6,000 prisoners will begin to be released on October 30th and that is only the beginning in an attempt to relieve the massive overcrowding in Federal prisons. This is the largest release of prisoners at one time in an effort to provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades, according to U.S. officials.
The early release was prompted by the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s decision in July 2014 that reduced the punishment for drug offenders and made that decision retroactive.
Close to 50,000 federal inmates locked up on drug charges will be eligible for reduced sentences. The new sentencing guidelines took effect on Nov. 1, 2014.
Most of the soon to be released prisoners are already in halfway houses and home confinement.
“The Department of Justice strongly supports sentencing reform for low-level, non-violent drug offenders,” Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. “The Sentencing Commission’s actions — which create modest reductions for drug offenders — is a step toward these necessary reforms.”
Each case will reviewed by a federal judge in the district in which the inmate’s case was tried in order to determine whether it would be beneficial to public safety to grant the prisoner early release.
According to The Sentencing Commission an additional estimated 8,550 inmates would be eligible for release between this Nov. 1 and Nov. 1, 2016.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first drug that is created using a 3D printer.
The drug, Spritam, is designed for the treatment of epilepsy according to a statement from the manufacturer Aprecia Pharmaceuticals.
The printed pills were created by what the company calls “ZipDose.” The printer creates a pre-measured dose that dissolves in the mouth when you consume a liquid. Tests showed the pill dissolves significantly faster than “fast melt” drugs because the pill is powdered medication bound together by the printer.
“As a result, Spritam enhances the patient experience — administration of even the largest strengths of levetiracetam with just a sip of liquid,” Aprecia said in a statement on Monday. “In addition, with Spritam there is no measuring required as each dose is individually packaged, making it easy to carry this treatment on the go.”
Scientists are hailing the decision by the FDA, saying that the use of 3D printing technology could revolutionize the way medication is given to patients.
The technology could allow doctors to put all of a patient’s medication into a single pill with precise monitoring of the dosages of each medication. If the doctor needs to make a change, they just change the amount in the printing program for that patient.
Spirtam is the first 3D printed drug approved by the FDA.
A new drug sweeping through Florida has been found that is stronger than crystal meth or bath salts.
The drug, called flakka (Spanish for skinny), has resulted in a man trying to break down the door of a police station, a man impaling himself while climbing a fence and a nude man screaming on a rooftop according to CBS.
The drug can be snorted, snoked, injected or swallowed. It can even be used in e-cigarettes.
“We’re starting to see a rash of cases of a syndrome referred to as excited delirium,” Jim Hall, an epidemiologist at the Center for Applied Research on Substance Use and Health Disparities at Nova Southeastern University, told CBS. “This is where the body goes into hyperthermia, generally a temperature of 105 degrees. The individual becomes psychotic, they often rip off their clothes and run out into the street violently and have an adrenaline-like strength and police are called and it takes four or five officers to restrain them. Then once they are restrained, if they don’t receive immediate medical attention they can die.”
The drug is usually made from the same class of chemical that is used to make bath salts, the drug that came to the public’s attention in 2012 when a man started chewing on another man’s face in public while high on the drug.
“On a scale of one to 10, Flakka is a 12,” Lt. Dan Zsido of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office told 10 News Tampa Bay Sarasota. “It comes from a place where we don’t know how it’s being made, who’s making it, and what’s been added to it before it reaches the end user so it’s very dangerous.”
It was my birthday weekend; my buddies were passed out from smoking weed laced with something that had caused all of us to hallucinate. I was the only one awake. The feeling of being entirely alone swept through me in horrifying waves of fear. While everyone slept, odd memories started to come forth and I remember thinking about God and Heaven and hell. This voice in my head began contradicting and disproving the Word of God to me, whispering it through my brain. I remember running to the bathroom and vomiting blood. That was when I really knew I hadn’t just been smoking weed. I still do not know what it was that had been slipped to us, I just remember sitting on my stairs feeling as if I had been sucked into another world. Was I crazy? No. Was I high? Yes. That is what drugs do, but I was aware enough to know that this was not just a simple case of hallucination. Continue reading →
It has always struck me as funny how people’s image of you is never the image you have of yourself. Whenever I tell people here at the ministry my testimony, they are always a little bit shocked. Most here have only known me for perhaps the past four to six years and when I tell them that I used to dabble in drugs and not live for Jesus, they are like “What?!” Even Pastor Jim, when I first got here and I told him some of my testimony said, “Well my goodness, I thought you were a good church boy all along!” Continue reading →
Kurdish soldiers searched the home of slain ISIS commander Emir Abu Zahra and found massive amounts of drugs.
The cocaine found in Zahra’s home confirms suspicions of groups fighting the terrorists that many of the fighters have been pumped up with drugs despite the fact their religion strictly forbids of the use of illegal drugs.
“With the finding of what seems to be Abu Zahra’s cocaine in Kobane, this could be the first confirmed and concrete evidence of drug use among IS fighters — and of a double standard of men who preach fundamentalism, yet they are getting high as they commit massacres,” Vice News reported.
A former teenage fighter for the group had reported they were being forced into taking drugs before battles.
“That drug makes you lose your mind,” the 15-year-old told CBS News. “If they give you a suicide belt and tell you to blow yourself up, you’ll do it.”
Sources say the amount of cocaine found in Zahra’s home had a street value of a half million dollars.
Government officials in Sierra Leone announced the country’s leading doctor died from Ebola Thursday just hours after the arrival of experimental drugs to treat him.
Dr. Victor Willoughby contracted the virus after working on a patient that came in complaining of pain in his organs. The patient, a senior banker in the nation, was later confirmed to have had Ebola after his death.
Sierra Leone Chief Medical Officer Brima Kargbo said that the experimental drug ZMapp was flown into the country in a frozen form but had not thawed when Dr. Willoughby’s health declined to the point of death.
His death makes the 11th doctor in Sierra Leone to die from Ebola during the massive outbreak out of 12 infected. In addition to the doctors, 109 of 142 health care workers infected with the virus have died.
“We’ve lost personal friends and colleagues we’ve worked with. It’s extremely depressing and frustrating. You can talk to someone today and tomorrow they are Ebola-infected,” Dr M’Baimba Baryoh said. “The tension, the depression, it’s a lot of pressure. You start having nightmares because of Ebola.”
The epidemic’s official death toll continues to rise toward a gruesome new mark, closing in on 7,000 total deaths. Officials admit that the death toll is likely much higher than the official count as many families in rural areas have buried victims without seeking government assistance.
The Supreme Court is blocking Arizona from enforcing restrictions on medical abortions while a series of court challenges works through lower courts.
The ruling by the Court upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the rules regulating where women can take abortion-inducing drugs. Abortion-inducing drugs would also be prohibited after the 7th week of pregnancy instead of the current restriction of the 9th week.
The liberal-leaning 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the state of putting the restrictions in place while the legal challenges are taking place. North Dakota, Ohio and Texas have similar laws to Arizona.
Abortionist Planned Parenthood says that drug conducted abortions for more than 40 percent of abortions in their abortion centers.
The Arizona restrictions were put into place following the deaths of 8 women who had taken the drugs. The FDA claims there is no connection between the drugs and the deaths.
An abortionist who has been operating since the 1980s is facing charges connected to providing abortion-inducing drugs to women who were not actually pregnant.
Nareshkumar G. Patel of Warr Acres, Oklahoma was arrested in his clinic and taken ot the Oklahoma County jail for processing.
“This type of fraudulent activity and blatant disregard for the health and well-being of Oklahoma women will not be tolerated,” said Attorney General Scott Pruitt “Oklahoma women should be able to trust that the advice they receive from their physicians is truthful, accurate and does not jeopardize their health.”
The investigation was sparked by the death from cancer of a woman named Pamela King. During her autopsy, it was discovered she had not been pregnant at a time she had an abortion performed by Patel.
An undercover investigation sent in three women who were not pregnant. Patel told the women after an ultrasound that they were pregnant and charged them $620 for abortion inducing drugs.
Patel has been the center of controversy in the past. In 1992 he burned 55 fetuses in a field near Shawnee, Oklahoma, and was never charged by police for his action.
A new United Nations report is outlining the ways ISIS has been brutalizing children.
The UN International Children’s Fund says that over 5 million children have had their lives directly impacted by ISIS actions. Thousands of children have been used both as human shields by the terrorists or have been strapped to tables and had their blood drawn for terrorists wounded in attacks.
The report outlines specific instances where the terrorists were using children to create propaganda devices. In one case, the terrorists went to a hospital and pulled two cancer stricken children out of bed to pose in a picture holding an ISIS flag with fighters.
The report outlines statements from former teenage fighters that say ISIS is forcing children to take drugs so they will carry out any order including suicide terror attacks.
In addition to the front line uses, the terrorists are also forcing children to be domestic servants, cooking, cleaning and bringing water to the wounded in makeshift hospitals.