Cocaine

There was something odd about two sacks that showed up this month in the United Nations mailroom, even if they did have what appeared to be the distinctive U.N. seal, with its globe framed by olive branches. It was blue, but a shade lighter than usual, and the sacks did not include the words "United Nations. " What's more, the sacks had no return address, or even an addressee. Package handlers at a U.N. mail room ran the bags through an X-ray screener. Inside were 14 hollowed-out textbooks, each containing a little more than 2 pounds of cocaine, New York police told The Times on Friday.  U.N. security officials notified the New York Police Department and the Drug Enforcement Agency, which seized about 35 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $440,000, said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne.

Their time together was so brief. Michelle Mitchell was at a sober-living home here, trying to halt a two decade-cycle of crack cocaine and prostitution. Her daughter Miracle, a bundle of energy in pink Velcro sneakers, tornadoed through the kitchen. A curvy woman with a dusting of freckles, Mitchell bear-hugged the 5-year-old. Studying Miracle was like peering into a mirror: same brown eyes, mahogany skin, wide smile. A teasing nature that belied a childhood full of indignities.

Nicotine appears to be a potent "gateway" drug that enhances the effects of cocaine and possibly boosts the chances of becoming addicted, researchers reported Wednesday in a landmark paper on drug addiction. While the study was performed in lowly mice, the findings suggest that reducing smoking and the use of other tobacco products -- and even nicotine replacement products and exposure to secondhand smoke -- in humans may have the bilateral impact of curbing addiction to other addictive substances.

Overdose deaths from abuse of prescription painkillers in the U.S. now outnumber deaths involving heroin and cocaine combined, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. In 2008, drug overdoses caused 36,450 deaths in the U.S. One or more prescription drugs were involved in 20,044 of these deaths, CDC researchers wrote in the journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Opioid pain relievers, including oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone, were involved in 14,800.

There's a not-so-subtle agenda underpinning Joe McGinniss' "The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin," although it's never made explicit until late in the book. "The time has come to strike the tent," McGinniss begins the closing chapter. "[N]o matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation's future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run. " If you're a Palin supporter, this will only give you ammunition to dismiss "The Rogue" as one more piece of liberal propaganda, yet another "lamestream media" smear campaign.

An Anatomy of Addiction Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug Cocaine Howard Markel Pantheon: 352 pp., $28.95 Sigmund Freud sniffed it. William Halsted injected it with a hypodermic needle. Both men, as ambitious and driven young doctors in the 1880s, became addicted to cocaine. History suggests that Freud kicked his habit; Halsted never did. Halsted pioneered a host of surgical methods, the use of anesthesia, and antiseptic procedures in surgery rooms.

Peru's new government has suspended the nation's only coca eradication program, to the surprise of an envoy from the United States, which finances the anti-narcotics program. Ricardo Soberon, new chief of the National Commission for the Development of Life Without Drugs, said Wednesday that the temporary suspension was ordered so the government could "evaluate the policies. " Similar suspensions have taken place in Colombia and Afghanistan, where U.S.-backed eradication programs are in progress, he said.

The girl, dazed, disheveled and appearing no older than 12, realized very quickly that she had chosen the wrong time to cross the train tracks running through a favela in Rio de Janeiro. She refused to give her name or any information to the bulky Brazilian social workers and heavily armed police officers who suspected that she was addicted to crack cocaine and living on the street. "I'm not going with you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to my mom's," she said.

Last of four parts Reporting from Calexico, Calif., and Badiraguato, Mexico T he towering iron gates opened onto a palm-lined driveway that led past the family church, a twisting water slide and two man-made lakes, one stocked with fish, the other with jet skis. With its soaring twin bell towers, each topped by a cross, the estate in the emerald hills outside Culiacan, Mexico, had an almost surreal grandeur. It reminded Carlos "Charlie" Cuevas of Disneyland, without the smiles.

John Charles Ward would take flight in the half-light before dawn, when he could race down the runway without headlights and ascend into the cloaking embrace of an overcast sky. This feature requires that JavaScript be enabled and the Flash plug-in be installed. Third of four parts J ohn Charles Ward would take flight in the half-light before dawn, when he could race down the runway without headlights and ascend into the cloaking embrace of an overcast sky. Soaring above the crowded California freeways in the single-engine aircraft, he'd relax, pour himself a whiskey and Seven and plan his hopscotch route to Pennsylvania.