The World Wide War on Drugs #5 - Het begin van het einde?

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YourAnonNews twitterde op zaterdag 20-04-2013 om 08:54:35 Happy 4/20 #FourTwenty! reageer retweet

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Obama Makes Major Moves To End The War On Drugs!

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — President Barack Obama’s new strategy for fighting the nation’s drug problem will include a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons, under reforms scheduled to be outlined by the nation’s drug czar Wednesday.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, is scheduled to release Obama’s 2013 blueprint for drug policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Millions of people in the United States will become eligible in less than a year for treatment for substance abuse under the new health care overhaul.

Read more: http://globalgrind.com/ne(...)etails#ixzz2ROXKii8t

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The strategy also includes a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses, according to details of the strategy released by Kerlikowskes office.

Read more: http://globalgrind.com/ne(...)etails#ixzz2ROXWQP00

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Prison governors hit out at war on drugs

Prison governors have joined the ever-growing list of professional associations and celebrities calling for a rethink of the war on drugs, in a further sign of a sea-change in attitudes.

The Prison Governors Association (PGA) has backed the Time to Count the Costs initiative – a campaign calling for international drug law reforms backed by figures like Richard Branson.

"The blanket prohibition on Class A drugs allows criminals to control both the supply and quality of these drugs to addicts who turn to crime to fund their addiction," Eoin McLennan-Murray of the PGA said.

"The Prison Governors' Association believe that a substantial segment of the prison population have been convicted of low level acquisitive crimes simply to fund that addiction.

"The current war on drugs is successful in creating further victims of acquisitive crime; increasing cost to the taxpayer to accommodate a higher prison population and allowing criminals to control and profit from the sale and distribution of Class A drugs."

Count the Cost is backed by Human Rights Watch, the Howard League for Penal Reform and the former president of Brazil.

A recent appeal by rap music mogul Russell Simmons saw a range of celebrities join the campaign, including Susan Sarandon, Justin Bieber, Harry Belafonte, Cameron Diaz, Jim Carrey, Will Smith, Ron Howard and Mark Wahlberg.

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Minstens tien doden bij schietpartijen in Mexico

Bij gevechten tussen vermoedelijke leden van een drugskartel en leden van een burgerwacht zijn zondag in het westen van Mexico minstens tien mensen om het leven gekomen. Zeven gewonden liggen met schotwonden in het ziekenhuis.

Dat melden de krant La Reforma en het lokale nieuwsagentschap Quadratin op basis van politiebronnen.

Gewapende mannen vielen 's ochtends in Tepalcatepec en Buenavista Tomatlán, in de deelstaat Michoacán, leden van de burgerwacht aan.

Eenheden van deze zelfbenoemde gemeentepolitie namen in februari de controle over deze plaatsen over. Naar eigen zeggen beschermen ze de inwoners tegen de drugkartels, maar er zijn ook aanwijzingen dat ze zelf banden onderhouden met de onderwereld.

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Steeds meer doden in drugsstrijd Afghanistan

De strijd tegen de papaverteelt in Afghanistan eist steeds meer levens. In 40 dagen tijd zijn 131 doden gevallen onder veiligheidstroepen en burgermedewerkers die hielpen bij de vernietiging van de papavervelden.


Dat heeft de Afghaanse viceminister voor Drugsbestrijding Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar dinsdag gezegd. Het dodental is ongeveer twee keer zo hoog als in dezelfde periode vorig jaar.

Uit opiumpapaver wordt opium gewonnen. Afghanistan is de grootste producent. Voor de Afghaanse boeren is het gewas erg lucratief en ze verzetten zich dan ook tegen de vernietiging van papavervelden. Ook de Taliban verdienen aan de papaverteelt.

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Have We Lost the War on Drugs?

After more than four decades of a failed experiment, the human cost has become too high. It is time to consider the decriminalization of drug use and the drug market.

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—Mr. Becker is a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago. He won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992. Mr. Murphy is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Both are senior fellows of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

_{A version of this article appeared January 5, 2013, on page C1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: HaveWeThe War Lost On Drugs?.}

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Bust of "over-the-hill" Aspen drug gang pits local cops against feds

ASPEN — When Montgomery Chitty was arrested during the bust of a senior-citizen cocaine ring in 2011, there were more titters about an "over-the-hill" drug gang operating in this celebrity-studded, laissez-faire resort town than there was outrage over the smuggling of hundreds of kilos of cocaine.

From the luxury Gucci and Fendi shops in the heart of the town to the murky interior of the iconically funky Woody Creek Tavern up the valley, the fact that there are big lots of drugs being bought, sold and consumed where the world comes to party isn't much of an eyebrow-raiser.

But Chitty's prosecution and conviction have raised angst of another sort.

In a town that prides itself on having no cops devoted to busting drug dealers and that views drunken driving as a bigger threat to public safety than cocaine, Chitty has become emblematic of a long-standing quandary.

Aspen is locked in a war over drugs because the town isn't part of the war on drugs.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency doesn't trust the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office and, to a lesser extent, the Aspen Police Department, so the DEA keeps investigations and busts as secret from those agencies as it does from drug dealers. The feds' excuse is that local law enforcement officials are not to be trusted: They are too chummy with dealers, and Chitty is a prime example of those too-close ties.

When Chitty's quickly dubbed "over-the-hill" gang was busted after a 15-month investigation that included wiretaps and surveillance cameras, it was as much a surprise to Aspen law enforcement as it was to those arrested — by design.

"Our extensive and prolonged investigation showed relationships between persons who had active arrest warrants and members of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office," said DEA agent Jim Schrant.

Local officers counter that it is hard to be in a town the size of Aspen and not be acquainted with just about everyone, including those who, it turns out, sell drugs. That doesn't mean officers are turning a blind eye to drug problems.

But the local departments have policies in place that eschew undercover drug investigations, that don't condone the use of drug users as undercover informants and that put the focus of local law enforcers' jobs on public safety.

In that context, armed drug agents operating in secret in Aspen are viewed as a menace.

"Community safety can be jeopardized by these people," Pitkin County Commissioner Michael Owsley said about federal drug agents.

That became a very open controversy in 2005 when federal agents stormed two downtown bars and eateries during a busy happy hour. In a locally unpopular show of force and weapons, the agents arrested kitchen workers who were dealing drugs.

Local law officers knew nothing about the operation until calls started coming in from the public that armed men were on the downtown mall.

Fast-forward to 2011 and the arrest of the golden-years gang. Ten Aspen and Los Angeles-area residents — mostly in their 60s and 70s — were arrested for dealing about 200 kilos of cocaine over an eight-year period.

Chitty, 61, ended up being the only one who went to trial and the only one who received a lengthy sentence.

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Cocaine flows through Sahara as al-Qaida cashes in on lawlessness

Young Malians risk their lives to earn big money transporting drugs across desert

As the daily power cut struck Timbuktu, the town and surrounding desert were plunged into a sandy, grey darkness. Mohamed – a 31-year-old native of the town dressed in rich, deep blue cloth that engulfed his head in the traditional Tuareg style – seemed to shrink further into the shadows. He tipped ash into a saucer as he talked and smoked, telling his story for the first time.

"I didn't know cigarette trafficking was illegal," he said, exhaling into the black. "I smoke, everyone here smokes, so it didn't seem serious. But when I started transporting cocaine … I'm a Muslim, I knew it was wrong."

In 2009 Mohamed, who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, joined a team that drove packages of cocaine across the Sahara. He and his boss – who introduced him to the illicit trade in cigarettes as a young apprentice – were lured into the business by the apparent wealth of Moroccan and Algerian narco-traffickers whom they encountered in desert towns.

"When we transported cigarettes, I would be paid around 100,000 CFA francs [about £130] for each trip. With cocaine, I earned 1 million," Mohamed explained. "We would drive through the desert in convoys, and each car would earn roughly 18m CFA – the driver, security man and I would all be paid a fee, and my boss would keep the rest."

It is impossible to estimate how many young Malians are, like Mohamed, drawn into drug trafficking by the prospect of earning big money in short periods. In a region where youth unemployment and poverty are high, the prospect of travelling for days at a time through one of the most inhospitable terrains on earth offers little deterrent.

"It was hard, but there was no other way I could earn that kind of money," said Mohamed. "Our routes were never fixed, but we would drive 24 hours a day, without stopping, until we got there. We would eat tinned food, and prepare tea in the car. The most important thing was to get there as quickly as possible."

The UN estimates about 18 tonnes of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $1.25bn (£800m), crosses West Africa every year – nearly 50% of all non-US-bound cocaine. Most of it originates in Columbia, Peru and Bolivia, and travels to west Africa on private jets, fishing boats and freighters along the notorious "Highway 10" — the shortest route between the continents along the 10th parallel of latitude.

Now the role of al-Qaida-linked Islamists – who controlled northern Mali from early 2012 until they were ousted by French and African troops this year – is fuelling fears for the potential of the drug trade to destabilise the region.

"There is hard evidence of the link between al-Qaida and cocaine trafficking in the Sahara," said Dr Kwesi Aning, director of academic affairs and research at the Kofi Annan international peacekeeping training centre in Ghana. "In the beginning, the trade was mainly dominated by Tuaregs and middlemen who guided traffickers to water and fuel dumps in the desert. But after al-Qaida got involved around 10 years ago, we saw a massive increase in the quantities of cocaine involved. They had the networks, and they had the logistical know-how."

Experts say the lack of law enforcement in the Sahara has allowed both Islamism and the cocaine trade to flourish, with vast, inhospitable, mountainous desert borders all but impossible to police. Many in Mali also accuse successive regimes of the now ousted president Amadou Toumani Touré of being deeply complicit in the trade.

The region's lawlessness was blamed for the 2009 "Air Cocaine" incident, when a Boeing 727 believed to have been carrying up to 10 tonnes of cocaine was found burnt-out in the Malian desert. In 2010, a Malian police commissioner was convicted in connection with attempts to build an airstrip in the desert for future landings. And in the same year, the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency reported that a plane from Venezuela had landed in Mali, and that its cargo was driven by 4x4 vehicles to Timbuktu before authorities lost track of the convoy.

"You have to bear in mind that we are talking about the middle of nowhere," said Pierre Lapaque, representative of the United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC) regional office for west and central Africa. "It's a huge piece of sand where you can easily cross borders without knowing it. It is a serious challenge for law enforcement.

"On top of that, these are countries where law enforcement officers are poorly trained, poorly equipped and corrupt, and were logistics don't work. Put that together, and it's a nice opportunity for criminals," he added.

The Nigerian former president Olusegun Obasanjo, commissioner for the recently formed West Africa Commission on Drugs, said: "These criminal groups have the money to buy influence, which makes it difficult to apprehend them. It is affecting the normal operations of civil, military and paramilitary officials. [Drug traffickers] are even paying for political campaigns."

Mohamed said traffickers were highly organised and had well-established means of making their presence even harder to detect. "We waited to collect the drugs at a place between the mountains in the desert called 'al-Hanq' he explained. "The drugs were transported there by camels which travelled across the desert without a guide. The camels were trained by being starved and taken through the same route repeatedly, and fed when they arrive at al-Hanq, until they learned to do the journey alone.

"We would continue in convoys of 4x4s, but we had ways of hiding," Mohamed added. "A reconnaissance vehicle would always go ahead, with no drugs on board, and alert us to any obstacles. We would put grease on the car and stick sand on it as a camouflage, that way it's impossible to see from a distance in the desert."

Lapaque said: "We have heard about camels being trained to carry drugs. These are criminal groups which are well organised, and you have to understand that they have a business approach. They are weighing the potential risks against profits, which are really huge."

Mohamed said he had learned the risks first hand, and has now left the business after his convoy was attacked by heavily armed bandits. "We had stopped to repair a problem with the car, when a car mounted with weapons opened fire on us," he said. "I ran three hundred metres on foot until the shooting stopped, but three of my colleagues and all the attackers were killed. Two vehicles were burnt completely. It scared me so much, I told my boss I didn't want to be involved any more."

Mohamed said his boss is now a senior figure in the drug trade, with a mansion in the Nigerien capital, Niamey. In Timbuktu, the presence of drug chiefs is an open secret, he says, although many were forced to flee during the war.

"Everyone knows who in Timbuktu is doing drug trafficking, even the government," Mohamed said. "When senior officials [in the last government] came to Timbuktu, the drug traffickers were the ones who provided them with 36 brand new 4x4s."

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Barack Obama calls for 'new realities' and improved US-Mexico relations

President follows talks with counterpart Peña Nieto with speech that includes prediction of successful immigration reform

President Barack Obama called for a positive re-evaluation of the US-Mexico relationship on Friday, in an emphatically upbeat speech in Mexico City. Obama expressed strong confidence that immigration reform in the US would become a reality before the end of the year.

"It is time to put old mind sets aside and time to recognize new realities," Obama said, in a speech to hundreds of Mexican students interspersed with political leaders. The relationship, he said, should not be defined by threats but by shared prosperity.

This message of mutual respect, partnership and economic potential has dominated Obama's two-day visit to Mexico, which began on Thursday with a meeting with the country's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto.

In the press conference that followed, the emphasis on the economy dovetailed with an effort to defuse underlying tensions over America's role in Mexico's drug wars, by stressing that US collaboration would be respectful of the new government's promise to prioritize reducing violence rather than going after the cartels.

Obama's speech, which was delivered in the impressive setting of the National Anthropology Museum, was filled with eulogies to Mexican cultural and historical figures, from the painter Frida Kahlo to the Independence hero Miguel Hidalgo. Periodic phrases delivered in Spanish – such as "Es un placer estar entre amigos," or "It is a pleasure to be among friends" – earned cheers.

But the speech also contained much that seemed designed to convince the president's domestic audience that Mexico's economic potential should allay fears generated by the bipartisan initiative on immigration reform that is currently making its way through Congress. Obama said he was "absolutely convinced" that reform could be passed this year.

While the president called on Mexicans to put aside their traditional vision of the US as either disrespectful of national sovereignty or isolationist, he put most stress on the need for the US to go beyond the perceptions created by headlines about violence and concerns about border security.

"Mexico is a nation that is in the process of remaking itself," Obama said, before praising everything from pro-competition legislative reforms to trade figures and the fact that most Mexicans now identify themselves as middle class. "The long-term solution to the challenge of illegal immigration is a growing, prosperous Mexico that creates more jobs and opportunity right here."

The Mexican government has studiously avoided commenting in any depth on the possibility of an immigration reform, but Obama's message still fitted easily with President Peña Nieto's own efforts to persuade Mexicans that, as the government slogan goes, "This is Mexico's Moment". This also involves redirecting attention away from the continuing violence of the drug wars that are killing around 1,000 people every month.

Obama did briefly touch on security issues, although this was primarily to promise that he is working hard to curb American demand for illegal drugs and weapons trafficking that he recognized is fuelling the killing.

Following the speech, Obama met representatives of the business community in private before flying on to Costa Rica. After meeting with the Costa Rican president, Laura Chinchilla, he is due to join leaders from Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama at a gathering of the Central American Integration System.

Obama is reportedly preparing to be rather tougher on the Central Americans than the Mexicans, calling for enhanced security cooperation as well as improvements in human rights and democratic reforms.

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Latin America growth key for war on drugs - Obama

President Barack Obama has said the war on drugs will not be effectively won unless the economies of Latin American countries are strengthened.

Mr Obama was speaking in Costa Rica, where he is due to attend a summit of Central American leaders.

They are expected to discuss ways of tackling increasing violence generated by drug cartels operating in the area.

Most of the cocaine produced in South America is smuggled through the region before it reaches the US.

At a joint news conference with Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla on Friday, Mr Obama said criminal organisations prosper in economically vulnerable countries:

"The stronger the economies and the institutions for individuals seeking legitimate careers, the less powerful those narco-trafficking organisations are going to be," Mr Obama said.

The Costa Rican president called for a review of the current approach to the drugs problem in the region.

"Costa Rica doesn't have an army and cannot allow to come to a situation of war with the drugs cartels," she said.

'Common enemy'

Mr Obama began a three-day tour of the region in Mexico on Thursday, and arrived in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose, on Friday.

He will take part in a summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA), which includes Dominican Republic and all seven Central American countries - Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

Central America has become increasingly engulfed in the violence generated by the illegal drugs trade.

Local gangs are being employed by the Mexican cartels to bring the drug from South America.

These organisations are also involved in human trafficking, arms smuggling and other forms of crime.

The US has security co-operation agreements with several countries in Central America and Mexico, which it intends to renew.

The summit will also discuss trade and economic co-operation.

Costa Rica and other countries are expected to request favourable conditions to buy gas from the US. Guatemala is expected to raise the issue of immigration.

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Marijuana smokers march in their thousands in Mexico City - video

Thousands march through the streets of Mexico City on Saturday for the 13th annual global marijuana march. The recreational use of marijuana is already legal in Mexico, with users able to carry 5g without fear of arrest. Although, unprecedented growth in local and international demand for illegal drugs is contributing to escalating violence, as gangs battle over their share of Mexico's billion-dolllar illicit drugs industry

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Legal highs: international drugs gangs 'expanding into growing market'

Head of US overseas drug enforcement bureau says officials lack tools needed to keep up with rapidly expanding market

International criminal gangs are rapidly expanding into the burgeoning market for newly minted legal highs, while law enforcement agencies lack the tools needed to keep up, the head of the US's overseas drug enforcement has warned.

Governments have struggled to keep up with the rapidly growing market for new psychoactive substances, as banning a new drug can require a complex legislative process - and many of these drugs remain legal in some countries, said Brian Nichols, assistant secretary at the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

"These types of drugs are what transnational criminal networks are increasingly moving towards. Traditional drugs like marijuana are not as much in favour – they are bulky and hard to transport. Heroin and cocaine are very important but drug addiction is moving to the illicit use of pharmaceuticals and new substances like GBH," he told the Guardian

"This is the growing threat. The use of traditional drugs is declining in the UK and the US, cocaine use is dropping, but prescription drug abuse is growing and new substance abuse is growing. "

Websites offering new psychoactive substances, marketed as "bath salts" or "plant foods", are proliferating, thanks in part to the failure of law enforcement agencies to keep up with the range of new chemicals. Dealers remain a step ahead of the law by slightly altering the formula for known molecules such as MDMA (ecstasy), ketamine or LSD, to create new drugs. They can be far more dangerous than traditional drugs, because they have not been widely tested on the street and because the difference between a dose that supplies a high and one that results in fatality can be extremely small.

What was once a cottage industry has rapidly evolved, with labs and factories in China, Europe and the US manufacturing the chemicals on an industrial basis, churning out hundreds of tonnes of the compounds and selling them over the internet. It is this massive expansion of the trade that has attracted the attention of international drugs gangs, who use their expertise in trafficking traditional drugs such as heroin and cocaine to move into a new and lucrative market, said Nichols.

"There was a period of time in the US when you had new substances each week. Now you have by some counts well over 200 psychoactives [that] have been identified. It's my belief there are many more out there. We do not have people testing everything they come across," Nichols warned.

As with some other areas of international crime, such as wildlife trafficking, for which Nichols is also responsible, the rise of the internet has been a central factor.

"Cybercrime means people can order up crime online. It is a greater globalisation [of crime] than we have ever seen before," said Nichols.

But many of the buyers do not realise how dangerous the substances they are taking can be. "Some of these party drugs are an incredible high at the right dosage, but if you take [a fractional amount more] then you have an incredible toxin," Nichols said.

Nichols wants other countries to follow the lead of the US by bringing in legislation to fast-track the banning of new drugs. In the US, a process known as the scheduling of analogues allows drugs that are similar in effect or chemical make-up to existing illegal drugs to be banned without a lengthy process.

He also called for much more international co-operation in tracking and identifying new drugs and trying to prevent their distribution.

"One of the efforts we are pioneering in the UK and other partners in the G8 is encouraging the World Health Organisation to dedicate increased resources to identifying and scheduling of new psychoactive substances [and] create a more robust regime." He said there would also be an emphasis on demand reduction and treatment as well as preventing the sale and use of such drugs, and that help would be made available to countries lacking expertise in these areas.

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Op donderdag 9 mei 2013 16:09 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

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Laten we gewoon bij voorbaat alle middelen verbieden waar je lol aan zou kunnen hebben, dus het is verboden tenzij toestemming van de regering. Toestemming kan worden verkregen wanneer het product door een naamloze vennootschap wordt gemaakt en/of het de arbeidsproductiviteit van de gebruiker verhoogt.