Ryn Gargulinski

Creativity on Fire

illegal drugs

UPS driver busted for delivering marijuana sent by Arizona drug traffickers

One UPS driver was delivering a bit more than new shoes from Zappos or orders from Amazon.com – the jury said he was distributing marijuana.

Marijuana gives new meaning to "special delivery" /Thinkstock

Stanley William Taylor Jr., 36, of Cleveland, Ohio, was found guilty Sept. 15 of conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, according to a news release from the District of Arizona’s Office of the United States Attorney.

The gig was going on for the past two years, with drug traffickers in Arizona buying wholesale quantities of marijuana then shipping it out to buyers in New York, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and, yes – Taylor’s home state of Ohio.

“The defendant agreed to use his position as a UPS delivery driver in Cleveland, Ohio, to assist the drug trafficking organization with the delivery of boxes filled with illegal drugs, ” the release says.

The drug traffickers’ ledgers and banking records showed sales of more than 6,900 pounds of marijuana and more than $900,000 in cash deposits.

While the release did not disclose how much of a cut Taylor received for risking his job, reputation and freedom, we can guess it must have been lucrative to take such a gamble.

Or perhaps he simply wanted a change of uniform, trading in the bland UPS brown for an eye-catching orange.

Taylor’s sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 6 with U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton, the same judge that presided at the trial and was decided by a federal jury in Phoenix.

The maximum sentence Taylor can receive for the charge, specifically conspiracy to possess at least 100 kilograms of marijuana with intent to distribute, is 40 years, a $2 million fine, or both.

Hope he saved some of that supplemented income.

[tnipoll]


Credit where it’s due:
The investigation leading to the guilty verdict was conducted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Mesa Police Department, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Tempe Police Department, the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The prosecution was handled by Kory A. Langhofer and Krissa Lanham, assistant U.S. attorneys with the District of Arizona in Phoenix.

“The success of a drug trafficking organization requires the complicity of many – and this verdict demonstrates you will be held to answer,” said Dennis K. Burke, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

What do you think?

Would you risk your job by using it as a front for illegal activity?

Would you risk your job for anything?

Do you steal paper clips?

Purest cocaine, heroin and meth right here in AZ and other border states, study says

Arizona is smoking when it comes to having some of the purest illegal drugs in the entire nation.

Anger and drug use go hand and hand/Thinkstock image

Boycott be danged – we got ourselves a selling point.

The Grand Canyon State shares this fine distinction with its sister border states thanks to our proximity to Mexico, where we get first dibs on the freshest heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

This glorious news comes from a study tackled by an international research team led by University of Arizona’s own James Cunningham. The study was published in the scientific journal “Addication” and highlighted in UA News.

Researchers checked out about 250, 000 seizures of cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin across the U.S. from 1990 to 2004.

Thankfully, they did not test drug potency by sampling the wares, but rather with federal data obtained through the glorious Freedom of Information Act.

“They calculated the distance from the location of each seizure to the nearest major city (import portal) on the border and compared that distance to purity, adjusting for factors such as the size of the seizure,” UA News reports.

The perhaps not-so-shocking results indicated that the purity of these three drugs was inversely proportional to the distance from the border – or the closer you were to Mexico the more potent these three drugs would be.

That means unless you have your own meth trailer hidden in the wiles of Tennessee, you’re best off buying the stuff in Arizona or other places closest to Mexico.

While the general purity decrease held true for all three drugs, researchers did note some exceptions.

Northeastern states as far as 1,500 miles from Mexico had some pretty potent meth, thanks to Canadian imports. New York City and other drug portals made for some pretty pure heroin. Researchers also found cocaine stayed the purest across the board, with less dilution of the drug than the other two.

Your brain on drugs/Thinkstock image

The researchers’ hypothesis?

“Allowing for variance by drug type, it seems that traffickers increasingly cut their drugs – decrease purity – as distance from a portal increases, possibly to compensate for added transport costs,” Cunningham told UA News.

Those unscrupulous drug hustling scamps. Based on their formidable fashion statements, like the diamond pinkie ring, we would have thought those in the business of transporting and selling drugs would have a tad more class.

Next thing we know they’ll be giving away free samples to try and get people hooked.

Cunningham said this decreasing drug potency was good news for communities far from Mexico and other portals, as less potent drugs means less chance of overdose or other health problems.

While the results of this study may seem somewhat obvious, at least it’s now official. And at least the study was a bit more involved than one that researched if coyotes eat cats. (They do.)

We also say such results could mean good news for the border states, as it can increase tourism and boost the overall economy. After all, traveling drug hungry thugs still need a hotel in which to crash and a few restaurants in which to eat. They may even buy a tchotchke or two.

Drugs will kill you/Thinkstock image

The title of the study is “Proximity to the U.S.-Mexico Border: A key to explaining geographic variation in U.S. methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin purity.”

NOTE: Although this piece is written with sarcasm, drug abuse is a serious topic. Drug abuse is not only likely to get you arrested, but is also known to wreck – or even end – your life.

[tnipoll]


What do you think?

Do the results of such a study shock you?

Would you have guessed otherwise?

What other studies do you recall that state something that seems obvious?

Would the world be a better place if we all smoked pot?

The world is filled with so much hate, rage and bitterness it’s enough to make us cry.

Pot shirt party goer/Ryn Gargulinski file photo
Pot shirted party goer/Ryn Gargulinski file photo

Daily headlines scream about bombings, brutality and bloodshed. Neighbors hate neighbors and strangers hate friends.

But there may be a simple way to turn all that bitterness and rage into peace and harmony – just hand everyone a joint.

After all, pot is known to make people happy, generous and loving. We don’t recall any stories of pot-smoking hippies tearing each other’s hair out. That Manson thing was just a fluke.

For the record, I am not a fan of pot, or any drug for that matter. Drugs have ruined too many lives.

But let’s look, just for a moment, at all the compelling pot information put forth on Drug War Facts. This website is run by Common Sense for Drug Policy which is “dedicated to reforming drug policy.”

Yes, we know the site is slanted to only show pot’s benefits – we’re making a pro argument here.

And after checking out some of the site’s fast facts, it makes sense not only to make marijuana legal for medicinal purposes, but for any adult who wants some.

Marijuana may be less harmful to us than some stuff we already eat, the site tells us. And we’re not talking about deep-fried Twinkies or greasy drive-through fries. We’re talking vegetables.

“In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume,” says Francis Young, the DEA’s administrative law judge. “For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.”

Even lab rats don’t die from the stuff. Heck, Drug War Facts said you can inject 1,000 milligrams per kilogram of marijuana into rats, mice, dogs and even monkeys and they don’t drop dead. That translates to a 132-pound person eating a whole 2 ounces of pot with no ill effects.

We’re not sure why people would be eating pot rather than smoking it, but we do know that five deaths originally attributed to marijuana in Britain were found to have other causes. Drug War Facts says the five didn’t die from pot, but from choking on their own vomit, presumably after passing out and puking.

See how safe marijuana can be?

Decked out VW bus/Ryn Gargulinski file photo
Decked out VW bus/Ryn Gargulinski file photo

And we didn’t even get into the traffic statistics. Marijuana could actually help some drivers do better on the road.

“…Cannabis consumption either increases driving ability or, more likely, drivers who use cannabis make adjustments in driving style to compensate for any loss of skill,” Drug War Facts said.

In other cases, marijuana poses absolutely no risk on the road whatsoever.

“Cannabis is only considered a risk factor for traffic accidents if drivers operate vehicles after consuming the drug.”

There we have it.

In addition to bettering traffic, a society full of pot smokers could benefit the economy.

The first savings would be, of course, a major cost reduction in the more than $30 billion government spends annually on the drug war. Taking marijuana out of the mix would shave off a few dollars for sure.

More jobs would be on the market. We’d have gads of new pot packaging and processing plants as well as openings from those who decide to now smoke pot daily. Some may quit their jobs when they realize they could legally sit around getting stoned all day while others would likely be fired when tasks that used to take them two minutes began to take them two hours.

The economy would get a major boost from marijuana taxes. If pot taxes were anywhere near the astronomical ones levied on cigarettes and booze, the government could make up a good chunk of funds wasted on the drug war in the blink of a bloodshot eye.

Society would become one big well-oiled machine.

Folks who smoke pot are generally not violent like those on PCP, don’t start dumb fights like angry drunks, don’t make weird sniffing noises like the coke fiends, and don’t hold up gas stations like those with rabid crack habits.

They are not prone to spreading AIDS like needle-happy heroin addicts and don’t lose all their teeth like the meth heads.

The argument stands that pot smokers are usually peaceful, harmonious folks – who even know how to drive.

Please note: I am still not sure if making pot legal would make society any better – but I am wholly impressed that pot only poses a road hazard if you drive after smoking it.

Cartoon by CHRIS EDWARDS, UA student who drew it for English class on public argument
Cartoon by CHRIS EDWARDS, UA student who drew it for an English class on public argument


[tnipoll]

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Ryn Gargulinski is a poet, artist, performer and TucsonCitizen.com Ryngmaster who likes VW buses. Her column appears every Friday on Rynski’s Blogski. Her art, writing and more is at RynRules.com and Rynski.Etsy.com. E-mail rynski@tucsoncitizen.com.


logoWhat do you think?

Should pot be legal in Arizona?

Should it be legal everywhere?

Should all drugs be legal – or should we get rid of everything, even alcohol?

WOULD the world be a better place if everyone smoked pot?