The Aerial Assault On Cocaine Funded By The US Is Wiping Out Everything - Apart From Coca Plants The counter-drugs strategy of the United States is clearly failing. UN figures cited in the Guardian this week show that the cultivation of coca, the plant from which cocaine is derived, has surged in the Andes. The most dramatic rise has been in Colombia, the only country in the region that allows the use of pesticides to eradicate coca leaf - a policy promoted and funded by the US. [continues 718 words]
Cocaine production has surged across Latin America and unleashed a wave of violence, population displacements and corruption, prompting urgent calls to rethink the drug war. More than 750 tonnes of cocaine are shipped annually from the Andes in a multi-billion pound industry which has forced peasants off land, triggered gang wars and perverted state institutions. A Guardian investigation based on dozens of interviews with law enforcement officials, coca farmers, refugees and policymakers has yielded a bleak picture of the "war" on the eve of a crucial United Nations drug summit. [continues 568 words]
Governments Struggle To Respond As Resurgent Trade Moves Into Uncharted Areas From Colombia, Peru and Bolivia through Mexico and on to a half dozen west African states, the new cocaine supply route - and the war against it - is leaving a trail of mayhem in its wake. In Peru, Shining Path guerrillas have revived their movement by trading in Maoist ideology for coca cultivation and links with Mexican cartels, driving cocaine production to its highest level in a decade, according to US figures. [continues 703 words]
Evo Morales, the Bolivian leader, ate a coca leaf in front of delegates at the UN summit on drugs yesterday, to underline his demand that the raw ingredient of cocaine should be allowed for medicinal and other uses. President Morales, a former peasant coca farmer, brandished the leaf during an impassioned speech, saying: "This is coca leaf, this is not cocaine, this is part and parcel of a culture." He told ministers that the ban on coca was a "major historical mistake". [continues 130 words]
Governments Struggle to Respond As Resurgent Trade Moves into Uncharted Areas From Colombia, Peru and Bolivia through Mexico and on to a half dozen west African states, the new cocaine supply route - and the war against it - is leaving a trail of mayhem in its wake. In Peru, Shining Path guerrillas have revived their movement by trading in Maoist ideology for coca cultivation and links with Mexican cartels, driving cocaine production to its highest level in a decade, according to US figures. [continues 698 words]
Cocaine prices will fall as traffickers exploit new routes to Britain through West Africa and Eastern Europe, a United Nations agency warns today. The new routes have emerged as anti-smuggling operations have forced South American drugs cartels to abandon the trail through the Caribbean and north Atlantic. Stockpiles of drugs are building in West African states, from where they are shipped to Britain and the rest of Europe via the Balkans, according to a report by the UN's International Narcotics Control Board. [continues 307 words]
Drug smugglers are using sophisticated devices like satellite positioning systems to outwit police and move more South American cocaine by sea, a senior U. S. official said on Thursday. Traffickers who used to fill speedboats with tanks of fuel to power long, clandestine sea journeys, leaving less room for drugs, are now fitting them with Global Positioning Systems so they can meet up with refuelling ships at sea. Using GPS devices to hook up with a waiting ship loaded with fuel means a much bigger stash of drugs can be packed on the boats, said Perry Holloway, director of anti-drug operations at the U. S. Embassy in Colombia. [continues 222 words]
Narcotics Board Targets Cannabis For Strong Action Drugs Reform Group Hits Out At 'Irrational' Approach The internet is playing an increasing and "alarming" role in the trafficking of both illegal and unauthorised prescription drugs, according to the body that monitors the trafficking and use of narcotics. Chemicals used for making heroin and cocaine and a range of drugs from methadone to amphetamines are being sold online by organisations that hide their identities from the authorities. The report, compiled by the International Narcotics Control Board, paints a picture of an ever-expanding and increasingly violent drugs market, with new trafficking routes being opened regularly. It calls for governments to take stronger measures against drugs, in particular cannabis. The board was criticised by drugs reform groups last night for taking an "irrational" approach. [continues 744 words]
In the story of the emperor with no clothes, it took someone whose observations are rarely heeded - a child - to point out the obvious fact no one else could acknowledge. In the case of drug policy, it takes people who are usually ignored by Washington policymakers - Latin Americans - to perform the same invaluable service. Last week, a commission made up of 17 members, from Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to Sonia Picado, the Costa Rican who heads the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights, did nothing but admit the truth: The war on drugs is a failure. [continues 656 words]
A decade ago, before Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez and other Mexican cities became bloody front lines, the biggest battles in the drug war were taking place 3,000 miles to the south. Colombia made headlines as a hotbed for violence, a large part of it tied to the cocaine trade. Drug money was fueling a long-running civil war, kidnappings for ransom were rampant and a general sense of lawlessness prevailed. In the late 1990s, the Colombian government announced a plan to restore order. This evolved into a military-based effort, with U.S. backing, to curtail cocaine production and weaken insurgents. [continues 1354 words]
In the story of the emperor with no clothes, it took someone whose observations are rarely heeded--a child--to point out the obvious fact that no one else could acknowledge. In the case of drug policy, it takes people who are usually ignored by Washington policymakers--Latin Americans--to perform the same invaluable service. Last week, a commission made up of 17 members, from Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to Sonia Picado, the Costa Rican who heads the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights, did nothing but admit the truth: The war on drugs is a failure. [continues 639 words]
To understand why the war in Afghanistan, now in its eighth year, is not going well for the United States and its NATO allies, take a look at two statistics. One is Afghanistan's ranking on an international index measuring corruption: 176 out of 180 countries. (Somalia is 180th). The other is Afghanistan's position as the world's Number 1 producer of illicit opium, the raw material for heroin. The two statistics are inextricably linked and, a year ago, prompted Richard Holbrooke, the man President Barack Obama has just picked as special envoy for Afghanistan, to write: "Breaking the narco-state in Afghanistan is essential or all else will fail. [continues 804 words]
While Americans are busy trying to find ways to extricate ourselves from a war halfway around the world, a war has been raging right next door that may prove deadlier by far than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. That may not seem possible, but if you analyze it carefully, even the terrorists in the Muslim world have only been able to convince other Muslims, their own people, to commit suicide in behalf of their cause. The war to end all wars is the one that makes ordinary people, good people, the kind of people who live right next door to you and I, maybe even people within our own homes, willing accomplices in their own destruction. This seemingly impossible feat is accomplished every day of the week by the gardeners, chemists, money launderers, traffickers, kingpins, dealers and pimps of the drug world. Narco-terrorism is the deadliest and perhaps the most pervasive form of warfare in the world today. Deaths are mounting not just from illegal drugs, but from the proliferation of prescription painkillers as well. [continues 768 words]
LA PAZ, Bolivia -- The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday, ordered out by President Evo Morales even as Bolivian police reported that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise. Morales demanded the DEA's exit in November as part of a dispute between U.S. and Bolivian officials that included his expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Bush administration's decertification of Bolivia as ineffective in the drug war. The departure over recent weeks of three dozen agents ends the DEA's presence in Bolivia after more than three decades. Senior law enforcement officials said it was the first time a DEA operation had been ordered out of a country en masse. [continues 342 words]
The Last of the U.S. Drug Agents Leaves on President Evo Morales' Orders. The U.S. and Bolivia Are in a Bitter Dispute Over the South American Country's Anti-Drug Efforts. The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday after having been ordered out by President Evo Morales, even as Bolivian police report that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise. Morales demanded the DEA's exit in November as part of a bitter dispute between U.S. and Bolivian officials that included his expulsion of U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg and the Bush administration's decertification of Bolivia's anti-drug effort. [continues 565 words]
EL ALTO, Bolivia -- President Evo Morales seemed assured of an easy victory in a referendum on Sunday over a sweeping new Constitution aimed at empowering Bolivia's Indians. The vote capped three years of conflict-ridden efforts by Mr. Morales to overhaul a political system he had associated with centuries of indigenous subjugation. Citing preliminary vote counts, reports on national television said about 60 percent of voters had approved the new Constitution. If that margin holds or goes higher, it would strengthen Mr. Morales's mandate, political analysts here said. [continues 941 words]
The Measure Will Let President Morales Seek Another Term, and Give Land and Royalties From Resources to Indians. A new constitution that voters are expected to approve today would give more power to Bolivia's indigenous communities, promote agrarian reform and allow President Evo Morales to seek reelection to another term. But analysts warn that passage of the new constitution also could worsen Bolivia's polarization, throw its legal system into chaos, and discourage investment in the natural resources that are its main ticket to prosperity. [continues 688 words]
As Miss Sinaloa Languishes In Jail After Being Arrested With A Key Trafficker Last Week, Politicians Are Demanding An Investigation Mexican politicians were yesterday calling for an investigation into ties between the nation's popular beauty pageants and leading drug cartels, after the reigning Miss Sinaloa, Laura Zuniga Huizar, was arrested last week travelling near Guadalajara in the company of a top trafficker and an arsenal of weaponry. Zuniga, a 23-year-old former kindergarten teacher, was detained with boyfriend ngel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, a key player in the Juarez cartel, and six bodyguards, when their convoy was stopped at a military checkpoint last Monday. Mexican authorities were astonished to find the beauty queen with traffickers on their way to Bolivia, armed with assault rifles, pistols and ammunition clips, 16 cell phones and about $53,000 (UKP 36,345) in cash. [continues 436 words]
MEXICO CITY: Mexican congressmen called for a federal investigation of potential drug cartel ties to the nation's beauty pageants Friday, days after a 23-year-old beauty queen was detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations. Congressional leaders warned that cartels may have infiltrated contests to launder money, and said a full investigation was needed. To many, former preschool teacher Laura Zuniga, named Miss Sinaloa in the drug-plagued northern state's annual beauty contest, symbolizes declining ethics in Mexico. [continues 404 words]
GUADALAJARA, Mexico (AP) -- A reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and ammunition, police say. Miss Sinaloa 2008 Laura Zuniga stared at the ground, with her flowing dark hair concealing her face, as she stood squeezed between seven alleged gunmen lined up before journalists. Soldiers wearing ski masks guarded the 23-year-old model and the suspects. [continues 423 words]
