Mexicans should heed the words of Benjamin Franklin. They're so rattled by drug violence that has caused the deaths of nearly 13,000 people that they're willing to trade freedom for security. So, Franklin would say, they don't deserve either. And, frankly, it looks like they're no more deserving of democracy. The Mexican people have entered into a Faustian bargain with the disgraced Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which scored big victories in this month's midterm elections. The PRI promised "peace" and "security." Those are code words for stopping the drug war started by President Felipe Calderon, who carries the banner of the rival National Action Party (PAN). [continues 487 words]
The popular TV series Weeds is about a widowed suburban mother who deals pot to preserve her family's cushy California dream. Not a few Californians would like to see the theme writ large for their state. California has legalized medical marijuana, its cannabis crop is valued at $17 billion a year, and people there smoke pot openly. But the state can't collect a penny of revenues from the enormous enterprise. As California faced budget Armageddon, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for "a debate" on the potential of tapping marijuana as a source of tax revenues. That's all he can do, because federal law still criminalizes marijuana use. [continues 520 words]
Man Led A Double Life EL PASO, Texas - The eight bullets that leveled Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana outside his home just doors from the city's police chief were fired at close range and left little doubt about their message. Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel lieutenant shot on his quiet El Paso cul-de-sac this spring, was working for U.S. officials as a confidential informant, sources told The Associated Press, and experts suspect his slaying may be the first time assassins from one of Mexico's violent drug gangs have killed a ranking cartel member on American soil. [continues 408 words]
EL PASO -- A former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was fired earlier this year is trying to get his job back. Raul M. Bencomo, 47, a former ICE senior special agent, said he was wrongfully fired in part because of his role in a Juarez case that involved a dozen drug cartel murders. "I was singled out because I was the lowest-level member involved in the case," Bencomo said. "I had a clean record. I even took a polygraph for the (Merit Systems Protection) board hearing and passed it. I believe I was made the scapegoat." [continues 451 words]
In the past two weeks before this column went to press, at least 40 people were either killed or their bodies were found in Mexico. The dead include 12 federal agents, one mayor, one police officer and two anti-crime activists, one of whom was a U.S. citizen. In that same time span at least 112 police officers were detained for alleged corruption. Just to our south, some 11,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence over the past two and a half years. Decapitated bodies, mutilated victims, dead police officers and a country gripped with fear are all the result of our country's obscene drug policy. [continues 549 words]
Far from being beaten into submission by government "crackdowns," Mexican drug cartels are becoming even more brassy. In El Paso, we tend to be focused on what's happening in Juarez, because it's close and what's happening there could have an effect on El Paso, particularly if the violence spills over the border. But there are cartel-related violence problems elsewhere in Mexico. Last week, in the west-central state of Michoacan, a man claiming to be Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, called CB Television. Gomez -- if it was Gomez -- heads up the La Familia cartel and on the air he offered a pact with the government. [continues 265 words]
As a police officer in the 1970s, I saw the drug war start. When I retired in 1994, drugs were cheaper, stronger and more available to teens. Everyone hoped that America would soon find the magic bullet, a new strategy to make us drug-free. You wrote that you "hope" that new inter-agency cooperation will result in stopping the drug and gun traffic. Have you not been reading your own headlines the past 40 years? The "Good Guys" are, at best, a mosquito on an elephant. You want to scare the Mexican narcotraficantes? Let your headline tomorrow be: Legalize/regulate drugs. Howard Wooldridge Dallas [end]
EL PASO -- As the vicious drug war in Mexico rages on, the American city most affected by the violence is El Paso, say several organizers of a conference that will look at the U.S. war on drugs. The U.S. War on Drugs 1969-2009 conference will be Sept. 20-22 at the University of Texas at El Paso. The conference, which is free, will bring together community leaders, UTEP professors and public-policy makers. They will look at whether the United States is winning the war on drugs and to see whether the U.S. should be doing more to help Mexico win its war against the drug cartels. [continues 345 words]
Official claims that things will get better in drug-war-ravaged Juarez are wearing thin. One-thousand murders this year -- on a course for 2,000! Never in the history of the U.S. has there been such a lawless city. In the so-called untamed Old West, you knew you'd be safe as long as you didn't mosey into the proverbial Long Branch on a Friday night. In Juarez, cartel gangsters do their shooting morning, afternoon and night -- restaurants, shopping malls and even drug-rehab centers. [continues 289 words]
Dallas police officer Carlton Marshall spent almost nine months in the hospital after a bullet pierced his neck and damaged his spinal cord during a drug raid. He suffered a severe stroke and contracted meningitis. He's in a wheelchair now, and he needs cochlear implants to hear. Nothing can ever change that. But having a new, wheelchair-accessible home will make life easier, the officer and his wife said Friday after the reality TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came knocking. [continues 722 words]
EL PASO -- Tourists may be less inclined to visit Mexico. Media outlets, though, are eager to send reporters and commentators to the border. A Philadelphia-based radio crew will be the latest when it arrives in El Paso next week. Talk-show host Dom Giordano of CBS Radio's WPHT will travel to El Paso for two shows about drug smuggling and immigration issues. In March, CNN's Anderson Cooper came to town, reporting on drug violence in a piece called "The War Next Door." In January the New York Times described the sides of the border as "one violent, one peaceful." [continues 557 words]
A couple of formerly fractious federal agencies are going to make nice - -- officially. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) have effectively signed a peace treaty -- a memorandum of understanding -- that should allow the two agencies to work more closely together and not get involved in turf wars. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office took the agencies to task for a lack of cooperation in the effort to stop weapons from going into Mexico. [continues 305 words]
It is hardly responsible of the Times to mention the failure of Mexican army troops to quell the violence in Juarez without mentioning the cause of this anarchy: the American penchant for using illegal drugs. If the growing social destruction here were to miraculously reverse, Mexico and many other politically weak nations would not be under the pressure to accommodate the ravenous appetite for drugs of their northern neighbor. But who hears of calls to institute severe penalties for the users of illegal drugs or, just as well, to tax and regulate them like alcohol? [continues 81 words]
It is clear that drug cartels continue to rule wherever they choose in Mexico. And for some two years now they have chosen our sister city of Juarez. Stopping that is a must. Trade with Mexico, via Juarez, is vital to El Paso's economy. And we are close-knit with family and friends in Juarez; so many of us fear a loved one will be caught in the crossfire of bullets. Some have -- and died. But stopping drug-lord control is also a conundrum. [continues 283 words]
It's obvious to this 18-year police veteran who fought in the trenches of the drug war that Trib columnist and rock musician Ted Nugent never did ["We could be winning the war on drugs," June 12]. Moreover, he must not know the good guys have arrested 39 million citizens on drug charges. Despite that and the largest prison system in the world, drugs are cheaper, stronger and easier for our kids to buy. Can Mr. Nugent spell prohibition? And is he credible when he says this nation has not been serious enough or diligent enough? [continues 127 words]
Reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office generally aren't too cheerful, because they point out shortcomings in the government. A recent GAO report is no exception, although perhaps it affects El Paso more than some others. The report brings up evidence of more lack of coordination in the federal government. It came at the same time as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice came to a cautious understanding about who can investigate drug cases. This was necessitated by turf wars between the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. [continues 238 words]
Ted Nugent rates himself the perfect candidate for drug czar because "hippies, dopeheads, corrupt politicos and various forms of human debris hate me." ["We could be winning the war on drugs," June 14.] The reason Nugent won't be made drug czar is because his detractors also include regular folks who don't suffer fools gladly. Mett Ausley Jr. Lake Waccamaw, N.C. [end]
Trib Sunday columnist Ted Nugent makes the common mistake of assuming that punitive drug laws actually reduce use. The drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. The University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than in any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that still criminalizes those citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis. The short-term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to the long-term effects of criminal records. [continues 111 words]
Ted Nugent needs a brain scan. America's insane drug crusade has utterly failed for more than 90 years ["We could be winning the war on drugs," June 14]. Ignoring the fact drug prohibition is responsible for the United States being the world leader in incarceration, Nugent wants to expand this engine of destruction until we can no longer afford police and prison expenses. We already spend a $100 billion a year on a failed drug war without accomplishing a single worthwhile goal. [continues 147 words]
One of the most dangerous places on earth is our own 2,000-mile border with Mexico. Our southern border is a drug-war zone, and we're losing. Know it. Before she became secretary of Homeland Security, former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency along the Arizona/Mexico border because of drug trafficking, shootouts and an increasing illegal immigration invasion. The Justice Department stated that Mexican drug cartels are the "largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country" with gang members loose in nearly 200 U.S. cities." [continues 443 words]
Inside Texas
