Articles Posted in Drug Offenses

Four years ago, heroin accounted for 80% of the opioid seizures at the Mexico/U.S. border; as of 2022, it now accounts for only 7%. What has replaced the opioid seizures? If you have read my previous blog posts, you know the answer is fentanyl. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, fentanyl seizures at our southern border tripled (by weight) from 2021 to 2022. It may be surprising to learn that 20% of those fentanyl seizures were found on pedestrians crossing the border, often secreted on or inside the pedestrian’s body. Considering how potent the drug is, it is perhaps not all that surprising as a small amount can go a long way.  The majority of Fentanyl seizures are in the form of pills or tablets. In the U.S. the number of people who fatally overdose on fentanyl is seven times higher than for that of heroin. Between 2015-2022, 325,000 individuals had died from a fentanyl overdose.

The fentanyl trade has been devastating to both the U.S. and Mexico. In my previous blog, I discussed how fentanyl has supplanted the heroin production in Mexico. While nobody should be crying over less heroin production, the truth is, fentanyl is far more deadly and dangerous and the end of heroin production in Mexico has displaced subsistence farmers who once tended the poppy fields and has made the cartels even stronger.

Heroin addiction has historically accounted for the majority of opioid addictions in the U.S., but  that is no longer true. In the 1990’s until around 2010, when regulators cracked down, Americans were prescribed – and got hooked on – painkillers such as Oxycontin. When those prescriptions became harder to come by, the hundreds of thousands of addicts turned to heroin.  The docudrama series “Dopesick” dramatizes this trajectory. The series depicts how individuals suffering from chronic pain eventually became opioid addicts. Opioids affect the brain processes-rewiring the circuity so to speak-and any attempt to withdraw from use of the drug results in intense physical and psychological symptoms. Thus, many who got addicted to prescription opioids but found in the late 2000’s, when those opioids came under scrutiny and tight regulation, that their doctor could no longer fill the prescriptions they needed, turned to heroin. A former DEA agent told a Reuters reporter that prescription opioid painkillers created the market that moved from heroin and now to fentanyl.

The opioid addiction and overdose crisis is old news, but is this country on the cusp of a new prescription drug epidemic? Some experts fear that a class of drugs, benzodiazepines, is the next drug epidemic. Benzodiazepines, commonly referred to as “Benzos”, are effective at treating acute anxiety and panic disorders when therapy and other drugs don’t help. But benzos are powerful drugs and they can be highly addictive. Despite their dangers, benzos are so effective at treating anxiety that prescription rates for these drugs have skyrocketed. The huge increase in the number of prescriptions written for benzos in the past few years suggest that, like opioids, these prescriptions are too freely dispensed.

Many healthcare professionals are concerned and believe more attention needs to be paid to this potential looming crisis. The benzodiazepine prescription trajectory mimics the large increase in opioid prescriptions that ended in a crisis this country still suffers from today. And like opioids, a person can suffer a fatal overdose on benzos.

As with opioids, the legal prescription market has made its way into the recreational drug market. The use of benzodiazepines as a recreational drug among teens and young adults is increasing. Among this age group benzo addiction has taken over the rates of addiction to opioids. While young people may think it is okay to take the drug because it is a prescription drug – even if the prescription is not for them – the truth is, it is dangerous, addictive, and illegal.  Many abusers are also using benzodiazepines in combination with opioids, a dangerous concoction.

SIXTEEN YEARS AGO HE STOOD BEFORE THE JUDGE AS A CONVICTED DRUG DEALER, NOW HE STANDS BEFORE THE SAME JUDGE TO BE SWORN IN AS AN ATTORNEY.

Being a criminal defense attorney in Orange County can be tough and demanding work. I know that every one of my clients is a unique individual and I can only be their advocate when I understand how they landed on the other side of my desk. A proper defense requires that I learn about my client’s personal story, which often includes getting to know my clients’ families too.  While I celebrate the victories with my clients, sometimes the outcome is less than what we hoped for. Even though this is part of the business, I am still disappointed and feel the pain along with the client whom I have gotten to know as an individual, someone who is more than an accused criminal in front of the judge’s bench. That is why the following story is so instructive and affirming of my attitude as a criminal defense attorney.

Sixteen years ago 27-year-old Ed Martell stood before Judge Bruce Morrow in his Michigan courtroom and pleaded guilty to selling and manufacturing crack cocaine. The defendant faced a maximum 20-year prison sentence. Having grown up in challenging circumstances — the son of a single mother living in low-income housing and relying on government assistance – Mr. Martell entered the world of drug dealing at a young age. By 13 years old, he received his first felony conviction, followed by another two years later. He dropped out of high school to continue his drug trafficking career. Mr. Martell estimated that he had stood before at least 20 judges before his encounter with Judge Morrow.

 
The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has changed everything and that includes criminal activity. Reports are that crime has decreased significantly in Southern California since the stay at home orders went into effect. Not only has the virus considerably diminished the opportunities for crimes such as robbery, burglary, and other crimes where one would expect to see an impact, but it has also had a notable impact on the drug trade and the attendant crime of money laundering. Many of the traditional means used by drug dealers who “wash” the proceeds of their trade have been shut down as a byproduct of the virus.  These disruptions in the money laundering trade have had a supply chain effect, leaving illegal drugs in shorter supply and making them much more expensive in Southern California and elsewhere across the nation.

The white collar crime of Money laundering of drug proceeds is illegal under California law (California Health and Safety Code section 11370.9) and under Federal law (18 United States Code 1956). How does the money laundering of drug proceeds typically work? There are almost as many money laundering schemes as there are dirty dollars but usually the strategy involves moving money through a legitimate business or through a series of transactions that almost work like a foreign currency exchange that coverts one foreign currency to U.S. dollars via complicated intermediary steps.

Money laundering, which  is usually accomplished by running dirty money through a legitimate businesses, say a restaurant or an apparel wholesaler—the latter being a favored way of laundering money in Southern California— has become all but impossible with these businesses forced to close during the pandemic. In years past, when currency transaction controls were not as strict, drug proceeds were often simply shipped as cash back to, say Mexico, and distributed as deposits to bank accounts. Drug dealers, particularly the Mexican cartels favored this method until the Mexican government instituted financial regulations that made this risky. The cartels then picked up the money laundering methods developed by Colombian traffickers by utilizing legitimate businesses to make their dollar proceeds untraceable to the drug traffickers. Now that this money laundering pipeline has been shut off, the dirty money is piling up and the drug traffickers have turned to the old method of packing up drug proceed cash in boxes and sending it across the border. Resorting to the old methods of money laundering have brought back the good old days for law enforcement when drug proceed cash was much easier to intercept and seize. Law enforcement have hauled in huge drug money seizures since the Covid 19 business shutdowns were ordered.

Johnson & Johnson, as American as apple pie and Coca Cola. The American corporation that was founded in 1886 has provided generations of American homes with consumer staples such as baby care products, toiletries, and wound care products….and opioids. Most people associate Purdue Pharma with the opioid crisis that has ravaged parts of this country for years, but Johnson & Johnson also played a huge role in the crisis.

In the mid-1990’s, while the opioid crisis was already taking wing, Johnson & Johnson embarked upon a new business: the cultivation of poppies in Tasmania. Johnson & Johnson scientists genetically modified poppy plants, engineering “super poppies” that produced abundant opiates. Rewarding farmers in Tasmania, where the super poppies were grown, with handsome prices and incentives, such as luxury cars, Johnson & Johnson cultivated a new business through its subsidiaries. The poppies became a boom crop for the tiny island state of Tasmania. And the scientist who discovered the way to genetically modify the poppies was celebrated by Johnson & Johnson. The company gave that scientist the highest science award offered by Johnson & Johnson in the year 2000, “for the Invention of the Thebaine Alkaloid ‘Norman’ Poppy.”

The poppies—grown on thousands of Tasmanian acers– were exported to the U.S. under Drug Enforcement Administration approval. The poppies were then refined by the subsidiaries into oxycodone and hydrocodone powders that were shipped to U.S. pill makers…. such as Purdue Pharma, which become one of the first major customers for the Johnson & Johnson product.

Fentanylis the deadliest opioid of all the opioids being abused in this country. It is said to be 50 times more powerful than pure heroin, making it very easy to overdose on the drug-hence the highest rate of fatal overdoses in this country can be attributed to Fentanyl. In 2017, an estimated 19,000 people died from Fentanyl overdoses.

Contributing to this epidemic is Fentanyl’s ease of manufacture and transport. It is a synthetic drug, requiring only chemicals, cheap equipment, and a little bit of knowledge to make. Most of the illicit Fentanyl on American streets are made in Chinese laboratories. Sometimes referred to as a “Drug Bazaar,” chemical laboratories operate all over China with little oversight or regulation. Many of the labs are producing fentanyl and fentanyl analogues by the tons. China denies this but there is plenty of evidence supporting the charge.

Moreover, the sale of fentanyl is an extremely lucrative business. By way of example: $1,000 worth of bulk heroin divided up into retail portions would net the dealer a profit of $4,000. The same purchase of bulk fentanyl from China would net a profit of $7.8 million! These figures, as incredible as they may seem, come from the Drug Enforcement Administration (per Bloomberg News).

OxyContin, first introduced by Purdue Pharma in 1996, was aggressively marketed to physicians, nurses and pharmacists as a superior, longer-lasting, and safer treatment for cancer-related chronic pain as well as other pain, and as a treatment for “non- malignant pain” (long-lasting pain with no identified precursor).  The marketing campaign was intense even though randomized double-blind studies found that OxyContin was no more effective than opioids already in use for the treatment of pain.  Purdue’s intense promotion of the drug proved to be very lucrative for the company. From the time of its introduction to 2000, a mere four years, sales of OxyContin grew from $48 million to over $1 billion.

Purdue Pharma claimed that the risk of addictionto the drug was minimal, maintaining that less than one percent of those that used the drug got addicted. The company even cited studies to confirm this “fact.” We know now that OxyContin is highly addictive; Purdue knew it then. OxyContin, zealously promoted and widely available, was a “gateway” drug to theopioid crisesthat continues to grip the country. Yet, Purdue Pharma claimed for years that it was unaware of OxyContin’s addictive properties. That was an outright lie.

A United States Justice Department investigation exposed conclusive evidence that Purdue was well aware of OxyContin’s addiction risks as early as 1997. Yet, when Purdue’s chief medical officer was called to testify before the House Appropriations subcommittee in 2001 concerning the then evident risks of OxyContin addiction abuse, he claimed that Purdue was unaware of the problem for the first four years it was on the market.