Python found guarding cocaine

CASERTA, Italy, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Police in Italy said they had to evade a white python to plant listening devices near the cocaine stash of a drug ring in the Neapolitan Camorra mafia....More

Autopsy: Cocaine a factor in Billy Mays' death

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(CNN) -- An autopsy report issued Friday by Hillsborough County, Florida, cites cocaine as a contributing factor in the death of TV pitchman Billy Mays, who died in June at age 50.

The Hillsborough County medical examiner's office said cocaine use contributed to Billy Mays' heart disease.
"Mays died from a lethal arrhythmia of the heart caused by hypertensive and arteriosclerotic heart disease," the county said in a statement attributed to Dr. Leszek Chrostowski, the associate medical examiner who conducted the autopsy.

"He further concluded that cocaine use caused or contributed to the development of his heart disease, and therefore contributed to his death," it added.

The fact that toxicology tests detected only breakdown products of cocaine, not the drug itself, led Chrostowski to conclude that Mays had used cocaine "in the few days prior to death but not immediately prior to death."

Cocaine is a stimulant that can raise blood pressure and thicken the wall of the left ventricle of the heart, one of the organ's four main pumping chambers.

The autopsy also found low concentrations of ethyl alcohol "consistent with social consumption of a few beverages" as well as the narcotic drugs hydrocodone, oxycodone and tramadol. Mays had prescriptions for the drugs -- which were found in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations -- to ease hip pain.

In addition, the tests found evidence of two tranquilizers -- alprazolam (Xanax) and diazepam (Valium) -- which are commonly prescribed for a variety of ailments, including anxiety and insomnia. Both drugs were determined to be in therapeutic or subtherapeutic concentrations.

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When Mays shouted it, people believed
Mays was found dead at his home near Tampa on June 28.

Mays, with his booming voice, was famous for fronting products such as OxiClean and Orange Glo in TV commercials.

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Cocaine haul found hidden in frozen sharks

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico's navy has seized more than a tonne of cocaine stuffed inside frozen sharks, as drug gangs under military pressure go to greater lengths to conceal narcotics bound for the United States.

Armed and masked navy officers cut open more than 20 shark carcasses filled with slabs of cocaine after checking a container ship in a container port in the southern Mexico state of Yucatan, the navy and Mexican media said Tuesday.

"We are talking about more than a tonne of cocaine that was inside the ship," Navy Commander Eduardo Villa told reporters after X-ray machines and sniffer dogs helped uncover the drugs. "Those in charge of the shipment said it was a conserving agent but after checks we confirmed it was cocaine," he said.

Drug gangs are coming up with increasingly creative ways of getting drugs into the United States -- in sealed beer cans, religious statues and furniture -- as Mexico's military cracks down on the cartels moving South American narcotics north.

President Felipe Calderon has sent 45,000 troops and federal police across Mexico to try to crush powerful smuggling cartels. But traffickers armed with a huge arsenal of grenades and automatic weapons are far from defeated, worrying Washington as violence spills over into U.S. states like Arizona.

Some 2,750 people have died in drug violence in Mexico this year, a pace similar to that of 2008, when 6,300 were killed.

Led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, smugglers from the Pacific state of Sinaloa are fighting a turf war with rivals. Guzman seeks to control Mexican and Central American smuggling routes into the United States.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Patricia Zengerle)

53 pounds of packed cocaine found on Texas beach

SABINE PASS, Texas – Beachcombers found more than seashells while strolling on a Texas beach: two dozen neatly wrapped packages of cocaine. Jefferson County Sheriff's Lt. Troy Tucker said drug smugglers have been known to use freighters and the cocaine may have been kicked overboard to avoid detection.

The sheriff's department was working with federal agencies Wednesday to try to determine the source of the 53 pounds of cocaine, worth about $500,000.

KFDM-TV reported the cocaine was found Tuesday west of Sea Rim State Park, in the Sabine (suh-BEEN') Pass area.

It was found by people looking for debris, such as metal, that washes ashore. Their names weren't released.

Odd News:MP in jungle cocaine search drama

LONDON (Reuters) - A British MP trekking in Colombia was held at gunpoint in the jungle and forced to eat coffee whitener from a jar in his backpack after soldiers mistook it for cocaine.

Michael Fabricant was on a walking holiday in South America with a friend when they were stopped by a group of gun-toting men in camouflage uniforms.

The soldiers found a container full of coffee whitener in their bags and immediately suspected it was drugs.

"In order to demonstrate that it wasn't cocaine, I had to take a whole pile of it and throw it down my throat," the Conservative member for Lichfield in Staffordshire told BBC television.

"They waited a few minutes to see whether I collapsed or went delirious and said something completely ridiculous like 'Gordon Brown's got a great personality'.

"Because I didn't say anything too weird, they came to the conclusion that it wasn't the case and they let me go."

His explanation for putting powdered whitener in Colombian coffee, regarded as among the best in the world, will be familiar to many Brits abroad.

"You have to be a little bit careful about what you eat," he said.

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; editing by Steve Addison)