The DEA also just released its 2015 National Drug Threat Assessment Summary. The use of subpoenas if the drug companies don’t cooperate is supported by panel leader Senator Susan Collins of Maine, according to a committee spokesman, Bloomberg reported.
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DEA’s acting administrator, Chuck Rosenberg, says heroin and prescription drug overdoses combined accounted for almost three-fourths of the more than 46,000 overdoses.
Heroin is most popular among drug users in the Northeast and Midwest, but the drug has become more available nationwide and its use increased about 50 percent between 2013 and 2014, the DEA said.
“We must reach young people at an even earlier age and teach them about its many dangers and horrors”, Rosenberg said of drug abuse. Highlights in the report include drug abuse and trafficking trends for drugs such as heroin, prescription drugs, and the hundreds of synthetic drugs manufactured outside the United States and imported into this country.
“I think there’s something to it”, Chuck Rosenberg said of Comey’s earlier remarks, according to multiple reports. Law enforcement seizures of the highly addictive drug almost doubled from 2,763 kg in 2010 to 5,013 in 2014.
While heroin causes more overdose deaths, he said, methamphetamine drives more violent crime.
Currently, 23 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws allowing a few use of medical marijuana, while Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C. permit recreational marijuana use.
“What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal, because it’s not”, he said, noting however that elements of the plant have promise for medicinal uses.
Here in the US, affiliated and violent gangs are increasingly a threat to the safety and security of our communities.
Abuse of prescription drugs, especially painkillers, remains high – totaling more than abuse of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, MDMA (also called “Molly”) and PCP combined.
The nation’s top drug enforcement official said Wednesday he’s heard concerns from local police chiefs about the “Ferguson effect”: a fear and reluctance among police officers to act because they may face scrutiny or community unrest.
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Synthetic drugs from China “continue to wreak havoc in the U.S.”, noted the federal agency.
