De War on Drugs in Mexico #4 - Hoe lossen we de oorlog op?

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:22 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Jij en ik bevinden ons in het segment van hoogopgeleide, verstandige, progressieve denkers. Moet je eens buiten dat kleine wereldje kijken. Ouders die hun kinderen aan de coke kapot zien gaan. Ook in Nederland.

Coke is gewoon een drug die veel problemen veroorzaakt.
Crystal meth is ook ziek.

Legalisering van onschuldigere drugs kan de markt veranderen; mensen kunnen overstappen van coke op andere dingen. Net als dat het andersom zo werkte; door de strengere aanpak van andere drugs werden in de VS crystal meth en in Rusland krokodil op de markt gebracht.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:43 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Armoede an sich is nooit een reden natuurlijk.

En krokodil neem je niet voor je plezier. Het is complexer, maar de belangrijkste redenen zijn volgens mij:
- de uitzichtloosheid van het leven in Siberie (met zomertemperaturen van +40 en winters van -50)
- de vlucht in vieze drugs (heroine) ten gevolge van deze uitzichtloosheid
- de hoge prijzen van heroine en de uitvinding van een qua effect gelijksoortige drug gemaakt van huis-tuin-en-keukenmiddelen (krokodil)
- de volledige afwezigheid van een adequaat humaan ontwenningsbeleid (verslavingszorg) d.m.v. methadon (zorg voor verslaafden is een product van de superieure Westerse beschaving; de Russen hebben daar totaal geen interesse in)

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:26 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Wat is er mis met de bestrijding van gruwelijke criminelen die hun slachtoffers doden, verminken, martelen, onderdrukken en andere afgrijselijke methodes??

Ik ben zelf een liefhebber van drugs, maar dat moet niet gepaard gaan met blindheid tegen het aanpakken van bloeddorstige criminelen.

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Mexicaanse verkiezingen bedreigd door drugskartels

Over minder dan zes maanden gaan de Mexicanen naar de stembus om een nieuwe parlement en een nieuwe president te kiezen. Maar zowel de regering als deskundigen vrezen dat de georganiseerde misdaad het proces zal manipuleren door marionet-kandidaten te laten installeren die luisteren naar de drugskartels.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 03:16 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Criminaliteit word in de eerste plaats veroorzaakt door een verbod.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:16 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Wat denk je zelf? Als dingen legaal verkrijgbaar zijn, is er geen rem op de productie, handel en verkoop.

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Dat laatste lijkt me logisch.

Zet simpelweg af hoeveel Duitsers illegaal in zeg Keulen aan wiet komen en het aantal mensen dat in Amsterdam aan wiet kan komen. En dan is het nog niet eens legaal, maar gedoogd.

Als dingen vrij verkrijgbaar zijn, wordt het voor velen die "het wel es een keer willen proberen" makkelijker, laagdrempeliger EN geaccepteerder om dat te doen.

Met de happy Nederlandse drugs (wiet, XTC, paddo's -in iets mindere mate vanwege de risico's-) is dat vrij onschuldig. Met drugs die veel verslavender zijn is dat niet onschuldig. Stel je voor dat je cocaine gewoon in de smart/coffeeshop kan kopen. Dan raken veul meer mensen aan dat spul verslaafd.

Begrijp me goed; moreel gezien ben ik tegen criminalisering van drugs. Maar praktisch gezien betekent legalisering gewoon dat er meer gebruikers komen. Bij coke vind ik dat een slecht plan.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:16 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Wat denk je zelf? Als dingen legaal verkrijgbaar zijn, is er geen rem op de productie, handel en verkoop.

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Dat laatste lijkt me logisch.

Zet simpelweg af hoeveel Duitsers illegaal in zeg Keulen aan wiet komen en het aantal mensen dat in Amsterdam aan wiet kan komen. En dan is het nog niet eens legaal, maar gedoogd.

Als dingen vrij verkrijgbaar zijn, wordt het voor velen die "het wel es een keer willen proberen" makkelijker, laagdrempeliger EN geaccepteerder om dat te doen.

Met de happy Nederlandse drugs (wiet, XTC, paddo's -in iets mindere mate vanwege de risico's-) is dat vrij onschuldig. Met drugs die veel verslavender zijn is dat niet onschuldig. Stel je voor dat je cocaine gewoon in de smart/coffeeshop kan kopen. Dan raken veul meer mensen aan dat spul verslaafd.

Begrijp me goed; moreel gezien ben ik tegen criminalisering van drugs. Maar praktisch gezien betekent legalisering gewoon dat er meer gebruikers komen. Bij coke vind ik dat een slecht plan.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:20 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Cokegebruikers wel ja. Dus je erkent de verslaving ervan.

Maar als het legaal wordt; is er een hele grote groep mensen die denkt; laat ik ook es een snuifje nemen. Dus er komen veul meer cokegebruikers. Mij lijkt dat een slecht plan.

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:26 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Wat is er mis met de bestrijding van gruwelijke criminelen die hun slachtoffers doden, verminken, martelen, onderdrukken en andere afgrijselijke methodes??

Ik ben zelf een liefhebber van drugs, maar dat moet niet gepaard gaan met blindheid tegen het aanpakken van bloeddorstige criminelen.

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 01:03 schreef zeebeschuit het volgende:
Iemand hier wel eens in Mont'ey geweest? Ga er over 3 weken 'n week lang heen en ondanks dat ik ook wel weet dat het 'relatief' veilig is denk ik toch elke dag met een lichtelijke angst eraan puur omdat ik niet weet wat ik kan verwachten. Het lijkt de laatste weken opeens wel relatief 'stil' maar kan natuurlijk weer elke dag losbarsten. Weet iemand hoeveel je als toerist zijnde echte gevaar loopt? Of is het gewoon kwestie van gezond verstand / 's avonds laat niet op straat (Verblijf vanzelfsprekend wel in het luxere/business-district.)

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 04:06 schreef El_Matador het volgende:


Jij en ik bevinden ons in de hogere middenklasse, met intelligente, verstandige personen.

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Hoe denk je dat het gebruik verandert in dommere, meer risico's nemende omgevingen?

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 04:02 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Hoe hebben ze dat becijferd? Als iets illegaal is, kan je helemaal niet vaststellen hoeveel gebruikt wordt. Daarbij zijn er meer factoren die een rol spelen; de inrichting van de samenleving, de acceptatie door de omgeving, de verschillen binnen een land.

Zeg dat 40% van de Nederlanders wel es een jointje gerookt heeft (ik heb geen cijfers bij de hand). Je maakt mij niet wijs dat dat cijfer in de VS of VK net zo hoog ligt.

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 04:06 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Waarmee je het dus makkelijker beschikbaar maakt, dat realiseer je je? Ik vraag mij sterk af of dat praktisch gezien handig is, al is het moreel gezien wel het 'beste'.

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Jij en ik bevinden ons in de hogere middenklasse, met intelligente, verstandige personen.

Hoe denk je dat het gebruik verandert in dommere, meer risico's nemende omgevingen?

Een goede analogie lijkt me het rijden met alcohol op. Als dat niet verboden zou zijn, denk je dat er dan meer of minder mensen gaan rijden met alcohol op?

Wellicht denken jij en ik niet in verboden, maar het overgrote deel van de wereld wel. Velen nemen de wet als leidraad. Dat kan je dom, immoreel of beperkt vinden, maar dat vlakt de realiteit niet uit.

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 01:03 schreef zeebeschuit het volgende:
Iemand hier wel eens in Mont'ey geweest? Ga er over 3 weken 'n week lang heen en ondanks dat ik ook wel weet dat het 'relatief' veilig is denk ik toch elke dag met een lichtelijke angst eraan puur omdat ik niet weet wat ik kan verwachten. Het lijkt de laatste weken opeens wel relatief 'stil' maar kan natuurlijk weer elke dag losbarsten. Weet iemand hoeveel je als toerist zijnde echte gevaar loopt? Of is het gewoon kwestie van gezond verstand / 's avonds laat niet op straat (Verblijf vanzelfsprekend wel in het luxere/business-district.)

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Poolse politicus wil joint roken in parlement voor legalisering softdrugs

De leider van een nieuwe linkse partij in Polen heeft gedreigd een joint op te steken in het parlement. Janusz Palikot wil de joint opsteken om zijn pleidooi voor de legalisering van softdrugs kracht bij te zetten.

Het dreigement van Palikot heeft hem echter op een ramkoers gebracht met de voorzitter van het parlement. Ewa Kopacz heeft gezworen dat ze Palikot niet zomaar de wet laat overtreden en zei het openbaar ministerie te hebben ingeschakeld.

Palikot, de leider van de Palikot Beweging, wil vandaag een wetsvoorstel indienen waarin het bezit van kleine hoeveelheden marihuana niet langer strafbaar is. De partij wil de invloed van de katholieke kerk in de Poolse politiek terugdringen en het conservatieve Polen liberaliseren. De partij eindigde op de derde plek bij de Poolse parlementsverkiezingen in november.

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Op vrijdag 20 januari 2012 01:03 schreef zeebeschuit het volgende:
Iemand hier wel eens in Mont'ey geweest? Ga er over 3 weken 'n week lang heen en ondanks dat ik ook wel weet dat het 'relatief' veilig is denk ik toch elke dag met een lichtelijke angst eraan puur omdat ik niet weet wat ik kan verwachten. Het lijkt de laatste weken opeens wel relatief 'stil' maar kan natuurlijk weer elke dag losbarsten. Weet iemand hoeveel je als toerist zijnde echte gevaar loopt? Of is het gewoon kwestie van gezond verstand / 's avonds laat niet op straat (Verblijf vanzelfsprekend wel in het luxere/business-district.)

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Op dinsdag 17 januari 2012 02:22 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Jij en ik bevinden ons in het segment van hoogopgeleide, verstandige, progressieve denkers. Moet je eens buiten dat kleine wereldje kijken. Ouders die hun kinderen aan de coke kapot zien gaan. Ook in Nederland.

Coke is gewoon een drug die veel problemen veroorzaakt.

Legalisering van onschuldigere drugs kan de markt veranderen; mensen kunnen overstappen van coke op andere dingen. Net als dat het andersom zo werkte; door de strengere aanpak van andere drugs werden in de VS crystal meth en in Rusland krokodil op de markt gebracht.

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Op zaterdag 21 januari 2012 04:24 schreef TheThirdMark het volgende:

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Rant RANT and RANT even moar!!!! Alcohol? Er is geen drug zo verslavend als alcohol en toch hoor je daar verdomd weinig over?

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Op zaterdag 21 januari 2012 04:31 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Alcohol is ingeburgerd Coke niet.

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 03:58 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Deze foto is wel vreemd
Hier woonde ik 1,5km vandaan toen ik in Veracruz zat en reed elke dag door die tunnel naar mijn werk.

[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:11 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Holy kut!

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:15 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:08 schreef dikkebroekzak het volgende:

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Jij bent Mexicaan?

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:11 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Holy kut!

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:31 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Nog een close-up je van die foto?? haha

Is deze in NL in het nieuws geweest , vuurgevecht tijdens voetbalwedstrijd van Santos in mex competitie
[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:31 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Nog een close-up je van die foto?? haha

Is deze in NL in het nieuws geweest , vuurgevecht tijdens voetbalwedstrijd van Santos in mex competitie
[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 01:51 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Dat lijkt me nogal sterk. Alsof je makkelijk in de kroeg tegen je vrienden zegt; jij ook een lijntje, in plaats van; jij ook een biertje.

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 03:58 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Deze foto is wel vreemd
Hier woonde ik 1,5km vandaan toen ik in Veracruz zat en reed elke dag door die tunnel naar mijn werk.

[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 04:37 schreef zeebeschuit het volgende:

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Ja, was overal op het nieuws. Maar bleek toch buiten het stadion te zijn? of is dit weer een andere?

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 13:54 schreef Elvislives het volgende:

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Gek hoe gevoelloos je voor bloederige foto's - hoewel hier natuurlijk weinig op te zien valt - wordt na een paar jaar El Grafico of een andere prensa amarilla gelezen te hebben.

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 15:35 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

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Inderdaad, het dumpen van een berg lijken of schietpartijen met meerdere doden zijn dan ook aan de orde van de dag.
Veracruz was tot mei vorig jaar echter erg rustig en toen is het ineens zeer geweldadig geworden. Nu is het weer rustig gelukkig.
Zolang de cartels elkaar afmaken is er niet zo veel aan de hand.

Zielig incident in Veracruz van de zomer was wel een granaat die op straat werd gegooit voor het Aquarium (een toeristenattractie van de stad) een vader van een familie die op bezoek was in de stad gooide zich op de granaat om zijn familie te beschermen.

[ afbeelding ]

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Op maandag 23 januari 2012 20:43 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Door de huidige onveilige situatie in Veracruz heeft onze gouverneur noodzakelijke maatregelen getroffen tegen deze crisissituatie.
Hij heeft namelijk bevolen de verkeersborden te laten veranderen. Een good moment voor alle

Zona de descarga > laad en los zone

topes pelligrosos > gevaarlijke drempels

precausion ejecutados > let op! lijken op de weg

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The war on the truth about drugs

So sentencing for some offences will be reduced – but we're still left with an unscientific drug policy obsessed with 'the message'

What's the smallest unit of celebration? A whooplet? I need one to mark the news that sentencing for drug offences, in some cases, will be shortened. Following new guidelines from the sentencing council from the end of February those found to have bought drugs to share with friends rather than to profit from them, and those found to have imported drugs under duress, can expect to be locked up slightly less often, and for slightly less long. One whooplet, certainly, is the council's to share.

I do hope the grudging tone comes across however: giving a year and a half of prison time to a clubber who bought 20 ecstasy pills and split them with a friend (the guideline "starting point" the council recommends) remains an act of stupidity. In all but the most minuscule number of cases, those pills would have done nothing more harmful than inflict some loss of sleep.

What is welcome, though, is that the new guidelines go some way to recognising the variety of behaviour that constitutes "dealing" or "trafficking". Those words have grim associations they often don't deserve. For instance, it's rather difficult for six friends to buy the exact amount of cocaine, in advance, that each of them wants to take that evening. So they usually split some, which means that at least one of them ends up being a "supplier". I don't know if it's ever been tested in court, but wouldn't even passing a joint around a room constitute a series of acts of "supply"?

Drug "mules", who carry small-to-medium-sized quantities of something through an airport in their luggage (or sometimes in their stomach), have often been coerced into doing so, and this is now rightly being seen as a mitigating factor too. So is low purity – a very knotty problem. Which is the greater crime? Selling a large quantity of diluted cocaine powder, or a small quantity of pure cocaine? And if it's been diluted, what was it diluted with? And did whoever sold it know? Mephedrone became so popular at one time that – even while it was still legal – quantities of it were being cut with other illegal substances. Some people were dealing drugs, in other words, without realising it.

"Drug offending has to be taken seriously," Lord Justice Hughes, the council's deputy chairman explains. "Drug abuse underlies a huge volume of acquisitive and violent crime and dealing can blight communities." But people don't commit crimes because they're on drugs – they commit them because they want money to buy drugs. You might as well say that nice houses blight communities just because some people commit crimes to pay for them.

Britain is not a police state. For the most part, it's a fair and decently run country. Yet our drug policy is like some import from a totalitarian regime. The risks associated with drug use remind me of that trusty threat of "foreign terrorists" dictators use to consolidate their power.

The Conservative MP Priti Patel told the Daily Mail: "These people are not just dealing drugs – they are destroying people's lives." Patel should have a word with some of her colleagues. Louise Mensch admits that it is "highly probable" she took drugs in the 1990s, and she's done all right. Or perhaps it is the tragic case of Barack Obama that Patel has in mind? As a teenager, he made the fatal error of experimenting with marijuana, which led on to cocaine and then – with sad inevitability – to a legal career, and the presidency of his nation.

To be fair to Patel, if you don't take this "destroying lives" line, you'll be forever labelled "soft on drugs" (as even the sentencing council are in the Mail). "Drugs are illegal because they are harmful – they destroy lives and cause untold misery," said a Home Office statement in response to demands for decriminalisation from a group including three chief constables and a former drugs minister last year.

Poor Ed Miliband could only agree, using another favourite formulation. "I worry about the effects on young people," he said, "the message that we would be sending out." When a politician says their policy is based on "sending out a message" you can be sure that what they really mean is that it's wrong, but politically necessary.

Which, of course, has always been the problem with drugs. There are risks associated with their use; but there are very serious risks associated with alcohol, serving in the army or eating badly that we accept. And when the former government adviser Professor David Nutt, pointed out – accurately, in a scientific paper – that alcohol and tobacco were in many ways more harmful than LSD or ecstasy, he was sacked by Alan Johnson because his comments might "damage efforts to give the public clear messages about the dangers of drugs".

As a country, we look back in horror now at the delusions of other eras – when it was illegal to be gay, for instance, or when women could not vote. Yet we do not stop and see that we are living through another one. Decriminalisation would end the violent illegal drug trade; drug treatment and prescription for addicts would prevent them from committing crime. Both measures would make gigantic savings on the cost of policing and imprisoning offenders, and on clearing up the consequences of their actions. They would also end the outrage of people being locked up for the crime of seeking mostly harmless fun. It's our laws that are destroying lives.

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Cocaine seized at UN in New York

Drugs placed in a white bag in apparent attempt to disguise shipment as an official diplomatic pouch posted from Mexico

A shipment containing 16 kilograms of cocaine was seized last week at the United Nations's mail intake centre, a New York Police Department spokesman said on Thursday.

Paul Browne, NYPD's chief spokesman, said the drugs were in a white bag evidently masquerading as a diplomatic pouch that raised suspicions when it was being scanned because it was stamped with what looked like a poorly copied version of the UN logo.

Browne said here was no name or address on the shipment sent from Mexico City through Cincinnati.

UN security officials called the NYPD and Drug Enforcement Administration, which confirmed the substance inside the shipment intercepted on 16 January was cocaine, the police spokesman said.

The UN undersecretary general for safety and security, Gregory B Starr, told reporters on Thursday evening that "there is nothing to indicate that this had anything to do with anybody at the United Nations."

Starr said the drugs were actually stashed in two bags that were stamped with the sky-blue UN logo of a world map in an apparent effort to disguise them as diplomatic pouches, which are not supposed to be inspected. Inside the bag, the drugs were hidden in hollowed-out notebooks, he added.

The UN official showed journalists a photograph of the bags that were seized, and compared them with a real diplomatic pouch used by the UN, which is larger and made of a different material.

"This did not come from a United Nations facility," Starr said of the shipment.

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Police increasingly targeted in Mexican city

Drug gangs in Ciudad Juarez vow to kill an officer per day in response to crackdown in nation's most violent city.

Police in Mexico's most violent city are finding themselves increasingly under target.

After a renewed crackdown on violence began having an effect in Ciudad Juarez, located on the border with the US, drug cartels have struck back, promising to kill a police officer each day.

Colin Harding, a specialist in Latin American politics, told Al Jazeera the police in Ciudad Juarez "are under tremendous pressure".

"Far from limiting and restricting the violence, if anything, the highly militarised policy that President Calderon has been following has spread it and the body count is going up all the time," he said.

Al Jazeera's Rachel Levin reports from Ciudad Juarez on the steps police are now taking to protect themselves.

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Mexicanen vermoorden musici tijdens optreden

Een bende gewapende mannen heeft zaterdag in Mexico minstens negen mensen gedood, onder wie vijf leden van een muziekband die net aan het optreden was.

De bendeleden waren de bar in Chihuahua binnengestapt en schoten eerst in de lucht. Daarna mikten ze op de groep, genaamd La 5a banda.
De musici speelden nortena, een muzieksoort die het drugsgeweld in het noorden van Mexico verheerlijkt.

Naast de musici zijn ook een politieagente en drie gasten omgekomen, aldus de aanklager van Chihuahua zaterdag. De politie telde circa 100 kogelhulzen in de bar Far West.

In Mexico zijn sinds 2006 naar schatting 50.000 mensen vermoord door drugsbendes.

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Op zondag 5 februari 2012 00:19 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Op zondag 5 februari 2012 19:06 schreef dikkebroekzak het volgende:
Dodental drugsoorlog Mexico nadert de 50.000

Agenten bewaken in de plaats Zitacuaro enkele lijken voordat ze worden vervoerd naar het mortuarium. Dertien mensen kwamen daar enkele dagen geleden om bij een moordpartij. © EPA
Het aantal doden als gevolg van de drugsoorlog in Mexico nadert de 50.000, of is dat aantal al gepasseerd. Dat hebben de Mexicaanse autoriteiten gemeld.

In de eerste negen maanden van 2011 registreerde het Openbaar Ministerie 12.903 moorden die te maken zouden hebben met de bendeoorlogen. Cijfers over het laatste kwartaal van vorig jaar worden op een later moment bekendgemaakt.

Sinds eind 2006 is het drugsgerelateerde geweld in Mexico explosief toegenomen. Criminele netwerken leveren een strijd op leven en dood om de beste smokkelroutes richting afzetmarkten in de Verenigde Staten. Tot september vorig jaar zouden 47.515 mensen om het leven zijn gebracht.

In het verkiezingsjaar 2012, waarin president Felipe Calderon een tweede ambtstermijn in de wacht wil slepen, zal het geweld volgens misdaaddeskundigen nog erger worden. Nabij de grens met de Verenigde Staten is het aantal moorden weliswaar iets afgenomen, maar deze trend wordt tenietgedaan door een toenemend aantal levensdelicten in andere delen van Mexico.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/(...)dert-de-50-000.dhtml

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Police attack journalists in Mexico

The breakdown of law and order in certain Mexican cities means that journalists can not only not count on police protection but are also coming under attack from police officers.

The latest example of police assaults on reporters happened last Friday, 3 February, in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Joel González, a reporter with El Diario, was arrested and beaten by officers while attempting to report on the arbitrary arrest of a citizen in front of the newspaper's offices.

He has since filed a complaint with the attorney general for abuse by the authorities.

El Diario also reported that on 31 January, police threatened and attacked reporters trying to photograph and film a police search of a home where three people were arrested and drugs and arms were seized.

The day before, police pointed their rifles at two journalists from the newspaper Norte, forcing them to delete photos they had taken.

The Association of Journalists of Ciudad Juarez urged the state governor to institute controls over the city's police.

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Mexico authorities seize $4bn of methamphetamine – video

Methamphetamine worth $4bn (£2.5bn) was discovered on Wednesday by authorities in Guadalajara, the largest seizure of its kind in Mexico. Some 15 tonnes of the drug were found on a ranch. No arrests have been made, and police have yet to establish the owner of the property

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President Guatemala wil drugs legaliseren

De president van Guatemala, Otto Perez Molina, heeft vandaag gezegd dat hij de regeringsleiders van Centraal-Amerika binnenkort zal voorstellen collectief drugs te gaan legaliseren.

Perez Molina wil zijn voorstel presenteren tijdens de volgende politieke top in de regio. Hij zei volgens persbureau AP in een radio-interview dat legalisering ook de decriminalisering van drugssmokkel inhoudt. Zijn opmerkingen zijn extra opvallend, omdat hij tijdens de verkiezingen vorig jaar juist nog een keiharde aanpak van drugsbendes bepleitte.

Centraal-Amerika (en niet in de laatste plaats Guatemala) gaat zwaar gebukt onder de criminaliteit van rivaliserende drugskartels. Die smokkelen cocaïne vanuit Zuid-Amerika naar de Verenigde Staten en produceren daarnaast op grote schaal drugs als methamphetamine (een versterkte vorm van speed) in de regio zelf. Ook deze drugs is bedoeld voor de export naar de VS.


Perez Molina: al het geld voor war on drugs heeft niets uitgericht

Perez Molina zei in het radio-interview dat al het geld dat in de war on drugs is gestopt niets heeft kunnen doen om de drugssmokkel te verminderen. Net zo min als de meest geavanceerde technologie die hierbij wordt gebruikt. Hij pleit daarom nu voor een radicaal andere aanpak.

Het soort wanhoopsplan dat Perez Molina nu voorstelt, is een reactie op het enorme moordcijfer in zijn land. Per 100.000 inwoners zouden in Guatemala volgens cijfers van persbureau AP jaarlijks maar liefst 45 mensen worden vermoord. Dat is meer dan tijdens de burgeroorlog in de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw die in totaal aan zon 200.000 mensen het leven kostte.

Bijna nergens ter wereld worden relatief zo veel mensen omgebracht. Slechts in zes landen ligt het moordcijfer nog hoger. Dat zijn bovendien allemaal landen in Centraal-Amerika en de Cariben.


Perez Molina wil plannen maandag al bespreken met leider El Salvador

President Perez Molina wijt dat hoge moordcijfer aan de strijd tussen verschillende drugskartels in zijn land, die elkaar met veel geld en wapens naar het leven staan. In heel Centraal-Amerika zorgt de strijd tussen drugsbendes voor grote problemen en steeds moorddadiger samenlevingen.

De president van Guatemala wil zijn plan maandag direct al bespreken met zijn collega Mauricio Funes, de president van El Salvador. Dat land heeft traditioneel ook te kampen met veel drugscriminaliteit en een extreem hoog moordcijfer het op één na hoogste ter wereld momenteel.

Of het plan van Perez Molina kans van slagen heeft, is echter maar zeer de vraag. De kans dat de Verenigde Staten een legalisering van drugs in Centraal-Amerika zal toestaan is nihil.

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Op zaterdag 11 februari 2012 20:47 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
En dat is ééééééén:

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Op zaterdag 11 februari 2012 20:50 schreef Tism het volgende:

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'No More Weapons' billboard placed on US-Mexican border

Billboard with letters made from crushed weapons unveiled as President Felipe Calderón urges US to stop flow of weapons

The Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, has unveiled a "No More Weapons" advertising board, made using crushed firearms, near the US border and urged the US to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.

The board, which is in English and weighs three tonnes, stands near an international bridge in Ciudad Juarez and can be seen from the US.

Calderón said its letters were made with weapons seized by local, state and federal authorities.

"Dear friends of the United States, Mexico needs your help to stop this terrible violence that we're suffering," he said in English during the unveiling ceremony. "The best way to do this is to stop the flow of automatic weapons into Mexico."

Before unveiling the billboard, the president supervised the destruction of more than 7,500 automatic rifles and handguns at a military base in Ciudad Juarez.

He said more than 140,000 weapons had been seized since December 2006, when he launched a crackdown against drug traffickers. More than 47,500 people have been killed since then.

Ciudad Juarez, where more than 9,000 people have died in drug-related violence since 2008, is one of the cities most affected by the violence.

The Mexican government said a federal prosecutor assigned to a northern state had been detained on suspicion of protecting the brutal Zetas drug cartel. The attorney general, Marisela Morales, said the federal prosecutor, Claudia Gonzalez, had been sent to prison. She did not say when Gonzalez was detained or give any further details.

Gonzalez was based in the city of Saltillo, the capital of the border state of Coahuila. The state, which borders Texas, has seen a spike of violence as the Zetas and Sinaloa drug cartels fight for control of smuggling routes into the US.

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Mexico drug gang warfare leaves 44 dead in prison near Monterrey

Inmates from Gulf and Zeta rival cartels were stabbed, stoned and beaten to death with bars, state spokesman says

A fight between prison inmates associated with rival drug gangs killed 44 inside a jail near the city of Monterrey in the state of Nuevo León, local authorities said on Sunday.

Jorge Domene, the state public security spokesman, told reporters that the victims were stabbed, stoned and beaten to death with bars.

The prison, in the municipality of Apodaca about 140 miles from the border with Texas, houses inmates associated with both the Gulf cartel and their bitter enemies in the Zetas cartel. The two groups have been involved in bitter turf wars in north-east Mexico for the past two years.

Domene said the prison fight broke out around 2am on Sunday morning after prisoners from C block attacked those in D block and that most if not all the victims were from the latter. He did not specify to which group they belonged.

"We hope that once the bodies are identified, we'll be able to say who was responsible for the attack," the official said.

Domene added that all the prison officers on duty at the time of the violence have been detained to aid an investigation into the possibility that some colluded in the attack. Prisoners from rival gangs are supposed to be kept apart.

Already escalating violence between Mexico's different drug cartels exploded after Felipe Calderon, the country's president, launched an all out offensive against organized crime in December 2006. At least 50,000 people have been killed since then, and the prisons are now filled with drug war related detainees.

With the gangs taking their rivalry behind bars – aided by pervasive corruption – deadly prison riots and massacres have become a regular feature of the drug wars. They are often accompanied by mass breakouts. Occasionally, the prison violence has involved firearms smuggled into the jails.

According to the national newspaper El Universal, there have been 267 deaths behind bars in 19 separate events since the government offensive began. Last month a riot in a prison in the north-east state of Tamaulipas left 31 dead. The paper said that the latest violence in Nuevo León was the worst prison bloodbath so far.

Relatives of the approximately 3,000 prisoners in the jail gathered outside the facility on Sunday morning demanding information. At one point some attempted to break down the a gate into the jail.

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Op maandag 20 februari 2012 02:04 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Laat ze binnen de muren maar vechten heeft de rest van het land er in ieder geval geen land van.

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Mexican jail chiefs sacked after deadly riot

Dismissal follows violence at Apodaca prison where one drug cartel killed 44 members of its rival gang before escaping.

Mexican authorities have sacked the director of Apodaca prison in the northeast after jailed members of the Zetas drug cartel stabbed and bludgeoned 44 members of the rival Gulf cartel to death before escaping en masse.

The escape on Sunday was apparently aided by prison authorities, Mexican officials said.

Rodrigo Medina, governor of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, said on Monday that the prison director and three other officials were being investigated after their dismissal.

The same was done with 18 prison guards, he said.

"Unfortunately, a group of traitors has set back the work of a lot of good police," Medina said.

"The most important thing is to make sure that the people working on the inside are on the side of the law, and that they not be corrupted and collaborate with the criminals, as the investigations indicate they presumably did."

Deadly fights happen periodically in Mexico's prisons as gangs and drug cartels stage jail breaks and battle for control of prisons, often with the involvement of officials. Sunday's riot was one of the deadliest so far.

Up to 31 prisoners died in January during a prison riot in the Gulf coast city of Altamira in Tamaulipas state, which borders Texas.

Another fight in a Tamaulipas prison in the border city of Matamoros in October killed 20 inmates and injured 12.

Blunt instruments and knives

Medina did not say how the escape was carried out, but he noted that no members of any gang had broken into the prison to help their colleagues escape, as has happened at other Mexican prisons.

Nor were any firearms smuggled into the facility; all of the deaths apparently occurred with blunt instruments or improvised knives.

Medina confirmed that all 30 escaped inmates were linked to the Zetas cartel, a brutal gang founded by deserters from an elite Mexican military unit.

He did not say what crimes the escaped inmates had been convicted of, but said 25 of the 30 were in the prison on federal charges, which often involve drug trafficking or illegal weapons possession.

Medina offered a reward of 10 million pesos (almost $800,000) for information leading the arrest of those involved in the mass escape.

The Zetas and Gulf cartels were allies before splitting in 2010 and they have been fighting turf battles in Monterrey and elsewhere in northeastern Mexico.

A riot at a prison in the border city of Juarez in July last year killed 17 inmates. Mexican authorities detained the director and four guards over that clash.

Surveillance video showed two inmates opening doors to let armed prisoners into a room where the slain victims were reportedly holding a party.

In 2010, 23 people were killed in a prison riot in Durango city while a riot in Gomez Palacio, another city in the northern Mexican state of Durango, killed 19 people in 2009.

More than 47,500 people have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon intensified Mexico's crackdown on organised crime.

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Op dinsdag 21 februari 2012 00:23 schreef Elvislives het volgende:
Die gasten hebben ook echt geen geweten he...

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Mexican scientists successfully test vaccine that could cut heroin addiction

Vaccine makes the body resistant to the pleasure effect of the drug and is now being prepared for tests on humans

A group of Mexican scientists is working on a vaccine that could reduce addiction to one of the world's most notorious narcotics: heroin.

Researchers at the country's National Institute of Psychiatry say they have successfully tested the vaccine on mice and are preparing to test it on humans.

The vaccine, which has been patented in the US, makes the body resistant to the effects of heroin, so users would no longer get a rush of pleasure when they smoked or injected it.

"It would be a vaccine for people who are serious addicts, who have not had success with other treatments and decide to use this application to get away from drugs," the institute's director Maria Elena Medina said on Thursday.

Scientists worldwide have been searching for drug addiction vaccines for several years, but none have yet been fully developed. A group at the US National Institute on Drug Abuse has reported significant progress in a vaccine for cocaine.

However, the Mexican scientists appear to be close to making a breakthrough on a heroin vaccine and have received funds from the US institute as well as the Mexican government.

During the tests, mice were given access to deposits of heroin over an extended period of time. Those given the vaccine showed a huge drop in heroin consumption, giving the institute hope that it could also work on people, Medina said.

Kim Janda, a scientist working on his own narcotics vaccines at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, said that the Mexican vaccine could function but with some shortcomings.

"It could be reasonably effective, but maybe too general and affect too many different types of opioids as well as heroin," Janda said.

Mexico has a growing drug addiction problem. Health secretary Jose Cordoba recently said the country now has about 450,000 hard drug addicts, particularly along the trafficking corridors of the US-Mexico border.

Mexican gangsters grow opium poppies in the Sierra Madre mountains and convert them into heroin known as Black Tar and Mexican Mud, which are smuggled over the Rio Grande.

Every year, the heroin trade provides billions of dollars to gangs such as the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas. Since 2006, cartel violence has claimed the lives of over 47,000 people in Mexico.

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Wietplantage moet dorp redden

Het Catalaanse dorp Rasquera (934 inwoners) heeft een opmerkelijk plan om de crisis te bestrijden. Een cannabisclub uit Barcelona mag er zeven hectare grond gaan pachten voor een eigen wietplantage. De gemeente wil hiermee haar schuldenlast van 1,3 miljoen euro terugdringen.

De handel in marihuana is illegaal in Spanje. Evenals het verbouwen van meer dan vijf planten. Wiet-activisten hebben echter al jaren een maas in de wet ontdekt. Zij omzeilen het verbod door zich als medicinale gebruikers in stichting te organiseren. Ze verbouwen samen wiet en roken dit in besloten verband. De autoriteiten staan dit doorgaans oogluikend toe.

Rasquera, dat bestuurd wordt door de ultralinkse, regionationalistische partij ERC, stemde gisteravond in met het plan. Volgens de burgemeester zijn er geen juridische obstakels. Hij legde ook uit dat de cannabisclub niet alleen wiet komt verbouwen om op te roken, maar ook om zaadjes te produceren die weer verkocht kunnen worden aan ‘growshops’. Volgens hem is er reeds interesse uit binnen- én buitenland voor deze ‘crisisaanpak’.

De Catalaanse krant La Vanguardia ging kijken in het dorp en maakte dit filmpje. Veel van de (bejaarde) inwoners toonden zich enthousiast (,,We moeten ergens van leven”). Een vrouw is echter bezorgd (,,Dit maakt onze kleinkinderen tot junks”).

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Nederlander in Spanje veroordeeld voor hasjsmokkel

Laatste update: 2 maart 2012 06:50 infoBekijk op de kaart.

AMSTERDAM - Een Nederlander is maandag op het Spaanse eiland Ibiza veroordeeld tot 3,5 jaar cel en vier miljoen euro boete voor de smokkel van twee ton hasj.

Foto: ANP2

Dat melden Spaanse media.

De man werd op 15 januari op een tien meter lange boot voor de kust van Almeria in Zuid-Spanje aangehouden. De drugs die de douane en de politie op de boot vonden waren bestemd voor Ibiza. De bijna tweeduizend kilo hasj zat verpakt in 66 pakketten

Op het schip was ook een Belg aanwezig. Hij is tot dezelfde straf veroordeeld.

In Spanje zitten volgens het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 209 Nederlanders vast voor een drugsdelict

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Op vrijdag 2 maart 2012 08:25 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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Maar 3.5 jaar voor 2 ton hash.

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Op vrijdag 2 maart 2012 08:33 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ja, het buitenland mag ons wel eens gaan helpen met onze War on Drugs!!!!

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Op vrijdag 2 maart 2012 08:36 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

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Gelukkig kwam deze hash niet naar nederland want daar komt nu niets meer naar toe omdat onze politici het verboden hebben.

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Commission on Narcotic Drugs opens in Vienna with call for stronger networks to confront illicit drugs

12 March 2012 ­- Stronger regional networks are vital in confronting the threat of illicit drugs, said Yury Fedotov, UNODC Executive Director, at the opening of the fifty-fifth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, which is meeting in Vienna from 12 to 16 March. "We face a transnational threat of extraordinary proportions that amounts to $320 billion or some 0.5 per cent of global GDP", he stressed.

Ministers and counter-narcotics officials from the 53 member States of the Commission will consider issues of concern, including the availability of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances for medical and scientific purposes and prevention of the diversion of chemicals for use in the manufacture of illicit drugs. The Commission is the central policymaking body within the United Nations system dealing with illicit drugs.

President Evo Morales of the Plurinational State of Bolivia explained that his Government was vigorously combating cocaine trafficking and had destroyed tons of that drug. He said his country needed more international assistance to combat the scourge, particularly in the form of equipment and technology. However, Bolivia had decided to withdraw from the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 to "correct a historical error" concerning the indigenous uses of the coca leaf. Bolivia would reaccede to the Convention if it could make a reservation allowing the traditional consumption of coca leaf to continue, he said.

The Executive Director urged States to intensify health strategies as part of a comprehensive response to drug demand, supply and trafficking. "At present, the balance between our work on the supply and demand sides stays firmly in favour of the supply side. We must restore the balance. Prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, reintegration and health have to be recognized as key elements in our strategy", he said. "Overall, our work on the treatment side must be considered as part of the normal clinical work undertaken when responding to any other disease in the health system."

Given that 2012 marks the centenary of the signing of the International Opium Convention in 1912, the first legal instrument on drug control, the Executive Director said that it was important to recognize the gains made over the past hundred years, but that more needed to be done. He stressed the importance of human rights: "Our commitment is founded on the drug conventions. They form part of a continuum based on human rights and the rule of law that flows directly from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international standards and norms to our delivery of practical actions."

Mr. Fedotov highlighted the regional initiatives being spearheaded by UNODC in the context of shared responsibility among drug-consuming and drug-producing nations to combat the security threats posed by drug flows. UNODC recently launched a regional programme for Afghanistan and neighbouring countries to help to create a broad international coalition to combat opium poppy cultivation and opiate trafficking and production. Networks such as the triangular initiative between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and the Central Asian Regional Information and Coordination Centre are being strengthened. The Office will soon launch a new regional programme for South-Eastern Europe that will focus on the "Balkan route" used for heroin trafficking.

Mr Fedotov also emphasized the importance of enhanced support for Central America: "Countries in Central America, especially in the "Northern Triangle", face dramatic challenges. States have called for a strong UNODC presence in the region. This is why we have created a regional hub for Central America and the Caribbean in Panama to be linked with a re-profiled office in Mexico and other countries in the region."

Important as those initiatives are, tackling supply only was not the solution, according to the Executive Director. "Let me be clear: there can be no reduction in drug supply without a reduction in drug demand, " he said.

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Angel Raich, Cancer Patient, Kicked Out Of Hospital For Using Medical Marijuana

Angel Raich is busy dying. The famous marijuana activist -- who took the federal government to the Supreme Court of the United States for the right to use medical cannabis -- was, earlier this year diagnosed with an inoperable terminal brain tumor, a condition that causes frequent seizures as well as constant pain and headaches.

Told by her doctors at the University of California-San Francisco that she should prepare to die, that's what Raich, 46, is doing, one day at a time -- with purpose as well as dignity.

Except for Monday night, when she was summarily removed from the hospital at UCSF's Parnassus campus for using marijuana, according to NBC Bay Area -- which showed up for an interview that was cut short when Raich had a seizure and had to be rushed to a (different) hospital.

Now might be a good time to mention UCSF also happens to be one of the nation's teaching hospitals that researches marijuana's efficacy in treating cancer and pain.

Raich has lived with her brain tumor for some time, but earlier this year she was diagnosed with radiation necrosis, a complication from radiotherapy.

Details are scant, but it appears Raich was at UCSF for tests and was using marijuana via a vaporizer at the Parnassus campus when someone -- a doctor or a pharmacist -- took offense, and told Raich that they'd "call the Feds" unless she stopped using marijuana.

"The pharmacist said, you can't use cannabis in this hospital," Raich told the television station. "That's a death sentence."

Berkeley-based Dr. Frank Lucido, Raich's primary care physician, says that Raich needs to use marijuana every two waking hours, and denying her the drug amounts to "malpractice," according to a statement on Raich's website. "Angel will suffer imminent harm without access to cannabis."

Television viewers saw exactly what Lucido is talking about, as Raich suffered a seizure during her brief interview with NBC. Raich was then taken to St. Mary's Hospital on Stanyan Street, according to NBC.

In a statement, UCSF said that their hospital is "a smoke-free campus and this includes medical marijuana."

"Any particles from vapor and odor could have an impact on other patients and hospital employees," the statement read. "Under federal and state law, a physician is at legal risk related to any activity that could be construed as prescribing medical marijuana to a patient."

Raich gained national fame as the medical marijuana patient who took the federal government to the United States Supreme Court for the right to use medical marijuana. Her husband at the time, Oakland-based attorney Robert Raich, was one of the attorneys who argued that state law should supplant federal law, and that seriously ill Californians such as Raich have rights under the Constitution to use marijuana for medical purposes.

The Rehnquist Court disagreed, with the majority saying that the Commerce Clause gives Congress the right to ban marijuana for medical use, state law be damned. Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas joined Rehnquist, who died later that year, in supporting Raich.

Raich sued the government after DEA agents raided in 2002 a Butte County residence that housed six pot plants that provided Raich with her medicine.

It's worth mentioning that Raich is currently involved in yet another Supreme Court case, though not one you might expect. Raich filed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit filed by the state of Florida which seeks to overturn Obamacare. Oral arguments in that case, Florida v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, are scheduled to begin later this month.

Details on Raich's current condition, and exactly what happened at UCSF were not available as of Tuesday. We'll update this post as soon as we know more.

Take a look at a video report of Raich's situation below, courtesy of NBC Bay Area:

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Drug use: 20 things you might not know - animation

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Would you take a mystery white powder without knowing what it was? Would you drive after taking drugs? And if you got stopped by police carrying drugs in the US, would they be discovered? This animation explains some of the key findings from the UK and the US of the Guardian/Mixmag Global Drug Survey of over 15,000 people. Where do you fit in?

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Which drug do you take? US and the UK compared by the global drug survey

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'Hidden' drug users who won't be found burgling your home to fund their habit

These detailed new insights reveal that despite media hype around illicit substances, alcohol is the bigger problem

You probably know one or two of Britain's "hidden" drug users, and may even be one yourself. They are often young, highly educated, working, sociable and sporty. They feel healthy, happy in their relationships, and confident about the future. They take cannabis, cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy) and, lest we forget, a fair amount of tobacco and alcohol.

They are, by and large, the drug users you rarely hear or read about, at least not in the social affairs pages. You won't find them in a crack den or breaking into your home to fund their habit. Their use of illegal drugs is a lifestyle choice: it doesn't define or consume them like some heroin and crack addicts. They don't register as an alert on the public health radar, or as a headline on the law and order agenda.

It is easy to imagine many of them as smart, respectable, economically productive, holding down jobs in – or preparing to enter – the professions, business, banking, public service, the law, even politics. It's easy to think of these "happy" drug takers as unproblematic: as rational, self-regulating, middle-class "consumers", who are relatively discreet and (on the whole) discriminating in their drug use, and who tend to tidy up after themselves.

This view, the Guardian/Mixmag survey reveals, is implicitly shared by the police. The status, and perhaps age and skin colour, of our "hidden" drug users means they are not a target – unlike, say black, inner-city youth. They do get stopped and searched, sometimes busted for possession. But the survey suggests the law is pragmatically uninterested, on the whole, in criminalising their misdemeanours.

It also confirms truths that often get lost in the hysterical media discourse around drugs and public health: that taking drugs is, for many ordinary people, as normal and pleasurable a part of their lives as drinking or smoking.

They balance their desire for drug experiences with the demands of work, study and relationships. They see drug use as a choice, with desirable consequences, as well as risks.

This year's survey, conducted by Global Drug Survey, is the biggest of current UK drug use ever carried out, completed by 7,700 UK drug users and 15,500 worldwide, including 3,300 in the US. Its crowd-sourced snapshot of the real-life experiences of a large group of users, male and female, gay and straight, clubbers and non-clubbers, is unique in the scale and detail of its insight into current drug trends, attitudes, practices, risks and harms.

There are detailed, fresh and important insights into drug use and consequences: the unexpectedly high prevalence among drug users of legally prescribed medication – Ritalin, sleeping pills and so on – acquired through the "grey market" of friends and dealers; the reckless use of "mystery white powders" by young hedonists; the consumer backlash against much-hyped drugs such as mephedrone and synthetic cannabis; warning signs of physical harms connected to use of ketamine, for example.

Of course, pleasurable drug use can easily slide into pain: for all that respondents feel happy and in control, most know of at least one friend whose drug use they fear is spinning out of control with all the toxic consequences for their health, relationships and careers. When this happens, it seems conventional help – whether GPs or government-funded drug advice websites – is rarely regarded as trustworthy or helpful.

It's worth noting that while respondents say they block out messages saying "don't take drugs", they would lap up practical, personalised information about dangers and safety tips that enable them to regulate and benchmark their drug intake – the kind of information that Global Drug Survey's Drugs Meter app seeks to provide.

The question for policymakers is how to use this kind of detailed user intelligence data to design and implement appropriate public health responses, based on the evidence of what drugs people take, how and why they consume them, and what consequences they report.

The first policy stop might be that most potent of legal substances, alcohol. Over half of the survey respondents reported drinking at levels that the World Health Organisation would class as harmful (though some of this group believed they were only drinking "average" amounts). Asked which drug they would most like to cut down on, 36% of respondents said alcohol (a figure only exceeded by the 64% who wanted to cut down on tobacco).

When it comes to drugs, we are fascinated and horrified by the fashionable, illicit and notorious. But the deeply mundane finding of our survey is that the most prevalent, damaging and antisocial drug of all – and the one most users want help to kick – is still the one in your fridge and supermarket trolley: booze.

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Guardian/Mixmag drug survey reveals a generation happy to chance it

Data shows predominantly white, educated and relatively healthy users willing to take significant risks with their health

"My daily life is sensible, regimented and very stressful, so at the weekend I want the complete opposite," explained James, a financial broker. "When I go out, the last thing I want is to think about work and responsibilities. I just want to lose myself for a few hours."

The 25-year-old, who is at his desk in the City by 6.30am every day, takes a mix of MDMA, cocaine and the anaesthetic ketamine almost every weekend. He insists it does not affect his work and says the fallout from a weekend drug bender is little worse than a bad hangover.

"I just personally enjoy it," he said. "It's not sitting alone in a room shooting up heroin, it's a social and enjoyable experience that I can balance with my working life."

Respondents to the Guardian/Mixmag drug survey – for which 15,500 regular users such as James revealed everything from their drug of choice to the amount they pay for a gram of cocaine – do not easily conform to drug user stereotypes. Predominantly white, educated, relatively healthy people with an average age of 28, they are neither in rehab nor prison and rarely touch heroin or crack.

But the survey exposes a generation of drug-users willing to take significant risks with their health. Many respondents admitted to taking cocktails of drugs, mixing drugs with alcohol, and taking "mystery" white powder with little or no knowledge of its content.

And while a significant majority – 76% – said they didn't need drugs for a good night out, a higher proportion – 86% – thought drugs could make a good night better.

"I think most people view drug-users as dependent or weaker in some way," said Luke, 20, who works for a removals and storage business. "In fact, the users that I regularly spend time with – myself included – are hard-working and socially functional people, just like many non-users."

Unknown substances

Despite a commonly professed happiness with their relationships and standard of living, there is evidence that younger drug-takers in particular are taking serious risks with their health.

Those under 25 were twice as likely to have taken a "mystery white powder" as older respondents, with 19% admitting to snorting or ingesting a substance without knowing what it was. Of the overall 14.6% of respondents who had taken an unknown white powder, a third took it from a stranger and 80% were already intoxicated when they took it.

Dr Adam Winstock, founder of Global Drug Survey, which analysed the Guardian/Mixmag data, said that while the majority of drug users were "not stupid", many were putting themselves in dangerous situations.

"What worries me is that people's judgment is already impaired when they are taking a substance they don't know," Winstock said. "You are much more likely to run into trouble if you mix drugs, or mix drugs with alcohol – and if you are taking a drug you don't know from someone you don't know, that is really upping the risk."

Tanya, a 29-year-old who lives in Glasgow and works in the media, said the illicit nature of the drug scene made people more likely to take risks.

"I think half the reason people are taking mystery powder is because of all this cloak and dagger stuff. If someone offers you something in a club, it's not like you can shout out and ask what it is, or how much you should take – you just lick your finger and stick it in."

Tanya described snorting what she thought was cocaine at a house party, only to be told it was ketamine.

"Ketamine is a horse-tranquiliser and, to be honest, it makes you feel like a tranquilised horse," she said. "That was a bit of a wake-up call. The next day we all sat around saying: 'We are educated, sensible people – what were we playing at?'"

James had a more extreme reaction after taking a drug he believed was ketamine on a night out for his birthday. Unable to contact his usual drug dealer, he bought what he thought were pills and ketamine from someone he had not used before. "We took the stuff in the club and everyone went insane. It was horrendous – we were like complete zombies, just dribbling," he said. "We found ourselves out on the street a couple of hours later when we came around."

Yet James said that the group then went back to his house and, thinking the reaction had come from "dodgy pills", took more of the ketamine.

"We did a load more and went into freakout mode; no one could breathe and we didn't know how it was going to end," he said.

James later discovered his group had been sold methoxetamine – also known as MXE, Mexxy or Roflcoptr – a "legal high", ketamine-style chemical that has been tried by 5% of the survey's respondents. "It really put me off buying from a 'random'," said James. "Basically they can sell you anything and what are you going to do? You are never going to report a dealer."

MXE is in line to become the first drug to be made subject to a temporary class drug order, which would ban the substance for 12 months while further investigations are carried out – part of the government's attempts to stem a wave of new drugs available.

The survey reveals that 20% of respondents have taken legal highs in the past 12 months, with 35% buying them from friend, 45% online, 42% from a shop and 22.5% from a dealer.

"The research chemicals available in the UK are diverse and fascinating," said David, a 21-year-old student . A self-confessed "enthusiast", he admitted using legal highs, including the psychedelic AMT, the stimulant 6-APB (benfamine) and MXE. Despite describing one experience on ketamine as "very oppressive – like dying and coming back to life", David said he had no qualms about trying out new chemical compounds.

"It's not for everyone, but it is actually quite hard to kill yourself," he said. "Of course there are risks, but you negate them by learning about the drugs – in the same way you wear a seat belt in a car. And for me, the risks are very much worth it."

John Ramsey, a toxicologist at St George's medical school in London, contrasted the increasing number of "legal" drugs on the market with the dearth of research into their short- and long-term effects. "It is amazing that so many people take mystery white powders," he said. "The truth is nobody knows what the risks of legal highs are, and it is patently dangerous to take untested drugs."

The debate about how to tackle legal highs rages on. There have been high-profile deaths linked to legal highs – such as the BZP-linked death of the 22-year-old mortgage broker Daniel Backhouse, who is thought to have also taken ecstasy – yet critics accuse the government of bowing to a media frenzy.

Maryon Stewart, whose 21-year-old daughter, Hester, died in April 2009 after taking the club drug GBL in combination with alcohol, warns that the risks of legal highs are real. "Young people are playing russian roulette with their lives and wellbeing," she said. "There are risks when you know what you are taking, which are multiplied when you don't know what you are throwing down your throat."

Legal highs

Stewart set up the Angelus Foundation, which aims to educate users of the risks of taking legal highs and other drugs, and she says that simply banning new drugs is not the answer. "The prime minister has said he will stamp out legal highs, but how? All the government is doing is banning them one by one, which is pretty much a waste of time. For young people, raising awareness and education is key," she said.

Her foundation has launched a petition to encourage people to lobby the government to bring drug education on to the national curriculum.

Dr Les King, a chemist and former head of the drugs intelligence unit in the forensic science service, agreed. "The government wants to be seen to be doing something – but using the Misuse of Drugs Act to ban these substances is not the way forward," he said. "There are so many of them that we need a different approach."

The government banned mephedrone in March 2010 after reports linking the drug to deaths in the UK, such as 14-year-old schoolgirl Gabrielle Price in Brighton, although police later said she died from bronchopneumonia. And despite reports claiming mephedrone is more popular among clubbers than before it was banned, results from the Guardian/Mixmag survey suggest the ban could have had an impact. Usage has dropped among survey respondents in the past year – from 51% to 19.5%. Among regular clubbers it was down to 30%.

According to King, the "huff and puff" around banning drugs was obscuring the bigger problem: dependence on alcohol and tobacco. "Alcohol and tobacco are never put in the same league as drugs, but from a scientific point of view they should be," he said.

His concerns appear to be backed up by respondents' concerns – 36% said they would like to consume less alcohol, compared with 64% who wanted to cut down on tobacco, 17% who wanted to cut down on cocaine and 8% on MDMA, while 40% said that their friends' alcohol consumption caused them the most worry. As one regular drug user put it: "It seems everyone in the country drinks like a fish, from the Queen down, so I think drugs are the least of our worries."

The survey also suggests that many respondents are relatively unconcerned about breaking the law – 9.4% had been stopped and searched in the previous 12 months and 60% reported having drugs on them on at least one occasion when stopped. Of those that had been searched, 65% said police had failed to find the drugs they were carrying on at least one occasion. Of those found with MDMA, 37% were let off with only a telling off, as were 40% of those with cocaine and 49% of those with cannabis.

For many of the survey's respondents, there appears to be no pressing need to stop taking drugs. Tanya, who has never been in trouble with the police, is not worried about leaving drugs behind. "I used to say I'd give up when I was 30," said the 29-year-old. "I'm now thinking I might put that back to 40."

For James, the prospect of giving up drugs lies some way in the future. "My drug-taking and partying is a choice. I assume that one day I'll grow bored of it or not be able to balance it with other commitments I may have. But for as long as I continue to enjoy myself, I'll probably continue."

quote:

Decriminalising drugs in the Western hemisphere

In a break with his past positions, Guatemala's president recently suggested decriminalising illegal drugs.

Scranton, PA - United States Vice President Joseph Biden recently travelled to Mexico and Honduras in the midst of growing frustration with the US war on drugs. In Mexico, Biden met with current President Felipe Calderón as well as several contenders in the country's presidential election this July.

From there, Biden flew to Honduras for a meeting of the Central American Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) during which he met with the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, and Panama, and others. While Biden's Central America visit was initially designed to discuss regional security more broadly, debate mainly revolved around Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina's suggestion that the region consider decriminalising the use and transportation of drugs.

Central America and Mexico are situated between the major drug-producing nations of South America (Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia) and the world's largest consumer of illegal drugs, the United States. Ninety per cent of the cocaine destined for the US passes through the region. While the US has moved to restrict the flow of drugs moving into the country via the Caribbean and air routes, violence in Mexico and Central America has increased as rival drug trafficking organisations fight over access to the lucrative drug market in the United States.

The Northern Triangle of Central America is now comprised of three of the most violent countries in the world in terms of homicides per 100,000 people. Honduras (86 homicides per 100,000) and El Salvador (70) had the two highest homicide rates in the world in 2011 and Guatemala (39), while far behind, still ranked among the most violent. Homicide rates in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Mexico have also seen sharp increases over the last few years. While there are no solid numbers as to what percentage of homicides have been caused by drug trafficking, it is clear to all parties that the drug trade is fuelling, in one way or another, much of the region's violence.

President Otto Perez Molina's call to discuss decriminalising drugs was welcomed by many, but it is still unclear why he suggested that the region consider decriminalising illegal drug use and transportation at this moment in time. It is quite possible that Perez has come to the same conclusion that many others have - that the US-directed war on drugs has failed. For all the billions of dollars spent and lives lost in the war on drugs, there's very little positive to show for it. The only way for the region to reduce the violence associated with drug trafficking between its South American source and North American destination is to decriminalise its production, transportation, and consumption.

This is not an unreasonable position. Former presidents of Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia have criticised US drug policy and have called for some level of decriminalising illegal drugs.

I understand that Perez' justification for his policy reversal isn't the primary concern for those who seek a fundamental change in the region's drug policy, but it is an important question, and the Guatemalan people should know better how President Perez came to this decision. Before his victory in a November runoff, Perez had been campaigning for president ever since he founded the Patriotic Party in 2001. He ran on a mano dura ("strong fist") platform that he insisted was necessary to tackle rising crime before losing to Alvaro Colom in the 2007 presidential election. In 2011, Perez was again the mano dura candidate. His campaign rhetoric also addressed social and economic issues in greater detail compared to 2007.

quote:

Op donderdag 15 maart 2012 13:56 schreef ComplexConjugate het volgende:
Alcohol en tabak zijn zonder meer de meest schadelijk drugs die er te vinden zijn, helaas zijn deze middelen gereguleerd maar ik zou er wel wat in zien als je via legale weg toegang zou kunnen krijgen tot een breed scala aan prettige substanties

quote:

Op donderdag 15 maart 2012 14:03 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Het verbieden van drugs gaat over macht en geld, niet over een goede samenleving of volksgezondheid.

quote:

New wrinkle in pot debate: stoned driving

Associated Press= DENVER (AP) — Angeline Chilton says she can't drive unless she smokes pot. The suburban Denver woman says she'd never get behind the wheel right after smoking, but she does use medical marijuana twice a day to ease tremors caused by multiple sclerosis that previously left her homebound.

"I don't drink and drive, and I don't smoke and drive," she said. "But my body is completely saturated with THC."

Her case underscores a problem that no one's sure how to solve: How do you tell if someone is too stoned to drive?

States that allow medical marijuana have grappled with determining impairment levels for years. And voters in Colorado and Washington state will decide this fall whether to legalize the drug for recreational use, bringing a new urgency to the issue.

A Denver marijuana advocate says officials are scrambling for limits in part because more drivers acknowledge using the drug.

"The explosion of medical marijuana patients has led to a lot of drivers sticking the (marijuana) card in law enforcement's face, saying, 'You can't do anything to me, I'm legal,'" said Sean McAllister, a lawyer who defends people charged with driving under the influence of marijuana.

It's not that simple. Driving while impaired by any drug is illegal in all states.

But it highlights the challenges law enforcement officers face using old tools to try to fix a new problem. Most convictions for drugged driving now are based on police observations, followed later by a blood test.

Authorities envision a legal threshold for pot that would be comparable to the blood-alcohol standard used to determine drunken driving.

But unlike alcohol, marijuana stays in the blood long after the high wears off a few hours after use, and there is no quick test to determine someone's level of impairment — not that scientists haven't been working on it.

Dr. Marilyn Huestis of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a government research lab, says that soon there will be a saliva test to detect recent marijuana use.

But government officials say that doesn't address the question of impairment.

"I'll be dead — and so will lots of other people — from old age, before we know the impairment levels" for marijuana and other drugs, said White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske.

Authorities recognize the need for a solution. Marijuana causes dizziness, slowed reaction time and drivers are more likely to drift and swerve while they're high.

Dr. Bob DuPont, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health, a non-government institute that works to reduce drug abuse, says research proves "the terrible carnage out there on the roads caused by marijuana."

One recent review of several studies of pot smoking and car accidents suggested that driving after smoking marijuana might almost double the risk of being in a serious or fatal crash.

And a recent nationwide census of fatal traffic accidents showed that while deadly crashes have declined in recent years, the percentage of mortally wounded drivers who later tested positive for drugs rose 18 percent between 2005 and 2011.

DuPont, drug czar for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, wrote a paper last year on drugged driving for the Obama administration, which has made the issue a priority.

Physicians say that while many tests can show whether someone has recently used pot, it's more difficult to pinpoint impairment at any certain time.

Urine and blood tests are better at showing whether someone used the drug in the past — which is why employers and probation officers use them. But determining current impairment is far trickier.

"There's no sure answer to that question," said Dr. Guohua Li, a Columbia University researcher who reviewed marijuana use and motor vehicle crashes last year.

His survey linked pot use to crash risk, but pointed out wide research gaps. Scientists do not have conclusive data to link marijuana dosing to accident likelihood; whether it matters if the drug is smoked or eaten; or how pot interacts with other drugs.

The limited data has prompted a furious debate.

Proposed solutions include setting limits on the amount of the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana, THC, that drivers can have in their blood. But THC limits to determine impairment are not widely agreed upon.

Two states place the standard at 2 nanograms per milliliter of blood. Others have zero tolerance policies. And Colorado and Washington state are debating a threshold of 5 nanograms.

Such an attempt failed the Colorado Legislature last year, amid opposition from Republicans and Democrats. State officials then set up a task force to settle the question — and the panel couldn't agree.

This year, Colorado lawmakers are debating a similar measure, but its sponsors concede they don't know whether the "driving while high" bill will pass.

In Washington state, the ballot measure on marijuana legalization includes a 5 nanogram THC limit.

The measure's backers say polling indicates such a driving limit could be crucial to winning public support for legalization.

"Voters were very concerned about impaired driving," said Alison Holcomb, campaign director for Washington's legalization measure.

Holcomb also pointed to a failed marijuana legalization proposal in California two years ago that did not include a driving THC limit.

The White House, which has a goal of reducing drugged driving by 10 percent in the next three years, wants states to set a blood-level standard upon which to base convictions, but has not said what that limit should be.

Administration officials insist marijuana should remain illegal, and Kerlikowske called it a "bogus argument" to say any legal level of THC in a driver is safe.

But several factors can skew THC blood tests, including age, gender, weight and frequency of marijuana use. Also, THC can remain in the system weeks after a user sobers up, leading to the anxiety shared by many in the 16 medical marijuana states: They could be at risk for a positive test at any time, whether they had recently used the drug or not.

A Colorado state forensic toxicologist testified recently that "5 nanograms is more than fair" to determine intoxication. But, for now the blood test proposals remain politically fraught, with supporters and opponents of marijuana legalization hinging support on the issue.

Huestis, of the government-funded drug abuse institute, says an easy-to-use roadside saliva test that can determine recent marijuana use — as opposed to long-ago pot use — is in final testing stages and will be ready for police use soon.

Researchers envision a day when marijuana tests are as common in police cars as Breathalyzers.

Until then, lawmakers will consider measures such as Colorado's marijuana DUI proposal, which marijuana activists say imperils drivers who frequently use the drug such as Chilton, the multiple sclerosis patient.

She says that since she began using pot she has started driving again and for the first time in five years has landed a job.

Chilton worries Colorado's proposal jeopardizes her newfound freedom.

quote:

Mexican police killed after beheadings

Gunmen opened fire on a police convoy on a rural highway near Teloloapan, killing 12 officers and wounding 11 more

Twelve Mexican police were killed in a mountain highway ambush hours after the severed heads of 10 people were found in a small town in a key illegal drug-growing region.

Gunmen opened fire on a police convoy on Sunday evening, killing 12 officers and wounding 11 more, said Arturo Martinez, spokesman for the Guerrero state government.

The ambush took place on a rural highway near the town of Teloloapan, located in southern Mexico between the beach resort of Acapulco and Mexico City.

Earlier on Sunday, the severed heads of 10 people were lined along a street outside a slaughterhouse in the centre of Teloloapan.

The region has been long used by drug gangs to grow marijuana. Surrounding Guerrero state has seen a spike in violence since last year as several major gangs battle over trafficking routes.

The La Familia cartel and its offshoot, Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar), are among the gangs fighting for territory in the region. The heads had been left with a message threatening the La Familia gang, local media reported.

More than 50,000 people, including more than 2,500 police and soldiers, have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an army-led crackdown on the cartels after taking office five years ago.

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Op dinsdag 20 maart 2012 22:16 schreef VeX- het volgende:
Mexico is een doodlopend verhaal.

Gewoon de VS hele boel laten platbombarderen en van de grond af aan opnieuw beginnen.

quote:

Op dinsdag 20 maart 2012 22:16 schreef VeX- het volgende:
Mexico is een doodlopend verhaal.

Gewoon de VS hele boel laten platbombarderen en van de grond af aan opnieuw beginnen.

quote:

Op donderdag 22 maart 2012 01:12 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Sterker; de VS is de afzetmarkt voor die klotedrugs. De cokesnuivers in de VS houden die hele zooi in stand. Zonder kopers geen verkoop.

Als men slim is, zorgt men voor eigen productie van prettigere drugs in de VS. Zoiets als de Nederlandse XTC-markt dus.

quote:

Pope arrives in Mexico pledging to fight drugs 'evil'

Thousands greet Pope Benedict XVI on his first visit to Mexico, as he denounces drug-related violence in the country

Pope Benedict has arrived in Mexico promising to "unmask the evil" of drug trafficking in a country ravaged by gang violence that has killed 50,000 people in the past five years.

The pope began his three-day visit to the world's second-most populous Catholic state in the central city of Leon, where he received one of the most exuberant welcomes of any of his foreign trips.

Tens of thousands of people, 20 deep in some places, lined the streets on his 22-mile (35-km) drive through the city.

He touched down in Mexico after making strong statements aboard his papal plane about the country's spiralling drug war.

"We must do whatever is possible to combat this destructive evil against humanity and our youth," he told reporters, referring to the violent conflict between rival drug cartels and the state.

"It is the responsibility of the Church to educate consciences, to teach moral responsibility and to unmask the evil, to unmask this idolatry of money which enslaves man, to unmask the false promises, the lies, the fraud that is behind drugs," the pope added.

Raising his arms aloft as he exited the plane, Benedict descended the stairs slowly, holding the handrail. He was greeted by President Felipe Calderon and a group of children while crowds cheered and waved Vatican flags.

Addressing the masses gathered at the airport in a steady, measured tone, the pope, speaking in Spanish, said he had come as a "pilgrim of faith, of hope, and of love."

"I will pray especially for those in need, particularly those who suffer because of old and new rivalries, resentments and all forms of violence," said Benedict, adding that he hoped his message would also reach Mexicans outside of their homeland.

The bloodshed across Mexico was in the mind of many waiting to see Benedict in the city, a Roman Catholic stronghold that has avoided the worst of the brutal turf wars.

Throngs of Catholics dressed in white t-shirts and caps threw yellow and white confetti, having waited since early morning to see the pope pass. Many of them were young people let out of school for the day.

Several stood in front of a large banner that read "Pope, pray that the violence ends, pray that peace returns."

"Violence is the country's biggest priority. There are some places where you can't even set foot outside it's so dangerous," said 16-year-old Martin Zamora who hung the sign with his Catholic youth group.

"Many young people have decided to join up with organised crime instead of fighting it. That's what the pope is coming here for, to help save young people."

Benedict, who turns 85 next month, will rest for 24 hours to recover from jet lag. His main message will be delivered on Sunday at a massive outdoor service that hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend.

quote:

Op donderdag 22 maart 2012 01:49 schreef Eyjafjallajoekull het volgende:

[..]

Mexico valt nog mee. Het is vooral de grens waar het zo slecht gaat. Mexico is gigantisch natuurlijk. Volgens mij gaat het in een aantal omringende landen nog erger aan toe dan in Mexico.

quote:

Op zaterdag 24 maart 2012 15:49 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Dwingen heb ik het niet over gehad. Marktwerking werkt ook met drugs; door de aanpak van wiet en crack

quote:

, kwam er ineens het ranzige crystal meth op de markt.

quote:

Jij wuift je eigen verantwoordelijkheid weg, dat is veel dommer.

Coke gebruiken = de boel in stand houden...

quote:

Guatemala proposes legalisation of drugs

President says war on drugs has failed and region must look at ways to regulate production, transit and consumption.

Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has said the war on drugs in Latin America has failed, and has set out a raft of proposals to look at the possibility of decriminalising narcotics or establishing a regional court to try traffickers.

"The proposal is decriminalisation," Perez said at a Central American summit on Saturday to address security throughout the region.

"We are talking about creating a legal framework to regulate the production, transit and consumption of drugs."

Perez Molina called the meeting to consider decriminalisation as a way of reducing drug-related violence.

But the presidents of Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras all cancelled their attendance at short notice.

Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Mauricio Funes of El Salvador and Porfirio Lobo of El Salvador decided not to attend.

Change of strategy

The discussion reflects growing concern in Central America about the cost of the war on drugs, which is prompting leaders to take an increasingly independent line from the United States, where officials have repeatedly rejected legalising drugs.

"We have seen that the strategy that has been pursued in the fight against drug trafficking over the last 40 years has failed," Perez Molina said. "We have to look for new alternatives. We must end the myths, the taboos, and tell people you have to discuss it."

Perez Molina caused widespread surprise when he announced in January that he thought it was time to consider decriminalising the consumption, production and trafficking of drugs.

A retired general, Perez Molina won an election in November 2011 promising to crack down on organised crime.

But he shifted from his hard-line message shortly after taking office in January, calling for a more open debate on drug policy.

"It's important this is on the discussion table as an alternative to what we've been doing for 40 years without getting the desired results," said Perez Molina, noting that decriminalisation would erode drug cartels' profits.

The president added that Central American leaders were considering asking the US, the biggest consumer of South American cocaine, to pay the region for drug raids.

"We're talking about economic compensation for every seizure undertaken and also the destruction of marijuana and cocaine plantations," said Perez Molina.

Regional leaders in countries affected by drug violence have called for more open debate on other solutions to the problem.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon, to whom Perez has turned for advice on confronting the cartels, has called on Washington to take more responsibility for reducing demand for drugs, and has said he is open to debates about legalisation.

The subject is also likely to be discussed at the Summit of the Americas in Colombia on 14-15 April.

quote:

War on drugs a ‘comprehensive failure’

A coalition of legal experts, drug researchers and health professionals based at the University of New South Wales has backed a call by a group of eminent Australians for an overhaul of Australia's approach to illicit drugs.

The Australia21 group of eminent Australians today released their report The Prohibition of Illicit Drugs is Killing and Criminalising our Children and We Are Letting It Happen. The report calls for a fundamental rethink of current policies, and an end to the tough-on-drugs approach.

“By making the supply and use of certain drugs criminal acts, governments everywhere have driven their production and consumption underground and have fostered the development of a criminal industry that is corrupting civil society and governments and killing our children,” the report says.

Backing the report today is the newly formed Australian Drug Law Reform Initiative, comprising 20 multidisciplinary experts from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and internationally. The group says the current approach to illicit drugs has comprehensively failed.

Every year some 400 Australians die from illicit drugs and thousands more suffer the short and long-term term health and social consequences of drug dependence. Criminalisation of drug production and use has resulted in the pervasive corruption of the criminal justice system, the group says.

“Over a decade ago, Portugal decriminalised the possession of small quantities of all illicit drugs. The results showed health and social benefits and a reduced burden on the criminal justice system. It is time to consider whether a similar approach should be taken in Australia,” UNSW criminology professor and initiative member Julie Stubbs said.

Former Director of Public Prosecutions Mr Nicholas Cowdery, a Visiting Professorial Fellow at UNSW, said the problems associated with drug use should be dealt with in the health and social systems, with only the peripheral involvement of the criminal law.

“Over more than 40 years in criminal legal practice I have seen the impotence of the criminal law in an area for which it is not suited,” Mr Cowdery said. “It is time to reform the laws to enable drugs to be dealt with by other mechanisms, although doubtless a small number of bootleggers would still need to be prosecuted.

“We need to discuss generally and openly the best way forward and engage politicians in the process. UNSW’s Australian Drug Law Reform Initiative provides the forum for that to occur in an informed way.”

International partner in the UNSW Initiative, Professor Ernest Drucker, from John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) in New York, said momentum for drug law reform was building around the world, especially in Latin America. A founder of the international harm reduction movement, Professor Drucker recently visited UNSW as a Fulbright Senior Specialist.

“As an American public health and drug treatment professional I have seen the harms that both drug addiction and errant drug criminalisation policies can cause. The drug law reform efforts now underway in Australia and other nations mark a hopeful change – a new milestone in our struggle to put drug issues where they belong – in healthcare, effective exercise of social responsibility, and defence of human rights – not as a criminal matter," he said.

President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and initiative member, Dr Alex Wodak, said: “It is clear that countries that have relied heavily on law enforcement to deal with drugs have failed, at great cost, and a difficult problem has been made much worse. The transition to more effective drug policy needs evidence and insights from law, health and other disciplines. And students need to learn more about the damaging effects of existing laws.”

_{For more information about the Australian Drug Law Reform Initiative and its aims, go to the website.}

quote:

Op zaterdag 24 maart 2012 15:49 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Dwingen heb ik het niet over gehad. Marktwerking werkt ook met drugs; door de aanpak van wiet en crack, kwam er ineens het ranzige crystal meth op de markt.

Jij wuift je eigen verantwoordelijkheid weg, dat is veel dommer.

Coke gebruiken = de boel in stand houden...

quote:

A moral argument against the war on drugs

Former Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has argued that the war on drugs has failed and cannabis should be decriminalised. He argued that the hardline approach has brought “disastrous” consequences for Latin America. Having just returned from Rio, we can only agree.

One of us was staying with an eminent professor of philosophy. We were returning to her house with her 11-year-old daughter, only to have our way blocked by police with machine guns. They were hunting a drug lord in the local favela – this road was the only escape route and they were preparing for possible altercation.

Cardoso highlights the practical failure of a zero-tolerance approach. A zero-tolerance approach to a crime like taking drugs must always fail, in the same way as a zero-tolerance approach to alcohol, prostitution or drugs in sport will always fail. Paradoxically, the worst thing you could do to the drug lords in Rio is not to wage a war on them, but to decriminalise cocaine and marijuana. They would be out of business in one day. Supplies could be monitored, controlled and regulated, the harm to users and third parties significantly reduced.

The case for legalising drugs has been made often, most recently by Australia’s foreign minister, Bob Carr, who this week co-signed a report declaring “the war on drugs has failed”. The argument is nearly always put forward in terms of the burdens that the drug war has imposed on us in terms of crime and public health. And it is true that these things give us good reason to abandon Richard Nixon’s war on drugs. But we so rarely hear a moral argument in favour of liberalising drug laws. This is a mistake.

Although experts have told us time and time again that things would be better without the drug war, politicians have ignored the expert advice because voters do not want drugs laws to be loosened. And voters feel this way not because they think they know better than the experts, but because they have moral objections to drug use. There is a hidden moral debate driving the war on drugs that we never seem to bring out in the open.

The original drug prohibitions had a moral rationale rather than a practical one. It began with the American prohibition of opium, which was primarily motivated by a moral objection to white people smoking in Chinese-run opium dens. This began a prohibition movement in the United States. In 1913, marijuana — which was used almost exclusively by Mexican and Indian immigrants — was prohibited for the first time by the state of California.

Today, when new drugs are added to the long list of illegal substances, it is because they are judged to be “addictive”, not because they are harmful. The United States’ Controlled Substances Act calls for a drug to be prohibited if it has “a high potential for abuse” and if it “may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence”.

The drug does not have to be harmful in any other sense. According to US government statistics, paracetamol (acetaminophen) is involved in nearly five times as many emergency room visits as MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine, often referred to as “ecstasy”), and it remains available in supermarkets around the world.

So the main reason that drugs like alcohol and caffeine are legal, but cocaine and MDMA are not, is that the latter are judged to be “addictive”. (Suspend for a moment the true belief that alcohol and caffeine are addictive.)

Addiction does harm the addict, to be sure. But self-harm cannot provide grounds for prohibiting a substance. As philosopher John Stuart Mill famously put it, the sole legitimate reason for interfering with a person’s liberty is when he risks harming others.

And while it is sometimes argued that the “drug problem” makes us all worse off, most of these harms flow directly from the zero-tolerance approach — drug prohibitions harm others when they are robbed, beaten or killed by those who run the black market of drugs.

It is sometimes argued by liberal-minded people that addictions warrant state interference because they render the addict incompetent, powerless to make an autonomous decision to take drugs. The addict becomes like a child in need of parental protection — or in this case the protection of the state. In this way “addiction” becomes a moral concept, not a form of harm. It is a condition that robs us of our moral status.

We have argued in a number of articles that such a view of addiction is false. People who take drugs are not suffering from a disease and they do not necessarily have some pathological failing of will power. They may be imprudent or irrational in taking drugs, but then again, we all are, nearly every day, in various ways when we eat unhealthily, engage in risky sports, smoke, drink or gamble.

Addicts may place to greater value on pleasure, or on excitement, or escape from reality, but their addictions are not different in kind to desires for other pleasurable activities. People become “addicted” to gambling, videogames, internet use, exercise, sex, carrots, sugar and water. These substances or activities do not “hijack” the brain — they provide pleasure utilising the same brain pathways as drugs. Every pleasurable activity is “addictive”.

The public discourse on drugs includes liberty, health, and crime, but it so rarely includes the value of pleasure. We do not have to be hedonists to believe that pleasure is one of the important goods in a person’s life. A liberal society should be neutral with regard to which pleasures people may pursue; it should not force people to conform to a particular conception of “good” and “bad” pleasures.

But more importantly, if every pleasurable behaviour can be addictive, then there can be no reason to believe that the pleasures of drug use are less important than the pleasures of good food and wine, of rock-climbing and football, or of browsing the internet. Each of these things is pleasurable, and hence each is addictive, and each can be harmful if done to excess. But we all have a right to pursue the pleasures we find valuable, even though each of these pleasures puts us at risk of addictions or addiction-like problems: alcoholism, pathological internet use, sex addiction, binge eating disorders, and so on.

The right to pursue pleasure gives us reason to legalise drugs, while addiction and self-harm fail to give us good reason to prohibit them. That is the essence of a strong moral argument against the war on drugs.

There remains one possible ground for interfering in liberty and retaining the ban on drugs. That ground is the public interest. If society were to be severely impaired by liberalisation of drug laws, that might be an extreme case that warrants a ban on drugs.

But our (admittedly limited) experience suggests the opposite — the Netherlands appears to have reduced its drug problem, without increasing its overall rate of drug use, by enacting relatively liberal drug laws for “soft” drugs like marijuana. And as Cardoso argues, a complete ban seems to be strongly against the public interest, keeping drug lords in business and the user and others in a position of severe vulnerability.

In the future, perhaps we will give up our squeamishness about drugs which provide pleasure. We could use modern pharmacological science to select or even design drugs which give us the pleasure or experiences we seek, but cheaply and without serious acute or chronic health risks. For the present, the drug which we can most freely obtain is one of the most addictive, one which contributes to violent behaviour, one which produces terrible chronic health effects and the worst withdrawal syndrome of all drugs. Alcohol.

The time has come to take a rational approach to drugs.

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'War on drugs' has failed, say Latin American leaders

Watershed summit will admit that prohibition has failed, and call for more nuanced and liberalised tactics

A historic meeting of Latin America's leaders, to be attended by Barack Obama, will hear serving heads of state admit that the war on drugs has been a failure and that alternatives to prohibition must now be found.

The Summit of the Americas, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia is being seen by foreign policy experts as a watershed moment in the redrafting of global drugs policy in favour of a more nuanced and liberalised approach.

Otto Pérez Molina, the president of Guatemala, who as former head of his country's military intelligence service experienced the power of drug cartels at close hand, is pushing his fellow Latin American leaders to use the summit to endorse a new regional security plan that would see an end to prohibition. In the Observer, Pérez Molina writes: "The prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that global drug markets can be eradicated."

Pérez Molina concedes that moving beyond prohibition is problematic. "To suggest liberalisation – allowing consumption, production and trafficking of drugs without any restriction whatsoever – would be, in my opinion, profoundly irresponsible. Even more, it is an absurd proposition. If we accept regulations for alcoholic drinks and tobacco consumption and production, why should we allow drugs to be consumed and produced without any restrictions?"

He insists, however, that prohibition has failed and an alternative system must be found. "Our proposal as the Guatemalan government is to abandon any ideological consideration regarding drug policy (whether prohibition or liberalisation) and to foster a global intergovernmental dialogue based on a realistic approach to drug regulation. Drug consumption, production and trafficking should be subject to global regulations, which means that drug consumption and production should be legalised, but within certain limits and conditions."

The decision by Pérez Molina to speak out is seen as highly significant and not without political risk. Polls suggest the vast majority of Guatemalans oppose decriminalisation, but Pérez Molina's comments are seen by many as helping to usher in a new era of debate. They will be studied closely by foreign policy experts who detect that Latin American leaders are shifting their stance on prohibition following decades of drugs wars that have left hundreds of thousands dead.

Mexico's president, Felipe Calderón, has called for a national debate on the issue. Last year Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia's president, told the Observer that if legalising drugs curtailed the power of organised criminal gangs who had thrived during prohibition, "and the world thinks that's the solution, I will welcome it".

One diplomat closely involved with the summit described the event as historic, saying it would be the first time for 40 years that leaders had met to have an open discussion on drugs. "This is the chance to look at this matter with new eyes," he said.

Latin America's increasing hostility towards prohibition makes Obama's attendance at the summit potentially difficult. The Obama administration, keen not to hand ammunition to its opponents during an election year, will not want to be seen as softening its support for prohibition. However, it is seen as significant that the US vice-president, Joe Biden, has acknowledged that the debate about legalising drugs is now legitimate.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and chairman of the global commission on drug policy, has said it is time for "an open debate on more humane and efficient drug policies", a view shared by George Shultz, the former US secretary of state, and former president Jimmy Carter.

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Anonymous to launch Operation Cannabis 420 campaign

First Netflix, now the drug war. Anonymous is taking absolutely no prisoners this week.

The hacktivist group has declared a new project: Operation Cannabis 420. The informal Internet collective has declared April 20, a traditional day of observance for those in the marijuana community, as a day of action for all occupiers around the world and will launch a full campaign to educate the masses and (hopefully) end the war on drugs.

A press release put out today (April 9) highlights the myriad of medicinal uses for cannabis, and states, "Cannabis has been oppressed by the powers that be that are afraid of its true benefits, and these benefits do help all of mankind! So cannabis fits the criteria for Anonymous support."

And just what can you do? "We ask that all Anons and individuals please support the legalization efforts in any way possible! Even simply signing a petition or sharing info or even just having an open mind about the subject will help!" The group is also asking people to make their online social-media photos green on April 20 as a show of solidarity.

Anonymous and cannabis. It's like my two favourite things all rolled into one. If I didn't have a calendar, I'd swear it was Christmas.

Anonymous #OpCannabis 420

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New drug gang wars blow Colombian city's revival apart

Hard-won peace process clears path for bloody challenge to Medellín's top cartel

A team of bodyguards fans out through the three-storey building in central Medellín, calling out "clear" after each room is checked. One gunman remains stationed on each floor; another three guard the building's entrance.

With the area secured, a young man in a designer T-shirt and baseball cap emerges on to the roof terrace, followed by his lieutenant. Javier is a trafficker with Colombia's longest-surviving drug cartel, the Envigado Office, but he describes his work in matter-of-fact terms.

"The Office controls the illegal businesses in Medellín. Its main businesses are extortion, hired killings, the traffic in arms and drugs," he says.

The heavy security is soon explained: Javier fears his cartel – and his home city – may be on the brink of another drug war.

Colombia was supposed to have overcome its bloody history. Over the last decade, the government has pushed leftist rebels back into jungles, overseen the demobilisation of tens of thousands of illegal far-right militia fighters and taken down various drug capos.

Washington foreign policy mandarins such as Paul Wolfowitz have held up Colombia as a model for other countries struggling with narco-chaos, such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

And Medellín, Colombia's industrial heartland, was promoted as the embodiment of the country's renaissance: the murder rate plummeted by about 80% over five years, reaching a decade low of 34 deaths per 100,000 in 2007. Once called the "city of death", Medellín was now open for business.

But the root cause of Colombia's violence – the country's status as the world's biggest cocaine producer – has not disappeared. And Medellín's apparent peace lasted only as long as its underworld was run by one man, through the Envigado Office.

Named after a neighbourhood of Medellin, the Office was originally a group of hitmen acting for Pablo Escobar's cartel. After Escobar's death in 1993, the Office was taken over by a former ally turned bitter rival of Escobar, Diego Murillo, known as Don Berna, who cemented control over Medellín and moved the organisation deeper into drug-trafficking.

The Office will collect on anyone's debt, as long as the creditor is willing to give over 50% of what is recovered. It has its own motto: "Debts get paid – with money or with life."

"Many people know that the government won't act as it should, it won't help the people in what they need. Many people come to us to collect money, debts on cars, debts for drugs, basically anything," says Javier.

In his book The Multinational of Crime: the Terrifying Office of Envigado, journalist Alfredo Serrano writes: "Whenever anyone died, people would say that 'they had got on the wrong side of the Office' – as if this criminal organisation held the power of life itself."

Murillo handed himself in to the authorities in 2005 as part of a peace process with the far-right paramilitary groups, but was accused of continuing to run the Office from behind bars, which eventually led to his extradition to the United States. He was convicted of exporting tonnes of cocaine and sentenced to 31 years in an American prison.

After his conviction, the then head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration said: "American and Colombian communities are safer with the removal of this notorious drug kingpin."

But it would not prove so for Medellín. With Murillo out of the way, a vicious power struggle erupted between his successors. Medellín's homicide rate doubled in 2009, leaving about 3,000 people dead.

"Around 15 close friends were killed in the war. We couldn't go out to clubs, we just had to stay home and not get killed," says Javier.

The factional fighting within the Office came to an end last year with the capture of one of the rival leaders, and since then most of the group has reunited under a new boss, just in time to confront a new threat: one of Colombia's emerging narco-militias, the Urabeños.

The Urabeños sprang up after the peace deal with the far-right paramilitaries. While the main militia leaders were jailed alongside Don Berna, most of the mid-range commanders – those who had been running the day-to-day cocaine operations – were free. Many of these commanders reorganised their old outfits, recruited other demobilised fighters, and returned to drug‑running.

The Urabeños are now a force across much of northern Colombia, bringing a military discipline to organised crime.

"They don't think like average narcos," said Jeremy McDermott, founder of Insight Crime, a thinktank that tracks organised crime in Latin America. "They are extraordinarily political, mixed with deep criminal experience."

The group's power was felt earlier this year when it forced dozens of towns to close all businesses after authorities killed a Urabeño leader. And now they are eyeing Medellín.

The looming battle between the Office and the Urabeños is for control of Medellin's underworld, the vast local market and for positioning to be able to negotiate with the Mexican mafias that ship cocaine to the US.

"Many Colombians are moving over to Mexico to firm up relations," says Javier. "We get our guns from there and they get the drugs from us."

Earlier this month, a city-wide police sweep targeted gangs including the Office, arresting 49 people, including seven due for extradition. Last month, the brother of the current leader of the Office was arrested.

But observers say cracking down on the Office will not be enough to keep the peace in Medellín. Jesús Sánchez, who heads the human rights office for the city's ombudsman, says the local government must offer legal alternatives to the legions of hitmen who would fight any drug war.

"The state must do more than just attack the crime; the state needs a greater presence in the poor neighbourhoods," he said.

Infrastructure in the slums has improved, but Sánchez says the city still owes its young men a historical debt: two generations have grown up in a culture of violence and the easy money of trafficking. "When a young man doesn't find work, he's got the chance immediately to join a gang and get all the money he needs."

Javier doesn't see Medellín emerging from its problems soon. "If this is going to change, people must really want to change. But people always want money and power."

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The only winner in the 'war on drugs'

The real effect of militarising drugs policy in Latin America has been to cement the hegemony of the US Southern Command

One of the most interesting and challenging paradoxes of debate on the "war on drugs" is how little examination there has been of its major warrior: the military. In Latin America, that means the US Southern Command (SouthCom).

The story of the US military's involvement begins in the late 1970s and early 1980s with episodic counter-narcotics operations, but when the "war on drugs" became a national security issue, the difference between military and police activities became blurred. At first, there was a certain reluctance on the part of the military to being sucked into an unconventional, politically-driven fight against the illegal drug trade. But they were eventually won over to participation in anti-narcotics efforts – thanks, in part, to growing anti-drug budgets approved by Congress.

New objectives and more resources were the result: correspondingly, SouthCom grew and evolved into a crucial player in what became, by the mid 1990s, a low-intensity conflict being fought on a very broad front. As SouthCom's role became dominant, ideology came into play: the Miami-based command not only carried out anti-drug activities, but also defined a new enemy – "radical populism", in the words of former SouthCom Commander General James T Hill, to the House armed services committee in 2004. Yet, seldom was the US Southern Command's role in the region subjected to scrutiny.

After 9/11 and the rise of the so-called "new threats" (the supposed amalgamation of international terrorism, organised crime, drug trafficking and weapons of mass destruction), Washington ceased to observe a distinction between internal security and external defence. SouthCom experienced a "great leap forward": its role was already extensive, but now it developed into a more autonomous protagonist in the "war on drugs". Plan Colombia, first, and the Mérida Initiative, more recently, were emblematic of the core rationality of a coercive anti-drug strategy – a strategy that, by definition, placed the military centre-stage in a prohibitionist crusade in the Americas.

The strategy led to several developments from 1999 onwards: the establishment of new bases (called "security cooperative locations") in the region, as part of the American global military posture; the increase in non-combatant personnel in charge of Latin America at the Miami headquarters of the US Southern Command over the last decade (surpassing the number of Latin America-related government officials in all the departments located in Washington); the unprecedented, ambitious mission of this command as the "leading joint and interagency organisation seeking to support security, stability and prosperity in the Americas", according to the 2016 SouthCom Command Strategy 2016(pdf); the redeployment of the US 4th Fleet in 2008, which had been inactive since 1950; and the stationing by mid 2010 of 7,000 troops, 200 helicopters and 46 warships to combat drugs in Costa Rica. All these developments are clear signs of the growing significance and autonomy of the US Southern Command in the "war on drugs".

What we are witnessing practically everywhere in the Americas is a coercive prohibition campaign that brings neither a partial nor a total solution to the drug question. Unless its premises are challenged, a permanent sense of a "clear and present danger" with regard to narcotics will be fostered both in the United States and in Latin America – which, in a circular way, will only serve to justify the existing repressive policies. The role of the US Southern Command in the Latin American front of the "war on drugs" is key to the prohibitionist paradigm.

The outcome of this militarisation of drugs policy has been overwhelmingly negative. Military involvement in such an irregular war was not only unrealistic, but has also proved counterproductive. Every once in a while, a momentous triumph is announced in one or another country. But within a few years, the proliferation of front lines in the "war on drugs" reveals that such "success" was, at best, a pyrrhic victory. Meanwhile, democracy deteriorates, national insecurity spreads and human rights violations worsen.

Instead of another state-led "coalition of the willing" to fight drugs in a new location, what is needed is a broad, social alliance with bold ideas that could lead beyond the current failed model of counter-narcotics. What is clear is that the current prohibitionist kulturkampf needs to be replaced. The answers will not come from SouthCom's Miami HQ, but from Latin America's civil societies.

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A new legal high goes on sale every week, says EU drugs agency

Centre monitors new laboratory-made psychoactive substances that mimic effects of cannabis, amphetamine and ecstasy

New "legal highs" and other synthetic drugs are appearing on the market at the rate of one a week, the EU's drug agency has warned.

The Lisbon-based European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) says 49 new "psychoactive" substances were officially notified for the first time in 2011 through an EU early warning system.

"This represents the largest number of substances ever reported in a single year, up from 41 substances reported in 2010 and 24 reported in 2009," said the agency.

The largest group 23 were synthetic laboratory designed substances which imitate the effects of cannabis, such as mephedrone marketed as Spice, and a further eight that imitate the effects of amphetamine and ecstasy.

The list of new substances also, for the first time, includes "designer medicines" which are synthesised to mimic the effects of known medicines by slightly altering their chemical structure.

The report also reveals that there has been an explosion in the number of online shops marketing legal highs over the past year.

It says the number of websites selling at least one synthetic drug has more than doubled from 314 in January 2011 to 690 in January this year.

"New drugs have become a global phenomenon which is developing at an unprecedented pace," says the EMCDDA report.

"The speed at which new drugs appear on the market challenges established procedures for monitoring, responding to and controlling the use of new psychoactive substances."

Wolfgang Götz, the agency director, said: "We now see drugs marketed in attractive packages on the internet or sold in nightclubs and street corners.

"Whatever the source, the simple fact is that a dangerous game of roulette is being played by those who consume an ever-growing variety of powders, pills and mixtures without accurate knowledge of what substances they contain and the potential health risk they pose."

The agency says recent surveys show that across Europe, 5% of young people aged 15-24 say they have used legal highs.

In Britain, Latvia and Poland this rises to 10% and in Ireland it reaches 16%.

The UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) told the EU that the extent to which organised criminals are involved in the trade in new drugs is unclear.

Soca said it closed down 120 websites in 2010/11 that were continuing to advertise mephedrone and naphyrone, another banned synthetic substance. Both were sold as legal highs before they were banned.

Roger Howard of the UK drugs policy commission, an independent organisation providing drugs policy analysis, said when the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act was passed new drugs appeared once every few years: now they are being marketed almost once a week.

"We have rapidly growing numbers of psychoactive drugs on the market, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for the police to identify the drugs they're finding," he said.

"Just adding a drug to the long list already controlled won't make much difference.

"The police and forensics are under too much pressure already to be able to offer much deterrent to potential users.

"We are deluding ourselves if we think that using existing controls like temporary bans will solve the problem."

quote:

Whatever the source, the simple fact is that a dangerous game of roulette is being played by those who consume an ever-growing variety of powders, pills and mixtures without accurate knowledge of what substances they contain and the potential health risk they pose."

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Op donderdag 26 april 2012 15:27 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Dan zouden we maar snel beter sommige drugs legaliseren, daarvan weten we wel de gevolgen en vooral dat deze over het algemeen reuze meevallen.

quote:

Op donderdag 26 april 2012 15:31 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Als ze in het Catshuis een zak wiet en wat xtcpilletjes hadden gehad, waren ze er heel lief uitgekomen...

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Journalist from Mexican news magazine found dead

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Authorities believe Regina Martinez, who often wrote about drug cartels in Veracruz, was murdered

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A correspondent with Mexican news magazine Proceso was found dead inside her home in Veracruz state on Saturday and authorities believe the journalist, who often wrote about drug trafficking, was murdered.

Regina Martinez's body was found by police inside the bathroom of her home in the state capital, Xalapa, and there were signs of heavy "blows to her face and body," the state's Attorney General's Office said in a statement. Authorities said initial evidence suggested she died of asphyxiation.

Martinez was the Xalapa correspondent for Proceso, one of Mexico's oldest and most respected investigative news magazines, and she often wrote about drug cartels in the area. Proceso said in a news story on its website that she had worked there for 10 years.

Authorities provided no possible motive for her killing.

Veracruz government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said agents were searching Martinez's home late Saturday for evidence.

"All lines of investigation will be exhausted. The fact that she was a journalist is one of them," she said.

Recently Veracruz has been plagued by cartel violence, some of it between the powerful Zetas and the so-called Jalisco Cartel New Generation, which is believed to be linked to the Sinaloa cartel. The coastal state is also on a human trafficking route north to the United States.

Veracruz Governor Javier Duarte has ordered an exhaustive investigation into her death, he said in a statement.

Police found Martinez's body after receiving a tip from a neighbour that her house had been left open since early in the day.

In the past year, at least three journalists have been found dead in Veracruz, including Martinez.

In July 2011, a reporter on police matters with the newspaper Notiver, Yolando Ordaz de la Cruz, was found with her throat cut.

A month earlier, gunmen killed Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a columnist and deputy editor with Notiver. He was shot together with his wife and one of his children.

Media watchdogs considered Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in which to be a journalist.

There is disagreement on the number of journalist killings. Mexico's national human rights commission says 74 were killed from 2000 to 2011. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says 51 were killed in that time.

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Four Mexican journalists murdered in last week

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Two press photographers found dead in a canal in the port city of Veracruz alongside a former cameraman and his girlfriend

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Two press photographers have been found dead in a canal in the Mexican port city of Veracruz alongside a former cameraman and a fourth body, less than a week after another journalist based in the city was killed in her home.

The state attorney general's office issued an initial statement identifying photographers Guillermo Luna and Gabriel Huge as among the victims. Both were reportedly working for a local website called Veracruz News and had been missing since the day before.

State authorities later said Esteban Rodríguez, a former cameraman, was also among the dead as well as a woman named as Irasema Becerra, said to be Luna's girlfriend.

It followed the discovery of Regina Martinez, the Veracruz correspondent of the weekly national news magazine Proceso strangled to death in her home last weekend.

The latest murders underline Veracruz's current status as the most extreme focal point for attacks against journalists which have become commonplace in Mexico since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against the drug cartels in December 2006 and extreme violence exploded across the country.

Of the nine Mexican journalists killed last year probably because of their work, four were from Veracruz.

Ricardo Gonzalez, of the press freedom activist group Article 19, said journalists in Veracruz are being targeted because of their position "as witnesses to the decomposition of the state."

The attacks intensified following the change of state governor 18 months ago that, observers say, destabilised a previous division of the territory between the Zetas and the Gulf cartels. Their subsequent power struggle has been further complicated by the Sinaloa cartel's attempts to increase their influence in the state which is both a key smuggling route for illegal drugs, as well as fertile territory for kidnappings and extortion rackets.

A local paper called Notiver, which has a reputation for being more critical than most, has been hit particularly hard. Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco, a key figure at the publication, was shot dead alongside his wife and one of his children in June 2011. A political reporter from the same paper called Yolanda Ordaz, was found dead and dismembered a month later.

The two photographers tortured and killed this week were reportedly among a group of journalists who left the paper in fear around that time. After a period lying low they started working again as freelancers.

Gonzalez, of Article 19, said there have been "absolutely no advances" in the investigation of any of the murders of journalists in Veracruz. Rather, he said, the state authorities have tended to hint that the killings were motivated by personal troubles, or filed them away as the work of the cartels ignoring the fact that corruption means it is often difficult to define where the authorities stop and organised crime begins.

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Border checks on drugs and guns 'dropped' at Heathrow

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Senior immigration officers and border force unions say staff shortages and growing political pressure to reduce queueing times mean that operations to combat the influx of drugs, guns and other contraband into the UK have, in effect, been placed on hold.

One senior official at Heathrow told the Observer the situation was so serious that Britain's busiest airport could be described as having "no border controls" when it came to smuggling. The officer, who wished to remain anonymous, added that passengers identified as suspicious, including those accredited to work on Olympic sites, were being waved through without extra security checks because they there were not enough staff to tackle queues.

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The senior official at Heathrow, who has almost 10 years' experience, said: "We have actually ceased doing [anti-smuggling operations] at the moment, even though they won't say they have. Word has already got around to criminal enterprises."

Chris Hobbs, a former Metropolitan police officer who worked with border control at Heathrow and Gatwick before retiring last summer, said: "Organised crime networks will only be too well aware of this and, if they can recruit couriers, will be having a field day."

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[b]Op

Recently Veracruz has been plagued by cartel violence

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Op zondag 6 mei 2012 01:30 schreef BlaZ het volgende:

[..]

Nah niks aan de hand in Veracruz momenteel ben er dit jaar alweer 2x geweest. Van een drugsoorlog is er na vorig jaar september echt geen sprake meer.

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Gunmen killed the deputy mayor of the municipality of Atzalan north of Veracruz, Rafael Fernandez Landa, 46 years old, who was a school teacher Telesecundaria "Alfonso Arroyo Flores.

During yesterday became the acts of terror in the state of Veracruz, as authorities moved to the subdivision streets Coyol after receiving the report of a strange situation.

It was right next to the sports called The Pit, where authorities found three male persons, men were beheaded.

Naval Police spotted Thursday in the vicinity of the dwelling unit Las Vegas II of Boca del Rio, four bags with the remains of four of these, were identified Guillermo Luna Varela, who was a photographer and agency Veracruznews Huge Gabriel, who, according to local media, until last year worked as a newspaper photographer Notiver.

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En ik heb maar 3 nieuwsberichtjes gequote in een maand tijdsbestek oid. En dat is alleen in Veracruz.

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US officials at Mexican border accused of widespread human rights abuses

Civil rights body accuses Customs and Border Protection agents of using excessive force against US citizens and immigrants

US citizens and immigrants with full legal rights to reside in America are being subjected to widespread physical and legal abuses at the hands of US border guards at crossing points with Mexico, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU has sent a formal letter of complaint to the department of homeland security to protest what it says is a sharp increase in human rights violations by US government agents along the Mexican border.

The civil rights body accuses Customs and Border Protection agents of wielding excessive force, carrying out unwarranted strip searches, detaining people for long periods without explanation and coercing individuals into surrendering their legal rights and citizenship documents.

"We are seeing widespread federal abuses against US citizens and non-US citizens alike. Something is going very wrong here, and it needs looking into," said Sean Riordan, an ACLU lawyer and signatory to the complaint.

The ACLU is requesting an investigation into the instances of alleged excesses at the Mexican border. It cites 11 cases of individuals who claim they were mistreated at various border crossings.

Among them are Hernan Cuevas who crossed from Mexico to the US at Calexico/Mexicali on 19 May 2011. A Chilean businessman who works for an industrial manufacturing corporation, he spends most of his working life travelling to and from America and had never before had any trouble with border agents.

He was stopped and his car searched, and when he tried to complain that his property was being roughly handled was astonished by the reaction. He was handcuffed and chained by his big toe to a metal bench, and refused the right to call a lawyer or the Chilean embassy.

In sweltering heat, he asked repeatedly for water but was also refused. Before he was released after almost four hours of detention, an agent allegedly said to him: "I don't give a fuck of your educated manners and all your corporate bullshit. This is my country now and when you are here, you listen to me. I don't like your kind that takes our jobs and uses our system."

Cuevas told the Guardian that he was utterly taken aback by what had happened. "I never would have believed that such behaviour was possible in a civilised country, let alone the US," he said.

"I thought this kind of thing only happened in films about banana republics. These guys behaved as though they were above the law."

ACLU contends that Cuevas's experiences were part of a pattern of abuse by Customs and Border Protection that must now be investigated and rectified. CBP is America's largest law enforcement agency and has expanded dramatically in recent years. The numbers of its border patrol guards has grown from 5,000 in the mid 1990s to more than 20,000 today, and has doubled in just the past six years.

Riordan said that the exponential expansion of the agency had not been accompanied by a proporational growth in training, oversight and accountability, creating a vacuum out of which the current problem of abuses had been allowed to fester.

A spokesman for CBP said that ACLU's letter of complaint had not yet been received and made no comment at this stage.

The other cases highlighted by ACLU include Edith Collins-George, a US citizen who was detained without explanation in March 2010 at the Calexico/Mexicali crossing having visited her mother in Mexico.

She says she was told by officers: "You don't have rights here", and was then pushed up against a wall and searched, with officers touching her breasts and genitals.

Another of the cited cases, Trinidad Muraira de Castro, was crossing at Brownsville, Texas on a temporary visa with her two daughters who were born in the US and are thus US citizens.

The whole family was detained and interrogated for about 10 hours, at which point De Castro says she broke down and made a false confession that her daughters were not born in America and had no right to be there.

On that basis the family was turned back at the border and her visa confiscated.

Last month the justice department announced that it had decided not to prosecute a US patrol agent who shot and killed a Mexican teenager in June 2010 near the El Paso border crossing. Sergio Hernandez-Guereca, 15, was shot by the unidentified CBP officer after reportedly throwing rocks at the border line.

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Tientallen verminkte lichamen gedumpt in Mexico

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Er zijn vandaag 49 onthoofde en verminkte lichamen gevonden langs een snelweg in Mexico, tussen de Noord-Mexicaanse metropool Monterrey en de grens van de VS.

Volgens de politie werden de lichamen van 43 mannen en zes vrouwen gevonden bij San Juan. De autoriteiten hebben de snelweg van Monterrey naar Reynosa voor sporenonderzoek afgesloten. Er zou een boodschap met dreigende taal achtergelaten zijn uit naam van de drugskartel Los Zetas. Het identificeren van de lichamen is lastig omdat hoofden, handen en voeten in veel gevallen afgehakt zijn.

De afgelopen tijd zijn op meer plaatsen in Mexico verminkte lijken op openbare plekken achtergelaten, als waarschuwing van drugsbendes aan hun rivalen. In april werd een leider van Los Zetas opgepakt – hij werd verdacht van de moord op 145 mensen.

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Mexican drug cartel massacres have method in their brutal madness

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Violence that has claimed 50,000 lives is horrific but not mindless: it is inter-cartel turf wars played out in body count

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This weekend's discovery in Mexico of 49 headless, handless and footless bodies dumped alongside a road just outside the northern industrial hub of Monterrey was the worst event of its kind, but it was far from the only one.

Last Wednesday, 18 mutilated bodies were found in abandoned vehicles near the country's second largest city, Guadalajara. The week before that, nine bodies were hung from a bridge, and in another case 14 severed heads were left in ice boxes outside the local government office in the north-east border city of Nuevo Laredo.

The federal government issued a statement following the latest incident in this spate of mass murders, blaming the cartels for "unleashing inhuman and inadmissible episodes of irrational violence in their criminal dispute".

Most independent observers, however, question the portrayal of the horror as mindless. They tend to put the massacres firmly within the dynamic of the inter-cartel rivalries that form a core part of the violence that has killed more than 50,000 people since President Felipe Calderén launched an offensive against the cartels in December 2006.

"I don't think they are irrational. They are psychopaths sure, but I believe there is method in this madness," Alejandro Hope, a security expert and former member of the government intelligence agency, told the Guardian. He said the display of mutilated corpses tended to contain messages for rival groups, for the authorities, and for the population. "They are fighting to defend their reputation for brutality and the image of control in the territories they claim."

The current spate of massacres appears linked to the rivalry between the Zetas drug cartel and the Sinaloa cartel, allied to the Gulf cartel. This is a long-running campaign of violence that involves a number of other cartels.

The 23 bodies displayed in Nuevo Laredo at the beginning of the month looked like an incursion into the Zeta cartel's most important stronghold by the Sinaloa cartel, led by the infamous capo Jaoquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. The subsequent massacre in Guadalajara looked like a Zeta retaliation on Sinaloa turf. At least, that is what messages left behind with the corpses claimed.

As well as displays of bravado, both events could also be seen as efforts to calentar la plaza, or heat up the turf, of their rivals as mass brutality tends to trigger announcements from the government that it will increase troop and police numbers in the area.

Within that logic, this weekend's scene outside Monterrey could be interpreted as an attempt by the Zetas to reaffirm their control of an area that is already heavily militarised. A graffito near the scene stated: "Z 100%."

Analysts tend to discount a direct link between the intensification of the violence and Mexico's presidential elections, seven weeks away, in which security has been a constant issue, but not a particularly contentious one.

All the candidates make vague promises to be more effective in reducing the violence, but avoid getting into serious debates about the problem.

Even so, the drug war provides a backdrop to the political campaign and the public's sense that Mexico is struggling to keep control of its destiny.

The feeling of powerlessness increases with evidence that many victims of the violence have no obvious links with the cartels. This has made it difficult for either the federal or local governments to imply that they brought their fate upon themselves, as was common in the past.

After the latest massacre outside Monterrey, the authorities suggested the mutilation of the bodies was a strategy to make identification more difficult. They noted that a number of the torsos were tattooed with images associated with the criminal underworld, such as the figure of the Santa Muerte, but also accepted that the victims could be unconnected people who had disappeared from elsewhere in Mexico, or perhaps Central American migrants trying to get to the United States.

Alberto Islas, a security expert who heads a consultancy company called Risk Evaluation, says that the Zetas are likely to pick their victims randomly because their networks are unsophisticated.

Islas, however, stressed that the force driving the violence does not lie within the criminal organisations but in the failure of the federal government to investigate the crimes or pursue those carrying them out. This, he says, means the level of violence required to shock is increasing.

"If the government doesn't do anything, this will continue," Islas said. "Forty-nine people is a lot of people, but tomorrow Mexico will forget about them."

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Op donderdag 22 maart 2012 01:12 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

[..]

Sterker; de VS is de afzetmarkt voor die klotedrugs. De cokesnuivers in de VS houden die hele zooi in stand. Zonder kopers geen verkoop.

Als men slim is, zorgt men voor eigen productie van prettigere drugs in de VS. Zoiets als de Nederlandse XTC-markt dus.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 09:08 schreef VeX- het volgende:
Gaat nergens meer over daar. Die Mexicaanse gangs vermoorden puur om het feit dat ze ongestraft kunnen vermoorden.

Je kan zeggen wat je wil over de Italiaanse, Japanse, Russische/etc maffia, maar die hebben over het algemeen nog enigszins fatsoensnormen en ruimen alleen elkaar op. Mexicaanse gangs gedragen zich als beesten tegenover onschuldige burgers.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 09:08 schreef VeX- het volgende:
Gaat nergens meer over daar. Die Mexicaanse gangs vermoorden puur om het feit dat ze ongestraft kunnen vermoorden.

Je kan zeggen wat je wil over de Italiaanse, Japanse, Russische/etc maffia, maar die hebben over het algemeen nog enigszins fatsoensnormen en ruimen alleen elkaar op. Mexicaanse gangs gedragen zich als beesten tegenover onschuldige burgers.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 15:46 schreef waht het volgende:

[..]

Vooral tegenover elkaar. Burgers zijn zo nu en dan ook slachtoffer.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 09:08 schreef VeX- het volgende:
Gaat nergens meer over daar. Die Mexicaanse gangs vermoorden puur om het feit dat ze ongestraft kunnen vermoorden.

Je kan zeggen wat je wil over de Italiaanse, Japanse, Russische/etc maffia, maar die hebben over het algemeen nog enigszins fatsoensnormen en ruimen alleen elkaar op. Mexicaanse gangs gedragen zich als beesten tegenover onschuldige burgers.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 16:54 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

[..]

Die gangs zitten dan weer vol met mensen die ooit onschuldige burgers waren. Maar dankzij die fantastische war on drugs zijn ze dat niet meer.

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 17:04 schreef woid het volgende:

[..]

je bedoelt; dankzij die fantastische war on drugs zitten nu hele onschuldige volkstammen op gescheept met die bende zooi

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Op dinsdag 15 mei 2012 17:49 schreef leRomein het volgende:

[..]

Die war on drugs heeft ervoor gezorgd dat de criminaliteit enorm verweven is met alle lagen en facetten van de samenleving. De resultaten van wat volgens bepaalde mensen een oplossing zou zijn voor problematiek omtrent mensen die drugs gebruiken, zijn vele malen schadelijker voor de maatschappij dan het aanvankelijke probleem.

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New York judge writes impassioned defense of medical marijuana

In a New York Times opinion piece, a sitting state supreme court judge writes of his cancer and the palliative drug he depends on

A New York state supreme court judge has written an impassioned plea to legalize medical marijuana in the state, potentially taking New York one step closer to becoming the 17th state in the nation to allow use of the drug as a palliative.

In an op-ed piece in Thursday's New York Times, justice Gustin L Reichbach writes eloquently of his three-and-a-half-year long battle with prostate cancer. He describes enduring chemotherapy, brutal surgery, radiation, constant nausea and insomnia. The only remedy that has given him a modicum of relief has been marijuana.

"I find a few puffs of marijuana before dinner gives me ammunition in the battle to eat. A few more puffs at bedtime permits desperately needed sleep," he writes.

"This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and human rights issue."

Reichbach, who was not immediately available for comment, goes on to "implore the governor and the legislature of New York" to pass a medical marijuana bill currently before the state senate.

"This is a huge thing," Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, an activist organization promoting alternatives to criminalization, told the Guardian. "To have an active judge sitting on the bench dealing with a fairly serious form of cancer, it's a remarkable turn of events."

New York's bill A7347-A/S7283, which would decriminalize medical marijuana, is currently before the state senate, having passed in the assembly. The bill requires a patient to have a licensed health care professional authorized to prescribe controlled substances certify a need for marijuana to treat a "severe, debilitating or life-threatening condition."

A Siena College survey released Wednesday found 57% of New York voters support legalizing medical marijuana, with 33% opposed.

But governor Andrew Cuomo, the former state attorney-general, does not appear prepared to join the majority of his constituents.

"I understand the benefits, but there are also risks, and I think the risks outweigh the benefits at this point," he recently told reporters.

The current session ends June 21, and even the bill's sponsor, state senator Diane Savino, is sceptical it will make it to the floor before the next session. But she did find Reichbach's piece remarkable.

"Every time somebody who is unexpected would be in support of medical marijuana, it moves the ball down the field in terms of support," she said.

There are thousands of people who fervently hope she's right.

"The Senate needs to act," said Jamin Sewell, an attorney who works for the New York city council. "It is an issue of compassion."

Sewell, 44, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 10 years ago, but because he works as a lawyer in the public sector, he said he has never smoked marijuana to provide relief from some of his symptoms.

Being able to smoke marijuana, he said, would alleviate the severe tingling and numbness in his legs ("the worst pins and needles when your legs fall asleep, magnified tenfold") and the neuropathic pain that shoots from his jaw down his back for up to 45 minutes at a time.

"There's nothing I've found legally that my doctors have prescribed," he said. He has spoken to other MS patients who have benefitted from smoking marijuana, but as long as it remains illegal, he said he will refrain.

"I've worked in public service my entire life and I want to continue to be able to do that," he said. "Because MS is progressive in nature, if the symptoms I live with currently continue to get worse, I really hope I'll be able to use the best medicine that will help alleviate them."

For Reichbach, marijuana has become too necessary a medicine to wait.

"Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight," he wrote.

"Because criminalizing an effective medical technique affects the fair administration of justice, I feel obliged to speak out as both a judge and a cancer patient suffering with a fatal disease."

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Op zondag 20 mei 2012 21:08 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Meer heroïnesmokkel vrachtvervoer Schiphol

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Heroïne wordt steeds vaker gesmokkeld in vrachtzendingen via Schiphol. Rechercheurs van het speciale opsporingsteam CargoHarc, een samenwerking van Koninklijke Marechaussee, FIOD en Douane, constateren een forse stijging ten opzichte van voorgaande jaren.

Dit jaar werd op de luchthaven tot nu toe al zo'n 100 kilo heroïne onderschept in verschillende vrachtzendingen. In heel 2011 werd ongeveer half zo veel in beslag genomen, aldus een woordvoerder zaterdag. De meeste van die zendingen komen uit Azië. De heroïne is vaak op ingenieuze wijze verstopt, bijvoorbeeld in trossen bananen of ingeweven in Perzische tapijten.

Tien dagen geleden werd op Schiphol een man uit Liberia aangehouden. Hij zou betrokken zijn bij de smokkel van 15 kilo heroïne. Volgens gegevens van het Trimbos-instituut wordt heroïne 'op straat' verhandeld voor 20 tot 40 euro per gram.

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Vrouw machtiger in Mexicaanse kartels, omdat mannen worden vermoord

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De macht van vrouwen in de drugskartels neemt toe, omdat de drugsoorlog in Mexico zoveel mannen het leven kost. Steeds meer vrouwen krijgen daardoor leidinggevende functies in de kartels.

Dat schreef de Mexicaanse wetenschappelijke onderzoeker Arturo Santamaria in een boek hierover. Volgens hem profiteren de kartels van de toenemende macht van vrouwen. 'Zij zullen moeilijker te bestrijden zijn, omdat vrouwen slimmer te werk lijken te gaan.' Zij handelen behoedzamer en gebruiken minder gemakkelijk dodelijk geweld dan mannen.

Sinds de Mexicaanse regering in 2006 de drugskartels de oorlog verklaarde, zijn er ongeveer 50.000 mensen, vooral mannen, gedood. De vrouwen die de macht overnemen, zijn vaak de weduwen, dochters en vriendinnen van de doden. Die zijn opgegroeid in de drugshandel en weten waar het om draait en hoe die werkt.

In oktober hebben de Mexicaanse autoriteiten 46 vrouwen aangehouden die een leidinggevende rol in de drugshandel hadden, blijkt uit cijfers van het Openbaar Ministerie in Mexico-Stad. In de Verenigde Staten zijn de laatste 10 jaar 2143 Mexicaanse vrouwen gearresteerd om hun betrokkenheid bij de smokkel van drugs.

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De War on Drugs in Mexico #4 - Hoe lossen we de oorlog op?

quote:

But governor Andrew Cuomo, the former state attorney-general, does not appear prepared to join the majority of his constituents.

"I understand the benefits, but there are also risks, and I think the risks outweigh the benefits at this point," he recently told reporters.

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2012 14:22 schreef arucard het volgende:
Ik had trouwens gehoord dat in Mexico alle drugs nu gedecriminaliseerd zijn

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2012 15:25 schreef BlaZ het volgende:
Volgende maand presidentsverkiezingen in Mexico, dat gaat zeker veel invloed op het conflict hebben.

Zetas zouden de grens met de VS ook wel eens over kunnen steken, die zijn momenteel ook al actief in Honduras, Guatemala en El Salvador

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2012 15:43 schreef Viajero het volgende:

[..]

Alle Latijns Amerikaanse drugscartels zijn allang in de VS vertegenwoordigd, inclusief de Zetas.

quote:

Western banks 'reaping billions from Colombian cocaine trade'

While cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits, a study claims

The vast profits made from drug production and trafficking are overwhelmingly reaped in rich "consuming" countries – principally across Europe and in the US – rather than war-torn "producing" nations such as Colombia and Mexico, new research has revealed. And its authors claim that financial regulators in the west are reluctant to go after western banks in pursuit of the massive amount of drug money being laundered through their systems.

The most far-reaching and detailed analysis to date of the drug economy in any country – in this case, Colombia – shows that 2.6% of the total street value of cocaine produced remains within the country, while a staggering 97.4% of profits are reaped by criminal syndicates, and laundered by banks, in first-world consuming countries.

"The story of who makes the money from Colombian cocaine is a metaphor for the disproportionate burden placed in every way on 'producing' nations like Colombia as a result of the prohibition of drugs," said one of the authors of the study, Alejandro Gaviria, launching its English edition last week.

"Colombian society has suffered to almost no economic advantage from the drugs trade, while huge profits are made by criminal distribution networks in consuming countries, and recycled by banks which operate with nothing like the restrictions that Colombia's own banking system is subject to."

His co-author, Daniel Mejía, added: "The whole system operated by authorities in the consuming nations is based around going after the small guy, the weakest link in the chain, and never the big business or financial systems where the big money is."

The work, by the two economists at University of the Andes in Bogotá, is part of an initiative by the Colombian government to overhaul global drugs policy and focus on money laundering by the big banks in America and Europe, as well as social prevention of drug taking and consideration of options for de-criminalising some or all drugs.

The economists surveyed an entire range of economic, social and political facets of the drug wars that have ravaged Colombia. The conflict has now shifted, with deadly consequences, to Mexico and it is feared will spread imminently to central America. But the most shocking conclusion relates to what the authors call "the microeconomics of cocaine production" in their country.

Gaviria and Mejía estimate that the lowest possible street value (at $100 per gram, about £65) of "net cocaine, after interdiction" produced in Colombia during the year studied (2008) amounts to $300bn. But of that only $7.8bn remained in the country.

"It is a minuscule proportion of GDP," said Mejía, "which can impact disastrously on society and political life, but not on the Colombian economy. The economy for Colombian cocaine is outside Colombia."

Mejía told the Observer: "The way I try to put it is this: prohibition is a transfer of the cost of the drug problem from the consuming to the producing countries."

"If countries like Colombia benefitted economically from the drug trade, there would be a certain sense in it all," said Gaviria. "Instead, we have paid the highest price for someone else's profits – Colombia until recently, and now Mexico.

"I put it to Americans like this – suppose all cocaine consumption in the US disappeared and went to Canada. Would Americans be happy to see the homicide rates in Seattle skyrocket in order to prevent the cocaine and the money going to Canada? That way they start to understand for a moment the cost to Colombia and Mexico."

The mechanisms of laundering drug money were highlighted in the Observer last year after a rare settlement in Miami between US federal authorities and the Wachovia bank, which admitted to transferring $110m of drug money into the US, but failing to properly monitor a staggering $376bn brought into the bank through small exchange houses in Mexico over four years. (Wachovia has since been taken over by Wells Fargo, which has co-operated with the investigation.)

But no one went to jail, and the bank is now in the clear. "Overall, there's great reluctance to go after the big money," said Mejía. "They don't target those parts of the chain where there's a large value added. In Europe and America the money is dispersed – once it reaches the consuming country it goes into the system, in every city and state. They'd rather go after the petty economy, the small people and coca crops in Colombia, even though the economy is tiny."

Colombia's banks, meanwhile, said Mejía, "are subject to rigorous control, to stop laundering of profits that may return to our country. Just to bank $2,000 involves a huge amount of paperwork – and much of this is overseen by Americans."

"In Colombia," said Gaviria, "they ask questions of banks they'd never ask in the US. If they did, it would be against the laws of banking privacy. In the US you have very strong laws on bank secrecy, in Colombia not – though the proportion of laundered money is the other way round. It's kind of hypocrisy, right?"

Dr Mejia said: "It's an extension of the way they operate at home. Go after the lower classes, the weak link in the chain – the little guy, to show results. Again, transferring the cost of the drug war on to the poorest, but not the financial system and the big business that moves all this along."

With Britain having overtaken the US and Spain as the world's biggest consumer of cocaine per capita, the Wachovia investigation showed much of the drug money is also laundered through the City of London, where the principal Wachovia whistleblower, Martin Woods, was based in the bank's anti-laundering office. He was wrongfully dismissed after sounding the alarm.

Gaviria said: "We know that authorities in the US and UK know far more than they act upon. The authorities realise things about certain people they think are moving money for the drug trade – but the DEA [US Drugs Enforcement Administration] only acts on a fraction of what it knows."

"It's taboo to go after the big banks," added Mejía. "It's political suicide in this economic climate, because the amounts of money recycled are so high."

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Mexico suspends, probes judges of key drug cases

Associated Press= MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican court authorities have suspended two federal judges who presided over high-profile drug cases, saying investigators are looking into possible irregularities involving the jurists.

The Federal Judiciary Council said Friday evening that it was temporarily relieving appellate Judge Jesus Guadalupe Luna and district Judge Efrain Cazares of their duties, but its statement didn't describe the allegations being investigated. The Attorney General's Office declined to comment Saturday.

Both judges have taken part in cases involving well-known people with alleged ties to Mexico's drug business.

In April 2008, Luna ordered the release of the son of purported Sinaloa drug cartel chief Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar had been sentenced by a lower court to five years in prison for money laundering, but the appellate judge ruled that there was no proof the money he used to open two bank accounts came from drug trafficking and that being the son of the infamous capo wasn't grounds for imprisonment.

Last summer, Luna upheld a lower court ruling that cleared Sandra Avila Beltran of organized-crime charges despite efforts by Mexico and the U.S. to prosecute the woman nicknamed "Queen of the Pacific." Avila is wanted on a 2004 U.S. indictment as a suspect tied to the seizure of more than nine tons of U.S.-bound cocaine on Mexico's west coast.

A judge acquitted Avila in December 2010 of charges stemming from that drug confiscation, and Luna backed that decision by citing a lack of evidence.

U.S. authorities have sought extradition of Avila, a niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, known as "the godfather" of Mexican drug smuggling, but that has been rejected twice by other judges on grounds she shouldn't be prosecuted in the U.S. on charges that have been dismissed in Mexico.

The other suspended judge, Cazares, has been accused by Mexico's government of ignoring credible evidence when he released some of the mayors detained in a mass arrest of officials in the western state of Michoacan in 2009. The federal attorney general alleged the officials had ties to the La Familia drug gang, and prosecutors filed a complaint against Cazares saying he improperly acquitted the officials.

With all of the officials freed by various judges, the crackdown became one of the most embarrassing episodes in President Felipe Calderon's 5 1/2-year-long offensive against drug cartels.

Most recently, drug battles have escalated as Mexico's two most powerful drug cartels, the Sinaloa and Zetas gangs, wage a war in several regions considered strongholds of one or the other.

Late Friday, a group of armed men opened fire on a police station in the border city of Matamoros, which is across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas. Tamaulipas state Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco Gomez said they threw an explosive, possibly a grenade, but no one was injured in the attack. Canseco said he did not know the motive or the gang behind it.

The attack came only days after suspected drug cartel gunmen set off a car bomb near a police barracks in the same state, wounding eight officers.

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Bloomberg Backs Plan to Limit Arrests for Marijuana

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Monday that he would support a proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to significantly curb the number of people who could be arrested for marijuana possession as a result of police stops.

Mr. Cuomo urged lawmakers on Monday to change state law to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view, an offense that critics say leads to unfair charges against thousands of people who are ordered to empty their pockets during police stops that have proliferated under the Bloomberg administration's stop-and-frisk practice.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had previously defended low-level marijuana arrests as a way to deter more serious crime, said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who were smoking marijuana in public.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, announced his plans to seek the change in state law at a news conference at the Capitol on Monday. The governor said he would seek to downgrade the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana in public view from a misdemeanor to a violation, with a maximum fine of $100 for first-time offenders.

The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, attended the news conference as a way of demonstrating the city’s support for Mr. Cuomo’s proposal. Echoing the mayor, he described the governor’s proposal as a “balanced approach.”

Mr. Kelly noted that when he had been asked in the past about the city’s high number of marijuana arrests, he responded that people unhappy with the arrests should lobby the Legislature to change state law, which he called a better option “than having police officers, New York City police officers, turn a blind eye to the law as it was written and as it is still written.”

“This law will make certain that the confusion in this situation will be eliminated,” he said, adding, “Quite frankly, it will make the application of this law much clearer.”

Mr. Cuomo’s proposal followed a memorandum to officers that Mr. Kelly issued in September clarifying that they were not to arrest people who take small amounts of marijuana out of their pockets after being stopped by the police. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly said the governor’s proposal was consistent with the city’s directive.

Mr. Cuomo said changing the law was a better approach in the long term, saying, “I think it puts the police in an awkward position to tell them: enforce some laws, don’t enforce other laws.”

“This is nice and clean: change the law, period,” the governor added.

Critics of the Police Department’s marijuana-arrest policies have complained that Mr. Kelly’s memorandum has had little effect. But a city spokesman said that since the commissioner’s memorandum the number of low-level marijuana arrests has fallen by nearly a quarter.

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Fourteen dismembered bodies found in northern Mexico

Bodies of eleven men and three women discovered in the sugar-cane farming town of Ciudad Mante

Fourteen dismembered bodies were found in a truck in the centre of a town in northern Mexico on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest atrocity committed by rival gangs battling over drug-smuggling routes, local media said.

The bodies of 11 men and three women were discovered in the sugar-cane farming town of Ciudad Mante in the south of Tamaulipas state, which borders on Texas, daily Milenio reported on its website.

Tamaulipas has been one of the bloodiest battlegrounds in Mexico's drug war.
More than 55,000 people have been killed in the conflict since President Felipe Calderon sent in the army to fight drug gangs shortly after he took office in December 2006.

Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, looks likely to lose power in the presidential election on 1 July, due partly to rising frustration with the violence.

The government has blamed the turf wars between the brutal Zetas gang, founded by army deserters, and the Sinaloa cartel of Mexico's most-wanted man,
Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, for an escalation of killings in recent weeks.

Suspected drug cartel killers dumped 49 decapitated and dismembered bodies on a highway near the affluent northern city of Monterrey in May. Days before, 18 mutilated bodies were found near Mexico's second-largest city, Guadalajara.

At the beginning of May, the bodies of nine people were hung from a bridge and 14 other dismembered victims were found in the city of Nuevo Laredo, also in
Tamaulipas state and just across the border from Laredo, Texas.

Seven people were wounded on Thursday, including a boy who was seriously hurt, when a male suspect threw a grenade into a restaurant in the town of Amecameca outside Mexico City, a state of Mexico official said.

Authorities are investigating a possible extortion attempt against the business as well as the conflict between two gangs in the area, she said.

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Efforts to relax pot rules gaining momentum in US

Associated Press= PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Catharine Leach is married and has two boys, age 2 and 8. She has a good job with a federal contractor and smokes pot most every day.

While she worries that her public support for marijuana decriminalization and legalization could cost her a job or bring the police to her door, the 30-year-old Warwick resident said she was tired of feeling like a criminal for using a drug that she said is far less harmful than the glass or wine or can of beer enjoyed by so many others after a long day's work. Like others around the nation working to relax penalties for possession of pot, she decided to stop hiding and speak out.

"I'm done being afraid," she said. "People in this country are finally coming around and seeing that putting someone in jail for this doesn't make sense. It's just a changing of the time."

Once consigned to the political fringe, marijuana policy is appearing on legislative agendas around the country thanks to an energized base of supporters and an increasingly open-minded public. Lawmakers from Rhode Island to Colorado are mulling medical marijuana programs, pot dispensaries, decriminalization and even legalization. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia now authorize medical marijuana and 14, including neighboring Connecticut and Massachusetts, have rolled back criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of pot.

Rhode Island is poised to become the 15th state to decriminalize marijuana possession. The state's General Assembly passed legislation last week that would eliminate the threat of big fines or even jail time for the possession of an ounce or less of pot. Instead, adults caught with small amounts of marijuana would face a $150 civil fine. Police would confiscate the marijuana, but the incident would not appear on a person's criminal record.

Minors caught with pot would also have to complete a drug awareness program and community service.

Gov. Lincoln Chafee has said he is inclined to sign the legislation.

One of the bill's sponsors, state Rep. John Edwards of Tiverton, has introduced similar proposals in past years but the idea always sputtered in committee. Each year, though, he got more co-sponsors, and the bill passed the House this year 50-24. The state Senate passed it 28-6.

Some supporters of decriminalization say they'd like to go even further.

"America's 50-year war on drugs has been an abysmal failure," said Rep. John Savage, a retired school principal from East Providence. "Marijuana in this country should be legalized. It should be sold and taxed."

Opponents warned of dire consequences to the new policy.

"What kind of message are we sending to our youth? We are more worried about soda — for health reasons — than we are about marijuana," said one opponent, Rhode Island state Rep. John Carnevale a Democrat from Providence.

A survey by Rasmussen last month found that 56 percent of respondents favored legalizing and regulating marijuana. A national Gallup poll last year showed support for legalizing pot had reached 50 percent, up from 46 percent in 2010 and 25 percent in the mid-'90s.

Medical marijuana helped bring marijuana policy into the mainstream back in 1996, when California became the first state to authorize the use of cannabis for medicinal use. Other states followed suit.

"It's now politically viable to talk about these things," said Robert Capecchi, legislative analyst with the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that supports the reduction or elimination of penalties for medical and recreational pot use. "The public understands that there are substances that are far more harmful — alcohol, tobacco — that we regulate. People are realizing just how much money is being wasted on prohibition."

Colorado and Washington state will hold fall referendums on legalizing marijuana. A ballot question on legalization failed in California in 2010.

This month, Connecticut's governor signed legislation to allow medical marijuana there. Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed cutting the penalty for public possession of small amounts of pot.

Liberal state policies on marijuana have run into conflict with federal prohibition. Federal authorities have shut down more than 40 dispensaries this year in Colorado, even though they complied with state and local law. In Rhode Island, Gov. Lincoln Chafee blocked three dispensaries from opening last year after the state's top federal prosecutor warned they could be prosecuted. Chafee and lawmakers then rewrote the dispensary law to restrict the amount of marijuana dispensaries may have on hand.

Robert DuPont, who served as the nation's drug czar under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said Americans should be wary of a slippery slope to legalization. While marijuana may not cause the life-threatening problems associated with heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, it's far from harmless.

"It is a major drug of abuse," he said. "People ask me what the most dangerous drug is, and I say marijuana. Other drugs have serious consequences that are easy to recognize. Marijuana saps people's motivation, their direction. It's a drug that makes people stupid and lazy. That's in a way more dangerous."

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 14:45 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

Ron Paul on Drugs and Personal Choice (05/05/11)

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Op donderdag 14 juni 2012 19:12 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Canadese Dokter: 'Pure XTC is veilig'

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U.S. To Landlords: Shut Down Pot Shops Or Lose The Property

ST. LOUIS, June 12 (Thomson Reuters Accelus) - Federal prosecutors are targeting medical marijuana shops in California, seeking forfeiture of the properties in which they do business.

The authorities are pressuring landlords to shut down the shops or face possible loss of the real estate through the unconventional and low-key use of a civil statute designed primarily to seize the assets of drug-trafficking organizations.

While some states, including California, have legalized medical marijuana businesses, the federal government does not recognize their authority to do so and has targeted the shops for violations of the 40-year-old Controlled Substances Act.

The goal of the Justice Department's effort, part of a crackdown announced last October, is to fight the medical marijuana industry, estimated at $1.7 billion annually, without confronting it head-on with costly and potentially embarrassing criminal prosecutions, industry sources and legal experts said.

This indirect strategy is reminiscent of the department's attempts, which have met with only limited success, to sever the medical pot industry's access to banking services. Many businesses have found ways around those restrictions, experts said.

"Filing asset-forfeiture lawsuits against these commercial properties is a very clever way to handle an otherwise horribly difficult and controversial situation," said Greg Baldwin, a partner at the Miami law firm Holland & Knight and a former federal prosecutor.

"If you bring criminal charges against these medical marijuana businesses, the federal government gets pilloried in the press for attacking California law and sick people."

Baldwin, who specializes in complex commercial litigation and white-collar criminal defense, added that with all four U.S. attorneys in California employing the same strategy, it is clearly official Justice Department policy rather than an anomaly involving rogue prosecutors.

The new approach stems from Justice's difficult position under President Barack Obama, said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

The department cannot rely on heavy-handed criminal prosecutions to combat medical marijuana, St. Pierre said. But it also cannot ignore the issue and risk being labeled soft on drug crime.

"It's being done softly, because if they tried to go the harsh criminal route there is a very good chance they would not only fail but become even more unpopular, something you tend to not want to do going into your last election," he said.

LAWSUITS AND LETTERS

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles last week filed two asset-forfeiture lawsuits against buildings housing three marijuana stores in Santa Fe Springs. They also sent so-called warning letters to dozens of area property owners threatening similar legal action.

The letters - only the latest of hundreds mailed to property owners in recent months - gave the owners two weeks to comply with federal law, which prohibits involvement in marijuana distribution.

The civil-forfeiture statute allows the government to seize any real estate used to commit or facilitate drug trafficking.

The provision has traditionally been applied to residential properties used by drug traffickers to grow, store or distribute marijuana. Legal experts say there is no reason it cannot be used against properties that house medical marijuana shops.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the federal government's authority to enforce the national ban on medical marijuana. Still, such enforcement remains unpopular. A Gallup survey last October found that 50 percent of Americans favored full legalization of marijuana and 70 percent favored allowing its medical use to alleviate pain and suffering.

Colorado, a key state in Obama's reelection effort this year, has a medical marijuana law. In November voters will decide on a ballot measure aimed at all-out legalization.

As the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, California has been a bellwether for the industry and federal law enforcement efforts to combat it.

If the move against commercial property owners succeeds in California, it could spread to other states with medical marijuana laws, legal experts said.

For-profit storefront marijuana shops, especially those opposed by the cities where they operate or located near schools or playgrounds, are the Justice Department's favored targets.

Federal prosecutors across California launched a coordinated enforcement campaign in October 2011, stating that California is the top marijuana-producing state in the country and that it exports the drug to other states.

Under the leadership of U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr, the Central District of California, based in Los Angeles, has been particularly aggressive. Federal prosecutors there said last week they have brought a dozen civil lawsuits seeking to forfeit properties housing marijuana businesses.

"Three of those actions have been resolved with the closure of the marijuana stores and court-approved consent decrees in which property owners agreed that they would no longer rent to people associated with illegal marijuana operations, or the property would be subject to an immediate forfeiture to the government," the U.S. Attorney's office said.

LESS MANPOWER REQUIRED

The Justice Department's Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California, told Reuters that it requires less manpower to combat marijuana businesses by mail and civil actions than it does to bring criminal prosecutions.

"We can get on the Internet, identify a store and have someone drive by and find out if it is operating. That is a whole lot different from conducting a criminal investigation, going out and making buys and conducting surveillance. These are two very different balls of wax," he said.

The letters and lawsuits have "so far been extremely effective in securing the closure of about 200 illegal marijuana storefronts in our district," Mrozek said.

Baldwin, the Miami lawyer, was not surprised. Few property owners are going to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against a government lawsuit to keep a tenant, let alone risk losing their investments, he predicted.

"Most of these things are going to end up with the landlord kicking out the offending enterprise," he said. "It's like a flank attack against these stores that leaves them in the most disadvantageous position possible."

NORML's St. Pierre said the federal government "has not sufficiently broadcast this threat (of eviction) as a deterrent," so a lack of widespread awareness among landlords in California and other states may soften its impact on the industry. He said that when marijuana businesses are kicked out of one property, "they will simply move next door and the whole process, as we've seen time and time again, simply starts over."

Although authorities have made public the strategy of targeting landlords, they have not made a national campaign of it, and so far only landlords who rent to marijuana shops have received warning letters.

CHALLENGING EVICTIONS

The letters' prospects might also be affected by the weak real estate market, actions by the municipalities where the properties are located, and California's strict eviction laws.

Ken Carter, a property owner who rented commercial space in Murrieta to the Greenhouse Cannabis Club, which opened for business in January, said he soon received a warning letter from the U.S. Attorney's office in Los Angeles.

Carter said that although he was intimidated by it he was not about to panic, because the value of the property had fallen to roughly half the $1 million he owed on it. Although authorities summoned Carter to the property during a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raid this year, federal prosecutors never took legal action against him. He said he could not explain the lack of action.

However, he said the city of Murrieta, which banned medical marijuana shops in 2005, began issuing a $2,500 fine for every day Greenhouse remained on the property. He said that persuaded him to begin an eviction process, but it took several months to complete. The city has sued Carter and wants him to pay $150,000 in fines, he said.

Eric Safire, a San Francisco lawyer, is representing the owner of commercial property in the Mission District of San Francisco where an existing tenant opened the Shambhala Healing Center, a medical marijuana business that began operating in January 2011.

In late February of this year, the property owner received a warning letter from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, Safire said. He eventually had to file suit to evict his tenant. The matter was complicated by the fact that the tenant had made substantial improvements to the property before opening Shambhala, Safire added.

Safire said the tenant agreed to end the marijuana business by this July 1. Reuters left a telephone message seeking comment from Shambhala's owner but did not receive a response.

SCARING BANKS

St. Pierre likened the campaign to the Justice Department's effort to scare banks away from doing business with medical marijuana outfits.

"There will still be landlords leasing to these businesses, so I don't think it's ultimately going to be successful, just like the effort to thwart the banking," he said.

The DEA began warning banks and credit-card companies away from medical marijuana businesses in late 2007 or early 2008.

Some marijuana outfits have been forced to operate as cash-only businesses, but by and large the industry has survived and, by some expert accounts, thrived by operating through front companies or personal accounts.

HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD

St. Pierre said the federal ban has made medical marijuana a "high risk, high reward" business. Entrepreneurs willing to flout the federal ban can earn hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars each year, and may be willing to face the challenge of eviction, he said.

Those who fail to heed these measures may face greater sanctions, however. The Justice Department's Mrozek said property owners or marijuana sellers who are not persuaded by warnings and civil action could find themselves in the dock on criminal charges, a fact he said was spelled out in the 220 warning letters dispatched by prosecutors in Los Angeles thus far. (This article was produced by the Compliance Complete service of Thomson Reuters Accelus. Compliance Complete (http://accelus.thomsonreu(...)compliance-complete/) provides a single source for regulatory news, analysis, rules and developments, with global coverage of more than 230 regulators and exchanges.)

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Colombia's legendary police chief heads to Mexico

Associated Press= BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A signature trophy that Gen. Oscar Naranjo has carefully displayed in glass at Police Intelligence headquarters is odd by any measure: the neatly folded uniform of a rebel commander slain in 2008, clearly showing the holes from the shrapnel that killed him.

The four-star general, who retired as Colombia's police director this week, is proud of that and the others that line a hallway at the Police Intelligence Directorate in northern Bogota. They are testament to an intelligence empire he built that is unrivaled in Latin America.

Naranjo, 55, has played a central role in the capture or death of nearly every top Colombian drug trafficker, beginning with Pablo Escobar. The dismantling of the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels and the splintering of successor trafficking organizations into ever-smaller groups was, as much as anyone's, Naranjo's doing.

On Thursday, Mexican presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto said Naranjo has agreed to serve as his adviser on fighting drug trafficking if Pena Nieto wins the July 1 election.

The candidate has pledged to reduce violent crime affecting ordinary people in Mexico's drug war, a contrast to President Felipe Calderon's strategy of going after drug kingpins. Analysts have said Pena Nieto's strategy could mean that drug dealers who conduct their businesses discreetly will be left alone.

But Naranjo, standing with Pena Nieto at a news conference, said all cartels should be treated equally because "there can't be inequalities in the treatment of criminals."

Naranjo's 36-year career in Colombia, the last five as commander of 170,000 cops, coincides with his country's tortured journey from the verge of a near-failed state to what U.S. officials, Naranjo's chief patrons, tout as a model for the region's deadliest drug-war battlegrounds.

For a man who navigated the depths of the underworld for most of his career, whether battling rebels or ferreting out drug traffickers, his approval ratings in Colombia have been as high as any other public figure save Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's pugilistic law-and-order president in 2002-1010.

In a leaked 2009 Wikileaks cable, former U.S. ambassador William Brownfield said Naranjo was "perhaps the smartest, best informed member" of Colombia's government.

A leading Colombian rights activist, Gustavo Gallon, said Naranjo "has been upstanding, and has favored rights of civilians over the military."

And this from Myles Frechette, the U.S. ambassador in 1994-97: "It was Naranjo's analysis and many of the strategies he put together that slowly and eventually got Colombia to where it is today."

Yet Naranjo acknowledges making dark alliances when it was a question of national survival.

Colombians tend to agree that they were worth it.

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With his urbane manner and generous six-foot frame, Naranjo is unusually patrician for a cop.

Though the son of a former Colombian police chief, Naranjo's teen years were more bohemian than boy scout. He wore his hair long and read Kafka, Camus and papal encyclicals. He played volleyball competitively. He wobbled between studying sociology and journalism before getting hooked on police work after tagging along with some detectives on a kidnapping case.

Naranjo graduated first in his class at the police academy and, when his father retired in 1983, went into intelligence work.

That's when his education began to get especially dangerous.

Medellin cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar would soon emerge as an existential threat to the state. In Escobar's fight against the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States, he waged all-out war, including targeted assassinations and indiscriminate bombings of civilians.

In 1989, after Naranjo escorted out of the country his first "extraditable," an Escobar money-launderer, the long reach of drug cartels touched him personally.

"When I returned to Bogota the next day," he recalled, "I found my wife had to move because a funeral wreath was delivered to the small apartment where we lived that said: 'Maj. Naranjo, Rest in Peace.'"

The Medellin cartel put a $5,000 bounty on his head. Escobar offered smaller bounties for rank-and-file policemen. About 500 were killed in Medellin alone in the worst year.

In 1991, Escobar surrendered and entered a custom-built prison he'd helped design. A few months later, he was a fugitive again.

Naranjo, who had moved to Buenos Aires, was brought back to Colombia and named intelligence chief of the "Bloque de Busqueda," a special force formed to hunt down the arch criminal. He gave weekly briefings to a group led by the defense minister that included the top CIA and DEA officers in Colombia. And he designed the clandestine operation that led to Escobar's killing in December 1993.

At the time, the kingpin's family had returned to Bogota after Germany rejected its asylum request. Fearful that Escobar's underworld foes would try to assassinate members of the family, they agreed to be put up in a residence hotel suite.

Naranjo had bugged the suite beforehand. Then he positioned himself one floor up, where, with the help of U.S. agents, he directed one of the earliest successful cellphone triangulations.

The Bloque de Busqueda's operations chief, now retired Gen. Leonardo Gallego, said Naranjo succeeded in forcing Escobar "into errors that made him break his own strict security rules."

Obsessed over his family's safety, Escobar lingered too long on the phone with his son.

His location pinpointed, his fate was sealed. He was gunned down on a rooftop in Medellin while trying to make his escape.

---

People looking to draw lessons for today's Mexican drug warriors from Colombia's defeat of the Medellin cartel should not overlook the ethical compromises and dark alliances made in that epic struggle, says Vanda Felbab-Brown, a drug war analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

To weaken and isolate Escobar, Colombia's government and police allied themselves with the Cali cartel and estranged former Escobar henchmen, including men who would go on to lead the far-right militias known as paramilitaries.

The government's criminal allies killed several hundred of Escobar's mid-level operatives and thus paralyzed the group, Felbab-Brown said.

Naranjo does not deny that bloody marriage of convenience.

It's easy to be critical in hindsight, he says, "but when two or three car bombs are going off in Bogota, in Medellin or in Cali and there are 120 dead every week from this war, the truth is that the state and society said, 'Do whatever you need to do to stop this.'"

That included leaning on Danilo Gonzalez, one of Naranjo's police academy classmates who had gone rogue.

Gonzalez always had the best intelligence on Escobar, Naranjo argued, because he got it from the Cali cartel, the next big target in the U.S.-sponsored drug war.

Naranjo says that in 1995, he persuaded the incoming police director, Gen. Rosso Jose Serrano, not to forcibly retire Gonzalez because the latter provided "very useful information."

Serrano eventually forced Gonzalez out when it became clear he was deep into drug trafficking with other rogue policemen.

In 2004, Gonzalez was killed in a gangland-style shooting.

Naranjo attended the wake.

---

During Serrano's 1995-2000 tenure, Naranjo gravitated to the "yuppies" — educated cops who favored well-cut suits and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the DEA, CIA and Scotland Yard. The two men purged about 10,000 police officers. During Naranjo's time as director, nearly 2,900 were forcibly retired.

No one questions Naranjo's effectiveness against drug traffickers and leftist rebels, but analysts say Colombia's police under Naranjo have achieved far less on other fronts.

Kidnapping and murder are down dramatically, but criminal bands continue to thrive in the provinces, running drugs, extorting, "taxing" illegal gold mining. Colombia also remains the world's most deadly nation for trade union organizers.

"The strategy of going after high-value targets has its limits," said Maria Victoria Llorente, director of the Bogota think tank Fundacion Ideas para La Paz. "You capture the capos, but they have a great capacity for regeneration."

That's one reason drug decriminalization has a growing number of proponents in Latin America.

Naranjo is not among them, and his personal experience can't help but influence his thinking.

"Drug trafficking is good at transforming values into anti-values," he says, "and ends up enslaving societies."

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Criminele drugsinfiltrant VS jarenlang actief in Nederland

De Amerikaanse drugsbestrijdingsorganisatie DEA heeft een criminele burgerinfiltrant ingezet in Nederland. Het AD heeft de hand weten te leggen op geheime rapporten van de DEA.

De burgerinfiltrant speelde een hoofdrol bij de gecontroleerde doorvoer van een grote hoeveelheid drugs in Europa. Doel was het in de val lokken van drugscriminelen. Op de partij kwamen meerdere Nederlanders af. Infiltrant 'Mono' werkte maandenlang vanuit Amsterdam.

De rol van de DEA-infiltrant ligt gevoelig, omdat het een bom kan leggen onder het proces tegen de potentiële kopers die momenteel in Haarlem terechtstaan. De verdachten vermoeden dat de DEA in Nederland buiten haar boekje is gegaan en eisen inzage in de operatie. De Amerikanen weigeren dat.

Justitie claimt dat ze eind 2009 voor het eerst hoorde dat Mono voor de DEA werkte. Een artikel uit de Poolse krant Gazeta Wyborcza zet vraagtekens bij die verklaring. Nederland zou namelijk al op 11 februari 2009 een bemiddelende rol hebben gespeeld tussen de DEA en de Poolse geheime dienst ABW.

CDA, PvdA en SP eisen opheldering van justitieminister Opstelten. PvdA-Kamerlid Recourt: 'Of de DEA neemt een loopje met ons, of wij nemen een loopje met onze eigen regels. Beide kunnen we niet hebben.'

Sinds de IRT-affaire is de inzet van burgerinfiltranten in Nederland strikt verboden.

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Op de brommer naar Albanië

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Daan Vonk en Theo Roelofs trokken op de brommer naar Albanië. Ze troffen een dorp aan, Lazarat, waar iedereen van de wietteelt leeft (zie onderstaande video vanaf 25.44 minuut). Overal waar je kijkt, zie je wietplanten groeien. De politie komt er niet en de bewoners van Lazarat staan nogal vijandig tegenover buitenstaanders, maar twee jongens uit Nederland zijn wel welkom.

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Het komende nummer van 360 is gewijd aan de oorlog tegen drugs.

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Uruguay wil cannabis verkopen aan burgers

Uruguay wil cannabis gaan verkopen aan haar burgers, zodat dealers niet langer verdienen aan de verkoop.

De Uruguayaanse regering heeft een nieuwe manier bedacht om de drugshandel tegen te gaan. Het Uruguayaanse Congres gaat zich buigen over een wetsvoorstel dat de verkoop van cannabis door de regering legaliseert.

Als de wet wordt aangenomen is de Uruguayaanse overheid de eerste nationale overheid ter wereld die cannabis gaat verkopen aan haar burgers.

Wereldwijd

Alleen de regering mag dan speciale sigaretten gaan verkopen, melden diverse lokale media. De bewustzijnsverruimende middelen komen echter alleen beschikbaar voor geregistreerde gebruikers.

Het drugsgebruik van de gebruikers wordt daarop bijgehouden in een database van de overheid. Uruguay pleit ervoor om de cannabisverkoop wereldwijd te legaliseren.

Misdaadcijfers

Volgens de regering van de linkse president José Mujica zijn de drugs zelf minder schadelijk dan de gevolgen van het verbod op sommige drugs. De zwarte markt waar cannabis wordt verhandeld en de criminaliteit die de handel met zich meebrengt, zijn Uruguay een doorn in het oog.

De Uruguayaanse minister van Defensie Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro (foto) zei op een persconferentie in Montevideo dat de legalisatie is bedoeld om de misdaadcijfers in het land omlaag te brengen en criminelen de wind uit de zeilen te nemen. Hij hoopt ook dat softdrugsgebruikers door de maatregel minder snel overstappen op harddrugs.

Boeren

Kranten in het Zuid-Amerikaanse land melden verder dat een deel van de accijns op de cannabis gebruikt gaat worden om drugsverslaafden te helpen bij het afkicken. De regering geeft binnenkort meer details vrij, maar duidelijk is al wel dat de Uruguayaanse boeren de cannabis gaan verbouwen.

Bron: RT.com

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Mexico pakt zoon meest gezochte drugsbaron op

Het Mexicaanse leger heeft een van de zonen van de meest gezochte drugsbaronnen van Mexico opgepakt. Dat werd donderdag bekendgemaakt.

De zoon van Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar, kon dankzij informatie van de Mexicaanse inlichtingendienst worden ingerekend in de westelijke staat Jalisco, aldus een verklaring van het leger.

Guzman Salazar (26) en zijn vader, leider van het Sinaloa-kartel, werden in 2009 in de Verenigde Staten aangeklaagd voor drugshandel. El Chapo Guzman heeft kinderen bij meerdere vrouwen, van wie één onlangs in de Verenigde Staten van een tweeling beviel.

El Chapo Guzman ontsnapte in 2001 verstopt in een vrachtwagen met wasgoed uit een strengbeveiligde gevangenis. Andere zonen, onder wie Ivan Archivaldo 'El Chapito' Guzman Salazar (31) en Ovidio Guzman Lopez, zijn waarschijnlijk nauw betrokken bij de criminele praktijken van hun vader.

Forbes schatte het vermogen van El Chapo Guzman in 2009 op ongeveer één miljard dollar.

De oorlog tussen de verschillende drugsbendes en het leger heeft aan tienduizenden Mexicanen het leven gekost.

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Mexico admits arrested 'drug kingpin' is actually a car salesman

Embarrassing comedown for Felipe Calderon's government and country's military after they paraded 'El Gordo' for the cameras

Mexico has admitted it mistakenly claimed to have captured a son of Mexico's most wanted druglord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, which the ruling party had hailed as a major victory in its war on cartels.

Mexican marines seized the man on Thursday outside Guadalajara and flew him to Mexico City, where they paraded him in front of the media and identified him as Jesus Alfredo Guzman, aka El Gordo or The Fat One.

The man's lawyer, Veronica Guerrero, told a news conference earlier on Friday her client's real name was Felix Beltran and that he was an innocent car dealer. The federal attorney general's office said late on Friday the man arrested was indeed Beltran, without giving any further details.

The mixup is a major embarrassment for the government, which has been heavily criticised for failing to contain the violence and flow of drugs since president Felipe Calderon sent in the military to fight the cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Marines said they apprehended the man with an arsenal of rifles, pistols and grenades and about $160,000 (£102,000) in cash.

Javier Oliva, a political scientist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the snafu showed how poor co-ordination is between US intelligence agencies and their Mexican counterparts.

"This is really serious. Nothing like this has ever happened before," he said, wondering how the agencies had gone public on the arrest without making the proper checks. "The main responsibility here lies with the DEA."

Thursday's arrest won praise from the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which has sought Jesus Alfredo Guzman since he was indicted for cocaine trafficking in 2009. His father, the elder Guzman, faces dozens of charges of racketeering and drug smuggling in US courts. There is a $5m reward for his capture.

The arrest came just over a week before Mexicans vote for a leader to replace Calderon, whom the constitution bars from seeking a second term. Brutal clashes between drug cartels and Mexican authorities have killed more than 55,000 people since Calderon launched his crackdown on the gangs.

"This is confirmation that President Calderon's strategy doesn't work," said Alberto Islas, a security expert at the consultancy Risk Evaluation. He said the botched arrest demonstrated the weakness of Mexico's own intelligence apparatus.

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Mexico elections: failure of drugs war leaves nation at the crossroads

On 1 July, Mexicans will vote in vital presidential elections. But the issue no candidate dares to address is the cartel violence tearing the nation apart. Diplomats say the time has come to challenge drug policy – but can they get the US to agree?

One after another, Mexico's presidential candidates sat in silence amid the grand setting of Chapúltepec Castle while, across the room, the leader of the country's movement of victims of drug war violence – a poet – chastised them.

"The 60,000 dead, the more than 20,000 who've disappeared, the hundreds of thousands of people displaced, wounded and hunted, the tens of thousands of widows and orphans that this stupid war against drugs is costing us, do not exist for you and your parties," Javier Sicilia accused. "For you, the national emergency does not exist." One after the other, the candidates promised action and showed concern, then they left. It was time to get back to the real business of running for president.

The meeting with Sicilia last month was unavoidable, given the moral weight of the movement he represents, but it was also the only time in the entire three-month campaign when the undisputed issue of the day was the drug war ravaging Mexico.

Polls show that most Mexicans consider security, along with the economy, to be the two biggest issues facing their country, but neither has featured particularly heavily. "Everybody asks me where the security issue is. Why the candidates don't talk about the economy. The elephant in the room is President Felipe Calderón's record, and that is hardly talked about," says pollster Jorge Buendía. In Ciudad Juárez, which has just lost its title as the world's most dangerous city, now ranked second, the chronicler of the violence, journalist Julián Cardona, says: "To look at the candidates speak, you would think they were talking about another country."

But whatever the politicians' speeches, Mexicans know that the country must take urgent measures now to try to put an end to the appalling violence if it is to claim the place in the world its economy justifies. And although Mexico is umbilically tied to the US war on drugs, and fights on the frontline of that war, senior Mexican diplomatic officials suggest to the Observer in private that, whoever wins the election, this must change; that there must be a major rethink and a shift towards initiatives in Latin America that challenge the "war on drugs" to which the US remains committed.

Mexico's ambassador to London, Eduardo Medina Mora, a former attorney general, speaking to the Observer yesterday, said: "I dislike the term 'war on drugs' – it is an over-simplification of a problem that is extremely complex. We have to increase our efforts, deepen our understanding of the problem, look back at what we have done, and correct it. We have to ask ourselves: 'Can there be a better way?'" He added: "We have to look at every aspect: the health aspects and the economic aspects as well as the rule of law. Our priority must be to assure peace for our citizens."

Ahead in the polls is Enrique Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for seven decades until 2000. His main campaign slogan – "Change" – reflects his efforts to construct an image of an effectiveness and reliability that contrasts with the widespread sense that under the rival, incumbent National Action party Mexico has lost its way, not least because of the drug wars. "This is my pledge," Peña Nieto says, looking straight at the camera, "and you know that I am going to fulfil it."

Running second is leftwinger Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who lost the last vote by a whisker; he heads the Party of the Democratic Revolution, promising "real change" and insisting he is the only candidate who is honest and genuinely cares about the troubles of the country and its population, especially its poor.

Trailing the polls, in the awkward position of being the candidate of a governing party that has manifestly failed to get the country under control, Josefina Vázquez Mota claims to be "different", though it is unclear in what way.

The drug wars are taking place against the backdrop of an economy that has responded robustly to the global crisis. Mexico is becoming a manufacturing powerhouse at a time of vindication for those countries that kept or developed their industrial bases, unlike its crisis-ridden giant northern neighbour. Its aeronautical and auto industries have helped propel growth rates since the crisis of 2008 and recession in 2009, with manufactured goods accounting for 84% of exports. Mexico aims for trade to account for 85% of GDP by 2017.

So the violence is a ball and chain around the ankles of a country with considerable potential. The hope among so many of the electorate, exhausted by the violence, is that the PRI, if it wins, will change gear with regard to America's "war on drugs", maybe even forge a coupling of overt force with other forms of coercion and entreaty. It is of significance that Peña Nieto has co-opted as his main security adviser Oscar Naranjo, the recently retired Colombian police chief who played a major role in confronting and decommissioning the cocaine syndicates. The drug policy expert Alejandro Hope argues that the old arrangement between the PRI and the cartels creates a "possible model, but not a very good one". He points instead to the "so-called demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration in Colombia, initially conceived as a mechanism for reintegrating guerrilla groups… and used to pacify criminal groups".

It is beyond question that during its seven-decade reign over Mexico the PRI operated a modus operandi of conviviality with the cartels. The rationale was that individual politicians and law enforcement officers would benefit, of course, but there was a wider motive – that which in Italy is known as the pax mafiosa, the mafia's peace. Broadly speaking, this means that a modicum of understanding between the cartels and government – national, regional and local – allows for a sufficiently blind official eye to products rolling across the border into the US, in return for which the cartels maintain a balance of power between each other, respect each other's "plazas", or turf, and a general peace.

This is what prevailed throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when Mexican crime syndicates were generally organised within a pyramidal structure under the "don" of drug trafficking, Félix Gallardo, and his formidable Guadalajara cartel.

But in 1989, under pressure from the US, the Mexican government arrested Gallardo, igniting a war for succession to his mantle, and for sections of the border in which he had ordained control. The present savagery began in December 2006, when Calderón sent in the army to try to pacify the battle at the fulcrum of border trade – both illegal and illegal – at Nuevo Laredo, between the Sinaloa cartel, heir to Gallardo's syndicate, and the paramilitary enforcement wing of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, now a terrifying cartel in its own right.

Through the ensuing war, Mexico has been rife with rumours that Calderón favoured the Sinaloa cartel and protected its elusive, fugitive leader, Joaquín Guzmán, the world's richest and biggest mafia criminal. According to some US intelligence estimates, only 12% of those arrested since 2006 belong to the main Sinaloa cartel. In the runup to the election, however, two Sinaloa leaders have been arrested, one last week. Accordingly, politics in those areas affected by the drug war – the US border states, Veracruz, Michoacán, Zacatecas and elsewhere – became contaminated by the cartels' positioning themselves politically.

As Rebecca Rodríguez, a human rights worker in war-torn Reynosa in the border state of Tamaulipas, says: "There are elections between the PRI and PAN, but they are no more than Calderón and the army backing the PAN, so the narcos back the PRI. You have the army on one side, the narcos and police on the other, and – in the middle – the economy, education, political life collapsing, normal communication broken down."

The narco cartels have moved on from the 80s. They are pioneers of modern capitalism, and operate a fragmented free market, outsourcing to a miasma of killing interests and street gangs on which it would be impossible for even cartel leaders to impose a pax mafiosa.

The cartels have "substituted the old pyramidal chain of command for the same concession or franchising system as any other corporation", says Ignacio Alvarez Alvarado, a reporter from Ciudad Juárez. "Like a good modern capitalist, the cartel outsources, it puts contracts out to tender, to give other people a chance to compete. They're a business like any other, and the cartels have got much more democratic in the modern, capitalist sense: outsourced, meritocratic and opportunistic," he adds, drolly.

There has been a generational as well as economic evolution: the Zetas epitomise a new "style" of narco that is working-class, uninterested in patronage and the "honour" of the classical mafia represented by Gallardo or the Sicilian "godfather" figure. They are a form of insurgency and extreme violence is their "brand"; they operate across the internet with sick, black humour. They are less interested in playing politics than getting politics to play their game. "It used to be," says a campaigner in Tamaulipas, Mario Trevino, "that the politicians told the narcos what to do. Now the narcos tell the politicians what to do."

There is of course a long-term and genuinely radical course a new Mexican government could take: to shift the gear of its fight against drug cartels closer to the cogent initiatives emerging from Latin America, and notably Colombia, where President Juan Santos launched his call for a complete rethink of global drug policy to incorporate social issues and an assault on the laundering of the vast drug profits by banks in the US and Europe. This is extremely delicate for a country so dependent on the US and a recipient of a vast military aid budget. But, crucially, there are signs that, for all Mexico's bounden relationship to the US, and its acceptance of military aid along with political heavy-handedness, many of those steering the policy of whatever government comes next are anxious to move towards the Colombian position.

Medina Mora speaks with a blend of care and forthrightness. "If we want to face the problem," he says, "we have to have a thorough understanding of what that problem is, and we have to have a leadership that is committed to doing just that. This is not only an issue of drug trafficking, it is an issue of security institutions that are structurally weak, and cannot guarantee peace and security to Mexican people in the areas affected. This is where we want to go: to work on the police, on the judicial system, towards social cohesion and creating opportunities and jobs for the young people who are vulnerable to the criminals – this is quite clear now. We have to re-examine what we have done. We will have to learn from the Colombian achievements, and from Colombian mistakes." A former attorney general, Mora adds: "Consumption and possession of drugs is not criminal in Mexico, and this is right, but it doesn't end there, and I think it's wrong to talk about blanket legalisation – again, this oversimplification of a very, very complex issue."

In a clear reference to Mexico's northern neighbour, the ambassador said: "There has to be an acceptance of responsibility by countries at the consuming end – with a high drug consumption rate – and countries which cannot control their flow of weapons, and countries at the end of the value-added chain – which is always closer to the consumer in any business." But on the matter of money-laundering, he added: "Of course, the money flows to the US bankers, but it is not enough to be always blaming Wall Street – we all have to do something about the value-added end of the chain, again: another very complex issue that needs to be evaluated. This is how the debate should be: what are the policy choices? And to accept that this is not a matter of good and bad, but bad and worse, worse and much worse."

A senior Mexican diplomatic official admitted to the Observer last week: "What we did was to implement only the enforcement side of the drugs crisis. We did not implement a strategy for going after the money-laundering. We did not implement a strategy for restoring the social fabric. Now our priorities have to be: 1, bring peace to the Mexicans in their communities; 2, break the organised crime business model; and 3, turn this from being a national security threat to a public security issue."

And another senior government official said: "Let's have a full, global debate on drug policy. Not on legalisation – that will just polarise everyone again. Let's have a debate that is not ideological, not moral or emotional, but expert and scientific. Let's get the facts, and sit the Americans down to discuss them. And if the Americans close their minds, let's try to open them."

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Marines said they apprehended the man with an arsenal of rifles, pistols and grenades and about $160,000 (£102,000) in cash.

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Mexico City airport shooting leaves three police officers dead – video

The bodies of two Mexican federal police officers are carried away after they were killed in a shootout with suspected drug smugglers at Mexico City's airport on Monday. A third police officer died in hospital. Mexico City has seen relatively low murder rates compared to the rest of the country

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Drugsgeweld drijft Mexicaanse kiezer terug in armen van machtspartij PRI

Het voetbalgekke Mexico heeft vandaag iets anders aan het hoofd dan de EK-finale tussen Italië en Spanje. Xavi en Balotelli zijn even vergeten, onderwerp van elk gesprek zijn Peña Nieto en Obrador; geen voetballers maar presidentskandidaten. De stembussen zijn geopend. Rond middernacht lokale tijd wordt de uitslag verwacht.


In de laatste regeringstermijn van zes jaar, onder leiding van de conservatieve PAN (Partij van Nationale Actie), is het drugsgeweld enkel toegenomen. 'Daar wordt de PAN nu op afgestraft', vertelt Volkskrant-correspondent Marjolein van de Water vanuit Mexicostad. Na twaalf jaar en twee termijnen van de PAN is de kans groot dat de PRI (Institutionele Revolutionaire Partij) terugkeert aan de macht.

Zeventig jaar
Voordat de PAN in 2000 de verkiezingen won, regeerde de PRI zeventig jaar het land. Nog steeds is er veel protest tegen de partij waaronder Mexico op een dictatuur leek. Maar de mensen zijn het geweld zat. De harde hand van PAN-president Felipe Calderon deed het geweld van de drugskartels alleen maar toenemen. PAN verklaarde de oorlog aan het drugsgeweld en bracht het leger in het straatbeeld. In de afgelopen zes jaar zijn 60 duizend mensen omgekomen.

PRI-kandidaat Enrique Peña Nieto belooft nu een terugkeer naar rustiger tijden. Het leger moet terug naar de kazerne, de politie moet weer de orde gaan handhaven op straat; net als toen PRI nog aan de macht was. Vermoedelijk was die rust van toen vooral te danken aan corruptie, toch verlangen veel Mexicanen terug naar de stabiliteit van het PRI-tijdperk. Van de Water: 'Ze denken: laat ze maar dealtjes maken, als het geweld maar ophoudt.'

PAN-kandidate
Kandidate Josefina Vazquez Mota is het nieuwe gezicht van PAN. Maar waarschijnlijk zal ze geen derde PAN-termijn in de wacht kunnen slepen. Ze wil de harde lijn tegen de kartels van Calderon voortzetten, precies het beleid dat de mensen zat zijn. In de peilingen stevent ze af op een derde plaats.

De echte uitdaging voor Peña Nieto komt van Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, kandidaat van de PRD (Partij van de Democratische Revolutie). De linkse Obrador verloor in 2006 nipt van Calderon. Hij beweerde door fraude de verkiezingswinst te zijn ontnomen. Sindsdien noemt hij zich 'de legitieme president van Mexico'. Wat de uitslag ook zal zijn, ook na deze verkiezingen zullen de verhalen over fraude en corruptie weer de ronde doen.

De verkiezingsstrijd overheerst het dagelijks leven, zegt Van de Water. Letterlijk; sinds vrijdag is een droogleggingswet van kracht. 48 uur voor de verkiezingen tot aan het sluiten van de stemlokalen mag er in Mexico niet worden gedronken. Maar ook emotioneel; mensen maken zich grote zorgen over het geweld en hun toekomst. Heel anders dan zes jaar geleden, toen de sfeer eerder apathisch was dan betrokken.

Vandaag komt er na twaalf jaar weer verandering in Mexico, zoveel is zeker. Maar het is vooral het drugsgeweld dat de Mexicaanse kiezer terugdrijft in de armen van de PRI. Een nieuw avontuur met de PRD van Obrador is onder de huidige omstandigheden mogelijk te gedurfd. Rond middernacht weten de Mexicanen wat ze hebben gekozen, in Nederland is het dan zeven uur maandagochtend .

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Colombian ex-police chief flown to US to face drug charges

Mauricio Santoyo, the former president's head of security, alleged to have carried out wiretaps and identified murder targets

A retired police general who served as chief of security for former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has surrendered to the authorities and was flown to the US to face drug-trafficking charges.

Mauricio Santoyo handed himself over to US agents and was flown to Dulles International airport in Virginia in a US government plane, authorities said. He was to appear before a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday, the local US attorney's office said in a statement.

An indictment in eastern Virginia charges Santoyo with conspiracy to export cocaine and alleges that he betrayed international counter-narcotics operations from 2002 to 2008. It claims he conducted unauthorised wiretaps on behalf of drug-traffickers and identified murder targets for them.

He is alleged to have received at least $5m (£3.2m) in return.

Santoyo was Uribe's security chief from 2002 to 2005.

The case has been a major issue in Colombia, source of most of the cocaine sold in the US, because of Santoyo's privileged post in Uribe's government, which forged a peace pact with far-right militias, whose leaders included major drug-traffickers.

Before being appointed to the post, Santoyo had run an anti-kidnapping unit in Medellin, where individuals under his command are alleged to have engaged in illegal wiretaps, including of two human rights activists who later disappeared.

The US indictment alleges Santoyo betrayed the Colombian state on behalf of a criminal organisation called the Envigado Office, which in addition to engaging in drug-trafficking also provided "enforcers" including assassins.

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Op donderdag 31 mei 2012 15:43 schreef Viajero het volgende:

[..]

Alle Latijns Amerikaanse drugscartels zijn allang in de VS vertegenwoordigd, inclusief de Zetas.

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New approaches to drugs in Mexico and South America

Mexico has just elected a new leader, President Enrique Pena Nieto. His predecessor was well known for his commitment to waging the war on drugs that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Mexicans.

The new President seems to be calling for a new approach to the drugs issue, moving away from headline-grabbing drugs busts and concentrating instead on protecting people from gangs.

With his policies on drugs so far unclear, it will be interesting to see how this develops. One interesting aside is how calling for new approaches to tackling drugs is now a political positive – not the negative that most people think it is. More leaders should be brave and change the way they deal with drugs.

One country that is doing so is Colombia, which is decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of cocaine and marijuana for personal use. Anyone caught with less than 20 grams of marijuana or one gram of cocaine for personal use may receive physical or psychological treatment depending on their state of consumption, but may not be prosecuted or detained, the court ruled.

This follows the government of Uruguay’s announcement that it will submit a proposal to legalize marijuana under government-controlled regulation and sale.

Let’s hope more countries in the rest of the world follow these brave examples.

http://www.virgin.com/ric(...)co-and-south-america

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Op donderdag 5 juli 2012 09:22 schreef Nielsch het volgende:

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En door de samenwerking met o.a. de Italiaanse 'Ndrangheta - die bijvoorbeeld ook in de haven van Rotterdam zitten - is Europa ook geinfiltreerd.

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Report challenges Mexico's choices in drug war

Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional report says Mexico's reliance on the military to combat widespread drug violence has been largely ineffective and has led to increases in human rights violations.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report did commend the administration of President Felipe Calderon for making progress in confronting organized crime bosses. The report, released Thursday, said that effort enjoys strong support from the Mexican people.

At the same time, however, Mexicans doubt that the government can crack down on violence that since December 2006 has led to more than 55,000 drug-related homicides. The report said many Mexicans have little faith in the police and judicial system due to systemic corruption and ineffectiveness.

The report recommends that Congress provide $250 million over four years to help Mexico speed up police and judicial reforms.

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'Stewardessen gedwongen tot drugssmokkel'

Drugsbendes op Curaçao dwingen stewardessen van Nederlandse vliegmaatschappijen drugs naar Nederland te smokkelen. Ook worden families van lokale vliegmedewerkers met de dood bedreigd als ze de drugs niet meenemen, schrijft De Telegraaf vrijdag op basis van verklaringen.

Arkefly-topman Steven van der Heijden bevestigt volgens de krant dat lokale medewerkers worden bedreigd. Een steward van Arkefly is onlangs aangehouden nadat op de luchthaven van Curaçao acht kilo cocaïne in zijn koffertje werd gevonden.

De veiligheid van vliegers en cabinemensen is volgens Van der Heijden in gevaar. "We willen snel maatregelen om smokkeldwang te voorkomen." Een oplossing zou zijn om al het personeel te controleren zodat de methode niet meer loont.

KLM zou zich niet in de situatie herkennen. De krant oppert dat KLM 'niet wil toegeven' of dat de bendes Arkefly pakken omdat het een gemakkelijker doelwit is.

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Op vrijdag 13 juli 2012 08:50 schreef Boris_Karloff het volgende:
van de frontpage:

[..]

'Stewardessen gedwongen tot drugssmokkel'

Ik hecht net zoveel waarde aan de deze bewereringen als dat ik waarde hecht aan al die beweringen van mensen die roepen dat er in een kroeg of disco iets in hun drinken is gegooid nadat ze out zijn gegaan van hun eigen drugsgebruik. heel weinig dus

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Op vrijdag 13 juli 2012 09:05 schreef Nielsch het volgende:

[..]

En gelijk heb je. Drugsbendes zouden nooit zoiets gemeens doen als familieleden bedreigen.

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Op vrijdag 13 juli 2012 09:09 schreef Boris_Karloff het volgende:

[..]

\
Niet snel bij hun onbekende mensen, dat roept nogal negatieve reacties op als ze willekeurig mensen gaan lopen bedreigen. Waardoor ze niet meer aan geld verdienen toe komen.

vergelijk het met al die mensen die roepen dat er iets in hun drinken is gedaan tijdens het stappen. Het is aangetoond dat meer dan 90% van die verhalen gewoon onzin is. En dat die mensen vrijwillig die drugs gebruikt hebben, alleen hebben ze iets teveel gebruikt. Wat is dan makkelijker dan beweren dat iemand dat door je drinken heeft gegooid, dat is veel makkelijker als zelf toegeven dat je fout zat. Maar ondertussen ontstaat wel een beeld dat drugshandelaars in disco's willekeurig bij mensen drugs in het drinken staan te gooien.

Nu gaan we een beeld neerzetten dat drugssmokkelaars mensen gaan lopen bedreigen om drugs te smokkelen terwijl ze genoeg cash hebben om die mensen om te kopen. Welke optie zou jij kiezen als drugssmokkelaar?

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Op vrijdag 13 juli 2012 09:29 schreef Viajero het volgende:

[..]

Beide natuurlijk. Als omkopen niet werkt dan gaan ze bedreigen. Bekend onder de Spaanse formule "Plomo o Plata" (lood of zilver).