MOSCOW — A surgeon stole some of the heroin he had been called on to remove from the stomach of a suspected drug carrier, Russian police said Tuesday.
Police in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk said that after investigators discovered that some of the drugs were missing, they searched the surgeon. The police said they found a packet containing 5 grams of heroin hidden in his clothing.
The surgeon, who was not identified, was under the influence of narcotics when he was arrested, according to the police statement.
If convicted of stealing the heroin, the doctor faces up to 15 years in prison.
There was no information about the identity of the suspected drug mule, his travel plans, or his fate.
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Maybe he could get a job in the drug lab here?
Related: Heroin is Here
What do you mean prescription pharmaceuticals are a GATEWAY DRUG?
After the Taliban nearly wiped the crop out?
Russia Fights Addiction to Afghan Heroin
Is NATO to Blame for Russia's Afghan Heroin Problem?
Yeah, actually, they are. For here, too. All in the $ervice of bank bottom lines.
"Heroin deaths prompt changes by authorities; Now targeting dealers, suppliers" by Katie Zezima | Associated Press, August 12, 2013
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — With the number of heroin overdoses skyrocketing nationwide, some law enforcement agencies are dusting off strict, rarely used drug laws, changing investigatory techniques, and relying on technology to prosecute drug dealers for causing overdose deaths.
Yeah, who put the bad heroin out there? Who would want another turn toward tyranny? Who would want to kill their customers? Related:
"The DEA is training federal agents to retroactively recreate the investigative trail in an effort to conceal its NSA leads in order to cover up its relationship with the NSA. In essence, the DEA is using fraudulently obtained information to prosecute US citizens in domestic drug cases and lying to judges, prosecutors and attorneys."
That must be the new technology they are talking about, applied to anyone who they choose to double-cross or who is not an agency asset.
I know, I know, they are just saving lives! It is what lying, war-making governments do!
The aggressive change in tactics comes as more people turn to heroin because crackdowns on powerful prescription opiate painkillers have made them more expensive and inaccessible. The prescription drug OxyContin has also been reformulated to make it difficult to crush and snort, making it less desirable on the street, law enforcement officials said.
Nationwide, the number of people who said they have used heroin in the past year rose by 66 percent between 2007 and 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The number of people who died of overdoses and had heroin in their system jumped 55 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But what is the actual number? Is it so low we would be astonished that this is such a big deal? All I get is percentages. And how can you be sure heroin in the system was the cause of death? That's like saying pot was in a car crash victim's system, therefore they must have been high while driving.
See: Sunday Globe Special: Driving the High Way
Maybe not.
Rather than going after lower-level users of heroin, prosecutors want to take out dealers and members of the supply chain by connecting them and the drugs they sold to overdose deaths and charging them with laws that carry stiff penalties.
That's a slippery slope. What is next, holding weapons manufacturers responsible for the dead they kill?
‘‘We’re going to be ruthless,’’ said prosecutor Joseph Coronato of Ocean County, N.J., where 75 overdose deaths occurred this year. ‘‘We’re looking for long-term prison sentences.’’
New Jersey prosecutors are employing the state’s little-used ‘‘strict liability for drug death’’ statute, a first-degree crime that holds dealers and producers responsible for a user’s death and has a 20-year maximum sentence.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: Quorum Conundrum
I don't think anyone got jail time for those compounding deaths, did they?
Prosecutors nationwide are changing the way they investigate overdoses, which were once viewed as accidents. Detectives now are immediately dispatched in overdose cases. Paramedics are told to treat overdoses like crimes. Coroners are asked to order autopsies and keep forensic evidence, because proving that a death was caused solely by heroin can be hard when other opiates, drugs, or alcohol are in a person’s system.
‘‘When you go to an overdose death, treat it like a crime scene,’’ said Kerry Harvey, US attorney for eastern Kentucky. He has started prosecuting people who sold both prescription opiates and heroin under a US law that bans distribution of illicit substances and allows additional penalties for a death.
Technology is another boon to such cases. Prosecutors said cellphones have been instrumental in helping gather evidence because people leave a trail of text messages and calls.
Makes you wonder how any drug dealing at all is occurring, doesn't it?
‘‘People text their dealer and say, ‘Get me some horse,’ ’’ said Hennepin County, Minn., attorney Mike Freeman, using slang for heroin. ‘‘They text back and say, ‘Meet me at McDonald’s, I have some . . . good horse.’ The guy is dead three hours later.’’
Oh, is that what they call it!
See: Sunday Globe Special: Horsing Around With Hollywood
No wonder that place is so f***ed up.
Kathleen Bickers, an assistant US attorney in Oregon, has prosecuted more than 40 cases under the US statute. The goal, she said, is to take down as many rings on the heroin supply-chain ladder as possible.
‘‘We don’t stop at street-level dealers. We go up as many levels as we can’’ after a fatal overdose, Bickers said.
Until they run into government operations or those that are above the law in our society. Let's not kid ourselves.
Prosecutors concede such charges are often difficult to prove, and it can be hard to trace drugs to a specific dealer.
With the NSA on the case?
People often overdose alone, said Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli: it is hard to trace drugs ‘‘because the person who can tell you is dead.”
Molinelli said the laws send a message to dealers that they can face more severe charges.
I'm so sick of this goddamn government built on illusion and imagery sending fucking messages.
I suppose I should take a shot and calm down, but no thanks.
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