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From the Los Angeles Times

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Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in U.S., data show

Fueling the surge are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol.

by Lisa Girion, Scott Glover and Doug Smith, Los Angeles Times

September 17, 2011

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

Public health experts have used the comparison to draw attention to the nation's growing prescription drug problem, which they characterize as an epidemic. This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.

Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One relative newcomer to the scene is Fentanyl, a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Such drugs now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

"The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets," said Laz Salinas, a sheriff's commander in Santa Barbara, which has seen a dramatic rise in prescription drug deaths in recent years.

Overdose victims range in age and circumstance from teenagers who pop pills to get a heroin-like high to middle-aged working men and women who take medications prescribed for strained backs and bum knees and become addicted.

A review of hundreds of autopsy reports in Southern California reveals one tragic demise after another: A 19-year-old Army recruit, who had just passed his military physical, took a handful of Xanax and painkillers while partying with friends. A groom, anxious over his upcoming wedding, overdosed on a cocktail of prescription drugs. A teenage honors student overdosed on painkillers her father left in his medicine cabinet from a surgery years earlier. A toddler was orphaned after both parents overdosed on prescription drugs months apart. A grandmother suffering from chronic back pain apparently forgot she'd already taken her daily regimen of pills and ended up double dosing.

Many died after failed attempts at rehab — or after using one too many times while contemplating quitting. That's apparently what happened to a San Diego woman found dead with a Fentanyl patch on her body, one of five she'd applied in the 24 hours before her death. Next to her on the couch was a notebook with information about rehab.

The seeds of the problem were planted more than a decade ago by well-meaning efforts by doctors to mitigate suffering, as well as aggressive sales campaigns by pharmaceutical manufacturers. In hindsight, the liberalized prescription of pain drugs "may in fact be the cause of the epidemic we're now facing," said Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health.

In some ways, prescription drugs are more dangerous than illicit ones because users don't have their guard up, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Steve Opferman, head of a county task force on prescription drug-related crimes. "People feel they are safer with prescription drugs because you get them from a pharmacy and they are prescribed by a doctor," Opferman said. "Younger people believe they are safer because they see their parents taking them. It doesn't have the same stigma as using street narcotics."

Lori Smith said she believes that's what her son might have been thinking the night he died six months shy of his 16th birthday. Nolan Smith, of Aliso Viejo, loved to surf, sail and fish with his brother and father. He suffered from migraines and anxiety but showed no signs of drug abuse, his mother said.

The night before he died in January 2009, Nolan called his mother at work, asking for a ride to the girls basketball game at Aliso Niguel High School. Lori told him she couldn't get away.

When Nolan didn't come home that evening, his parents called police and his friends. His body was found the next morning on a stranger's front porch.

A toxicology test turned up Zoloft, which had been prescribed for anxiety, and a host of other drugs that had not been prescribed, including two additional anti-anxiety drugs, as well as morphine and marijuana.

All investigators could give the family were theories.

"They said they will have parties where the kids will throw a bunch of pills in a bowl and the kids take them without knowing what they are," Lori said. "We called all of his friends, but no one would say they were with him. But he must have been with someone. You just don't do that by yourself."

The triumph of public health policies that have improved traffic safety over the years through the use of seat belts, air bags and other measures stands in stark contrast to the nation's record on prescription drugs. Even though more people are driving more miles, traffic fatalities have dropped by more than a third since the early 1970s to 36,284 in 2009. Drug-induced deaths had equaled or surpassed traffic fatalities in California, 22 other states and the District of Columbia even before the 2009 figures revealed the shift at the national level, according to the Times analysis.

The Centers for Disease Control collects data on all causes of death each year and analyzes them to identify health problems. Drug-induced deaths are mostly accidental overdoses but also include suicides and fatal diseases caused by drugs.

The CDC's 2009 statistics are the agency's most current. They are considered preliminary because they reflect 96% of death certificates filed. The remaining are deaths for which the causes were not immediately clear.

Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, years for which more detailed data are available. Deaths more than tripled among people aged 50 to 69, the Times analysis found. In terms of sheer numbers, the death toll is highest among people in their 40s.

Overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers, including OxyContin and Vicodin, and anti-anxiety drugs such as Valium and Xanax more than tripled between 2000 and 2008.

The rise in deaths corresponds with doctors prescribing more painkillers and anti-anxiety medications. The number of prescriptions for the strongest pain pills filled at California pharmacies, for instance, increased more than 43% since 2007 — and the doses grew by even more, nearly 50%, according to a review of prescribing data collected by the state.

Those prescriptions provide relief to pain sufferers but also fuel a thriving black market. Prescription drugs are traded on Internet chat rooms that buzz with offers of "vikes," "percs" and "oxys" for $10 to $80 a pill. They are sold on street corners along with heroin, marijuana and crack. An addiction to prescription drugs can be costly; a heavy OxyContin habit can run twice as much as a heroin addiction, authorities say.

On a recent weekday morning, Los Angeles County undercover sheriff's deputies posing as drug buyers easily purchased enough pills to fill a medicine cabinet on a sidewalk a few blocks south of Los Angeles City Hall.

The most commonly abused prescription drug, hydrocodone, also is the most widely prescribed drug in America, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency. Better known as Vicodin, the pain reliever is prescribed more often than the top cholesterol drug and the top antibiotic.

"We have an insatiable appetite for this drug — insatiable," Joseph T. Rannazzisi, a top DEA administrator, told a group of pharmacists at a regulatory meeting in Sacramento.

In April, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy announced initiatives aimed at stanching prescription drug abuse. The plans include a series of drug take-back days, modeled after similar programs involving weapons, in which consumers are encouraged to turn leftover prescription drugs in to authorities. Another initiative would develop voluntary courses to train physicians on how to safely prescribe pain drugs, a curriculum that is not widely taught in medical schools.

Initial attempts to reverse the trend in drug deaths — such as state-run prescription drug-monitoring programs aimed at thwarting "doctor-shopping" addicts — don't appear to be having much effect, experts say.

"What's really scary is we don't know a lot about how to reduce prescription deaths," said Amy S.B. Bohnert, a researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School who is studying ways to lower the risk of prescription drugs.

"It's a wonderful medical advancement that we can treat pain," Bohnert said. "But we haven't figured out the safety belt yet."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugs-epidemic-20110918,0,5517691.story

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Search team looking for missing nursing student finds body

Crime scene investigators were inspecting the badly decomposed body, which was found in a brushy area near Pleasanton Sunol Road at Verona Road, said Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.

The body was discovered about 10:30 a.m. by member of a search party made up of family members and volunteers looking for 26-year-old Michelle Le, who went missing in May.

Investigators said it could not immediately be determined whether the body was that of Le. Because of the condition of the remains, not even the gender could be discerned, according to a news release by the Hayward Police Department. Police said the Alameda County coroner's office will make a determination on the identity.

Esteban had been a person of interest in the investigation because she had blamed Le for ruining her relationship with her boyfriend. Police said they found Le's DNA on one of Esteban's shoes, along with evidence that she had been in Le's car and security camera footage of Esteban from the Hayward parking lot.

It was the eighth search organized by Le's family, which has raised $100,000 for a reward in the case.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/search-team-looking-for-missing-nursing-student-finds-body.html#more

How not to catch a terrorist

Elaborate, expensive sting operations by the FBI are based on the premise that true terrorists will take the bait. This is not the same thing as preventing an actual attack.

by Petra Bartosiewicz

September 18, 2011

Shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller issued a memo to his field offices detailing "one set of priorities" for the agency: Stop the next terrorist attack. This directive marked a new "preemptive" style of law enforcement that has since become the hallmark of our domestic front in the war against terrorism.

Under this system, catching an actual terrorist would constitute a failure because the perpetrators would have committed the act. Instead, we are in effect seeking "pre-terrorists" — individuals whose intentions, more than their actions, constitute the primary threat.

Taking stock of the major "terrorist" prosecutions that this approach has yielded, however, it's not at all clear we're safer from another attack.

The government's marquee post-9/11 terrorism investigations, including cases such as the Miami Seven, the Ft. Dix Six and last year's Portland Christmas Tree Bomber, have not involved real attacks but, rather, have been sting operations involving plots invented by law enforcement. New York University's Center on Law and Security, which tracks federal terrorism prosecutions, reports that since 2009, the FBI has escalated its use of stings in which a confidential informant or undercover officer approaches a suspect and "assists him in the planning of an attempted terror crime."

The defendants in these plots, most of them male Muslim immigrants with no history of terrorism or violence, have become unwitting actors in a disturbing theatrical performance: The FBI scripts the plot and provides the weapons, along with money, cars and any other logistical support needed to carry out the "attack."

These cases are pursued through lengthy sting operations on the premise that by presenting a potential suspect with the opportunity to commit a crime, true bad guys will take the bait.

But terrorism stings go much further than presenting a likely bad guy with a passing criminal opportunity. The operations last for months and sometimes years, with suspects offered all manner of enticements to participate in a plot they probably would never have come up with on their own. In a case in Chicago last year, for example, the FBI instructed informants to pay a suspect to quit his day job so he could focus on jihad.

To aid them in their efforts, the FBI has deployed paid undercover informants throughout the nation's Muslim community, particularly in mosques. These informants often act as agents provocateur. At a mosque in California in 2007, for example, one such FBI informant, Craig Monteilh, who says he was paid $177,000 for his services, talked so vigorously about jihad that the mosque sought and received a restraining order against him.

In another high-profile case known as the Newburgh Four — four African American Muslim converts convicted last year of attempting to bomb a synagogue and a Jewish community center and to shoot down military planes — an FBI informant promised the defendants, among other enticements, a BMW and $250,000 to carry out the attack. The details of the plot were choreographed in such detail that the presiding judge in the case chastised the government for its "decidedly troubling" tactics and concluded that the defendants would never have committed the attacks on their own.

"The government made them terrorists," she said in delivering the minimum sentence for one of the defendants Sept. 7.

Such aggressive tactics are permissible in part thanks to a post-9/11 loosening of rules governing FBI investigations. The burden of proof required to launch an investigation has been lowered so that agents no longer have to demonstrate a "predicate" or reason for the investigation, in effect giving the agency the power to spy on whomever it wishes, for however long it wishes, even if that individual is not suspected of any particular crime. The Obama administration has defended its terrorism stings, which Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. last year called an "essential law enforcement tool."

Although terror plots staged by the FBI may have succeeded in rooting out individuals willing to commit crimes given the proper enticements, this is not the same thing as preventing an actual terrorist attack. Nevertheless, the government's sting operations, however dubious, serve to justify the vast and expanding homeland security apparatus. A recent investigation by The Times found that federal and state law enforcement agencies now spend $75 billion a year on domestic security.

But is the expense and effort making us safer? On the contrary, actual terrorist attacks have been averted not because of enhanced law enforcement but the perpetrators' incompetence and, sometimes, the efforts of regular citizens. The 2002 shoe bomber, Richard Reid; the 2009 underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; and the 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, were thwarted primarily because their devices failed to detonate.

There is a term for manufacturing false threats: It's called a protection racket. A racketeer, wrote historian Charles Tilly, is one who "creates a threat and then charges for its reduction…. To the extent that the threats against which a given government protects its citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the government has organized a protection racket."

The defendants in these sting operations evince just such a conjured threat. In his first State of the Union address after the attacks of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush warned Americans that countering the threat of terrorism would require a "lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen."

The war against terrorism has certainly been lengthy, but its tactics are not altogether unfamiliar. Entrapment, the creation of crime where none probably would have existed, and the establishment of a government protection racket carries the same attendant abrogation of civil liberties and due process as the targeting of earlier "enemies" that we've rejected in the past, as recently as the Church Committee hearings in the wake of COINTELPRO and other law enforcement and intelligence scandals. Ten years after 9/11 , it is time to assess just how well we're being "protected" and at what cost to our democratic values.

Petra Bartosiewicz is the author of "To Catch a Terrorist" in the August issue of Harper's Magazine and a 2011 Soros media justice fellow.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-bartosiewicz-informants-20110918,0,3689558,print.story

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From Google News

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India

'Community policing creates a cop in every civilian'

Nagpur police commissioner Ankush Dhanvijay has passionately tried to forge a strong bonding among different communities since the day he took over the reigns of the city just over a year ago.

Improvising the concept of community policing, Dhanvijay laid his focus on communal harmony to secure the city against riot and terror attacks. As a result, the city police organized Eid-e-Milan, Ganeshutsav melawa, Christmas melawa and also programmes to mark the Buddha Purnima, Paryushan and so on.

With a proven track record of tackling riot-like situations in Amravati, Solapur, Nashik and other districts, Dhanvijay has won several awards including the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award-2003 given by the State Minorities Commission and the state's 1st Prize for communal harmony and national integration under the Rajiv Gandhi Gatimanta Abhiyan.

Excerpts:

Q. What is the modern day concept of community policing?

A. Community policing is a term which means involving the citizens of the civil society in maintaining law and order. This concept can be used for various fruitful purposes like prevention of crimes by involving the police mitras or volunteers, creating communal harmony and increasing awareness regarding various policing measures etc. This is to create a policeman in every civilian and making him a lawful citizen who would also be ready to shoulder the responsibility of collective security of the society.

Q. What role does the concept of communal harmony play in community policing?

A. It has been observed that many times even a trivial issue has acted like a trigger point of a major communal tension leading to large scale loss of public property and life. If the members of the disputing communities fail to settle the conflicts amicably then it can snowball into a serious crime. Such damaging developments are due to a low level of religious tolerance. A slight hurt on the religious sentiment would be ignored in case the tolerance level is high. So, it is of paramount importance that we work in that area. That is the reason I have devised the methodologies blending communal harmony with community policing to secure peace among the communities and feeling of brotherhood.

Q. What was the backdrop in which you developed the concept of communal harmony on the platform of community policing?

A. As police chief of Amravati in 2000, I observed that the different parts of the country, including Maharashtra, were gradually turning to communal bombs that were ready to explode at any time. There were communal clashes at Akola, Godhra in Gujarat and other places. Even the Ayodhya issue was simmering. As the unit in-charge of a communally sensitive city, such untoward developments would leave me uneasy. I desperately wanted to devise a plan to increase the tolerance level of the various heterogeneous groups bringing them on one platform.

Q. What was the effect of bringing the maulvis and pundits together with the Father and Buddhist monk?

A. I initiated the effort by approaching the maulvis and inviting them to participate in the communal harmony programme. I wanted to ensure they step out of their mosques located in their ghettos and start interacting more freely with members of other communities. Then, I invited the pro-Hindu radical groups like Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal to join the interactions with other communities. Then, I approached the other religious groups like Buddhists and Christians too. My aim was to inculcate a sense of brotherhood and peaceful cohabitation.

Q. What methodologies were devised for championing the cause of communal harmony programmes?

A. The basic issue was to raise the bar of religious tolerance and bring everyone from varied background on one platform. According to me, the religious preachers can play the most pivotal role followed by the political leaders of different outfits. The political leaders were roped in as many of them had strong communal affinities. The concept was so developed that communal harmony schemes had equal participations of religious and political leaders. A close scrutiny of the post riot reports would suggest that tension may have triggered on the religious grounds but there was a political cunningness that helped it to spread like a wildfire. Therefore, bringing the religious and political leaders was a crucial pillar of the entire plan.

Next, bringing the social activists into the fold of communal harmony programmes also played a crucial part in it. The plan to involve them was due to the fact that they too draw lot of respect and regard from different corners of the society. Their participation would also have a catalytic effect on the whole scheme of things.

Q. Is there any plan behind implementing the communal harmony scheme?

A. I started with the sadhbhavna or ekta rally for peace and harmony. Then, I started to pick and choose the religious festivals of different communities as good occasions to organize the communal harmony programmes where each one would extend hearty wishes to their counterparts from the other communities. This also made each one to be a part of the other's programme. Even for an occasion like Christmas I involved the maulvis, pundits and monks and so on.

Q. What are the benefits of communal harmony?

A. First of all, it raises the religious tolerance to increase the capacity to absorb any kind of shock arising out of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. Secondly, it helps building a strong police and public rapport. Thirdly, there would be an amicable intercommunity bonding. This would also help to improve the interactions among different communities. Participations in each other's socio-religious activities would also help in strengthening the national integrity and cultural bonding. It helped to make a sensitive Amravati a riot free place for a long period. The five different districts of Nashik range including Malegaon and Dhulia were also made riot-free. My tenure in Amravati as police commissioner and IG Nashik range extending to five-and-half years did not witness any riot.

In Nagpur too, I started implementing the same Amravati pattern with almost two dozen programmes already being held.

Q. Can the communal harmony programme gift a terror-free society?

A: Police always require the support of public to combat terrorist activities and it cannot be fought only with guns. The programmes of communal harmony would only help in that direction. Once a rapport with the civil society is strengthened, the masses would come forward to help police in countering terrorism. It is also very healthy practice from the intelligence point of view to have citizens working as eyes and ears of police. All should join hands with police and police join hands with all through communal harmony programmes.

Q. What role should citizens play to strengthen the drive?

A: First of all, I had to sensitize my officials whom I projected as the nodal officials for the implementations. I exposed the officials to the benefits through power point presentations and relevant literature. Now, I want the citizens to imbibe the spirit of the communal harmony and act in such manner. In Nagpur, our effort to build the communal harmony had ensured a peaceful Ganeshutsavs and Eid, tension-free Ganpati immersion and all the other religious festivals. We handled Mustafa baba issue and an incident of idol desecration a Sakkardara without much hiccups.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Community-policing-creates-a-cop-in-every-civilian/articleshow/10024899.cms

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