Warns Of New Drug Threat From North A resurgence of the use of ecstasy by young Americans is being fuelled by Canadian producers smuggling the drug into the U.S., the White House drug czar says. John Walters, director of the office of national drug control policy, is warning Americans to be aware of a "dangerous new drug threat coming from Canada." In a news release distributed in the U.S. and also sent to The Province, Walters warned that ecstasy, a pill that triggers the feel-good brain chemicals serotonin and dopamine, is becoming popular again. He said the pills are increasingly laced with highly addictive crystal meth. [continues 240 words]
The year 2007 brought encouraging news on many points of drug abuse prevention in Montana and across the nation. American teens' use of illegal drugs - including methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and other street drugs - declined, according to multiple, ongoing research surveys. However, a report released last month by the National Institute on Drug Abuse noted that abuse of prescription drugs by U.S. teens remains high with no significant decrease. The "Monitoring the Future" survey of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade students measures prescription drugs, including opiates like Vicodin and OxyContin, amphetamines (including Ritalin), sedatives/barbiturates and tranquilizers, as well as over-the-counter drugs such as cough syrup. [continues 231 words]
A resurgence of the use of ecstasy by young Americans is being fuelled by Canadian producers smuggling the illegal chemical drug -- which is increasingly laced with crystal meth -- into the United States, according to White House drug czar John Walters. The director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy is warning Americans to be aware of a "dangerous new drug threat coming from Canada." Canadian-made ecstasy pills laced with crystal meth are being dumped into the U.S., prompting Walters to issue a warning Thursday. [continues 378 words]
Oroville resident and founder of the Drug Endangered Children's program, Sue Webber-Brown, was recently invited to meet with President George Bush. She is one of 12 people who received a special invitation to speak to the president about their work in drug prevention programs. President Bush hosted meetings on "Teen Drug Use" on Dec. 11, and he had a press conference in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to White House concerning the results of the "Monitoring the Future" study conducted by the University of Michigan. [continues 1921 words]
His Duties Will Take on an International Focus WASHINGTON -- Cedar City native Scott Burns was officially sworn in as second in command of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on Friday, giving the former Iron County attorney even more responsibility in reducing drug use in America. Burns, whose official new title is the deputy director of the office, will work closely with the office's director, John Walters, known as the "drug czar," and fill in for Walters as needed. [continues 314 words]
No-Knock, You're Dead A growing number of political pundits are questioning America's military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some are beginning to draw parallels to lawmakers' much longer domestic war effort: the so-called war on drugs. The comparison is apropos. For nearly 100 years, starting with the passage of America's first federal anti-drug law in 1914, lawmakers have relied on the mantra "Do drugs, do time." As in the Middle East, the human and fiscal consequences of this inflexible policy have been steadily mounting. [continues 511 words]
The Popular Drug's Prices Have Changed Little in 25 Years A car, a home, a gallon of milk -- most everything costs more now than a generation ago. Except a baggie of Mexican marijuana. Give or take a few dollars, authorities say, pot grown in Mexico and sold in Houston and other Texas cities still goes for about the same price as 25 years ago: $60 to $80 for an ounce. In economic terms, marijuana is far cheaper since the decade when a three-bedroom home in upscale West University cost $150,000, a new ride was less than $6,000 and first lady Nancy Reagan urged kids to "Just Say No." [continues 1002 words]
Look at the numbers for teenage cigarette smoking. Now look at the numbers for teenage marijuana use. Folks, there's a lesson here. Last week, President Bush touted new survey results showing a modest drop in teen use of marijuana and other drugs, but he failed to mention the drug for which prevention efforts have had the most spectacular success -- tobacco. If he had, he might have had to make some troubling comparisons. Bush noted that drug use has declined from its recent peak in 1996, but sidestepped the longer-term picture that doesn't look nearly so rosy. [continues 586 words]
If you thrill to the sight of boats chasing boats, this video of the Coast Guard's "Top 10 Drug Busts" is for you. In a recent press release, the Coast Guard brags that it's been "a record year for cocaine seizures with 355,755 pounds seized, worth more than $4.7 billion." It claims smugglers are "desperate" and cites unusually large seizures as evidence. Is a rising seizure total a sign of success or a sign that the volume crossing the border has increased? Is an increase in large-volume seizures a sign of smugglers' desperation or a sign that smugglers are not terribly worried about interdiction, treating the risk as a cost of doing business? The press release acknowledges that "smugglers adapt their tactics in response to effective counternarcotic measures." So even "effective" interdiction efforts cannot have a substantial, lasting impact on drug consumption, as Antonio Maria Costa, director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, conceded in a speech at the International Conference on Drug Policy Reform earlier this month. [continues 108 words]
Thanks for publishing Robert Simms' outstanding letter: "Politics of Poppies" (11/15). I especially liked his line, "this war (drug war) was never meant to be won." U. S. drug czar John Walters is essentially the head cheerleader for the drug war bureaucracy. Like all bureaucrats, his goal is the continuation and expansion of his bureaucracy. All bureaucracies want more power and more money. The drug-war bureaucracy is no exception. The only way to achieve victory in the so-called drug war is to re-legalize all of our now illegal drugs so they can be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed businesses. [continues 78 words]
After Thirty-Five Years and $500 Billion, Drugs Are as Cheap and Plentiful as Ever: An Anatomy of a Failure. 1. After Pablo On the day of his death, December 2nd, 1993, the Colombian billionaire drug kingpin Pablo Escobar was on the run and living in a small, tiled-roof house in a middle-class neighborhood of Medellin, close to the soccer stadium. He died, theatrically, -ridiculously, gunned down by a Colombian police manhunt squad while he tried to flee across the barrio's rooftops, a fat, bearded man who had kicked off his flip-flops to try to outrun the bullets. The first thing the American drug agents who arrived on the scene wanted to do was to make sure that the corpse was actually Escobar's. The second thing was to check his house. [continues 15494 words]
And so Barack Obama tells high school kids in New Hampshire that he "made some bad decisions" at their age. He "experimented" with pot and cocaine. This is old news - but even if it were new news, it would be ho-hum in today's politics. After all, drug use has proven no bar to high office - at least for those who evaded arrest. Vice President Al Gore, ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have all admitted to smoking pot. President Bush refuses to deny that he snorted cocaine. And no one believes that Bill Clinton "didn't inhale" on that joint. [continues 527 words]
And so Barack Obama tells high school kids in New Hampshire that he "made some bad decisions" at their age. He "experimented" with pot and cocaine. This is old news -- but even if it were new news, it would be ho-hum in today's politics. After all, drug use has proven no bar to high office -- at least for those who evaded arrest. Vice President Al Gore, ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have all admitted to smoking pot. President Bush refuses to deny that he snorted cocaine. And no one believes that Bill Clinton "didn't inhale" on that joint. [continues 527 words]
As a follow-up to the continuing news coverage of bloody gang warfare in Metro Vancouver, it was interesting to read a story over the weekend by Province reporter John Colebourn about how our local marijuana industry is spreading its deadly tentacles into the U.S. Since June, at least three people are reported to have been killed in Washington state in murders linked to B.C.'s multibillion-dollar pot business. And Lt. Rich Wiley, of Washington State Patrol's narcotics program, says police increasingly find themselves up against Canadian criminals, as marijuana growers from B.C. set up shop there. [continues 173 words]
CHAPEL HILL - Last month San Francisco health officials met with groups that supported the idea of opening a "safe injection" center -- the first in the United States. It would be funded by the city and be limited to intravenous users of heroin, cocaine and other drugs. Addicts would bring their own drugs, receive clean needles and inject themselves under medical supervision instead of shooting up in the streets. Advocates of the proposal believe that the creation of such a facility would reduce fatal drug overdoses and curtail the spread of HIV and hepatitis C caused by the sharing of needles. [continues 731 words]
Larry Campbell has seen the effects of Canada's marijuana prohibition laws first-hand, as an RCMP drug officer for eight years and as chief coroner of B.C. before his election as mayor of Vancouver in 2002. He figures the drug should be legalized, controlled -- and taxed like tobacco. "There is no question that there is violence tied to the grow-ops. There is violence involved in the criminal gangs that run them," Campbell says. "The time is here that we should simply take this out of the criminal element and regulate it. The idea that marijuana is virtually any of the things that the drug warriors in the United States say is ludicrous. [continues 757 words]
COLOMBIA -- Interruptions of the flow of cocaine to the U.S. are causing street prices to rise, a sign that the war on drugs is working, the White House drug czar, John Walters, said here Thursday. He told reporters that interdictions in Colombia, in other countries along cocaine transit routes and on the open seas were reducing supplies. His assessment was based on price and purity data from 37 major U.S. cities. Street cocaine prices rose 44 percent, to an average $136.93 per pure gram, from January to September, he said. Others say it might only reflect the fact that more Colombian cocaine is being shipped to Europe, where it can fetch higher prices. [end]
BOGOTA, Colombia - Interruptions of the flow of cocaine to the United States is causing street prices to rise, a sign that the war on drugs is working, the White House drug czar said. John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said that as a result of interruptions to the flow of drugs through Colombia, Mexico and other countries, U.S. cocaine street prices have risen to an average $136.93 per pure gram at the end of September, a 44-per-cent increase over the average in January. Price and purity data were supported by other measures, including reduced evidence of cocaine use as measured in workplace tests, he said. [end]
I'm writing about an October 11 story headlined "John Walters speaks on drug eradication." John Walters is essentially the head cheerleader for the drug war bureaucracy. Like all bureaucrats, his goal is the continuation and expansion of his bureaucracy. All bureaucracies want more power and more money. The drug-war bureaucracy is no exception. The only way to achieve victory in the so called drug war is to re-legalize all of our now illegal drugs so they can be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed businesses. Victory is not the goal of the drug war. Victory in the drug war would mean that the drug war bureaucracy is out of business. Kirk Muse Mesa, Ariz. [end]
Heard the latest from the Feds regarding their multi-billion dollar war on weed? According to warnings posted on the DEA's new website JustThinkTwice.com, today's cannabis is nearly twice as strong as the pot available in the 1970s and 80s. Sounds like its time for the Drug Enforcement Administration to don some new duds. How about t-shirts saying: "I've arrested millions, and all I got was stronger pot?" Naturally, law enforcement and federal bureaucrats have little sense of humor when it comes to these matters. "We're no longer talking about the drug of the 1960s and 1970s," Drug Czar John Walters told Reuters News Wire. (The Czar failed to explain why if previous decades' pot was innocuous police still arrested you for it.) "This is Pot 2.0." [continues 523 words]
