You May Be Rich: Someone somewhere in the District is walking around with $200,000 in their pocket. A winning ticket to Saturday's Powerball drawing was sold at the 4 Seasons Convenience Store on South Dakota Avenue NE. The good news: More proof real people do actually win the lottery occasionally. The bad news: If you didn't buy your ticket at that store, you know it wasn't you. +1

Millions And Millions: Toting a gun around is, apparently, rather passé in the world of big-time criminals. The new must-have item? Grenades and a rocket launcher. Or so say authorities in court papers supporting the arrest of Christopher Washington for alleged weapons and drug trafficking. The FBI and Metropolitan Police Department arrested Washington and other defendants in a year-long sting that police say yielded 70 arrests, 161 confiscated weapons, and $7.2 million in cocaine and methamphetamines. Authorities claim a Mexican drug cartel was involved in the operation they rolled up. Cynical but sound prediction: No matter how many arrests MPD and the FBI makes, drug and weapons trafficking will continue. -1

That's A Cab Of A Different Color: New fares aren't the only changes coming to D.C. taxicabs, if lawmakers and Mayor Vince Gray have their way. A major reform bill would add GPS readers that send data to the taxi commission, install panic buttons, increase the number of hack inspectors, cap the number of cab licenses issued (though not quite with a full-on medallion system), and mandate that all cabs be painted the same color. (Councilmember Mary Cheh wants 'em to be white.) Drivers would also have to take a course in geography of the District. No word on whether the course will teach them to try not to hit cyclists. +2

Hail!: Tuning into the Redskins-Giants game yesterday was a little confusing. The team in burgundy and white uniforms surely wasn't the same gang that's been losing almost every week lately, was it? And why did the guys in blue keep dropping easy touchdown passes? Somehow or another, the Redskins managed their first season sweep of the Giants since 1999, beating the home team 23-10 and playing their best game of the season by far. Unfortunately, the better Rex Grossman plays, the likelier Mike Shanahan is to decide the team doesn't need a real quarterback next year. Still, a win's a win. +2

Friday's Needle rating: 46 Today's score: +4 Today's Needle rating: 50

Once the margin of profit for dealing small amounts of crack cocaine disappeared, being part of the drug trade was no longer worth the persistent threat of violence or the stiff criminal penalties. A 70 percent drop in cocaine prices like the one that occurred in the mid 1990s combined with competition from decentralized sources for methamphetamines and prescription narcotics would completely eliminate the minimum wage drug dealer as a viable profession.

The same goes for turf wars, which [Sudhir] Venkatesh saw as the source of the majority of inner-city violence. He saw the life of a drug dealer as relatively violence-free up until territory conflicts with other gangs ensued. Without the high value of cocaine as a commodity, the incentive for protracted gang wars would dwindle as well as eliminate the economy for the illegal weapons, drive-by shootings, and mercenary “warriors” needed to help defend prime dealing locations. Without profit to fight over, Vankatesh thought that “gang violence would likely return to pre-crack levels.”

It's an interesting argument to add to a list of other possible reasons—like the 1974 ban on leaded gasoline, the economic boom in the '90s, the high rates of arrests and mandatory minimum sentencing—but not the most plausible. And besides, as Rend Smith wrote earlier this year, at least in D.C., there's still plenty of money to be made off a suitcase of cocaine.

Photo by andronicusmax via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Chris Shott

Despite the owner's arrest on Nov. 1, business has carried on as usual at the eatery. Just last week, the venue hosted a viewing party for the premier of Anacostia: The Web Series. Stopping in over the weekend, WaPo describes a pretty typical scene: "A handful of diners sipped iced tea and beer while watching college football on the restaurant’s flat-screen televisions, and a pair of employees chatted at the granite bar."

How long that lasts remains to be seen. A conviction in Dasher's case would no doubt pose serious consequences to Uniontown's future. Regulators tend to frown upon felons holding liquor licenses—though there have been exceptions.

Read the rest at Y&H.

As of last Tuesday, those inmates became eligible to appeal for early release, says Jeanne Doherty of the United States Sentencing Commission.

51 requests for recommendations to have sentences reduced have already come in, according to Bill Miller of the United States Attorney's Office. 20 requests have been allowed to go forward without opposition, 18 have been completely opposed, and 13 are partially opposed, which means the U.S. attorney believes those inmates are "entitled to some reduction, but not all that they are seeking," Miller says.

Still, Miller says, even those whose requests are totally opposed by the U.S. attorney—on the grounds that the inmate could be a danger to society—will have the opportunity to appeal.

The Fair Sentencing Act reduces the disparity in punishment between crack charges and cocaine charges. Previously, getting caught with crack was 100 times as bad as getting caught with cocaine; now it's only 18 times as bad! And mandatory minimums will also be reduced—the law ups the amount of crack a person must have on them before the five-year minimum goes into effect.

Advocates of the Fair Sentencing Act considered the disparity to be racially motivated, since 80 percent of crack arrests involved blacks, while whites were more likely to be caught with cocaine.

Earlier this year, the USSC voted to make the law retroactive, which gives more than 12,000 prisoners nationwide the opportunity to appeal for a reduced sentence over the next thirty years.

Photo by the DEA via Wikimedia/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

Lost in the Flood: There was a time when it seemed like it hadn't rained in the District for weeks; grass dried up and died, it was unbearably hot, and weather officials were issuing drought warnings for the region. That time was August. Since then, it basically hasn't stopped raining. Which means today, like all days that end in "-day," brought a fresh round of flood warnings, watches, and downpours. The city was giving out sandbags all afternoon; no word on when they'll switch to issuing arks. -2

White (Powder) Clam Sauce: Clams—they're not just for steaming anymore. At Dulles International Airport, officials intercepted a man allegedly trying to smuggle $10,000 worth of cocaine into the United States from El Salvador by hiding it inside clam shells, which were then glued shut. Next time, we advise any would-be smugglers hoping to use the same tactic to try National; they've got a Legal Seafoods there, so the clams might attract less attention. -1

Dupont Circle, Now Northbound Only: One of the most dramatic entrances to any Metro station in the whole system is the elevator into Dupont Circle at Connecticut Avenue and Q Street NW. A huge pit, complete with a concrete cap and a Walt Whitman quote, ushers riders onto the Red Line; the southern entrance, wedged next to an office building on the bottom of the circle, can't quite compete. And in fact, for a while next year, it won't even try: Metro officials announced today that they'll close the southern entrance to replace all three of its elevators at some point. Bad news for Krispy Kreme; good news for Kramerbooks. -1

Terp-a-Porter: On Monday night, the University of Maryland played the University of Miami in a nationally televised fashion show. Technically, it was a football game, but the hideousness of the Terps' Maryland flag-themed uniforms dominated any and all conversation about the game (which Maryland won). Finally some good news on the sartorial front out of College Park: The Terrapins will never wear that awful get-up again, as the school plans to auction the uniforms off. Jerseys will start at $200; helmets at $500. Presumably, if any UMD undergraduates buy the jerseys, they'll just set them on fire. +1

Yesterday's Needle rating: 54 Today's score: -3 Today's Needle rating: 51

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office yesterday said that the drugs were worth about $1 million. A nice haul! But this morning, District Police Chief Cathy Lanier told WTOP the drugs could set you back some $3 million. Even nicer!

The difference? The feds were using wholesale numbers, while the city cops were citing retail.

Officials from the respective agencies say the difference makes sense. "When it hits the neighborhoods, it is sold for retail, so it’s worth $3 million," says MPD spokesperson Gwendolyn Crump about the two million dollar difference.

William Miller, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office, says his office has no problem with MPD using the larger number: He says there "wasn't a particular reason" for prosecutors going with the wholesale figure and that "MPD certainly has the right to use street value as well."

Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent Chris Jakim says the price difference between the wholesale cost of the drugs and the street cost may seem dramatic but that "both numbers sound about right." The street value of cocaine can be double or triple the wholesale. When announcing drug seizures, the DEA usually goes with the wholesale value, says Jakim, but that's because the agency focuses exclusively on high-volume drug dealing, he says.

According to a drug cop speaking on condition of anonymity, MPD does a complicated set of calculations in order to figure out the street value of drugs. The calculation takes into account the way the city's cocaine economy usually works.

Wholesale cocaine dealers operating in the District will sell a kilo to mid-level dealers. The mid-level dealers then step on it (mix it with other substances to increase the volume) and sell it in the form of 31s (31 gram packs) or 62s (62 gram packs) to low level dealers who likely cook the coke into crack. The crack is usually sold in ten dollar bags.

MPD didn't provide the particulars of  the formula it uses to figure out street value, and the drug cop doesn't know. But he thinks it's important to cite the street value whenever informing the public about a drug bust all the same. "Basically, when you use the street value, you're showing why these idiots are doing this."

Photo by andronicusmax via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

"Today, a student Thomson Elementary School brought an undetermined amount of cocaine to school and shared it with others in his class. Four of the students who received the cocaine ingested it, some orally and others inhaled it through the nose. It is unknown at this time how much each student ingested.

The students’ teacher spoke with the student who distributed the cocaine and alerted the main office. The four students were evaluated by the school nurse and transported to the hospital as a precaution. A fifth student, who did not ingest the drug, was also transported as a precaution. All are reportedly OK.

School leadership at Thomson ES notified the parents of the students involved and met a group of parents after school to address their concerns regarding the incident. A letter from school leadership also was sent home explaining what had happened (see attached).

School is not in session Friday as it is a professional development day for teachers. Counselors will be at the school on Monday to discuss the incident with the student body and teachers. The counselors will provide information to educate students about the dangers of drugs and offer advice on drug prevention.

The student who brought the cocaine to school has been charged with Possession Controlled Substance (cocaine). The Office of Attorney General handles juvenile matters and will determine how to proceed with charges given the age of the student."

Some people went to Latino restaurant El Limeño in Petworth for the pupusas, for the yuca con chicharon, or the chuletas de cerdo. Others went for the $100 bags of cocaine. Fans of the latter delicacy, court papers say, could end up personally serviced by owner Elen Evelyn Argueta, 36. Yesterday, police raided her Upshur Street NW eatery, arresting Argueta and two others.

In 2007, The Washington Post named El Limeño as one of two spots near the Georgia Avenue Metro drawing younger crowds to Petworth. In the article, there's no Elen Evelyn Argueta, but a woman referred to as Evelyn Marquez. The Post recounts the history of how Marquez and her husband struggled to open up their establishment:

The story behind El Limeño is one of perseverance and tenacity. Husband-and-wife owners Roger and Evelyn Marquez got a business license to open their sunny cantina of a restaurant two years ago. But the space they planned to occupy, at Second and Upshur streets, had been home to a famously rowdy lounge and dance hall, and some neighbors did not want any new business there that would serve alcohol.

The couple eventually charmed the neighbors into letting them open. They probably didn't mention anything about drugs.

In August, before everything came crashing down around her, Argueta befriended and sold a c-note's worth (3.3 grams) of cocaine to someone who'd been hanging around the restaurant for weeks, according to documents. That was a mistake.The someone noticed she went into the kitchen to get the blow (highlighting the location of her stash). Also, that someone was an undercover police officer wearing a wire.

To make things worse for the restauranteur-turned-dealer, she decided to confide in her new acquaintance, admitting that she sold nose candy to "help pay the bills of the restaurant." On two separate occasions, the restaurateur sold the undercover cop a single $100 bag of coke. Later, when the real-life Donnie Brasco decided to up the stakes by requesting four bags, Argueta had to admit she didn't have that much, cops say.

Like any other restaurant, the fate of El Limeño's rep for satisfying customers then turned on one of its chefs. Documents say that when Argueta couldn't come up with the order, she phoned one of her cooks, Jamie Ascensio. Ascensio saved the day by strolling in with four Ziploc bags full of crack.

Cops moved in on what might have been either a drug front or a really bad fusion idea when, two months ago, there was a quadruple shooting in front of the place. Something else that made cops suspicious? According to court papers, "several known drug dealers" hung out at El Limeño and rarely ordered anything to eat or drink.

Were they the younger crowd the Post was so excited about?

Photo by andronicusmax via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

More Lions!: A veritable feline baby boom is under way at the National Zoo, where three lion cubs were born this morning. Four others arrived last month. The mother was Nababiep, the 6-year-old sister of Shera, the 5-year-old mother of the other cubs. (The zoo's lone male lion, 4-year-old Luke, was the father to both.) Soon enough, both Nababiep and Shera will be dealing with a familiar concern for many residents of the neighborhoods surrounding the zoo—how to get their offspring into Oyster-Adams Bilingual School. +6 (2 points per lion)

Now Serving Cocaine Pupusas: Running a small neighborhood restaurant is tough; profit margins are slim, and there's competition everywhere. So authorities say El Limeno, a Salvadoran joint at 2nd and Upshur streets NW, decided to add a little something to the menu to bring in business. Specifically, cocaine. A Metropolitan Police Department raid today seized "significant" amounts of coke, cash, and two vehicles from the business, which is now closed. Naturally, comments on the bust on Prince of Petworth devolved into an argument about whether the pies at Pete's Apizza are overpriced. -3

Van Vandals: Officials at D.C. Central Kitchen arrive to discover nine of the non-profit's 15 vehicles were vandalized overnight, with logos spray-painted red and mirrors and windows damaged. The food bank and culinary job training group is one of the area's best-known (José Andrés is a big backer), but it's unclear why they were targeted. One theory: Rush Limbaugh is to blame. Which, generally, is a good explanation for many of the world's problems. -4

Car? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Car: About 5,000 people in the D.C. area opt for alternative transportation to work today, joining Car Free Day to celebrate other ways of getting around. Upon realizing that a) it's supposed to pour tonight, making the walk or bike home a lot less fun than the trip in, and b) Metro did not magically solve all its problems overnight on Tuesday, chances are most of them will be back to driving tomorrow. But hey! It's a start! +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 59 Today's score: +2 Today's Needle rating: 61

Fioriti says he was having a get-together in his yard , when "suddenly a 'boom' as loud as a cannon went off in front of the alley five doors down from us. It shook the windows and set off car alarms! People actually ducked and hit the dirt!" After the detonation, all hell broke loose: "[T]here were teenagers setting off fireworks, M80's and roman candles that they were aiming at the windows and roof tops of the houses and at the cars driving by. People walking down the sidewalks arriving from the fireworks displays and "get togethers" would walk just past Faircliff East and duck, cover their head with their hands and run down the block... drivers would floor their vehicles to get down the block from Faircliff East..."

Fioriti says though the cops eventually showed, they didn't do much to curb the explosions.

Which, really, wasn't much of a surprise; fireworks were going off all over the city Sunday (and, for that matter, all weekend). Did anyone actually get in trouble this year for possessing contraband that goes boom? Contacting MPD, City Desk learned police issued only 14 citations for illegal fireworks during the whole weekend. In addition, one person, Danielle Adams, was arrested on the 4th for possession of an illegal firework.

But Adams was also charged with possession of cocaine. Local prosecutors have decided not to pursue the possession of illegal firework charge.

So the moral of the story, for next year, appears to be: Blow up whatever you want. Just make sure you ditch your drugs first.

"The caller advised Officer Edelen that a guy named Demitrius Eccles was selling crack cocaine in the 6200 and 6300 block of Georgia Ave. NW and advised officer Edelen of Mr. Eccles cell phone number."

Armed with info from the mysterious tipster (a Vincent Gray supporter, maybe?), the officer had an undercover cop call Eccles on his cell and set up a buy.

Sometime later, the undercover officer and Eccles met beside a car wash in the 6300 block of Georgia Avenue NW.  Eccles allegedly sold the cop two pieces of crack for $45. The hand-off thus completed, Eccles walked away. Cops moved in to arrest him. Spotting the advancing threat, Eccles ran for it, court papers show. Cops pursued and had almost cornered him when a wily Eccles ducked behind a fence. He was eventually spotted, however, and took off running again–this time cops grabbed him.

Eccles has a criminal record that includes a 2005 conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon.

According to NBC Washington, Helen Hare, campaign spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian Fenty, was none too happy about the idea of Fenty campaign workers selling drugs and dodging police: "The Fenty campaign does not condone this alleged behavior. Our canvassers are constantly supervised. Mr. Eccles was not working at the time of his arrest and is no longer on the campaign."

According to the latest NHTSA roadside survey, drivers caught with blood alcohol concentrations above the legal limit fell to 2.2 percent in 2007, compared to 7.5 percent in 1975. 

Until 2007, the feds were only equipped to measure boozing – 0.08 blood alcohol concentrations or higher mean you are legally drunk. But now, the NHTSA has spiffy new screening techniques that detect drug use too. Of the nighttime weekend drivers tested in 2007, 16.3 percent were on drugs – mostly marijuana, with cocaine in second place, followed by prescription pills, the NHTSA says.

Yeah, but how scientific is a survey of 300 stops nationwide?  What about all those others who weren’t caught up in the dragnets, would they be more likely to be drugged or smashed? And, the NHTSA has segregated out the "nighttime weekend" druggies, while the boozing data apparently includes stops at all times of day and night. Perhaps the announcement's true intent is to put drug users on warning that toking and tweaking no longer goes undetected.

Inspirational quote of the week: "Get a woman on staff...women, women, women!"

We're Top 5 for marijuana and binge-drinking, which should surprise no one who's bought a jumbo slice on a weekend night, but check out these numbers:

Vermont tops the nation in marijuana use (2.5 percent of people 12 and over get high there), North Dakota flattens all comers in binge drinking (58.1 percent of 18-25-year-olds and 28.7 of folks 26 and up). Cocaine use in D.C. though, is at 5.1 percent, which means there's a reasonable chance someone in your office is going to think s/he is really, really smart and good-looking later this evening.

Photo of someone pretending to snort Chex mix with a Slim Jim (which is more what you'd expect of D.C., drug-use wise) by Flickr user decaf