Dea

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.

An Orange County doctor who often saw patients at Starbucks coffeehouses has agreed to serve at least eight years in federal prison for illegally selling prescriptions for powerful painkillers and other drugs, according to court records. Alvin Ming-Czech Yee, 44, of Mission Viejo routinely wrote prescriptions for highly abused medications to patients with no legitimate need for them, authorities have alleged in court papers. Yee and his attorney could not be reached for comment.

A West Hollywood doctor pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges of illegally prescribing powerful painkillers to patients, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles James William Eisenberg, 72, is accused of writing more than 1,200 prescriptions for addictive painkillers after the Drug Enforcement Administration revoked his authority to prescribe controlled substances. Eisenberg's bail was set at $200,000, with home detention ordered, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

A scheme to smuggle 200 kilograms of highly potent heroin from Pakistan to Los Angeles and British Columbia has been foiled with the arrest of five suspects and the seizure of $500,000 cash, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Wednesday. The drug shipment had been intercepted earlier by narcotics agents. Had it slipped through undetected, it could have been adulterated to provide more than 8 million standard doses, the DEA said.

Two seasons ago on “Breaking Bad,” Mike gave Walter a test, and Walter failed that test. The test was this: Jesse had gone off-course and had to be dealt with. It was up to Walter to deal with his partner and protégé, or at least get out of the way so Mike and Gus could handle the situation. As we now know, Walter didn't do it, couldn't bring himself to do it. Jesse was too important to him for reasons he perhaps didn't precisely understand. And now, even with Jesse's raw anger at Walter from last season, the bond between the two seems stronger than ever.

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.

Francis M. Mullen Jr. resigned Friday as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to take a job in private industry. Mullen, 50, sent a letter of resignation to President Reagan, saying he was leaving government effective March 1. A spokesman said Mullen is considering two job offers in the private sector.

Re "The science of pot," March 10 The Times' editorial urges research on the medicinal use of marijuana. This is a long-overdue policy change. In 1988, I was an attorney who sued the Drug Enforcement Administration over its refusal to allow medical use of marijuana. The DEA administrative law judge at the time ruled in our favor, describing his own agency as "arbitrary and capricious" for denying access to cannabis for medical purposes; he was overruled by the appointed head of the DEA. The research at the time showed marijuana to be safe and effective for cancer treatment, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other illnesses.