At the US-Mexico Border, a Flood of Heroin, Meth Show the Trade Is Changing SAN YSIDRO, Calif. - Mexican traffickers are sending a flood of cheap heroin and methamphetamine across the U.S. border, the latest drug-seizure statistics show, in a new sign that America's marijuana decriminalization trend is upending the North American narcotics trade. The amount of cannabis seized by U.S. federal, state and local officers along the boundary with Mexico has fallen 37 percent since 2011, a period during which American marijuana consumers have increasingly turned to the more potent, higher-grade domestic varieties cultivated under legal and quasi-legal protections in more than two dozen U.S. states. [continues 1257 words]
Seizure Data Shows Drug Trade Is Changing SAN YSIDRO, CALIF. - Mexican traffickers are sending a flood of cheap heroin and methamphetamine across the U.S. border, the latest drug seizure statistics show, in a new sign that America's marijuana decriminalization trend is upending the North American narcotics trade. The amount of cannabis seized by U.S. federal, state and local officers along the boundary with Mexico has fallen 37 percent since 2011, a period during which American marijuana consumers have increasingly turned to the more potent, higher-grade domestic varieties cultivated under legal and quasi-legal protections in more than two dozen U.S. states. [continues 1251 words]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Fewer soldiers are testing positive for marijuana in two states where recreational use of the drug is legal, an Army study of the issue obtained by The Gazette has found. The change in Washington and Colorado, where legal pot is available near large Army bases, is small. But it's the reverse of what military leaders said would happen in Colorado Springs with marijuana legalization. "With one minor exception, the data is trending downwards, though it remains relatively flat and the changes are statistically insignificant," Army spokesman Lt. Col. Justin Platt wrote in an email from the Pentagon. [continues 659 words]
The Spending Bill Passed by Congress Contains a Significant Change in the Federal Government's Policy. WASHINGTON - Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy. The bill's passage over the weekend marks the first time Congress has approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization advocates. It brings almost to a close two decades of tension between the states and Washington over medical use of marijuana. [continues 672 words]
Undercover agents posing as drug kingpins. Cartel reps exchanging hockey bags full of money. A west-side kid who moved money for the Mexicans Ariel Julian Savein would drive to classes at Vancouver's Point Grey secondary a decade ago in his father's green BMW. In his 2003 graduation yearbook, Savein thanked his parents and teachers for getting him through school: "Looking back, it's hard to put things in perspective but I think I've learned a lot." [continues 2904 words]
Spending Bill Ends Federal Prohibition on Medical Pot WASHINGTON - Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy. The bill's passage over the weekend marks the first time Congress has approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization advocates. It brings almost to a close two decades of tension between the states and Washington over medical use of marijuana. [continues 567 words]
Spending Bill Ends Federal Prohibition on Medical Pot WASHINGTON - Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government's prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy. The bill's passage over the weekend marks the first time Congress has approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization advocates. It brings almost to a close two decades of tension between the states and Washington over medical use of marijuana. [continues 519 words]
There's New Opportunity for the Senate Drug Caucus Establishment Washington too often forgets that while most legislative matters affect segments of the country, drug policy is a national concern. When the American people gave Republicans majorities in both houses of the next Congress, they certainly indicated dissatisfaction with the performance of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party. But soon, the voters will ask what the Republican Congress has done with its leadership of the legislative branch. Despite strong majorities, Republicans are unlikely to override presidential vetoes, which means Congress will have limited power to implement sweeping changes that require presidential cooperation. Redefining issues and setting forth a governing agenda may therefore be as important as enacting laws for the next Congress. [continues 541 words]
In late September, the New York Attorney General announced a drug bust in Syracuse resulting from a nine-month long investigation -- 34 people arrested for dealing $1 million worth of heroin and cocaine. Sounded like a big success -- but was it really? It seems more like mowing the grass. As long as there is demand, there will be supply. Taking these 34 people off the streets just means that others will take their places, and the jockeying for position usually means increased violence. The drug trade will go on, with no net effect on prices or availability. [continues 543 words]
Here's the biggest irony of Tuesday's mid-term elections: the US government will continue demanding that Mexico, Colombia and other countries fight the marijuana trade as part of its "war on drugs," while Washington voters have just approved making pot legal in the US capital. Under an initiative passed by DC voters in Tuesday's elections, residents aged over 21 will be able to possess two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants for recreational consumption outside federal lands, pending congressional approval of the measure. [continues 633 words]
Pro-Pot Votes in Other States Propel the Effort After Tuesday's election, just one piece of the West Coast remained unwelcoming to recreational pot: California. But with voters in Oregon and Alaska legalizing the use and sale of marijuana-joining Washington and Colorado in inviting retail spreads of cannabis-infused tea sand brownies and joints- advocates see fresh momentum behind the slow shift in how the public regards the green stuff and those who enjoy it. California residents rejected legalization in 2010, with a 54 percent vote against it, but supporters of recreational marijuana are growing more confident about reversing that result in the 2016 election. [continues 1086 words]
A Psychology of Macho Law-Making Steers Policy - in Defiance of Public Opinion and Common Sense The government should ban all reports on drug legalisation. They get you hooked on rage. Evidence-based reform is a gateway substance to common sense. Just send a message: no thought means no. Parliament's response to this week's report on the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act shows that psychoactive substances are the last taboo to afflict Britain's elite. It has got over past obsessions with whipping, hanging, sodomy and abortion, but it is still stuck on drugs. There is no point in reading the latest research on drugs policy worldwide. It is spitting in the wind. The only research worth doing is on why drugs policy reduces politicians to gibbering wrecks. [continues 961 words]
The U.S. government wasted $7.6 billion on an ill-conceived drug war in Afghanistan that was doomed to failure from the start, according to a scathing new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The Afghan opium poppy crop, providing the raw material for the bulk of the world's heroin supply, reached record levels in 2013 and is likely to climb even higher this year, the report finds. "The recent record-high level of poppy cultivation calls into question the long-term effectiveness and sustainability" of the past decade of counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, Special Inspector General John Sopko concludes. "Given the severity of the opium problem and its potential to undermine U.S. objectives in Afghanistan, I strongly suggest that your departments consider the trends in opium cultivation and the effectiveness of past counternarcotics efforts when planning future initiatives." [continues 201 words]
'Kill the Messenger' Recalls a Reporter Wrongly Disgraced If someone told you today that there was strong evidence that the Central Intelligence Agency once turned a blind eye to accusations of drug dealing by operatives it worked with, it might ring some distant, skeptical bell. Did that really happen? That really happened. As part of their insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, some of the C.I.A.-backed contras made money through drug smuggling, transgressions noted in a little-noticed 1988 Senate subcommittee report. [continues 1730 words]
Hundreds of Pounds of the Drug, Jewelry and $800,000were Seized From Firms With Colombian Ties. Federal agents seized hundreds of pounds of marijuana, 161 pieces of jewelry and $800,000- including nearly $450,000 stashed in the trunk of a car-from Colorado pot businesses with Colombian ties, according to records obtained Wednesday by The Denver Post. The forfeiture document, in which federal authorities formally seek to confiscate the items, offers the most detailed account yet of the allegations stemming from Denver-area raids executed in November. They were the largest-ever federal raids on the Colorado marijuana industry. [continues 928 words]
A 21-MEMBER international panel has urged a global overhaul of drug policies, calling for drugs such as marijuana to be regulated, an end to incarceration for drug use and possession, and greater emphasis on protecting public health. The Global Commission on Drug Policy said traditional measures in the "war on drugs" such as eradicating acres of illicit crops, seizing large quantities of illegal drugs, and arresting and jailing violators of drug laws had failed. The commission's 45-page report pointed to rising drug production and use, citing a UN estimate that the number of users rose from 203 million in 2008 to 243 million in 2012. [continues 79 words]
Report Recommends Treating Drug Abuse as Public-Health Problem MEXICO CITY--A commission composed mostly of former world leaders will recommend Tuesday that governments move beyond legalizing marijuana and decriminalize and regulate the use of most other illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine. The international drug-control system is broken, says a report to be released Tuesday in New York by the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Governments should be allowed wide latitude to experiment with the regulation of drugs, except for the most lethal, says the commission, whose 21 members include former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and former presidents such as Brazil's Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Mexico's Ernesto Zedillo and Colombia's Cesar Gaviria. [continues 809 words]
A coalition of political figures from around the world, including Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, and several former European and Latin American presidents, is urging governments to decriminalize a variety of illegal drugs and set up regulated drug markets within their own countries. The proposal by the group, the Global Commission on Drug Policy, goes beyond its previous call to abandon the nearly half-century-old American-led war on drugs. As part of a report scheduled to be released on Tuesday, the group goes much further than its 2011 recommendation to legalize cannabis. [continues 359 words]
Juan Manuel Santos Approves Bill Allowing Sales of Medicinal Cannabis Praised Bill for Giving People Access to Medicine While Reducing Crime Uruguay Has Legalised Drug, With Brazil and Chile Considering Law Change The President of Colombia has endorsed new legislation which paves the way for legalising medical cannabis. Juan Manuel Santos made the announcement yesterday at a drug policy forum in the capital Bogota. Mr Santos called the bill 'a practical, compassionate measure to reduce the pain (and) anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses' while adding that it would help combat crime. [continues 193 words]
THREE years ago, the UN Global Commission on Drug Policy announced that the world had lost the long war against illegal drugs. Its 22 eminent members concluded that there remained only one feasible response: legalise the trade. The evidence they had studied was overwhelming. The fight had resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in turf wars and in ever-increasing power and wealth for the criminal syndicates. Tens of millions were incarcerated, often in prisons where dangerous drugs were as easily available as on the outside. [continues 616 words]
With tolerance for marijuana increasing around the country, a poll released Monday indicates that Florida may not lag far behind. According to the Quinnipiac University poll, 88 percent of Florida voters now would allow use of marijuana for medical purposes - broad support that cuts across age, gender and political lines. That is up from 82 percent support that Quinnipiac reported in November. About 55 percent of Floridians would legalize marijuana for recreational use, the poll reported - up 7 percent from November. [continues 732 words]
As thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America seek refuge in the United States, some commentators are blaming American drug users. "If there weren't a lot of Americans seeking marijuana and heroin and cocaine," says former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, "there would not be a drug war." Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady seems to agree. "This crisis was born of American self-indulgence," she writes. If so, it was not the self-indulgence of people who consume arbitrarily proscribed intoxicants. It was the selfindulgence of prohibitionists who insist on exporting their disastrous policy to other countries. [continues 581 words]
Is the American appetite for drugs like cocaine helping to stoke mayhem in Central America that in turn pushes migrants north? That's what Gen. John F. Kelly, head of U.S. Southern Command, argued recently in an article in Military Times. Kelly says that "drug cartels and associated street gang activity in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, which respectively have the world's number one, four and five highest homicide rates, have left near-broken societies in their wake." And Honduras President Juan Hernandez recently seconded the notion, saying anti-drug operations in Colombia and Mexico have pushed the cartels into nations ill-equipped to suppress them. [continues 263 words]
The Root news site's Keli Goff recently wrote about child refugees fleeing violence and poverty in Central America and seeking refuge at our border. Unfortunately, she supports deporting them, while claiming that we have our own black children to care about first, citing recent violence in the streets of Chicago. One of us - Phillip - grew up in the same Chicago that Goff says she wants to protect, while the other - Isabel - is a young immigrant who came to this country as an undocumented child fleeing violence in Colombia. In seeking justice for all young people, we are committed to building united social movements that fervently proclaim, "Our lives matter." [continues 559 words]
Why hasn't the United States government done more since the '60s to stop the flow or destroy the source of incoming drugs from Colombia and Mexico? Why haven't we napalmed the coca plant fields in Colombia and the marijuana fields in Mexico? Why is our Air Force practicing touch-and-go missions in central Arkansas instead of flying reconnaissance of our southern borders of California, Arizona and Texas? Why aren't more observation drones being used in this so-called war on drugs? [continues 177 words]
Cristian Omar Reyes, an 11-year-old sixth-grader in the neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon - "no matter what." In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, but she has not. Three people he knows were murdered this year. Four others were gunned down on a nearby corner in the span of two weeks at the beginning of this year. A girl his age resisted being robbed of $5. She was clubbed over the head and dragged off by two men who cut a hole in her throat, stuffed her panties in it, and left her body in a ravine across the street from Cristian's house. [continues 1993 words]
If the Obama administration is to be believed, America's infamous "War on Drugs" is over. In its most recent National Drug Control Strategy, released last week, officials promised a more humane and sympathetic approach to drug users and addiction. Out, the report suggests, are "tough on crime" policies. Rather than more police and more prisons, officials talk about public health and education. They promise to use evidence-based practices to combat drug abuse. And they want to use compassionate messaging and successful reentry programs to reduce the stigma drug offenders and addicts face. [continues 695 words]
A Refugee Crisis, Not an Immigration Crisis CRISTIAN OMAR REYES, an 11-year-old sixth grader in the neighborhood of Nueva Suyapa, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, tells me he has to get out of Honduras soon - "no matter what." In March, his father was robbed and murdered by gangs while working as a security guard protecting a pastry truck. His mother used the life insurance payout to hire a smuggler to take her to Florida. She promised to send for him quickly, but she has not. [continues 2446 words]
Seattle Startup The Partners in Sodo's Auricag, Among the First 76 Licensed Growers in the State, Are Finding It's Not Easy Cultivating Marijuana on an Industrial Scale. Editor's note: This is the second story in a seed-to-sale series focusing on one pot-growing operation in Seattle as owners take their historic product from seedling to retail-store shelf. A marijuana grow room in Sodo blazes from a dozen 1,000-watt bulbs. The light is so intense that Mark Arnold, assistant grower for pioneering pot producer AuricAG, wears blue-tinted lenses to cut the glare. [continues 1660 words]
The former UK ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir William Patey, has come out in favour of legalising drugs after acknowledging the failure of British-led efforts over the last 10 years to eradicate poppy crops in the country. Patey, one of the most experienced diplomats of his generation, with a string of postings that include Iraq, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, becomes one of the highest profile figures in Britain to back legalising and regulating drugs. His comments run counter to Home Office policy and will be rejected outright by many drug policy groups. [continues 1288 words]
I did not believe it before I went to Afghanistan. But it's now clear that prohibition is no answer to this deadly scourge When Tony Blair deployed British troops in Afghanistan, ending the illicit production and supply of opium was cited as a key objective. In 2001 the prime minister linked heroin use in the UK with opium cultivation in Afghanistan: "The arms the Taliban buy are paid for by the lives of young British people buying their drugs. This is another part of the regime we should destroy." Yet after 10 years of effort with tens of thousands of troops in the country, and having spent billions trying to reduce poppy cultivation, Afghans are growing more opium than ever before. [continues 782 words]
She Says the War on Drugs Killed Her Daughter This Week Will See Demonstrations Across the World Against Drugs Prohibition. And, in the UK, Parents Who Have Suffered Tragic Losses Are Among Those Pressing for Reforms That They Hope Will Save Lives On 17 July 1971 the US president, Richard Nixon, announced what has become known as the war on drugs, instigating an unrelenting campaign that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. On the same date, 42 years later, in north Oxford, Martha Fernback, 15, and a friend bought a plastic sachet holding a crystallised gram of MDMA for UKP40 from a dealer. It was no impulse buy. Martha's online history revealed she had meticulously researched the risks of the drug and opted to buy its most expensive variant, assuming the better quality it was, the safer it would be. [continues 1862 words]
Cracking Down on Illicit Drugs Means They Surface in Another Form BEFORE "Breaking Bad", there was "Miami Vice". The 1980s television show pitted detectives in white linen suits against drugs traffickers who used the Caribbean as their point of entry into Florida. The route, at least, is back in fashion. The proportion of cocaine imports entering the United States via the islands is rising (see article), as clampdowns in Central America and Mexico push drugs gangs back to their old haunts. [continues 521 words]
On the heels of pot legalization in Washington and Colorado, the movement for less punitive drug policy is coalescing at every level. Its new leaders could come from the very countries that have suffered the most. Javier Sicilia stopped writing poetry after his son was murdered by drug traffickers. He has turned his attention full time to protesting the drug wars. Seattle's South Park neighborhood has seen its share of drug-related crime and violence. Many of its residents are recent immigrants from Mexico; some came north fleeing the drug cartel violence that has ravaged their home communities. So the South Park Community Center was a poignant venue for Mexican poet, writer, and activist Javier Sicilia to speak about his campaign to end the drug war in his home country. He began the evening with a moment of silence for all the lives lost - somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000 - since the Mexican government stepped up the war against drug cartels in 2006. Then, his commanding voice heavy with grief, Sicilia read a poem: [continues 1844 words]
The federal indictments against four men involved in the Colorado marijuana industry are "a shot across the bow" of all cannabis businesses that raise questions about the federal government's tolerance for the industry, an attorney for one of the men said in court Monday. Sean McAllister, the attorney for suspect Gerardo Uribe, said Uribe believed he was operating the VIP Cannabis dispensary and his other marijuana businesses lawfully under state law. Uribe and three other men are accused of transferring money from Colombia to invest in a marijuana-cultivation warehouse and also of attempting to deposit proceeds from VIP Cannabis into a bank account. Uribe pleaded not guilty to the charges Monday, as his co-defendants have previously. [continues 318 words]
We know the stories. Hockey bags that go south full of B.C. bud and return full of Latin American cocaine. Elaborate underground tunnels at both the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders. Canadian mobsters being gunned down in Mexican resort towns. Unlikely Mennonite drug mules crossing North America's borders with illicit packages concealed in gas tanks and old farm equipment. It's easy to think it's always been this way, but the reality is we can thank the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) for much of this activity. So this year, while business leaders and politicians fete the 20th anniversary of NAFTA, drug runners and cartels will be doing the same. [continues 803 words]
Leader Says He Hopes for Breakthrough on Drug War in Peace Talks With FARC Guerrillas MEXICO CITY--Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said the war against drugs has failed, and the world must come up with new approaches to deal with a scourge that has killed thousands of Colombians. In an interview on Monday with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Santos noted a softening of hard-line antidrug policies both in the U.S. and in Latin America. He said the world had to develop more "realistic and pragmatic" ways to fight drug trafficking. [continues 1070 words]
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder has been crusading for more lenient treatment for nonviolent drug offenders, making it a top priority before he is expected to leave office this year. But recently, he has been forced to confront an epidemic of deaths from heroin and prescription drug abuse, one that his opponents have cited as a reason for not easing drug sentences. In prepared remarks for a speech Wednesday to the Police Executive Research Forum, Holder cited the "stunning rise in heroin and prescription opiate overdose deaths" and insisted the Justice Department is committed to "rigorous enforcement" of drug laws and "robust treatment" of addicts. [continues 225 words]
Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are alarmed by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and money laundering that Mexican drug cartels are conducting in the U.S. far from the border. U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing concern to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, not just those near the U.S.-Mexico boundary. "If we fail to secure our borders, then every sheriff in America will become a border sheriff," said Sam Page, sheriff of Rockingham County, N.C. "We're only a two-day drive from the border and have already seen the death and violence that illegal crossings brings into our community." [continues 785 words]
WASHINGTON - Under cover of night, speedboats sneak into Florida coves and inlets, hauling bundles of marijuana and cocaine. Drugs wash up on shore. Radar aircraft hover, searching for smugglers. And beachgoers stumble onto abandoned bundles of contraband. Like a flashback to the cocaine-cowboy days of the 1980s, drug running is making a comeback in Florida, and federal authorities are harnessing new technology to try to catch the smugglers. Infighting among drug cartels and intense enforcement in Mexico have prompted traffickers to shift some smuggling routes from the Southwest border to the Caribbean, federal investigators say. The increased traffic has revived the speedboat runs from the Bahamas to South Florida and supplied a pipeline of illegal drugs from Puerto Rico to Central Florida. [continues 722 words]
Other States Should Wait to See Consequences Before Legalizing, Gov. John Hickenlooper Says Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, finds himself in the difficult position of defending and executing the state's marijuana-legalization statutes after voters overwhelmingly approved them in 2012, over his personal objections. Points asked him to assess Colorado's experience in the three months since the first legal marijuana stores opened in his state. You've counseled other governors to wait a couple of years before following your state's course. Is Colorado having buyer's remorse on legalization? [continues 892 words]
As Changing State Laws Cut Pot Prices, Cartels Turn to Opium Poppies TEPACA DE BADIRAGUATO, MEXICO - The surge of cheap heroin spreading in $4 hits across rural America can be traced back to the remote valleys of the northern Sierra Madre. With the wholesale price of marijuana falling - driven in part by decriminalization in sections of the United States - Mexican drug farmers are turning away from cannabis and filling their fields with opium poppies. Mexican heroin is flooding north as U.S. authorities trying to contain an epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse have tightened controls on synthetic opiates such as hydrocodone and OxyContin. As the pills become more costly and difficult to obtain, Mexican trafficking organizations have found new markets for heroin in places such as Winchester, Va., and Brattleboro, Vt., where, until recently, needle use for narcotics was rare or unknown. [continues 1418 words]
The Arizona Republic printed a terrific story last Sunday on the on-going war on marijuana smuggling being waged along the Rio Grande River in Texas. Headlined "River of drugs runs through Rio Grande Valley," the piece by reporters Bob Ortega and Rob O'Dell is a solid a piece of investigative journalism that paints a picture of an increasingly futile and ludicrous exercise in latter day prohibition that's in the final stages of decay. Consider the vignette with which the piece opens. [continues 883 words]
MEXICO CITY - The U.S. government has ceased providing Honduras with radar tracking information out of concern that a new policy allowing its forces to shoot down aircraft suspected of hauling narcotics does not have enough safeguards to prevent error. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa distributed Tuesday said other U.S.-financed counternarcotics programs would not be affected, but that Washington already has ceased sharing certain types of information and assistance with Honduras. A policy to shoot down drug-laden aircraft has come into favor and fallen out of favor in the past in Latin America, depending partly on the mood in Washington. [continues 661 words]
The Colorado Department of Revenue earlier this month released its first data on the tax, fee and license revenue from legalized marijuana sales in the state. For January, the figure is $3.5 million when you combine revenue from medical ($1.5 million) and recreational marijuana ($2 million). This implies annual revenue of $42 million for Colorado. The amount collected so far is below other projections. In a 2010 white paper published by the Cato Institute, I predicted that if the federal government and all states legalized, Colorado would collect roughly $55 million to $60 million per year. And as recently as mid-February, Gov. John Hickenlooper predicted that the taxes, licenses and fees on medical-plus-recreational marijuana would generate $134 million for the fiscal year starting in July. [continues 544 words]
(AP) - In a former colonial mansion in Jamaica - the land of late reggae musician and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley - politicians huddle to discuss trying to ease marijuana laws. In Morocco, one of the world's top producers of the concentrated pot known as hashish, two leading political parties want to legalize its cultivation, at least for medical and industrial use. And in Mexico City, the vast metropolis of a country ravaged by cartel bloodshed, lawmakers have proposed a new plan to let stores sell the drug. [continues 1033 words]
What does the death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman tell us about life in our United States of America in 2014? Everyone seems to concentrate upon the loss of a gifted actor to the ravages of drug addiction. Lost in all of this I sense there is a back story. It appears that our rapacious appetite for illegal drugs here in the United States has almost single-handedly wrecked the rural economies of Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala. Growing, processing and shipping drugs to the U.S., bribing local officials, and killing anyone who stands in their way is how business is done by the drug cartels. [continues 657 words]
Many Countries Now Emboldened to Rethink Stance in War on Drugs. (AP) - In a former colonial mansion in Jamaica, politicians huddle to discuss trying to ease marijuana laws in the land of the late reggae musician and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley. In Morocco, one of the world's top producers of the concentrated pot known as hashish, two leading political parties want to legalize its cultivation, at least for medical and industrial use. And in Mexico City, the vast metropolis of a country ravaged by horrific cartel bloodshed, lawmakers have proposed a brand new plan to let stores sell the drug. [continues 1298 words]
Nations Consider Following U.S. Lead in Easing Positions on Pot (AP) - In a former colonial mansion in Jamaica, politicians huddle to discuss trying to ease marijuana laws in the land of the late reggae musician and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley. In Morocco, one of the world's top producers of the concentrated pot known as hashish, two leading political parties want to legalize its cultivation, at least for medical and industrial use. And in Argentina, the nation's drug czar, a Catholic priest who has long served in its drug-ravaged slums, is calling for a public debate about regulating marijuana. [continues 1463 words]
This month's capture of the world's most-wanted narcotics kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, will have little to no impact on the amount of drugs flowing into the U.S. across the Mexican border, experts say. Guzman's Sinaloa drug cartel - the largest in Mexico and the world - has a leadership succession plan that most likely has placed Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada at its helm. "If El Chapo was the CEO, then El Mayo was the CFO. He's certainly smart, knows the network, and will keep the supplies going," said George Grayson, a drug war expert at the College of William and Mary who has written several books on Mexican cartels. "This [arrest] may be a sharp thorn in the side of the cartel, but it's certainly not a dagger in the heart." [continues 556 words]
