Drug Paraphernalia

Call it a case of drugged dialing. Two men attempted to page their drug dealer from a Pomona pay phone with an urgent "911" order for dope about 3 a.m. Tuesday. Instead, they got through to police dispatchers, authorities said. "No one said criminals are smart," said Pomona Police Sgt. Michael Olivieri. "When they were interviewing afterward, they admitted they were in a hurry for dope and made an error in dialing." The call was traced, and a patrol car sent to the scene.

Victor Willis, the original policeman in '70s disco band the Village People, has pleaded no contest to drug possession charges. Willis, 54, appeared in court Wednesday in Redwood City. He was arrested in March in South San Francisco after police stopped his car and, they said, found cocaine and drug paraphernalia. At the time, he faced a bench warrant for failing to appear at his October sentencing hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court on another drug charge. A judge will decide Sept.

Victor Willis, the original policeman in '70s disco band the Village People, was sentenced to three years' probation Tuesday on drug possession charges after he agreed to enter a treatment program. Willis, 54, was arrested in South San Francisco in March after police stopped his car and found cocaine and drug paraphernalia. He pleaded no contest in July after failing to appear at several court hearings. Willis co-wrote hits such as "YMCA" and "In the Navy." He left the Village People in 1980.

A Riverside County jury on Thursday began deliberating the fate of a Perris councilwoman accused of turning her home into a "cocaine factory." Marita "Rita" Gaye Rogers, 55, was charged with conspiring with her 30-year-old son to make and sell crack cocaine, the cheap and highly addictive derivative of the drug, at a house she owns in Mead Valley.

Funk musician George Clinton has pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor drug paraphernalia charges. Clinton, 63, was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and two years of probation. He was also fined $372 in court costs. The musician was arrested in December as he sat in a car near his Tallahassee, Fla., recording studio. Police said that when they approached, he volunteered that he had cocaine in his pocket. He was found with a bag of crack cocaine and a glass pipe, police said.

Afghanistan's opium poppy crop this year is set to break all records, surging past the peak levels reported under the Taliban regime, top American and international counter-narcotics officials said. At the same time, U.N. and U.S. officials are increasingly worried by signs of a nascent drug trade developing in Iraq, where smugglers are taking advantage of the continuing chaos and unguarded borders. Instability in the wake of the U.S.

California's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control wants liquor licenses suspended at 10 stores accused of selling 4-inch glass tubes to undercover agents who asked for crack pipes. Called "rose tubes," they come with miniature fake roses and are marked as novelty gifts, but in some cases store owners or employees showed agents how to remove the roses and use them to smoke. Tougher laws on drug paraphernalia went into effect Jan. 1.

Dozens of dot-com entrepreneurs saw their businesses go up in smoke Monday after they were charged with selling water pipes and other drug paraphernalia on the Internet. In all, the Justice Department nabbed 55 online merchants -- including several in California -- in connection with Operation Pipe Dreams. "With the advent of the Internet, the illegal drug paraphernalia industry has exploded," Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said.

Actor Tommy Chong of the spaced-out, dope-smoking comedy duo Cheech & Chong pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal conspiracy charge of selling drug paraphernalia over the Internet. Chong, 64, of Pacific Palisades, and his family-run business, Nice Dreams Enterprises, admitted to conspiring to sell marijuana pipes via Web site promotions that featured the comedian's celebrity endorsement.

Six people, including a parolee who had been sought for two years, were arrested on drug-related charges Saturday in a raid of a home on Marion Avenue, police said. The parolee was identified as Bennie Kuhn Jr., 44, of Cypress. The other suspects were Randy Hendrickson, 47, and Adam Jackson, 31, both of Cypress; Brian Gelfand, 22, of Cerritos; Gregory Kolano, 42, of Buena Park; and Julie Leicht, 23, of Huntington Beach.