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asd11
final sky

Registered: 08/02/04
Posts: 501
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DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin
#5718151 - 06/06/06 07:58 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin BY ANNIE SWEENEY Crime Reporter June 6, 2006
DEA agents are in Mexico working with authorities to determine whether the recent bust of a lab there is connected to clusters of fatal fentanyl overdoses across the U.S., including 60 in Cook County.
Five Mexican nationals, including a chemist, were arrested by Mexican authorities during a raid May 28 in Toluca, Mexico, federal officials said Monday. One of the five was believed to have been arrested in California about 10 years ago on similar charges of manufacturing fentanyl, sources said. Investigators were checking his background.
U.S. drug czar John Walters said the lab was suspected of being the principal source of fentanyl pushed into the U.S. drug supply of heroin and cocaine, causing deaths in eight states, including Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. He estimated there could be some 1 million doses of the tainted drug on U.S. streets, and urged all addicts to be cautious and seek help.
"The level of the threat right now is troubling, and we're not quite sure of how far-reaching it is,'' Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said at a briefing in Chicago. "The drug traffickers have substantially poisoned the drug supply in the United States.''
DEA still testing
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials cautioned that testing had not been completed on the clandestine lab and it was not yet known whether it was producing fentanyl or how much.
"We have agents down there working with the Mexican officials,'' said Christopher Hoyt, a spokesman for the DEA's Chicago field office. When the pattern of overdoses emerged in cities including Chicago; Camden, N.J.; and Philadelphia, the DEA began collecting samples for comparison to see whether the drug was coming from the same source.
All that testing is still pending, and now materials gathered in Mexico will be tested as well, Hoyt said. He added it also is still possible that the fentanyl turning up in the drug supply has been diverted from a pharmacy or hospital.
The powerful drug, which can be prescribed as a painkiller and is hundreds of times stronger than heroin or morphine, has been linked to 60 fatal overdoses in Cook County since April 2005, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The majority of cases have been in 2006.
In fact, in Chicago alone, there have been 548 suspected non-fatal overdoses since April 13, 2006, police said.
While the DEA continues investigating where the fentanyl is being made, Chicago Police investigators were still searching for the local dealers and gangs that were selling it on the city streets.
But the problem is widespread.
"It's not one gang, it's not one area of the city and it's not one city,'' the source said.
The problem first emerged here in February when Chicago detectives noticed a pattern of fatal overdoses on the South Side. The CPD has since formed a task force with the DEA, and the Cook County medical examiner's office is regularly screening for fentanyl in overdose victims.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-heroin06.html
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: asd11]
#5718242 - 06/06/06 08:54 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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If drugs were legal and regulated, this wouldn't be an issue.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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i8an8th
Mrs.


Registered: 06/16/05
Posts: 1,714
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: Seuss]
#5718314 - 06/06/06 09:26 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: If drugs were legal and regulated, this wouldn't be an issue.
True that!
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers


Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,287
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 5 months, 23 days
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: i8an8th]
#5718409 - 06/06/06 10:09 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm suprised they even care, frankly.
This administration is against treating addicts like people, against needle exchange, against all kinds of harm prevention, but now all of a sudden they care about the health and lives of addicts?
Since when?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero


Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: Madtowntripper]
#5718415 - 06/06/06 10:13 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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> I'm suprised they even care, frankly.
Nobody likes competition, especially not the federal government. The bribe money needed to get Jeb into office has to come from somewhere...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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Koala Koolio
TTAGGGTTAGGGTTAGGGTTAGGG

Registered: 01/07/04
Posts: 7,752
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: Seuss]
#5718539 - 06/06/06 11:08 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Yeah, so strange for them to be so caring about the members of their society they don't care about. A conspiracy theorist might suggest that they knew about this batch before it ever hit the street.
-------------------- You're not like the others. You like the same things I do. Wax paper, boiled football leather... dog breath. We're not hitch-hiking anymore, we're riding!
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SuperD
Cacti junky


Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: DEA tests Mexico lab for source of tainted heroin [Re: Koala Koolio]
#5718635 - 06/06/06 11:38 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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<<U.S. drug czar John Walters said the lab was suspected of being the principal source of fentanyl pushed into the U.S. drug supply of heroin and cocaine, causing deaths in eight states, including Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. He estimated there could be some 1 million doses of the tainted drug on U.S. streets, and urged all addicts to be cautious and seek help.>>
Why don't you get off your ass and do something about it Mr. John Fuck Walters? Urge addicts to be cautious and seek help? I suggest he get in tune with reality. Some people are going to use no matter what anyone tells them, why not make their supply pure and regulated so incidents like this don't happen? So many needless deaths caused because of an impure unregulated product..
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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