The World Wide War on Drugs #6 -Is de zinloze "oorlog" over?

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Politie Colombia vindt 2000 kilo drugs

De politie in Colombia heeft ruim 2000 kilo drugs aangetroffen in een scheepslading bananenkisten. Het ging om chloorhydraat, een tussenproduct van cocaïne. De drugs hebben een straatwaarde van ongeveer 40 miljoen euro, meldden Colombiaanse media.

De drugs zaten verstopt in een container in de noordelijke haven van Santa Marta. De gewapende bende Los Urabeños wilde de cocaïne via Midden-Amerika naar de Verenigde Staten smokkelen, maar met de hulp van speurhonden is dat voorkomen. De bende is een van de machtigste partijen in de Colombiaanse drugshandel.

De Colombiaanse politie heeft dit jaar al 25 ton drugs in beslag genomen. Eerder deze week werd 240 kilo cocaïne opgespoord die voor België was bestemd.

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:24 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Een lading die niet goedgekeurd was door de autoriteiten? De prijs opdrijven door deze "acties"?

Een druppeltje op een enorme gloeiende plaat.

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:28 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Ik kan, als ik het zou willen, wat ik niet doe, het kopen voor zo'n 8 euro. Maar het kan (veel) goedkoper.

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:30 schreef LelijKnap het volgende:

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Versneden tot peop zeker?

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:31 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Is dat 100% puur? En Curacao is natuurlijk een van de eerste stops, dus kan het goedkoop zijn.

Ik koop hier XTC voor zo'n 12 euro en ik betaal veel. Dus ook op de terugreis van de drugs (NL-Curacao-Colombia) valt de prijsstijging wel mee.

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:35 schreef LelijKnap het volgende:

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Dat zal inderdaad, maar ik kan mij voorstellen dat het met al die armoede daar wel goed versneden wordt, zeker voor het verkoop aan de toeristen.

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Op zondag 30 maart 2014 05:28 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Ik kan, als ik het zou willen, wat ik niet doe, het kopen voor zo'n 8 euro. Maar het kan (veel) goedkoper.

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"Do Drugs Cause Addiction?"

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[The following transcript is from debatesdebates, a nationally-broadcast public television show
produced and directed by Warren Steibel at HBO studios in New York City. This show, entitled
"Do Drugs Cause Addiction?," was taped on August 26, 1996. Show # 113. Please contact Mr.
Warren Steibel for permission to reproduce this transcript.

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TIMEKEEPER - MARK NIX: Welcome to this week's debate:
Do Drugs Cause Addiction? Dr. Schottenfeld, will you start off
our debate?

DR. SCHOTTENFELD: I am a physician, an associate professor
of psychiatry and director of the Substance Abuse Treatment Unit
at Yale University School of Medicine. Do drugs cause addiction?
Absolutely. Drugs powerfully act on and change brain cells, nerve
cells in the brain's reward system. Drugs fool people into believing
and acting as if drugs are critical, the most important thing--more
important than food, their loved ones, their health, or their work.
In my practice I see the enormous pain and suffering caused by
addiction--to addicts, to their loved ones, and to society. And just
as society needs to fight cancer through a coordinated program of
prevention, including reducing exposure and through treatment
and research, we need to address public policies needed to reduce
substance abuse and addiction through a policy aimed at reducing
addiction, including reducing the allure of addiction, and through
research and treatment.

TIMEKEEPER: Thank you. Dr. Szasz, would you like to make
your introduction?

DR. SZASZ: I am professor of psychiatry emeritus at State
University in Syracuse. The question, "Do drugs cause
addiction?" is prima facie nonsensical. Addiction is a form of
behavior. Behavior is not caused; it has reasons. Drugs can no
more cause addiction than sex hormones or genitals can cause
perversions or sexual acts. Some drugs, when ingested--which
itself is a decision--some drugs make people feel in certain ways
which they like to repeat. If you want to call that an addiction,
which is already a value judgment, because there are many
behaviors which are now called addictions--for example,
smoking-- Nobody called Churchill or Roosevelt an addict.
Now they would be called nicotine addicts. So addiction is not
a descriptive term, it is a stigmatizing term which is culturally
conditioned. And it reflects not a property of the drug, but a
property of the culture. So in sum, drugs cannot cause addiction.

TIMEKEEPER: Thank you, Doctor. Dr. Schottenfeld, would you
like to introduce your first guest?

DR. SCHOTTENFELD: Yes. To my left is Professor Ernest van
den Haag. He's been trained in psychoanalysis and law. He's
retired as the John M. Olin Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham
University, and as you will hear, there is some disparity and
divergence of opinion on our own panel.

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Op donderdag 3 april 2014 18:09 schreef meth1745 het volgende:

Twee weken geleden vaardigde de VS sancties (visa verbod en bevriezen van alle banktegoeden) uit tegen Viktor Ivanov, het hoofd van de Russische Federale drug controledienst (FSKN) en voorzitter van de anti-narcotica commissie. De FSKN is de enige dienst bevoegd om in het buitenland op te treden. Op 25 februari 2014 hield hij een bijeenkomst met de rest van de G8 ter voorbereiding van een ministeriele meeting in mei over de aanpak van de drugshandel. Die zal allicht niet doorgaan.

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Denver mayor to learn about Amsterdam pot rules

DENVER (AP) — Denver's mayor will visit Amsterdam next week partly to learn about marijuana regulation in the country that led the way in pot liberalization.

The city announced Thursday that Michael Hancock and other officials plan to meet with representatives of Amsterdam's municipal government during a trip mainly focused on economic development.

The Netherlands recently has taken a harder line toward marijuana, including banning tourists from visiting coffee shops where pot is sold. Amsterdam still allows tourists in the shops but has been closing ones near schools.

The mayor and his delegation also will tour the Netherlands' main international airport and visit London during the trip.

Hancock plans to meet with London Mayor Boris Johnson to talk about the city's experience hosting the Summer Olympics and learn more about its "Tech City" initiative.

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How Pot Legalization In The U.S. Hurts Mexico's Illegal Marijuana Industry

Last week, Michele Leonhart, the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and a prominent critic of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington, made headlines when she suggested that marijuana legalization efforts could create new money-making opportunities for Mexico’s illegal cannabis industry.

However much legal weed costs in Washington and Colorado, “criminal organizations are ready to come in and sell cheaper," she said at a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

It was an arresting claim, one that opponents of pot reform are likely to repeat. But Leonhart didn’t provide any evidence to support it, and a recent report from The Washington Post tells a different story.

According to the article, published Sunday, the legalization of marijuana in Washington and Colorado and the relaxation of drug laws in other states have caused wholesale pot prices to plummet so sharply that Mexican farmers are abandoning the crop for a more profitable plant: the opium poppy.

With more and more Americans getting their pot from medical marijuana dispensaries or Colorado’s legal retailers, the wholesale price of marijuana has dropped from $100 to less than $25 per kilogram in just the past five years, the report explains.

“It’s not worth it anymore,” one veteran farmer told the Post, complaining about the economics of marijuana farming. “I wish the Americans would stop with this legalization.”

The rising demand for heroin in the United States has made opium a more attractive option for farmers in Mexico and throughout Central America, the article points out. And at least one Latin American leader has responded by suggesting that opium should be legalized, too.

While Leonhart was criticizing marijuana legalization last Wednesday, President Ott Perez of Guatemala was telling Reuters that his government may start allowing the production of not just marijuana but also opium, a measure aimed at curtailing the power of drug cartels.

As a conservative retired general, Perez is an unlikely champion of drug reform, but unlike Leonhart he argued that legalization will hurt the cartels, not provide them with a new source of income.

According to Perez, a Guatemalan government commission is exploring “the legalization of the poppy plantations on the border with Mexico, so they're controlled and sold for medicinal ends."

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The Coast Guard Says It's Miserably Losing the War on Drugs

The US Coast Guard is failing in its mission to keep illegal drugs from entering the United States by sea—just 20 percent of the estimated amount of drugs being smuggled in are intercepted, a top officer said.

Admiral Robert Papp, head of the Coast Guard, told Reuters that the number is far down because of sequestration and budget cuts that have left the force short staffed and unable to keep up with drug smugglers’ improving technology. Last year, the coast guard seized 88,400 kilos of cocaine, down from 107,000 kilos in 2012. That means that roughly 353,600 kilos of cocaine are making their way into the country through the sea each year—add that to the drugs that are smuggled in over land, and it should be little surprise that drugs are cheaper and more plentiful than ever before.

Even when it identifies potential drug-running vessels, Papp said that the Coast Guard only has money to go after 39 percent of them and is forced to let the others go.

The sheer amount of space the Coast Guard is responsible for policing is astounding—roughly 6 million square miles of ocean. With drug smugglers getting more creative, using narcosubs and offshore drops to get drugs into the country undetected, it certainly seems like the force is fighting a losing battle.

That’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s another example of just how badly America is losing the war on drugs. When I spoke with Evan Wood, a researcher who studied drug surveillance data over the past decade, he told me that, at best, the United States has been stuck in neutral since it has started the War on Drugs. The demand hasn’t drastically changed, but there’s been no problem keeping supply up.

Seizing a couple thousand kilos isn’t really hurting anyone, because the supply is so huge. And making arrests doesn’t really help, because there’s so much money in the game that new leaders and traffickers pop up no matter what.

“All the drugs needed to supply the US for a year could fit into 60 semi trucks,” Wood told me. “At Laredo [border crossing], there’s 5.5 million trucks crossing the border every year. It gives you a sense of how difficult a task this is.”

And that’s just if all of the drugs were coming in on semi trucks through one border crossing in Texas. They aren’t. Papp told Reuters that “multi-ton loads are broken down into smaller loads and they come across the border ins one way, shape, or form.” That’s right—they’re coming on subs, in tiny packages, in speed boats, in trucks, in cars, on commercial planes, on small puddle jumper planes, and a wealth of other ingenious methods.

There simply is no way to keep drugs out of the country. An attempt to kill the supply hasn’t worked, so what are we doing?

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Pot for convicts? A leading Uruguay health official told the United Nations last week that the country is interested in experimenting with medical marijuana to treat prisoners suffering from cocaine addiction.

"Jail is not a very suitable place for someone to safely overcome drug addiction," said public health sub-secretary, Leonel Briozzo, during a U.N. meeting last Thursday. Briozzo said it is crucial for Uruguay to explore "new strategies for drug addiction treatment… And in that sense, we harbor a possible hope that medical marijuana can play a role in this as well."

Ever since the turn of the new millennium, an inexpensive drug known as “Paco,” which is considered the bologna of cocaine derivatives, has been wreaking havoc on the dope fiends of Uruguay. The drug is extremely inexpensive -- approximately 30 cents per hit -- and can be smoked similar to American welfare favorites like crack cocaine. Paco has since created an epidemic in South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, with a high percentage of the people incarcerated in those areas forced to conquer their addictions behind bars.

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70% of Federal Drug Terms Get Cut

New guidelines approved by the U.S. Sentencing Commission on Thursday will mean shorter terms for roughly 70 percent of federal drug offenders. The adjustments will reduce mandatory minimums for offenses that don't involve violence or firearms. Over the past few years, public-opinion polls have shown a shift toward both legalization and treatment rather than prison for drug possession. “We have given careful consideration to public safety in making this decision today and will continue to monitor drug sentences to determine whether any additional modifications are needed,” said chairwoman Patti B. Saris, the chief U.S. district judge in Massachusetts. The new guidelines, which Attorney General Eric Holder testified in favor of, will go into effect Nov. 1 unless Congress votes them down.