PUERTO CACHICAMO, Colombia-The pandemic closed the only school in this remote hamlet, long a stronghold for Marxist guerrillas. With no internet connection for virtual classes, 16-year-old Danna Montilla told her family she was leaving to find work, but instead authorities say she joined a narco-trafficking rebel group. Last month, Colombia's military bombarded the group's jungle camp, killing Danna, another underage girl and 10 others. Residents here said her death underscored a grim reality: Armed gangs have found fresh recruits from an ample pool of youths who, like Danna, have been out of school because of the coronavirus pandemic. [continues 1200 words]
Baba Ram Dass, who epitomized the 1960s of legend by popularizing psychedelic drugs with Timothy Leary, a fellow Harvard academic, before finding spiritual inspiration in India, died on Sunday at his home on Maui, Hawaii. He was 88. His death was announced on his official Instagram account. Having returned from India as a bushy-bearded, barefoot, white-robed guru, Ram Dass, who was born Richard Alpert, became a peripatetic lecturer on New Age possibilities and a popular author of more than a dozen inspirational books. [continues 1499 words]
CARPINTERIA, Calif.-On a recent sunny morning in this beach town near Santa Barbara, realtor Gary Goldberg ran into Das Williams on the street and raised a concern: A persistent skunky aroma had required him to knock $18,000 off the sale price of a condo. "It smelled like marijuana," said Mr. Goldberg, adding that buyers threatened to pull out because of the odor. Mr. Williams, a Santa Barbara County supervisor who helped craft regulations for large cannabis farms here, assured the realtor that he was doing everything he could to tamp down the smell. The argument over odor is part of an acrimonious debate over how to regulate the region's growing marijuana industry, pitting farmers against some residents. [continues 595 words]
YOKY RIDGE, Colombia-On a hilltop base shielded with sandbags, police sharpshooter Jose Diaz gazed into thick jungle as a fellow commando checked tripwires protecting the stronghold. A radioman listened in on the fighters they were battling. "They're always looking for the right moment to attack our base," said Hector Ocampo, commander of the Colombian detachment in a cocaine-trafficking corridor near Panama. Their adversaries weren't the FARC rebels that security forces had long fought, but a cocaine-trafficking gang known as the Gulf Clan. In the year since the powerful Marxist guerrillas disarmed, drug gangs like this one have battled each other and the state for control of the booming cocaine trade in remote regions where the FARC once ruled. [continues 872 words]
The soldiers took them in the night. First they came for Nitza Alvarado Espinoza and Jose Alvarado Herrera. The 31-year-old cousins were sitting in a van outside a family member's house when troops forced them into a military truck. Minutes later, soldiers arrived at the house of another Alvarado cousin, 18-year-old Rocio Alvarado Reyes. She was carried away screaming at gunpoint in front of her young brothers and baby daughter. It was Dec. 29, 2009 -- the last time the cousins were seen alive. [continues 1279 words]
Marijuana is moving in. Big time. So here's something to ponder: Will a flood of prolific, easy-to-grow pot mean fewer exciting plants for we gardeners to grow? Could be. Right now, we're accustomed to taking our pick from a wonderful selection of inexpensive offerings, mostly because they're raised in Ontario greenhouses and no longer imported from other countries. Think of fabulous Phalaenopsis orchids (once rare and pricey, yet now so common and inexpensive, we're actually getting tired of them); perfect Christmas poinsettias; a cavalcade of mums in fall; potted spring bulbs all winter; pansies, petunias, plus many other colourful annuals; In spring, heavenly hellebores; exotic offerings such as anthuriums and alstroemerias. [continues 600 words]
THEIR FUTURE SEEMS HAZIER AFTER HIGH-PROFILE CONVICTIONS, BUT DON'T BET ON THE EMERYS FADING AWAY For Canada's first couple of pot, Jodie and Marc Emery, it hasn't been happy trails of late. Their future in the marijuana legalization movement would seem hazier now after pleading guilty last month to trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime that came with $195,000 in fines for each of them. The charges stem from high profile raids led by Toronto police last March at a number of Cannabis Culture dispensaries in Ontario and Vancouver, under the code name Project Gator. Three other business associates charged in the raids were fined between $3,000 and $10,000 each. Charges against 17 employees were dropped. [continues 1023 words]
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - The rules are a bit of a buzzkill. Drug users must officially register with the government. Machines will scan buyers' fingerprints at every purchase, and there are strict quotas to prevent overindulgence. But when Uruguay's marijuana legalization law takes full effect on Wednesday, getting high will take a simple visit to the pharmacy. As American states legalize marijuana and governments in the hemisphere rethink the fight against drugs, Uruguay is taking a significant step further: It is the first nation in the world to fully legalize the production and sale of marijuana for recreational use. [continues 1284 words]
President Richard Nixon did not see the slaughter of innocents when he launched the "War on Drugs." Of course, his staff thought he did it to punish hippies, anti-war protesters and blacks. Politicians invent wars as diversionary tactics when they choose not to take care of their citizens. They will even tell lies to do so. See Vietnam's "Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" and Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." Now after 40 years and hundreds of thousands of deaths in Latin America, do U.S. citizens think they are free of this government crime? When politicians make activities illegal, they may create more problems than they solve. The dead who lived through alcohol prohibition could tell you. [continues 86 words]
WASHINGTON - The Drug Enforcement Administration misled the public, Congress and the Justice Department about a 2012 operation in which commando-style squads of American agents sent to Honduras to disrupt drug smuggling became involved in three deadly shootings, two inspectors general said Wednesday. The D.E.A. said in response that it had shut down the program, the Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team. Under the program, known as FAST, squads received military-style training to combat Taliban-linked opium traffickers in the Afghanistan war zone. It was expanded to Latin America in 2008 to help fight transnational drug smugglers, leading to the series of violent encounters in Honduras in 2012. [continues 1060 words]
[photo] Toby Talbot / APWith prescriptions dropping in the United States, companies have started to promote OxyContin and other opioid drugs in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. A former adjunct associate professor at Temple University has helped a leading maker of opioids promote potentially addictive pain medications in new foreign markets that have not yet seen an overdose crisis like that in the United States, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. The physician, Joseph V. Pergolizzi Jr., is based in Naples, Fla., and has not been affiliated with Temple since June 2014, the school said. [continues 331 words]
At 4:50 a.m., the stragglers dashed through Manila's darkened streets, hoping for a spot in the pews. But they were too late. Hundreds of worshipers had already packed the Sto. Nino de Paz Community Greenbelt Chapel, a low, white dome in a sprawling outdoor shopping complex, for Friday's Simbang Gabi Christmas Mass. So at least 100 more crowded on the pavement outside, singing "Glory to God" beneath a crisp crescent moon. Christmas in the Philippines is a long, spirited and, to many, exhausting affair. About 90% of Filipinos are Christian, and they take the holiday seriously. Stores start playing Christmas music as early as September and don't stop until early January. Christmas trees spring up in malls and public parks. Carolers go door to door singing "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night" and "Ang Pasko Ay Sumapit", a lively Tagalog tune celebrating Jesus' birth. The holiday delicacy is lechon - -- whole suckling pig, a Filipino delicacy. [continues 868 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - To the red-and-blue map of American politics, it may be time to add green. The movement to legalize marijuana, the country's most popular illicit drug, will take a giant leap on Election Day if California and four other states vote to allow recreational cannabis, as polls suggest they may. The map of where pot is legal could include the entire West Coast and a block of states reaching from the Pacific to Colorado, raising a stronger challenge to the federal government's ban on the drug. [continues 1313 words]
Judging from foreign media reports, the Duterte administration is attracting a lot of international attention, much of it for the wrong reasons. President Duterte will probably tell the foreign media to go to hell, but it's the Philippines that's taking a hit from all the bad press. So far, most foreign governments have refrained from publicly commenting on the drug-related mass killings, now about to shoot past 2,000. But I've been told that diplomats representing key global players are now touching base with certain administration officials, mainly to send word that the negative reports have started taking their toll on tourism and investments from their countries. [continues 997 words]
If Californians legalize marijuana under Proposition 64 in November, legal cannabis sales in the state likely will climb by $1.6 billion within the first year of implementation, according to a report released Tuesday. That would put the state's medical and recreational market on track to hit $6.5 billion in revenue by 2020 up from $2.8 billion in 2015, industry research firms Arcview Group and New Frontier state in the report. And the researchers argue it would serve as a "watershed moment" for the industry in and outside the United States. [continues 868 words]
Although President Duterte's police methods have drawn concern in various parts of the world, even those who deplore his methods at home are praying that his 'war on drugs' would somehow succeed. However, international experts who have done extensive studies on the global drug wars are deeply pessimistic; they describe the "war on drugs" as a failed strategy, and are calling for a major policy "rethink." These experts have not condemned the extrajudicial killings, the shoot-on-sight and "surrender or else" orders in the present drug war, as some UN officials, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and certain international publications have. Their studies precede DU30's war by at least a couple of years. [continues 1824 words]
The World Health Organization defines addiction or dependency as a complex health condition that often requires long-term treatment and care. Sadly, that is the case with Indonesia's policy on drug crimes. To address the global problem of drugs, world leaders and activists gathered on April 19-21 at the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs in New York. Most countries represented moved from criminalization to decriminalization for personal possession or use. Some opted to regulate drug markets for certain types of drugs, mostly marijuana. Almost all delegates from the EU, Latin America, UN organizations and the special rapporteurs against torture and the right to health agreed to abolish the death penalty for drug offenders. [continues 608 words]
MEXICO CITY - In the history of modern war, fighters are much more likely to injure their enemies than kill them. But in Mexico, the opposite is true. According to the government's own figures, Mexico's armed forces are exceptionally efficient killers - stacking up bodies at extraordinary rates. Mexican authorities say the nation's soldiers are simply better trained and more skilled than the cartels they battle. But experts who study the issue say Mexico's kill rate is practically unheard-of, arguing that the numbers reveal something more ominous. [continues 744 words]
To the Editor: Re "Legal Pot, Free Trade" (Op-Ed, May 21): Ioan Grillo's proposal for a Nafta-style market in legal marijuana mistakes a symptom of the organized-crime epidemic in Mexico - the illegal drug trade - for an underlying cause. Rather, the major driver appears to be the corruption infecting all levels of the Mexican state and economy. Otherwise, it is hard to explain the Mexican government's chronic inability to keep organized crime from dominating so many legal businesses, like casino gambling, cigarettes and even something as banal as mining. [continues 134 words]
Mexico City - WHEN the Mexican Army actually allows journalists to watch its soldiers in action, it's often to see them burning marijuana crops. It's strictly for show, but it's fun. You get to fly in a military helicopter over the Sierra Madre, then touch down to see troops posing with their rifles as they walk into green marijuana fields. And the highlight: You watch hundreds of pounds of grass go up in flames. Mexican soldiers have been conducting this ritual for decades, and the photos have come to define the country's war on drugs. But amid a wave of drug policy reform, those photos may soon disappear from news pages and be relegated to historical archives. [continues 777 words]
