Dealer Charged in Death of a Dad

Prosecution of drug dealers should become a deterrent to dealing potentially deadly drugs.  Here’s another case of a dealer being charged in the death of one of his customers:

A federal grand jury has charged a former nightclub host with selling cocaine and methadone to a businessman who died from an overdose.

Brandon Erwin, 29, used to work part-time at Blue Martini, a nightclub in the swanky International Plaza mall. Federal authorities allege in court papers that Erwin arranged ecstasy and methadone sales at the bar.

Among Erwin’s customers, authorities say, was Andrew Culver, 25, a father of two who worked recruiting accountants. Culver died in November.

An autopsy concluded Culver died of intoxication from the combined effects of cocaine and methadone, said Dick Bailey, operations manager for the Hillsborough County Medical Examiner’s Office.

If you deal drugs, take this into consideration.  Do you want to be a murderer?  Do you want to serve time in prison?

If you use drugs, please don’t mix them!

More Evidence of Rave Violence

This is not a huge point to me, but a frequent commentor regularly argues that Raves are violence-free, or close to it.  I question such generalities.  Here is documentation of aggravated robberies at a recent rave in Sydney, from AAP Newsfeed:

Police arrested and charged 24 people for possession of drugs or supplying drugs at a dance party in Homebush Bay.

Another six women were charged with aggravated robbery after two patrons were assaulted and had their tickets and money stolen.

Police said they searched 93 people at the event, Prophecy – Chaos Theory – Dance Party, held at the Acer Arena at Olympic Park last night.

Drug Mix Kills Teen

A tough life has ended in a tragic death:

A Probe into childcare services at a county council is under way after a teenager in care died from a drugs overdose. The body of Miles Shanks, 15, was found on a derelict industrial site, close to Northampton town centre, on June 17.

The teenager, said to be from Erewash but whose family lived in Old Basford until earlier this year, had been placed in foster care by Derbyshire County Council. …

A pathologist report, which is likely to be a key focus of the council’s inquiry, revealed Miles Shanks died from choking on his own vomit and the toxic effects of drugs MDMA, ecstasy and cocaine.

At the time of his death, Miles was living with a foster family in West Hunsbury, Northampton. He had spent a large part of his life in care.

The report is from the Nottingham Evening Post, whose reporters apparently don’t understand that MDMA is ecstasy.

North Korea Feeds Asia’s Drug Appetited

The Australian ran an interesting story last Tuesday about the growing appetite for drugs in Asia, and North Korea’s role in feeding it:

WHEN the North Korean ship the Pong Su mysteriously appeared off the Victorian coast in 2003 to dump its deadly haul of heroin here, authorities hoped it was a one-off crime, a brazen act by a desperate nation.

That now seems unlikely. A significant new report, obtained exclusively by The Australian, shows Australia is almost certain to be targeted by other heroin ships.

What’s more, it reveals there is a ghostly armada of Pong Sus out there today, plying the waters of Asia and the Pacific carrying drugs to unsuspecting victims around the world.

In one of the most chilling studies of its kind, the Australian National Council on Drugs, the principal advisory body to the federal Government on drug policy, has taken a rare and comprehensive snapshot of the Asia-Pacific region. Its 215-page report finds that, despite record numbers of drug-related arrests, the region is awash with illicit drugs, from heroin to amphetamines to schoolyard glue.

The report goes on to describe increased use of Ecstasy, meth and ketamine in cities throughout Asia, and the authorities’ struggles against the rising tide.

”The numbers of people using and dependent on illicit drugs run into the millions across the region. Issues of such magnitude challenge the capacity of developed nations, let alone those that are attempting to hasten social and economic development, often from a low base,” says the report, Situational Analysis of Illicit Drug Issues in the Asia-Pacific Region.

My fear is that use of the drugs is increasing exponentially faster than education about them.  Usually, it takes a number of tragedies before the media wakes up to a problem.

Sex And Violence At Raves

Some pro-drug people who attack this blog claim that there is no violence at raves.  I offer this point of view as an alternative view, from the Hong Kong Standard:

A former drug abuser who identified herself as Ah Sze said once she entered a disco she felt compelled to take drugs.

“The atmosphere made me want to take drugs. Even if I didn’t want to take drugs for some days, when I went in and saw everyone having drugs, I felt that I wanted to join them,” the 20-year-old said. …

She said Ecstasy cost HK$100 a pill, and ketamine HK$150 a packet. Friends spent up to HK$1,000 a night on drugs, but she spent HK$200. …

The drugs exposed girls to the risk of sexual assault, she said, resulting in her being molested.

“Once I was touched by many boys. I knew that, but I didn’t know how to resist. I had no strength. I couldn’t even move my legs. Once I got up, I fell down immediately.”

She said that discos were also a place for brawls, each night seeing one or two fights.

Don’t be fooled into thinking is always lovely with club drugs.

Two More Club Drug Comas

I don’t know when this occurred; it’s from the New England Medical Journal, quoted in the Toledo Blade:

The girl found her boyfriend and his pal unconscious during a college party with plenty of alcohol. Instead of letting them sleep it off, she called 911.

“Drunk,” was the EMTs first thought. En route to the hospital, however, the boys slipped into a coma, and by arrival they didn’t even respond to pain.

The boys looked healthy. Blood and urine tests showed no common drugs or large amounts of alcohol. Then they stopped breathing, and were put on respirators. If the girlfriend had left them to “sleep,” they would have been brain dead in about 6 minutes.

Next day they regained consciousness and walked out of the hospital – unable to remember anything from the night before.

This is why spend time on this blog instead of with my family — in the hope that someone will read a story like this and think to call 911 because they understand the risk, and save the life of someone they love.

Club Drug Coma In Maryland

Here’s a story out of Maryland that’s a bit unusual:

A little over a week ago, 18-year-old Kimberly Davis was working two jobs and had aspirations of becoming a cosmetologist, but those dreams may never come true.

One night of drug use left her clinically dead for 10 minutes and unconscious for three days, according to her family.

“She could have brain damage for the rest of her life” Malorie Davis said of her sister who awoke from a coma earlier this week. “We don’t know what’s going to be wrong with her but we know she’s going to be alive and that’s all that matters.”

What happened to Kimberly is not unusual, unfortunately.  As any emergency room worker can tell you, 18 to 25 year olds with drug overdoses show up with depressing regularity.

What’s unusual is that Kimberly’s story was told in a newspaper.  If every coma and near-death experience suffered by a young person from drugs were told, there would be greater understanding of the risk, and fewer would show up in the emergency room.

Ecstasy, The Love Drug

Obviously, this guy has problems way bigger than ecstasy use … but you have to wonder if this crime had occured if the perp weren’t on a drug that loosens sexual inhibitions.

An 18-year-old man told police he took ecstasy and looked at a pornographic magazine before raping a 2-year-old that he believed to be the son of a man who had robbed him, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

Rodney Redell Jett, of the 3400 block of N. 17th St., was charged with three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child, each of which carries a maximum possible penalty of 60 years in prison.

Source:  Milwaukee Journal

Gay Drug Party Ends in Death

The following article from the Glascow Evening Times blames David Steel’s death on Ecstasy, but it’s clear that there was much more at work within his body when he died.

A GLASGOW addiction psychiatrist has been accused of hosting a drug and drink fuelled gay party during which a man died.

Dr Clint Tatchell, 37, allegedly wrote a prescription for the tranquilliser Diazepam then misled police by tidying up his flat after David Steel, a former Mr Gay Glasgow, was found dead in his bed.

A General Medical Council fitness-to-practise hearing in London was told Mr Steel’s body was discovered at Dr Tatchell’s flat in Glasgow on September 21, 2003. Mr. Steel, 30, of the city’s Ingram Street, who died of an ecstasy overdose, had also taken heroin, cocaine and Diazepam in a binge that began two days before.

Dafydd Enoch, for the GMC, told the hearing: “The party was not just fuelled by drink, although there was vodka, beer, champagne and alcopops drunk. We say it was fuelled by drugs, certainly in Mr Steel’s case.

“Dr Tatchell orchestrated a thorough tidy up of the flat before police arrived following Mr Steel’s death. He had just found a dead body in his bed, he must have realised he should have touched nothing. What did he have to hide?”

The insane irony of this story is that Tatchell is an addiction psychiatrist.  He therefore knows professionally the effects of this much drug-taking.  If I were the prosecutor, I would go for whatever the English equivalent of first degree murder is, because the case can be made that he had knowledge and forethought.

Agitated on E, Boy Falls to Death

Graham Bousfield was 19 and on a camping trip near Lancaster, England with his friends.  A little beer, a little Ecstasy, a little accident … and Bousfield was dead.

The coroner’s report found significant amounts of Ecstasy and alcohol in his system, and a head injury that mercifully killed him quickly.

Was this just a stumbling alcohol death?  I don’t think so, and here’s why:

They had all been drinking but Graham’s friend, 17-year-old Cassandra Bemford, told the inquest he had seemed uncomfortable and agitated. She said: “He was talking about anything random and anything that popped into his head. He was also twitching. He said he wanted to go rock climbing and we all said no.”

That sounds like Ecstasy and alcohol getting together in a particularly bad way.

Drug Cocktail Kills Young Dad

In the northern England town of Teesside, “Magic” Mark Fisher is dead, leaving behind his eight year old son Bradley.

The culprit:  A cocktail of drugs including ecstasy, cocaine and effedrine — all washed down with alcohol.  All evidence points to this being an accidental death, but accidental deaths happen when multiple drugs are mixed.

Says the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette:

After his death his mum Davina Fisher, of Gedney Avenue, paid tribute to her “lovely” and “beautiful” son. She said then: “He lived life to the full. He was a lovely person. Bradley idolised him. Mark was his God.”

How sad.

Rave Revival?

The numbers are smaller — just a few thousand instead of the 10,000 to 20,000 who showed up at raves in the 1980s — but police in England are worried that raves are back.

Here’s the story, from the Aug. 29 issue of the Belfast Telegraph:

Police forces in the south of England have been logging growing evidence of the re-emergence of the rave.

The most recent detected was on Saturday night in a cornfield next to the village of Ickleton, near Saffron Walden in Essex. Two hundred riot police from five counties used CS gas, dogs and batons to disperse the 1,000 party goers. During the clashes a police car was set on fire and nine officers were wounded, with injuries to police including a suspected broken collarbone and a severed finger. At least two revellers were also injured. Thirty people were arrested and released on bail.

Elsewhere, in Gloucestershire, two officers were injured and several people were arrested when police broke up an illegal party at a business park early on Saturday.Police also sealed off a farm near Heston, Cornwall, on Sunday after receiving information that the site was to be used for a rave.

Forces admit there has been a surge in similar illegal raves, including one party in north Cornwall that was attended by more than 5,000 revellers over the May bank holiday this year.

12-year-old Rushed to Hospital; Took Ecstasy

Would a 40 year old woman give a 12 year old girl Ecstasy in order to build a market for her drug dealing business? Apparently so, according to the Cornish Guardian:

Children in Torpoint are being supplied with Class A drugs, a police investigation has revealed.

Earlier this month a 12-year-old girl was rushed to hospital after taking ecstasy in the town, prompting police to arrest a teenager and a woman in her 40s on suspicion of drug dealing.

The girl was taken ill on parkland at The Lawns on August 5 and was transferred by ambulance to Derriford Hospital where she received treatment and was later released.

Police have now appealed to children to tell their parents – who should then report it to the police – if they are approached by anyone offering them pills or other substances.

Officers say children can sometimes be offered drugs at no cost with the intention of getting them hooked. …

Local residents have been stunned someone so young could have taken the drug.

Helen Dunn, 40, saw the girl being helped into the ambulance.

She said: “I’m really shocked she’s only 12, she looked a lot older than that. I saw the police and ambulance arrive and I saw two boys supporting a girl, walking her towards the ambulance, She couldn’t stand on her own.”

Lucky the girl got to the hospital right away. This goes right along with the story below. Parents need to get a clue.

Survey Finds Parents Clueless on Kids’ Drugs

A recent survey by – finds that parents’ perception of parties their teens go to vary a great deal from what the teens reports goes on at their get-togethers. From the Chicago (IL) Tribune:

[A] survey released Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University… [finds]: One-third of teens and nearly half of 17-year-olds attend house parties where alcohol, marijuana and illegal drugs are plentiful–even when parents are actually in the home. The survey also found:

– Eighty percent of parents believe that neither alcohol nor marijuana is usually available at teen gatherings, but 50 percent of their kids say they attend parties where alcohol, drugs or both are available.

– Ninety-eight percent of parents say they are normally present during parties in their homes, while a third of teens report that parents are rarely around.

– Only 12 percent of parents see illegal substances as their teen’s greatest concern. But twice as many teens (27 percent) say drugs are a major worry.

– Thirty-eight percent of teens say they can buy marijuana within a day; 19 percent can complete the transaction in an hour or less.

Commenting on the survey, Joseph A. Califano, secretary of health, education and welfare during the Carter administration, said:

Where are [the parents]? Why aren’t they walking in and out of the party? Don’t they smell the pot or the booze? There’s just a tremendous disconnect.”

“Parents are living in a fool’s paradise. They’ve got to take the blinders off and pay attention. If asbestos were in the ceiling, they’d raise hell. But their schools are riddled with drugs. If they’d say, `Get the drugs out’ with the same energy, we’d get somewhere. This is a wake-up call.”

Parents need to pay attention and not expect schools to handle this for them. THEY need to talk to their kids about drugs. The best tool I know of to accomplish this is the Voice of the Victims films. The parent edition gives parents the information they need to know, and the motivation and will to talk to their kids.

The teen/young adult edition tells the stories of four drug tragedies in the reality-TV format kids appreciate: No narrators, no endless statistics, no phony scare tactics: Just the friends and families of the victims, telling their stories through tears.

Here’s a direct link to the order page. My friend Beth Pearce, the producer, has it on sale now (both films, more than two hours of good stuff, for $25 and she’ll pay the U.S. shipping — this is a mission for her, not a business), so do buy the set and MORE IMPORTANT, do talk to your kids.

Ecstasy’s Birth: Not an Appetite Suppressant

Popular Web-mythology about Ecstasy is that its was created by the drug giant Merck in 1912 as an appetite suppressant that might make the German Army more efficient when battling hunger and Germany’s enemies, but the drug was set aside when experiments on lab animals revealed bizarre reactions.

The story is bogus, according to Merck, which spent a couple years poring over dusty old records to see if the company really was involved in so strange a program. According to The Guardian (UK), Ecstasy had a much more noble beginning:

The company did develop the drug in 1912, but the appetite suppressant story is an urban myth, passed on from source to source through “uncritical copy-paste procedures”. Instead, documents from the time show that ecstasy emerged during the company’s efforts to develop a potentially life-saving medicine that would help blood to clot.

The best available blood clot medicine at the time, hydrastinin, was patented by Merck’s local rival Bayer. Merck chemists believed that a similar compound called methylhydrastinin would be equally effective and set about trying to make it from scratch in a way not covered by the Bayer patent. Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, was first produced during these experiments, but attracted little attention.

Merck’s recent search found just a passing reference to the drug: in a patent the company filed in 1912 to protect its new blood clot agent, which had been tested on patients in a Berlin hospital. Patent 274350 did not refer to MDMA by name, but described its properties among a list of other new intermediates: “colourless oil, boiling point 155C at 20mm pressure, its salt forms white crystals”.

Tellingly, there were no references to any experiments to test the biological effects of ecstasy, then known as methylsafrylamin. As the official report of Merck’s historical detectives puts it: “In clear contrast to what is usually claimed by the ‘ecstasy’ literature, MDMA was neither studied in animals nor humans at Merck around 1912.”

There it is; presented for your knowledge and edification.