A man linked to the United Nations gang who crashed a plane in Washington state two years ago claims the duffel bags full of ecstasy found nearby were not his, B.C. Supreme Court heard Friday.

Joseph Patrick Curry’s lawyer, John Conroy, said the evidence presented against his client is not strong enough to justify Curry’s extradition to the U.S. on charges of importing ecstasy, possession with intent to distribute ecstasy and entering the United States “without inspection.”

He said the fact the U.S. included details of Curry’s interview denying knowledge of the ecstasy in the extradition request undermines the claim there was no evidence to contradict the U.S. charges.

“He says he knew nothing of the illicit narcotics found near the Cessna,” Conroy said told Justice Peter Rogers Friday. “The evidence doesn’t show that those bags were ever in the plane.”

Justice Department lawyer Stacey Repas, representing the U.S. government, said there were sufficient grounds to commit Curry for extradition to Washington state.

“You have Mr. Curry, who was the owner of the aircraft, and admits to flying it,” Repas said. “The three bags are found nearby.”

He laid out the case against Curry, identified in U.S. court documents as a member of the notorious UN gang who appeared alongside gang founder Clay Roueche at another member’s funeral.

Curry flew a red and white Cessna across the border into Washington’s Okanogan County on Aug. 10, 2007, alerting U.S. Customs officials.

Witnesses said the plane made an emergency landing in a farmer’s field and that they could see a man walking from the Cessna out of view.

Immigration agents searched the plane and found a for sale sign with a B.C. number on it. They called and were told by the previous owner that he had sold the plane to Curry, a suspect in earlier cross-border drug runs.

“After searching the plane that landed in the open field on August 10, 2007, several duffel bags were located,” the indictment against Curry says.

The substance in the bags was determined to be 72 pounds (32.6 kilograms) of ecstasy, also known as MDMA, stamped with the letters BOSS.

“Curry had relayed to his attorney that he had engine trouble and encountered foul weather forcing him to land in the United States as his original destination was from Princeton to Penticton,” the indictment says.

Curry tried to enter the U.S. on Aug. 13 at Sumas and was arrested.

“Curry stated that he had been the pilot of the aircraft and denied any knowledge of any narcotics found in or near the aircraft,” the indictment says.

Curry, 49, was later released on bail and went back to Canada, but failed to return to the U.S. for subsequent court dates.

He was arrested last March in a cross-border probe called Operation Blade Runner targeting a gang allegedly involved in heli-smuggling.

The RCMP said at the time that Curry, of Chilliwack, and another man, “were on their way back to pick up the remainder of the drugs at the helicopter landing zone just outside of Nelson.”

He is yet to face new charges in B.C. in connection with the probe.

Rogers reserved his ruling on the extradition request.

kbolan@vancouversun.com

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THREE people, including two alleged Bandidos bikies, have been charged after police seized 1300 ecstasy pills worth an estimated $40,000 in raids across the Macleay Valley.

Police raided properties last Thursday at South West Rocks and Stuarts Point after an 18-month investigation into the supply of illicit drugs including MDMA (ecstasy) in the Macleay.

A spokesman said police set up operation Wollomba last year to investigate the supply of MDMA in Kempsey, South West Rocks and Stuarts Point.

Last Thursday detectives from Kempsey, Port Macquarie, the Mid North Coast Target Action Group and the State Crime Command’s Gangs Squad raided houses at South West Rocks and Stuarts Point.

Police will allege that during the covert investigation they seized 1300 MDMA tablets, with an estimated potential street value of $40,000.

During the execution of the search warrants, investigators found further quantities of MDMA tablets, an amount of cash and three firearms, the spokesman said.

Police also seized two Harley Davidson motorbikes, as well as a motor vehicle.

A 40-year-old Stuarts Point man and a 42-year-old man from South West Rocks were arrested and taken to Kempsey Police Station for questioning.

The Stuarts Point man was charged with 11 offences:

Supply prohibited drugs on an ongoing basis, possess prohibited weapon without permit, possess unauthorised prohibited firearm, knowingly deal with proceeds of crime, two counts of possess prohibited drug and five counts of supply an indictable quantity of a prohibited drug.

The South West Rocks man was charged with 14 offences:

Supply prohibited drugs on an ongoing basis, knowingly deal with proceeds of crime, possess prohibited weapon without permit, possess ammunition without permit, possess unauthorised pistol, possess unauthorised firearm, four counts of possess prohibited drug and four counts of supply an indictable quantity of a prohibited drug.

Both men appeared in Port Macquarie Local Court last Friday and were refused bail to reappear on October 22.

They are alleged to be members of the Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Gang.

Meanwhile, further inquiries by investigators led to the arrest of a 19-year-old man at South Kempsey about 1pm last Friday, police said.

The local man appeared in Macksville Local Court that afternoon and was refused bail to appear in Kempsey Local Court on September 22.

He was charged with:

Supply prohibited drugs on an ongoing basis, two counts of sell prohibited firearm, two counts of possess unauthorised prohibited firearm, three counts of supply a prohibited drug and two counts of supply an indictable quantity of a prohibited drug.

‘Wollomba’ is an ongoing operation and further arrests are expected in the coming days, police said.

So why not make it legal and take the power away from these criminals?

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Eli Lilly & Co. plans to test as many as eight drugs from its $6.5 billion ImClone Systems Inc. acquisition in humans this year, three of them in final-stage clinical trials.

Experimental ImClone drugs entering the final round of tests required for regulatory approval include IMC-1121B, which is being evaluated as a treatment for advanced stomach cancer and breast cancer, and IMC-11F8, a successor to Erbitux, which treats colon, head and neck tumors. A third drug, IMC-A12, may also enter final testing this year, Indianapolis-based Lilly said today in a statement.

Lilly bought ImClone last November to expand in the $48.2 billion market for cancer medicines, adding Erbitux, which generated sales of $749 million last year, and six experimental compounds. Lilly needs new products to offset generic competition to its best-seller, the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa, in 2011, according to a July 13 research note from Les Funtleyder, an analyst for Miller Tabak & Co.

“If two or more of these ImClone medicines cross the finish line, then this was a smart business deal,” said Steven Paul, Lilly’s executive vice president of science and technology in an interview yesterday. “ImClone is really complimentary because it gives us cancer antibodies we didn’t have.”

Top-Selling Treatments

Cancer drugs were the biggest therapeutic class globally in 2008, with $48.2 billion in sales, according to IMS Health Inc, a Norwalk, Connecticut-based market research firm.

“Cancer therapies will be increasingly targeted and tailored,” Lilly’s Chief Executive Officer John Lechleiter said today in an interview. Erbitux, an ImClone drug already on the market, provides a blueprint, he said. The drug works best in patients who don’t have a mutation on a gene called K-Ras.

Two more cancer compounds from the ImClone purchase may enter human testing by the end of this year, John Johnson, the head of the ImClone subsidiary, said today in an interview.

Lilly has seven drugs in phase 3 testing, the last stage typically required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before the agency will consider the drug for marketing approval. Another 19 compounds are in phase 2 testing.

One of those drugs in phase 2 testing, IMC-A12, has been expanded into colorectal, neuroendocrine and lung cancers.

‘Serious Work’

IMC-11F8, the successor to Erbitux, will begin trials in lung cancer in 2009, with colorectal cancer to follow, said Christine Van Marter, a spokeswoman for Lilly, in an e-mail.

“They’ve got serious work cut out for them,” said Seamus Fernandez, an analyst with Leerink Swann, in a telephone interview today. “They need major positive surprises. Zyprexa is the start of their patent expirations but it’s not the end.”

Lilly faces patent expirations for its antidepressant Cymbalta, the company’s second-biggest seller, and the osteoporosis medicine Evista. These drugs, along with Zyprexa, generated $8.47 billion worldwide last year, or 43 percent of Lilly’s revenue.

Lilly bought ImClone in part because of its work with monoclonal antibodies, laboratory-produced versions of the body’s immune proteins, Lilly’s Paul said. They are less likely to fall out of the development pipeline because of side-effects occurring in places the drug doesn’t target, Paul said.

“We like the science, and we think there’s a lot of unmet medical need,” Paul said. As the population ages, more people will have cancer, he said.

Science Park

Lilly also said today its ImClone group, based in New York, will move to the East River Science Park, slated to open in 2010. The building is adjacent to the New York University Medical Center and north of Bellevue Hospital Center. The location will allow Lilly’s ImClone unit to work more closely with academic partners, the company said in the statement.

“There’s tremendous talent in New York and it’s second only to Boston in National Institutes of Health grants,” Paul said. “We hope to serve as a magnet for the kind of translational research that produces new medicine.”

About 215,000 jobs in New York were in the biopharmaceutical industry in 2006, according to Lilly’s statement.

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Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has proposed a measure that would legalize and regulate marijuana sales in California. In light of state’s economic woes, the proposal is attracting considerable interest — particularly in the wake of a report released Wednesday that indicates a marijuana tax could increase state revenue by as much as $1.4 billion.

The Drug Policy Alliance was one of the first groups to publicly support the report, saying that it “amplifies the escalating national discussion of marijuana policy.”

Law enforcement groups were less ecstatic about the measure, however, fearing that decriminalization would lead to widespread marijuana use.

L.A. Times readers have generally come out in support for marijuana decriminalization and regulation:

“Seems like we are beginning to get a more practical picture about marijuana and its potential benefits for the state and it’s residents. It’s about time,” said steveC.

“This is inevitably going to happen, why delay it when everyone benefits. Increased tax revenue, prison population relief, as well as a reduction in revenue for organized crime groups are all positive benefits that taxed, legal marijuana can bring,” wrote Louie.

Student CSUFwas quick to point out the other ways marijuana legalization could help the economy, including an “increase in sales for Visine / Clear Eyes and late night snacks.”

A few readers did disagree with Ammiano’s measure, however:

“You can’t balance the budget on the backs of drug addicts. It’s unethical and immoral, not to say the poor message something like this sends to children and teens. Additionally, if anyone actually believes something like this will cut down on teen drug use, they must be dumber than they look or just don’t know drug addiction very well. California cannot become the leader in drug use,” said MICHAEL WHITE.

What do you think?  Is it time for California legalize and tax marijuana?

Personal answer? Yes!

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Dr. LSD to Steve Jobs: How was your trip?

“Dear Mr. Jobs,” begins the 2007 letter from Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann to Apple’s (AAPL) CEO. “I understand from media accounts that you feel LSD helped you creatively in your development of Apple computers and your personal spiritual quest. I’m interested in learning more about how LSD was useful to you.”

Hofmann, as students of the sixties will recall, was the chemist who first synthesized, ingested and experienced the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide.

Steve Jobs, as readers of John Markoff’s “What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry” may remember, dabbled in psychedelics in the 1970s and has called his LSD experiences “one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.”

“I’m writing now,” Hofmann’s letter continues, “shortly after my 101st birthday, to request that you support Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Peter Gasser’s proposed study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with life-threatening illness.”

Hofmann, who died last year at age 102, was writing at the request of his friend Rick Doblin, founder of the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

Doblin was hoping for a financial contribution from the billionaire co-founder of Apple. What he got instead, according to Ryan Grim, who posted the previously unpublished letter Tuesday in the Huffington Post, was a half-hour telephone conversation with Jobs. As Grim describes it:

“[Jobs] was still thinking, ‘Let’s put it in the water supply and turn everybody on,’” recalls a disappointed Doblin, who says he still hasn’t given up hope that Jobs will come around and contribute.

Grim got permission to publish Hofmann’s letter from the chemist’s estate. Grim’s Huffington piece is adapted from his book “This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America.”

The actual letter Hofmann wrote to Jobs:

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These Aussies sure can roll according to Watoday.com.au:

Cousins’ friend Quaid seeks bail

A friend of AFL star Ben Cousins has applied for bail after being held in custody for more than a year, accused of drug trafficking.

Fabian Quaid is one of four men facing life sentences if convicted for conspiring to traffic 45kg of MDMA, also known as ecstasy.

Police allege Quaid arranged to take possession of the drugs and organise their distribution.

Dimitrios Papadimitriou, of Queensland, Rade Ljboja, of NSW, and Dejan Medan, of Victoria, along with Quaid are alleged to be members of an international drug syndicate which was the focus of a police operation that led to the drug bust.

Quaid’s lawyer Laurie Levy told the Supreme Court in Perth during a bail application on Monday that his client had been in custody since May last year when he was arrested in Manly, near where he lived.

Mr Levy said Quaid had been held since March in a special handling unit at a Perth prison where he was handcuffed and had his feet shackled.

He said Quaid, who had represented Australia in Tae Kwon Do at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and was a personal trainer, had no ability to exercise in the unit, which was “a prison within a prison”.

“He has no proper recreation, he has no oval,” Mr Levy told the court.

Mr Levy said it was difficult for Quaid’s legal team to prepare for his November trial with “a mountain of material” he needed to explain to his lawyers.

The prosecution case against Quaid was “tenuous and weak”, he said, requesting Justice Rene Le Miere consider the option of home detention.

Commonwealth prosecutor Darren Renton opposed bail, saying it was “inappropriate”.

Mr Renton said while there was no direct evidence from thousands of telephone calls made between members of the syndicate, much of it in code, it was linked with direct evidence.

He said the only rational inference to be drawn from the thousands of phone calls and hundreds of hours of surveillance was a conspiracy to traffic drugs.

Two federal agents gave evidence in the bail application but the details were suppressed.

Justice Le Miere has reserved his decision.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate dealt a blow to the drug lobby Thursday by voting to permit people in the United States to order lower-cost drugs from Canada over the Internet.

The prescription drug plan, by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., passed the Senate by a 55-36 vote that added it to a $42.9 billion bill funding the Homeland Security Department. The Senate then approved the homeland security measure by a 84-6 vote Thursday night.

Critics said Vitter’s amendment would open a gaping loophole that would expose people to Internet scams and unsafe drugs, but the allure of importing U.S.-made drugs from other countries where government policies have driven prices lower has long had a pull on lawmakers.

But so too has the drug lobby, which has always defeated attempts to allow consumers widespread access to “reimported” drugs. Several Democratic leaders, including Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and his top lieutenant, Dick Durbin of Illinois, initially opposed Vitter’s amendment, only switching their votes after it became clear the popular idea would pass.

Their doubts about the idea may ensure the drug importation rule gets dropped during House-Senate negotiations on a final bill. Currently, U.S. travelers may return with a three-month supply of drugs when crossing the border.

The development capped a day of dizzying activity on Capitol Hill on six different spending bills for the 2010 budget year.

First, the House passed an agriculture bill that pays to add millions of people to the food stamp program. A popular program that gives additional food aid for children and pregnant women received a 10 percent increase in funding.

The Agriculture Department announced this week that a record 33.8 million people — or 1 in 9 Americans — were participating in the food stamp program as of April, the rolls swollen by rising unemployment. That’s up 1.2 million people from two months earlier and up 5.6 million from the same time last year.

The House then approved by a 318-106 vote $49 billion for foreign aid and the State Department budget. The bill included aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, critical U.S. allies in fighting the Taliban, and to Israel and Egypt, as well as money to fight AIDS and hunger in the developing world.

To blunt criticism that they were boosting foreign aid during a deep recession, Democrats argued that the measure represents a $1.2 billion cut of more than 2 percent from current-year funding. Republicans countered that the measure would provide a $12.2 billion, 33 percent increase over 2009 levels. The difference of opinion involves whether “emergency” money provided in fiscal 2009 war funding bills should be part of the calculation.

The truth is somewhere in between, but at a minimum, the House measure provides a 4 percent increase over current funding. That’s because Democrats used the war funding bill passed in June to pre-fund $2.4 billion worth of next year’s aid to Israel, Egypt and other countries.

The Senate homeland security bill also contains a GOP plan to extend permanently the E-Verify program, which uses the Social Security database to check whether workers are in the country legally. It would also require companies doing business with the federal government to use the system.

Republicans had also added language to require double fencing along 700 miles of the border with Mexico rather than vehicle barriers and high-tech equipment.

The Senate Appropriations Committee was also busy, adopting three bills. Democrats dealt a blow to the anti-abortion movement by voting to permanently reverse a policy under recent Republican administrations that banned giving U.S. taxpayer money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information. The move came during debate on a $49 billion foreign aid bill.

The 17-11 vote by the Appropriations Committee would give the existing policy — set by Obama by executive order days after taking office — the force of law. That means the next Republican president would not be able to put the ban back in place with the stroke of a pen as has been recent practice.

The Senate panel also boosted funding for the Energy Department and Army Corps of Engineers water projects and for the Treasury Department and other programs that increased budgets for financial regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., won approval of a plan to ease Bush administration rules requiring upfront payment from Cuba for imports of U.S. food. Dorgan says the Treasury Department is refusing to abide by an earlier attempt passed by Congress to effectively waive the Bush rule.

• House Appropriations Committee: http://appropriations.house.gov
• Senate Appropriations Committee: http://appropriations.senate.gov

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Opportunistic illegal drug manufacturers found a place to make themselves at home and cook methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or ecstacy, with someone else picking up the tab for their lab.

Lady Luck was on their side. temporarily
The group set up shop in a mobile home in a clean family oriented park in Magnolia, where one of the structures was no longer inhabited because of damage from Hurricane Ike, but still had electricity, according to Lt. Philip Cash with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Special Investigations Unit.

The trailer, located in the 29700 block of Tilbury Ct., was also surrounded by a fence, lending privacy and allowing them to lock up when they left.

Cash said although MDMA is chemically similar to methamphetamine, the smell is not nearly as strong because it does not require ether or ammonia, which also worked in their favor because the chemical odor did not alert area residents.

There was no evidence anyone slept in the mobile home, but simply used it as a lab.

A fly in the ointment
The owner wised up when he received a high electric bill on what was supposed to be a vacant dwelling. He went to investigate and quickly learned he was paying to house what appeared to be a clandestine dru g lab, so he contacted the District 4 Patrol Division of the MCSO, who called for SIU. They were assisted by the Texas Department of Public Safety HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) Methamphetamine Initiative Group and a DEA Hazmat contractor.

The Hazmat tem removed the dangerous MDMA lab components and investigators recovered about 5.6 kilograms of possible MDMA, in liquid form.

They also recovered a receipt for 1,000 ml round bottom flask, along 3 jugs of solvents. They removed bases and syringes, as well.

Ecstasy pills sell for $5 to $20 each. It is not known how many were already produced in the dwelling and sold on the street, but Cash said the operation was indirectly linked to the infamous cartels and connected with a site in Houston and recent incidents in Montgomery County.

No arrests were made at the scene, because no one was there, but three suspects were identified.

They were otherwise detained
The three suspects are currently incarcerated. One is in the Harris County Jail and the other two are in separate correctional facilities in Louisiana, giving investigators more time to examine evidence forensically.

Cash said the MDMA lab was the first of its kind he has dealt with in Montgomery County and was only aware of a few in Houston.

The suspects’ names were not released

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The Seattle Times reports:

A Bremerton drug dealer whom prosecutors portrayed as a leader in “the methamphetamine scourge that has swept across the Kitsap Peninsula” was sentenced to 11 ½ years in a federal prison this morning.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton in Tacoma pronounced Ronald Craig Potter “a drug dealer, a bully and a thief” in handing the 42-year-old man the sentence for meth and gun possession.

“The Kitsap Peninsula is better off without him there,” Leighton said.

Federal agents raided Potter’s home in August 2007 and found drugs and scales, a police scanner, electronic monitoring equipment, several guns and more than $40,000 in cash.

Potter was convicted by a jury last year of methamphetamine possession with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense.

“Potter was much more than a user of methamphetamine or a ‘tweeker,’ ” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Perez argued in court documents. “To the contrary, he was a longtime, sophisticated and brazen drug dealer in Kitsap County.”

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com

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Go support them at www.leap.cc

Here’s more food for thought:

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