“The moral test of a government is how it treats those who are at the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadow of life, the sick and the needy, and the handicapped.” – Hubert Humphrey
passionate pachyderms
Pharmacist Steve steve@steveariens.com 502.938.2414
If you want to get your elected officials attention.. according to their Congressional calendar your Federal House Representatives will be in their local districts the week of March 6 and March 27. Most Representatives set aside some time when they are back in their district to meeting one-on-one with their constituents. If you call ahead, most likely you will be able to get a 15 minute appt to make your case about your concerns.
If you send your Representative a email, fax, letter or make a phone call.. you have no idea if the response you get is some boiler plate response that some staff member has been assigned to replying to those sorts of things.
Take some concise documentation with you when you talk to your Representative.. take a minimum of three copies .. one for you, one for your Representative and one for the assistance that will be in on the meeting..
Try to get the name/email of the LA (Legislative Assistance) of the Representative in DC who is the point person within the office that deals with the issues that you are concerned about. These LA’s can be very valuable contacts in the long run…
Remember, your Representative is up for reelection this Nov… Between now and Nov they may be listening better than any other time of their 2 yr election cycle.
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — Prosecutors in a Los Angeles suburb say they have dramatically scaled back a vast and legally questionable eavesdropping operation, built by federal drug agents, that once accounted for nearly a fifth of all U.S. wiretaps.
The wiretapping, authorized by prosecutors and a single state-court judge in Riverside County, alarmed privacy advocates and even some U.S. Justice Department lawyers, who warned that it was likely illegal. An investigation last year by The Desert Sun and USA TODAY found that the operation almost certainly violated federal wiretapping laws while using millions of secretly intercepted calls and texts to make hundreds of arrests nationwide.
Riverside’s district attorney, Mike Hestrin, acknowledged being concerned by the scope of that surveillance, and said he enacted “significant” reforms last summer to rein it in. Wiretap figures his office released this week offer the first evidence that the enormous eavesdropping program has wound down to more routine levels.
“I definitely don’t apologize for using this tool to hit the cartels in Riverside County,” said Hestrin, who took office last year. “I think the reforms I put in place were necessary, but this is still a tool that I believe in. It needs to be used cautiously, but it should be available when necessary.”
The number of wiretaps authorized in Riverside County started to climb in 2010; it quadrupled by 2014, when the county court approved 624 wiretaps — three times as many as any other state or federal court. Most of the surveillance was conducted at the behest of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, who used the eavesdropping to make arrests and seize drugs and cash as far away as New York and Virginia.
Officials approved another 607 wiretaps in 2015, according to the figures released by the district attorney’s office. Most were approved in the first half of the year, before Hestrin said he installed a “stricter” standard that required every new wiretap application to have a “strong investigatory nexus” to Riverside County.
Taps have dwindled since then. So far this year, Hestrin has approved only 14. In the first two months of last year, his office approved 126.
If the current rate continues, Riverside County will end 2016 with about between 85 and 120 wiretaps — still enough to rank it among the nation’s busiest wiretapping jurisdictions, based on 2014 records. But the county will no longer be in a stratosphere all its own.
“I’m pleased to hear this, but it never should have gotten out of hand in the first place,” said Steve Harmon, the Riverside County Public Defender. “If there is no strong investigative connection to Riverside County, then Riverside County has no interest being in this business.”
Privacy advocates, who had expressed alarm in the past, were more cautious.
Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said it was “reassuring” the Riverside wiretap numbers had normalized, but worried there is “no oversight” even for new eavesdropping orders. Almost all wiretaps are sealed, and are sometimes kept secret even from the suspects who are arrested as a result of the eavesdropping, Lynch said.
“We are reliant on the prosecutors and the law enforcement officers to do their jobs and the judges not to just stamp a signature on them, but without releasing these on a regular basis it’s hard to be satisfied that the system is operating the way it should be,” Lynch said.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the abrupt drop in eavesdropping. In the past, DEA officials had said the surveillance was an important tool for targeting cartels that had turned the suburbs around Riverside into one of the nation’s busiest drug trafficking corridors.
The majority of Riverside’s wiretap surge occurred under the watch of former District Attorney Paul Zellerbach, a one-term top prosecutor who was ousted by Hestrin at the end of 2014.
In interviews last fall, Zellerbach said his staff was “efficient and effective” at processing wiretaps. As word spread through law enforcement circles, the office received more and more requests to eavesdrop. Zellerbach had no qualms about leading the nation in taps. “I thought we were doing a hell of a job,” Zellerbach said in November.
Others did not share that opinion. Justice Department lawyers warned the DEA in private that the wiretaps were unlikely to withstand a legal challenge, and they generally refused to use them as evidence in federal court.
The surveillance also suffered a more systematic flaw. The Desert Sun and USA TODAY found last year that Zellerbach had been allowing lower-level lawyers in his office to approve wiretap applications, despite a federal law that required him to do it himself. That flaw has the potential to invalidate as many as 738 wiretaps since 2013.
As a result, Riverside’s wiretap operation is now facing its first significant legal challenge. Lawyers for a marijuana trafficking suspect last week asked a federal judge in Kentucky to declare that five wiretaps used in that case were illegal. But their attack on the surveillance spoke far more broadly.
“In sum, Riverside County made a mockery of individual privacy rights, ignored federal requirements limiting the use of wiretaps and permitted law enforcement to intercept telephone calls at their whim and caprice,” argued attorney Brian Butler, a former federal prosecutor.
Although Zellerbach left the district attorney’s office at the end of 2014, the surge of eavesdropping continued well into 2015, with prosecutors approving hundreds in just the first few months of the year. Hestrin, the new district attorney, said most of those he approved were “spinoffs” of previous wiretaps, needed for investigations that he inherited from the Zellerbach administration. The volume was “staggering,” he said.
“A spinoff is technically a new wire but it’s from an existing investigation,” Hestrin said. “Maybe a bad guy is dropping one phone and getting a new one. And I wasn’t going to come in and shut down massive investigations into the cartel.”
Eventually, by the summer, the inherited investigations had run their course and Hestrin introduced his “new standard” for wiretap applications, limiting their use to cases in which the crime was closely tied to the county. In the past, court records show prosecutors had approved surveillance based on tenuous links to Riverside, including one case in which the DEA sought to use a Riverside wiretap to gather evidence on a money laundering suspect in Los Angeles on the basis that the phone belonging to a suspected courier had been in contact with a phone that had, in turn, been in touch with another phone belonging to a Riverside County nightclub owner.
After that change, Hestrin said law enforcement kept asking for wiretaps, but prosecutors “said no frequently.” Eventually, the requests stopped coming.
Riverside’s increased scrutiny of wiretaps applications is a step in the right direction, but it doesn’t erase years of taps that were awarded under questionable policies, said Adrienna Wong, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Wong said Wednesday that the ACLU submitted a public records request asking the DA’s office for wiretap polices — both old and new — after The Desert Sun/USA TODAY investigation was published.
The DA’s office refused.
“Given the lack of transparency, we remain concerned about the issue,” Wong said. “And the fact that the problem may be solved, at least for the time being … doesn’t address what may have happened in the past.”
Heath reported from McLean, Va. Kelman reports for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif.
This animation explains how phone tracker technology, commonly known as stingray, is used by the police. USA TODAY
Pharmacist allegedly replaced morphine with saline and exposed patients to his own blood
A Jersey shore hospital has notified 213 patients they may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis B and C.
Warning letters to at-risk patients indicate a former employee of Shore Medical Center who allegedly tampered with intravenous drugs may have caused the exposure.
An internal investigation discovered that former pharmacist Frederick P. McLeish tampered with morphine and hydromorphone, both opioid painkillers, between July 1 and Sept. 27, 2014.
The hospital in Somers Point, across the bay from Ocean City, is now asking patients who were treated during that period – and a year before – to get tested.
“We are providing free testing and support through every step and are partnering with local health department agencies during this testing period in order to be extremely cautious,” the hospital said in a prepared statement released by spokesperson Brian Cahill.
McLeish allegedly replaced morphine and hydromorphone with saline solution administered to patients at the hospital.
While only indirectly addressed in the statement, it appears exposure to McLeish’s own blood – via the tampered morphine containers – is the cause for main concern that hospital patients may have been exposed to the diseases.
Shore Medical Center launched an internal investigation and brought in the state Division of Consumer Affairs and the Prosecutor’s Office, according to The Press of Atlantic City.
The pharmacist was suspended and fired. He surrendered his license and was recently indicted by a grand jury following law enforcement investigations.
He is jailed, with bail set at $20,000. If convicted, he could face a decade in prison.
“We have contacted all patients who received certain intravenous medication between June 1, 2013, and Sept. 17, 2014,” according to the hospital’s statement.
Dawn Thomas, a state department of health spokeswoman, told The Press of Atlantic City, “Although the risk of infection is low, out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Health is recommending that affected patients receive testing for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.”
Shore Medical has a call center for affected patients and family members: 609-653-3900.
Here we have a TWENTY-THREE y/o MAN spending his days – pretending to be a TEENAGER – and socializing daily with girls as young as 13-14 y/o. So you think that fake ID’s are not common and not that much of a problem ? Do you think that drug diverters and serious substance abusers are not using fake ID to obtain prescription medications to abuse or sell ?
A high school student in Pennsylvania who appeared to be leading his class was arrested this week after officials say he was actually a 23-year-old Ukrainian man using a false name.
The police in Harrisburg say that the person locals knew as teenager Asher Potts was actually a 23-year-old Ukrainian man named Artur Samarin.
The Harrisburg Police reported that Samarin had been enrolled at John Harris High School since the fall of 2012.
He had remained in the U.S. after his visa expired and had obtained a Social Security card and undisclosed “additional U.S. documents,” police said.
Samarin has been charged with theft, identity theft and tampering with public records, police said.
Google Street View
Harrisburg High School in Harrisburg, Pa.
While living under his assumed name, he had become a member of the school’s ROTC and Naval Sea Cadet programs, according to ABC affiliate WHTM.
WHTM also obtained footage from a recent youth summit where he attended as a panelist.
No details about how Samarin was discovered have been disclosed, but WHTM reported that he was arrested while in class.
“He was nice but I didn’t expect him to be that old,” student Khaiyon Rice told WHTM.
“While we do not know all of the details surrounding the arrest, we are treating this as a serious matter,” said Kirsten Keys, a spokesperson for the Harrisburg School District told ABC News in a statement.
“At this time, the investigation is in the hands of the Harrisburg Bureau of Police. The district will continue to cooperate fully with the police department as they move forward with their investigation.”
Harrisburg Police Capt. Gabriel Olivera told ABC News that there are “still other pieces” of the investigation underway. No one else has been arrested “yet” in connection to the case, he added. He was unable to comment on how the alleged crimes were discovered.
Samarin has had a preliminary hearing but has not entered a plea, according to the district attorney’s office. He did not have a lawyer as of this morning and his first formal hearing is scheduled for March 4. Olivera told ABC News that Samarin is being held at the Dawson County Prison on $2,000 bail.
I am 63 and have had to take Dexedrine ER, usually from 120mg to 150mg, every day since I was 39. I had ADHD as a white trash kid but was not treated. I got into UC Davis and ended graduating from UC Hastings. Four years into my career a guy driving 80 veered into our lane and but us head-on. My 4 month old in back was somehow safe . I was knocked out cold for 10 minutes. , my wife was pinned in and screaming because she right I was dead. But we made. I returned to work for my law firm 14 months later. Just didn’t have energy for 60 ĥr weeks so moved to further East in California -el Dorado county to become county attorney. Meanwhile was diagnosed with add and dashed taking stimulant. Then damn if the mirror image head-on occurred and that pretty much knocked me out of the law business.
All this is prelude to my real story which is that living where we live in rural-ish, there can be months and months on end with difficulty finding a store to fill one of the schedule 2 amphetamine. Until I found a nice neither store which for five years worked like clockwork to have the full amount 60 straight.
Then came 61. Drop off add usual cine back with a sofa only this time the clerk says , Mr K, our new pharmacist says she won’t fill. Why? Mumble. I get the pharmacist down off the pedestal. Something about only one supplier my insurers reimburse us enough to only make a small profit.
Don’t tell anyone… but.. independent Pharmacies typically has the HIGHEST customer satisfactions rating… but apparently since they are only abt 30%-40% of the community pharmacy outlets.. we won’t count them.. other than a FOOT NOTE
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Walgreens is the top drug store when it comes to customer satisfaction, with CVS not far behind, according to the latest American Customer Satisfaction Index.
Fourth quarter data from the ACSI shows that customer satisfaction with the retail sector in general fell for a second consecutive year, but the overall score for retail stands almost exactly at its long-term average.
Health and personal care stores suffer a steeper decline in customer satisfaction than any other retail category, shedding 5.2% to a record low of 73. Wal-Mart’s drug stores are at the bottom with 68 and the company scores last in every retail category covered by the ACSI. Walgreens, the largest drug store retailer, falls 4% to 74. Rite Aid plunges 12% to 69, tied with Safeway’s in-store pharmacies.
Kroger at 81 and Target’s in-store pharmacy business at 80 lead for customer satisfaction among pharmacies. CVS has recently acquired Target’s drug store operations. Given CVS’s much lower customer satisfaction (71), it will be interesting to see if the merger will help CVS more than it will hurt the Target.
“Customer satisfaction with retail has been higher than its historical norm over the past few years as the economy slowly emerged from the Great Recession,” says Claes Fornell, ACSI founder and chairman. “This was because it was a tough environment to compete in. Job security for customer service personnel was hard to come by and everybody was trying harder to please customers. As both job security and employee turnover have increased, the level of customer service seems to have worsened.”
As for the rest of the retail sector, Internet retail, which includes websites of brick-and-mortar stores, remains ahead of every other retail category despite a 2.4-percent drop to an ACSI score of 80. Every single online company shows deteriorating customer satisfaction, but Amazon continues its dominance at 83, remaining among the highest-scoring companies in all of the ACSI. Online retail sales growth year over year was about 13 percent for the holiday quarter, but Amazon nearly doubled that pace at 22 percent.
After several years of pretty high customer satisfaction, supermarkets register their lowest score in more than a decade, dropping 3.9% to 73. A wide range in customer satisfaction for supermarkets suggests that it is possible to please customers even though overall satisfaction is down for the industry. Wegmans, one of three retailers to improve customer satisfaction, gains 1 percent to 86 and becomes one of the highest-scoring companies in the Index. Other top-scoring supermarkets include Trader Joe’s (83), H-E-B (82) and Publix (82). Giant Eagle and Wal-Mart at 67 find themselves at the opposite end of the scale. Albertsons, which recently merged with Safeway, rounds out the bottom three at 68.
“When consumers put a premium on service and quality, smaller companies often achieve higher customer satisfaction scores, and it’s the smaller independent chains that continue to set the bar for supermarkets,” says VanAmburg.
The biggest loser in customer satisfaction among supermarkets is Target. It plummets 12 percent to 71, followed by Whole Foods, which dives 10 percent to 73. Competition for natural and organic foods has been heating up as Whole Foods struggles with a reputation among food shoppers for unjustifiably high prices.
Costco sits atop the specialty retail ratings at 81.
New details emerged Tuesday about the arrest of a Louisiana narcotics officer assigned to a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration task force, as State Police released a report showing the deputy was booked with an alleged accomplice accused of distributing more than 5 pounds of marijuana.
The single-paragraph report raised new questions about a secretive investigation that landed Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office Deputy Johnny Domingue behind bars last month — a case that could have far-reaching effects on New Orleans-area drug prosecutions.
It also revealed that Domingue, 27, was booked alongside Rose Pierson Graham, a Hammond woman released on $150,000 bail.
Authorities remained tight-lipped Tuesday and would not elaborate on Graham’s alleged role in the case.
The State Police, an agency that often is talkative when it comes to law enforcement misconduct, have declined to comment on the investigation beyond confirming the charges Graham and Domingue face: conspiracy and drug distribution.
Graham did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Domingue remained jailed in Livingston Parish, where he was transferred after being booked Jan. 26 in St. Tammany Parish. His family referred questions to attorney Sherman Mack, a state representative who was in session Tuesday and did not return messages seeking comment.
The investigation has a number of moving parts and appears to involve the DEA’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations of misconduct involving agents and other agency personnel.
Domingue’s arrest came less than two weeks before DEA brass reassigned Keith Brown, who had served as special agent in charge of the DEA’s New Orleans field division for two years.
A DEA spokeswoman said last week that Brown’s transfer to Washington, D.C., headquarters had been a lateral move and did not stem from any disciplinary action.
A former DEA agent, however, said the move represents an unequivocal “loss of status,” adding, “There isn’t a DEA employee who’s going to tell you it’s a good thing.”
Brown himself seemed to say as much in an email he sent colleagues upon his departure from New Orleans, suggesting he had reached his “lowest point.”
“As most of you are now aware, I will no longer be serving as the special agent in charge of the New Orleans Field Division,” Brown wrote, adding that he was proud of his team’s accomplishments. “You fight the good fight everyday, and you make the world a better place by your efforts and by the quality of your character.”
The DEA declined to verify the authenticity of the email, which was provided to The New Orleans Advocate through a disposable email address service. The email was dated Feb. 8, the day Brown’s replacement, Stephen G. Azzam, was named internally.
“I have repeatedly said that I love the people who do this job,” Brown added in the note. “That remains true today, even at my lowest point.”
The inquiry also appears to be focusing on DEA Agent Chad Scott, a prolific investigator who previously worked for the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office. Scott faces a series of misconduct allegations — some of which remain under seal — from defense attorneys who have questioned his tactics.
Public defender Valerie Jusselin alleged in court filings this month that she has “uncovered evidence” that Scott has been illegally “communicating with persons on federal supervised release.”
A DEA spokeswoman, Special Agent Debbie Webber, declined to say Tuesday whether Scott remains employed by the agency.
Follow Jim Mustian on Twitter, @JimMustian. Follow Faimon A. Roberts III on Twitter, @faimon.
CLEVELAND (AP) – Authorities say they’ve arrested a man in a Cleveland suburb after seizing more than 900 fentanyl pills marked liked tablets of the less-potent opiate oxycodone.
A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s affidavit says the pills were found Feb. 3 during a search of the car and Euclid apartment of 29-year-old Ryan Gaston. Authorities say crack cocaine and a rifle also were seized.
A magistrate ordered Gaston held without bond on Monday. Gaston’s attorney didn’t respond to messages.
The Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County medical examiner said last week that lookalike pills were likely to blame for some of the county’s 19 fentanyl-related overdose deaths in January.
He said fentanyl deaths spiked from 37 in 2014 to 89 last year and that some of the lookalikes could be coming from China.
