[photo] What looks like oxycodone pills are actually fentanyl. The pills were seized and submitted to crime labs in Tennessee. (Tommy Farmer The Associated Press( [photo] Fentanyl is often legally prescribed to cancer patients to manage pain. It comes in patches and lozenges. (Tom Gannam Associated Press file) It was March when fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, insinuated itself into Sacramento County. In a matter of weeks, dozens of people overdosed. The drug killed 12 people, including Jerome Butler, a 28-year-old father of three young children. [continues 528 words]
Huron could be the second city in Fresno County to allow medical marijuana cultivation, manufacture and distribution, city documents show. Meanwhile, growers already are lining up to court neighboring Coalinga, which approved medical cannabis in July. But other cities in conservative Fresno County, which has opposed all marijuana use for decades, remain in opposition to medical cannabis. Some have even passed resolutions formally opposing California Proposition 64, the state initiative in the upcoming election that would legalize adult recreational marijuana use. The initiative is likely to pass, but most of the county appears ready to forgo millions in potential marijuana revenue due to public safety concerns. [continues 693 words]
As Victor Emilio Cazares Gastellum stood in a San Diego courtroom for sentencing Tuesday, the judge acknowledged the defendant was unlike the vast majority of drug offenders he sees day in and day out. Cazares was not your typical drug mule caught crossing the border, nor was he a low-level distributor. Cazares, 53, was a kingpin, the head of a large Mexican drug-trafficking organization aligned with the powerful Sinaloa cartel. He was in the business of shipping tons of cocaine from producers in Colombia and Venezuela to Mexico and distributing the drug throughout the U.S. [continues 934 words]
