The Jim Bakker Show

Unbudgeted: How the opioid crisis is blowing a hole in small-town America’s finances

By Paula Seligson and Tim Reid

INDIANA, Pa./CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (Reuters) – As deaths mount in America’s opioid crisis, communities on the front lines face a hidden toll: the financial cost.

Ross County, a largely rural region of 77,000 people an hour south of Columbus, Ohio, is wrestling with an explosion in opioid-related deaths – 44 last year compared to 19 in 2009. The drug addiction epidemic is shattering not just lives but also stressing the county budget.

About 75 percent of the 200 children placed into state care in the county have parents with opioid addictions, up from about 40 percent five years ago, local officials say. Their care is more expensive because they need specialist counseling, longer stays and therapy.

That has caused a near doubling in the county’s child services budget to almost $2.4 million from $1.3 million, said Doug Corcoran, a county commissioner.

For a county with a general fund of just $23 million, that is a big financial burden, Corcoran said. He and his colleagues are now exploring what they might cut to pay for the growing costs of the epidemic, such as youth programs and economic development schemes.

“There’s very little discretionary spending in our budget to cut. It’s really tough,” Corcoran said.

Cities, towns and counties across the United States are struggling to deal with the financial costs of a drug addiction epidemic that killed 33,000 people in 2015 alone, data and interviews with more than two dozen local officials and county budget professionals shows. (For graphics on the opioid crisis click here: http://tmsnrt.rs/2hO4YC7)

The interviews and data provide one of the first glimpses into the financial impact on local governments but it is far from complete because there is no central database collating information from counties and states. So, the true scale is still mostly hidden from view.

Opioids, primarily prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl – a drug 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine – are fueling the drug overdoses.

President Donald Trump last month called the epidemic a “national emergency” but has not yet made an official national emergency declaration. Such a move would give states access to federal funds to fight it.

BUILDING A PICTURE

Counties grappling with rising overdoses face higher costs in emergency call volumes, medical examiner and coroner bills, and overcrowded jails and courtrooms, said Matt Chase, executive director of the National Association of Counties, which represents 3,069 county and local governments.

At his group’s July annual meeting, a presentation where county officials shared tips on tackling the opioid crisis, and the budget problems the crisis is triggering, played to a packed room, Chase said.

The organization is in the early stage of collecting information to build a more complete picture of the financial impact of the crisis on county budgets, Chase said.

Indiana County, Pennsylvania, a mountainous, predominantly rural region, provides a snapshot of how the crisis is stressing local services and budgets.

Its county seat, the borough of Indiana, is home to a modern college campus and a main street lined by restaurants and American flags. Yet beneath its outward tranquility, the opioid epidemic is everywhere, said David Rostis, an undercover detective and head of the county’s drug task force.

On a recent ride-along in Rostis’ car, he points to a building where a doctor used to sell opioid prescriptions for sex; a large, affluent home where a teenager died of an overdose; a trail where a drug-related killing recently occurred; and the local gas station where a woman recently overdosed and died in her car while people passed by.

In 2016, the county’s drug overdose death rate was 50.6 deaths per 100,000, compared to the state average of 36.5.

Autopsy and toxicology costs there have nearly doubled in six years, from about $89,000 in 2010 to $165,000 in 2016, county data shows.

Court costs are soaring, mainly because of the expense of prosecuting opioid-related crimes and providing accused with a public defender, local officials say.

The county is using contingency funds to pay for the added coroner costs, said Mike Baker, the county’s top government official. Last year, the county drew $63,000 from those funds, up from $19,000 in 2014, he said. In 2014, the county saw 10 drug-related deaths. In 2016, the number had grown to 53.

In Mercer County, West Virginia, 300 miles (483 km) to the south of Indiana County, opioid-related jail costs are carving into the small annual budget of $12 million for the community of 62,000 people.

The county’s jail expenses are on course to increase by $100,000 this year, compared to 2015. The county pays $48.50 per inmate per day to the jail, and this year the jail is on course to have over 2,000 more “inmate days” compared to 2015, according to county data.

“At least 90 percent of those extra jail costs are opioid-related,” said Greg Puckett, a county commissioner who sits on a national county opioid task force. “We spend more in one month on our jail bill than we spend per month on economic development, our health department and our emergency services combined.”

West Virginia has been on the front line of the opioid crisis. In 2015, the state led the nation in drug overdose death rates for the third consecutive year. Preliminary numbers for 2016 recorded 883 drug overdose deaths, with 755 involving at least one opioid, up from 629 total deaths in 2014.

AUTOPSIES INC.

Few know the opioid crisis like the father-son duo Sidney and Curtis Goldblatt. The pair run two companies, ForensicDx for autopsies and MolecularDx for drug testing, out of Windber, Pennsylvania. Together they conduct autopsies for 10 Pennsylvania counties, including Indiana, charging between $2,000 and $3,000 per body.

In 2014, overdoses represented about 40 percent of the deaths they handled, the Goldblatts said. Last year, that shot up to 62 percent. Goldblatt senior has been performing autopsies for 50 years and says he has never seen anything on the scale of the current epidemic. When he started, a drug overdose was rare.

The pair opened ForensicDx in 2014 with a staff of three, serving only three counties. That’s grown to seven staff and 10 counties, mainly to meet demand from drug-related deaths, the Goldblatts said.

Indiana County’s ambulance service is also under financial stress because of the opioid crisis. The county’s primary ambulance provider, Citizens’ Ambulance Service, has lost more than $100,000 since 2016 alone on opioid calls, said Randy Thomas, director of operations.

The non-profit is reimbursed only if an opioid overdose patient is transported to the hospital. It doesn’t get paid for successfully treating people who have overdosed but then refuse to go to the hospital, Thomas said.

People brought back from the brink of death after a dose of the life-saving drug naloxone, also known as Narcan, often awake angry and combative and refuse hospitalization, Thomas said.

As costs related to the opioid epidemic increase, Indiana County commissioner Baker isn’t sure what will happen next. Unless the state or federal government intervene, the county will have to either cut services or increase taxes, Baker said.

“This has introduced an entirely different metric, an entirely different level of unpredictability in budgeting,” he said.

For all the budget problems Baker faces because of the crisis, the human toll is what distresses him most. Last fall, Baker’s nephew died of a fentanyl overdose. He was 23. Talking about his nephew’s death, Baker pauses to collect his thoughts.

“It is a most painful and difficult experience and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world,” he said.

(Editing by Jason Szep and Ross Colvin)

Philippine president’s Senate foes, allies vow to block budget cut for rights body

FILE PHOTO: Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers his speech, during the oath taking of Philippine National Police (PNP) star rank officers, at the Malacanang Presidential Palace in Manila, Philippines August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Enrico Dela Cruz

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s critics and allies in the Senate vowed on Wednesday to block a lower house move to slash the annual budget of a public-funded human rights agency opposed to his bloody war on drugs to just $20.

The house, dominated by Duterte’s supporters, voted on Tuesday to allocate a 2018 budget of just 1,000 pesos ($20) to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which has investigated hundreds of killings during the president’s ferocious anti-narcotics crackdown.

Vice President Leni Robredo, who was not Duterte’s running mate and has locked horns with him numerous times, said the lawmakers’ move effectively abolishes the CHR, a constitutional body.

Duterte’s signature campaign has left thousands of mostly urban poor Filipinos dead. Critics say the lawmakers are trying to retaliate against the CHR for pursuing allegations of executions by police during sting operations, which police deny.

The CHR is among the domestic and foreign rights groups that Duterte frequently admonishes, accusing them of lecturing him and disregarding Filipinos who are victims of crimes stemming from drug addiction.

The upper house minority bloc, composed of six staunch critics of the president, will seek to restore the 678 million peso budget the government and a Senate sub-committee had proposed for the CHR.

Senator Risa Hontiveros described the plan to cut the budget to almost nil as “a shameless rejection of the country’s international and national commitments to champion human rights”.

Several allies of Duterte in the 24-seat chamber said they would scrutinize the house move and try to ensure the commission had a budget that would allow it to work properly.

Senator Richard Gordon said the CHR had a job to do and should not be restricted.

“That is their role – to expose possible abuses,” he said.

Another legislator, JV Ejercito said senators would not make the CHR impotent.

“The CHR is in the thick of things and very relevant nowadays and probably even next year and the years to follow because of what’s happening,” he said in a statement.

Duterte once threatened to abolish the CHR after its chief, Chito Gascon, sought to investigate alleged abuses by police anti-drugs units.

Duterte on Tuesday appeared to distance himself from the lawmakers proposing the meager budget. He said CHR was constitutionally created and should probe whatever it wants, adding he was “not here to destroy institutions”.

“He had it coming. He opens his mouth in a most inappropriate way. He knows nothing,” Duterte said, referring to Gascon.

“The congressmen are really angry. I have nothing against him. Give them a budget for all I care, whatever he likes to investigate.”

(Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty)

Meth, coke and oil: A drug boom in the Texas shale patch

FILE PHOTO: Aerial view of oil wells near Midland, Texas, U.S. on May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ernest Scheyder/File Photo

By Liz Hampton

MIDLAND, Texas (Reuters) – When Joe Forsythe returned to the West Texas oilfields last year after a stint in a drug rehab facility, he figured he had beaten his addiction to methamphetamine.

The 32-year-old rig worker and equipment handler lasted about a year before relapsing.

“It’s easy to get back into that mentality,” said Forsythe, of Midland, Texas, who said he no longer uses drugs after several stints in rehab since 2015. “I’d work 24 hours … I was just plagued with fatigue and needed something to improve my work ethic.”

Forsythe’s experience and others like it reflect a painful flipside of the nation’s shale oil boom – a parallel increase in substance abuse, drug crime and related social ills.

While drug use is a problem among industrial workers nationwide, it raises particular concern in the oil patch as U.S. production surges to record levels in what is already one of the nation’s most dangerous sectors – with a fatality rate about three times the average for other industries, according to 2015 federal statistics.

Drug use is a significant factor in workplace injuries and crimes involving oilfield workers, according to drug counselors, hospital and police officials and court records in West Texas, the epicenter of the U.S. shale sector.

As the shale revolution has spawned waves of hiring here since 2010, law enforcement authorities have tracked a boom in drug trafficking and related crime. In Midland and Ector counties, home to many Permian Basin oil workers, state and local police in 2016 seized more than 95 pounds of methamphetamine – up from less than four pounds in 2010.

Meth and cocaine are stimulants of choice in the oil patch to get though long oilfield shifts, but alcohol and pain killers such as opioids are also widely abused – often to soften the crash after taking stimulants, drug addicts and counselors said.

Drug charges in the industry town of Midland more than doubled between 2012 and 2016, to 942 from 491, according to police data. In neighboring Odessa, total drug arrests doubled between 2010 and 2016, to 1291 from 756, according to Odessa Police Department data.

The increase in drug crime stretched through two boom periods in the West Texas oil patch, before and after a crude price crash that hit in 2014.

Oil companies typically drug test job applicants and often conduct additional random tests on employees. For truck drivers and those involved with hazardous materials, tests are also conducted under federal programs run by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Several oil firms with major operations in the Permian Basin declined to discuss how they handle drugs in the oil patch or did not respond to inquiries.

Schlumberger NV <SLB.N>, Halliburton Co <HAL.N> and Exxon Mobil Corp <XOM.N> declined to comment. Exxon referred Reuters to its alcohol and drug policy.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. <PXD.N> and ConocoPhillips <COP.N> did not respond to requests for comment.

The American Petroleum Institute, an industry trade group, declined to comment.

LONG HOURS – ON METH

Despite corporate and regulatory efforts to curb drug abuse, many oilfield workers regularly use stimulants on long shifts of grueling work for relatively high pay, said drug counselors, local law enforcement officials and oil field workers recovering from addictions.

More than a third of clients at Midland’s Springboard drug rehabilitation center are currently involved in the oil and gas industry, said Executive Director Steve Thomason.

Rising oil prices have brought more admissions for methamphetamine abuse, Thomason said.

“People say they can work on it for 24 hours straight,” he said.

Long shifts are common in the oil industry because expensive drilling equipment, often leased at high daily rates, runs through the night, and workers often have to commute to wells in remote locations. Most oil producers subcontract oilfield services to smaller companies that are not unionized.

Springboard’s admissions of methamphetamine users went up 20 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the last half of 2016, he said. The number of rigs operating in the Permian Basin increased more than 38 percent during the same period, according to data from energy services firm Baker Hughes <BHGE.N>.

Corporal Steve LeSueur, a spokesman for the Odessa police, said the influx of drugs in the oil patch is stretching police resources.

“The jail has been full,” he said. “A lot of crimes that are committed are drug-related – simple property crimes, forgeries to feed their drug habits.”

METH AND MURDER

Some offenses are more severe.

In 2016, Shawn Pinson, an employee of a well construction company, was convicted of murdering an acquaintance following a drug-related dispute.

The murder occurred around the same time he was arrested for possession of methamphetamine, police records show. The victim tested positive for meth at the time of the murder, according to an autopsy.

At his trial, witnesses close to Pinson testified he had become addicted to methamphetamine while working in the oilfield, according to a prosecutor and a defense attorney involved in the case.

Pinson did not respond to a letter seeking comment and his current attorney, Michele Greene, did not respond to a request for comment.

When oil jobs are plentiful, companies desperate for labor sometimes will disregard signs of substance abuse, said three recovering drug addicts who worked in the oilfield.

“These oilfield bosses – they party, too,” Forsythe said. “As long as you’re getting the job done and not making a scene, they won’t drug test you.”

One recovering addict, who declined to use his name because he still works in the industry, said he was often high during long-haul trips driving trucks transporting oil.

“I could do a little coke and speed and it would give me the extra stretch,” he said. “It ended up running me to the ground.”

For a graphic on illegal drugs shadow oil boom, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/USA-OIL-DRUGS/0100507G0H5/index.html

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Midland, Texas; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Brian Thevenot)

More than a thousand turn Philippine funeral to protest against war on drugs

The flower-decked hearse of Kian delos Santos, a 17-year-old student who was shot during anti-drug operations, stops in front of a police station during the funeral march in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines August 26, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Erik De Castro and Andrew R.C. Marshall

MANILA (Reuters) – More than a thousand people attended a funeral procession on Saturday for a Philippine teenager slain by police last week, turning the march into one of the biggest protests yet against President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

The death of Kian Loyd delos Santos has drawn widespread attention to allegations that police have been systematically executing suspected users and dealers – a charge the authorities deny.

Nuns, priests and hundreds of children, chanting “justice for Kian, justice for all” joined the funeral cortege as it made its way from a church to the cemetery where the 17-year-old was buried.

Delos Santos’ father, Saldy, spoke briefly during a mass to defend his son’s innocence and express anger over the police.

“Don’t they have a heart? I’m not sure they do. There’s a lot of churches, they should go there,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Delos Santos was dragged by plain-clothes policemen to a dark, trash-filled alley in northern Manila, before he was shot in the head and left next to a pigsty, according to witnesses whose accounts appeared to be backed up by CCTV footage.

Police say they acted in self defense after delos Santos opened fire on them.

The parents and lawyers of delos Santos filed a murder complaint against the three anti-narcotics policemen on Friday.

If accepted, the complaint would follow at least two cases filed last year against police over Duterte’s war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos, outraged human rights groups and alarmed Western governments.

Delos Santos’ flower-draped coffin passed through a major highway on a small truck decorated with tarpaulins reading “Run, Kian, Run” and “Stop the killings” displayed on each side. Passing motorists honked in support.

“This is a sign that the people have had enough and are indignant over the impunity that prevails today,” Renato Reyes, secretary general of left-wing activist group Bayan (Nation), said in a statement. “The people protest the utter lack of accountability in the police force.”

Mourners, some of them wearing white shirts, held flowers and small flags, and placards denouncing the killing.

A member of Rise Up, a Manila-based coalition of church-related groups opposing the drug war, told Reuters that families of about 20 victims joined the procession.

“I came to support the family. I want justice for Kian and all victims – including my son,” said Katherine David, 35, whose 21-year-old son was shot dead by police with two other men in January.

Department of Justice personnel armed with assault rifles were on guard during the procession and outside the church.

Most people in the Philippines support the anti-drug campaign, and Duterte remains a popular leader but questions have begun to be asked since the death of delos Santos, which came during a spike in killings across the Philippines’ main island, Luzon, last week.

(Graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2ixnYFu)

The president’s communication office reiterated on Saturday he will not tolerate wrongdoing by law enforcers and called on the public to “trust the justice system under the Duterte presidency.”

But bereaved mother David believes the response to Kian’s killing marks a turning point in opposition to the drug war.

“There’s been a big change. Before, police could kill and nobody paid attention. Now people are starting to show support and sympathy,” she said.

(Writing by Karen Lema; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

As anger simmers over killings, Philippine police do house-to-house drug tests

FILE PHOTO: Relatives and loved ones of Leover Miranda, 39, a drug-related killings victim, hold a streamer calling to stop the continuing rise of killings due to the President Rodrigo Duterte's ruthless war on drugs, during a funeral march at the north cemetery in metro Manila, Philippines August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

By Dondi Tawatao and Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine police were knocking on doors in one of Manila’s poorest neighborhoods on Wednesday to encourage people to take on-the-spot drug tests, a campaign condemned by rights groups as harassment that could endanger lives.

Carrying drug testing kits, police officers accompanied by community officials were seen by Reuters going to houses asking residents if they were willing to submit urine samples.

Payatas, one of the most populated sub-districts, or barangays, in the capital’s Quezon City neighborhood, has been identified as a crime-prone area with a serious drug problem. Community leaders said they requested help from police, and testing was voluntary.

Dozens of Payatas residents have died during President Rodrigo Duterte’s ferocious 14-month-old war on drugs, which has killed thousands of Filipinos, many in what critics say are suspicious circumstances.

Residents say more than 300 of the 130,000 people in Payatas are already on a drug “watch list” drawn up last year by community leaders of known addicts.

Barangay watch lists are drawn up by community leaders to identify those in need of rehabilitation, but activists say some of those who appeared on them have become targets for assassination. The authorities deny the watch lists serve as hit-lists.

On Wednesday, Reuters saw a small number of Payatas residents lining up to be tested but the police did not say how many were found clean or to be drug users. Community leaders did not say what will happen to people who tested positive for drug use or to those who refuse to be tested.

“Our goal is to have a drug-free barangay this year,” Payatas barangay secretary Marlene Ocampo told Reuters, adding the village council agreed to fund and conduct free and voluntary drug testing, which could take four to five months.

“We only asked the police to help us and we are grateful,” she said. “We have more than 133,000 residents.”

She said there were no complaints, and many residents agreed to undergo tests.

“This is also good for us,” said Maria Luisa Valdez, a 37-year-old food vendor. “We are clean. We don’t do drugs so why would be afraid to take the test.”

The head of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, Edre Olalia, said police were on a “fishing expedition” to draw up a list of drug users, and doubted the testing was voluntary.

‘ANTI-POOR’

“It is presumably illegal and unconstitutional on its face especially when it is blanket, involuntarily and arbitrary,” Olalia said. “It violates the right to privacy and against self-incrimination and basic human dignity.”

“It is anti-poor and discriminatory,” he added.

Human rights groups stress that Duterte’s crackdown has overwhelmingly targeted the poor, and those killed are mainly drug users or low-level pushers from families with no resources to challenge official police accounts.

Quezon City police chief Guillermo Eleazar said the tests were limited to Payatas and police were only helping the community.

“These tests are voluntary,” Eleazar told Reuters. “We are not forcing anyone to do it, that is illegal and we will not allow it.”

The drugs war has once again been thrust into the spotlight after more than 90 people were killed last week during three nights of coordinated “One-Time, Big-Time” anti-crime operations.

The operations stopped when news broke that a 17-year-old high school student, Kian Loyd Delos Santos, was shot dead by police in a northern suburb of Manila, sparking public anger that prompted Duterte to order the officers be detained and investigated.

Police say Delos Santos was a drug courier who was armed and resisted arrest, but his family insists he had no involvement in narcotics and was murdered in cold blood.

(Editing by Martin Petty and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Amid outrage, Philippine opposition presses Duterte to stop killings

FILE PHOTO: Philippine Senator Leila De Lima waves from a police van after appearing at a Muntinlupa court on drug charges in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, Philippines February 24, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro

By Manuel Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) – Political opponents of Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday urged him to end a culture of impunity and quell a surge in drug-related killings, amid widespread anger at police over the death of a teenager.

Allegations of a cover-up in last week’s death of Kian Loyd delos Santos has caused rare outrage among a public largely supportive of Duterte’s campaign, which saw more than 90 people killed last week in three nights of intensified police operations.

The 17-year-old student was killed in a rundown area of Manila and according to a forensic expert who conducted an autopsy, Delos Santos was shot in the back of the head and ears while on the floor, suggesting there was no gunfight, contrary to an official police report. The victim’s family reject police allegations he was a drug courier.

Duterte has resolutely defended police on the front lines of his 14-month-old war on drugs, but late on Monday he said three officers involved in the teenager’s killing should be punished if found to have broken the law.

Duterte said he had seen the CCTV footage acquired by media which showed plain clothes police dragging a man matching the description of Delos Santos, to a location where he was later found dead.

Opposition Senator Leila de Lima, a detained critic of Duterte, challenged the president to order the police to stop killing.

“I dare you, Mr President, to issue a clear and categorical order to the entire police force to stop the killings now,” De Lima said in a handwritten note from a detention facility, where she is being held on charges of involvement in drugs trade inside jails, which she denies.

“Just say it. Do it now, please.”

‘STIRRED INTO ACTION’

Another senator, Risa Hontiveros, told the house Duterte had blood on his hands and “reveled in the deaths of drug addicts”, inspiring a culture of impunity and killing.

Filipinos tired of crime and drugs and supportive of the president had woken up to what was happening, she said.

“You had no choice but to confront his death because his narrative was compelling,” she said of Delos Santos.

“You felt stirred into action because you could no longer ignore the growing outrage … there were thousands of deaths before him and that you allowed it to happen.”

Social media users, politicians of all sides and Catholic bishops have called for an impartial investigation into the surge in killings by police, which stopped when news of the teenager’s death surfaced. The Senate will on Thursday hold an inquiry into last week’s bloodshed.

Since Duterte took office, more than 3,500 people have been killed in what the Philippine National Police (PNP) says were gunfights with drug suspects who had resisted arrests.

The PNP says some 2,000 more people were killed in other, drug-related violence that it denies involvement in. Human rights advocates, however, say the death toll could be far higher than police say.

Senator Paulo Benigno Aquino said Duterte should stop the killings and strengthen the judiciary, education, law enforcement and rehabilitation instead.

“There must be other ways, Mr President. There has to be other solutions to our drug menace,” he said.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana urged the public to reserve judgment until facts were clear about the death of Delos Santos, who “did not deserve to die in the manner that he did”, whether involved in drugs or not.

“If the allegations of foul play are proven then the perpetrators must be brought to justice,” Lorenzana said in a statement. “They must be made to account for what they have done.”

Separately, Duterte’s office and the military moved to quell speculation of discontent among the security forces about their involvement in the anti-drugs campaign.

A shadowy group that said it was comprised of soldiers and police on Monday issued a statement calling for Duterte’s removal for turning the security forces into his “private army” and ordering them to carry out extrajudicial killings. The group did not name any of its members.

(Additional reporting by Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)

Philippine police kills 32 in drugs war’s bloodiest day

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he delivers his speech during the 116th Police Service Anniversary inside the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters in Quezon city, metro Manila, Philippines August 9, 2017. REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine police killed 32 people in dozens of anti-drug operations in a province north of the capital, Manila, in the single deadliest day of President Rodrigo Duterte’s unrelenting war on drugs.

About 109 petty criminals, including street-level drug peddlers were arrested and dozens of guns seized in police operations across Bulacan province from Monday night until Tuesday afternoon, said provincial police chief, Romeo Caramat.

“We have conducted ‘one-time, big-time’ operations in the past, so far, the number of casualties and deaths, this is the highest,” Caramat told a news conference.

He defended police action and said the deaths were during shootouts, and were not executions, as activists have often alleged.

“There are some sectors that will not believe us, but, we are open for any investigation. All we can say is that we don’t have any control of the situation. As much as possible, we don’t want this bloody encounter.”

Thousands of people have been killed in the anti-drugs campaign, Duterte’s signature policy, since it was launched on June 30 last year, most users and small-time dealers from poor neighborhoods.

The intensity of the crackdown has alarmed the international community, and activists and human rights groups say police have been executing suspects and planting drugs and guns at crime scenes. Police and the government officials reject that.

Police also deny involvement in thousands of murders by mysterious gunmen, blaming them on gang turf wars, drug dealers silencing informants, or vigilantes targeting drug users.

“There were 32 killed in Bulacan in a massive raid, that’s good,” Duterte said in a speech.

“Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”

Police conducted 49 sting drug operations in Bulacan that resulted in about 20 armed encounters, Caramat said. Ten other gunfights ensued when police tried to serve arrest warrants to suspects who fought back.

He said 93 of those held were wanted for other crimes, as well as drugs offences.

Bulacan has been a major target in the drugs war, with some 425 people killed and 4,000 offenders arrested, according to Caramat, making it the second-biggest hot spot in the crackdown outside of the Manila area.

Political opponents of Duterte have filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) accusing the president and top aides of crimes against humanity, arguing they failed to address allegations of widespread police abuses that have been brought to their attention.

Duterte has welcomed the ICC complaint, and said he was willing to rot in jail to protect Filipinos.

He has often complained about human rights groups criticizing and undermining his campaign and on Wednesday said he would instead investigate them, or worse.

“If they are obstructing justice, shoot them,” he said.

(Reporting by Manuel Mogato and Karen Lema; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)

Trump vows to ‘win’ against opioid epidemic

Paramedics display a dose of the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan, or Naloxone Hydrochloride, in an ambulance in Peabody, Massachusetts, U.S., August 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By James Oliphant

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (Reuters) – President Donald Trump promised to win the fight against a U.S. epidemic of opioid drug use, but offered no new steps to do so and did not act on a recommendation made by a presidential commission that he declare a national emergency.

Trump spoke at an event he had billed as a “major briefing” on the opioid crisis during a two-week “working vacation” at his private golf club in New Jersey. He also used the appearance to unexpectedly issue a stern warning to North Korea over its threats to the United States.

The Republican president said the United States has no alternative but to stem spreading opioid use, but more than six months into his presidency announced no new policies to combat a public health crisis that kills more than 100 Americans daily.

“I’m confidant that by working with our healthcare and law enforcement experts we will fight this deadly epidemic and the United States will win,” Trump told reporters. “We’re also very, very tough on the southern border where much of this comes in, and we’re talking to China, where certain forms of man-made drug comes in, and it is bad.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said the administration was still working to devise “a comprehensive strategy” to be presented to Trump “in the near future.”

A commission created by Trump to study opioid abuse urged him last week to declare a national emergency to address what it called an opioids crisis, framing its death toll in the context of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. An emergency declaration could free up federal resources for the effort.

“The resources that we need or the focus that we need to bring to bear to the opioid crisis at this point can be addressed without the declaration of an emergency, although all things are on the table for the president,” Price told a later news briefing.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in more than 33,000 U.S. deaths in 2015, the latest year for which data is available, and estimates show the death rate has continued rising.

The commission, headed by Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, recommended steps such as waiving a federal rule that restricts the number of people who can get residential addiction treatment under the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor and disabled.

The commission cited government data showing that since 1999 U.S. opioid overdoses have quadrupled, adding that nearly two thirds of U.S. drug overdoses were linked to opioids such as heroin and the powerful painkillers Percocet, OxyContin and fentanyl.

‘THE LOSING SIDE’

Speaking alongside Price, White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said, “We are a nation that consumes legal and illegal drugs at a very high and alarming rate. The problem is very complicated, and currently we are on the losing side of this war.”

Conway said the crisis cannot be solved overnight, and that “most of the great work is being done at the state and local levels.” Conway called it a “nonpartisan issue in search of bipartisan support and bipartisan solutions.”

Even before Trump’s event, the Democratic National Committee slammed him, with spokesman Daniel Wessel saying in a statement: “Trump promised he’d come to the aid of communities ravaged by the opioid epidemic, but so far he’s done nothing for them.”

Trump’s initial federal budget called for a 2 percent increase in drug treatment programs and would provide funds to increase border security to stop the flow of drugs into the country.

Substance abuse treatment activists have criticized his proposed cuts to federal prevention and research programs as well as his calls to shrink Medicaid, which covers drug treatment for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Officials from New Hampshire criticized Trump last week after a leaked transcript of a January conversation with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto showed Trump had called the New England state, hard-hit by the opioid epidemic, a “drug-infested den.”

New Hampshire sued OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP on Tuesday, joining several state and local governments in accusing the drugmaker of engaging in deceptive marketing practices that helped fuel opioid addiction.

The lawsuit followed similar ones against Purdue and other drugmakers by Oklahoma, Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri and several cities and counties in California, Illinois, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and New York.

Price said Trump’s administration was taking no position on such suits.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Susan Cornwell; Writing by Alistair Bell and Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by Will Dunham)

Baltimore to review about 100 cases of officers in suspected drug planting

A still image captured from police body camera video appears to show a Baltimore police officer retrieving a small plastic bag in a trash-strewn yard which was placed earlier by the officer according to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender in this image released in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. on July 19, 2017. Courtesy Baltimore Police Department/Handout via REUTERS

(Reuters) – Prosecutors will review about 100 cases involving three Baltimore police officers who took part in an arrest captured on body camera video that appears to show them planting drugs, Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby said on Thursday.

Charges against the suspect were dropped last week after a review of the video released by the public defender’s office. A minute-long video shows an officer placing a small plastic bag in a trash-strewn yard as two colleagues look on.

All three officers then walk to a sidewalk. An officer returns to the yard and retrieves the bag filled with capsules, which an arrest report said contained heroin powder.

The team of prosecutors will review evidence provided in about 100 cases involving the three officers, who have not been formally identified, she said.

“This is a matter of public safety and we are laser-focused on this particular incident,” Mosby said in a statement.

The union for Baltimore City police was not immediately available for comment.

The incident was another black eye for a police department under a U.S. Justice Department consent decree to overhaul operations that includes changes in training and the use of force after officers were found to have routinely harassed minorities.

The decree followed Justice Department findings that Baltimore’s 2,600-member police department regularly violated African-Americans’ civil rights, including through strip searches, unlawful stops and excessive force.

Close to two-thirds of Baltimore’s roughly 615,000 residents are African-American.

A public defender alerted prosecutors about the video a few days before the case was set to go to trial last week, Mosby said. Police were also investigating the incident.

One officer seen in the video has been suspended, while the two others have been placed on administrative duty, the Baltimore Police Department said on Wednesday. [nL1N1KB00J]

The department showed other videos on Wednesday, recorded the same day as the footage released by the public defender, that it said raised the possibility the officer genuinely discovered the drugs at the scene but inappropriately chose to stage and film a recreation of the discovery.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Daniel Wallis and David Gregorio)

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