South San Francisco biotechnology company Genentech, makers of some of the world's most boring prescription drugs ever (e.g., supplementary growth hormones Protropin and Nutropin, clot-busting pill TNKase, non-Hodgkins lymphomas treatment Rituxan, and zzzzzzz) might be bought out by Swiss drug company Roche. The European pill-pushers are offering the Bay Area company a whopping $43.7 billion. Genentech, though, is expected "to refuse the bid and strive to remain independent." Or, most likely, turn this offer down......

Yesterday we mentioned how we often see lots of crack being smoked in the boarded-up window across the street from our Tendernob window. But after thinking about it some, we realized we haven't seen any such riff-raff in quite some time. Does anyone know the deal? Did they do a sweep of all the dealers in the Tenderloin recently? Are they in jail or just in a different neighborhood now? When can we expect things......

SFist James caught a crack smoking couple over on Stevenson Street (near Market) this morning. Aw.......

Photo by the Zachness/Flickr 1-877-LIKE-POT. Hee! Yeah, we're 12-years-old. And?......

Photo by Katy German Aside from Juanita More's party at Bambuddha Lounge, the Frameline Film Fest, KRON4 fag hag Jan Wahl's coverage of the parade, the meth cloud that will hover above Beck's Motor Lodge, and the bittersweet tang of buried shame rising to the surface, we can't say we're looking forward to this month's melee. We're just that cool. Or bitter. Or both. What about you, San Franciscans? Any plans for the big......

By Joe Kukura Our Bay to Breakers coverage – which kicked off this morning in a post so drunk and confused it had to be deleted – continues without shame as we direct you to this handy Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Locator. Many of you know how long sections of this race course are painfully lacking in places to buy additional smokes and booze for your continued "running." But with knowledge of a......

Gay men and uppers go together like peanut butter and chocolate. It's just the way God wanted it. But that hasn't stopped Joel Schumacher's "I Lost Me to Meth" campaign from saturating San Francisco, even though meth use is down as of last year, before the campaign began. Addendums to the anti-drug campaign posters have reflected all kinds of sentiments to the most recent effort to get the homosexuals off the crazy crack. Here are......

We had no idea. In addition to the How Weird Street Faire, happening this Saturday from 11:11 a.m. to 5:55 p.m., and the Inline Skating Marathon (for reals?), which takes place on Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m in Golden Gate Park, you can also celebrate the art of getting stoned. Dude. This Saturday, May 3, is National Pot Smoking Day, or something like that. It takes place at Civic Center Plaza across......

Speaking of Santa Cruz, the inventor of LSD, Albert Hofmann, died on Tuesday at his Switzerland home. He was 102. ...

Young whippersnapper, Santa Cruz resident 18-year-old Matthew Rosenberg, called his mom on Monday to tell her he had "tripped, broke his leg and was lost" in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He was half right. What he didn't tell her was that he was also bombed out of his mind on hallucinogenic mushrooms and a wee bit of acid. Oh yeah, and that he didn't break his leg. An expensive rescue effort ensued, and Rosenberg......

Perhaps due to the many squares of acid or complete the lack of sex, we don't remember UC Santa Cruz demigods coming down so hard on 4/20. But SFBG's crusty-but-benign (and victorious!) Bruce Brugman has word that UCSC officials have pulled a Bevan Dufty, more or less shutting down the campus this Sunday, 4/20, on the sacred day where people get baked. Really, really, reeeeeaaally baked. University of Santa Cruz Executive Chancellor David Kilger's......

Gay mafia don, Marke B., has word that the Powerblouse (TM 71Miles) is hosting a prom night for all of you homosexuals who weren't able to attend your senior prom. The theme is "Leather & Lace." Steamy. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, we should mention, are hosting this night under to remember. Proceeds from the night go to raise funds to fight the proposed butterfly-killing spray that will soon blanket San Francisco, or whatever......

As if cucumber- and celery-infused vodkas haven't rocked your world enough, the latest trend in intoxication is fruit-flavored blow. The DEA has come across loads of the sweet treat, most recently finding the junk in two Modesto homes that was mixed with strawberry, coconut, lemon-lime (AKA limon), and cinnamon flavoring. While this fruity trend makes disco dust that more tempting to the youth of America, what's worse is that cocaine cut with an additional......

Boing Boing's wonderful things camp up with this beauty. Antonio Patrinostro, 43, was busted by cops last week after "ramming three cars and causing minor injuries" while driving up in Marin. It seems Patrinostro was "on a mission for Area 51." Naturally. Marin Independent Journal has the scoop: Patrinostro "told the officer that the vehicle could fly if he went fast enough, and basically just started bouncing off of cars," (California Highway Patrol officer......

Take, for example, Sonoma County, which played host to one of the "biggest meth busts in the Bay Area" on Tuesday night. Three people were arrested after a trucking company in Cotati was raided by the DEA....

And speaking of methamphetamines, this above always unleashes a big brouhaha in the bent community: to chastise or not to chastise zippy drug use. The most recent ad campaign--a four-month media blitz produced by the California Methamphetamine Initiative called "Me, Not Meth"--can been seen throughout the city, mainly in the Castro and SOMA arrondisments. And those ads you've seen on TV, featuring men sitting at their desks and talking into webcams? Part of the same ad and directed by Joel Schumacher. SF Aids Foundation has more info here....

Better than a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or a bowl brimming with Lucky Charms, crack retailers in Marietta, Ohio, dyed their cocaine rocks a festive green for St. Patrick's Day this year. OMG, fun! The Smoking Gun has the full report and mugshots galore, going on to say: Asked by TSG if he had ever seen drugs marketed in such a fashion, Mincks said that several years ago some......

Actress Dawn Wells -- i.e., Mary-Ann from Gilligan's Island -- was busted for smoking the doob, it seems. The Associated Press has the harrowing, mary jane-fueled details: On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was held for her. According to the sheriff's office report, Gutierrez pulled Wells over after noticing her swerve and repeatedly speed up and slow down. When......

Today a federal judge told the prosecutors to "re-craft its perjury case against Barry Bonds." The judge on the Bonds case, Susan Illston, claims that they "improperly lumped multiple alleged offenses into each of four counts of its indictment of the former Giants star." Whoops. Illston slammed the Bonds indictment, which was handed up last November, as "duplicitous." According to the Chron: By law, the government can only accuse a person of one crime......

Your weekend just got a little sleepier. Ten locations, including two in San Francisco, were busted today in connection with a methamphetamine distribution setup that went from San Francisco and the Bay Area all the way to Mexico. Federal, state, and local law enforcement. In total 13 people were arrested. According to KGO: The raids started simultaneously at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning with 200 agents moving in on the ten locations. Law enforcement was......

Former Senate Majority Leader (and current Boston Red Sox director) George Mitchell just announced the results of his 20-month, $20 million investigation into allegations of widespread steroid usage in baseball. The long-awaited, 409-page Mitchell Report (document here) identifies more than 80 current and former players as being linked to using performance-enhancing drugs. While the report casts blame on the lack of institutional control within baseball as much as the players themselves that cheated, what......

Carole Migden's girlfriend (OK then, "wife?" We refuse to use the sterile and patronizing "partner") Cris Arguedas, it seems, now must deal with yet another San Francisco diva: Barry Bonds. According to the Sacto Bee, the letter "h" eschewing lawyer "joined the defense team of baseball star Barry Bonds last week, as the long-time Sam Francisco Giant pleaded not guilty to charges of perjury." Arguedas is now part of a high-profile team that will......

It's like two SFist Finds in one day, isn't it? Lucky you. And you all have been so clever and creative with the images you tag "SFist" as of late. Why, it almost makes us weep with appreciative joy. Thanks, you guys. Anyway, we came across this here. If we had known that drugs were buried in planters across the city -- also, why does this happen? -- we would be walking around this......

The legendary Cafe Flore might find its way to the obit page of the B.A.R. soon. Why? Because if it doesn't "get permission to have the option to serve food 24 hrs a day, to have the option to have amplified entertainment to allow a background DJ," or to get the chance to serve booze until 2 am, the place might zip up and never call again according to SaveCafeFlore. Noes! Look, Cafe Flore......

(Barry Bonds is on SFGate's Crime page. Ha!) -- A 19-year-old woman was shot -- "in the back today...at 5:39 p.m." Huh?-- during an attempted street robbery in SF's Visitacion Valley. Attacked at Velasco Avenue and Santos Street, she is currently at SFGH and listed in stable condition. And the two suspects? Are still at large. -- UC Berkeley journalism student Kevin Jones, 27, "pleaded no contest today to a misdemeanor charge of vehicular......

At the dewy-fresh hour of 6 a.m., Oakland police officers, Alameda County sheriff's deputies, and agents with the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI went on an Oakland-wide spree of busts for heroin trafficking (as well as "cocaine and marijuana, " at least according to this morning's Mornings On 2's.)...

-- Halloween in the Castro, or lack thereof. [The Snitch] -- 50K a year and living in SF? How vulgar. [SFGate] -- Jarring and attractive LSD-y visuals. [SFBG] -- Marquee preservation. [CurbedSF] -- RIP: One-time Harvey Milk campaign manager Jim Rivaldo dies. [FCJ] -- Bart worker gets a cool $1.27 million for on-the-job racism. Bitchin. [SFGate] -- If you like drugs, pussy, punk-rock, and suicide, have we found the band for you to join!......

At left: barf We couldn't get though this article about today's bust of the East Bay operation Tainted Inc., which produced "marijuana-laced candies, cookies, ice cream, peanut butter, barbecue sauce, granola bars and brownies," without gagging. (We can't even re-read that sentence.) Why? Because the taste to pot is vile. We know that after time one starts to develop a taste for the drugs to which they are addicted, but we can't see that......

Oh, this is so mean. And yet so funny. The guy who purchased Bond's 756th home run ball, Marc Ecko (a fashion designer, so girl doesn't really need a baseball), set up a site to poll people as to what to do with it, and the decision? To brand it with an asterisk, because of Bonds performance-enhancing drugs scandal, and send to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ecko said that the marking of the......

You know we usually try to hoard up all the crime-type news for the Tuesday and Friday blotters, but there was enough vaguely unsettling news this weekend to warrant a post a little early, we thought. To wit: --Fernando Gonzalez, an 18-year-old Redwood City man, died after he fell into a vat of sulfuric acid. Gonzalez was working the early-morning shift at Coastal Circuits Factory this weekend, without a protective face mask, when he appeared......