Drug Enforcement Administration

The Food and Drug Administration has approved marketing of the weight-loss drug lorcaserin, the first prescription anti-obesity medication to win the FDA's blessing since the agency approved orlistat in 1999. Once it is cleared by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the drug will be marketed in the United States under the commercial name Belviq. The medication won marketing approval as a drug for "chronic weight management in adult patients" with a body mass index greater than 30, or for those with a BMI of 27 or above with a weight-related condition such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol or Type 2 diabetes.

Almost a quarter of prescription medications approved for patients in Canada over a 16-year period went on to be pulled from the market or to require a strongly worded safety warning to patients, a new study says. In a " Research Letter " published online in the Archives of Internal Medicine, University of Toronto researcher Dr. Joel Lexchin looked at the 434 drug approvals that moved through Health Canada's drug-safety arm from the start of 1995 to the end of 2010. Canada's drug safety agency operates much like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, so the study may reflect the state of drug safety in the United States as well.

A senior drug agent and a former policeman who once was a bodyguard for singer Julio Iglesias have been arrested on charges of taking bribes and conspiring to distribute cocaine, officials said today. "If you deal in drugs, you will be caught," U.S. Atty. Dexter Lehtinen said at a news conference. "Even ex-cops and current federal agents who think they can beat the system will be caught, and they will be caught by their own agencies." The two were arrested over the weekend.

A former Mexican liaison officer who worked closely with U.S. law enforcement was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to passing on sensitive information to organized crime members in Tijuana, federal authorities said. Jesus Quiñonez Marquez, 51, the former top liaison official for the Baja California attorney general's office, was arrested in 2010 as part of a wide-ranging investigation targeting the remnants of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Quiñonez, in his plea agreement, admitted that he provided information to help crime bosses avoid arrest in a double homicide case in Tijuana.

Pot as medicine may now be the law in California, but that doesn't mean Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates has to like it. Gates was a statewide leader in fighting the state's new medical marijuana law, approved by voters as Proposition 215 on Nov. 5. Now he is trying to make it as tough as possible to use medical cannabis under the new state rules. His chief ally is federal law. Proposition 215 legalized marijuana for medical use in California.

Miguel Aldana Ibarra, formerly one of Mexico's top police officials, on Thursday denied charges that he conspired in the 1985 kidnaping and murder of a U.S. drug agent in Guadalajara. Aldana insisted that he was being charged in the United States in revenge for his public denunciation of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and of the slain agent, Enrique S. Camarena, after a docudrama on the case that aired on NBC last month.

In an effort to plug a hole in U.S.-Mexico drug enforcement, the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security announced an agreement Thursday that will give designated immigration agents expanded powers to pursue drug investigations. A key goal is to end the long-standing turf battles between the Justice Department's Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement that many critics believe have hampered investigations.

Slain federal drug agent Enrique Camarena told his killers that agents knew the whereabouts of two of Mexico's most powerful drug lords but did not pursue them because they feared for their own lives, according to a tape-recording of Camarena's torture made public Monday. In a chilling transcript of Camarena's ordeal, filed in Los Angeles federal court, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent is heard complaining to his captors that U.S.

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.

President Reagan, as expected, announced today that he will nominate John Lawn to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. Lawn, 49, a former FBI agent, has been deputy administrator of the DEA since 1982.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved marketing of the weight-loss drug lorcaserin, the first prescription anti-obesity medication to win the FDA's blessing since the agency approved orlistat in 1999. Once it is cleared by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the drug will be marketed in the United States under the commercial name Belviq. The medication won marketing approval as a drug for "chronic weight management in adult patients" with a body mass index greater than 30, or for those with a BMI of 27 or above with a weight-related condition such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol or Type 2 diabetes.

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.

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.

The embattled head of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told congressional investigators that some Mexican drug cartel figures targeted by his agency in a gun-trafficking investigation were paid informants for the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. Kenneth E. Melson, ATF's acting director, has been under pressure to resign after the agency allowed guns to be purchased in the United States in hopes they would be traced to cartel leaders. Under the gun-trafficking operation known as Fast and Furious, the ATF lost track of the guns, and many were found at the scene of crimes in Mexico, as well as two that were recovered near Nogales, Ariz., where a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed.

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.

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.

Since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is now showing a profit, is it going to be one of the assets the Reagan Administration sells off to reduce the deficit? DAVID HILTS La Palma

A Drug Enforcement Administration helicopter crashed Friday while conducting surveillance, killing a St. Louis police officer and critically injuring the pilot. The cause was not immediately known.

For a woman who claimed to be a Beverly Hills socialite with connections to multimillion-dollar businesses, perhaps traveling with 13 suitcases would not have attracted much attention. She was accompanied with a small entourage, traveled on a charter plane and wore false eyelashes. But this was her fourth trip from Van Nuys to Columbus, Ohio, and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration became suspicious that there was something more to 28-year-old Lisette Lee's trips than an extensive wardrobe.