Drug Paraphernalia

Customs agents announced Thursday that they had seized an estimated $2 million in drug paraphernalia earlier this week, half from a glass factory in Fountain Valley and the rest from two locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. No arrests have been made so far, a spokesman said. The haul included pipes for crack cocaine and marijuana, water pipes known as "bongs," cocaine vials, and kits for cocaine and freebase, a concentrated form of cocaine.

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Marcos Gerardo Manzano Jr. zipped around the hills along the San Diego-Tijuana border pursuing illegal immigrants every day. But his hunt didn't extend, authorities allege, to the illegal immigrant living in his own home ? his father. Manzano's father, Marcos Gerardo Manzano Sr., was known as a Mr. Fix-it in his working-class San Diego neighborhood, who did painting and landscaping jobs for a few bucks. But authorities say Manzano Sr., 46, is a twice-deported illegal immigrant with a criminal record who may have been dealing drugs.

Considering the debilitating effects of the illegal substances authorities contend were to be smoked in the pipes put on display Thursday, the bowl designs that predominated were especially macabre. There were skulls with swords thrust through them, skulls with roses and, of course, skulls with crossbones.

Talk about holiday cheer. Hundreds of boxes that were shipped from China and labeled as Christmas ornaments were seized by suspicious customs officials at Los Angeles Harbor recently. Inside the boxes were 316,000 glass bongs and other drug pipes. "They're very colorful and big," said Cristina Gamez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "Some of them are like 2 feet tall." Gamez said the bongs and pipes, which were found in nearly 860 boxes of cargo, are worth about $2.6 million.

Tightening the restrictions on drug paraphernalia outlets, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Monday took action to severely limit the locations where such businesses may operate. By a unanimous vote, the supervisors approved an ordinance establishing a series of site restrictions designed to prevent drug paraphernalia businesses from concentrating in any particular area in the unincorporated regions of the county.

Federal agents seized four truckloads of drug paraphernalia--including thousands of plastic, glass and wooden pipes--worth more than $2 million from a firm alleged to be the area's largest distributor of drug-related supplies, the Customs Service said Monday. David Warren, special agent in charge of the Customs Service office here, said that the March 4 raid on the Award Distributing Co. was part of a nationwide crackdown on drug paraphernalia distributors. No arrests were made.

For the first time in the San Fernando Valley, the owner of a Van Nuys "head shop" was convicted Tuesday of violating a 1983 state law that makes it a misdemeanor to sell drug paraphernalia. A Van Nuys Municipal Court jury deliberated one day before finding Jack Herer, 46, guilty of two counts of supplying pipes, spoons, vials and other items that, prosecutors said, he "reasonably should know" are intended to be used to ingest controlled substances. Although the law took effect on Jan.

Rex Hudler, the Angels' exuberant television analyst, was arrested Sunday at the Kansas City, Mo., airport and charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, the club confirmed Wednesday. Hudler was flying back to Southern California on a commercial flight, departing after the Angels' game earlier in the day against the Kansas City Royals. He did not accompany the team to Minneapolis for a three-game trip that ended there Wednesday because none of those games were televised.

Law enforcement officers swarmed into 30 Oxnard gang members' homes and arrested nine people in a pre-dawn raid Thursday and four more later that morning, just days after an angry young mob marched across Oxnard and clashed with police. Police said they had spotted several of the youths in the rowdy crowd that roved from La Colonia to South Oxnard on Saturday night before the teen-agers were dispersed in a bottle-throwing standoff with officers.

In some parts of Los Angeles, getting the paraphernalia needed to smoke crack cocaine is as easy as stopping at the corner store. The items are on the shelves at almost every liquor store and neighborhood market. Because most are common household products in everyday use, store managers seem unconcerned about running afoul of the law. But for drug users, these products take on an entirely different meaning. Glass tubes are easily fashioned into crack pipes.

The chairman of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Friday called for a special meeting next week to discuss ways to oust recently arrested county Assessor Bill Postmus from his job. "After [Thursday's] investigative raids by the district attorney's office and the arrest of Mr. Postmus, it is clear that this intolerable situation has to be remedied immediately," Chairman Gary Ovitt said.

San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus, who said publicly that he had battled but overcome drug addiction, was arrested Thursday on charges that include felony possession of methamphetamine. About 50 agents from the county district attorney's office, armed with 10 search warrants, raided locations in San Bernardino, Highland, Apple Valley, Victorville and Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County.

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, 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.

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.

Former USC and Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich, whose drug addiction derailed a promising football career, was ordered Wednesday to attend a hearing in Orange County's drug court program after his most recent arrest. Marinovich, 35, will remain in jail in Orange until the Tuesday hearing. He has had several drug-related arrests since his first, when he was at USC, and was arrested Friday night by Newport Beach police and accused of violating probation.

Former New York Jet defensive end Mark Gastineau pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of possession of drug paraphernalia stemming from a 1991 arrest in Phoenix and is expected to be given probation.

Drug paraphernalia was discovered in the North Hollywood apartment of blues musician Paul Butterfield, who was found dead Monday, a Los Angeles police detective said. The body of Butterfield, 44, a harmonica player who played a central role in popularizing the blues with rock music fans in the 1960s, was found in the apartment's kitchen, North Hollywood Division Detective Philip Sowers said. The drug equipment, which he did not identify, was in another room, he said.

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.

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.