Investigated. Ongart Klampaiboon, 43, Thai politician, for allegedly inhaling a groundup amphetamine pill during a publicity stunt gone wrong; by police in Bangkok. The opposition MP was explaiming to reporters how easy it is to buy narcotics in Thailand when he demonstrated how to snort the stuff. He and fellow Democrat Suwaroj Palang, who was on hand, could face up to 10 years in prison. In his defense, Ongart borrowed words from another Democrat, telling reporters, "I didn't inhale." [end]
WHY DO PEOPLE GET HOOKED? MOUNTING EVIDENCE POINTS TO A POWERFUL BRAIN CHEMICAL CALLED DOPAMINE Imagine you are taking a slug of whiskey. a puff of a cigarette. A toke of marijuana. A snort of cocaine. A shot of heroin. Put aside whether these drugs are legal or illegal. Concentrate, for now, on the chemistry. The moment you take that slug, that puff, that toke, that snort, that shot, trillions of potent molecules surge through your bloodstream and into your brain. Once there, they set off a cascade of chemical and electrical events, a kind of neurological chain reaction that ricochets around the skull and rearranges the interior reality of the mind. [continues 3664 words]
WHY WASN'T THE U.S. WARNED THAT MEXICO WAS ABOUT TO ARREST ITS OWN TOP DRUG FIGHTER FOR CORRUPTION? No one in Washington expected the news. Bill Clinton's antidrug czar Barry McCaffrey heard it from the State Department, which had found out about it from reporters. The Drug Enforcement Administration was caught flatfooted, as was the CIA. At a press conference, a chagrined Attorney General Janet Reno said, "What I learned was at the point after the arrest was made." The man arrested was McCaffrey's counterpart in Mexico, General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, a man of reputed honesty and heroism whose appointment only 10 weeks ago McCaffrey had praised effusively. That image began to fade on Feb. 6, when an informant told the Mexican Defense Secretary, General Enrique Cervantes, that Gutierrez was living in a luxury apartment "whose rent cannot be paid with the salary of a public official," a statement from Cervantes' office later said. Summoned to a midnight meeting on the same day, Mexico's drug czar suffered a heart attack when questioned about the apartment, and was ordered into a military hospital. [continues 619 words]
