Showing posts with label meth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meth. Show all posts

Police Humor: Cops Scam Woman Into Her Bringing Meth In For Ebola Contamination Test, Then Toss Her Ass In Jail

by David Kravets.    Some hooks don't require bait. A Central Texas police department issued a "breaking news alert" on Facebook, cautioning residents that meth and heroin in the Granite Shoals area "could be contaminated with the life-threatening disease Ebola." Last week's fake Facebook alert urged the public "NOT" to ingest those illicit drugs  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 5 Popular Drugs Scares Vs. Reality -- The Disconnect Between Drug Use And Public Alarm About It

Dangerous drug use is on the decline.       Last year I noted the disconnect between rising public alarm about methamphetamine and falling rates of use. By 2005, when Newsweek identified "The Meth Epidemic" as "America's New Drug Crisis" in a sensational cover story, illicit methamphetamine use had been declining for years. A new     ... MORE

Unintended (But Predictable) Consequences Of Drug War

by Radley Balko.     Another drug war success: Meth is cheaper, more potent than ever, and it’s all coming in through international drug cartels. But hey, at least we’ve made life difficult for allergy sufferers and arrested the occasional innocent parent or grandparent along the way. Meanwhile in Britain, an MDMA crackdown has given rise   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: New Survey Data Deflate Two Drug Scares

The drug war is dependent on deception.   Survey data released this month by the federal government cast doubt on a couple of widely accepted beliefs about drug use trends: 1) that the nation is in the midst of an escalating "heroin epidemic" and 2) that loosening marijuana prohibition encourages teenagers to smoke pot. In the National  ... MORE

Zach Weissmueller: Another Drug Bust Gone Bad

Cops can’t get their story straight in killing.       On a sweltering summer morning in the California desert, deputies looking for methamphetamines and bearing automatic weapons barged into the home of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired engineer living a quiet life in the small community of Littlerock. Moments later, Mallory    ... MORE

Tim Cushing: The Perils Of Being A Snitch

No good bootlicking goes unpunished.     "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear," right? Here's how that works in reality: On Jan. 5, 2012, Paul Valin called the police to report he'd found a backpack containing what he believed to be meth-making equipment. That simple act of good citizenship landed his and wife Cindy's ...  MORE

Stanton Peele: Why We Have Drug Scares

Are there greater social problems we can't face?     How many drug scares can you identify? Jacob Sullum identified these from 2013: marijuana, Salvia divinorum, cocaine,"bath salts," absinthe, Four Loko.  Well, let’s go back a ways.  Of course there was crack.  There were horse tranquilizers.  There was OxyContin.  Before Oxy there were      ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Crack Canards And Meth Myths

Neuroscientist nukes popular misconceptions.           Growing familiarity with marijuana has been accompanied by growing support for legalization because people discovered through personal experience that the government was lying to them about the drug’s hazards. But it is easier to demonize less popular drugs such as crack cocaine and  ... MORE

Daniel Raphael: End The War On Drugs

Just say no to liberty-trampling failure.      Many in Washington are against drug legalization, even though there is overwhelming evidence that prohibition does not work, and will never work. The Global Commission on Drug Policy reported that between 1998 and 2008, global use of opiates increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent,       ... MORE

Drug War Update: Cops Kill Man In Mistaken Meth Lab Raid

Widow sues LA County for $50 million.     The wife of an 80-year-old man who was shot dead by deputies in a mistaken meth lab bust is suing the county for $50million, it emerged today. Eugene Mallory was shot six times in a June 27 raid by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department who arrived at the property with a search warrant    ... MORE

4 Ways You've Been Totally Misinformed About Drugs

by Ted Hesson. Whether it's the legendary "this is your brain sunny-side up" commercial or the haggard face of one of Jesse Pinkman's meth-slinging homies, we've all seen what drugs can do to us. Apparently, TV occasionally doesn't tell the truth, according to Carl Hart, a neuroscientist at Columbia University. As a matter of fact, a lot of the things   ... MORE