Wish I Didn't Know

Posted to WIDK by Bianca Coombs

(Lisa Leff, Associated Press) - Federal prosecutors are cracking down on some pot dispensaries in California, warning the stores that they must shut down in 45 days or face criminal charges and confiscation of their property even if they are operating legally under the state’s 15-year-old medical marijuana law.

In an escalation of the ongoing conflict between the U.S. government and the nation’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, at least 16 pot shops or their landlords received letters this week stating they are violating federal drug laws, even though medical marijuana is legal in California. The state’s four U.S. attorneys were scheduled Friday to announce a broader coordinated crackdown.

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Their offices refused Thursday to confirm the closure orders. The Associated Press obtained copies of the letters that a prosecutor sent to at least 12 San Diego dispensaries. They state that federal law “takes precedence over state law and applies regardless of the particular uses for which a dispensary is selling and distributing marijuana.”

“Under United States law, a dispensary’s operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject to criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions,” according to the letters signed by U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy in San Diego. “Real and personal property involved in such operations are subject to seizure by and forfeiture to the United States … regardless of the purported purpose of the dispensary.”

The move comes a little more than two months after the Obama administration toughened its stand on medical marijuana. For two years before that, federal officials had indicated they would not move aggressively against dispensaries in compliance with laws in the 16 states where pot is legal for people with doctors’ recommendations.

The Department of Justice issued a policy memo to federal prosecutors in late June stating that marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers in states with medical marijuana laws could face prosecution for violating federal drug and money-laundering laws. The effort to shutter California dispensaries appeared to be the most far-reaching effort so far to put that guidance into action.

“This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The administration is simply making good on multiple threats issued since President Obama took office,” said Kevin Sabet, a former adviser to the president’s drug czar and a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Substance Abuse Solutions. “The challenge is to balance the scarcity of law enforcement resources and the sanctity of this country’s medication approval process. It seems like the administration is simply making good on multiple statements made previously to appropriately strike that balance.”

Greg Anton, a lawyer who represents dispensary Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, said its landlord received an “extremely threatening” letter Wednesday invoking a federal law that imposes additional penalties for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of schools, parks and playgrounds.

The landlord was ordered to evict the 14-year-old pot club or risk imprisonment, plus forfeiture of the property and all the rent he has collected while the dispensary has been in business, Anton said.

Marin Alliance’s founder “has been paying state and federal taxes for 14 years, and they have cashed all the checks,” he said. “All I hear from Obama is whining about his budget, but he has money to do this which will actually reduce revenues.”

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the warnings are part of what appears to be an attempt by the Obama administration to curb medical marijuana on multiple fronts and through multiple agencies. A series of dispensary raids in Montana, for example, involved agents from not only the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, but the Internal Revenue Service and Environmental Protection Agency.

Going after property owners is not a new tactic though, Hermes said. Five years ago, the Department of Justice under President George W. Bush made similar threats to about 300 Los Angeles-area landlords who were renting space to medical marijuana outlets, some of whom were eventually evicted or closed their doors voluntarily, he said.

“It did have an impact. However, the federal government never acted on its threats, never prosecuted anybody, never even went to court to begin prosecutions,” Hermes said. “By and large, they were empty threats, but they relied on them and the cost of postage to shut down as many facilities as they could without having to engage in criminal enforcement activity.”

Besides the dozen dispensaries in San Diego and the one in Marin County, at least three shops in San Francisco already have received closure notices, said Dale Gieringer, director of the California chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

The San Diego medical marijuana outlets put on notice were the same 12 that city officials sued last month for operating illegally, after activists there threatened to force an election on a zoning plan adopted to regulate the city’s fast-growing medical marijuana industry, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said. A judge on Wednesday ordered nine of the targeted shops to close, while the other three shut down voluntarily, Goldsmith said.

Duffy, the U.S. attorney for far Southern California, planned to issue warning letters to property owners and all of the 180 or so dispensaries that have proliferated in San Diego in the absence of compromise regulations, according to Goldsmith.

“The real power is with the federal government,” he said. “They have the asset forfeiture, and that means either the federal government will own a lot of property or these landlords will evict a lot of dispensaries.”

Original Article

Toddler Swallows Cocaine - Parents and Uncle Jailed (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Bianca Coombs

ATASCADERO, Calif. (AP) — The California parents of a toddler have been arrested after the boy swallowed cocaine.

The San Luis Obispo County Tribune reports the 18-month old showed signs of being under the influence of cocaine when Atascadero police officers arrived Wednesday at the couple’s apartment.

Investigators say the child’s mother, 20-year-old Priscilla Tabarez, had called for an ambulance.

The boy was taken to Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton for treatment. He is now in protective custody.

Besides Tabarez, the toddler’s 26-year-old father, Daniel Sanchez, and the woman’s 18-year-old brother, Isaac Tabarez, were arrested and booked for investigation of felony child endangerment. They were still in jail on Thursday with bail set at $100,000.

Original Article

Harvard University Study - Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Has ‘Same Effect On Men As COCAINE’ (WIDK)

(Daily Mail By MAYSA RAWI) — She’s a Victoria’s Secret model with a flawless figure and face to match. So it’s no wonder Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is most men’s dream woman. But new research has revealed the Transformers star’s power over the opposite sex is so strong, it is similar to the effects of cocaine.

It is Rosie’s baby-face features that give men that same type of rush, Men’s Health reported.

The study, conducted by Harvard University researchers, found the face of an attractive woman triggers the same reward centers in a man’s brain as the narcotic.

Test subjects were shown images of attractive females, and brain imaging scans revealed that reward circuitry fired off when they looked at comely faces.

A prominent curved forehead, eyes, nose and mouth located relatively low, large eyes, round cheeks and a small chin were among the features men found most attractive.

Rosie, whose signature pout has propelled her to fame, is aware of her special powers.

Speaking to the latest issue of Australia’s Maxim magazine, the stunning 24-year-old says: ‘They’re funny, because they change color with my mood.

‘They get really, really red when I’m angry or passionate and pale when I’m miserable or tired.

‘They have a life of their own. They get me in trouble. You know mood rings? I’ve got mood lips.’

Rosie adds: ‘The rest of my body requires a lot of upkeep, but the lips are one thing I don’t have to work on.’

Original Article

36 Years Later - The Real Life ‘Rocky’ (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(CNN) — If you don’t know Chuck Wepner’s claim to fame, you will in a hurry after you enter his small apartment in this gritty North Jersey city on the Hudson River.

Maybe you’ll see the framed poster of the most famous boxer of all time in his office, the one autographed, “To Chuck and Linda: Good luck to my dear friends, from Muhammad Ali. After me, there will be no other. P.S. Stay off my foot!” (We’ll explain that in a minute).

Or maybe he’ll hand you a business card for his job as a liquor salesman. Flip it over, and you’ll find a photo of a young Wepner, boxing trunks pulled over his navel, standing over a fallen Ali in the ring.

Or maybe he’ll sit down in his recliner and tell you one of his favorite stories, like the night he came back to his hotel room after he survived 15 rounds with Ali in a stunning 1975 fight.

“The day before the (Ali) fight, I took my wife out shopping and bought her a powder-blue negligée, because I told her, ‘You need to look right when you sleep with the heavyweight champion of the world,’” he said. “The night I lost, my (ex-) wife is sitting on the edge of the bed in the negligée and she asks, ‘So, am I going to Ali’s room or what?’”

But you don’t have to meet Wepner to know why he’s famous — and why he’s about to become even more well-known in the coming months. You’ve seen the movies, all six of them, in the theaters or a few dozen times on cable TV. Sylvester Stallone played Rocky in the famous film series.

Wepner is Rocky, the man who went almost the full 15 rounds (the fight was stopped in the 15th) with Ali in 1975 to inspire the Oscar-winning movie. But his real-life story is actually more fascinating, more layered and compelling, than the one that has raked in more than $1 billion.

That’s why ESPN is making a documentary about his life, and why Hollywood is making another movie about the man who inspired Rocky. But Wepner is clear on one point.

“This is not another Rocky movie,” he said recently. “It’s a movie about the real Rocky.”

The real Rocky is one of boxing’s true characters, a burly former Marine nicknamed the Bayonne Bleeder who went from fighting in smoky New Jersey clubs to knocking down (but not out) the mighty Ali. He’s also a man who spent three years in prison for cocaine possession but rebounded to find the love of his life.

He has a story about the night he asked Linda, his wife, on a date. “I used to drink vodka all the time, but I remember that the beer cooler was on the other side of the bar and you had to bend over to get into it,” he said. “So she bent over and got one and I said, ‘You wanna go out!’ I picked her up after work that day. That’s a true story.”

They’re all true stories. Or, at least mostly true. Again, with 72-year-old Wepner, it’s always best to let him explain.

“There’s one scene in (the movie), I’m in a hotel room with a couple of my go-go girls,” he said. “I’m pouring champagne all over their bodies and drinking the champagne.

“I said (to the writer), ‘You got me laying in the bed with three go-go girls pouring champagne over them. It was only two!’ And he said, ‘Chuck, three, four, five girls, people will believe anything about you!’”

Liev Schreiber is set to portray him in “The Bleeder,” which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2012, while Christina Hendricks will play Linda and Naomi Watts will play his first wife. The project has been in the works for more than seven years, and Wepner is convinced it can shock the world the way Stallone’s fictional version did 35 years ago.

But first, sports fans will revisit Wepner’s career with an hourlong ESPN documentary, set to air on October 25, called “The Real Rocky.” Mike Tollin, who has produced sports movies like “Coach Carter” and documentaries like “The Bronx is Burning,” is producing both projects.

“With Chuck Wepner,” Tollin said in a phone interview, “you have a guy who outside of certain parts of New Jersey can be treated almost like a fictional character, but you have this fascinating chapter of boxing lore and all these real-life characters to draw from.”

None of this would have happened if Wepner’s mother didn’t interrupt him during an episode of “Kojak” in 1975 and tell him to pick up that day’s newspaper. Promoter Don King had chosen Wepner to fight Ali, but no one had bothered to tell him.

It was supposed to be an easy fight for Ali, who had just stunned George Foreman in Zaire to regain the heavyweight championship. Ali was 45-2, at the peak of his fame.

Wepner? He was no slouch, but not in the same league. Larry Merchant, the longtime boxing writer for The New York Post, called it “a fight between a house painter and an artist.” But Wepner spent seven weeks “laying off the booze and women,” he said, training for his moment.

And it lasted more than a moment. On March 24, 1975, Wepner went 15 rounds with Ali, briefly knocking him to the canvas in the ninth round. (Wepner insists he hit the champ with a shot just below his heart; Ali has long contended that his opponent stepped on his foot.)

The fight made him famous, but the movies changed his life. Stallone was watching in Los Angeles, and two years later, Wepner was sitting in a Manhattan theater thinking, “I hope this movie’s decent.”

“It was amazing!” Wepner said. “I had no idea. It was amazing. After the knockdown of Apollo, the crowd started jeering him and started cheering for me. People are coming up to me and hugging me, ‘CHUCK! Great movie!”

But the movie is only one twist in Wepner’s life. He retired from boxing and wrestled “Andre the Giant” at Shea Stadium, the massive pro wrestler spun him in the air before tossing him out of the ring. He also partied. A lot.

“You know what it was? The late ’70s and early ’80s, it was all parties,” Wepner said. “Everywhere you went there was cocaine. I’ve got to be honest with you, it was a great, great time in my life, other than getting in trouble. I managed to get through that and everything is great now. It was one party after another. I used to be out from Thursday to Sunday. It was so much fun. You might say the good times were very addictive.”

The trouble: Wepner was arrested in 1985 for cocaine possession. He spent nearly three years in prison, but he re-emerged clean and, with Linda, happy. Plus, in 2006 scored his biggest victory outside the ring: He settled a lawsuit with Stallone for using him as his inspiration for the Rocky series. (Details of the settlement have not been revealed.

Now, he’ll have a documentary and a movie on his life and career, which is more fascinating than anything a screenwriter could dream up. But for the real Rocky, this is no case of sudden fame.

“Somebody said to me, ‘Wow, you’re finally getting some recognition.’” Wepner said. “For 36 years, I’ve been the ch

Original Article

True Sign Of A Down Economy - New Yorkers Ditch Their Coke Habits (WIDK)

Submitted to WIDK By Scott Kamolsiri

(Chuck Bennet, New York Post) — Here’s another sign of the stalled economy — New Yorkers are ditching their coke habits.

Cocaine-related emergency-room admissions, overdoses and requests for rehab have declined since the economy started its 2008 decline, according to data obtained by The Post.

“It is sort of on a slight but steady downward trend,” said Dr. Stephen Ross, director of NYU’s Langone Center of Excellence on Addiction. “I treat patients in private practice. Many cocaine addicts tell me stories they don’t have enough money to buy it anymore.”

There were 478 “accidental” deaths in which cocaine was a factor, typically overdoses, in New York City in 2006, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

That number plunged to just 274 in 2010.

Powder-cocaine addicts typically shell out $60 to $80 a gram, so perhaps the high cost of blow is why also a smaller number of people — 7,693 — sought treatment for cocaine addiction in New York City last year, according to the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

That number is a drop from 9,654 in 2008.

Original Article

Mom Faces Double Murder Charge For Stashing METH INSIDE Her Pregnant Daughter (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Paul Thompson, Daily Mail) — A Georgia mom may face double manslaughter charges after her pregnant daughter and unborn child died after allegedly hiding meth in her body.

April Flood has been accused of asking her 19-year-old daughter Megan Long to hide a stash of crystal meth inside her body.

The teen, who was five months pregnant, allegedly hid the drugs inside her vagina after being pulled over by police during a routine traffic stop.

Long later died in hospital after the bag containing up to seven ounces of the drug split open. Her baby was born stillborn.

Police are awaiting toxicology results, but Murray County Sheriff Howard Ensley said it was ‘unusual’ for a healthy 19 year old to suddenly die.

Murray County Coroner Alan Robbins said there’s a strong possibility Megan died after meth seeped into her system.

‘We believe that some type of drug was involved in the overall incident,’ he said.

Investigators are trying to determine who asked Long to hide the drugs in her body.

Police said whoever was responsible could face manslaughter charges as a result of the deaths.

A police spokesman said an investigation was underway and no arrests had yet been made.

The teen, who had a two year old son Mason, was in a car with her mother and boyfriend Eddie Duke when they were pulled over by police near their home in Murray County, Georgia.

The victim’s mother has allegedly admitted her daughter hid the drugs in her body - but denied she asked her to.

Duke, Megan’s boyfriend, has gone into hiding since her death.

He was with his girlfriend when she suddenly went into convulsions and called paramedics, telling the emergency dispatcher he had no idea how much meth was in her system.

The dead teen’s father has accused Long’s mother of asking her pregnant daughter to hid the drugs and said they were hers.

Micky Long said his ex-wife had admitted to him that she asked the pregnant teen to hide the drugs.

He said: ‘They had got pulled over and she stuffed a quarter ounce inside her and when they got here they were going to take it back out, but there wasn’t anything left but a bag.’

His sister Lynn Long added:’ ‘I know what killed her, we all know what killed her - it was meth.’

Megan was grasping her abdomen, doubled-over in pain, when her mother dropped her back at her father’s house, according to Long.

‘We set here and we held her, and she kept crying out to God. Whole time, we was helpless. We couldn’t do nothing for her.’

Long died in hospital two days after being admitted suffering a massive heart attack.

Deputy Coroner Alan Robins said: ‘For a basically healthy 19-year-old to go into cardiac arrest, there had to be something to cause that.

‘And drugs certainly would be something that you would think of.’

Megan and her stillborn daughter, whom she had already decided to call Madison, were buried in the same casket a week after her death.

Her mother has refused all requests to speak to the media.

Original Article

Britain, The LAUGHING STOCK - Shaming Images Caught By A Foreign Lens (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Robert Hardman, Daily Mail) — They look like images you might find in some depressing police dossier.

Here, in vivid detail, is a squalid portrait of binge-drinking Britain. Some of the more incapacitated specimens are in mid-vomit. A few have simply passed out.

Tequila-fuelled young women strike crude poses that will (or should) mortify them in the sober light of day. More worryingly, one or two are unconscious on the pavement, dangerously vulnerable in their pathetic state.

One image —too disgusting to print here —shows one triumphal inebriate male advancing on a group of sozzled young woman exposing himself.

The scenes were all captured in Cardiff, in the area around St Mary Street and neighbouring ‘chip alley’. But similar scenes are being played out in town centres all over Britain every weekend.

Yet there was no sense of concern or revulsion the other day when this collage of shame was unveiled before an audience of 1,000 people. Instead, they leapt to their feet, applauding, roaring with laughter and crying ‘Bravo!’

For, in the eyes of the experts and professionals gathered at the International Festival of Photojournalism in the French city of Perpignan, this portfolio of work —entitled Cardiff After Dark —was a beautifully crafted and realistic portrait of life in modern Britain.

The next time we scoff at, say, the chauvinism of the French or the hysterics of the Italians, it is worth remembering the sort of stereotypes which are applied to Britain.

Polish photographer Maciej Dakowicz, 34, has been capturing nocturnal scenes in Cardiff — where he was previously a student — for the past five years.

The results speak for themselves.

Dakowicz admits that he would be unable to produce images like this in his home town of Bialystok in Poland.

People there just don’t demean themselves like that. But, in Cardiff, he was spoiled for choice. For all that, he remains fond of the Welsh capital.

‘Welsh people are very friendly and open,’ he says. ‘The atmosphere is very cheerful and everyone is having a good time.’ And so they are — if your idea of having a good time is passing out in a pool of vomit.

‘The pictures tell stories of drinking, of love, of violence, of lots of things,’ he insists.

Around 50 of these images were presented at the prestigious festival on a giant screen. The critics lapped them up.

‘The reaction was very positive,’ says Dakowicz. ‘The audience was laughing. They were making fun of British people.’

No doubt they were.

The nation which was once regarded as a buttoned-up bunch of repressives in bowler hats is now a land of incontinent alcoholics.

Spiffing, eh?

Original Article

Drug Traffickers Dumped 35 Bodies Beneath Overpass During Rush Hour (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

MEXICO CITY (Olga R. Rodriguez, AP) — Suspected drug traffickers drove two trucks to a main avenue in a Mexican Gulf coast city and dumped 35 bodies beneath an overpass during rush hour as gunmen stood guard and pointed their weapons at frightened drivers.

Horrified motorists trapped at the scene grabbed cell phones and sent Twitter messages warning others to avoid the area on a thoroughfare near the biggest shopping mall in Boca del Rio.

The gruesome scene Tuesday was a sharp escalation in drug violence in Veracruz state, which sits on an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.

The Zetas drug cartel has been battling other gangs for control of the state.

Veracruz state Attorney General Reynaldo Escobar Perez said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground under an overpass near the mall and a statue of the Voladores de Papantla, ritual dancers from Veracruz state.

Police had identified seven of the victims so far and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extortion and were linked to organized crime, Escobar said. He didn’t say to what group the victims belonged.

Motorists posted warnings on Twitter that masked gunmen in military uniforms were blocking Manuel Avila Camacho Boulevard and pointing their guns at civilians.

“They don’t seem to be soldiers or police,” one tweet read. Another said, “Don’t go through that area, there is danger.”

Escobar said police were reviewing surveillance video recorded in the area.

Local media said that 12 of the victims were women and that some of the dead men had been among prisoners who escaped from three Veracruz prisons on Monday, but Escobar said he couldn’t confirm that.

At least 32 inmates got away from the three Veracruz prisons. Police recaptured 14 of them.

Earlier Tuesday, the Mexican army announced it had captured a key figure in the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel that is sowing violence in western Mexico.

Saul Solis Solis, 49, a former police chief and one-time congressional candidate, was captured without incident Monday in the cartel’s home state of Michoacan, Brig. Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said during a presentation of Solis to the media.

Solis is considered one of the principal lieutenants in the Knights Templar, which split late last year from La Familia, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine.

Drug violence has claimed more than 35,000 lives across Mexico since 2006, according to government figures. Others put the number at more than 40,000.

In northern Mexico, the army announced the detention of two more suspects in a casino fire that killed 52 people last month in the northern city of Monterrey.

The two men captured at a bar in Monterrey late Monday confessed to being members of the Zetas drug cartel and participating in the attack, federal prosecutors said.

Separately in Nuevo Leon, Mexican marines captured 19 alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel at a ranch that was being used as a training camp in the town of Colombia, the military announced.

A navy statement said that seven minors were among those detained and that marines seized four rifles, a pistol, and several military uniforms and boots.

Original Article

What Really Happened To The King Of Pop? - New Evidence in Conrad Murray Trial (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Daily Mail Reporter) — Dr Conrad Murray’s manslaughter trial is expected to get under way later this month.

But if a controversial new claim is to believed, prosecutors may have their work cut out in order to prove he is responsible for Michael Jackson’s death.

According to a new report, the King Of Pop had become so addicted to the intravenous anaesthetic Propofol, that he drank it moments before his death.

The defense team for Dr Murray, 58, who was Jackson’s personal physician, will make the disturbing claim during his televised trial, the UK’s Daily Mirror reports.

The Mirror says that an autopsy report confirmed that he had the injectable sedative, which he called his ‘milk’, inside of his stomach hours after he died.

A source close to the case went on to tell the paper: ‘Conrad Murray’s team can’t understand how Propofol got into the stomach.

‘It does not make sense unless Michael drank it. To them that will show the world how much of an addict he was. Michael was acting crazy in his last few hours, demanding drugs to help him sleep.

‘He was always playing with the bottles, who knows what he did.’

Opening statements are scheduled to begin in the case the week of September 26, but there are already questions surrounding at least one key prosecution witness.

Pharmacist Tim Lopez, who claimed he sent large amounts of a powerful anaesthetic drug to Dr. Murray’s girlfriend in the weeks before Jackson’s death in June 2009, has left the U.S.

Lopez moved to Thailand, without telling the authorities and now prosecutors want to use his testimony at an earlier hearing as part of their involuntary manslaughter case against Dr Murray.

The unusual development was revealed last week in the Los Angeles courtroom of Judge Michael Pastor, who will make a decision about Lopez’s testimony in the next few days.

Lopez’s friends and family have either been unable or unwilling to shed light on his disappearance, according to the website TMZ.

Lopez had testified in January that Dr Murray bought 255 vials of Propofol in the three months before the singer died from a lethal combination of the drug and other sedatives.

Dr Conrad Murray purchased four shipments between April 6 and June 10, 2009 said Lopez, owner of Applied Pharmacy Services in Las Vegas, where Murray has a clinic.

Murray bought 130 vials of Propofol in 100 millilitre doses and another 125 vials in the smaller dose of 20 millilitres, said Lopez.

A coroner’s investigator previously testified that 12 vials of Propofol were found in the bedroom and closet of the singer’s rented mansion after his death.

Lopez said Murray asked him to ship some of the Propofol to an address in Santa Monica. The address belongs to the doctor’s girlfriend, although Lopez testified that Murray told him it was one of his clinics.

Murray also bought other sedatives from Lopez, according to the testimony.

Murray’s legal team filed documents earlier this month, asking the judge to make an order to keep the jury in isolation during the trial over fears they could be influenced by media coverage, in particular by the views of opinionated TV pundits.

But the judge said that those who serve on the involuntary manslaughter trial will already be making tremendous sacrifices - and locking them up would be cruel.

He said studies have shown that sequestered jurors often describe themselves as feeling like inmates.

‘Jurors have lives,’ Pastor said. ‘We remove them from their lives in these horrific economic times.’

Pastor said he was confident that jurors would follow his instructions to avoid exposure to publicity, but he rebuffed a defence argument to rescind a decision to televise the trial.

Defence attorney Ed Chernoff said the television coverage would feed an army of commentators who would supply their own interpretation of what went on in court.

Chernoff, referring to widespread media coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, called the commentary ‘a problem’.

The doctor could face up to four years in prison if convicted.

Original Article

New Studies Link Genes to Both Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder (WIDK)

(Breitbart) — Broad sweeps of the human genome have exposed genetic mutations that boost the risk of the devastating yet baffling diseases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to two studies published Sunday.

The independent studies, each conducted by a consortium of about 200 scientists, also found significant genetic overlap between the debilitating mental disorders.

Schizophrenia patients typically hear voices that are not real, tend toward paranoia and suffer from disorganized speech and thinking. The condition is thought to affect about one percent of adults worldwide.

Previously known as manic depression, bipolar disorder is characterised by hard-to-control mood swings that veer back-and-forth between depression and euphoria, and afflicts a similar percentage of the population.

The biological profile of both conditions remains almost entirely unknown. Doctors seek to hold them in check with powerful drugs.

Scientists have long observed that each syndrome tends to run in families, suggesting a powerful inherited component.

But early hopes of finding a single-gene culprit swiftly faded, giving way to the realisation that — to the extent DNA is at fault — blame is probably spread across dozens, maybe even hundreds of DNA variants.

Genome-wide comparisons made possible by gains in computing power involve sweeps of tens of thousands of individual genetic codes from patients and otherwise healthy counterparts.

But so far only a handful of suspects have been found that, at best, account for about 30 percent of the heritable component of schizophrenia.

Nailing down genetic drivers is made even harder by uncertainty as to whether schizophrenia and bipolar — defined by a varying constellation of symptoms — are single or multiple diseases.

In one of the largest gene sweeps so far, Pablo Gejman of the University of Chicago and colleagues worldwide started by reviewing 17 earlier efforts involving nearly 22,000 people, just under half of them schizophrenia patients.

The so-called meta-study unearthed seven genetic variants, five of them new.

One in particular — known as rs1625579 — plays a key role in regulating brain cells.

To substantiate the results, published in Nature Genetics, the scientists duplicated the genome search with nearly 30,000 other individuals.

For the study on bipolar disorder, also appearing in Nature Genetics, a team led by Pamela Sklar of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York first looked at the genomes of 7,481 patients and 9,250 healthy individuals.

A second sweep focusing on 34 DNA suspects involved some 2,500 other patients and 42,500 controls.

The study confirmed a significant link with a gene, CACNA1C, that also has been previously associated with schizophrenia.

It also uncovered a new gene variant at another location, known as ODZ4, that suggests neurochemical channels in the brain activated by calcium play a role in boosting the risk of developing the disease.

For both studies, scientists hope that learning more about pathways in the brain affected by the diseases can lead to a better understanding of the causes and drugs to ease or block the symptoms.

Original Article

20-Year-Old Arrested With SEVENTY-TWO Capsules Of Cocaine In Stomach Worth $200,000 (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Huffington Post) — A 20-year-old Irishman had a $200,000 lunch — and now he might have to pay.

Security personal at a Sao Paulo, Brazil airport on Monday detained a nervous traveler later allegedly found to be smuggling approximately 72 bags of cocaine in his stomach, the Irish independent reports.

Authorities with the Brazilian Federal Police released x-ray images of the suspect, identified only as F.B.B., which appear to show his belly full of drugs. The nearly two-pound stash of coke is estimated to be worth $200,000

Police said the man was boarding a flight to Lisbon en route to Brussels. Instead of making the trip, authorities escorted the man to a nearby hospital where the capsules were removed, MSNBC reports.

The suspect is charged with international drug trafficking and could face up to 15 years in prison.

Original Article

Bachmann Claims HPV Vaccine Linked To ‘Mental Retardation’ - Professors Offer $11,000 For Proof (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Chris Moody, Yahoo News) — Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s story about a woman who claimed that her daughter suffered “mental retardation” after receiving a vaccine against HPV could fetch the woman’s family thousands of dollars. But the family can only collect if Bachmann or the unnamed woman can prove the story is true.

Two bioethics professors have offered to pay more than $10,000 for medical records that prove the anecdote Bachmann told after Monday night’s Republican presidential debate is true, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

Steven Miles, a U of M bioethics professor, said that he’ll give $1,000 if the medical records of the woman from Bachmann’s story are released and can be viewed by a medical professional.

His offer was upped by his former boss from the University of Minnesota, Art Caplan, who is now director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics. Caplan said he would match Miles’ challenge and offered $10,000 for proof of the HPV vaccine victim.

“‘These types of messages in this climate have the capacity to do enormous public health harm,’” Miles said of why he made the offer. ‘The woman, assuming she exists, put this claim into the public domain and it’s an extremely serious claim and it deserves to be analyzed.’”

Bachmann told the story after she criticized opponent Texas Gov. Rick Perry for using an executive order in 2007 to mandate that all girls entering the sixth grade receive a vaccination against the Human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical cancer. The Texas legislature overturned the mandate and the policy was never enacted.

“There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate,” Bachmann said after the debate, where she had told Perry on stage that she was “offended” by his decision. “She said her daughter was given that vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of that vaccine.” She repeated the story to several news outlets over the next 24 hours and sent a fundraising letter to supporters about the exchange she had with Perry on the debate stage.

When pressed by Fox News’ Sean Hannity on his radio program about the story, Bachmann said she had “no idea” if it were true.

Bachmann’s story drew criticism members of the medical community along with several conservatives allies, including radio host Rush Limbaugh, who have refused to defend her. Ed Rollins, who advised Bachmann’s campaign through the summer, said she should take it back.

“She made a mistake,” Rollins said on MSNBC. “The quicker she admits she made a mistake and moves on, the better she is.”

Original Article

Cocaine On The Half Shell - Man Attempts To Smuggle Drugs In CLAM SHELLS (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

WASHINGTON (Alicia Lozano) - In the latest attempt to sneak drugs across the U.S. border, a man from El Salvador concealed 15 bags of cocaine in clams at Washington Dulles International Airport. Authorities found the stash hidden inside the man’s luggage.

Officials seized a combined 152 grams of the narcotic from David Rene Pocasangre Vaquiz, 26. The approximate street value of the drugs is about $10,000.

“Smugglers attempt all types of creative concealment methods to sneak their deadly poison into the United States and this is one of the oddest we’ve seen,” says Christopher Hess, Customs and Border Protection port director for D.C.

Pocasangre Vaquiz arrived at Dulles about 2 a.m. Saturday from Panama, says Steve Sapp from the Department of Homeland Security. He was headed for Maryland, but was first stopped for a routine inspection.

Customs agents found a black plastic bag containing approximately 80 clams. Hidden inside the first clam opened by officials was cocaine. An X-ray revealed 14 more such clams, which had been pried opened, stuffed with drugs and glued shut.

“It could very well be that they were experimenting with that method,” Sapp says. “We don’t think they will try that again.”

Pocasangre Vaquiz is being charged with transporting narcotics into Virginia and possession with intent to distribute. His preliminary hearing is Oct. 5. He is being held without bond.

Original Article

Smoking Bans DO NOT Lead To Immediate OR Dramatic Reductions In Heart Attacks (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Jacob Sullum) — A few weeks ago, I noted a study of 74 U.S. cities with smoking bans that contradicted the widely repeated claim that such laws lead to immediate, dramatic reductions in heart attacks.

A study recently reported in the Journal of Community Health likewise finds no such changes in six states with smoking bans:

Target-year declines in AMI [acute myocardial infarction] mortality in California (2.0%), Utah (7.7%) and Delaware (8.1%) were not significantly different from the expected declines (P = 0.16, 0.43 and 0.89, respectively). In South Dakota AMI mortality increased 8.9% in the target year (P = 0.007). Both a 9% decline in Florida and a 12% decline in New York in the 2004 target year exceeded the expected declines (P = 0.04 and P

Similarly, notes tobacco policy blogger Michael Siegel, data from Ohio, where a statewide smoking ban took effect in 2007, show the following declines in hospital discharges for myocardial infarction:

2005-2006 (baseline): -4.7%

2006-2007 (first year of implementation): -2.7%

2007-2008 (second year of implementation): -2.2%

2008-2009 (third year of implementation): -6.3%

Average annual decline post-implementation: -3.6%

In other words, Siegel writes, “the rate of decline in heart attack discharges in Ohio was greater prior to the smoking ban than it was in the first three years after the smoking ban,” which “clearly does not support the conclusion that the smoking ban resulted in a large and immediate decline in heart attack discharges.”

The Ohio Department of Health nevertheless concludes that there was “a sharp decline in heart attack rates immediately following implementation of the law.” In fact, it says, there was “a significant change in age‐adjusted rates of AMI discharges within one month after the enactment of the Smoke‐Free Workplace Act.” Siegel (who supports smoking bans but opposes unscientific arguments in favor of them) analyzes the statistical trickery behind those conclusions here and here.

The data from these seven states fit the pattern Siegel has noted: While a few small jurisdictions, such as Helena, Montana, and Pueblo, Colorado, have seen big drops in AMI rates after implementing their smoking bans, studies that look at multiple jurisdictions and bigger populations (including analyses of nationwide data) find no such effect.

Ban boosters focus on the few places that fit the story they want to tell, ignoring the broader picture. This blatant cherry picking has been blessed by the National Academy of Sciences, whose Institute of Medicine issued a 2009 report endorsing the biologically implausible notion that smoking bans have a noticeable impact on heart attack rates within a year or two. In light of the accumulating evidence to the contrary (much of which was available when the report was written), that embarrassing conclusion should be revisited.

Original Article

Car Crashes Into House - Kills 1 And Exposes Marijuana Grow Operation (WIDK)

Posted to WIDK by Emily Moore

(Huffington Post) — A man was killed Saturday near the Chicago suburb of Lockport when a car crashed into his home, leading authorities to discover a marijuana grow operation inside—and charges against his grieving roommate.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Zachary Isenberg, 28, was playing video games in his home when a neighbor’s accelerator apparently stuck, causing the vehicle to slam into Isenberg’s home, killing him.

Isenberg’s roommate was apparently able to jump off the couch to safety.

When fire crews arrived, they checked the rest of the home for other victims, but ended up finding a room filled with about 30 marijuana plants, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Isenberg’s longtime friend and roommate, Thomas J. Micucci, 27, was hospitalized after the accident, but arrested on drug charges shortly after being released, according to the Sun-Times. Aside from the marijuana, officers reportedly found cocaine, guns and cash in the home.

The son of the 63-year-old woman who lost control of her car told ABC Chicago that the incident was a “pure freak thing” and that it was unfortunate that the grieving roommate now faces jail time.

Original Article