Utica police have denied that police were planting evidence in the car and claim that another part of the video shows the officer taking a bag from the man.

WKTV reports:

“Obviously it’s a personal opinion someone has, maybe an agenda. All I can tell you is this; if I have an officer that I feel is planting drugs, he’s not going to have a job with the Utica Police Department. It’s not in my bests interests to keep someone like that around,” says Williams.

Officials with the local NAACP chapter brought the video to the attention of police, who were already aware of it. The police chief says he’s reached out to Venice Ervin of the NAACP regarding the outcome of the internal investigation and is waiting to hear back from him. Utica Police say they met with the FBI about the case this morning and were asked to keep them updated on the investigation and official outcome.

Read More At WKTV

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The Vancouver Coastal Health Harm Reduction program, which is running for eight months as a trial, has five centers that distribute thousands of kits that include heat-resistant/shatterproof glass pipes, filters, alcohol, swabs, mouthpieces, screens and push sticks — everything a crack addict needs to make his crack-smoking habit sanitary. The majority of users are males between the ages of 20 to 60.

The organizers of the $60k program felt that since the city’s heroin users already receive sanitary needles from the needle exchange program or the city’s supervised injection site, they should try to create a safer inhalation program for those who are addicted to crack.  Program health officials hope that the distribution of the kits will afford them the opportunity to also sway users toward considering detox services. Vancouver’s Coastal Health Authority spokesperson Trudi Beutel says:

What this boils down to is it’s about disease prevention.  It’s about preventing more communicable diseases, which land these people in hospitals on a frequent basis and clogs up emergency rooms.

Obviously, everyone doesn’t agree with Vancouver’s drug program. Director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada David Brener told the National Post:

Programs like this ignore the problems of addiction. All this does is aid and abet. What we should do is put that same amount of money into treatment and prevention, because treatment and prevention work.

In America, the crack epidemic, which hit poor urban areas in the mid-’80s, was devastating to the African-American community, with the rise of black male homicides, fetal death rates, low birth weight in babies and extraordinarily high incarcerations becoming rampant. While the Obama Administration has committed more than $10 billion for drug-education programs, expanding access to drug treatment for addicts, the never-ending battle against drugs continues.

As to whether Vancouver’s crack-distribution program is a partial solution to the ongoing worldwide drug problem remains to be seen. Do you think this program should be tried in the United States?

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The new pills contain the highly addictive painkiller hydrocodone, packing up to 10 times the amount of the drug as existing medications such as Vicodin. Four companies have begun patient testing, and one of them – Zogenix of San Diego – plans to apply early next year to begin marketing its product, Zohydro.

If approved, it would mark the first time patients could legally buy pure hydrocodone. Existing products combine the drug with nonaddictive painkillers such as acetaminophen.

Critics say they are especially worried about Zohydro, a timed-release drug meant for managing moderate to severe pain, because abusers could crush it to release an intense, immediate high.

“I have a big concern that this could be the next OxyContin,” said April Rovero, president of the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse. “We just don’t need this on the market.”

OxyContin, introduced in 1995 by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., was designed to manage pain with a formula that dribbled one dose of oxycodone over many hours.

Abusers quickly discovered they could defeat the timed-release feature by crushing the pills. Purdue Pharma changed the formula to make OxyContin more tamper-resistant, but addicts have moved onto generic oxycodone and other drugs that do not have a timed-release feature.

Oxycodone is now the most-abused medicine in the United States, with hydrocodone second, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s annual count of drug seizures sent to police drug labs for analysis.

The latest drug tests come as more pharmaceutical companies are getting into the $10 billion-a-year legal market for powerful – and addictive – opiate narcotics.

“It’s like the wild west,” said Peter Jackson, co-founder of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids. “The whole supply-side system is set up to perpetuate this massive unloading of opioid narcotics on the American public.”

The pharmaceutical firms say the new hydrocodone drugs give doctors another tool to try on patients in legitimate pain, part of a constant search for better painkillers to treat the aging U.S. population.

“Sometimes you circulate a patient between various opioids, and some may have a better effect than others,” said Karsten Lindhardt, chief executive of Denmark-based Egalet, which is testing its own pure hydrocodone product.

The companies say a pure hydrocodone pill would avoid liver problems linked to high doses of acetaminophen, an ingredient in products like Vicodin. They also say patients will be more closely supervised because, by law, they will have to return to their doctors each time they need more pills. Prescriptions for the weaker, hydrocodone-acetaminophen products now on the market can be refilled up to five times.

Zogenix has completed three rounds of patient testing, and last week it announced it had held a final meeting with Food and Drug Administration officials to talk about its upcoming drug application. It plans to file the application in early 2012 and have Zohydro on the market by early 2013.

Purdue Pharma and Cephalon, a Frazer, Pa.-based unit of Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, are conducting late-stage trials of their own hydrocodone drugs, according to documents filed with federal regulators. In May, Purdue Pharma received a patent applying extended-release technology to hydrocodone. Neither company would comment on its plans.

Meanwhile, Egalet has finished the most preliminary stages of testing aimed at determining the basic safety of a drug. The firm could have a product on the market as early as 2015 but wants to see how the other companies fare with the FDA before deciding whether to move forward, Lindhardt said.

Critics say they are troubled because of the dark side that has accompanied the boom in sales of narcotic painkillers: Murders, pharmacy robberies and millions of dollars lost by hospitals that must treat overdose victims.

Thousands of legitimate pain patients are becoming addicted to powerful prescription painkillers, they say, in addition to the thousands more who abuse the drugs.

Prescription painkillers led to the deaths of almost 15,000 people in 2008, more than triple the 4,000 deaths in 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month.

Emergency room visits related to hydrocodone abuse have shot from 19,221 in 2000 to 86,258 in 2009, according to data compiled by the Drug Enforcement Administration. In Florida alone, hydrocodone caused 910 deaths and contributed to 1,803 others between 2003 and 2007.

Hydrocodone belongs to family of drugs known as opiates or opioids because they are chemically similar to opium. They include morphine, heroin, oxycodone, codeine, methadone and hydromorphone.

Opiates block pain but also unleash intense feelings of well-being and can create physical dependence. The withdrawal symptoms are also intense, with users complaining of cramps, diarrhea, muddled thinking, nausea and vomiting.

After a while, opiates stop working, forcing users to take stronger doses or to try slightly different chemicals.

“You’ve got a person on your product for life, and a doctor’s got a patient who’s never going to miss an appointment, because if they did and they didn’t get their prescription, they would feel very sick,” said Andrew Kolodny, president of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing. “It’s a terrific business model, and that’s what these companies want to get in on.”

Under pressure from the government, Purdue Pharma last year debuted a new OxyContin pill formula that “squishes” instead of crumbling when someone tries to crush it.

But Zogenix, whose drug is time-released but crushable, says there is not enough evidence to show that such tamper-resistant reformulations thwart abuse.

“Provided sufficient effort, all formulations currently available can be overcome,” Zogenix said in a written response to questions by The Associated Press.

At a conference for investors New York on Nov. 29, Zogenix chief executive Roger Hawley said the FDA was not pressuring Zogenix to put an abuse deterrent in Zohydro.

“We would certainly consider later launching an abuse-deterrent form, but right now we believe the priority of safer hydrocodone – that is, without acetaminophen – is a key priority for the FDA,” Hawley said.

FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson said the agency would not comment on its discussions with drug companies, citing the need to protect trade secrets.

Drug control advocates say they’re worried the U.S. government is too lax about controlling addictive pain medications. The United States consumes 99 percent of the world’s hydrocodone and 83 percent of its oxycodone, according to a 2008 study by the International Narcotics Control Board.

One 41-year-old loophole in particular has fed the current problem with hydrocodone abuse, critics say. The federal Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970, puts fewer controls on combination pills containing hydrocodone and another painkiller than it does on the equivalent oxycodone products.

A Vicodin prescription can be refilled five times, for example, while a Percocet prescription can only be filled once.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and Food and Drug Administration have been studying whether to close this loophole since 1999 but have made no decision. Congress is now considering a bill that would force the agencies to tighten the controls.

“This is a problem that is fundamentally an oversupply problem,” said Jackson, the drug-control advocate. “The FDA has kind of opened the floodgates, and they refuse to recognize the mistakes made in the past.”

Pure hydrocodone falls into the stricter drug-control category than hydrocodone-acetaminophen medications, meaning patients would have to go to their doctors for a new prescription each time they needed more pills. But Jackson said that’s no guarantee against abuse, noting that dozens of unscrupulous doctors have been caught churning out prescriptions in so-called “pill mills.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration, which enforces controls on medicines along with the FDA, said it could not comment on drugs that have not yet been approved for sale.

However, Zogenix has acknowledged the abuse issue could become a liability.

“Illicit use and abuse of hydrocodone is well documented,” it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in September. “Thus, the regulatory approval process and the marketing of Zohydro may generate public controversy that may adversely affect regulatory approval and market acceptance of Zohydro.”

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Members of the Hustle Boys, a gang formed to promote and organize parties at area nightclubs, allegedly charged admission and sold drugs at the parties in addition to trafficking drugs to and from various states.

“The hard work of dedicated FBI agents, Detroit Police, Michigan State Police and other members of the Violent Crime Task Force helped result in these arrests and ultimately making the streets of Detroit safer,” FBI spokesman Simon Shaykhet said Friday.

Read more at detnews.com.

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Anderson would admit to planting cocaine on suspects in order to help his colleagues make their arrest quotas so they could keep their jobs.

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The New York Daily News reports:

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as “flaking,” on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

“Tavarez was … was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case,” he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

Read More At The New York Daily News

From cocaine and heroin dealers the CIA has supported, paid and protected some very unscrupulous characters.

Here is a list of the “Top 5 CIA Connected Gangsters of All Time.”

Before you move on to this list, check out some of our other posts:

5. Oscar Danilo Blandon

Oscar Danilo Blandon was a Nicaraguan government official who fled to the U.S. when the Communist Sandinistas came to power. Blandon would raise money from the a military group, The Contras, supported by the United States to overthrow the Sandinistas. Blandon would then admit to selling cocaine to Los Angeles gang members including infamous drug trafficker, “Freeway” Ricky Ross. He would claim that he was protected by the CIA who allowed him to sell drugs without punishment. Blandon would be arrested in 1986 only to become an informant for the DEA.

4. Lester “Jim Brown” Coke

Lester  ”Jim Brown” Coke was a strongman for the Tivoli Gardens area of Kingston, Jamaica which was controlled by the Jamaican Labor Party. When the opposition party the People’s National Party took power and began adopting socialist policies, the CIA began a destabilization program with the JLP to fight against the PNP. Coke’s associate, Cecil Connor, would later claim that the CIA provided Coke’s gang with guns and drugs. Coke would later be burned in a Jamaican jail cell while awaiting extradition to the U.S.

3. Luis Posada Carrilles

Luis Posada Carrilles is a Cuban national who was trained by the CIA to fight against the Fidel Castro regime. In 1976, a Cuban plane flying from Barbados to Jamaica exploded mid-air as a result of bombs placed on the plane. 73 people were killed including the whole Cuban fencing team, including women and children. The bombs were traced to two employees of Posada’s in Venezuela. Carrilles was also a suspected drug trafficker with ties to the Latin American cocaine trade who was also implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal. Carrilles is currently free living in the U.S. despite being wanted in several countries on terrorist charges.

2. Manuel Noriega

Manuel Noriega was an official employee of the CIA starting in 1967 but his relationship with the agency dates back to the 50′s. In 1988, a Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism and Narcotics found that the Noriega manipulated the U.S. while they turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing. Noriega had close relationships with both former CIA director and president, George Bush, as well as Medillin Cartel head, Pablo Escobar.

1. Ahmed Wali Karzai

Ahmed Wali Karzai was the brother of Afghan President Hamid Harzai and a suspected opium dealer and warlord. Karzai would come to prominence after returning to Afghanistan from the U.S. after the American invasion in 2001. The New York Times would report that Karzai was on the CIA’s payroll from 2001 to to 2009, and that there was a strong possibility he was involved in Afghanistan’s booming opium trade. The CIA would use Karzai’s paramilitary organization for strikes against the Taliban. Karzai would be killed by a bodyguard of his in 2011.

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Parris was arrested in June when Miami police found a gun and drugs in his BMW during a traffic stop.

According to Parris, he was never trying to deal drugs. Instead, he used them as a result of the sexual abuse ordeal, he said.

“You caught me with bud? Look at the sign of sexual abuse victims. What’s the very first sign on any website you’ll see? Alcoholism drug abuse,” Parris said.

Read more at wsbtv.com.

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When the officer searched the vehicle, he found 181 grams of marijuana, 50 clear bags, a handgun and $1, 250 in cash.

In recent weeks, it was reported that Long, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, reached a settlement in his sexual coercion case. The amount was purportedly in the amount of $15 million.

Upon his arrest, Parris told the cop that he was accepted into Miami-Dade County. “You guys are getting the wrong impression of me,” he said.

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The products have spurred more than 4,000 calls to poison control centers around the country since 2010 and have been linked to deaths. The parents of 18-year-old David Rozga of Indianola, Iowa say their son committed suicide after he smoked K2 and became overwhelmed with anxiety.

Read more at ABC News.