(San Francisco DA) Harris turns drug-lab scandal over to state

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(04-23) 14:59 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The state attorney general's office will handle any prosecutions arising from San Francisco's drug lab "fiasco," District Attorney Kamala Harris said Friday as she called for testing of seized narcotics to be taken out of police hands.

"The crime lab needs to be fixed once and for all," Harris said at her first news conference about the lab since its drug-skimming scandal became public March 9, prompting police to close the lab and prosecutors to drop 550 narcotics cases.

Deborah Madden, 60, a drug-analysis technician who left the lab in December, has admitted to consuming trace amounts of cocaine from her workplace, police said. An investigation by her supervisor concluded that cocaine was missing from several evidence samples that Madden handled.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/BACR1D3QG5.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea

[alp227]

1. And now...the state lab testing these drugs has a thieving technician...

(04-23) 18:18 PDT RIPON, SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY --

More than 150 pieces of narcotics evidence that the San Francisco Police Department sent out of town for retesting because of its drug-skimming scandal went to a state lab in San Joaquin County where a technician is now suspected of stealing methamphetamine, The Chronicle has learned.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/23/BACR1D3ULS.DTL

Well, now the War on Drugs = REALLY, really phony.

[dballance]

2. Oh Sure - "trace" amounts.

I bet she means big, long lines of cocaine she "traced" across her desk into her nose with a dollar bill. What flipping BS.

[JDPriestly]

3. Does anybody have an estimate regarding what percentage of

the general public uses drugs? In my circles, no one uses drugs. I'm shocked that a 60-year-old woman would be using drugs that are not prescribed. Am I just naive? My friends have no interest whatsoever in something like that. I have difficulty believing these stories.

[boppers]

4. In my immediate circles, almost all of them.

It's harder for me to come up with names of folks who *don't* use illegal drugs.

[Ikonoklast]

5. Drug abusers lie.

I am willing to bet at least one person you know well is a drug user, but you can't tell.

[JDPriestly]

6. I don't think so. At least the people I see regularly definitely have

nothing to do with drugs whatsoever.

[anigbrowl]

8. About 8%

Most recreational drug users keep quiet about their taste, and don't get into trouble because they don't overdo it. Some drugs are more dangerous than others (eg meth can be very addictng and debilitating for a high % of users) or are very obvious, but a good many are used moderately for years.

Older people tend to use drugs less, they're most popular among people in the 18-25 bracket and it falls off from there - partly because some heavy abusers kill themselves off early, partly because some people just lose interest as they get older and the novelty wears off. Here's some fairly recent data:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus09.pdf#063

[harry_pothead]

7. What a fucking shock.

This here is why you see police wanting to keep drugs illegal.

[anigbrowl]

9. It's really embarrassing, and won't do her campaign any good

I live in SF and I just can't believe it took her 6 weeks to come up with a public statement - and when she did, it was to dump it in the lap of the state AG's office. The public defender here spent weeks trying to get a response from her and there are so many cases to deal with he's had to ask for money to hire two extra assistants just to go over the paperwork. I have done a little volunteer work on her past campaigns for DA but have no plans to assist with her run for attorney-general - she's a real let-down.