The Newberry County Sheriff’s Office, the Irmo Police Department, and the Drug Enforcement Administration are partnering up to offer the public an opportunity to get rid of unwanted prescription drugs.

The event will take place on April 28 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. The sheriff’s office and the police department will be accepting prescription medication from people in the community with the hopes of preventing pill abuse and theft by ridding their homes of potentially dangerous, expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs.

The service is free and anonymous.

Medication can be dropped off at the Newberry County Sheriff’s Office located at 520 Wilson Road, Newberry or the Irmo Police Department located at 1230 Columbia Avenue, Irmo.

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CNN is reporting that hip hop star Snoop Dogg is facing  a drug charge after border agents searched his tour bus and found marijuana.  According to a Texas Sheriff, Snoop was arrested along the same stretch of a west Texas highway where singer Willie Nelson was busted in 2010.  So much for being on the road again!

A statement from the Hudspeth County, Texas, Sheriff said Snoop Dogg, whose real name is Calvin Broadus admitted that the three prescription bottles filled with marijuana cigarettes were his.

The rapper, like Nelson, is an outspoken proponent of of the legalization of marijuana and is known to have a license to use prescription medical marijuana in California.

The statement said the arrest happened early Saturday as his bus approached the U.S. Border Patrol Checkpoint located in Sierra Blanca, Texas, at the U.S.-Mexico border about 85 miles southeast of El Paso.

“During a routine check of U.S. citizenship the inspecting Border Patrol agent detected the odor of marijuana emitting from the inside of the vehicle and requested the driver to pull into the secondary inspection lane for further inspection,” the statement said.

A drug-detection dog sniffing the inside the bus “alerted to a trash can located at the rear of the vehicle where a red prescription bottle containing rolled marijuana cigarettes were located,” the statement said. Two other containers with marijuana were also found weighing a total of 0.130 pounds.

“Snoop Dogg freely admitted that the marijuana belonged to him and he was placed under arrest by U.S. Border Patrol agents and detained,” it said.

The sheriff said Snoop Dogg was cited for possession of drug paraphernalia, given a court date of January 20 and released.

By: South Carolina Drug Crime Lawyer Pete Strom

A new video that has gone viral on YouTube was taken from a police vehicle’s dashcam and shows an officer allegedly placing a bag in the car of a man they had pulled over for running a stop sign.  The suspect was then arrested.

Click here to see the video.

The incident, which occurred on February 11, 2011, shows the officers from Uticia, New York searching the car as the man remains handcuffed.  The video was released by the local paper, the Utica Phoenix.

In the video, one of the officers is shown pulling a bag out of his pocket as he gets into the passenger side of the car.  He then gets our of the car with the same bag.  It is not clear what is inside the bag, but it looks like a white powder substance.

The video has gone viral since it was uploaded on YouTube a few days ago.

WKTV reported that when it was first put on the Phoenix’s website it got so many hits – 64,000 in just under 24 hours – it crashed the site.

Utica police issued a statement saying they are still investigating the incident and that the video is also being reviewed by the FBI.

Utica Police Chief Mark Williams explained the situation saying: ‘He’s going into the car with it and that’s what he’s doing, it’s cold out and he’s basically separating the drugs from both defendants.’

By: South Carolina Drug Crime Attorney Pete Strom

If you were already hesitant to use public changing stations to change your child’s diaper, news from the UK will make you never want to put your baby down again.

A disturbing study in the United Kingdom revealed almost 9 out of 10 public baby changing tables showed traces of cocaine.

The tests, carried out by using specialist wipes, found that 92 percent of the 100-plus units examined carried traces of cocaine. They included facilities based in public toilets in shopping centers, hospitals, police stations, grocery stores, department stores, courts and churches.

The study was conducted by a team of Real Radio Journalists  from a local station in North West England.

It came shortly after the UK was named the cocaine capital of Europe for the second year in a row and it seems baby changing stations aren’t the only germ-ridden surfaces to be tested. Reports indicate that restaurant booths and park benches may be next.

Although the results are disturbing, some people have pointed out that the results could be slightly skewed due to the fact that money and other things we often touch are also coated in traces of the drug.

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Police in Clinton, Connecticut say a 33-year-old man sent along a little something extra in his 18-month-old son’s lunch box to school this week: a marijuana cigarette.

NBCConnecticut.com reported that authorities arrested John Sulzbach of Killingworth after the staff at the Clinton Child Care Center reported finding the marijuana in the child’s food container.  The child is 18 months old.

Read the original story at NBCConnecticut.com

The suspect said he accidentally dropped the cigarette while he was making his son’s lunch.

Police then searched the suspect’s home and found less than one ounce of marijuana in his basement.  Police say he faces charges of risk to injury to a minor and drug possession.

The suspect was charged with possession of a controlled substance and risk of injury/impairing the morals of a child.

By: South Carolina Drug Crime Lawyer Pete Strom

USA Today –  Marine units in Afghanistan now have a new tool for their soldiers who have  a severe battlefield injury to numb the pain.

“It’s known as a “morphine lollipop,” said Rear Adm. Michael Anderson, the top Navy medical officer to the Marine Corps.

The active ingredient in the lollipop is the drug fentanyl, a painkiller far more powerful than morphine.

The powerful candy with fentanyl comes in a berry-flavored lozenge atop a plastic stick that is inserted into a Marine’s mouth near his cheek.

As the injured person sucks on the lozenge, the fentanyl dissolves into his nervous system and is absorbed quickly throughout the injured soldier’s body.

Anderson says special op forces, including personnel assigned to Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, have been using these painkillers for quite a while.

Studies show that on battlefield pain control that during “the subsequent shock that can ensue as we inject the morphine -1/8 blood profusion doesn’t allow the morphine to get throughout the body because they’re injecting into a large muscle in the periphery which may be constricted,” he said.

Using the morphine candy is an effective means of controlling pain, and it will continue to be carried by soldiers.   More importantly, the  lollipop gives them another option that is quicker to control the pain because it is given in an area where blood flow is not usually an issue: the mouth.

The lollipop also is useful when a patient’s vital signs begin to drop.

“It’s hard to take the morphine out once you’ve done an injection, but you can take the lollipop away,” Anderson said.

The DEA says the intravenous painkiller was first developed for cancer patients, and has been around for decades and is about 80 times more potent than morphine.

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One of the most significant secret drug smuggling passages was discovered Tuesday, were 17  tons of marijuana was seized from the cross-border tunnel that stretches about 400 yards from warehouse in San Diego to Tijuana.

Nine tons of marijuana were seized from the San Diego warehouse and truck inside by U.S. authorities, said Derek Benner, U.S. Immigration and customs Enforcement special agent in charge of investigations in San Diego. Mexican authorities seized about eight tons.

The tunnel, equipped with lighting and ventilation systems, was about four feet high and three feet wide and dropped about 20 feet on the U.S. side of the border.

Cesar Beltran and Ruben Gomez were allegedly seen departing from the warehouse in a truck carrying three tons of marijuana were pulled over and arrested on Tuesday by a California Highway Patrol officer who was overwhelmed by the smell, as indicated by a federal complaint.

The two men face a maximum penalty of life in prison if they are convicted of conspiracy to distribute.

In recent years cross border tunnels have multiplied, though this discovery marks a significant find due to the amount of drugs seized.

Two of the largest U.S. marijuana busts occurred a year ago in other San Diego-Tijuana linked tunnels, where a combined 50 tons of marijuana were found. These passages were lined with rail tracks, as well as lighting and ventilation.

Other methods of drug transportation have emerged as U.S. authorities have started cracking down on land travel to smuggle marijuana. Tunnels, as well as single-engine wooden boats to travel up the Pacific Coast and low flying aircrafts that resemble motorized hang gliders are alternative methods of transportation.

Since October 2008, more than 70 tunnels have been found on the border, many clustered around San Diego and Nogales, Arizona. The clay-like soil in California is conducive to tunnel building as it is easy to dig into with shovels. In Nogales, smugglers access underground drains to move about through. Authorities said they found a drug tunnel running from a drain in Mexico to a rented house on the U.S. side.

U.S. authorities speculate that the recent tunnel findings suggest that a major Mexican drug cartel was involved though there has not been a link to establish that notion.

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The New York Daily News reported in October Actor Michael Douglas’ troubled son pleaded guilty to yet another drug charge – this time confessing he managed to obtain drugs while in prison.

Cameron Douglas, 32, admitted he smuggled and possessed cocaine and heroin while in one of the most secure federal lockups in the nation.

Cameron’s father, who did not make it to court, issued a statement supporting him.

“Cameron accepts full responsibility for his conduct, which involved a small user-quantity of drugs,” Michael Douglas said.

“While he has made much progress, he is still not cured. Most people and their families are able to address this illness privately and outside of the spotlight. Unfortunately this has not been possible here – for reasons completely outside of his control. He thanks those that have rooted for his recovery and looks forward to the day when he will not disappoint.”

Authorities said they found the drugs in Cameron’s cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan on October 17^th. Officials say Cameron had been cooperating with the feds in a drug investigation.

Prosecutors told a judge the recent discovery – along with Douglas’s admission that he also had drugs while in a federal prison in Pennsylvania - has sparked two investigations.

Douglas, who is already serving five-years for dealing methamphetamines, had previously been caught twice smuggling heroin inside an electronic toothbrush while on house arrest.

He also admitted while testifying earlier this month against California drug dealer David Escalera, that he convinced a lawyer to smuggle prescription drugs into prison for him.

By: Pete Strom, South Carolina Drug Crime Lawyer

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According to an article today in the Huffington Post, every 14 minutes a person dies from a prescription drug overdose in the United States.  This adds up to more than 35,000 deaths every year, exceeding the number of deaths suffered as a result of a car wreck, homicide, or suicide. 

The director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), R. Gil Kerlikowske, stated the illegal use of prescription drugs, particularly  narcotic medications in pill form is the nation’s “fastest-growing drug problem.”

What once dominated the world of overdoses in the U.S., namely heroin, has been eclipsed by the prescription painkillers (see below). These drugs are termed opioid analgesics, referring to substances produced from the opium poppy or manufactured synthetically with the same pain killing effects on the human brain (analgesic means lack of pain).

Where are the drugs coming from? More than 70 percent of those who have abused prescription narcotics got them from a friend or relative who had a prescription. In other words, the supplier is no stranger. And the problem starts early: A 2009 national survey done by The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (a federal agency) demonstrated that as many as 33% of kids ages 12 and older began their path to drug abuse by using prescription drugs for non-medical purposes, namely to get high.

According to a report issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, it may be easier for your teen to obtain prescription drugs than beer.

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An NYPD detective was found guilty of official misconduct yesterday for planting drugs on two defendants.  Charges included offering a false instrument for filing and falsifying business records.

During the trial, a former detective testified that officers in the narcotics units often planted drugs on innocent people – that detective has already pled guilty to official misconduct for engaging in the same criminal activity.

Before announcing the verdict, Judge Reichbach scolded the department for what he described as a widespread culture of corruption embedded in its drug units.

“I thought I was not naïve,” he said. “But even this court was shocked, not only by the seeming pervasive scope of misconduct but even more distressingly by the seeming casualness by which such conduct is employed.”

The case against the Detective was a part of  large tale of corruption in Police Department drug units: several narcotics officers in Brooklyn have been caught mishandling drugs they seized as evidence, and hundreds of tainted drug cases have been dismissed. The city has made several payments to settle civil suits over wrongful incarcerations related to the activity.

By: South Carolina Drug Crime Lawyer Pete Strom