The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "federal Drug Enforcement Administration" ...
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Marijuana Inc.
Flying over northern California, you will see row upon row of marijuana fields. These rows are worth multi-millions and are left in plain sight. This is “evidence of a lucrative, but also increasingly violent, underground pot industry”. This industry has become a large part of that county’s economy. Many people in this industry are turning to guns as protection, robberies in search of drug stashes, and arrival of Mexican drug cartels.
Tags: Mendocino County; Emerald Triangle; narcotics; growers; pot brokers; business; trade; Federal Drug Enforcement Administration
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World of Pain
“Retail sales of five leading painkillers nearly doubled from 1997 to 2005, reflecting a surge in use by patients nationwide who are living in a world of pain, according to a new Associated Press analysis of federal drug prescription data. The analysis reveals that oxycodone usage is migrating out of Appalachia to areas such as Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and significant numbers of codeine users are living in many suburban neighborhoods around the country.â€
Tags: prescription drugs; oxycodone; federal prescription drug data; codeine; Drug Enforcement Administration; painkillers; prescription; drug abuse; narcotics; ARCOS; Census Bureau
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Unnecessary epidemic
This extensive investigation showed that Congress and the Drug Enforcement Administration could have stopped methamphetamine growth across the West during the 1990s and still can. The newspaper explained how the drug is able to be controlled because it relies on chemical ingredients produced by only a handful of factories worldwide. Two clampdowns on the legal trade of the chemicals caused meth shortages, prompting users to quit and meth-related property crime to fall. But the drug trade survived because of loopholes and lax enforcement. The scope of this story includes examinations of DEA drug seizures, DEA-registered sellers of the drug, ephedrine drug shipments, ephedrine seizures, congressional records, the federal budget, federal audits, property tax records, patents, academic studies and public policy.
Tags: drugs; meth; methamphetamine; Drug Enforcement Agency; DEA; drug control policy
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Prescription for Pain
The stories demonstrated that Eastern Kentucky led the nation in the distribution of prescription narcotics-much of it illegal. Reporters found a series of unlikely accomplices to the illegal trafficing including the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Local cops were corrupt or compromised and a $30 million federal enforcement effort was rendered ineffective by a lack of cooperation among the police agencies involved. The reports found an elected judge who admitted that he'd had private business dealings with rug dealers and was unilaterally lowering drug offenders' sentences set by plea bargains. The reporters also found that effecive drug treatment was hard to find in rural areas of Kentucky. The newspaper also produced an examination of how OxyContin was marketed through "detailing," the practice of sending sales men directly into doctor's offices. The reporting also took readers inside one local drug ring. Finally, the newspaper examined how public Medicaid payments were providing some rural Kentucy drug dealsers with millions of silent partners-U.S. taxpayers- who were helping to ensure their supply.
Tags: prescription narcotis; illegal trafficking; federal Drug Enforcement Administration; OxyContin; painkillers; FBI; methanphetamine; taxpayers; medicaid; substance abuse; rural Kentucky; Social Security Administrationn; drug traffickers; drug abuse; lortab; tylox; xanax; cocaine; marijuana; Lee County Sheriff's Department; Beattyville; Beattyville Police; Operation Grinch; Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program; HIDTA; Kentucky State Police; Office of National Drug Control Policy
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Pain Killers
Illegal use of prescription drugs remains a widespread problem in Pennsylvania. As reporters found out 20 people in 2001 and 2002 died from an overdose of a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs. The federal government has identified Pennsylvania as one of the states with a high rate of prescription drugs being available illegally but the state government has done little to combat the problem.
Tags: Prescription Drugs; pain killers; drug overdose; illegal drugs; illegal prescription drugs; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration; National Drug Intelligence Center; FOIA
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Pharmacy Fakes
With this article, SELF Magazine broke the story of adulterated and counterfeit prescription drugs entering America's pharmacies. The article revealed for the first time, that counterfeiters had systematically infiltrated the domestic drug supply, gaining access to fragile medicines and diluting or falsely relabeling them in order to reap a high profit. They exposed how most of the nation's medicine passes through a vast gray market of wholesalers, and how weak enforcement of federal and state regulations makes it close to impossible to identify where our medicine has come from. The article contains personal accounts from patients who had been harmed by counterfeit medicine, and a report on a Florida investigation which had uncovered potential misconduct at 50 of the state's wholesale companies.
Tags: prescription drugs; pharmacies; counterfeit medicine; tainted drugs; Food and Drug Administration; Prescription Drug Marketing Act; pharmaceutical wholesalers; Florida Department of Law Enforcement; CVS ProCare Pharmacy; Healthcare Distribution Management Association; drugmakers; Jemco Medical International; relabeling; diluting; serostim; Serono; AIDS
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EPA pumps up its record
The Sacramento Bee found that under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency "has overstated its success in fighting polluters by lumping counterterrorism and narcotics cases led by other agencies into its environmental enforcement record." Among the findings of the Bee: the EPA "puffed up the number of criminal investigations it initiated," "overreported the number of cases it referred to federal prosecutors," and "padded the length of prison terms served for environmental crimes." Extensive use of documents and specific numbers are cited to back up the Bee's claims. Questionaire on how the Bee got the story is included.
Tags: EPA; bureaucracy; environment; pollution; terrorism; drugs; narcotics
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"The most dangerous drug to hit small-town America since crack cocaine"?
A Spin investigation reveals that OxyContin - supposed to be the strongest and safest painkiller - turned out to cause rush that could rival pure heroin's. The drug caused a new type of frenetic street violence - beatings, fights, and robberies - in the rural areas of the country, the magazine reports. The article depicts the dare problems of the new addicts - including old ladies, teenage drugstore cowboys and young adults. The manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, and the federal regulators failed to anticipate the potential abuse of the 'miracle drug,' the investigation finds.
Tags: prescription drugs; health; heroine; cocaine; Drug Enforcement Administration; business
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Malignant Law Enforcement
Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski is facing prosecution by the FDA for violating FDA regulations with his alternative treatment of cancer. Burzynski uses antineoplastons, or amino acid chains, to treat cancer. Many of his patients swear his treatments have helped them and care more about their effectiveness than whether the FDA has approved them.
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George Bush's Herion Connection
Two days before the end of his administration, George Bush signed a paper granting executive clemency to a herion traffickerserving time in a North Carolina prison. The man was deported and forbidden to ever return to the U.S. Rolling Stone examines one of the most puzzling mercies bestowed by a chief executive in the 206 years of presidential clemencies. (Oct. 6, 1994)