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  • Airline Crew Allegedly Involved in $20 Million Drug-Trafficking Ring

    Airline Crew Allegedly Involved in $20 Million Drug-Trafficking Ring

    Police say the key players in the alleged drug ring used crew members to hide drugs on their bodies for flights to various Australian cities.

    At least one airline worker and seven other suspects were arrested this month in Australia on drug-trafficking charges after authorities said they smuggled in more than $15 million of heroin, meth and cocaine as part of an international drug syndicate. 

    In a series of raids over the course of 10 days, the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police collared key players in the alleged criminal ring, which had relied on crew members to hide the drugs on their bodies during flights destined for major Down Under cities like Melbourne and Sydney, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

    “This is a significant seizure but I think reality would say that it’s not the total amount of drugs that this team have brought into this country,” Assistant Commissioner Tess Walsh of the Victoria Police told the Australian outlet. 

    The final bust netted six kilograms of heroin, eight kilograms of meth and half a kilo of coke. Authorities also seized pricey cars, various drug paraphernalia and $100,000 in cash, according to news reports.

    It’s not clear how long the illicit dealings had been going on.

    “Intelligence would tell us that this crew has been operating for some years, I would say five plus,” Walsh said. “I don’t know whether or not it’s decades.”

    Based on a five-month investigation – dubbed Operation Sunrise – it appears the Vietnamese drug ring was based in Melbourne and made use of the small Malaysian airline for its seedy endeavors. 

    “Malindo Air stands ready to co-operate with all the relevant authorities be it in Australia or in Malaysia in this regard,” the company said in a statement. “As a responsible international air carrier, Malindo Air does not condone any act that is criminal in nature or misconduct by our personnel. All our flight and cabin crew are adequately trained & continuously appraised in all aspects of their conduct to comply to our stringent operating standards.”

    The implicated crew member has since been suspended pending termination, the company said, framing the entire thing as “an isolated incident.”

    Although Malindo only acknowledged one crew member’s involvement, CNN reported that two airline staffers were implicated.

    So far, four of the arrestees – all women – have been charged with importing controlled drugs, the network reported. Authorities did not immediately release their names. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Prison Drug Treatment Program Pairs Inmates with "Hero Pups"

    Prison Drug Treatment Program Pairs Inmates with "Hero Pups"

    Advocates say dog training provides inmates with a variety of emotional skills that can be utilized while undergoing drug treatment. 

    A quartet of inmates in a New Hampshire county jail is helping to raise and train puppies that will eventually become service dogs for veterans and first responders with post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

    The Merrimack County Department of Corrections has partnered with Hero Pups, a New Hampshire-based non-profit, to make the care and training of dogs part of the inmates’ drug treatment program; some 300 prisons across the country currently have some form of dog training for inmates, which has shown promise in reducing anxiety and depression among participants.

    According to Merrimack County Department of Corrections superintendents, the dogs have boosted morale for inmates and prison staff alike.

    The program at Merrimack County involves four minimum security inmates – two male and two female – who will raise the 10-week-old puppies for two months before they move on to permanent companionship with veterans or first responders.

    Though the Hero Pups program is the first of its kind in the Granite State, similar dog- and animal-training programs have been implemented in neighboring states like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where inmates work with service dogs.

    Program advocates have stated that dog training provides inmates with a variety of emotional skills, including compassion and self-sufficiency, that can be utilized while undergoing drug treatment. “It’s teaching them some responsibility. It’s teaching them some structure,” said Merrimack County Department of Corrections Superintendent Ross Cunningham.

    Laura Barker, board president of Hero Pups, expressed hope that the benefits of the dog training program will spread beyond the inmates to those who will eventually benefit from their companionship. “These dogs go on to help people,” she said. “Being able to contribute something positive to the inmate participants just adds another layer of awesomeness.”

    The inmates participating in the Merrimack County program have been effusive about the impact of the dogs on their lives.

    “It feels like a second chance,” said Caitlin Hyland, who is serving time for a drug conviction, about the chocolate Labrador mix puppy under her care. “I am learning so much about finding the balance. You have to love yourself before you can appreciate the love something else is giving you.”

    According to corrections staff, the puppies’ presence has buoyed the mood of all 30 inmates in the jail, who are allowed to interact with them during the day, and staff alike. “When I look on security cameras, I see puppies running around,” said Assistant Merrimack County Department of Corrections Superintendent Kara Wyman. “That lifts the staff.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vince Staples On Why He Never Touched Drugs, Alcohol

    Vince Staples On Why He Never Touched Drugs, Alcohol

    Staples says staying sober wasn’t really a choice but more of a survival tactic. 

    When GQ interviewed musicians about their lives in sobriety, most of them talked about their past use of drugs and alcohol and how their lives changed when they got sober. Twenty-five-year-old rapper Vince Staples, however, explained how he has never been interested in using drugs or alcohol. 

    Staples said that his sobriety comes as a surprise to many people. 

    “They don’t expect this from a young black musician my age from where I come from,” he said. “Like, how could you end up being in the ghetto, went through this, went through that, and not experienced drugs, not experienced alcohol?”

    Staples said that his father used and sold drugs, but growing up in a tough situation made him realize that substance use wasn’t something fun or glamorous. 

    “People where I come from don’t use drugs in a recreational sense. We’re not at a party, or at the rock show, or at the rap show, doing lines in the bathroom,” he said. “Where I come from, life comes day after day after day, and people use these things to cope. People use drugs as a coping mechanism, and I’ve always held that reality. Reality hurts, but so does addiction—it’s just which pain you choose. That’s the reality of my situation.”

    Staples said that he knows choosing sobriety without a history of substance use disorder sets him apart from others, especially musicians interviewed by the magazine. 

    “I am very sure that I’m gonna think different answers than Steven Tyler or anyone involved in this piece. I’ve lived a completely different life,” he said. “What I’m saying is: The drug usage was the last thing on my mind. When you’re surrounded with death and dismay and poverty and all these things that happen every day, I didn’t have time to worry about using or partaking in certain things.”

    He said he’s not sure if his father’s substance abuse or the death of friends in high school contributed to his sobriety. 

    “All I know is that it’s not just one thing. Life isn’t one-sided. We all have different things that we go through, and different things that we see, and these things collectively go together to make us the people that we are today,” he said. 

    Although other hip-hop artists, like Future, have admitted they’re reluctant to talk about sobriety, Staples doesn’t shy away from the way that his past and his sobriety overlap. Staying sober wasn’t really a choice, he said, but more of a survival tactic. 

    “I’m a hundred percent sure it played some part, but I never had time to think about whether my father’s addiction issues led to me not doing drugs, because I was too busy trying to cope with the reality of people dying and people trying to kill me every day. That was really where my focus was. When you have to think about your next 15 minutes—you have to think about the walk to the store, you have to think about how you’re getting to school, you have to think about the bus ride home, you have to think about how you’re going to sneak a gun into the football game—the last thing I was thinking about was getting high.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Vermont's Top Court: Smelling "Burnt" Pot Not Valid Excuse For Search

    Vermont's Top Court: Smelling "Burnt" Pot Not Valid Excuse For Search

    The Vermont Supreme Court’s ruling will prevent future rulings against motorists for similar reasons.

    A Vermont resident won his case against police who seized his vehicle after smelling “burnt cannabis” when the state’s Supreme Court ruled that the odor of marijuana does not constitute a valid reason to conduct a search.

    The Vermont Supreme Court ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which sued the state over a 2014 incident in which state police pulled over Gregory Zullo for a registration sticker issue and then seized his car without his consent after detecting the scent of burnt marijuana.

    As High Times noted, the Supreme Court’s ruling will prevent future rulings against motorists for similar reasons, though Vermont drivers can still face search and seizure if a smell of fresh marijuana is detected.

    Zullo was pulled over while driving in 2014 by state trooper Lewish Hatch, who claimed that snow was covering Zullo’s vehicle registration sticker. The trooper stated that a smell of “burnt cannabis” prompted him to request a search of Zullo’s car; though Zullo refused, police towed and searched the car and found a glass pipe with cannabis residue.

    Though Vermont law does not deem the paraphernalia a criminal or civil offense, Zullo’s car was impounded. 

    The Vermont chapter of the ACLU union took up Zullo’s case and filed suit against the state of Vermont for violation of his rights against unlawful search and seizure.

    The ACLU also alleged that Zullo, an African-American, had been stopped due to racial profiling – an issue that had been alleged in regard to Hatch, who lost his job in 2016, on several prior occasions.

    After hearing both the ACLU and state attorneys’ arguments, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in Zullo’s favor. Associate Justice Harold E. Eaton Jr. wrote in a 50-page ruling that an “odor of marijuana is a factor, but not necessarily a determinative factor, as to whether probable cause exists.” Justice Eaton Jr. also noted that a smell of burnt cannabis would be “far less” indicative of the presence of marijuana than the potent smell of fresh marijuana. 

    The Supreme Court also ruled that the incident allowed for Zullo to pursue damages based on violation of his civil rights. Zullo has not indicated whether he intends to pursue civil action against the state of Vermont, but as High Times noted, the most positive aspect of the ruling is that it makes a clear case for preventing the scent of burnt marijuana as probable cause for a search.

    However, the scent of fresh cannabis and driving under the influence of cannabis, in the state of Vermont, remain cause for search, seizure and possible arrest.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Doctors At High Risk For Depression & Suicide, Survey Says

    Doctors At High Risk For Depression & Suicide, Survey Says

    About 15% of physicians are depressed, and 44% say they are burned out, according to a recent survey.

    Physicians are tasked with taking care of others, but a new study suggests that their own health often suffers due to the pace and demands of their profession, putting them at high risk for burnout and even death by suicide. 

    According to Reuters, doctors are more likely than people in any other profession to die by suicide. About 15% of physicians are depressed, and 44% say they are burned out, according to a recent survey by Medscape. On average, a doctor dies by suicide more than once a day. 

    “There is a passionate argument surrounding the data and discourse about who’s to blame for this situation.” Dr. Carter Lebares, director of the Center for Mindfulness in Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco said that there are many factors contributing to this epidemic. 

    “Quotes from respondents in the Medscape survey capture this very poignantly: anger over a broken system, loss of time with patients, being asked to sacrifice dwindling personal time to ‘fix ourselves,’ and demoralization that the only way out is to quit or severely curtail our work,” she said. 

    The survey showed that administrative duties were the biggest cause of stress, with 59% of physicians feeling taxed by them. The other top stressors were spending too much time at work, not being paid enough or fretting over electronic records — about one-third of doctors said they were affected by each of these. 20% of respondents said they felt “like just a cog in a wheel.”

    Lebares said that doctors need to be taught to manage their stress in healthier ways. 

    “The approach we promote and champion in our research and programming for surgeons includes cognitive training for stress reduction through mindful meditation training; learning skills for advocacy; and engaging the institution to address broader change,” she said. 

    However, many physicians use unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with the stress of the job. 21% of female and 23% of male doctors said that they drink alcohol to cope, while 38% of females and 27% of males turn to junk food. 

    Some have healthier habits for stress management: 52% of females and 37% of males say they talk to family and friends, while 51% of males and 43% of females exercise to alleviate burnout. 

    Lebares said that the medical system needs a cultural change, particularly with more doctors retiring, which may contribute to a physician shortage. 

    “Data are coming to suggest that an institutionally supported network of choices for wellbeing will be the answer — some combination of things like limited [electronic records] time, increased ratio of patient time, better food choices at work and home, room for personal health (like exercise breaks), tailored mindfulness-based interventions, financial planning services or untraditionally structured jobs,” she said.

    In the meantime, patients could be affected by physician burnout: Doctors reported making errors, expressing frustrations and not taking careful notes because of their exhaustion. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Charlie Sheen On Sobriety: It Had To Be Done

    Charlie Sheen On Sobriety: It Had To Be Done

    “I made some changes to give myself a shot to do some cool things professionally. And I’m proud of finally being consistent. And reliable. And noble,” Sheen said.

    Charlie Sheen, who celebrated one year of sobriety in December after one of the most infamous public relapses in recent years, said that getting sober was a necessity. 

    Talking about his announcement of being one year sober, Sheen told Extra, “That was good, that was good, yes, indeed — had to be done, had to be done.” 

    Two weeks before Christmas, Sheen posted a picture of his one-year chip from Alcoholics Anonymous, adding a caption “so, THIS happened yesterday! a fabulous moment, in my renewed journey. #TotallyFocused.”

    He had formerly revealed that he had started drinking and abusing drugs after being diagnosed with HIV in 2012. However, he said that today he is in good health, physically, mentally and emotionally.  

    “I feel good,” he said. 

    Sheen was speaking at the California Strong Celebrity Softball Game, which was organized to help fund recovery efforts from natural disasters, including the fires in California. Sheen said that supporting his community in Malibu was important to him. 

    He said, “It’s where I grew up, been here since, jeez, 1970.”

    Sheen told Us Weekly, “I made some changes to give myself a shot to do some cool things professionally. And I’m proud of finally being consistent. And reliable. And noble.”

    Before his diagnosis of HIV, Sheen had been sober for 11 years, so he knows that long-term sobriety is possible, he said during an interview with Dr. Oz in 2016. 

    “There was a stretch where I didn’t drink for 11 years. No cocaine, no booze for 11 years. So I know that I have that in me,” he said, according to People.

    Despite his long-term sobriety, Sheen said that he didn’t have adequate healthy coping mechanisms to help him deal with his HIV diagnosis and the worries about what the disease would mean for his life. 

    “It was the only tool I had at the time, so I believed that would quell a lot of that angst. A lot of that fear. And it only made it worse,” he said. “It was to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb I didn’t think about it.”

    Sheen’s father, Martin Sheen, who is in recovery from alcoholism, has spoken publicly about how hard it was to watch his son relapse, knowing there was nothing he could do to intervene. 

    “What he was going through, we were powerless to do much, except to pray for him and lift him up,” Martin Sheen said in 2015.

    However, he said that his experience with addiction has helped him to understand what his son was going through in active addiction. 

    “The best way to heal is to help healing someone else, and it takes one to know one, so you can appreciate what someone’s going through if you’ve gone there yourself,” Martin Sheen said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Steve-O Talks Rock Bottom: My Addiction Was Desperate & Pathetic

    Steve-O Talks Rock Bottom: My Addiction Was Desperate & Pathetic

    The reality TV star discussed his rock bottom moment during an interview on In Depth with Graham Bensinger.

    Steve-O did a lot of silly and dangerous stunts when he was staring on Jackass, but the former star says that his addiction put him at much greater risk. In a recent episode of In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Steve-O described his rock bottom. 

    “I’m in [my dealer’s] house and over at the table where he would weigh out all of his drugs, there was a very noticeable residue of cocaine,” Steve-O said, according to People. “And so I went over to the table to scrape up a pile of cocaine to snort it. But as I had sat down looking at it … you could see, like, the little tiny little blood splatter on the residue.”

    His dealer, he said, was known to have HIV. However, the risk of contracting the disease wasn’t enough to scare Steve-O off from using the drugs.

    “This is how just desperate and pathetic my addiction was that I sat there knowingly scraping up this tainted, like, blood cocaine. I sat there and snorted it, which is so f–d up,” he said. “I snorted the blood of an intravenous drug user.”

    On the episode, Steve-O, 43, also discussed the physical toll that Jackass took on him and how it still concerns him today. 

    He said, “I can count five times where I was hit in the head hard enough to actually like black out … That’s concerning to me. I mean especially where the one time I landed on my face on concrete off a second-floor balcony.” 

    He also made some loose safety demands on set, he said. 

    “I heard that getting kicked in the balls a lot like a lot of trauma to your testicles increases your chances for testicular cancer. Once I heard that, I decided to be like, it’s gotta be like a really special occasion if I’m gonna take a nut shot.”

    Steve-O posted on Twitter last March that he has been sober for a decade, thanks in part to the intervention from his friends and co-stars. 

    “Hard to believe it’s been an entire decade since I’ve had a drink or a drug. I just can’t put into words how grateful I am for @realjknoxville and the rest of the guys who locked me up in a psychiatric ward on March 9, 2008, where this journey began. Thank you, dudes, I love you,” he wrote. 

    Now, he’s trying to do the same for former colleague Bam Margera, who recently reentered rehab after a relapse that Steve-O saw coming. 

    “I mean, I don’t know. And I don’t want him to [feel like] I’m attacking him or calling him out, I just think that there were signs that, if he hadn’t already drank, it was evident that he was going to,” Steve-O said. “The signs were there. I think if you’re a sober alcoholic that you kind of can tell.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Proposed Unemployment Drug-Testing Rule Set To Be Finalized

    Proposed Unemployment Drug-Testing Rule Set To Be Finalized

    The ACLU released a statement condemning the rule for potentially violating the Fourth Amendment.

    The US Department of Labor proposed a new rule in November 2018 that would allow states to subject people applying for unemployment benefits to drug testing. The department opened up for comments on this proposal shortly after, and that comment period closed on January 4.

    If the Department of Labor does not extend or re-open for comments, they will finalize the rule based on what they have collected.

    The proposed rule would change the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. The Republican Congress had already removed restrictions specifically preventing states from drug-testing unemployment applicants in 2017. This caught the attention of labor rights and civil liberties groups who have been fighting against similar policies for years.

    The ACLU released a statement on January 10 condemning the rule for potentially violating the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure.

    “Courts have said drug testing is a search and subject to Fourth Amendment protections,” wrote Kanya Bennett and Charlotte Resing. “So unless there are probable cause and individualized suspicion, there should be no search. Exceptions to this rule have been made when the government can show it has a ‘special need’ and that need outweighs individual privacy rights, but that is not the case here either.”

    The ACLU successfully argued this point in court to end mandatory drug testing for individuals seeking Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in Florida in 2011. They and other rights groups have also made the case that the cost of drug testing far outweighs any money saved by denying benefits to the few who test positive.

    According to data collected by Think Progress, only 369 unemployment applicants tested positive for illicit drugs out of around 250,000 across 13 states. The drug tests cost those states $1.3 million collectively. 

    Unlike welfare programs like TANF, unemployment insurance is not paid for by states or by the federal government. It’s a program paid for by employers via payroll taxes that provides recently unemployed individuals with a portion of their former wage or salary for a limited period of time. With unemployment rates currently at historic lows, funding the program should not be a concern.

    Elizabeth Lower-Basch, director of income and work supports for the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), spoke with The Fix on the legality and potential consequences of the proposed rule by the Department of Labor.

    “I imagine that the administration will attempt to finalize the rule, and I imagine that there would be litigation afterward,” she said. “There’s a fairly technical argument related to the Congressional Review Act. The Obama administration had issued regulations to this law which were overturned by [the 2017] Congress via the Congressional Review Act because they’re not supposed to issue substantially similar regulations.”

    The Congressional Review Act (CRA) gives Congress the power to review new federal regulations and overrule them by passing a joint resolution. However, the CRA also prohibits issuing a new rule that is substantially the same “unless the reissued or new rule is specifically authorized by a law enacted after the date of the joint resolution disapproving the original rule.”

    “It’s just bad policy,” Lower-Basch concluded. “It’s really designed to stigmatize.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ellie Goulding Talks "Miserable" Exercise Addiction

    Ellie Goulding Talks "Miserable" Exercise Addiction

    The pop star touched on exercise addiction in a recent Instagram post.

    Singer Ellie Goulding addressed her experience with dependency on exercise, which she described as “not worth it.” 

    In a recent Instagram post, the Grammy-nominated singer shared a photo of herself, which was accompanied by text that in part read, “Ah good #memories of being addicted to the gym. Not worth it . . .” 

    Goulding, who has also struggled with panic attacks, said that while she continues to maintain an exercise regimen, she approaches it in an entirely different manner that encompasses boxing. 

    Goulding, whose most recent solo recording was the Top 20 UK single “Still Falling for You,” clarified what she meant about her previous exercise routine by adding, “It was just kind of miserable.” 

    According to a study by Northwestern University, approximately 3% of people who exercise on a regular basis have a dependency on exercise, which can be defined by physical or psychological symptoms like depression, anger or confusion brought on by missing a single day of exercise.

    In coverage of Goulding’s post Bustle cited Heather Hausenblas, a professor at Jacksonville University’s department of kinesiology, who noted that regular or even advanced levels of exercise don’t indicate an addiction to exercise.

    Rather, it’s the feelings that arise as a result of breaking the routine and the drive for people to change their lives in order to work out and quash those feelings that qualifies as a dependency.

    Goulding has mentioned that in the past, intense emotions have driven her to seek solace in music. “It was the ultimate companion – the strongest remedy for any kind of pain or sadness,” she said. “Often it was the only way I’d be able to say what I wanted to say or describe how I was feeling.”

    Exercise also became a means of contending with difficult emotions, including anxiety and panic attacks. But after a period of intensity – “I used to be harder on myself,” she told The CUT in 2018 – she has become better educated on healthy practices and feels “more confident than ever now, which is an amazing feeling.”

    “To work out is being respectful to your body,” noted Goulding. “It’s a way of paying back and saying thank you for keeping me alive and for giving me such an amazing opportunity to live and breathe.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Opioids Hijack The Brain

    How Opioids Hijack The Brain

    Addiction experts and people who use opioids discuss how opioids impact their brains.

    Last year thousands of Americans died from opioid overdoses. Yet, despite the fact that the dangers of these drugs are well-publicized, new users continue to get hooked on opioids and succumb to their addictions. 

    To try to understand why, The New York Times spoke with addiction experts and users to understand just how opioids act on the brain, putting together a visual and text representation of what happens once someone tries opioids. 

    Twenty-four-year-old Amanda Ryan-Carr, of Pennsylvania, said that the first time she tried opioids was like a religious experience. 

    “It’s like being hugged by Jesus,” she said. 

    For Michigan resident Matt Statman, 48, the feeling was one of freedom from worry. 

    “I remember feeling like I was exhaling from holding my breath for my whole life. Just intense relief from suffering,” Statman said. 

    The Times pointed out that many opioid users remember where and when they were when they first used, and they end up chasing that euphoric feeling as addiction takes over their lives. 

    “It was like the high put on blinders to everything and made me not care about anything in the world, other than the heroin,” said Brandon N., a 26-year-old from Pennsylvania.

    Ivana Grahovac, 42, of California, said that opioids became her solution to any problem. 

    “Any time you start to feel like you’re getting antsy or anxious or a little stressed, your body says it knows exactly how to get out of this, and it’s telling you to just go get a little bit more of that heroin,” Grahovac said. 

    Once their bodies become used to having an opioid fix, users face painful withdrawals if they don’t take opioids. 

    Michigan resident Raj Mehta, 51, felt a sense of “doom and anxiety,” when withdrawals loomed, while Pennsylvania resident Jasmine Johnson, 29, said withdrawal was overwhelming. 

    “It’s like a demon crawling out of you. You’d rather just die and be done with it than go through that,” she said. 

    Eventually, users are no longer chasing a high, but just trying to hold off withdrawal symptoms. 

    “It’s like a time bomb,” Mehta said. “You’ve got 24 hours to get heroin, or you’re going to be really sick. You wake up, and your whole life is just based around it.”

    The lucky people are able to get access to treatment and begin a life in recovery. 

    “There was a push factor, which was the misery and the self-hatred and the depression and the cops, and then there was a pull factor, which was this amazing hope from this community of people who I knew understood me in a way nobody else in the world could,” Statman said. 

    However, many people feel like relapse is always looming. 

    “A lot of times in your addiction, things are getting better. You see a light at the end of the tunnel. And it ends up being the freight train coming at you,” Johnson said. 

    Even with bumps along the road, people in long-term recovery say that the work is worth it, allowing them to regain control of their lives and enjoy life without being fixated on their next high.

    “Colors get brighter and smells are more intense and emotions just are much more powerful, because opiates numb them,” said Dove Henry, a 26-year-old from Montana.

    View the original article at thefix.com