roadways said the new program came out of discussions last year at the Conference of the Americas in Monterrey. Mexican President Vicente Fox informed President Bush Mexico’s soldiers would be at the bridges during a phone conversation Monday, said Alberto Gonzalez Karam, director of Mexico’s Caminos y Puentes Federales. Mexico’s soldiers will be posted at the...

Kate Moss is likely to escape punishment for her drug taking sessions after finally facing police yesterday. The model was questioned four months after she was pictured snorting 'line after line' of cocaine at a recording studio last autumn. But according to police sources, she is unlikely even to be cautioned, leaving her without a criminal record and free to work wherever she wishes. This is despite admitting 'full responsibility' for her actions in a statement about the affair last year. Yesterday, Miss Moss, 32, ended her extraordinary 142- day exile from Britain to face a series of questions from...

"U.S. agents had been investigating the possibility of an elaborate drug-smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego for more than a year, but couldn't find it despite using military equipment so advanced it's classified" ~snip "“This tunnel beats them all,” said Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of the San Diego office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, " ~snip "“People are always going to find a way around us,” he said."

SACRAMENTO -- California regulators became the first in the nation today to designate second-hand tobacco smoke as a "toxic air contaminant,'' placing it in the same category as the poisons arsenic and benzene. The state Air Resources Board decided to target environmental tobacco smoke after evaluating studies that linked other people's smoke to increased cases of breast cancer, heart disease, asthma and low birth-weight babies. The designation will trigger investigations around the state. Air board staffers are expected to visit clusters of smokers outside buildings and other spots where smokers congregate. They want to figure out ways to reduce the...