Methamphetamine

It's well-known that highly addictive methamphetamine wreaks havoc (for an illustration of the drug's ravages, just take a look at these before-and-after portraits from Portland, Ore.) But faces, and brains, aren't the only parts of the body the drug affects, researchers at the University of Illinois in Champaign said Wednesday.  Studying meth exposure in fruit flies, the team showed that meth also alters chemical reactions in the body associated with generating energy, forming sperm cells and regulating hormones and muscles.

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.

Mexican authorities Tuesday said they had arrested a regional boss of La Familia drug gang, which dominates the western state of Michoacan with violence and a cult-like authority. The trafficking group recently hung banners suggesting a truce with Mexican government forces, but authorities dismissed the move as a ploy and said they wouldn't negotiate anyway. Federal police said the man arrested Monday, Jose Alfredo Landa Torres, was recently named to head La Familia's operations in the state capital, Morelia.

The nation's largest pharmacy chain will pay a record fine for illegally selling large amounts of a key methamphetamine ingredient to criminal traffickers, a problem that prosecutors say led to a surge in production of the widely abused drug in California. CVS Pharmacy Inc. agreed to pay a $75-million fine and forfeit $2.6 million in profits on the unlawful sales of pseudoephedrine in California and Nevada in 2007 and 2008, according to federal prosecutors based in Los Angeles. The penalty is the largest for a civil violation of the Controlled Substances Act, a 40-year-old law that is more often aimed at street dealers and narcotics traffickers.

The inmate's request seemed fairly benign inside the teeming, violent Los Angeles County jail. He wanted Sheriff's Deputy Peter Paul Felix to smuggle him in some decent food. The deputy knew he was breaking the rules, but he obliged. What started with hamburgers and pizza led to steadily more requests until the inmate asked Felix to perform another favor: smuggle in a marijuana package in exchange for about $600. That delivery into the Castaic jail would be the first in a months-long series of drug carries the deputy made, netting thousands of dollars in the process.

A former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy convicted of attempting to smuggle drugs into a Castaic jail where he worked was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison. Peter Paul Felix, 27, mouthed "I love you, guys" to his sisters and girlfriend as he was escorted from the downtown L.A. courtroom in handcuffs. Felix, a two-year veteran, was arrested in October 2008 carrying 161.5 grams of heroin, 24.4 grams of methamphetamine and 51.5 grams of marijuana that authorities said he intended to bring into the North County Correctional Facility.

Until he raised his pistol for the last time, Ignacio Coronel Villarreal was known for keeping his head low and footprints light. In a world populated by many larger-than-life drug bosses, the slightly built Coronel ruled with a quiet ruthlessness. He was seldom photographed and moved so carefully in the suburb of mansions where he lived in western Mexico that just one bodyguard was with him when the dragnet closed. Even his age and birthplace are a source of mystery. This much is known: By the time Mexican troops killed Coronel on Thursday outside the city of Guadalajara, he had reached the top rungs of drug trafficking, lording over a broad stretch of the Pacific coast as part of a years-long alliance with the country's most-wanted crime boss, Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman.

An increase in Los Angeles County's infant mortality rate in 2007 erased much of the progress made since 2003, according to an annual report released Tuesday. The report from the Inter-Agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect is based on statistics gathered by child abuse experts, law enforcement and social welfare agencies. The report analyzes the deaths of children who were killed by caregivers, committed suicide or died in accidents, and tracks overall abuse reports. Among the findings: From 2004 to 2008, reports of physical, mental and sexual abuse and severe neglect dropped 7.2%, from 22,653 to 21,016.

Jefferson County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Michaels has tried everything to teach high school students about the dangers of drugs and alcohol, but nothing has held their attention quite like a new computer program that shows them what they will look like after they use methamphetamine. "I've never seen the look of shock on their faces like I have with this," Michaels said shortly after several Windsor High School students this month volunteered to have their faces digitally altered to show how they would look after six months, one year and three years of meth abuse.

Each time a proposal comes along that would diminish our privacy to further a social good, society's job is to ask whether that good outweighs another stricture on our lives. A proposed state database to track our purchases of various cold and allergy remedies is designed to cut down on illegal methamphetamine manufacture -- a well-intentioned attempt to fight back at a drug that has become a law enforcement nightmare. But this legislation is unlikely to achieve enough benefits to make its downsides worthwhile.