About 4,000 of drug suspects were killed by vigilantes or executions on the spot. [photo] Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte greets spectators during a ceremony to honor the death anniversary of national hero Jose Rizal, at the Jose Rizal Park in Manila, Philippines, on Dec. 30, 2016.(Photo: Mark R. Cristino, EPA) MANILA -- Sammer Torculas had just returned home from playing with his children outside in Pandacan, a lower-middle class district in the Philippine capital, when he heard a knock at the door. [continues 1004 words]
Measure Clears Final Hurdle; State to Regulate Growing, Selling of Drug Mexico city - Lawmakers in the small South American nation of Uruguay voted Tuesday to legalize and regulate marijuana, going further than any other country in the world toward decriminalizing the plant and lifting the stigma from its use. With the move, Uruguay leaps to the forefront of nations that have sought alternatives to criminal anti-narcotics enforcement, frustrated with the human and economic costs of fighting a drug war that rarely shows signs of progress. [continues 444 words]
The International War on Drugs Isn't Stopping Drug Use or Trafficking - -- but It Is Ruining Lives. Drug Policy Expert Sanho Tree Discusses What We Can Do Differently. Earlier this month tens of thousands of people marched in Mexico City to protest a war that has left more than 35,000 people dead in the last four and a half years. When elected president of Mexico in 2006, Felipe Calderon vowed to crack down on drug trafficking in his country. With the support of U.S. policies like the Merida Initiative [pdf], he executed a military crackdown that has only increased drug-related violence. [continues 2897 words]
MEXICO CITY -- Rhino trucks, narco tanks, Mad Mex-inismos? No one can agree on what to call the armored monster vehicles that Mexican criminal groups have been welding together in recent months, but this much is clear -- they are building more of them. Over the weekend, Mexican authorities found two more of these makeshift road warriors in Tamaulipas, the same northern border state where the first armored vehicle appeared in April after a battle between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas gang. In the latest case, the Mexican Defense Department said, the armored trucks were found in a metalworking shop in Camargo, which also held at least two other partly modified monsters and 23 additional trucks. [continues 220 words]
Regarding Sanho Tree's March 28 op-ed, drugs did not spawn Mexico's organized crime networks. Just like alcohol, prohibition gave rise to Al Capone, drug prohibition created the violent drug-trafficking organizations behind all the killings in Mexico. With alcohol prohibition repealed in the United States, liquor bootleggers no longer gunned each other down in drive-by shootings. It's worth noting that Mexico's upsurge in violence only began after an anti-drug crackdown created a power vacuum among competing cartels. [continues 96 words]
When Washington ramped up its anti-drug efforts through Plan Colombia, more than 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States came through Colombia. A decade later, we get about 97 percent of our cocaine via Colombia. Amazingly, officials are hailing the program's "success" and want Mexico to learn from Colombia's experience. While Plan Colombia may have helped make that country safer from guerrilla attacks, it has failed as a drug-control strategy. Adapting that program in Mexico won't staunch that country's bloodbath and isn't likely to produce better results. [continues 608 words]
What's a drug used to deworm livestock-a drug that can obliterate your immune system-doing in your cocaine? Nobody knows. A granulocytosis can kill you, but its symptoms are frustratingly broad. Some people's throats close up. Some people get diarrhea. Some people get skin infections, sores in their mouth or anus, or just a fever. Some people have it, don't know it, and get better without seeing a doctor. Some people don't see a doctor until it's too late. [continues 3665 words]
Big Financial Incentives for Government May Tip Scales Joseph Surgenor of Oxnard is 32, a part-time concert promoter and a full-time medical marijuana entrepreneur. His nonprofit Ventura County Patients Cooperative grows enough cannabis to serve the medical needs of its 40-plus members and in many cases delivers the pot to their doors and bills them monthly. "We're doing it as best we can and as legal as we can," he said. Surgenor has a vision for his enterprise. He'd like to open a sort of marijuana clinic and health spa in downtown Ventura, a place where members of the cooperative could come to purchase marijuana, take yoga classes and get instruction on healthy living and nutrition. [continues 2504 words]
************ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lycc6aMdiYc ************ http://drugsense.org/url/h9l1UVy9 ************ Diane Rehm spoke with DPA's Ethan Nadelmann and Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske on her nationally syndicated NPR show yesterday about the recent Justice Department announcement regarding medical marijuana. A recording of the segment is available online. http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/10/21.php#28771 [continues 634 words]
President Barack Obama's drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, should be commended for initiating some basic reforms in U.S. drug policy. One of his first sensible acts was to drop the phrase "War on Drugs." "Regardless of how you try to explain to people that it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them," he explained. "We're not at war with people in this country." As the former chief of the Seattle Police, he lived under some of the most progressive drug laws in the nation. When it comes to addressing the basic premise of our failed drug policies, however, he's trapped in a linguistic box. [continues 374 words]
Carlisle Racecourse, near the border between England and Scotland, is not usually regarded as one of the world's great centres of progressive thought. It is not even one of the great centres of British horse racing. But in a hospitality room there in June, the director of public health for Cumbria, Professor John Ashton, startled a room full of local delegates at a conference entitled "Tackling Drugs, Changing Lives" by calling for total legalisation. "The war on drugs has failed," he said. "We need to think differently." He said that heroin, and everything else now banned, should be available over the counter in chemists' shops. [continues 2967 words]
************ Century of Lies - 05/31/09 - Sanho Tree Sanho Tree of Institute for Policy Studies & "Poppygate" report on UN Drug Czar's call to let Afghans glut the opium market + Mark Mauer of the Sentencing Project re drug use rate of criminals & first edition of the "Stupid NEWS" http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/2436 Cultural Baggage Radio Show - 06/03/09 - Marc Emery US Prison Sentences await Marc Emery - Canada's Prince of Pot, Reverend Eddy Lepp and cannabis dispensary owner Charles Lynch, comments from Ed Rosenthal the guru of ganja. [continues 323 words]
************ AREN'T DRUG WARRIORS FUNNY? By Pete Guither at DrugWarrant.com "Smoking marijuana causes people to wear the same trench coat for 20 years. That's why it's illegal!" http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/2009/02/24.html#a3314 ************ WILL LEGALIZING POT SAVE CALIFORNIA FROM ITS CASH CRUNCH? By Bruce Mirken, Marijuana Policy Project A new bill could make marijuana California's newest cash crop. http://drugsense.org/url/1QZh5vXn ************ By Kristin Bricker Yesterday the House Passed 2009 Plan Mexico Funding Despite Mexico's Failure to Comply with the 2008 Funding's Human Rights Conditions. [continues 330 words]
President-elect Barack Obama met Monday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to discuss bilateral issues of major importance for the two countries. In addition to NAFTA and immigration policy, Mexico's ongoing plague of prohibition-related violence was high on the agenda. More than 5,400 people were killed in the violence last year, and more than 8,000 in the two years since Calderon ratcheted up Mexico's drug war by sending thousands of troops into the fray. The multi-sided conflict pits rival trafficking groups -- the so-called cartels -- against each and the Mexican state, but has also seen pitched battles between rival law enforcement units where one group or the other is in the pay of the traffickers. [continues 1153 words]
Three suggestions for how Obama can take immediate, practical steps to reform America's antiquated and punitive pot laws. http://drugsense.org/url/nxv2DdaM Century of Lies - 11/11/08 - Cele Castillo Cele Castillo, former DEA agent, Iran-Contra whisteleblower & author of "Powderburns, Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War" + Terry Nelson Reports for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/2131 [continues 378 words]
StoptheDrugWar.org's executive director recently did a 25-minute debate on drug legalization on a network that aired across Europe and the Middle East. Video is online at: http://drugsense.org/url/Ev5QyEPJ GOT YOUR NUMBER: NORA IS PROPOSITION 5! The Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act-the most ambitious sentencing and prison reform in U.S. history-just got its proposition number. The measure, sponsored by DPA Network, will appear as Proposition 5 on the California state ballot in November! [continues 410 words]
http://www.justiceblind.com/whatsnew/herewegoagain.html The Fine Line Between Good Medicine and 'Dangerous Drugs' By Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb A history of the battle between politics and science over the use of marijuana as a medicine. http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/85205/ Tommy Chong appears on Alex Jones' nationally syndicated radio show to discuss the recent FBI raid of Spectrum Labs and the seizure of 10,000 DVDs. Also on the show is Kevin Booth, creator of American Drug War: The Last White Hope; Josh Gilbert, creator of a/k/a Tommy Chong; and Matt Stevens, owner of Spectrum Labs. [continues 516 words]
Non-government organizations are crafting drug policy because governments have abdicated responsibility on the issue, according to delegates attending an international drug conference in Vancouver yesterday. Beyond 2008, a two-day conference at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, is a part of worldwide consultations on the progress of a 1998 United Nations pledge to eradicate illicit drug demand and cultivation within 10 years, a pledge that delegates agreed is woefully unfulfilled. However, what was billed as a dialogue descended into debate as the simmering tensions that underlie drug policy were quickly exposed by bickering between delegates of opposing views. [continues 59 words]
2007 saw almost fifteen thousand new news clippings added to the drugnews.org archives. Over a half million different readers from about 125 countries accessed the clippings during the year. Based on a formula which recognizes that older clippings may have been accessed more than the more recent ones, selections of the 600 most read clippings by areas of the world are provided at the following link: http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0357.html By Radley Balko at Reason Hit & Run [continues 573 words]
With every passing year the drug problem seems to get worse. The U.S. government responds by pumping billions more dollars into the war on drugs. Federal spending for this "war without end" is more than twenty times what it was in 1980 and still the drug traffickers appear to be winning. Despite more than six billion dollars spent on "Plan Colombia" alone, cocaine production has actually increased in that country. Now the Bush Administration is asking for $1.4 billion more to aid the Mexican government's drug crackdown through the "Merida Initiative." [continues 588 words]
