Regarding "A 'virtual get-out-of-jail-free card' " (Oct. 25): Proposition 47 did not create the hordes of homeless people rotting away in downtown San Diego. Neither will it cause the addict sky to fall. Local incarceration has long done little, except for women, to address substance addiction. What's needed is treatment where it will work and necessary incarceration to the extent treatment won't work or needs time to work. The revolving door of misdemeanor offenses without any incarceration is a red herring. [continues 108 words]
George Will, who has advocated a libertarian legalization of drugs, speaks out of the another side of his mouth in the commentary reprinted from The Washington Post titled "ISIS and the cartels" (Aug. 6). "Today's levels of addiction are nowhere near the levels that probably would be reached under legalization, even without assuming the marketing measures that probably would be legal." Certainly, the ending of prohibition did not harken such addiction levels as to alcohol, and Oxycodone isn't marketed like cough syrup. All addictions are not equal. Sadly, devastating methamphetamine is now far more popular here than its much more benign cousin cocaine, which is used safely by the natives in South America. Robert Burns Ocean Beach [end]
In response to "Feds still reviewing new marijuana law, plan no action on eve of legalization" [seattletimes.com, Nov. 5], my main reaction is: Didn't we all see this coming? No matter how many states vote to loosen the restrictions on marijuana, it really means nothing without the approval of the federal government. And since we also know Congress moves slower than glaciers (which we won't be able to say for much longer, as the glaciers are all melting), it's safe to say that we won't be hearing about any decision made anytime soon. [continues 98 words]
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday a flourishing drug trade in Afghanistan may be helping fuel a Taliban resurgence, potentially undermining the young Afghan democracy. "I do worry that the funds that come from the sale of those products could conceivably end up adversely affecting the democratic process in the country," he told reporters accompanying him on an overnight flight from Washington. "I also think anytime there is that much money floating around and you have people like the Taliban that it gives them an opportunity to fund their efforts in various ways," he added in the interview. [continues 634 words]
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that a flourishing drug trade in Afghanistan may be helping fuel a Taliban resurgence, potentially undermining the young Afghan democracy. "I do worry that the funds that come from the sale of those products could conceivably end up adversely affecting the democratic process in the country," he told reporters accompanying him on an overnight flight from Washington. "I also think any time there is that much money floating around and you have people like the Taliban that it gives them an opportunity to fund their efforts in various ways," he added. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the radical Taliban regime. [continues 363 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP)--President Bush has approved a resumption of U.S.-supported drug surveillance flights over Colombia after a two-year suspension, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday. Rumsfeld, speaking in an interview en route from Washington to the Colombian capital, said he had discussed the matter with Bush and concluded that it would bolster Colombia's counternarcotics effort. ``There are plenty of ways that illegal trade can move--land, sea or air--and if you're not attentive to the air (portion), it becomes a preferred method'' of the traffickers, he told reporters. [continues 361 words]
WASHINGTON - Authorities in North Carolina have seized $1.4 million worth of narcotics and have convicted more than 80 Marines and sailors of using or distributing designer drugs, officials said Tuesday. It was one of the biggest drug investigations involving the military in recent years. Although narcotics cases in the military are not rare, they usually involve fewer people. A recent drug scandal at the Air Force Academy, for example, implicated 38 cadets. Officials said Tuesday that a two-year investigation, code-named Operation Xterminator, was conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service office at Camp Lejeune, N.C., outside of Jacksonville, along with state and local authorities. [continues 189 words]
WASHINGTON - Authorities in North Carolina have seized $1.4 million worth of narcotics and have convicted more than 80 Marines and sailors of using or distributing designer drugs, officials said Tuesday. It was one of the biggest drug investigations involving the military in recent years. A recent drug scandal at the Air Force Academy implicated 38 cadets. Officials said Tuesday that a two-year investigation, code-named Operation Xterminator, was conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service office at Camp Lejeune, N.C., outside Jacksonville, along with state and local authorities. [continues 258 words]
CARTAGENA, Colombia - In a country beset by decades of violence, President Clinton delivered a $1.3 billion U.S. package Wednesday which he said would help Colombia defeat its drug traffickers without getting the United States into a Vietnam-like quagmire. "We will not get into a shooting war" with Colombian guerrillas, he said, standing alongside Colombian President Andres Pastrana, both in short sleeves in the sweltering heat of this Caribbean port city. Pastrana stressed that Colombia has no intention of drawing the United States into its military conflict. [continues 498 words]
CARTAGENA, Colombia -- In a country beset by decades of violence, President Clinton yesterday delivered a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package which he said would help Colombia defeat its drug traffickers without getting the United States into a Vietnam-like quagmire. "We will not get into a shooting war" with Colombian guerrillas, he said, standing alongside Colombian President Andres Pastrana, both in short sleeves in the sweltering heat of this Caribbean port city. Pastrana stressed that Colombia has no intention of drawing the United States into its military conflict. [continues 876 words]
CARTAGENA, Colombia -- In a country beset by decades of violence, President Clinton delivered a $1.3 billion U.S. aid package Wednesday that he said would help Colombia defeat its drug traffickers without getting the United States into a Vietnam-like quagmire. "We will not get into a shooting war'' with Colombian guerrillas, he said, standing alongside Colombian President Andres Pastrana. Clinton also said there must be an end to human rights abuses by the warring factions in Colombia, and that includes security forces as well as the rebels. [continues 429 words]
WASHINGTON -- U.S. military aid to Colombia is intended to strengthen President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug campaign, not fight the Andean nation's guerrilla insurgency, a senior White House official said yesterday. "We're talking about a few hundred American people going to train some Colombian army battalions . . . who will have a greater capability to provide security for the Colombian national police when they go in to try to destroy (drug) crops," said Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser. [continues 403 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - New extortion demands by Colombian leftist rebels will not deter the United States from helping the Colombian government fight its drug war, Defense Secretary William Cohen said Thursday. The rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced Tuesday it will begin kidnapping Colombian millionaires and corporate executives who refuse to pay a tax to it. The rebels said their extortion policy was a counter to government aggression fueled in part by ``Yankee imperialism.'' "These are not dewy-eyed romanticists that have in mind the welfare of the Colombian people,'' Cohen told reporters in a joint appearance with Luis Fernando Ramirez, Colombia's minister of national defense. "To the extent that they are engaged and supported by narco-trafficking, that is clearly undermining Colombian society, and to the extent that that product is distributed and disseminated in the United States, it's certainly having a very negative impact upon our citizens as well.'' [continues 139 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The wife of an Army colonel involved in U.S. counternarcotics operations in Colombia is facing federal charges of shipping cocaine to the United States, officials said Thursday. Laurie Hiett was charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics after the U.S. Customs Service found parcels containing cocaine, include one package in New York that carried Mrs. Hiett's name as its return address, the officials said. A warrant for her arrest has been issued by the U.S. District Court Eastern District in New York, according to Navy Lt. Jane Campbell, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Southern Command in Miami. [continues 247 words]
WASHINGTON -- In a letter solicited by President Clinton's drug control chief, former presidents Bush, Carter and Ford said ballot measures in several states to legalize marijuana for medical purposes would undercut public confidence in the safety of medicines. ``These initiatives are not based on the best available science,'' the three former presidents wrote Wednesday in a ``Dear fellow citizens'' letter that closely paralleled the Clinton administration's position on the matter. In remarks on Tuesday, Barry McCaffrey, the White House director of drug control programs, asserted that marijuana initiatives on ballots in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia would prejudge clinical research to determine the safety of using marijuana by AIDS patients. [continues 317 words]
By Robert Burns, The Associated Press WASHINGTONIn an unprecedented move, President Clinton's drug policy director ordered the Defense Department to add $141 million in the 1999 budget to its planned spending on drugcontrol programs. Barry McCaffrey said his office could not certify that the Pentagon's proposed $809 million drugfighting budget for fiscal 1999 was enough to implement the president's policy. "To correct the deficiencies," he said in a letter to Defense Secretary William Cohen, the Pentagon must include $141 million more in drug control to strengthen operations in Mexico, the Andes, the Caribbean and along the southern border. McCaffrey listed specific steps and spending amounts in each area. Col. Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman, said Cohen's office was reviewing the letter and did not dispute that McCaffrey has the legal authority to require more spending. "We'll respond in a timely manner," Bridges said. Although the Defense Department has not yet submitted its request for fiscal 1999 spending to the Offfice of Management and Budget, McCaffrey's offfice said the Pentagon was planning to ask for $809 million for counterdrug operations. That is virtually identical to what it is spending in the current fiscal 1998 budget. According to statistics provided by McCaffrey's office, the Pentagon's counterdrug budget is only 1.3% higher than in fiscal 1990, while total federal spending in this area has increased 63.7%. [end]
