Latest Illegal drug trade Stories

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Air National Guard pilot and a crew member pleaded guilty on Friday to using military flights to smuggle millions of dollars worth of the drug Ecstasy into the United States, federal authorities said. Capt. Franklin Rodriguez and Master Sgt. John Fong pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to smuggling more than 200,000 Ecstasy pills in April 2005 on a flight from Germany to a National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, the U.S. Attorney's office...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 40 percent of teenagers treated for injuries at one hospital had traces of alcohol or illegal drugs in their blood, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. They said their finding, published in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery, suggested that it may be useful to screen young people treated for traumatic injuries for illegal substances. The team at the University of Michigan Health System studied 443 patients aged 14 to 17 who were admitted to the...

By Noel Randewich MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by Congress. The measure given final passage by senators in a late night session on Thursday allows police to focus on their battle against major drug dealers, the government says, and President Vicente Fox is expected to sign it into law. "This law provides more judicial tools...

By Linda Hutchinson-Jafar PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) - More than a dozen gunmen attacked a gas station in Guyana late last month, fired on passing cars, torched a house and machine-gunned the occupants of another. Eight people died in the rampage. Somehow, say police in the jungle-clad Caribbean country, the attack was linked to a high-speed chase between the Guyanese coast guard and a trawler escorted by two speedboats as it carried suspected drugs down the Demerara River. Such...

By Katie Nguyen NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Kenyan judge postponed the destruction of a record 1.1 tonne cocaine haul for a week from Friday to give Western experts time to verify the cache, which diplomats fear may have been tampered with. "I allow the adjournment because the state is not ready for the destruction of the drugs," Chief Magistrate Aggrey Muchelule said, adding it would be destroyed next Friday. Police seized the haul -- worth an estimated $88 million and said at the time to...

CANBERRA -- Two Australian fighter jets bombed and sank an impounded North Korean cargo ship on Thursday in what Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said was a strong message to Pyongyang about its involvement in drug running.The 4,000-tonne ship the Pong Su had been impounded since 2003, when it led the Australian navy on a 1,100 km (680 mile) chase off the southeastern coast after being spotted unloading part of a 150 kg (330 lb) shipment of heroin at a secluded beach.The ship came to a...

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Two Australian fighter jets bombed and sank an impounded North Korean cargo ship on Thursday in what Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said was a strong message to Pyongyang about its involvement in drug running. The 4,000-tonne ship the Pong Su had been impounded since 2003, when it led the Australian navy on a 1,100 km (680 mile) chase off the southeastern coast after being spotted unloading part of a 150 kg (330 lb) shipment of heroin at a secluded beach. The...

By Ed Cropley PHONGSALI, Laos (Reuters) - The mountains of northern Laos have changed color. In the past five years, the opium poppy fields that for the last two centuries lent splashes of color to the pervading green of the jungle have become a thing of the past. In their stead, small plantations of tea, peach trees and even asparagus are springing up in the heart of the "Golden Triangle," the lawless opium-producing region at the junction of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. "In 2001 at...

By Bernd Debusmann, Special CorrespondentWashington -- Despite three decades of upbeat reports on battles won in the war on drugs, cocaine, heroin and marijuana are as easily available as ever and experts say the United States has yet to develop a strategy that works.Just as in previous years, the government's progress reports for this year on drug control point to new records on cocaine seizures and on the eradication of coca plantations in Colombia, the world's top producer of cocaine.The...

By Guy Faulconbridge MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's illegal drugs trade has topped $15 billion a year as criminal groups flood the country with heroin from Afghanistan, a senior official from the national drugs control agency said on Thursday. Drug use has soared since the fall of the Soviet Union, with Russians becoming major consumers of illegal drugs trafficked by well-organized gangs, including synthetic drugs from Europe as well as heroin from Afghanistan. "In Russia the narcotics...