Afghan provinces get millions to reduce poppies

The U.S. on Monday agreed to hand out millions of dollars in development aid to provinces in Afghanistan that have eliminated or reduced the production of opium poppies, the raw ingredient in making heroin.

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Calif. narcotics team at risk in budget crisis

California's budget woes could cut a third of the agents from a little-known unit that has played a key role in high-profile cases like Anna Nicole Smith's overdose death and the arrest of murderer Scott Peterson.

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FDA cracks down on unapproved narcotic painkillers

The government ordered 14 unapproved narcotic painkillers off the market Tuesday, prescription versions of potent morphine, hydromorphone and oxycodone. The Food and Drug Administration told nine manufacturers to quit distributing the drugs within 90 days — but insisted there are plenty of legal versions of the painkillers being sold for patients who need relief.

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Iranian police kill 10 drug smugglers

Iran's state television says police have killed 10 drug smugglers in a shootout near the Afghan border.

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Pound puppy becomes narcotics dog in Florida

When his chief told him there was no money for a new narcotics dog, Polk County Sheriff's Deputy John Maney went to the pound, adopted and trained a dog himself.

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Controlled drugs dumped uncontrolled into water

In a frustrating quirk in government policy, the most tightly controlled drugs — like painkilling narcotics prone to abuse — are the ones that most often elude environmental regulation when they become waste.

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Afghans Bonfire Consumes 40 Tons of Drugs

Afghan officials destroyed more than 40 tons of confiscated narcotics worth an estimated $500 million on Wednesday in a giant bonfire on the outskirts of Kabul.

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Addiction, the economy and the lure of living well have sucked many into the narcotics underworld. The trend threatens the foundations of Mexican society.

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An official document from the Department of the US Air Force reveals that the military base in Palanquero, Colombia will provide the Pentagon with "…an opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America…"

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Turkish Foreign Ministry stated on Wednesday that the U.S. Department of Treasury designated several leaders of PKK as "Significant Foreign Narcotics Traffickers".

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SCOTLAND'S drug users are spending an astonishing £1.4BILLION a year to feed their habits. And the drugs scourge leaves the nation with a £3.5billion annual bill. The harrowing scale of the illegal drugs industry was revealed yesterday in a new Government report.

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Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday — a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle against drug traffickers.

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Researchers have found a way to reduce the ill-effects of heroin addiction and to generally keep the addicts out of trouble, but there's a catch: The solution is to give the addicts injections of a pure form of pharmaceutical heroin twice a day.

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A Marion County Sheriff's deputy has been arrested for allegedly buying prescription narcotics.

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HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- A 16-year-old Hong Kong boy makes two phone calls for delivery: one for pizza, the other for the drug ketamine. Two teenage girls are found semi-conscious in a car park in the southern Chinese enclave after overdosing on ketamine.

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KENNER, La. – A mystery substance found in a truck that authorities believe was hauling narcotics has sickened numerous law enforcement officers in Louisiana, and at least 18 have been quarantined as a precaution.

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Recovering drug addict Jamie Lee Curtis discusses some thoughts on Michael Jackson's death and on drug abuse in general.

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According to the complaint to the state Department of Public Health, which was made available to The Times, a nurse told supervisors in February that a patient had overdosed because of a malfunction with a Curlin infusion pump; the pumps allow patients to push a button to control …

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FDA panel decides to recommend the banning of Vicoden and Percocet two popular pain control medications that contain hydrocodone and acetaminophen and oxycodone and acetaminophen respectively.

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Vancouver's neighborhoods are becoming swamped by drug dealers and criminal activity.

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One of the most incisive lines in Gretchen Peters' new book about the Afghan opium trade is buried on page 134: "The Taliban and their allies may be earning hundreds of millions from the drug trade, but one thing almost everyone interviewed for this project agreed on was that …

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This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won.

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A Latino street gang waged a racist campaign to eliminate black people from a Southern California city through attempted murders and other crimes, according to federal racketeering indictments unsealed Thursday.

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The cocaine, with a street value of around US$ 7 million in Europe, was uncovered in an operation by Ghanaian police and customs, working together in a Joint Port Control Unit established with the support of UNODC in 2008.

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A SKINNY man opened the gate at the sprawling compound in Quetta, in western Pakistan. When I asked if the property belonged to Afghanistan's most powerful drug smuggler, he smiled and nodded. "Haji Juma Khan has 200 houses," he said. "And this is one of them."

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WHEN he took office as Mexico's president in December 2006, Felipe Calderón was faced with the unchecked and violent power of drug gangs and a corrupt and ineffective set of police forces.

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To address Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy.

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Clearly this is not the way we're supposed to behave. Clearly this is not what we, as a formerly grumpy, petulant, first-world nation, expect from our president, from our attitude, from our typical chest-thumping, saber-rattling, kill-'em-all posture in the world.

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A Bristol resident with a history of narcotics arrests led police on a high-speed chase through downtown on Monday evening, March 30, that ended with the suspect being wrestled to the ground from his car on a side street off Annawamscutt Drive.

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A Mandarin pharmacy was recently struck by a thief who made off with a small fortune in prescription narcotics after hiding in the business while police scoured the crime scene.

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Maybe we should legalize drugs.

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Enrique Krauze is the editor of the magazine Letras Libres and the author of "Mexico: Biography of Power." This article was translated by Hank Heifetz from the Spanish.

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