Dea

Sales and possession of Spice, Blaze and other "fake" marijuana products were outlawed for at least a year Tuesday by a federal agency that expressed concern about teens being harmed by smoking such products, according to an announcement. The Drug Enforcement Administration took aim at the products said to create a marijuana-like high. It used its emergency authority to ban five chemicals in such products: JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497 and cannabicyclohexano. "These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that claim to mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops, and over the Internet," the DEA announcement says.

Talk about a bad trip. It started when Daniel Chong, a 23-year-old UC San Diego student, spent a night with friends to mark April 20, which some pot afficionados consider something of a holiday. It ended with an ordeal behind bars. The Drug Enforcement Administration apologized Wednesday to Chong, who was "accidentally" left in a holding cell for five days and reportedly drank his own urine to survive. San Diego attorney Gene Iredale said his client was "still recovering" from the ordeal.

Six men, including a former soldier, have been arrested in the border town of Laredo, Texas, in connection with drug trafficking and an alleged murder-for-hire plot, according to federal officials. The arrests culminate a months-long federal sting operation in which the suspects allegedy helped hatch a plan to purchase weapons for drug cartel members in exchange for money and drugs. Kevin Corley, 29, and Samuel Walker, 28, both of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Shavar Davis, 29, of Denver were arrested over the weekend in Laredo,  according to a statement released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

OAKLAND — Federal agents struck at the heart of California's medical marijuana movement, raiding the nation's first pot trade school and a popular dispensary, both run by one of the state's most prominent and provocative activists, Richard Lee. The raids in Oakland by the Internal Revenue Service and Drug Enforcement Administration sent a shudder through the medical cannabis trade and angered the plant's devotees, who believe the federal government...

If The Times is going to write about the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, please don't waste precious manpower and newsprint on another puff piece like "California Operations Put a Face on Minority Gains at DEA" (March 23). There are many pressing issues to write about; e.g., the DEA's ungodly $19.2-billion budget and its ideology-inspired crusade against medical marijuana. And besides, we already know why the DEA is hiring minorities: It makes it easier to bust minorities and continue filling our prisons with nonviolent drug offenders.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents in San Diego searched the headquarters of the Chargers and Padres on Tuesday as part of a countywide drug-related investigation. The agents served 10 search warrants on physicians and pharmacies affiliated with the two teams, authorities said. The agents were checking the records of controlled substances, which physicians and pharmacies are required to maintain under law, according to federal authorities. There are currently no criminal or administrative charges, but the investigation is ongoing, said Amy Roderick , DEA spokeswoman in San Diego.

The Los Angeles Police Department's request for federal drug agents to join the investigation of Michael Jackson's death indicates that illegal activity may be suspected in the dispensing of painkillers, sedatives, antidepressants or other medications to the 50-year-old entertainer, according to a law enforcement official.

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration today dismissed as groundless reports that terrorists might have pierced a DEA undercover operation to plant the bomb that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. "In particular, we determined that no one on that aircraft was acting on behalf of, or was an informant of the DEA," the agency's administrator, Robert Bonner, said on NBC-TV's "Today" show.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will seek to seize a hillside home in San Dimas, valued at more than $1 million, that was used as a greenhouse for growing large amounts of marijuana, a DEA spokesman said. When drug agents raided the two-story, four-bedroom home in the exclusive San Gabriel Valley neighborhood Tuesday morning, they found 2,500 marijuana plants being cultivated in a sophisticated hydroponic growing system. The owner of the house, Rollin Scott Forteville, 38, and Jeff Jenkins, 26, were arrested on suspicion of marijuana cultivation.

The end came in dramatic fashion. As the jury's guilty verdict was being read in open court, Don Shantos quickly swallowed capsules of cyanide. He collapsed in convulsions and was dead a few hours later. In a note written before taking his own life, Don said he could not bear to be locked up for the rest of his life. Don's crime was not rape, murder or another violent crime. It was dealing drugs while he was an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Six men, including a former soldier, have been arrested in the border town of Laredo, Texas, in connection with drug trafficking and an alleged murder-for-hire plot, according to federal officials. The arrests culminate a months-long federal sting operation in which the suspects allegedy helped hatch a plan to purchase weapons for drug cartel members in exchange for money and drugs. Kevin Corley, 29, and Samuel Walker, 28, both of Colorado Springs, Colo., and Shavar Davis, 29, of Denver were arrested over the weekend in Laredo,  according to a statement released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

A pair of U.S. governors appealed to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday to reclassify marijuana as a drug with accepted medical uses, saying current federal law makes it difficult for states that have legalized medical marijuana to safely regulate it. The petition filed by Gov. Christine Gregoire of Washington and Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island asks the government to change marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II under the...

An FBI/DEA confidential informant helped smuggle firearms from the ATF's Fast and Furious gun-trafficking surveillance operation to drug cartels in Mexico, according to evidence compiled by congressional investigators. The investigators said the informant obtained the weapons from Manuel Celis-Acosta, considered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be the "biggest fish" of 20 individuals indicted in Fast and Furious. At the same time the informant was receiving large amounts of "official law enforcement funds as payment" for his services, they said.

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration has acknowledged to congressional investigators that her agency provided a supporting role in the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious run by their counterparts at the ATF. Michele M. Leonhart, the agency administrator, said DEA agents primarily helped gather evidence for cases in Phoenix and El Paso, and for the program's single indictment last January that netted 20 defendants for illegal gun trafficking....

The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration has acknowledged to congressional investigators that her agency provided a supporting role in the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious run by the group's counterparts at the ATF. Michele M. Leonhart, the DEA administrator, said DEA agents primarily helped gather evidence in cases in Phoenix and El Paso, and in the program's single indictment last January that netted just 20 defendants for illegal gun-trafficking....

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.

Federal prosecutors investigating a growing drug corruption scandal are probing the suspected theft of almost $100,000 in cash from the Los Angeles office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, The Times has learned. The cash disappeared from the office between July 10 and July 24, 1984, just three months before the suspected theft of 2 1/2 pounds of Asian heroin from the drug agency's evidence vault, according to federal sources.

While your "Teachers on the Picket Line" (July 28) was generally fair and accurate, I must object to the frequent reference to "agency shop" and "mandatory union membership" as sticking points in negotiations, particularly as they were applied to the Huntington Beach Union High School District. The Huntington Beach District Educators' Assn. (DEA)--which is not a "union," incidentally, but an association comprising 600 dues-paying members that represents all 770 of the district's teachers, librarians and nurses in contract negotiations--has never demanded that anyone join the DEA. Instead, we asked for a "fair share representation fee" to cover the DEA's cost of representing all 770 employees--a cost presently met solely by the 600 DEA members.