The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/drugs/)
Addiction treatment clinics are expanding hours, hiring staff to take people’s temperatures, providing home delivery and curbside pickup for medication, and revamping procedures to limit human contact.
The cross-border passageway used by smugglers to enter San Diego from Mexico was so sophisticated that it had ventilation, lighting and an underground rail system.
While efforts to expand legalization of recreational pot have stalled as state governments focus on the pressing health needs of the COVID-19 crisis, some analysts argue that the industry’s booming sales can help motor a national recovery after the danger ends.
“Meth, that’s our drug now,” said Dennis Lowe, commander of an Ohio law enforcement task force. In several states, there have been more overdoses from than from opioids.
“The last thing that the health-care system needs right now are thousands of people in withdrawal or filling up the emergency rooms or going back on the streets and overdosing,” says one treatment provider.
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro was charged in the U.S. on Thursday with federal drug trafficking crimes after an investigation by federal authorities in Washington, New York and Florida. Charges were also filed against Venezuela’s chief justice, defense minister, intelligence officials and the members of FARC, the largest rebel group in Colombia.
More than a dozen states have agreed that while “nonessential” stores had to close, pot shops and medical marijuana dispensaries could remain open. In most cases, the marijuana businesses must, like restaurants, limit themselves to taking orders for delivery or curbside pickup.
Los Angeles County and several other California jurisdictions have labeled marijuana dispensaries “essential” businesses so they can escape the statewide lockdown. The city of Los Angeles said its order was based upon “scientific evidence.”
Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who lost to Gov. Ron DeSantis by less than a half percentage point in the 2018 gubernatorial race, said he would withdraw from public life after he was found inebriated in a Miami Beach hotel room with a man suspected of overdosing on crystal meth.
Struggling to stay solvent after its prosecution for opioid distribution, Rochester Drug Cooperative filed for bankruptcy protection. The company is one of the nation’s largest distributors of pharmaceutical supplies.