Marchman Act Blog: Paris Hilton banned, boyfriend dismissed from Wynn resorts in Las Vegas after arrests

 
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Paris Hilton was banned Wednesday from two Wynn resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, and her boyfriend was dismissed as a nightclub partner following their arrests in a vehicle that police said reeked of marijuana.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne told The Associated Press that Hilton is barred from Wynn Las Vegas and Encore.

Meanwhile, boyfriend Cy Waits was "separated" from his job after less than a week as top managing partner of the Tryst Nightclub at Wynn and XS The Nightclub at Encore, Dunne said in a statement. Read Full Story...

Marchman Act Blog: Signs in Arizona warn of smuggler dangers

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state. The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego. They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity." Read Full Story...

MArchman Act Blog Celebrity Substance Abuse: Rapper T.I. and wife arrested on drug charges

Rapper T.I., who is in the top box office movie Takers, and wife Tameka Cottle were arrested late in Los Angeles last night on drug charges. Police smelled marijuana coming from their Maybach on Sunset Boulevard during a traffic stop, reports TMZ, and pulled the car over - just as Las Vegas police did to Paris Hilton and her boyfriend. Atlanta-based T.I., 29, whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., and Cottle, a 36-year-old singer with the group Xscape, were booked at the West Hollywood sheriff's station and bail was set at $10,000, reports AP. T.I. served seven months in an Arkansas federal prison and three months in a Georgia halfway house on federal weapons charges and was released in March.

Marchman Act Blog Local News: First Step Sober House: Founder of the Pompano Beach treatment program murdered and robbed

When a trio of gunmen jumped the founder of a Pompano Beach drug treatment center and shot him in the head before making off with a bag full of rent money in January 2008, authorities suspected the attackers hit with inside knowledge.

Accused as the ring leader of the fatal late-night ambush is Kino Bartholomew, 32, a former tenant of the residential recovery program.

A panel of Broward jurors will hear closing arguments Thursday in the killing of Richard Entriken, a 60-year-old Vietnam vet who founded First Step Sober House in 1995 after overcoming his own bout of substance abuse.

Bartholomew has not been identified as one of the gunmen and no other arrests have ever been made, but one witness testified that Bartholomew had tried to recruit him to take part in the robbery. Read Full Story...

Marchman Act Blog: School-Based Interventions Can Reduce Teen Substance Use

New research from the United Kingdom suggests that personality-based interventions -- delivered by mental-health specialists or teachers given brief training -- can substantially reduce drug and alcohol use in teens, the BBC reported Aug. 25.

In the first study involving more than 700 London secondary-school students aged 13 to 16, researchers assessed participants’ personality strengths and weaknesses, then randomly assigned half the group to a two-session intervention with mental-health specialists and the other half to no intervention. The teens who received the intervention were 40% less likely to binge drink and 80% less likely to take cocaine than those receiving no intervention. Read Full Story...

Marchman Act Blog: CDC - Smoking in Movies Down, Further Restrictions Needed

Depictions of smoking in top-grossing U.S. films decreased by about half between 2005 and 2009, but more than 50 percent of PG-13 movies still show characters lighting up, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Bloomberg News reported Aug. 20 that adolescents who are more frequently exposed to onscreen smoking "are 2.0 to 2.7 times more likely to try cigarette smoking in the future," citing a 2008 National Cancer Institute monograph. Read Full Story...

Marchman Act Blog: Wall Street Traders Bullish on Marijuana, Prescription Drugs

In the high-flying '80s and '90s Wall Street employees were known as big cocaine users, but in these more sedate times investment professionals are turning to marijuana and prescription drugs to ease their stress, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 20.

Drug testing of employees at Wall Street firms found that 80 percent of positive tests last year were for marijuana, up from 64 percent in 2007. Meanwhile, positive tests for cocaine fell from 16 percent of the total to 7 percent.

Amphetamine use rose from 3 percent in 2007 to 10 percent of positive tests in 2009. Read Full Story...