Medics with the Vancouver Fire Rescue Services attend to a man who overdosed on drugs in the Downtown Eastside neighborhood in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

VANCOUVER, Canada —  In the coastal cold of a Vancouver morning, nine people crowded at the door of the Insite safe injection center, itching for it to open so they could shoot heroin and fentanyl inside.

Around their huddle on this two-block stretch of East Hastings Street, hundreds of people, the majority habitual drug users, were crushed together in tents and chairs, on discarded rugs and under wet tarps. Some were sprawled on the sidewalk, motionless and unconscious. One man repeatedly hurled a hatchet at the pavement.

Open-use drug havens such as San Francisco’s Tenderloin and L.A.’s skid row have become notorious and contentious, but those places have nothing on East Hastings, part of a neighborhood called Downtown Eastside. In every direction, there were needles in arms and butane lighters melting chunks of fentanyl, heroin and meth — the stench of burning chemicals was unavoidable. For many residents and business owners in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, only a block away, East Hastings means theft, garbage, graffiti and a near-constant blare of sirens.

I came to Vancouver to see what can be learned as we debate safe consumption in California, where more than 6,000 people die each year from overdoses. Think about that. Six thousand is the roughly number of Californians who die each year from traffic accidents and firearms combined. Across the U.S., one person dies every five minutes from an overdose. In California, on average, 16 perish daily.

Los Angeles Times

Dirksen Federal Courthouse, 219 S. Dearborn St. | Rich Hein/Sun-Times

Federal prosecutors have made the rare move of seeking dismissal of a three-year-old drug indictment following testimony from a former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor who said drugs in Chicago are “typically trafficked by Latino people.”

The comments seemed to stun defense attorneys and catch the attention of U.S. District Judge John Blakey, who on Friday agreed to toss charges pending since 2019 against Leonel Hernandez-Rodriguez, Feliberto Flores-Ramos, Charlie Dotson and Francisco Carranza-Rosales.

The unusual move came more than a month after Keith Billiot, who is now retired but worked as a supervisory special agent for the DEA, testified about his role in the case during a March evidentiary hearing. He later walked back his comment following intense cross-examination, telling the judge race was “irrelevant” to the DEA’s work.

Billiot explained during the hearing what had led him to believe Flores-Ramos and Dotson had been involved in a drug deal Jan. 31, 2019. After naming other factors, including the behavior of the suspects, Billiot went further, according to a court transcript.

“In the city of Chicago for the five-and-a-half years that I worked here, typically — not always, but typically it is people of Latino descent are the ones that are supplying people of African American descent or Caucasians, or whatever,” Billiot said, according to the transcript. “But it’s the — the fact of the matter is that the drugs come up from Mexico or come in from Colombia but they come through Latino countries into the cities throughout the U.S. and therefore they’re typically trafficked by Latino people. So all of that, when you put all of that together, it indicated a narcotics transaction to me.”

Defense attorneys in the case — Thomas Anthony Durkin, Gal Pissetzky, Michael Leonard and Robert Rascia — all moved to strike Billiot’s testimony. Blakey said he’d strike the comment about race and added, “I’m going to permit vigorous cross examination on the issue, so fire away.”

Billiot could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Lausch, said that, “after reviewing the matter internally, we decided that moving to dismiss the indictment was the best course of action in this case.”

A criminal complaint in the case said law enforcement saw Flores-Ramos leave a home in the 6500 block of South Kenneth the afternoon of Jan. 31, 2019, holding his hand against the left side of his jacket in a way that suggested he was hiding something.

It said Flores-Ramos then got in a Dodge Caliber and traveled to 63rd and Kilbourn while investigators followed. The Dodge parked behind a white Buick sedan, Flores-Ramos got out and climbed into the Buick’s passenger seat with his hand still pressed against his jacket, according to the complaint.

Dotson was allegedly in the Buick’s driver’s seat.

Investigators soon drove toward the Buick and parked next to it, records show. After ordering Dotson and Flores-Ramos out of the car, authorities said they spotted an open bag filled with what turned out to be $34,000 cash on the front passenger floorboard. The feds also said a closed backpack in the back seat later turned out to contain a kilogram of cocaine.

The other defendants were found at the home on South Kenneth, where the feds say they also found eight kilograms of cocaine and $600,000 cash in a dishwasher.

Flores-Ramos admitted after his arrest that he’d gone to sell cocaine to Dotson, according to the complaint.

Still, during the March hearing, Billiot found himself defending his comments about the ethnicity of typical drug suppliers in Chicago. He noted he’d also pointed out other key factors in the investigation.

“So it was not the mere fact — and to be quite honest with you, I’m offended by the whole racism thing,” Billiot told Durkin. “It was not the fact that a Latino person met with a Black person. Absolutely not. Is that clear enough, sir, please? Can we get beyond that please?”

“I started with the probable cause that we developed upon your client and went all the way through the chain of events, sir,” Billiot continued. “That’s including the car, the car is running, the lights are off. Why would that be, sir? So I painted the picture of the entire probable cause that we saw, all the — the things that we saw. We didn’t generate those things. The client — the defendants here did but I simply testified as to what we saw. There is no racism involved in this.”

Blakey also questioned him about the comment, asking whether the ethnicity of the defendants played any role in his decision-making.

“It’s irrelevant,” Billiot eventually told the judge. “Someone’s ethnicity — the clearest way for me to say this is someone’s ethnicity is irrelevant to us in all respects.”

But Billiot pushed back once more against Durkin, telling the defense attorney, “this inference of racism is so phony.”

“You know nothing about me,” Billiot said. “Nothing. For you to infer that I’m a racist, I’m the godfather of an African-American child. She is — she is the daughter of a police officer and soldier who is one of my closest friends.

“There is nothing racist about what we do or how we do it. Nothing.”

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Federal officials announced that they’ve discovered a drug tunnel equipped with electricity and a rail system on the California-Mexico border.
AP

A sophisticated drug-smuggling tunnel equipped with a rail system and electricity was discovered near the US-Mexico border in California on Friday, authorities said.

The subterranean passage, one-third of a mile long, linked Tijuana to a warehouse near San Diego’s Otay Mesa border, federal officials announced Monday.

The tunnel also had ventilation systems and reinforced walls and is 61 feet deep and 4 feet in diameter.

As part of the bust, 1,762 pounds of cocaine, 164 pounds of meth and 3.5 pounds of heroin were recovered.

Six people were charged with cocaine trafficking, and two of those six were also charged with meth and heroin trafficking, authorities said.

Authorities ultimately uncovered the tunnel after they pulled over vehicles they saw coming and going from a home and the warehouse. During those traffic stops, boxes of drugs were found, prosecutors said.

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The numbers are stark and terrible–339,849 Americans (mostly under 50 years old) died from a drug overdose since 2018. Here are the numbers according to the CDC:

Year and Number of Deaths:

2018 67,367

2019 72,151

2020 93,331

2021 107,000

Last year, for example, almost twice the number of Americans died from drug overdose–e.g., fentanyl and opiods–than were killed in the Vietnam War. When you add up the numbers from 2018 to 2021, we had 3 times the fatalities then from the deaths in Vietnam and Korea alone.

You do not have to be a math genius to understand that 294 Americans are dying each day from the drugs that are produced in China and smuggled across the U.S./Mexico border courtesy of Mexican drug cartels. To put this in perspective, 220 Marines were killed by a terrorist bombing in Beirut, Lebanon in in October, 1983. That attack awakened Americans to the reality of Middle East terrorism.

Where is the outrage now? The American public has been bamboozled into feeding a war in Ukraine and spending billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars on weapons that are being captured by the Russians or siphoned off by Ukrainian gangsters to be sold on the black market.

I am not trying to spin up support for a war against China. But our refusal to hold the Chinese accountable for their production of synthetic narcotics is fueling a lethal drug abuse crisis in the United States. Sober College provides a genuine sobering summary:

Often referred to as “legal highs,” synthetic drugs are made by chemists who avoid legal repercussions because of their ability to alter formulas and avoid arrest. By changing the formula to include compounds that are not listed among banned drugs, individuals are able to abuse synthetic drugs that cause effects similar to those caused by illegal drugs, and without fear of legal consequences. Since the compounds of synthetic drugs are constantly changing, it is nearly impossible to compile a complete list of them. Although some synthetic drugs have recently become illegal, the ever-changing formulas constant influx of new substances are a cause for concern and have made it difficult to stop the growing epidemic.

We should not spend one more dime in Ukraine or on the military until we have secured our southern border. The bloodbath from drug overdose is only part of the story of carnage ravaging America. Drug gangs in the major cities ruled by Democrats are plugging each other and unsuspecting civilians every day. Yet, the American public keeps swallowing the lie that we need to back overseas military adventures while blood is filling our streets and destroying families here. If you do not see the sickening absurdity of this then you have no heart.

The post China and Mexican Drug Cartels Helped Murder 339,849 Americans and Most Politcians Do Not Care appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

As overdose-induced deaths skyrocket to record highs in the U.S, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has quietly relocated a plane fundamental to anti-narcotics operations in Mexico, according to Reuters.

The DEA plane was moved to Texas after Mexican officials revoked its parking spot, according to an anonymous U.S. government official and two security sources, Reuters reported. The move coincides with new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that shows over 100,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses in 2021, which is a 15% increase from 2020 and a 30% increase from 2019 driven largely by the use of fentanyl and methamphetamine.

China is the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the U.S., and the drug is often smuggled into the country at the southern border, according to the DEA. Border officials have seized record amounts of fentanyl from traffickers in 2022.

The plane’s removal impacts the U.S.’s ability to combat organized crime inside the country, which could delay the extraditions of high-ranking cartel leaders, according to Reuters. The DEA has had an aircraft based in Mexico since the early 1990s to help carry out anti-cartel operations and transport both U.S. and Mexican agents in critical raids.

“It will bring things to a halt,” one of the security sources told Reuters. “We can’t drive through parts of Mexico, it’s too dangerous.”

The plane’s relocation is the latest blow to joint operations between the U.S. and Mexico to fight drug smuggling, Reuters reported. Relations have deteriorated since Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office in 2018.

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Mom Laced Milk

A Texas mom who admitted to spiking her baby’s milk with hydrocodone to kill the infant and poison her other child will not serve any time in prison.

Sapphire Elizabeth Araujo, a 37-year-old from El Paso, was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service Tuesday, news station KFOX reported.

Araujo admitted to crushing up hydrocodone pills and mixing it into her then-5-month-old’s milk and feeding it to the baby, the outlet reported.

The mother sat through one day of testimony in the trial before accepting a plea deal from the district attorney that spared her any additional time behind bars.

She pleaded guilty to charges of reckless injury to a child and criminal neglect.

Her pregnancy counselor testified that “she had reached a place of hopelessness” at the time of the drugging and that she was struggling with mental health issues, KTSM reported.

She also intended to poison her then-2-year-old before killing herself and the baby because she was feeling overwhelmed, according to KTSM.

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Deaths from drug overdoses increased by 15 percent in President Joe Biden’s first year of office, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 107,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses in 2021, according to data — over 80,000 of which died from opioids.

Deaths from fentanyl continue to grow as Biden pursued open border policies, allowing more drug smugglers into the United States.

The growth of fentanyl crossing the border from Mexico skyrocketed in 2021 as seizures of the deadly drug at the border quadrupled.

China primarily manufactures fentanyl and it is then flown into Mexico where drug cartels traffic it into the United States.

Breitbart

Denise Francine “Fran” Boyd Andrews worked on street outreach, HIV education and outreach, overdose counseling and case management at Bon Secours Health System. (Amy Davis / XX)

Denise Francine “Fran” Boyd Andrews, whose desperate, determined, despairing — and ultimately triumphant — battle with drug addiction was chronicled in the Emmy Award-winning HBO miniseries “The Corner” died Tuesday in her Parkville home after a brief illness. She was 65.

The cause of her death is unknown.

Mrs. Andrews’ life took her from the shooting galleries and flophouses of Baltimore’s Franklin Square neighborhood to a bed in a rehabilitation facility and ultimately, the Hollywood red carpet.

Her first husband died from a drug overdose. Her 2007 wedding to her second husband, Donnie Andrews, who inspired the character of Omar Little on the HBO series, “The Wire,” was chronicled on the front page of the New York Times. The couple later spoke at Harvard University.

“Don’t let nobody tell you what you can’t do,” Mrs. Andrews said often. “You can turn your life around.”

Even after she’d accomplished so much and helped lift up many members of her family, Mrs. Andrews’ life continued to be marred by tragedy. In 2012, she lost her eldest son to a drug overdose and her second husband to a fatal tear in his artery.

But Mrs. Andrews never stopped fighting. She worried over and cared for and tried to find resources for the clients she counseled at the Bon Secours Health System, whether she was on the clock or not. She refused to lose.

Despite his grief, Stanley Boyd couldn’t help laughing when he talked about the woman he called “my big little sister.” Though Stanley Boyd was four years older than Fran, he said he looked up to her.

“She could do anything,” her brother said. “Despite all the trials she had in her life, she affected so many people.”

The Baltimore Sun