On a placid Thursday in November, the phones started ringing at the Radnor Township Police Department as Sgt. Sue Cory had never heard before, with reports of a fight and guns drawn outside the Genuardi's supermarket in St. Davids. Radnor police officers jumped in their cars, sirens as loud as could be. But when they got to the store, they were flashed aside by a more imposing set of badges: the FBI's. "A club-drug bust," Cory said. "They were doing a buy, and we had no idea." [continues 1334 words]
Mayor Street Lauds Operation Safe Streets, But He Will Not Discuss Figures. A City Official Put The Amount At Millions. While Operation Safe Streets appears to be having a dramatic impact on Philadelphia crime, it is also dramatically driving up Police Department costs. The 10-week-old program is costing the department more than $4 million a month, according to a city official who asked not to be identified. And the City Controller's Office said yesterday that overtime costs for uniformed police went up $2.9 million in May and $4.6 million in June, compared with the same months a year ago. [continues 569 words]
In the midst of the heated debate over school vouchers and the Pledge of Allegiance, it is easy to overlook the significance of the United States Supreme Court's recent decision to permit states to conduct random drug testing of high school students involved in extracurricular activities. The typical response to this decision seems to be that the ends justify the means: Forced testing may not be a good idea, but if it keeps one child off drugs, it is worth it. Although keeping children off drugs certainly is important, it is not worth stripping students of their privacy rights in school. [continues 449 words]
LONDON - Joining other European countries' more tolerant approach toward drug use, the British government said yesterday that it would effectively decriminalize the possession and use of marijuana. Home Secretary David Blunkett told Parliament that police would no longer arrest people smoking cannabis, as the drug is known here. Possession of a supply of the drug for personal use will also be ignored. Cannabis will still be considered an illegal drug, however, and selling it will remain an arrestable offense. Blunkett and his boss, Prime Minister Tony Blair, defended the policy change, arguing that it would give the police more time and resources to go after violent crime and the use of hard drugs such as heroin. [continues 451 words]
Chimore, Bolivia - Bolivia's remarkable victories in the war against drugs may be at risk in presidential elections today. The South American nation, which once led the world in cultivating the plant from which cocaine is made, has eradicated 85 to 95 percent of its coca plants in the last four years. But political turmoil threatens to undermine the controversial anti-coca efforts. Opinion polls suggest that no candidate is likely to win a majority of today's vote. If that's the case, the Bolivian Congress would have to pick a president, and a weak coalition government likely would result. [continues 466 words]
Mexico City - After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug-treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. smuggling operations were launched; now it has seeped south to such big cities as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, high-priced powder cocaine has given way to $2-a-rock crack, so cheap that it's luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. [continues 822 words]
A remorseless Richard Paolino, the Bucks County doctor who trafficked in OxyContin to ease the pain of bankruptcy, was sent to prison yesterday for at least 30 years. For Paolino, 59, it was essentially a life term, barring a successful appeal or an extended run of good health. "He will die in prison," prosecutor Gary Gambardella predicted after Judge David W. Heckler sentenced Paolino in Bucks County Court. Smiling broadly, Gambardella called it "an absolutely great sentence," adding that Paolino had "earned every day of it." [continues 747 words]
Dealers, Buyers And Dangerous New Substances Are Right Here In The Suburbs A strange thing happened across the nation in the last few years. While many suburban residents were busy pointing fingers at the urban drug centers and feeling smug about being away from it all, the whole drug scene changed - the substances, the dealers, even the location of the sales. You could say it all changed before our very eyes, but, more accurately, it changed right behind our backs. Until only a few years ago, suburbanites typically traveled to big cities to buy their drugs of choice - heroin, cocaine, and crack. Today that old scenario has been turned upside down. Although the old standby drugs are still being dealt in the big cities, newer and more dangerous drugs have become available in recent years in suburban communities all around the country. These newer drugs, known as designer drugs, are becoming the suburbanites' drug of choice. [continues 608 words]
A Colombian rebel leader wanted by U.S. law enforcement authorities on drug-trafficking charges has been arrested in Suriname and flown to the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration said yesterday. U.S. authorities identified him as Carlos Bolas, a leader of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). He will be arraigned in U.S. District Court, the DEA said. "For the first time we have not only indicted a member of a terrorist organization involved in drug trafficking, but we have also arrested him," said Asa Hutchinson, the DEA director. [continues 125 words]
Richard G. Paolino, the Bensalem doctor convicted of trafficking in OxyContin and other prescription drugs, was sentenced today in Bucks County Court to a 30- to 120-year prison term. "It was a great sentence," prosecutor Gary Gambardella said afterward. "He will die in prison." Unrepentent to the end, Paolino, 59, pledged to appeal his conviction and sentence. As he was taken away in handcuffs, he told reporters to tell his former patients "that I love them and wish I could still be there to treat them." [continues 291 words]
Richard Paolino, once considered the area's top illicit supplier of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin, has been jailed since his arrest in March 2001. The former Bensalem doctor is set to be sentenced today, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. But sidelining Paolino apparently has done little to slow the abuse of oxycodone - the active ingredient in OxyContin and similar drugs - which can give a heroin-like high if taken incorrectly. "I don't want to underestimate the impact of his arrest," said Philadelphia Police Inspector Jeremiah Daley, until recently in charge of the city's narcotics division. Paolino "was a huge purveyor, but I also don't want to say that his arrest and conviction ended the problem." [continues 756 words]
Costs Are Mounting For Operation Safe Streets, Which Began May 1. Mayor Street Asked Pa.'S Senators For Help Yesterday. WASHINGTON - With costs mounting for his ambitious crackdown on drug trafficking in the city, Mayor Street came here yesterday seeking money for the program from the Bush administration and Congress. Street spent part of the afternoon huddling with Sens. Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter, both Pennsylvania Republicans, mapping strategy for wringing the funds from Congress during budget deliberations. Both senators promised to push for more money, possibly by establishing a federal pilot program that might serve as a model for other big cities. [continues 697 words]
Residents deserve the benefits and safety that antidrug effort provides. Mayor Street did a poor job of lining up finances when he started the popular - and expensive - Safe Streets program. The effort has committed hundreds of police officers to chasing drug dealers from about 300 street corners. Still, contrary to what cynics predicted, the offensive seems to be working. That's good news for the decent people of those neighborhoods who, for the first time in years, feel the streets belong to them. [continues 691 words]
Operation Safe Streets, the city's crackdown on street drug sales that began last month, is being praised by the most important people - the residents who live in the targeted neighborhoods. The reaction of Elizabeth Bacone, a longtime activist in the Strawberry Mansion section, is typical. "It's a new world here. We are no longer abandoned. We feel safe now for the first time in years," said Bacone. "Since the police began patrolling our neighborhoods three weeks ago, we have not heard any gunshots." [continues 583 words]
Federal, State And Local Police Fanned Out In A High-Visibility Patrol. It Also Marked The County Prosecutor's Farewell. CAMDEN - It was Camden's version of Operation Safe Streets. And it was also a last hurrah for Camden County Prosecutor Lee A. Solomon, who will leave office next week to join the U.S. Attorney's Office, and who had helped to organize many such operations before. Almost 250 state, federal and local police massed along the Camden's waterfront yesterday in the first "high visibility patrol" involving state police since Gov. McGreevey assigned 100 troopers to the city last month. [continues 432 words]
Twenty-three police districts. Twenty-three street parties. One thousand volunteers. That was the goal as Mayor Street and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson criss-crossed the city yesterday, launching Phase II of Operation Safe Streets, the city's aggressive antidrug initiative. At the first rally, in the playground of the McDaniel Public School at 21st and Moore Streets, Street and Johnson asked for 1,000 volunteers to join town watch programs and become the eyes and ears of the police. Street said he was looking for 55 volunteers from the first district. [continues 403 words]
This could only happen when a rock star and a former captain of industry team up to check out operations in what is said to be the largest industrial plant in the Southern Hemisphere: Somebody was smoking pot. Irish rocker Bono and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, touring a Ford Motor Co. plant near Pretoria, South Africa, on Friday, took in whiffs of marijuana smoke. O'Neill had wanted to highlight the 3,500-worker plant for its model plan to test and offer treatment for HIV-infected workers. [continues 96 words]
On May 1, the 34-year-old mother of two got perhaps the first break of her life. She was freed. "You've gotten a second chance," said Jefferson County Circuit Judge Tommy Nail. "Don't blow it." To many, Wilson had become a symbol of the high price of mandatory sentencing. And her release is the latest in a series of events challenging those laws. Intended to target major drug traffickers, many mandatory minimum laws, as they are known, more often have sent addicts, drug dealers' girlfriends, and college students peddling marijuana to prison for long terms. [continues 406 words]
BRISTOL TOWNSHIP - Several 24-by-30-inch "one way" signs are the latest weapons that the local police department is hoping to employ in the perpetual war against drugs in the hardscrabble Bloomsdale-Fleetwing neighborhood. The township's council is scheduled to vote tonight whether to make streets in the small community one-way in an effort to limit the ways potential drug-buying motorists can get into, and out of, the area. Created in the 1970s, the school of thought called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, CPTED (SEHP-ted) for short, preaches utilizing urban-planning applications to reduce law-breaking. [continues 585 words]
Men United for a Better Philadelphia aims to complement the current police campaign. Calling it phase two of Operation Safe Streets, scores of community activists yesterday announced the creation of a grassroots organization to sway young men away from the illegal drug trade in Philadelphia. Men United for a Better Philadelphia will go to the city's street corners "not [to] confront young men, but talk to young men," said Bilal Qayyum, executive of the Father's Day Rally Committee, at a news conference in front of the Hank Gathers Memorial Recreation Center at 25th and Diamond Streets in North Philadelphia. [continues 383 words]
PENNSAUKEN - Police say it's one of the more frustrating parts of the job. An officer stops a lurching, swerving vehicle and finds a clearly intoxicated driver whose eyes are like burning suns. But a breath test detects no alcohol in the driver's body, and he ends up behind the wheel again. As part of a statewide push, officers from across South Jersey are at Pennsauken police headquarters this week to learn the telltale signs of intoxication produced by drugs other than alcohol, determine the class of drug involved, and, most important, get convictions for driving while intoxicated. [continues 582 words]
The city's Operation Safe Streets is to begin today. Mayor Street said the city's new narcotics crackdown - the targeting of 300 open-air drug markets starting today - will be unprecedented not only in Philadelphia, but in the country. "I don't know of anything like this in a big city - an operation of this order of magnitude," Street said yesterday. "It's never happened in an American city." The citywide campaign will be called Operation Safe Streets. Hundreds of officers will be redeployed across Philadelphia to 300 known drug corners and blocks based on information compiled by police districts and cross-checked by the department's Narcotics Bureau, police sources said. [continues 683 words]
The goal is prevention and deterrence rather than arrests, the police commissioner said - and the campaign will last "as long as it takes." The Philadelphia Police Department is expected to launch its largest antidrug operation ever this week: an unprecedented campaign to disrupt narcotics trafficking citywide. "We're going to take back this city - basically in one day," said Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson. He said details of the effort would be revealed before the police move ahead. At Johnson's swearing-in as commissioner on April 17, Mayor Street hinted at the upcoming operation with the vow that Philadelphia's "approximately 300 open-air drug markets will not be tolerated in this city anymore." [continues 477 words]
In a neighborhood scarred by drug dealers, Operation Sunrise made all the difference. A white sedan rolls to a stop at the corner of Ninth and Indiana in the city's Fairhill section. A man on the sidewalk approaches the driver's window. "Don't do that no more! Don't do that no more!" Peaches Ramos, 41, barks from across the street. Despite her protest, something changes hands. "I'm sorry," the man says sheepishly before leaving. "He just sold him a needle," Ramos explains. [continues 1070 words]
Sam Catron Was Shot During A Rally Trying To Boost His Reelection Bid. Three Face Charges. SOMERSET, Ky. - Sam Catron was 4 years old when three thugs armed with a shotgun pulled up in front of his family's home and shot his father, the city's police chief. His father survived for seven years until one of the shotgun pellets that had lodged near his heart shifted, killing him. The experience drove the young Catron into law enforcement and shaped his cautious approach to life, which included wearing a bulletproof vest wherever he went. [continues 588 words]
By all accounts, there's going to be a bumper poppy crop in Afghanistan this year. Fields of the pink, violet and white flowers are blossoming in the provinces of Nangarhar and Helmand, traditionally the source for about 70 percent of the opium and heroin in the world. The gray paste made from these colorful flowers is a bounty for the farmers and illiterate laborers who work these fields, a fortune for the drug traffickers who process and ship it - and a plague for the countries throughout the world that battle drug addiction. [continues 773 words]
Three Said They Saw Unusual Requests For Two Substances. A Bucks Doctor Is Charged. For one Fishtown pharmacist, it was an unexpected, summer flurry of prescriptions for strong, seldom-requested drugs. For another, it was a visit from four men with identical slips for the same drugs - OxyContin and Xanax - and the way they giggled when questioned about the prescribing doctor. A third pharmacist, in Bensalem, noticed a similar increase in demand and a new, curious clientele with addresses miles away in Philadelphia. [continues 648 words]
The President Met With Leaders Of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador And Bolivia. Trade Also Was Discussed Yesterday. LIMA, Peru -- Stringent security greeted President Bush yesterday as he met with Andean leaders in Peru. Days earlier, a bomb had exploded in the Peruvian capital, across the street from the U.S. Embassy, and pushed terrorism to the top of Bush's agenda. The President brainstormed with the leaders of Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia about expanding trade, coordinating antiterrorism efforts, and curbing drug flows. But the Wednesday car bomb, which killed nine, put Peruvians and the U.S. government on edge. [continues 452 words]
Perhaps, if schools show great care in performing drug tests on students. If discussion Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court was any indication, schools may soon have the high court's blessing to randomly test students participating in extracurricular activities - chess club to cheerleaders - for drugs. The justices might go further and allow testing of all students. Either of those results would be fine. Drug use among teenagers is a serious problem, and students who are minors do not have the same privacy rights as adults. [continues 373 words]
WASHINGTON - "Timmy," a fresh-faced teenager, stares from the TV screen and says matter-of-factly: "I killed grandmas. I killed daughters. I killed firemen. I killed policemen." Then he adds, casually: "Technically, I didn't kill these people. I just kind of helped." A message at the bottom of the screen carries an ominous warning: "Where do terrorists get their money? If you buy drugs, some of it may come from you." Timmy and several other teens are the stars of a powerful, provocative advertising campaign from the White House drug control office that uses more than $10 million in taxpayer funds to link the war on drugs to the war on terrorism. [continues 547 words]
Officials Say The Group Has Killed Hundreds. It Is Responsible For Much Of The Cocaine In The U.S. MEXICO CITY - Soldiers captured the alleged leader of Mexico's most violent drug cartel early yesterday, putting "out of business" the organization believed responsible for smuggling as much as 40 percent of all cocaine consumed in the United States, Mexican officials said. Benjamin Arellano Felix, 49, was described by a U.S. law enforcement officer as the chief executive officer of the cartel, which officials say has killed more than 300 rivals, police officers, judges and politicians. [continues 399 words]
WASHINGTON - Administrator Asa Hutchinson of the Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed yesterday that agents in the DEA's San Juan office had claimed credit for hundreds of arrests in which they had played no role, and he called their actions "wrong and irresponsible." He also confirmed that several DEA agents had been disciplined in the miscounting. "There is absolutely no excuse for that kind of reporting," he said of the inflated statistics. Citing privacy concerns, Hutchinson declined to spell out disciplinary action against the agents, except to say that it ranged from a 14-day suspension to a letter of reprimand. [continues 382 words]
A Dutch Town Near Germany Struggles To Bring Drug Traffic Under Some Control VENLO, Netherlands Each day thousands of giggling Germans flood the streets of this beleaguered border town a place where soft drugs are legal, the locals are fed up, and authorities have a solution that's thoroughly, pragmatically Dutch: Drivethrough marijuana stores. The idea is to make it easy for Teutonic drug tourists to turn around and go home after making quick buys at two drugstogo shops that authorities want to place near the border. [continues 858 words]
He proposed $357 million more for the drug fight. One goal: A 10 percent drop in usage in two years. WASHINGTON - Seeking to cut illegal drug use by 10 percent in two years, President Bush yesterday unveiled a new national drug policy that emphasizes treatment. The President is proposing to spend $357 million more next year on antidrug efforts. He wants two-thirds of that - $224 million - to go toward drug treatment and research. In total, the President is seeking to spend $19.2 billion to fight illegal drugs, a problem he said "wreaks havoc on the very fabric that provides stability for our society." [continues 465 words]
Reports by the Coast Guard, Customs Service and Pentagon do not add up, the office found. WASHINGTON - Federal agencies that oversee drug seizures on the high seas are double-counting the same cocaine confiscations, according to an investigation by the auditing arm of Congress. The Coast Guard, Customs Service and Department of Defense are each taking credit for many of their joint seizures and presenting them to Congress as if they acted alone, the General Accounting Office says in a report to be released Monday. A copy of the GAO report was obtained by the Inquirer Washington Bureau. [continues 479 words]
Jane Eisner's critique of racial profiling was excellent ("How to profile criminals? Check out their behaviors," Jan. 20). Although only 15 percent of the nation's drug users are black, they account for 37 percent of those arrested for drug violations, more than 42 percent of those in federal prisons for drug violations, and almost 60 percent of those in state prisons for drug felonies. Support for the drug war would end overnight if whites were incarcerated for drugs at the same rate as minorities. Racially disproportionate incarceration rates are not the only cause for alarm. Putting nonviolent drug offenders behind bars with hardened criminals is dangerous because prisons transmit violent habits and values. Most nonviolent drug offenders are eventually released, with dismal job prospects due to criminal records. Turning them into career criminals is not a good use of tax dollars. Rather than waste scarce resources turning potentially productive members of society who use drugs into unemployable ex-cons, we should be funding cost-effective treatment. Robert Sharpe Program Officer Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation Washington [end]
They took a drug known as GHB before classes at Gloucester County's Williamstown High, police said. All were hospitalized. Three Gloucester County teens were hospitalized yesterday after drinking a designer "date-rape" drug before arriving at school in the morning, police said. Officials at Williamstown High School in Monroe said the male students had appeared ill and had vomited before passing out in separate homeroom classes about 7:30 a.m. Two of them, ages 17 and 18, were kept overnight at Virtua-West Jersey Hospital Berlin, where they improved from serious condition to fair condition. A 15-year-old who had been in critical condition was discharged yesterday afternoon from Kennedy Memorial Hospitals-University Medical Center/Washington Township. [continues 871 words]
CAMDEN - More than 50 drug suspects were arrested Friday night in a law enforcement operation that involved about 30 officers from the city, Camden County, and the county Prosecutor's Office, authorities said. The operation, in which police posed as heroin dealers, was set up at Fifth and Bailey Streets in North Camden. Most of the 57 people arrested were released on summonses, said Greg Reinert, spokesman for the Prosecutor's Office. Charges ranged from possession of drugs to loitering in a known drug area. [continues 166 words]
Shrugs Greeted Harry's Drinking. Alarms Came With The Hint Of Drugs. LONDON - When Britons learned that teenage Prince Harry spent much of last summer drinking and smoking marijuana while his father was away from the family estate, they also learned that it wasn't the drinking that got him in trouble. "The first hint that something was seriously wrong came when a senior member of [household] staff noticed a strong smell of cannabis and alerted Prince Charles," said the tabloid News of the World, which broke the story Jan. 13 under the headline "Harry's Drugs Shame." [continues 961 words]
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that racial profiling grew out of America's ill-formed, inconclusive war on drugs, or that ethnic profiling should now become an issue in the nation's continuing war on terrorism. In war, the enemy must be defined, targeted and, if at all possible, conceived as the other. The intuitive desire for safety and the fundamental need for self-defense trump all else. There's no time for nuance. If you resemble the enemy, you could be the enemy; therefore, you are the enemy. [continues 732 words]
The villagers of El Salado know why thousands of people in southern Colombia are fleeing in terror. A few months ago, El Salado endured an ordeal that could soon be reenacted on a much larger scale elsewhere in the country: a massacre of civilians by right-wing paramilitary forces, with the acquiescence of the country's military. With peace talks now officially over and leftist guerrillas ordered to abandon the Switzerland-size zone they were allowed to control, the Colombian military forces are poised for a major escalation of the civil war. Now is precisely the moment for Washington to tell Colombia, in absolutely unequivocal terms, that paramilitary fighters must not be allowed to target civilian populations in that region or anywhere else. [continues 551 words]
A Girl Is Suspected Of Handing Out The Drug At A North Philadelphia Middle School. Police Said 28 Children Took The Medication. Before her lunch period yesterday, a 13-year-old girl handed out Xanax pills she had stolen from a relative to some of her friends at Roberto Clemente Middle School, authorities said. By the end of the day, 12 students were taken to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, and four girls were being questioned by police anxious to know how the pills got onto the North Philadelphia school's grounds. [continues 782 words]
A small army of specialists converged on Roberto Clemente Middle School yesterday, a day after 28 students - 12 of whom received hospital treatment - - had taken powerful doses of Xanax that had been pillaged from a relative's home by a 13-year-old girl. Veteran police, school officials and experts agree they had never seen a mass consumption like the one at the North Philadelphia school. The prescription antianxiety drug had been passed among friends, ages 12 to 15, at lunch and swallowed mostly because of peer pressure, authorities said. [continues 918 words]
It's Replacing Cocaine As The Choice Of Smugglers, Border Authorities Say MEXICO CITY - Heroin is a growing concern along the porous U.S.-Mexico border, where cocaine has been dominant. Authorities say they are discovering larger and larger shipments - a trend indicating that Mexican drug cartels are increasingly confident of their ability to get the highly priced heroin past border points. A joint U.S.-Mexico investigation, recently disclosed, resulted in the seizure of 782 pounds of heroin, a quantity that some law-enforcement officials believe indicates Mexican traffickers are preparing to challenge Colombian gangs that distribute on the U.S. East Coast. [continues 408 words]
Two recent killings mark a violent escalation in the nation's war against organized drug crime. MAZATLAN, Mexico - The three couples were on their way to a baseball game on a Sunday afternoon earlier this month. Jose Manuel de Alba and two other federal judges were looking forward to a break from their heavy workload. They stood chatting in front of de Alba's bungalow, waiting for his wife, when a red Chevrolet pulled up. Out stepped a man who leveled an AK-47 assault rifle and sprayed them with at least 40 bullets. [continues 762 words]
College students under pressure to excel use the drug as a study aid but also to party harder. MIAMI - Before he studies for a midterm or a final, a 20-year-old University of Miami pre-law student pops a Ritalin pill. Called Vitamin R or the "cramming drug," the small white pill keeps him and some of his dorm mates awake and increases their concentration. But illegal and abusive use of the drug could also come with some serious side effects. [continues 510 words]
WASHINGTON - Colombian President Andres Pastrana Friday urged continued U.S. efforts to fight drug traffickers, who he said were funding sources for terrorist groups like those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. Saying he had the "moral authority" to speak out against terrorism because his country had struggled against it for so long, Pastrana urged U.S. officials not to give up in fighting drug traffickers as it focused on finding those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. [continues 184 words]
The new spots - paid for by the maker of the painkiller OxyContin - focus on illegal use of prescription drugs. The manufacturer of OxyContin, the increasingly abused and potentially deadly painkiller, is launching a radio-advertising campaign in Philadelphia and three other localities to discourage teenagers from illegally using prescription drugs. Without citing specific figures, Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., said it targeted Philadelphia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Charleston, W.Va.; and Palm Beach County, Fla.; because of their high rate of prescription-drug abuse. [continues 673 words]
The manufacturer of OxyContin, the increasingly abused and potentially deadly painkiller, is launching a radio-advertising campaign in Philadelphia and three other localities to discourage teenagers from illegally using prescription drugs. Without citing specific figures, Purdue Pharma, based in Stamford, Conn., said it targeted Philadelphia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Charleston, W.Va.; and Palm Beach County, Fla.; because of their high rate of prescription-drug abuse. The new radio ads, part of a $1 million drug-education campaign called "Painfully Obvious," do not mention OxyContin or any other drug by name. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has encouraged Purdue Pharma to actively educate legitimate patients and the public about the potential dangers of such drugs. [continues 625 words]
WASHINGTON - Despite objections from former first lady Betty Ford and drug-treatment authorities, a divided Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday approved the nomination of John Walters as the administration's drug czar. The panel, on a 14-5 vote, sent the nomination to the Senate floor, rejecting concerns by Ford, founder of a noted drug- and alcohol- treatment center, and others that Walters has shown contempt for drug treatment. The full Democratic-led Senate is expected to quickly confirm Walters, giving President Bush his final cabinet member 10 months after taking office. [continues 113 words]
