Updated with further details at 4:30 p.m.
A San Bernardino criminal defense attorney was arrested on suspicion of accepting guns and drugs in exchange for his legal services, authorities said.
Gary Stephen Redinger, 59, who once ran for Superior Court judge, was arrested last Wednesday morning after a search of his house turned up suspected methamphetamine and more than 30 firearms, according to San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Donald Patton.
Redinger’s son Patrick, 23, was arrested on an outstanding, no-bail warrant for violating terms of probation, Patton said.
Deputies recently received a tip from an informant that drugs were being sold out of Redinger’s north San Bernardino home.
When police arrived with a search warrant, they found handguns, semiautomatic weapons including a Tec-22, and an assortment of shotguns and rifles in a large safe in Redinger’s bedroom. They also found a surveillance camera out front, connected to a video monitor in the lawyer’s bedroom, Patton said.
“We found methamphetamine inside the safe,” he said.

Two people have been arrested after drugs worth thousands of pounds were seized in Aberdeen.
Crack cocaine with a street value of about £14,000 was recovered by police in the Torry area.
A 44-year-old local woman and a 37-year-old man from Birmingham were detained.
A Grampian Police spokesperson said they were expected to appear from custody at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

If a weight-loss supplement does contain an undeclared active
pharmaceutical, the F.D.A. considers the product to be an illegal,
unapproved drug. Doctors said undeclared drugs could cause problems on
their own, like elevated blood pressure or seizures, could have toxic interactions with other medications people take and
could make it difficult for physicians to diagnose patients.
As the F.D.A. continues to investigate, many questions remain to be
answered – including who put the drugs in the pills and who knew about
it. Some doctors and other experts say the F.D.A. inquiry raises a
larger issue: Whether the regulations governing dietary supplements
leave consumers who take so-called natural weight-loss supplements to
unknowingly play Russian roulette with their health.
Enacted in 1994, the main law on dietary supplements gives the
F.D.A. jurisdiction only after the products go on the market. Rather
than reviewing the supplements and approving them for sale, as the
agency does with drugs, the F.D.A. is limited to spot-checking
manufacturers and distributors, and testing products already on store
shelves. Even the F.D.A. acknowledges there may be hundreds of other
drug-contaminated weight-loss supplements for sale that the agency does
not have the resources to identify.
Even when the agency identifies contaminated products, however, it does
not have the ability to remove the pills from stores, because it is
initially up to companies to recall their products. Eventually, though,
if contaminated products stay on the market, the F.D.A. can seek
injunctions, seize products or file criminal charges.
As of Monday, the American distributors behind only three of the
brands named by the F.D.A., including StarCaps, had recalled their
tainted pills. Meanwhile, Web sites like
continue to sell a variety of the other brands, including 3X Slimming Power and Imelda Perfect Slim.
A full list of the tainted pills and other details are available on the F.D.A.’s Web site,
. An agency spokeswoman said people who want to report problems with the pills could call 1-800-FDA-1088.
“I used to think weight-loss pills were just fancy placebos,” said
Dr. Pieter Cohen, a general internist at the Cambridge Health Alliance
public hospital system in the Boston area. Over the last few years, he
said he had treated many patients who took tainted weight-loss pills
and came in complaining of chest pains and heat palpitations. “I think doctors need to be a lot more thoughtful – whether patients
are buying from local health food stores, off the Internet, or from
friends.”
A truck driver who is one of Dr. Cohen’s patients said he lost 20 pounds by taking what he thought were natural diet  pills imported from Brazil. Unaware that the pills contained high doses of an amphetamine as well as an antidepressant, the man said he nearly lost his trucking license after he did not pass a drug test at work.
“I failed the drug test and found out the hard way,” said the truck
driver, 42, who for privacy reasons did not want his name used. His
trucking license was suspended for six weeks, but he is now back at
work.
Of the nearly $24 billion spent on dietary supplements in this
country in 2007, about $1.7 billion went for weight-loss pills,
according to Nutrition Business Journal, a market research firm. About
15 percent of American adults said they had used weight-loss
supplements and the majority failed to inform their doctors about it,
according to a phone questionnaire of 9,500 adults conducted by
researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia.
Steven M. Mister, the president of the Council for Responsible
Nutrition, a trade group whose members include ingredient suppliers and
makers of dietary supplements, said that the majority of weight-loss
supplements were safe. The F.D.A., he said, is mainly citing obscure
imported brands.
A half-dozen experts interviewed for this article, including
government scientists, health activists, doctors and a professor of
pharmacy, said that even mainstream natural weight-loss supplements
that did not contain hidden drugs could be risky. And they questioned
whether such supplements could have any significant effect on weight.
“Whether they have the ability to help people keep the weight off in
the long term is unknown,” said Dr. Paul Coates, the director of the
Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
in Washington, D.C. He added that even seemingly inert herbs can cause
biological changes. “Anything biologically active may turn out to have
a risk for somebody.”
Consider ephedra, an herbal stimulant that gained popularity as a
weight-loss supplement in the 1990s – until hundreds of people reported
ephedra-related problems including heart attacks, seizures and even
deaths. The F.D.A banned the use of ephedra in supplements in 2004.
Last year, the F.D.A. adopted new “good manufacturing practices”
rules that require makers of dietary supplements to test the purity of
each ingredient and the final product. Another new statute, which went
into effect in December 2007, requires manufacturers to notify the
F.D.A. of any reports of serious health problems caused by the pills.
“The law adequately protects consumer health because it does have
the monitoring system in place,” said Mister, of the industry trade
group.
Dr. Sidney W. Wolfe, the director of the health research division of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said the regulations did not go far enough. Just because something is
uncontaminated does not mean it is safe, he said. For example, Dr.
Wolfe said he was concerned about bitter orange, a natural stimulant similar to ephedra that is widely used in weight-loss supplements.
So far no one has taken responsibility for the undeclared drugs in the pills.
StarCaps, the best known of the brands cited, gained a large
following through celebrity endorsements and articles in glossy
magazines like People. A billboard featuring the company’s founder and proprietor, Nikki Haskell, stood for years above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.
After reports surfaced late last fall that StarCaps contained
bumetanide, a potent diuretic that was not included on StarCaps’
ingredients list, the Vitamin Shoppe and GNC pulled StarCaps from their
shelves, according to e-mail messages from the companies in reply to a
reporter’s questions. Asked how GNC ensured the safety of such
supplements, a spokeswoman wrote, “Like any retailer, we rely on
warranties supplied by manufacturers of any third-party product.”
Last fall, Jackson and several other National Football League players
who said they had taken StarCaps failed a drug test when they tested
positive for bumetanide. The drug, which can mask steroiduse, is on the list of substances banned by the league.
Now, Jackson has filed a class-action suit against Haskell and the stores where he said he purchased StarCaps, including the Vitamin Shoppe and GNC.
Haskell said she had been shocked to learn from the news that
her product contained the diuretic. Over the last 25 years, she said
she had sold several hundred thousand bottles of StarCaps and had never
before received a complaint. She voluntarily recalled the products.
“I was completely devastated and remain devastated,” said Haskell.
You can read this article by New York Times writer
Natasha Singer, reporting from New York City, N.Y., in context here:

A part-time firefighter who stored cocaine and cannabis worth about £115,000 in his home in Inverclyde has been jailed for four and a half years.
Alan Brown, 32, admitted the offence at his home in Glamis Drive, Greenock, in April last year.
The High Court in Glasgow heard how the Brown had agreed to store the drugs, which were recovered during a police raid, for a payment of more than £100.
The Crown accepted a not guilty plea from Brown’s partner, Jo-Anne Hepburn.
Judge Lady Dorrian told Brown: “The role you took is important to maintaining the supply of illegal drugs.
“Given the quantity of cocaine and cannabis involved if it had not been for your early plea of guilty, I would have jailed you for six years.”

While some experts have recently recommended more aggressive cholesterol screening in childhood, less than 1 percent of adolescents 12–17- years-old may potentially qualify for cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to a new study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
According to the study, updated recommendations for cholesterol screening in childhood released last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has drawn new attention to the importance of healthy cholesterol concentrations in children and adolescents.
“I think the new recommendations caused a lot of people to be concerned about children having high cholesterol and being put on medications for a good part of their lives,” said Earl S. Ford, M.D., M.P.H., lead author of the study and medical officer in the United States Public Health Service. “In this study we set out to produce numbers so we would know exactly what we are talking about in terms of the percentages of U.S. children who may need to be treated or may have high cholesterol levels.”
Ford and colleagues studied the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999 to 2006, a database of health information, including cholesterol levels, for a national sample of people of all ages.
The researchers reviewed information on nearly 10,000 participants ages 6 to 17, including about 2,700 adolescents ages 12 to 17 who had fasting low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels measured.
• The average LDL level was 90.2 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) and the average total cholesterol was 163 mg/dL — both considered acceptable levels.
• Total cholesterol levels were 3.6 mg/dL higher in girls compared to boys.
• Total cholesterol levels were 2.6 mg/dL higher among African Americans and 1.9 mg/dL lower among Mexican Americans when compared with whites.
• The higher concentrations of total cholesterol for girls start to emerge around age 14.
The AAP guidelines suggest that cholesterol drugs, or statins, be considered for children as young as 8-years-old, if a screening shows their cholesterol levels are at or above accepted levels.
For example, cholesterol drugs, or statins may be considered for children who have:
• other risk factors present including obesity, hypertension, or cigarette smoking or positive history of premature cardiovascular disease and cholesterol levels greater than 160 mg/dL; or
• diabetes with cholesterol levels equal to or greater than130 mg/dL.
Based on approaches presented in the AAP guidelines to define elevated concentrations of LDL and total cholesterol by age and gender, researchers found 5.2 percent to 6.6 percent of adolescents had an elevated concentration of LDL cholesterol and 9.6 percent to 10.7 percent had elevated total cholesterol.
However, when researchers calculated how many of these adolescents were eligible for pharmacologic management of their cholesterol, based on AAP established guidelines, they found 0.8 percent or 200,000 adolescents ages 12 to 17 were potentially eligible.
“It is a matter of opinion whether one thinks 0.8 percent is a small or large percentage,” Ford said.
“What I think is most important here is that — given the rise in childhood obesity and risk factors such as smoking and lack of exercise that adolescents are exposed to — we need to continually assess and monitor the lipid status of children and adolescents. Having high cholesterol levels in childhood will affect the future rates of cardiovascular disease among U.S. adults.”
American Heart Association guidelines call for selective screening in children with a family history of high cholesterol and early heart disease, but recommends that the first line of treatment for these children would be lifestyle changes to encourage healthier eating and more physical activity.
Continued research is needed in the area of drug therapy for high-risk cholesterol abnormalities in children, particularly research on its long-term efficacy, safety and impact on the atherosclerotic disease process, Ford said.

How Many Kids Need Cholesterol Drugs?
Feb. 16, 2009 — Following a call for more aggressive screening and
treatment of cholesterol in childhood, a new study published in the journal
shows that about 200,000 U.S. teens and preteens need
medication to lower their cholesterol.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommended last summer that
doctors consider cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, for children aged
8 and older if a blood test shows they have high cholesterol, particularly if
they have a family history of heart disease. Specifically, the AAP guidelines
state that statin therapy should be considered for children with low density
lipoprotein (LDL) “bad” cholesterol levels greater than 190 mg/dL. In
addition, drug treatment is recommended for lower LDL levels if certain
cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes or obesity are present.
“I think the new recommendations caused a lot of people to be concerned
about children having high cholesterol and being put on medications for a good
part of their lives,” Earl S. Ford, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and
medical officer in the United States Public Health Service, says in a
statement. “In this study, we set out to produce numbers so we would know
exactly what we are talking about in terms of the percentages of U.S. children
who may need to be treated or may have high cholesterol levels.”
How Many Kids Really Need Statins?
For the current study, Ford and colleagues reviewed information from the
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999 to 2006. The review
included records from nearly 10,000 children aged 6 to 17 who had a total
cholesterol value assessed, including nearly 2,800 adolescents aged 12 to 17
who had a fasting blood test to measure their LDL level.
The analysis showed that the children’s average LDL and total cholesterol
levels were both among acceptable levels.
However, 5.2% to 6.6% of the adolescents had high LDL cholesterol, 9.6% to
10.7% had high total cholesterol, and 0.8% qualified for statin treatment based
upon the AAP guidelines. Given that there are about 25 million adolescents in
the U.S, these data suggest that 200,000 individuals between ages 12 and 17
need statins to keep their cholesterol levels in check.
“It is a matter of opinion whether one thinks 0.8% is a small or large
percentage,” Ford says. “What I think is most important here is that given the
rise in childhood obesity and risk factors such as smoking and lack of exercise
that adolescents are exposed to, we need to continually assess and monitor the
lipid status of children and adolescents.”
Girls in the study had higher total cholesterol (3.6 mg/dL greater) levels
than boys.
The increases in total cholesterol in girls started to appear around age
14.
Whites had lower total cholesterol levels than African-Americans, but
higher than Mexican-Americans.
Ford says continued research is needed to determine the long-term safety and
effectiveness of cholesterol-lowering drugs in children.
Cholesterol is a waxy substance that can build up on the inside of blood
vessels. Over time, it can form into a hard substance called plaque, which can
clog arteries and increase your risk for heart attack and stroke. Growing
evidence shows that plaque buildup begins in childhood.
“Having high cholesterol levels in childhood will affect the future
rates of cardiovascular disease among U.S. adults,” Ford says.
The American Heart Association recommends lifestyle changes — such as
increased exercise and healthier eating — as the first line of treatment for
children who have high cholesterol.

DURHAM – Authorities are refusing to comment on a police affidavit fingering a member of the Sigma Beta fraternity, which was raided in the fall, as the marijuana supplier to a fellow fraternity brother indicted this month on drug charges.
The affidavit, prepared by a detective with the state Attorney General’s Drug Task Force, says an undercover officer went to the Sigma Beta house on Madbury Road in August to buy drugs from David Mason, who was indicted in Strafford County Superior Court on four counts of felony drug sales.
While the officer was at the Sigma Beta house, a fellow fraternity brother named Matt asked Mason how much marijuana he had sold.
“Matt then commented that Mason can only sell because he (Matt) has the connection,” the affidavit says. “Matt went on to say that Mason was just a dealer and he (Matt) was the muscle and the brains.”
Matt’s last name isn’t listed in the affidavit, but the document says a criminal informant told police Matt is a Sigma Beta brother who lived at the fraternity house and is originally from Rhode Island. The informant also identified Matt’s vehicle to police, who noted it had Rhode Island plates, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit was used as proof to obtain a search warrant that led to a raid at Sigma Beta on Sept. 30 and the arrest of nine fraternity brothers. Mason is the only one arrested who has been indicted on felony charges.
Detective John Lepkowski, who signed the affidavit, would not speak about the case.
Matthew Bessette, of Lincoln, R.I., was charged with misdemeanor possession of alcohol and drugs, which was reduced to possession of alcohol. He pleaded guilty to that in Durham District Court yesterday morning in a deal with prosecutors that allowed the drug charge to be put on hold pending six months of good behavior and 20 hours of community service. Bessette received a $300 fine for the alcohol possession.
Bessette refused to discuss the affidavit yesterday.
“I’m not saying I am him, I’m not saying I’m not him, I’m just saying I have no comment,” he said.
University of New Hampshire police, who prosecuted the case, also would not comment about the affidavit.
When officers searched Bessette’s room, they came up with a laundry list of drug paraphernalia, according to an inventory filed in court. Seized items include rolling papers, a scale, two boxes of sandwich bags and several baggies filled with “vegetative matter.”
The list does not say precisely how much “vegetative matter” was recovered.
Deputy Strafford County Attorney Hope Flynn said this week she had no deal with Bessette and the case was being handled by UNH police because there were no possible felony charges involved.
UNH officials confirmed yesterday that Bessette is still a student at the school.
Your source for stories and breaking news from New Hampshire.

State Police have charged a CVS pharmacy technician with stealing more than $9,000 worth of drugs from the Pembroke store during a three-year period.
Cheryl L. Pascarelli, 45, of 10 Lydon Lane, Halifax, pleaded innocent to larceny of drugs on Wednesday in Plymouth District Court.
Police said Pascarelli stole Vicodin, Valium, Suboxone, antibiotics and antiviral medications and sold them to help pay her bills. A CVS loss-control agent discovered discrepancies when drug orders were matched against sales, police reports state.
Surveillance cameras show Pascarelli opening bottles and pocketing pills, the report states.
In a statement on file in court, Pascarelli says she was struggling financially and had been stealing drugs for about three years. She states that she was selling them to one client. Investigators say the drugs were worth about $9,300.
Pascarelli is due back in court March 9.
.

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
Is Rush Limbaugh on Drugs Again, or Simply the World’s Biggest Ego Trip?
Ultra Conservative Political shock jock, Rush Limbaugh, seems to have finally slipped off the reservation. It is hard to know whether he’s back on drugs, or if the recent election returns have caused him to lose his mind all together.
In his latest bloviation he’s challenging President Obama to enter into negotiations with him on an “Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan,” which would divide up a trillion dollars earmarked for stimulating the economy, according to the election returns. Limbaugh reasons that since the President has pledged to take a bipartisan approach to governing, in Limbaugh’s view, that entails the president controlling only the percentage of the bailout funds that reflects his margin of victory in the election. In other words, since President Obama won the election by 53% of the vote, he should only control 53% of the bailout funds. The remainder of the funds, that percentage that reflects Sen. McCain’s percentage of the vote, should be controlled by none other than Rush himself, to be applied to the economy as way he sees fit.
“As a way to bring the country together and at the same time determine the most effective way to deal with recessions, under the Obama-Limbaugh Stimulus Plan of 2009, $540 billion of the one trillion will be spent on infrastructure as defined by President Obama and the Democrats. The remaining $460 billion, or 46% that voted for Senator McCain, will be directed towards tax cuts, as determined by me.”
Then he goes on to say,
“Congress wants to spend — think of this now — $1 trillion that they don’t have until you and I go to work and pay taxes. They want to spend this on a stimulus plan. They want to take it out of our pockets and redistribute this money in their way to their constituents and to their make-work projects like schools, roads, bridges, blah, blah, blah.”
Is the man insane? First of all, since when has it been required for the winner of a presidential election to have to share executive power with the losing party? And even if he did, who elected Rush Limbaugh to assume control of the Republican Party? The man is absolutely delusional. The Republicans have allowed him to develop a Messiah fixation over his own importance.
But with regard to Limbaugh’s cavalier dismissal of the president’s initiative to address America’s failing infrastructure as a stimulus to the economy, maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t congress’s constituents, the people? And doesn’t spending this “make-work” money on “schools, roads, bridges, blah, blah, blah,” going to benefit you, your children, your communities, and the lives of your family?
So what does Rush want to spend the money on? One guess. That’s right-”just the announcement that $460 billion will go toward paying for tax cuts, capital gains, and corporate tax rates — we could throw in some personal income tax rate reduction in order to make sure that the voters don’t think it’s all about helping the big guys. But we need jobs, do we not?” Isn’t this kind of thinking exactly what caused the problem in the first place?”
But even if we choose to ignore Limbaugh’s maniacal greed, selfishness, and unmitigated arrogance, it is abundantly clear that he is either blind or completely oblivious to reality. He’s advocating the recycling of Reagan’s discredited supply-side economics, which virtually guaranteed Bill Clinton historical fame for simply having just dug us out of the hold that it left.
Limbaugh is claiming that if we give Gucci a big enough tax break, he’ll hire people to make Gucci bags to sell in a homeless shelter-which, thanks to Rush and his cohorts, is exactly what America is becoming. But the fact is, the only way you’re going to get Gucci to create jobs to make more handbags, is by providing more funds to the people in the homeless shelter to buy his bags. Otherwise, Gucci is simply going to take his tax cut and buy a Ferrari with it.
We’ve been through this before many times before with the Republicans. Supply- Side Economics was a scheme hatched by U.S.C. Economist Arthur Laffer and the Reagan crowd which was supposed to cut the deficit and balance the budget. The theory behind this scheme, came to be known as “Reaganomics.” The theory was, if you cut taxes for business and people in the upper tax brackets, and then deregulated business of such nuisances as safety regulations and environmental safeguards, the beneficiaries would invest their savings into creating new jobs. In that way the money would eventually “trickle down” to the rest of us, and the resulting broadened tax base would not only help to bring down the deficit, but also subsidize the tremendously high defense budget. When the plan was first floated, even George Bush Sr, Reagan’s vice president to be, called it “voodoo economics.”
Reaganomics, for the most part, sought to undo many of the safeguards put into place during the Roosevelt era and created a business environment similar to that which was in place during the Coolidge Administration. What actually took place, however, was even more like the Coolidge era than planed. Instead of taking the money and investing it into creating new jobs, the money was used in wild schemes and stock market speculation. One of these schemes, the leveraged buy- out, involved buying up large companies with borrowed funds secured by the company’s assets, then paying off the loan by selling off the assets of the purchased company. This practice cost the citizens of this country an untold number of jobs. In addition, the bottom fell out of the stock market. On Monday, October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Average fell 508.32 points. It was the greatest one-day decline since 1914 – fifteen years before the Great Depression.
We must also not forget that during the Reagan era the good Senator John McCain played a leading role in undermining the public trust, and our economy, as part of the infamous Keating Five. He was a leading player in the Lincoln Savings and loan scandal in 1987-a scandal that bears an uncanny resemblance to the one that’s currently being played out on Wall Street today. He was one of a group of senators dubbed “The Keating Five” involved in a scandal by the same name.
In 1976 Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corporation. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors’ savings. In 1989 the parent company, which Keating headed, went bankrupt, and it resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most of the investors were elderly, and the loss amounted to about 285 million dollars.
After having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five–Senators John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConini, Alan Cranston, and Sen. John McCain–attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating’s activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating’s behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted for fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12 year sentence in federal court. After spending four and a half years in prison, his convictions were overturned. But prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.
Then in 1988 another prominent Republican name pops up in the Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers another $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of “breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest.” The issue was eventually settled out of court with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement. So while the Republican Party continue to tell the American people that they are best equipped to handle our economy, the same Republican names keep popping up repeatedly in connection with economic incompetence, scandal, and disaster-and each time, it takes the Democrats to come to the aid of the American people.
And what about Ronald Reagan’s promise to balance the budget and lower the deficit? By the time he left office he was not only the most prolific spender of any president in the history of the nation, but he also added more to the deficit than all of the other presidents from George Washington to his own administration combined. And what did the Republican Party propose to do about that? One of the Republican proposals in their “contract with America” was again, a capitol gains tax cut–for the rich.
So in light of all of these easily verifiable facts, I’d like to close this piece with a personal message to Limbaugh:
Rush, you’re nothing but a drug ingesting windbag. You’re neither intellectually qualified, nor do you have the authority to negotiate with the president. So leave the thinking to the people with the intellectual resources to handle it, and go drop a few tablets and fantasize about being an astronaut instead.
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com

CHANDIGARH: A so-called crusader
against drug menace, former zonal director of NCB Saji Mohan initiated a number
of de-addiction campaigns in the Tricity, in which he involved area police and
many educational institutes.
On June 26, the controversial officer
was the main guest during a function organized to mark International Drug Day in
association with UT police and PGI. Here, Saji Mohan and his men demonstrated
the agency’s functioning in detail. Cracking down on the growing drug
problem in Tricity, the IPS spearheaded many operations by raiding chemists and
medical shops that led to seizure of banned and objectionable injections and
drugs.
Interestingly, though the former zonal director claimed at
having carried out the operations along with UT and Mohali cops, the police
officers had always distanced themselves from him. UT SSP SS Srivastva said
there was not even a single instance when UT police and NCB sleuths had arrested
or seized narcotics with a joint effort. However, sources said following NCB
inputs, Panchkula district police managed to nab a Nigerian woman for peddling.
The IPS officer who hit headlines when he called drug addicts
‘victims’, was apparently the first zonal director in Chandigarh
unit who used to visit city’s discotheques and pubs for keeping an eye on
the goings-on. After nabbing a couple of people through this ‘surveillance
method’, he had claimed that during their interrogation it was revealed
that heroin and cocaine had entered city limits.
However, with the
officer’s Saturday arrest, all his claims are now under question. Advocate
SK Vohra, who is a defense lawyer of an NCB accused, said the incident would
definitely affect the ongoing trail. A senior UT police official also expressed
shock over the arrest.