This story offers a strange and sad twist on the common scenario of teens partying at one parent's house, raiding Dad's stash, and getting drunk or stoned.

The 61-year-old Brian Dodgeon is a mathematics professor at the University of London. His research includes longitudinal studies of alcohol consumption patterns. He also teaches the Alexander Technique of stress relief from his home. He also used to be a singer specializing in 1930s-style cabaret as well as a "postmodern’ dancer." 

Dodgeon was arrested after a 15-year-old girl, Isobel Jones-Reilly, died after taking ecstasy at his house.  At a birthday party for his 14-year-old daughter attended by 30 teenagers, the kids got into Dodgeon’s stash. His daughter, along with Jones-Reilly and one other teenager, were taken to the hospital after consuming a combination of LSD, ecstasy and ketamine. Dodgeson was not supervising the kids; he had left them in the house alone.

A week after the incident, he leapt from a bridge in an apparent suicide attempt, but survived. Last week, Dodgeon pled guilty to four counts of possession, including LSD and ketamine, and also had the psychedelic 5-MeO-DIPT, known as Foxy Methoxy.

Add a Comment  

Nollywood star Baba Suwe is being held “under observation” in Lagos for alleged drug trafficking. Suwe, whose real name is Babatunde Omidina, is one of the shining stars of the Nigerian film industry, an award-winning comedian with an extensive filmography and following. Nigeria's National Drug Law Enforcement Agency alleges that he was smuggling cocaine to France, using the time-honored trick of ingesting packages of the powder. However, after two days, the alleged cocaine has yet to, uh, surface. Meantime, Suwe's not inconsiderable fan base is furious at the indignity their man is suffering as the entire nation awaits his next bowel movement.

The NDLEA has tried to keep a lid on public fury with the announcement that if Baba Suwe doesn’t crap out the cocaine after “three excretions"—NDEA's preferred terminology—it will release him with apologies. Its director general, Femi Ajayi, said, “I am sure the man concerned will see that we are taking care to even ensure that we speed up the process apart from the excretion.” He added that officials may turn to high-tech measures to speed up nature's ways, employing a CT scan to detect the presence of cocaine packages somewhere in his system, a test that requires a trip to the hospital.

Legal observers have raised that concerns Suwe's rights to due process have been violated because he is being kept in detention without cause or charge.

NDLEA spokesman Mitchell Ofoyeju defended his agency, urging the public not to condemn the drug-law officials for doing their job, even if it involves paying what may seem to be undue attention to the star's digestive and excretory processes. “One thing I want people to understand is that this period is actually an investigative period and conclusions have not yet been made," he said. "We do not go to press to announce that somebody had been arrested. However, in Baba Suwe’s case, because he is a celebrity, when people called, we could not deny [that] he is in our custody.” Ajayi also used his moment at the mike to complain that his agency is dramatically underfunded and to remind Nigerians that the rate of consumption of both hard drugs and marijuana is rising. 

Add a Comment  

• Amanda Knox Bombshell: Coke-Dealer Witness Squelched by Prosecution [National Enquirer]
• A New High: 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Pot, Gallup Poll Says [Atlantic.com]  
• Cali Doc Group to Feds: "Stop Raids on Pot Clinics, Regulate Weed Like Booze" [Los Angeles Times] 
• Security Guard for Celebs Busted for Oxy RIng, Faking IDs With Wigs, Crutches, Wheelchair [NBC.com] 
• Alcoholism's Health Costs in U.S. Hit a Record $1.90 per Drink, CDC Says [Health News Digest] 
• Robbed of Money, Coke and Pot, Two Men Call Cops for Help—and Get It! [WBTV.com]
• October 29: Next National Drug Prescription Take Back Day Info Online [USDOJ.com]

Add a Comment  

Just days after Canada’s Supreme Court smacked down the ruling Conservative party’s attempts to close Insite, the cutting-edge walk-in safe-injecting clinic in Vancouver, comes the latest volley from harm-reduction advocates north of the border. Over the next three years a new trial will test whether giving heroin addicts access to free, clean opiates can be an effective way to stabilize hardcore users and ultimately entice them into drug treatment.

SALOME (Study to Assess Longer-term Opiate Maintenance Effectiveness) grew out of the earlier NAOMI (North American Opiate Maintenance Initiative) study. whose conclusions were similar to those of similar trials in Switzerland, Germany and other highly evolved nations: “Heroin-assisted therapy proved to be a safe and highly effective treatment for people with chronic, treatment-refractory heroin addiction. Marked improvements were observed including decreased use of illicit “street” heroin, decreased criminal activity, decreased money spent on drugs, and improved physical and psychological health,” as NAOMI's authors wrote.

Unlike the earlier trial, the focus of SALOME is not on heroin prescribing. With the Conservative government's panties already in a bunch over injecting rooms, a less controversial alternative to handing out heroin had to be foundt. The solution?  Hydromorphone (trade name Dilaudid), a legally available painkiller whose effects are almost indistinguishable from heroin—not a surprise given that it is synthesized from morphine. “There’s less of a stigma, less of an aura, around hydromorphone, and it’s legally available,” said British Columbia’s medical health officer, Perry Kendall. “In Switzerland and Germany, they don’t have a problem with treating people with heroin, but here we do.”

While it’s certainly cheering to see such progressive measures north of the border, it’s also a little amusing to see the two-step taking place around the heroin vs. hydromorphone issue, as if somehow one drug is “better” because it’s legal. As any junkie worth his salt should know (and I can definitely personally attest, a shot of Dilauded is actually preferable to a hit of street heroin. Indeed, anyone who has read the novel (or seen Gus Van Sant's screen adaptation of) Drugstore Cowboy might remember Bob Hughes’ many soliloquies on the wonders of Dilauded.  

Still, if that's what it takes to get the Canadian government onboard, I’m sure the Vancouver addicts eagerly enrolling in the trial won't argue… And as for our supposedly “progressive” president and his "evidence-based reforms" of drug research and policy?  (Crickets.)

Add a Comment  

The announcement last week from Attorney General Eric Holder that US law enforcement had foiled a bizarre plot in which Iranian agents would use the Zeta drug cartel to blow up the Saudi Arabia ambassador in downtown Washington, DC, has been met, by analysts and the media, with widespread skepticism almost to the point of calling it hokum. But wIth a spooky echo of the Bush administration's report about a secret meeting between an Iraqi agent and a Niger operative with yellowcake uranium—a meeting that never occurred—the Obama administration insists that it has “solid evidence” that an Iranian agent working in Texas—described by the New York Times as a “stumbling opportunist”—had made contact with undercover FBI agents posing as members of the Zetas. The Iranian allegedly offered to pay the Zetas $1.5 million to kill the Saudi ambassador. Analysts were baffled, saying that such behavior would be highly unusual for the Quds, the elite military arm of the Revolutionary Guards mandated to export the Islamist revolution. Equally dubious is whether the scheme could have been approved by high-level Iranian authorities, as Holder claims. “It was very extreme and very odd, but it was also very sloppy. If you look at what the Quds have done historically, they can put operatives on their targets and execute," said Juan Zarate, a national security advisor and Quds expert. "They usually don’t outsource, but keep things inside a trusted network.” Iran, for its part, has accused the US of concocting the charges as a diversion from the Wall Street protests. 

Another of the many funky details is the extent of the actual cartel’s involvement. It has been reported that Islamic militant groups have expanded their operations in Mexico; in July, the hacking group LulzSec released a memo it had uncovered that reported Hezbollah had established a base and an arms stockpile south of the border with the protection of the cartels. On NPR, Washington Post foreign policy correspondent David Ignatius said that the whole thing reads like an Elmore Leonard “caper novel." Other skeptics have suggested that this plot is the beginning of a fresh neoconservative push for war with Iran. Reuel Marc Grant, one of the leading neocon cheerleaders for the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "The White House needs to respond militarily to this outrage. If we don't, we are asking for it.” The media, which had been blasted for showing such credulity about the Bush administration's lies serving as a pretext for that war, is showing a distinct distaste for being twice burned. 

If this is hokum, who's behind it? Who stands to benefit from an actual conflation of the War on Drugs with the War on Terrorism? Since this sounds like a distinctly discouraging development for addicts, The Fix will investigate and run an in-depth report soon.

Add a Comment  

• Did Drugs Kill Michael Jackson? Sleep Expert Says Yes [AP]
• More Pharmacies Report More Shortages of More Critical Meds [Reuters]
• Justin Townes Earle Out of Recovery, Back Into Music {SFGate]
• Aussie, 14, Tests Positive Pot, May Avoid Brutal Bali Prison [Sydney Herald]
• The UnCoke: Rapper DMX Found God and Beat Addiction [TMZ]
• With Teen Binges Spiking, New EZ Screening Is In Vogue [Time Healthland] 
• Op-Ed: Why the Feds Should Legalize Pot [Mercury News] 
• Wrestling With Booze: Tragic Scott Hall Documentary Airs Wednesday [Miami Herald]             

Add a Comment