Actor who played steroid dealer in The Wrestler arrested for steroid distribution

One of my favorite guilty pleasures is the Dateline DEA newsletter, the Drug Enforcement Agency's a "bi-weekly email informant." The DD is drug war news you can use.

This week's edition is especially juicy. We learn that the DEA helped arrest 750 alleged members of the Sinaloa drug cartel after 21-month multi-agency investigation. The best part is that the investigation was called “Operation Xcellerator”--which suggests that unemployed porn writers have infiltrated the DEA, again.

Here's another item from this week's DD. The actor who played the steroid dealer in the movie The Wrestler was arrested on real-life steroid distribution charges:

New York Man Charged with Possession of Steroids and Assault on Federal Authorities

Scott Siegel of New Rochelle, New York, was charged with distributing and possessing with intent to distribute anabolic steroids, as well as assaulting federal officers. Mr. Siegel played the role of a steroid distributor in the movie “The Wrestler,” which was recently released. According to the complaint, on February 18, 2009, the defendant, when approached by law enforcement officers, fled in his car and intentionally hit several police department and DEA cars. In addition, the defendant drove his car directly at an officer with the DEA’s Westchester Resident Office in an apparent attempt to run him over.

More on Scott Siegel's alleged steroid-dealing from blogger Anthony Roberts.

Finally, an excellent DEA fun fact:

Did you know that the first female narcotics agent was hired by the DEA’s predecessor agency, the Bureau of Narcotics, way back in 1933? Elizabeth Bass rose to the position of District Supervisor in Chicago and was a longtime friend of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. 

Comments

[Eric Jaffa]

Tommy Chong went to prison for nine months (October 8, 2003 to July 7, 2004) for selling bongs.

[ballgame]

Unemployed porn writers? I'm going to guess the name has more to do with something like this. (I'm going to assume the operation had nothing to do with mathematical software.)

Interesting post.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

But if the DEA named its operation after a drug like xCelerator ephedra, that would be even stranger, wouldn't it? The naming convention for secret missions in movies and press releases is to make your secret codename at once self-congratulatory and cryptic--like Operation Desert Storm or Operation Condor or Operation Barracuda.

Operation Krill is non-operative.

If you start naming your operations after the things you're against, you're kind of giving away the game. Operation Cocaine and Operation Heroin leave something to be desired as secret code names for DEA missions.

[Aaron B. Brown]

I saw The Wrestler, and that wasn't acting. :-)

[Aaron B. Brown]

Medical Marijuana Is Headed for LEGALIZATION

U.S. to yield marijuana jurisdiction to states

[(02-26) 20:00 PST San Francisco -- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama - who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana - will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.

"What the president said during the campaign, you'll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we'll be doing here in law enforcement," he said. "What he said during the campaign is now American policy."

Bill Piper, national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a marijuana advocacy group, said the statement is encouraging.

"I think it definitely signals that Obama is moving in a new direction, that it means what he said on the campaign trail that marijuana should be treated as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue," he said.

Piper said Obama has also indicated he will drop the federal government's long-standing opposition to health officials' needle-exchange programs for drug users.]