Search Results: cocaine (264)

A new analysis finds that while marijuana legalization has led to higher rates of cannabis consumption in Colorado and other states with similar laws, there’s no evidence that it’s fueling abuse of more addictive drugs, including heroin and cocaine.

That’s the conclusion of a just-issued report from LiveStories, which specializes in the analysis of civic data. LiveStories founder Adnan Mahmud summarizes the results like so: “We haven’t found any strong correlation that suggests increased marijuana use leads to increases in other substance abuse.”

Kenneth Kukec.

A lot of addicts say they needed to hit rock bottom before being ready to accept recovery. This apparently has not yet happened for Miami lawyer Kenneth Kukec. He was arrested in July after he was allegedly caught snorting lines of cocaine off the back of a toilet in a Circle K in the Florida Keys, but was back in jail on Monday after violating his pretrial release by testing positive for amphetamines.

Photo by EvaK via Wikimedia Commons.

The two middle-aged men were ambitious. They wanted to repair their sailboat and navigate across the ocean, from Colombia to Italy. All so they could smuggle two tons of cocaine.
According to a federal arrest affidavit filed last week, keysnet.com reports, two South Florida men — Juan Soberon and Marin Spariosu — the latter a registered agent of a downtown Miami jewelry store, conspired to front thousands of dollars’ worth of emeralds in exchange for cocaine. Flush with money from the initial sale, the two sailors would then embark on the much grander plan of smuggling up to two tons of coke across the ocean. Except, of course, they got caught. The coke suppliers they were meeting with were actually informants for the Drug Enforcement Agency. Miami New Times has more.

While the War on Drugs has become the largest political sideshow the United States has even produced, there is simply no denying the heaping helping of humor that has manifested from the nation’s lust for the dust and Uncle Sam’s madcap approach to keeping their nose clean, so to speak. Yet, that has not stopped thousands of people every year from pushing bags of brown, white and green dope into nearly every orifice of their bodies, in hopes of bamboozling drug-sniffing authorities all over the country.
Unfortunately, while squeezing a fat sack of crack between your butt cheeks can sometimes be an effective method for avoiding a shakedown, the moment some large meathead cop whispers something in your ear like, “What’s your sign, sailor,” there is a damn good chance you are about to fisted in the back room by a group of sexually confused law enforcement cronies.


On August 25, Deondrae Atkins was hanging out, rolling dice for money on a sidewalk near the Dorthy Day Center in downtown St. Paul, when a St. Paul police officer monitoring closed circuit television noticed another man in the area rolling a “marijuana cigar.”
The officer approached the group, and recognized one of the men gambling as Atkins, 25, who he knew from “past encounters,” as a criminal complaint puts it. More at the Minneapolis City Pages.


The U.S. Coast Guard unloaded 719 kilograms of cocaine last Thursday at its station in Miami Beach. That came with an estimated street value of about $23 million.
The coke was intercepted in the Caribbean on September 8 by Coast Guard Cutter Bear.
The cutter spotted a 208-foot cargo boat in the waters northeast of Panama. The crew boarded the boat, and found several hidden parcels on board. The powder inside tested positive as cocaine, and the shipment was seized. Thirteen suspected smugglers were arrested.


More than 12 percent of Coloradans use illegal drugs every month. That’s among the Colorado-specific findings of a report from the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. The stats are drawn from 2011 and 2012, which may make them a little behind the curve: As the Washington Post points out, the figures show that Rhode Island is the top state for marijuana use, with Colorado placing sixth. But the data still provides a fascinating glimpse into our use of and attitudes about marijuana, cocaine and more. Check out the photo-illustrated results over at Denver Westword.

Matt Green/Flickr.


The correctional officer-jail inmate relationship is often a fraught one, rife with resentment, misunderstandings and violence. But sometimes, just sometimes, the two groups can put aside their differences and work together. That’s the silver lining we can take from the news that two current Rikers COs, Steven Dominguez and Divine Rahming, have been charged with smuggling cocaine and oxycodone into the prison with the help of an inmate and his girlfriend. Another former Rikers guard, Deleon Gifth, who resigned earlier this year, was arrested Monday on charges that he was paid $500 to deliver what he thought was oxycodone to an inmate back in February.
The Village Voice has more on these three stooges.


In his heyday, Montgomery Chitty was a prominent Aspen resident and pal of area celebrities such as the late Hunter S. Thompson and Ed Bradley.
Lately, however, he’s been hanging out with inmates, owing to his conviction in relation to a cocaine operation that ran between Aspen and L.A. for years — and his attempt to get his twenty-year sentence tossed or reduced was rejected after he failed to convince a judge the punishment was influenced by “mean spirited retaliation.” The Latest Word has more.

Bogota, Columbia.

There’s apparently a form of cocaine more depraved than crack in Colombia called bazuco. The drug is a cheap, meth-like form of cocaine made with sulfuric acid and kerosene from leftover cocaine manufacturing residue. And like meth, it’s users resort heavily to crime to support their habits.
With this public health menace before them, Bogota officials are trying everything to help bazuco addicts – including providing them with marijuana, the Miami Herald reports. Over the next few weeks, some 300 addicts will take part in a program that uses high-strength cannabis as a crutch to help them kick.

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