Police have seized drugs with a street value of more than $25 million and charged a man believed to be the main dealer. Earlier this week, detectives from Strike Force Taipan raided an Artarmon storage unit, on Sydney's lower north, seizing a large amount of prohibited drugs hidden inside tetra juice boxes. Pending confirmation by drug analysis, it's believed the drugs include 2kg of brown heroin, almost 14kg of ice and 11.5kg of black tar heroin. Detectives arrested a 43-year-old Australian-Iranian dual citizen when he visited the storage units on Thursday afternoon. He was charged with two counts of commercial supply of a large commercial quantity of prohibited drugs and was refused bail to face Hornsby Local Court later on Friday. Following that arrest, police raided several more units, houses, financial institutions and a food importation business at Glendenning, in western Sydney. A further 166g of brown heroin, 7.5kg of ice and 36kg of black tar heroin were seized. All the drugs seized, totalling almost 70kg, will undergo drug analysis. More than $300,000 in cash, a large range of jewellery and valuable securities were also seized. Police are examining juice containers totalling more than one tonne to determine their contents. … Continue reading →

Reports of students wielding knives, threatening teachers with an iron bar and selling drugs are included in a dossier of 59 critical incidents in State schools which have been sent to the office of Education Minister Liz Constable in the past two years. The confidential reports, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, come from edited copies of principals' online notifications to the Education Department deemed serious enough to pass on to the Minister. The firsthand accounts provide a glimpse of the sorts of problems schools deal with regularly. In one of 12 cases involving physical assaults, a principal from the Fremantle-Peel district said a school had to be locked down when an argument between two students escalated after one threw a rubbish bin at another during a lesson in May 2010. "The teacher tried to get assistance, wherein (the student) left the room and went into an adjacent room and found a long iron bar," the report said. "(The student) started to smash various items in the rooms. "Another teacher came to assist and encountered (the student) with the bar in the doorway between the rooms. "(The student) swore at the teacher saying, 'Back off or I'll hit you'." The … Continue reading →

Upon hearing the news of Whitney Houston's death yesterday, I was deeply saddened.  In my opinion, Houston was the greatest singer who ever lived, and I, like many others, want to take a moment to mourn the loss of such an incredible musical talent. While the cause of her death is still unknown, TMZ reported Sunday that prescription drugs were found in the Beverly Hills Hilton hotel room where Houston was found.  TMZ also reported that family members said that Houston had been taking the drug Xanax. Xanax is a psychoactive drug used to treat anxiety and other pain disorders.  It works by binding to receptors in the brain in order to slow down chemicals that may have become unbalanced.  This ultimately relieves tension and eventually reduces symptoms that result from various anxiety disorders. Xanax is a prescription drug, so unless these pills were obtained illegally, Houston must have had them prescribed by a physician.  If that's the case, I'm sick and tired of these physicians not really understanding that folks who have had a drinking problem are extremely vulnerable to the side effects of mixing Xanax with alcohol.  Alcohol incredibly increases the power and the central nervous system effects … Continue reading →

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to review the first lower-cost versions of biotech drugs, expensive medications which have never before faced generic competition. The guidelines issued by the FDA on Thursday are the final step in a decades-long effort to lower the price of biotech drugs, high-tech injectable medications that cost the nation billions of dollars each year. "These draft documents are designed to help industry develop biosimilar versions of currently approved biological products, which can enhance competition and may lead to better patient access and lower cost to consumers," FDA's drug division director Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement. Since their introduction in the 1980s, biotech drugs have never faced generic competition because the FDA did not have power to approve copies of such medications. For years the biotech industry successfully argued that their drugs, often made from living cells, were too complex to be duplicated by competitors. That finally changed with the Obama administration's 2010 health overhaul, which ordered the FDA to create a system for approving so-called "biosimilar drugs." The industry term arose because biotech scientists insisted it would be impossible to produce exact copies of their biologically engineered drugs. They … Continue reading →

"As we are dependant on charity to continue our research, it’s a really serious pressure." International trials - which are becoming increasingly important - had been particularly hard-hit, he said. "If you make them impossible, there’s the risk that we will never do that research." The directive was brought in to make drugs trials safer and "harmonise" methods across the EU, but Prof Johnson said it had largely failed on both counts. He explained that the directive appeared to require many licensed drugs or nutrients - including some that could be bought over-the-counter at chemists - to be classed as "innovative medicinal products" in trials. If they were classed as such, then every suspected adverse reaction had to be logged with every research centre - even if used in already-approved quantities, and even though the drug's safety profile had been determined years before. "It’s resulted in a deluge of paperwork," he said. He said CRUK was planning a trial adding selenium, a widely available nutrient, to treatment for those with aggressive lymphoma, or immune system cancer. But Prof Johnson said: "The trial didn’t happen in the end simply because we could not cope with the regulatory burden. It proved impossible. … Continue reading →

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Most studies looking at whether erectile dysfunction drugs can help men overcome premature ejaculation problems agree that the pills make a difference, but much of the research is flawed, according to a new review of the evidence. Of the 14 studies included in the review, 11 found that the medications helped extend the length of time men could have intercourse before orgasm, but Dr. Anastasios Asimakopoulos, lead author of the report, urged caution in interpreting the findings. "There is still inadequate evidence to propose the use of (these types of drugs) in treating (premature ejaculation)," he wrote in an email to Reuters Health. The drugs, which go by the brand names Viagra, Levitra and Cialis, are intended to treat men who have problems getting and keeping an erection. There's been an interest in also using them to address the problem of premature ejaculation, because one of the side effects of the drugs is a delay in ejaculation, the authors write in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Asimakopoulos, from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome, Italy, said that anywhere from four to 39 percent of men suffer from premature ejaculation. His group collected data from … Continue reading →

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina said Saturday he will propose legalizing drugs in Central America in an upcoming meeting with the region's leaders. Perez Molina said in a radio interview that his proposal would include decriminalizing the transportation of drugs through the area. "I want to bring this discussion to the table," he said. "It wouldn't be a crime to transport, to move drugs. It would all have to be regulated." Perez Molina, a former army general who took office last month, didn't give any other details about his proposal, mention specific drugs or say when the next meeting with Central American leaders will be. He said he will bring the subject up with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes when Funes visits Monday. The Guatemalan president said the war on drugs and all the money and technology received from the U.S. has not diminished drug trafficking in the area. "There was talk of the success of Plan Colombia but all it did was neutralize big cartels," Perez Molina said of a U.S. initiative supporting Colombia's fight against leftist rebels and far-right militias involved in the drug trade. Perez Molina also blamed drug cartels for rampant violence in … Continue reading →