What took place in Arizona was a tragedy and should not go unforgotten, but neither should the ones that happen day in and day out on behalf of government policy. Thanks to the DEA and the war on drugs, violence is used as a means in the hopes of reaching a particular ends more than 100 times a day. Unfortunately, it often turns out to be just as fatal as what happened in Tucson. Where are the media reports about the non-violent drug addict shot and killed by police in Utah? What about the 68-year-old grandfather in Massachusetts killed just last week? And what about the pastor in Georgia who only chose to help out a woman who had been suspected of prostitution and drug use? The Cato Institute has an entire map of innocents killed in drug raids - most of whom were not dealing or using. [continues 61 words]
Re: "Losing the drug war," by Charles Guerriero, Saturday Letters. Guerriero writes, "American drug policy toward marijuana yields nearly one million arrests annually; nine of 10 are for personal possession. We have nothing to show for all this madness, as marijuana is easier to obtain than alcohol for minors and use has only risen since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970." I am a social liberal and a fiscal conservative, and I do not believe that the War On Certain Drugs has helped this country one bit. Study after study proves that tobacco and alcohol kill millions and that marijuana kills no one. [continues 88 words]
Across our nation, elected officials and the media are lamenting the latest scourge plaguing our nation, K2. Introduced in 2000, K2 is a blend of herbs sprayed with synthetic marijuana and sold as incense printed with the warning: "Not for Human Consumption." Although there have been no official studies of the product, Clemson University Professor John W. Huffman, who first synthesized these chemicals, says, "People who use it are idiots." And, "It's like playing Russian roulette. You don't know what it's going to do to you." [continues 537 words]
Re: "Innovators one step ahead in drug war -- Cities on the front lines of the fight against K2, say Geralyn Kever and Tony Dale," last Saturday Viewpoints. Unfortunately, the prevalence of K2 is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences. As a substitute for marijuana, a substance less harmful than alcohol, youths seem to have easier access to these far more dangerous alternatives, and adults feel they can skirt drug tests at work. The endless stream of new replacements even suggest a rumored "K3." This is comparable to the rise of dangerous and highly addictive methamphetamine as a substitute for cocaine use during the 1990s. The problem is not the next new drug so much as the big picture. [continues 52 words]
Profound thanks are due televangelist Pat Robertson for stating so clearly what many of us have been screaming in the wilderness for years -- that the criminalization of marijuana is a plague on young people. May he lend courage to politicians who know better but won't do the right thing for fear of seeming soft on drugs. "We're locking up people who take a couple of puffs of marijuana, and the next thing they know, they've got 10 years," Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network show, The 700 Club. These are mandatory sentences, he adds, that absurd laws force on judges. Robertson does not call for legalization of all drugs, as do many disillusioned law enforcers, judges and prominent economists of all political stripes. He does say that criminalizing the possession of small amounts of pot is "costing us a fortune, and it's ruining young people." [continues 475 words]
Good for the American-Statesman for printing the Dec. 27 article about Portugal's successful experiment in decriminalizing drugs ("U.S., others look to Portugal for guide to beating drugs"). Texas should decriminalize possession of personal amounts of marijuana - -- not to encourage marijuana use, but because fighting drugs with the criminal law causes more harm than good. Remember alcohol prohibition? Having failed in that war on alcohol, we've now foolishly used the same weapons on other drugs with the same results. More drugs, not less, and far more crime. We should license and tax the production and sale of personal marijuana, just like we do with alcohol. It's the smart way to reduce drug abuse and the horrific consequences of feeding the black market we have now. John Delaney Retired district judge Bryan [end]
University Medical Center continues to play a role in the Mexican drug-driven violence, even though the facility is in El Paso. It's understood that under federal law, the hospital cannot refuse emergency service to anyone on American soil. And it's hardly a surprise that injured survivors on the blood-letting prefer to come to the United States and UMC for treatment of their injuries. Seeking treatment in Juarez can be the equivalent of a death sentence, because hit men don't hesitate to come into hospitals to kill targets being treated. [continues 355 words]
Don't let boutique-style dispensaries and a respectable new name - medical marijuana - blow smoke in your eyes. Marijuana has solid credentials for relieving serious problems such as cancer pain, nausea, anorexia and tough-to-ease nerve pain, but it's far from an all-purpose healer. Here are some of its risks: HEART STRAIN: In the hour after you smoke a joint, the danger of a heart attack rises five-fold because pot boosts levels of a compound called apolipoprotein III that keeps fats stuck in your bloodstream. Plus, pot revs up your heart rate. [continues 366 words]
Fleeing Ciudad Juarez's drug violence, Mexicans find safety - and torment - across the river in El Paso They go about their lives here, trying to begin anew. They want to forget about the clean-shaven assassins, the sound of gunfire, the graves and the homes they've left behind in Ciudad Juarez. A 41-year-old mother of three sees a Juarez neighbor shopping in the discount stores of downtown El Paso. She looks for a place to hide. [continues 2047 words]
It has become routine. A person is shot and wounded in Juarez, a Mexican ambulance carries the victim across an international bridge and a U.S. ambulance takes the patient to University Medical Center of El Paso. Since the start of the Juarez drug war three years ago, 200 people wounded in Mexico have been treated at El Paso's county-run hospital at a cost of $4.7 million, according to the latest figures from UMC. Three-quarters were U.S. citizens. [continues 730 words]
A letter writer the other day complained that the only stories he can find in the newspaper are stories related to the drug war in Mexico. It is Mexico's problem, he reasoned, and not something he should be burdened with as a reader of this newspaper, or as he put it, this "rag." Thank you for the compliment. We publish more local El Paso stories than anything else -- and we always will -- but we frankly are proud of the journalism we have done out of Ciudad Juarez and Mexico in 2010. [continues 421 words]
Richard Lee of Houston, who has relocated to Oakland, Calif., should be considered one of the top Texans of the Year. I am sure you are aware that he was the inspired leader of California's Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana, which received 46 percent of the vote last month. Trailblazing? Independence? Staring down adversity? His project had those in spades. Hard to see other projects measure up! Eric E. Sterling, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Silver Spring, Md. [end]
South Texas native Alonzo R. Pena leaves the deputy director job at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a rare perspective. Starting as a highway patrolman along the Texas-Mexico border in 1982, Pena's nearly three decade law enforcement career has included assignments representing the Department of Homeland Security in Mexico City, stopping arms shipments to Iran, dismantling Mexican drug cartel operations and human trafficking rings, and interrupting the illicit trade in endangered birds and animals from Mexico. Below are some excerpts from a recent conversation with Chronicle reporter James Pinkerton. [continues 740 words]
Texas Dealers Must Stop Fueling Mexican Violence Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, registered a macabre milestone last week: its 3,000th homicide in 2010. Reports of the city's deadliest year on record coincided with publication of a Washington Post investigation pointing to a big source of Mexico's deadly violence - Texas gun sales. Some of the Texas gun sellers see no link between their lax scrutiny of suspicious arms purchasers and the escalating level of gun violence south of the border. But when Americans supply weapons used in Mexico's cartel wars and when dollars from American illicit-drug purchases fuel the violence, the blood stains all our hands. [continues 373 words]
People can text information on criminal activity directly to the Drug Enforcement Administration through a new system launched Wednesday. DEA officials introduced their Tip411 anonymous texting tip line that allows anyone with a cell phone to report drug trafficking, money laundering or related suspicious activity directly to a DEA agent. "Through the Tip411 service, we are strengthening our partnership with the community whose members want to rid their neighborhoods of drug traffickers," said Joseph Arabit, special agent in charge of the DEA's El Paso division. [continues 211 words]
Times headline: "Mexico-bound traffic may face customs check." Stop the flow of guns and cash into Mexico? Like airport security, it's another waste of taxpayer dollars! Why? Cartels can purchase arms by the boatload from international arms dealers. Simply put, cartels wouldn't miss what little weaponry they currently purchase from USA flea markets, gun shows and unscrupulous dealers. Additionally, any Mexican with property, a job or a business is now a candidate for extortion and/or kidnapping throughout Mexico. An entire nation is being victimized. [continues 117 words]
The extradition of two high-profile criminal suspects from Mexico has thrown them and federal authorities in a world of secrecy that may remain hidden from the public forever. The West Texas prison where two drug-cartel suspects are being detained remains a secret Monday and federal authorities have sealed their court hearing dates and case files. And because of security concerns, the whereabouts of Jose Rodolfo Escajeda and Jesus Ernesto Chavez Castillo will probably never be released, officials said. Escajeda, known as "El Rikin," was extradited from Mexico into the U.S. by the Drug Enforcement Administration on Saturday. Chavez Castillo, known as "El Camello," was brought from Mexico by the FBI in September. [continues 448 words]
SAN BENITO -- Drug trafficking that has spurred violence across Mexico is spreading corruption into the Rio Grande Valley in the form of bribery that tempts some U.S. officials, a top FBI agent said. "Our main threat in the Valley emanates from drug trafficking cartels," Miles Hutchinson, the FBI's supervisory senior resident agent in Brownsville, said in a speech before the San Benito Rotary Club on Thursday. The Gulf Cartel moves an estimated $20 million to $40 million worth of drugs through the Valley every month "and a lot of that money stays here," said Hutchinson, who has served as an FBI supervisor in Mexico City. [continues 297 words]
Travelers headed into Mexico could soon face border-crossing delays similar to those endured by northbound travelers. Cartel violence persists in Mexico, and U.S. officials are looking for ways to slow the southbound flow of illicit drug profits and weapons that fuel the bloodshed. One way to do that is to require customs inspections of all outbound traffic. Customs and Border Protection officials seized about $41 million in illegal cash between March 2009 and June 2010, but as much as $39 billion is smuggled annually, according to a National Drug Intelligence Center estimate. [continues 480 words]
Our nation's love affair with incarceration continues. In a case before the Supreme Court, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is arguing that judges have no right to tell states to reduce their prison populations. America's prisons, like many of our public schools, reflect our country's most shameful and profound failings. Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court took on one aspect of our nation's love affair with incarceration. In Schwarzenegger vs. Plata, the state of California has challenged a federal court order under the Prison Reform Litigation Act, which requires the state to reduce its prison population to deal with overcrowding. The court found that overpopulation is directly responsible for the failure of the California system to provide inmates with adequate physical and mental health services. California argues that the prison reduction order goes beyond the scope of the statute and infringes on the state's power. [continues 431 words]
Statistics indicate that, in general, illegal activity such as drug smuggling and the entry of undocumented immigrants is declining along the southern border. There could be a number of reasons for this. Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Valeria Morales said more agents on patrol -- "boots on the ground" -- the border fence and border-monitoring technology have combined to cut the number of undocumented immigrants intercepted. "All of these factors have made it more difficult for immigrants to cross the border illegally," she said. [continues 211 words]
FABENS -- Donna Sifford is leading the fight against terrorism and the drug trade at a quiet site surrounded by fields of cotton and pecans. She is the new director of the Fabens Port of Entry and Fort Hancock International Crossing for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. Sifford took over the position on Oct. 24, but a formal change of command ceremony took place Nov. 23 at Fabens High School. [continues 321 words]
Our pronounced headway into helping Mexico win its war against drug cartels may have been "spin." Little or no headway has been made. Now we learn, through U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks, that our State Department has been frustrated with Mexico amid the government's four-year attempt to beat down drug-cartel power. The classified and secret memos indicate the U.S. believes the $1.4 billion we earmarked for Mexico in the Merida Initiative was a bad idea; it has done little to help President Felipe Calderon's efforts. [continues 180 words]
U.S. and Mexico editors who supervise news coverage of Mexico's drug violence agreed that reporters face dangers similar to those encountered in war zones. Some of the hazards include being shot at, traveling through regions controlled by violent drug-traffickers, encountering "carjacking stations" posing as military checkpoints, and being used by informants with hidden agendas. Bulletproof vests are part of the equipment the Associated Press provides to its reporters in Mexico, said Wendy Benjamin, the AP's Texas news editor and leader of the news organization's international drug war beat team. [continues 415 words]
A prominent Mexican publisher painted a bleak picture of conditions in Mexico, while stressing that he plans to continue covering all aspects of the country with long-term improvement in mind. Alejandro Junco de la Vega, chairman and CEO of Grupo Reforma, which publishes several major dailies in Mexico, said Mexico "is a country clouded in a grimness of its own ... Our world seems to be the stuff of nightmares." Junco said one of his reporters in the state of Nuevo Leon recently was kidnapped but was found alive after his news organization reported the abduction to police, the military and other officials. [continues 547 words]
Apprehensions decline 18%; drug seizures dip The number of apprehensions by Border Patrol agents in the El Paso Sector declined during the past year, but undocumented immigrants are facing greater dangers before reaching the border. For the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, agents apprehended 12,251 undocumented immigrants, 18 percent less than in the previous year. Valeria Morales, a supervisory Border Patrol agent, attributed the decline to having more agents on patrol, technology to monitor border incursions and the border fence. [continues 738 words]
When John Dahill put his El Paso house on the market two years ago, an eager young couple from Juarez looked at it the first day it was listed. They liked the house for the same reasons the Dahill family did: It had a large, grassy lot with river irrigation and mature trees; a church was at the end of the street, and the nearby school had a sterling reputation. It was a great place to raise two young boys. But the Juarez couple had another reason to be looking. [continues 615 words]
Times reporter Adriana Gomez Licon spent Thanksgiving week traveling to Veracruz, Mexico. She was reporting on the thousands of residents there who were living in Ciudad Juarez but now, through a government-sponsored relocation program, had been sent back to Veracruz due to the violence on the border. The story she produced in the four days she spent traveling through Mexico, and the work of photographer Jesus Alcazar, show up on this morning's front page. Later today, at the University of Texas at El Paso, top editors from news organizations across the United States and Mexico will gather to talk about how to ensure the safety of journalists, like Gomez Licon, who report out of Mexico. [continues 435 words]
Investigative reporter Terrence E. Poppa once ran around El Paso with a loaded .38-caliber pistol in a cigar box. Mexican drug traffickers had threatened to kill him. "I was pretty shaken up," Poppa said in a recent telephone interview. Poppa, a former El Paso Herald-Post reporter, wrote "Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin," the classic biography of Pablo Acosta, a cocaine and marijuana smuggler in the 1980s based in Ojinaga, Mexico, a border town in northeastern Chihuahua, four hours downstream from El Paso. Poppa interviewed Acosta, plus various law enforcement officials along the Rio Grande, and tapped into official documents and other sources. [continues 589 words]
Public confidence in Mexican President Felipe Calderon's war on drugs is plummeting quickly in that violence-torn country. As recently as March of this year, 47 percent of those questioned said the drug war that was launched in 2006 was a success. But a poll released last week by the Mitofsky polling agency showed a reversal in that attitude, with 49 percent saying the drug war is a failure, and only 33 percent calling it a success. It just underscores an obvious point. [continues 288 words]
WikiLeaks, a whistleblowing online site, obtained 2,836 U.S. documents related to Mexico and 8,324 documents related to narcotics -- both areas of great interest to the border region. However, the public will have to wait to learn what most of those cables contain because WikiLeaks does not plan to release all 251,287 of its leaked documents at once. The site is coordinating the release of documents, mostly U.S. diplomatic cables, with selected major U.S. and international media partners. As of Monday, only 272 cables had been released. [continues 546 words]
Texas Gov. Rick Perry would support sending in U.S. troops to quell violence in Mexico if Mexico asked for a U.S. military presence. Since there won't be such an invitation, Perry might do well to turn his attention to matters that can and should be addressed, such as the deficit facing his state. Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., said, "Mexico has reiterated on repeated occasions that the presence of U.S. troops on Mexican soil is not and will not be an option. [continues 326 words]
Re: "Perry backs drug war troops - Military should be an option if Mexico approves, he says, because stronger tactics needed," Friday news story. Gov. Rick Perry wants to send American kids to Mexico to risk being seriously injured or killed fighting drug gangs. The reason for this fight is largely to keep these same kids from smoking a plant that has never killed anyone in 5,000 years of recorded use. In contrast, Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2001 and put the money saved on law enforcement into education and medical treatment. [continues 55 words]
Without leaving American skies, remotely piloted surveillance drones, outfitted with cameras that provide real-time video, fly along the Texas border searching U.S. territory for drug smugglers, undocumented immigrants and potential terrorists. They also are fully capable of peering into Mexico, where narco terrorists eviscerate the rule of law. But does the U.S. government ever risk the international fallout of using the aircraft's high-tech surveillance abilities to take a peek south of the border "" or share what they see with Mexican counterparts fighting for their lives? [continues 664 words]
Harmish McKenzie pokes a good hole in the myths of the drug war in his excellent Nov. 20 column, "How to wage a successful war on drugs." When the "land of the free" becomes "the land of the most incarcerated," we have erred grievously. When the results of the drug war are examined, we find a situation more racist in its present state than in its founding: We now incarcerate young black males at a rate seven times greater per capita than did South Africa under their universally condemned policy of apartheid. Prohibition will always fail. We must re-legalize all drugs in order to remove the cartels' grasp on the golden-egg-laying goose of prohibition. - - Allan Erickson, Eugene, Ore. [end]
As a retired police detective, I heartily agree with Harmish McKenzie that ending our drug prohibition is the path to reducing crime, death, disease and, probably, drug use and abuse. I can certainly attest to the fact that after 40 years of efforts and the wasting of a trillion dollars, drugs are cheaper, stronger and readily available to Texas youths. - - Howard Wooldridge, Dallas [end]
Texans, take note now: Our approach to border security will have to change after the Mexican presidential elections in 2012. Texas politicians hopped on the border security bandwagon during the recently concluded campaigns. Enforcement approaches are necessary but might be insufficient to stem either the flow of illegal immigrants or drugs. Texas policymakers should be prepared to adopt a variety of approaches to resolve its border problems. Gov. Rick Perry hints that the escalating narco violence might warrant a stronger U.S. military option - perhaps even sending troops into Mexico. [continues 673 words]
During the past 15 years, I've visited El Paso frequently to gain a first-hand understanding of our nation's border infrastructure and security challenges. With Mexico serving as the United States' third-largest trade partner, one of the greatest issues facing Texas's border and transportation systems is the ongoing challenge to enhance border security while providing safe and efficient movement of people and goods across the border. While the violence in Mexican border communities and states has surged in recent years as the Mexican government mounts a full-court press against powerful drug cartels, El Paso and other U.S. towns along the border have been spared from significant spillover violence. [continues 455 words]
Gov. Rick Perry said deploying U.S. soldiers to Mexico should be one option to curb drug cartel violence in border cities, but only if Mexico invites the Americans. "I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement that we have, including the military," Perry said during an interview Thursday with MSNBC. "I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia." Perry, the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association, has been touring the country promoting his anti-Washington book, "Fed Up!" [continues 675 words]
On a quiet November morning, Trooper Johnny Hernandez patrolled the dusty back roads along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County. In the back seat, his M4 rifle sat within arm's reach. In the trunk, he stored a bulletproof vest. Trooper Hernandez, a 15-year veteran of the Department of Public Safety, has been in so many high-speed pursuits that he cannot remember the first one, and he doesn't know which has been the scariest. There is so much going on, he said, "your thoughts are going 100 miles per hour." [continues 1155 words]
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw recently asked state lawmakers to install license-plate-reader cameras on Texas roadways and to allow stationery roadblocks to stop motorists so DPS could see their drivers' licenses and proof of insurance. McCraw wrapped these intrusive proposals in a generalized assertion of growing drug trafficking and violence during a state Senate Transportation and Homeland Security Committee meeting. He wants license-plate readers mounted on highway signs and in DPS cars, claiming they would help track stolen vehicles, which gangs and drug cartels often use to smuggle drugs. He told senators that drug cartels take billions of dollars worth of U.S. drug sales back to Mexico, and DPS must expand its focus beyond the border to "crime corridors." [continues 444 words]
As he demonstrated when he visited Austin recently, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico has a deft understanding of Mexico's complicated challenges but he continues to overlook what would be a killer blow to the wrenching violence in the country. In a recent speech at the LBJ Library, Carlos Pascual identified drug cartels as Mexico's chief source of insecurity. While presenting suggestions for limiting their power -- including a reduction in U.S. demand for illegal drugs -- he failed to mention the best way of combating the cartels: take their business away. [continues 594 words]
AUSTIN - Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday he would support sending U.S. troops into Mexico to fight the drug war. The Republican has long urged beefed-up security on the American side of the violence-plagued border, but he said stronger tactics are needed to defeat the drug cartels. "You have a situation on the border where American citizens are being killed, and you didn't see that back when George Bush was the governor," Perry said in an interview with MSNBC. [continues 325 words]
In a Small East Texas Town, One Man Fights for His Right to Medical Marijuana-and Suffers the Consequences. Off of a dead-end street in the lush woodlands of East Texas, Chris Cain rides his motorized wheelchair to his trailer's front door and pushes it open with his wrist. With his barking Chihuahua trailing behind, he spins and leads me toward his office space, excusing the place's appearance. "It's been through two hurricanes and two police raids. It's had it," he drawls. In his living room, worn couches face a big-screen television. With a goatee and shoulder-length hair, Cain, 41, calls himself a "rocker." [continues 3059 words]
Ponderous cargo inspections on the U.S.-Mexico border are killing commerce and will hurt America's overall economy, a national security expert said Tuesday in El Paso. Retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, a former U.S. drug czar and member of President Clinton's Cabinet, said the United States should break bottlenecks at the border by limiting inspections. Most of these checks of cargo can be carried out in the interior of the United States and Mexico, he said. [continues 381 words]
One day the latest two victims are Mexican and the next day they are American citizens. Borunda/Ybarra, please get your story straight before printing it. My feeling goes to the parents of these two young men. I lost a child myself. Now, please do not blame UTEP for what is happening to these students. They chose to live in Juarez, and no one knows what is going on once they are in there. Just remember one thing. I believe that we are going to see a lot more killing right here in El Paso. [continues 79 words]
FORT WORTH - About 15 people slipped behind a partitioned-off section of a downtown Fort Worth restaurant Sunday morning to hear Dallas police Officer Nick Novello and others support the legalization of marijuana. "The war on drugs today has left carnage," Novello said. The seminar's host, Medcan University, a for-profit business, is trying to build a coalition of residents in favor of legalizing marijuana use for the critically or chronically ill in Texas. The seminars, held periodically throughout Texas, cover the politics, laws and science behind the medical marijuana movement. [continues 477 words]
There's an apparent disconnect -- from hierarchy down to field agents - -- in our country's endeavor to keep U.S. firearms out of the ongoing drug wars in Mexico. A Department of Justice review indicates at least three problems we must face: Agents in the field have their focus on small gun dealers rather than on large-scale smuggling rings. However, funding has been cut in some gun-tracing operations. And information between agencies is not being adequately shared. That includes not sharing with counterparts in Mexico. [continues 263 words]
Mexican and U.S. newspaper editors will travel to El Paso in December for a summit about violence against journalists on the border. The American Society of News Editors will host the two-day conference Dec. 5-6 at the University of Texas at El Paso. The Inter American Press Association is also organizing the summit, which will offer presentations in both English and Spanish. The El Paso Times and The Associated Press are sponsors of the conference. The program was developed by executives such as Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News; Anders Gyllenhaal, vice president of the McClatchy Company; and Alfredo Carbajal, managing editor of the Spanish-language daily Al Dia in Dallas. [continues 188 words]
Four homicides have occurred so far this year in El Paso, and that's an amazing statistic. It's all the more amazing because mere feet away across the border, Juarez has experienced more than 2,500 deaths so far this year because of the endemic violence there. El Paso's homicide number is a tribute to an effective police force and a five-letter word that describes the relationship between police and the community -- trust. Mayor John Cook said, "The big difference between El Paso and Juarez - -- and I have to present this argument all the time -- in El Paso, we trust the police." [continues 269 words]
Inside Texas
