Methamphetamine

A police hazardous materials team was cleaning a West Los Angeles apartment Sunday after authorities discovered a methamphetamine lab inside the unit. Los Angeles police arrived at the apartment in the 2100 block of South Bentley Avenue on Saturday to search for evidence related to a homicide investigation in Stanislaus County. That's when they discovered the methamphetamine ingredients and equipment, Lt. Tony Carranza said. The apartment building was evacuated after the discovery.

Take a drug said to have fueled the taut aggression of Hitler's fighter pilots and tank crews, scatter it liberally among the children and teens in the slum areas of Cape Town -- and you have a social problem of mammoth proportions. In the United States, it is known as crystal meth, a highly addictive and toxic drug that makes users feel active, powerful and alert, with no need to eat or sleep.

Authorities confiscated more than $200 million in U.S. currency from methamphetamine producers in one of this city's ritziest neighborhoods, they said Friday, calling it the largest drug cash seizure in history. The seizure reflected the vast scope of an illegal drug trade linking Asia, Mexico and the United States, officials said. Two of the seven people arrested Thursday at a faux Mediterranean villa in the Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood were Chinese nationals.

Crystal meth use among gay men has spiked since 2005, according to preliminary data collected by a Los Angeles nonprofit agency, with those using the drug in the last year five times more likely to test positive for HIV. Of the 6,360 gay men the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center tested for HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases last year, one in four reported using the drug at least once.

Actor Tom Sizemore, who pleaded no contest to a drug possession charge last year, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly violating probation stemming from his alleged use of crystal methamphetamine outside a Bakersfield hotel. Sizemore, 45, was taken into custody at the Airport Courthouse on La Cienega Boulevard about 11 a.m., said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Sizemore was arrested in the Bakersfield case May 8.

Sheriff's investigators were searching for burglars who drove into the entrance of a pharmacy in Pico Rivera early Thursday and stole allergy and cold medicines -- the fourth such incident in the region in the last 10 days. Deputies were dispatched to the CVS store in the 9100 block of Whittier Boulevard after the building's burglar alarm sounded at 3:30 a.m., Sgt. Della Walls said. The deputies found a silver Toyota Camry inside the store and an unknown quantity of drugs missing.

A former middle school principal who pleaded guilty to selling crystal methamphetamine from his office was sentenced to two to four years in state prison. John Acerra, 50, apologized to students, teachers and parents at Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem, where he was arrested in February after he tried to sell the drug to an informant. "I take full responsibility for my actions," Acerra said in Lehigh County Court.

Medical equipment seized in a methamphetamine lab raid had been stolen from Stanford Medical Center, where one of the suspects worked, officials said. Benjamin Ruezga, 49, one of six men arrested May 5 when officers raided his house and seized 5 pounds of methamphetamine valued at $225,000, worked in the warehouse at the center and had access throughout the hospital.

A Riverside County judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury deadlocked on murder charges against Amy Leanne Prien, who was accused of killing her infant son by feeding him methamphetamine-tainted breast milk. The trial was the second for the Perris woman, whose 2003 second-degree murder conviction was overturned last fall by a state appellate court because the trial judge gave the jury inaccurate instructions.

Federal agents closed three Southern California meth labs and arrested five people Tuesday after an eight-month investigation into a major drug ring that investigators said distributed large quantities of methamphetamine throughout the United States. Special Agent Kumar Kibble, who heads the U.S.