Tuesday, June 24, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local U.S. court may force Texaco to post bond at advant w we wi[] iity; thetl back in iJ ''’everthe-J ng it bad] uimentaj be with J 7-Elever.l stop selj s relatior-j s r "ith ihj commurcl tencv att l l)een: I ause. 1:1 of porr .j asitionJ:! erned o:| us prudKl 1 uothintl WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider forcing Texaco Inc. to post a potentially ruinous $12 billion bond while appealing a multibillion-dollar j udgment won in Texas by Pennzoil Co. The justices agreed to review a ruling that Texaco need only put $1 billion in security, a require ment the corporation satisfied by pledging stock in its Canadian subsidiary. The court’s decision is ex pected sometime in 1987. A state court jury in Texas last year found that Texaco improp erly interfered with Pennzoil’s planned acquisition of an interest in Getty Oil Co. The jury awarded Pennzoil $11.1 billion against Texaco. “We’re pleased,” said Joe Ja- mail, a lawyer for Pennzoil. “We’ve felt all along we were going to win that point.” But John O’Mahoney, a Tex aco spokesman, said the corpora tion was confident it would pre vail in the Supreme Court and also would succeed in reversing the state court damage judgment. Arguments are scheduled for July 31 in Houston on Texaco’s appeal of the jury verdict. “On the case itself, we could win it before the bond issue is ever determined,” Jamail said. Texas, like most states, re quires the losing side in such cases to post bond to protect the winning side. Texas law requires a bond posted equal to the judgment be fore the losing side may appeal. But lawyers for Texaco suc ceeded in having U.S. District Judge Charles Brient in White Plains, N.Y., enjoin the $12 bil lion bond. Brient ruled that such a high bond effectively denied Texaco the right to appeal. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction, ruling last February that the huge bond amount “lacks any rational basis, since it would destroy Tex aco and render its right of appeal in Texas an exercise in futility.” The injunction remains in ef fect, but interest on the award grows at about $3 million a day. In seeking Supreme Court re view, lawyers for Pennzoil said the case represents “an unprece dented intrusion by a federal court into ongoing court pro ceedings.” Lawyers for Texaco urged the justices to reject the appeal, argu ing that “such a narrow and un usual case” should not win Su preme Court review. “The posting of a mandatory $12 billion bond was impossible not just for Texaco but for any judgment debtor,” Texaco’s law yers said. Cocaine linked to heart attacks A&M study: Long-term use causes undetectable damage how to | for an • i tinned 1 orot# tally ut ness p fl! - 1 bv tliej' ; >s fortlte! Jed. many ^ j to elate 1 - it they I i/ 2 years; ow aj 01 hey can1 ' eports at umbers. lines* wl v»" onr M Wright chosen speaker at Democratic convention AUSTIN (AP) — U.S. House Ma- fiority Leader Jim Wright, who many )emocrats expect to become the [next speaker, will deliver the key- [note address to the Texas Demo cratic Party Conventio on Friday, it was announced Monday. The two-day convention runs through Saturday. In a marked reference to Texas lepublicans, who will hear from /ice President George Bush and [other potential presidential candi- pates at their convention in Dallas the same weekend, the Democratic Party said it won’t be worrying about presidential politics this year. “The 1986 election is critical to Texas, too critical for the campaign to get involved in national presi dential politics,” said a news release issued by the Democratic party. “Unlike the Republicans, who have to import convention speakers from around the country . . . we Democrats find it difficult to find time to allow all our outstanding Texans an opportunity to speak,” the statement said. By Scott Sutherland City Editor A soon-to-be-published report by a Texas A&M researcher reveals that cocaine severely impairs cardiac function and may lead to sudden, unpredictable cardiac arrest. Dr. Michael Trulson, professor of anatomy at the Texas A&M College of Medicine, found that long-term cocaiqe administration to lab rats greatly reduces enzymes that power the heart muscle. Enzymes act as cat alysts to cells, speeding up their bi ological process. Not all the enzymes that supply energy to the heart’s cells showed a decrease, but four essential enzymes, including an enzyme that provides energy for the heart’s contraction, were gravely affected. Rats were injected with cocaine for 10 consecutive days and then taken off the drug. Three days later they showed greatly reduced levels of four enzymes crucial in supplying the heart with the energy needed to continue pumping. Another set of rats injected for 10 days and examined 60 days later showed the same depletion of en zymes, suggesting that the heart does not recover from cocaine ad ministered as much as two months earlier. Trulson says it’s significant to note that even though the body would have passed cocaine out of the sys tem, the damage to the heart re mained. The enzymes are normally preva lent in the arterioles, small arteries that carry blood into the heart, and in the myocytes, the cells of the heart muscle. Myocytes assist in the con traction and expansion of the heart. The greater the enzyme depletion, the greater the chances of sudden cardiovascular failure, Trulson says. Trulson, a 15-year veteran of drug abuse research, says that dur ing the 10-day period of cocaine in jection the rats’ heart rate and blood pressure increased, which he says is common during cocaine use. How ever, shortly after being taken off the drug their vital signs returned to normal while the damage remained, he says. There were no physical abnorma lities that might aid diagnosis. The rats’ hearts showed no discernible size difference from a normal rat, so Trulson says it’s likely that X-rays would not show discrepancies. “There is no way that we know of that you can pick this thing up with out taking the tissue out and exam ining it,” he says. A continued decrease in these en zymes could lead to sudden death in an individual who otherwise seemed perfectly healthy, Trulson says. In fact, he says, some of the experimen tal rats that exhibited a normal heart rate and blood pressure died from cardiovascular failure. “A heart could be beating nor mally but all of the sudden just stop because of a lack of adequate perfu sion of the heart with blood and oxy gen,” he said. “This is the type of thing you wouldn’t pick up on an EKG or if you listened with a ste thoscope.” Autopsies probably won’t reveal enzyme depletion because the tissue must be gathered and frozen almost immediately after death before en zymes begin to break down, he says. The cocaine given the rats would be comparable to a three-quarter gram dosage for an adult, Trulson says. He adds that a three-quarter gram daily dosage is not uncommon for cocaine abusers. The four enzymes showed vary ing degrees of depletion after 60 days: • Glucose-6-phosphate dehydro genase, which produces pentoses that are involved in synthesis of nu cleic acid and protein. It decreased by 44.6 percent in the arterioles and by 48.1 percent in the myocytes. • NAD isocitrate dehydrogenase, a key enzyme in the aerobic pathway of the heart, dropped off by 80 per cent in the arterioles and 84.1 per cent in the myocytes. • Lactate dehydrogenase, a key enzyme in the heart’s anaerobic me tabolism, was depleted in the arte rioles by 40.6 percent and in the myocytes by 42.3 percent. • Myosin ATPase, a key enzyme that provides the energy for the con traction of the heart, was depleted in the arterioles by 39.8 percent and in the myocytes by 46.3 percent. Trulson used a sophisiticated mi croscope-computer combination usinesses adjust to no-smoking law I AUSTIN (AP) — One month af ter the city’s no-smoking law went into effect, a lack of signs designat ing smoking areas in businesses and ol fices remains the chief cause of vi olations, local health officials say. I “It’s amazing how many business people and office managers are un aware that a law was passed,” said Laurel Schulze of the Austin-Travis County Health Department, who is in charge of enforcing the ordi nance. “I’ll tell them a complaint has been filed about their establishment, and some of them will ask, ‘When did they vote this in?”’ she said. In December, the Austin City Council passed the Clean Indoor Air Ordinance banning smoking in all public places except for designated smoking areas. “Public places” in clude stores, offices, and restau rants. Persons in charge of public estab lishments must post signs at en trances indicating the degree of smoking allowed inside. Signs must indicate whether smoking is banned completely or only in designated areas. Business owners can declare their entire buildings as a smoking area if they can prove through their own polls that at least 95 percent of their cus tomers prefer smoking. Supreme Court to hear search-warrant case I WASHINGTON (AP) — The Su preme Court agreed Monday to de cide whether police may enter jsfenced-in property and look into a iarn without first getting a search warrant. The court said it will hear a Rea gan administration appeal aimed at reinstating a Texas man’s federal drug conviction. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Ap peals ruled last February that a fed eral drug agent and a local police of ficer violated Ronald Dale Dunn’s Correction The Friday, June 20 issue of I he B