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Simplepowa
In Pursuit of Knowledge


Registered: 03/06/09
Posts: 4,310
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Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths
#18693092 - 08/11/13 08:58 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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TOMS RIVER, N.J. - With the number of heroin overdoses skyrocketing nationwide, a growing number of law enforcement agencies are dusting off strict, rarely used drug laws, changing investigatory techniques and relying on technology to prosecute drug dealers for causing overdose deaths.
The aggressive change in tactics comes as more people turn to heroin because of crackdowns on powerful prescription opiate painkillers that make them more expensive and inaccessible. The popular prescription drug OxyContin has also been reformulated to make it difficult to crush and snort, making it less desirable on the street, law enforcement officials said.
Nationwide, the number of people who said they have used heroin in the past year skyrocketed by 66 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of people who died of overdoses and had heroin present in their system jumped 55 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Rather than going after lower-level users of heroin, prosecutors are looking to take out dealers and members of the supply chain by connecting them and the drugs they sold to overdose deaths and charging them with laws that carry stiff penalties.
"We're going to be ruthless," said prosecutor Joseph Coronato of Ocean County, N.J., where 75 overdose deaths have occurred this year. "We're looking for long-term prison sentences."
Coronato and other New Jersey prosecutors are employing the state's little-used "strict liability for drug death" statute, a first-degree crime that holds dealers and producers responsible for a user's death and has a 20-year maximum sentence.
He and other prosecutors nationwide are changing the way they investigate overdoses, which were once looked upon as accidents. Detectives are being immediately dispatched when word of an overdose comes in. Paramedics are being told to treat overdoses like crimes. And coroners are being asked to order autopsies and preserve forensic evidence, as proving that a death was caused solely by heroin can be difficult when other opiates, drugs or alcohol are present in a person's system.
"When you go to an overdose death, treat it like a crime scene. Don't treat it like an accident," said Kerry Harvey, the U.S. attorney for eastern Kentucky. He has started prosecuting people who sold both prescription opiates and heroin under a federal law that prohibits the distribution of illicit substances and allows additional penalties for a death.
Technology is another boon to such cases. Prosecutors said cellphones have been instrumental in helping gather enough evidence because people leave behind a trail of text messages and calls.
"People text their dealer and say, 'Get me some horse,'" said Hennepin County, Minn., attorney Mike Freeman, using slang for heroin. "They text back and say, 'Meet me at McDonald's, I have some really good horse.' The guy is dead three hours later."
Kathleen Bickers, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oregon, has prosecuted more than 40 cases under the federal statute. The goal, she said, is to take down as many rings on the heroin supply chain ladder as possible.
"We don't stop at street-level dealers. We go up as many levels as we can" after a fatal overdose, Bickers said.
Prosecutors concede such charges are often difficult to prove, and it can be hard to trace drugs back to a specific dealer. People often overdose alone, said Bergen County, N.J., prosecutor John Molinelli, and it's hard to trace the drugs "because the person who can tell you is dead," he said.
Molinelli charged two people under the New Jersey law in June and said he plans to use it more because of changes in technology and the high number of overdoses in the county. During the first half of 2013, 58 people died of overdoses in Bergen County, the same number as for all of 2012. The laws, he said, send a message to dealers that they can face more severe charges.
Some wonder whether the enforcement efforts are actually going to curtail drug sales. Douglas Husak, a lawyer and professor of philosophy at Rutgers University, said he doesn't think the stricter enforcement will stop people from dealing heroin.
"Heroin distributors are not murderers, and they're not murderers when their customers die from an overdose," said Husak, who has called for decriminalizing drugs.
In New Jersey, officials say heroin has become a scourge across the entire state, prompting Gov. Chris Christie to create a task force on heroin and other opiates. Forty-five percent of the primary drug treatment admissions in 2011 were for heroin, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Mariann Farino's son Raymond died of a heroin overdose in January. Coronato's office charged the man they say sold her son heroin in June.
"Did he stick the needle in my son's arm? No. Did he sell him stuff that was crazy? Yes," she said. "Should he be held partially responsible? Yes."
Posted: 08/11/2013 Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/national/dealers-now-being-charged-in-drug-overdose-deaths
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Synthe
Gatorade me, bitch!



Registered: 11/10/12
Posts: 7,961
Loc: Three bags of Funyuns
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: Simplepowa]
#18693413 - 08/11/13 10:07 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Did he sell him stuff that was crazy? Yes,"
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Psychotria
Acaciagrapher



Registered: 05/28/13
Posts: 532
Last seen: 2 years, 8 months
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: Simplepowa]
#18693444 - 08/11/13 10:14 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Simplepowa said:
"Heroin distributors are not murderers, and they're not murderers when their customers die from an overdose," said Husak, who has called for decriminalizing drugs.
that's right. Why don't they listen to this man
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LethargicBeing
Koala



Registered: 01/14/13
Posts: 376
Loc: Euaclyptus Tree
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: Psychotria]
#18693500 - 08/11/13 10:30 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Psychotria said:
Quote:
Simplepowa said:
"Heroin distributors are not murderers, and they're not murderers when their customers die from an overdose," said Husak, who has called for decriminalizing drugs.
that's right. Why don't they listen to this man
Because once drugs are involved, all of a sudden, McDonalds made you fat, not the other way around.
-------------------- In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. [Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address]
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my3rdeye



Registered: 08/10/12
Posts: 4,354
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 3 years, 16 days
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: LethargicBeing] 2
#18693618 - 08/11/13 10:53 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Prosecutors said cellphones have been instrumental in helping gather enough evidence because people leave behind a trail of text messages and calls.
"People text their dealer and say, 'Get me some horse,'" said Hennepin County, Minn., attorney Mike Freeman, using slang for heroin. "They text back and say, 'Meet me at McDonald's, I have some really good horse.' The guy is dead three hours later." --------
I can't believe the texts people send. If you sent a text like that to my dealer it would be a beat down.
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Distorted Vision
The best. Of the worst.



Registered: 07/30/09
Posts: 4,292
Loc: Indiana
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: my3rdeye] 2
#18694211 - 08/12/13 01:58 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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They should start charging liquor stores for all the deaths they cause. And doctors.
Friends mom shot herself after being on medicine for depression, which may cause suicidal thoughts. She seemed so gone once she started taking those pills.
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"Yo yo just here to spread my clit and show ya'll what a wonderful and free being we are all inside lets take the acid and turn inside into the outside come on over baby lets smell the roses ohh ohh come on we're about to get lit show my undies to your baby I'll hug it down three times go around frown come on we aint a nice clown kiss me upside down down down come on sorry if you cant handle my wokeness come on lets take her panties off write shroomery on my asshole and taste it lick it make if feel like we was 1978 come on baby lets do the locamotion"-Twig dude
Edited by Distorted Vision (08/12/13 02:00 AM)
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CidneyIndole
www.shroomery.OG



Registered: 05/16/05
Posts: 4,762
Loc: Love's Secret Domain
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Re: Dealers now being charged in drug overdose deaths [Re: Distorted Vision] 1
#18695179 - 08/12/13 11:44 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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This only becomes almost fair (and even then, not really) if they start charging pharmaceutical CEOs when people OD on prescription drugs.
Maybe start charging liquor manufacturers and/or liquor stores for alcohol poisoning deaths. Not to mention all that cirrhosis.
Phillip Morris and pals for all the cancer and emphysema.
Auto makers / dealers for car crashes.
I won't hold my breath.
.... or how about we chalk it up to personal responsibility and call it a draw? 
Nah, that would be too reasonable. Can't have that. We have to blame someone for these sick people dying. How about we blame the broken fucking system, generally speaking, that contributes to so many cases of addiction? Of course, you can't send "the system" to jail. Then again, I think the system has shown us, quite effectively, that incarceration is a failed method of rehabilitation.
So maybe burn down the system and start over again?
Yeah, seems like a good solution.
Thanks, US govt. I'm glad we had this talk.

-------------------- ------------------------ I am me. We are You.
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