The World Wide War on Drugs #8 - Demonstraties in Mexico

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Raad Amsterdam wil experiment gereguleerde wietteelt

Burgemeester Eberhard van der Laan van Amsterdam heeft donderdag de gemeenteraad toegezegd te willen lobbyen voor een experiment met gereguleerde wietteelt. Een grote meerderheid in de raad stemde vandaag voor een motie die de burgemeester oproept voorbereidingen te starten voor zo'n experiment.

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Van der Laan waarschuwde niet te hard van stapel te lopen door alvast te gaan experimenteren. 'Als we het doen, moeten we geloofwaardig blijven. Alvast een beetje beginnen zou ons kwetsbaar maken. Tempo maken met beleid voorbereiden is beter dan gaan provoceren. Ook Utrecht, Heerlen en Eindhoven zijn nog niet verder dan de planfase', zei Van der Laan.

twitter:

jdscee twitterde op donderdag 06-11-2014 om 21:35:41 Silk Road 2.0's alleged owner arrested as drugs website shuttered by FBIhttp://t.co/XOn3dYAEINSilk Road 3 won't be far away. #warondrugs reageer retweet

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Hickenlooper unveils next year's Colorado budget and taxpayer rebates

DENVER - There is some good news for taxpayers. Gov. John Hickenlooper's proposed $26.8 billion Colorado budget, unveiled Monday afternoon, includes two rebates for taxpayers.

Taxpayer rebates totaling $167.2 million are mandated by Colorado Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, assuming current law and the September forecast by the Office of State Planning and Budget.

A $30.5 million rebate for new marijuana taxes is coming. Total state marijuana revenue was different than what was projected in the election blue book for 2013's Proposition AA. Because the estimate was off, under TABOR, the state must refund the money being collected or ask voters again to keep it.

Hickenlooper said he'll let the legislature decide the nuts and bolts of the rebate.

"It will be important to engage the legislature when the session begins on the issue of marijuana rebates, and at this time, it would be unwise for the state to plan to spend any of those funds in advance of that discussion," Hickenlooper said.

Meanwhile, current revenue projections indicate a $136.6 million refund for revenue above the Referendum C cap in Fiscal Year 2015-16. If they materialize, the rebates would go out under existing formulas via tax credits or sales tax refunds when people file their 2016 taxes.

The budget allocates substantially increased funding for K-12 education -- some on a one-time basis -- continues strong support for higher education, and secures funding to complete construction projects already underway.

In Fiscal Year 2015-16, the General Fund will provide additional funding for transportation per the provisions of Senate Bill 09-228. The budget allocates $102.6 million under the statute's formulas.

"Colorado's economic activity continues to outperform the national expansion," Hickenlooper said. "Total employment and personal income have steadily increased for several years running. The state's unemployment rate stands at 4.7 percent, the lowest since 2008. Looking ahead, the most likely scenario is for the momentum to continue at a steady pace."

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Op zaterdag 8 november 2014 20:52 schreef heiden6 het volgende:
SFL End the Drug War Event in Serbia Stormed by Neo-Nazis

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Betogers blokkeren luchthaven Acapulco om verdwenen studenten

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Betogers hebben maandag de ingang van aankomst- en vertrekhallen van de internationale luchthaven van de Mexicaanse badplaats Acapulco geblokkeerd. Ze demonstreren vanwege de 43 studenten die in september in de plaats Iguala verdwenen.

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The legalisation of marijuana isn't just about liberal values - it's about dollars

The tax revenues from marijuana in states where it has been legalised are relatively sizeable - is this one of the reasons why many places are consenting to pro-marijuana legislation?

On Tuesday, Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C. voted in favour of pro-marijuana legislation. A vote in Florida won 58% support, falling just short of the required 60% threshold. Nearly 18 million Americans now live in states where marijuana is fully legal.

So, why is it that legislatures and voters in red states favourably lean towards what, on paper at least, would seem to be a liberal issue? One reason (at least when it comes to governments) might be to do with money.

One of the states they now join is Colorado, where marijuana was legalised (with some restrictions) last year. On average, the state now gets more tax revenues from the plant than from alcohol.

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NYPD will stop arresting people for minor marijuana offenses

In policy shift, NYPD officers will soon have option to issue court summonses rather than arrest those caught with less than 25 grams of cannabis in open view

The New York police department, the largest in the US, will stop arresting people in possession of small amounts of marijuana, in a marked policy change that mayor Bill de Blasio said reflects his campaign promise to repair frayed relations between officers and the city’s minority communities.

Starting next week, NYPD officers will have the option to issue court summonses rather than arrest those caught with less than 25 grams of pot, the mayor and the NYPD police commissioner William Bratton announced during a joint press conference on Monday afternoon.

“When an individual is arrested, even for the smallest possession of marijuana, it hurts their chances to get a good job; it hurts their chances to get housing; it hurts their chances to qualify for a student loan,” DeBlasio said. “It can literally follow them for the rest of their lives and saddle young people with challenges that for many are very, very difficult to overcome.”

Under the new policy, people caught burning or smoking weed in public still face arrest. Other exceptions include those with outstanding warrants and people who can’t provide proper identification, Bratton said. If a police officer decides to issue a summons, the person will be given a ticket to appear in court and sent on their way. Officers will seize the marijuana, and take it back to the station for processing.

The fine for a first offense will be $100, which can go up to $250 for a second offense. Bratton said official guidelines would be released on Tuesday, and the policy would go into effect on 19 November. Officers are to undergo training this week.

The new policy is a sharp pivot from the “broken windows” crime-fighting strategy Bratton champions: tough enforcement of low-level crimes to stop offenders from committing more serious ones in the future. But he said on Monday he welcomes the opportunity to direct more resources to fighting serious, violent crime.

The policy is expected to curb the tens of thousands of arrests for low-level pot possession the NYPD makes each year. Research shows such arrests disproportionately affect black and Latino residents, even though white residents are as likely to use marijuana.

In the first eight months of 2014, 86% of the people arrested for marijuana possession were blacks and Latinos, according to the Marijuana Arrest Research Project.

Advocates offered lukewarm praise of the new policy, warning that summonses still entangle New Yorkers in the criminal justice system. A missed court date may result in arrest.

“We’re glad to see the consequences of a marijuana offense won’t include handcuffs and jail time,” said New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman in a statement on Monday.

“But we’re still concerned that too many New Yorkers will become involved with the court system because of a small amount of marijuana. And because there is no required reporting on the demographics of who is issued summonses, we won’t be able to track the racial disparities that result from the new initiative.”

Summonses do not require race or ethnicity reporting, so it will be difficult to identify who police are ticketing.

The city’s five district attorneys met with the mayor and the police commissioner to discuss the new policy on Monday, Bratton said, adding that he believed all supported the move.

Earlier this year, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office announced it would stop prosecuting small-scale marijuana cases. In a memo, the district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, said the policy aimed to keep nonviolent offenders – who are disproportionately young men of color – out of the criminal justice system.

In response, Bratton said at the time that the city’s police officers would continue to enforce the law. On Monday, De Blasio said the disagreement between the district attorney and Bratton had been overstated.

In 1977, New York state legislature decriminalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Despite this, New York City persisted as the marijuana arrest capital of the world, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a reform advocacy group.

Inimai Chettiar, director of the Justice Program with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law, said the city’s action is reflective of a broader shift in criminal justice policy that moves away from the tough-on-crime measures of past decades, which resulted in record-level incarceration rates.

“This is very emblematic of a larger movement across the country that’s supported by conservatives and law enforcement alike,” she said. “Across the country there really is a unique bipartisan consensus that we need to focus law enforcement and criminal justice resources on the most serious offenders as opposed to low-level offenders … I think that this policy really positions New York as a leader in this area.”

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Afghan opium crop set for record high

Helmand province remains country’s top opium-cultivating province, with drug money financing Taliban operations

The opium crop in Afghanistan will hit a new high this year, the United Nations has said, presenting a challenge to the country in tackling the trade that fuels the Taliban-led insurgency.

Opium cultivation has risen 7% year on year to 224,000 hectares, and production in 2014 may reach 6,400 tonnes – a 17% increase – according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Afghanistan’s southern provinces, which have been disproportionately affected by the recent surge in violence, continued to drive overall production, with a 27% increase in yields.

In Helmand province, where British forces operated and the UK government spearheaded eradication efforts, opium cultivation appears to have stabilised. Nevertheless, it still remained the country’s top opium-cultivating province.

The report confirms how the international community’s efforts to reduce opium production in Afghanistan have been met by dismal failure. After the Taliban seized power in 1996, production rapidly grew. It fell back in 2001 – when the Taliban leader Mullah Omar declared opium to be un-Islamic. Since the US-led invasion of 2001 and the Taliban’s exit from Kabul, it has inexorably risen.

The money from opium sales finances Taliban operations, and also serves as a source of systemic corruption inside the Afghan government.

With much of the country slipping out of central control, eradication by local governors decreased by 63%. The number of fatalities during the campaign also dipped from 143 in 2013 to 13 in 2014.

The figures showed counter-narcotics efforts had failed, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, director for policy analysis and public affairs at the UNODC, said, but there was hope for success under the new government.

“[Changing] the economic incentives away from the illicit economy to the licit economy, now that’s a hell of a task, but that’s exactly what indeed this new government seems to stand for,” he said.

President Ashraf Ghani was inaugurated in late September, following months of tension followingafter a disputed election. The political wrangling has accelerated a sharp economic downturn caused by the withdrawal of foreign troops.

“For him the criminalisation of the economics and politics of Afghanistan is one of the main problems. It penetrates everything and anything he [Ghani] wants to achieve,” Lemahieu said.

A recent report by the US watchdog found that the opium economy employs 411,000 Afghans with jobs – more than the fledgling Afghan national security forces. The poppy industry still makes up 4% of Afghanistan’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP).

Ghani has a comprehensive plan to tackle the drug problem, Lemahieu said, including creating incentives for farmers to plant alternative crops and prosecuting smugglers.

The president, who wrote a book on how to fix failed states, has said the key to opium eradication is jobs. He has also suggested cotton could replace opium if the west scrapped tariffs on Afghan textiles. Poor Afghan farmers, however, point out that they can make far more money from opium than from other crops such as wheat.

The failure of the eradication campaigns has inspired some Afghanistan experts, such as the former UK ambassador to Afghanistan Sir William Patey, to come out endorsing legalisation of the drug.

“If we cannot deal effectively with supply, then the only alternative would seem to be to try to limit the demand for illicit drugs by making a supply of them available from a legally regulated market,” he said earlier this year.

The US has spent $7.6bn (£4.8bn) on counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan since ousting the Taliban in 2001, according to the US government watchdog for reconstruction, and ending Afghanistan’s illicit drug trade was listed as one of the reasons for deploying British troops to Afghanistan.The country remains the world’s biggest supplier of opium, producing 90% of illicit opiates.

Ethan Nadelmann: Why we need to end the War on Drugs

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“The reason some drugs are legal and others are not has nothing to do with science or health or the risk of drugs, and everything to do with who uses, and is perceived to use, certain drugs,” says Nadelmann during his TedGlobal talk. “If the principal smokers of cocaine were affluent older white men and the principal users of Viagra were young black men, using Viagra would land you time behind bars.”

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Gouverneur verleent eigen zoon gratie na veroordeling drugsbezit

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Mike Beebe, de gouverneur van de Amerikaanse staat Arkensas, is van plan gratie te verlenen aan iemand die gestraft werd voor het bezit van marihuana. Het is niet zomaar een veroordeelde, het is zijn zoon.

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Mexico at breaking point as anti-government anger escalates

Corruption and violence threaten to destabilise country after mass murder of students and scandal over presidential home

Mexico is facing an escalating political crisis amid growing fury over a mansion built for the presidential family and the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 student teachers.

The two apparently unrelated issues have fed the widespread perception that unbridled political corruption is the underlying cause of the country’s many problems – ranging from stunted economic growth to a breakdown of law and order that has left parts of the country at the mercy of murderous drug cartels.

“The drama of Mexico is about impunity,” said leading political commentator Jesús Silva-Herzog. “This is not about the popularity or unpopularity of the president, that is irrelevant. It is about credibility and trust and, at its root, it is about legitimacy.”

Thousands of protestors are expected to join a mass demonstration planned for Thursday in Mexico City to protest over the disappearance of the students by municipal police in collusion with a local drug gang in the southern city of Iguala six weeks ago.

But the latest focus for anti-government anger is a video released late on Tuesday night by first lady Angélica Rivera in an attempt to mitigate a scandal over a multi-million minimalist white residence built to measure for her and President Enrique Peña Nieto in one of Mexico City’s most exclusive barrios.

The house is still owned by a subsidiary of a company with a long history of obtaining lucrative contracts from Peña Nieto administrations, dating back to his term as governor of the state of Mexico.

In her address, Rivera, a former telenovela star, said she was going to sell her interests in the house, but vehemently insisted there had never been any strings attached.

“I don’t want this to continue to be a pretext for offending and defaming my family,” she said.

Rivera said she had been paying for the house from the fruits of her labour earned during a 25-year long career within TV giant Televisa that ended in 2010 with the payment of 88.6 million pesos ($6.5m) and the transference of property of another luxurious residence that backs onto the controversial new mansion.

She said she had already paid about a third of the cost of the new home worth 54 million pesos ($4m), in accordance with a contract signed with the company over eight years.

She said she had met the company’s owner, who also happens to be a personal friend of the president, “like I meet many businessmen, professionals, and artists.”

The existence of the house was revealed 10 days ago by the website of leading Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui.

But the the first lady’s attempt to turn the page of the scandal was met with widespread skepticism.

“There have always been rumours, but we have never before had documents that suggest that a president in office has participated in illegal operations,” commentator Silva-Herzog said, adding that he expected the unanswered key question to further fuel public skepticism and anger.

“This is the worst possible moment for a scandal of this kind.”

Rivera’s attempt to shake off the suggestion of wrong-doing came as the president adopted a new combative stance in the face of intensifying protests triggered by the disappearance of the 43 students in the southern city of Igualá on 26 September.

The students went missing after being arrested by municipal police who also participated in a series of attacks during the night that left six people dead.

Over time the focus of the protests has moved from demands for the return of the students alive, to disbelief at the government’sfailure to crack down on widespread collusion between law enforcement agencies and drug mafias.

The disappearance of the students has sparked numerous demonstrations in many parts of the country, which have been much more widespread than protests prompted by allegations of fraud in Peña Nieto’s electoral victory in 2012.

Unlike during the previous wave of dissent, the current protests have expressed anger at perceptions of corruption across the entire political class that is viewed as corrupt, not just Peña Nieto.

Peña Nieto had previously adopted a conciliatory tone, expressing sympathy for the victims’s families and promising a full and thorough investigation, but on Tuesday he used a speech to denounce violent outbreaks in some of the numerous demonstrations in recent weeks.

The violence, he said, “appears to respond to a general interest to destabilise and, above all, attack the national project that we are pushing forward”.

The harder line echoes some calls in the national press by commentators such as Ricardo Alemán who has begun regularly urging politicians to discard their “fear of governing”, and crack down radical elements in the demonstrations.

Other analysts, however, detect a menacing tone in the president’s words.

Silva-Herzog drew parallels with the language used by President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, who governed at the time of the watershed 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in which scores – and possibly hundreds – of pro democracy students were killed by government forces in Mexico City.

“It is dangerous because it polarizes the climate,” he said. “The solution has to start by recognizing the legitimate foundations of the collective irritation. The country has good reason to be angry.”

With Thursday’s key demonstration approaching on the 104th anniversary of the Mexican revolution, the authorities announced the cancellation of the annual military parade that usually fills the capital’s central streets on that day.

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Groot protest in Mexico om verdwenen studenten

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In de hoofdstad Mexico-Stad gooiden betogers molotovcocktails naar de oproerpolitie al voordat de demonstraties begonnen. Gewonden zijn er volgens de politie niet gevallen.

De sfeer werd grimmig toen drie verschillende protestmarsen het centrale plein in de hoofdstad bereikten. Daar ging onder meer de beeltenis van president Enrique Pena Nieto in vlammen op.

Sommige actievoerders botsten buiten het presidentieel paleis met de politie, die massaal aanwezig was om het gebouw te beschermen.

De verdwenen studenten werden op 26 september door de politie in de plaats Iguala meegenomen en overgeleverd aan een drugsbende. Sindsdien ontbreekt elk spoor. Sommige actievoerders droegen spandoeken met opschriften als ''de staat heeft het gedaan''. Ook familieleden van de verdwenen studenten liepen mee.

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US judge sentences 'El Chapo' Guzmán associate to 22 years in prison for drug crimes

In sentencing Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez, judge said he wanted to send a stern message to Hernandez and other Mexican cartel traffickers

A US judge sentenced a reputed lieutenant of captured Mexican drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman to 22 years in prison on Monday for his role in a $1b conspiracy to traffic narcotics to Chicago and other cities.

In sentencing Alfredo Vasquez-Hernandez, Chief US District Judge in Chicago Ruben Castillo said he wanted to send a stern message to Hernandez and other Mexican traffickers. Hernandez, 58, is one of 11 alleged traffickers indicted in Chicago, including Guzman himself. Hernandez was the first to be sentenced.

“I tell you on behalf of all citizens of Chicago ... we are tired of this drug trafficking,” Castillo told Hernandez, who minutes earlier apologized to the court and US government and asked Castillo to take pity on him.

The case is regarded as one of the US government’s most important against Mexican cartels. Guzman remains jailed in Mexico and Mexican authorities haven’t said if they might extradite him to Chicago.

The spotlight during and in the lead-up to Hernandez’s sentencing was on the credibility of two Sinaloa cartel associates-turned-government witnesses, Pedro and Margarito Flores.

Secret recordings and other evidence provided by the twin brothers in 2008 led to the Chicago indictments of Hernandez and 10 others, including Guzman and the Flores twins themselves.

Hernandez, of Mexico, was the first up for sentencing. He pleaded guilty to possessing drugs with intent to distribute.

Hernandez was a close friend of Guzman, using his logistical skills to ship tons of heroin and cocaine by train from Mexico to Chicago concealed in bogus furniture cargo, according to the Flores brothers.

But defense lawyers accused the brothers of exaggerating Hernandez’s rank in the cartel to curry favor with US prosecutors and ensure the lowest possible prison terms for themselves.

The twin brothers sought to hoodwink federal agents even after they agreed to cooperate, they allege.

Lawyers for Hernandez also cited court documents indicating the brothers – while behind bars working with the feds –had someone hide up to $2.5m in cash. From jail, they also allegedly bought a $100,000 Bentley as a gift for Pedro Flores’ wife.

Prosecutors say the Flores brothers cut deals with Guzman, Hernandez and others in the Sinaloa cartel to distribute drugs in the United States with Chicago as the operational hub.

The brothers claimed they sold up to two tons of cocaine a month in Chicago alone by 2007. They also supplied eight other cities, including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

In statements unsealed recently, the Flores twins said they know assassins would try to kill them and their families if the cartel ever discovered where they are being held in protective custody.

twitter:

ggreenwald twitterde op dinsdag 25-11-2014 om 14:41:37 The movement to end the evils of drug criminalization has global momentum - proud to join the Advisory Board of @LEAPBrasil reageer retweet

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Mexican authorities accused of persecuting peaceful protesters

Eleven demonstrators charged with attempted murder and riot after mass protest in capital over disappearance of 43 students

Human rights groups have accused Mexican authorities of using arbitrary detentions, trumped-up charges and excessive force in an attempt to quell a mass protest movement unleashed by the disappearance and presumed murder of 43 students.

The complaints centre on the indictment for attempted murder, criminal association and rioting of 11 protesters who were arrested after masked youths clashed with police in the central Zócalo square, following a huge and mostly peaceful march through the capital last Thursday.

Supporters of the 11 accused insist that they had nothing to do with the violence, alleging that several of the detainees were arrested later, during an aggressive police operation to disperse the crowd.

“There is no evidence that they did anything other than attend the march,” said Fernando Ríos of the Mexican human rights network All Rights for Everybody. “What we do know is that the police used excessive force as they cleared the Zócalo.”

Ríos said human rights groups fear the crackdown is associated with a recent statement by President Enrique Peña Nieto, who accused violent protesters of “kidnapping” the wave of indignation triggered by the disappearance of the 43 students after they were arrested by police in the southern city of Iguala.

“This is more than an attack on freedom of expression,” Ríos said. “It is an effort to discourage people from demonstrating for the truth and for justice in the face of an inoperative, ineffective state that only pretends to be acting in the case [of the students].”

The eight men and three women arrested on Thursday are now being held in high-security jails hundreds of miles from Mexico City. The detainees – most of whom are students – include a 47-year-old Chilean doctoral student, whose case has prompted demonstrations in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

In an interview on Radio Fórmula on Monday, the interior minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio, insisted that any detainees not involved in the violence “have nothing to worry about”.

He added that the police “passed from tolerance to action” in the face of violence at the march because “a majority of Mexicans are asking for a stop to this kind of behaviour”.

Videos and testimonies documenting the aggression of the police at some distance from the battles in front of the presidential palace have been widely circulated on social media.

These include the account of Layda Negrete, one of two lawyers behind a hit documentary called Presumed Guilty which exposed systematic abuses of due process in Mexico’s capital city.

After being pushed against shop fronts by riot police forcing back the mass of peaceful demonstrators, Negrete says officers shouted, “fucking bitches, is this why you wanted to come out and march?” while they attacked her and three other women with their truncheons and shields.

“It is very worrying that a march to repudiate crimes committed by police ended with more crimes committed by police,” the lawyer said.

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Weer toeristen dood na mogelijk gebruik witte heroïne in Amsterdam

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Dat meldt de politie woensdag. Het gaat om twee mannen van 20 en 21 jaar. De politie denkt dat ze de witte heroïne hebben aangeschaft terwijl ze dachten dat het cocaïne was.

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11 Burned Bodies Found in Troubled Mexican State

Eleven beheaded bodies were found Thursday in Mexico's troubled southern state of Guerrero, a region still reeling from the apparent massacre of 43 students.

The grisly discovery came as President Enrique Pena Nieto prepared to unveil a new security strategy in response to a wave of protests that erupted after a police-backed gang confessed to killing the 43 students.

In the latest carnage to hit Guerrero, 11 bodies were dumped on a road near the town of Chilapa following reports of a shootout, state and municipal officials said.

"In addition to being executed, the 11 people were decapitated and subsequently some were burned," said a state government official who requested anonymity.

A note was left near the bodies with a message addressed to the criminal group "Los Ardillos" (The Squirrels), with the words "here's your trash," the official said.

A state police officer said the bodies had high-caliber bullet wounds. The victims appeared to be in their 20s.

Chilapa is 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of Ayotzinapa, where the teacher-training college of the 43 students is located.

Authorities say the aspiring teachers, all young men, were rounded up by municipal police in the city of Iguala on September 26.

The case has become a tragic example of collusion between local authorities and organized crime in Mexico, a country struggling with drug violence that has left 100,000 people dead or missing since 2006.

On the eve of his announcement, Pena Nieto said the Iguala case was a "turning point for the nation."

"It is only a constructive, positive attitude that will allow us, society and government, to build the Mexico that we want and that we want to project to the entire world," he said.

Pena Nieto is expected to push for passage of dormant anti-corruption legislation and announce an overhaul of the country's municipal police forces.

Prosecutors say Iguala's mayor ordered his police force to confront a group of students over fears they would disrupt a speech by his wife.

Guerreros Unidos gang henchmen confessed to killing the students and incinerating their bodies after officers turned them over.

Pena Nieto will not be the first Mexican president to seek to reform the police.

Some 400,000 federal, state and municipal police forces across the country have undergone anti-corruption exams with polygraph tests, a system that began under his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

The interior ministry said this month that 13 percent of municipal officers failed the exam, compared to 10 percent of state and six percent of federal forces.

The non-government organization Common Cause said this week that 42,214 federal, state and municipal police staff are still working despite failing the "control de confianza" (trust test).

"We have made it clear to governors ... that they must remove them from their positions," Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong. "None of them can be in the streets today, in any state, in any town."

When he took office in December 2012, Pena Nieto vowed to reduce the everyday violence besetting the country.

But he maintained the controversial militarized strategy of Calderon, who deployed 50,000 troops against the drug cartels in 2006.

Pena Nieto launched a crime prevention program, which officials acknowledged will take years to show results, and created a 5,000-strong militarized police force, the gendarmerie.

In an editorial, the national daily El Universal noted that past governments launched anti-crime measures in response to public discontent, with some positive results.

"But the depth of the problem is so large that these actions have not changed an indisputable fact in the perception of people, that crime continues to grow," it said.

"This time, the State's response will have to be stronger."

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President Mexico grijpt in na studentendrama

De Mexicaanse president Enrique Peña Nieto gooit het veiligheidsapparaat van zijn land op de schop. Daarmee probeert hij een einde te maken aan de corruptie en de georganiseerde misdaad de kop in te drukken. Aanleiding is vooral de verdwijning van en vermoedelijke moord op 43 studenten twee maanden geleden.

Peña Nieto kondigde vandaag een reeks wijzigingen in de grondwet aan. Zo wil hij dat de gemeentepolitie verdwijnt en wordt vervangen door de landelijke politie. Verder moet de centrale regering meer bevoegdheden krijgen om lokaal in te grijpen als het gemeentelijke apparaat geïnfiltreerd blijkt door georganiseerde bendes.

Door de verdwijning van de studenten in de staat Guerrero eind september werden verbanden blootgelegd tussen criminelen, politie en politici. Zo is de voormalige burgemeester van de Mexicaanse plaats Iguala, waar de 43 studenten verdwenen, José Luis Abarca Velázquez, gearresteerd en officieel van moord en doodslag beschuldigd.

Pena Nieto werd twee jaar geleden gekozen omdat hij bezwoer de rust in het land te zullen herstellen. Sinds 2007 zijn al 100 duizend mensen om het leven gekomen in de oorlog tussen allerlei drugsbendes. Sinds de verdwijning van de studenten eist de bevolking dat hij zijn belofte gestand doet.

Opnieuw mensen vermoord

Vandaag nog zijn elf nieuwe lichamen gevonden, de meeste onthoodfd, aan de kant van de weg in het zuidwesten van Mexico. Volgens het Openbaar Ministerie werden de lichamen gevonden in Chilapa, in dezelfde provincie waar de studenten zijn ontvoerd.

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'Doing life when no one died': Prop 47 ends 'insane' drug penalties in California

Public defenders applaud ballot initiative’s passage after decades under harsh three-strikes law offering ‘strong incentive to arrest’


Russell Griffith, a deputy public defender in the Los Angeles crucible known as Compton, had strong words to describe the criminal justice system: “inhumane”, “stupid”, “insane”, and “completely screwed up”.

Seated on the eighth floor of Compton’s courthouse, his view obstructed by bulletproof glass, the veteran attorney let rip in an outspoken interview this week, denouncing a system in which he has worked for 25 years.

Griffith cast California’s network of police, courts and jails, the embodiment of the rule of law, as a cross between Kafka and Tom Wolfe’s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, which he lauded as an accurate depiction of judicial dysfunction.

“Everyone has gone along with this big lie – our own version of the cheque is in the post,” said Griffith, who is paid by the state to represent those who cannot afford an attorney. “Everyone is part of this giant system that funds the machine – I’m including us, public defenders. We have all had our bread buttered by this. And it has been at the expense of generations of Latino and, above all, African American men.”

He was excoriating California’s draconian sentencing policies and America’s war on drugs, follies which produced needless mass incarceration, he said.

But during a tour of the courthouse, a 14-storey structure which towers over a landscape of gritty bungalows and discount stores, the public defender kept cracking a smile.

The reason was the legal thunderclap resounding through the corridors he considered a second home. “It’s a game changer,” said Griffith, 57. “In this job you lose most of the time. But now you actually have the law in your favour. It’s all gravy.”

He was referring to Proposition 47, a ballot initiative which Californians approved on 4 November in a rare victory for progressives on the day conservative Republicans swept congressional races across the US.

The measure reduces penalties for drug and other non-violent crimes, triggering instant releases for hundreds of inmates and shortening jail time for potentially tens of thousands of others. Combined with other reforms, it effectively ends America’s most notorious tough-on-crime experiment.

In 1994, California’s three-strikes law required courts to impose harsh sentences on habitual offenders. Dozens of other states subsequently adopted their own versions, fuelling an explosion in the US jail population, which grew from around 300,000 in 1986 to more than 2.4 million by 2014, rivaling China for the world’s highest incarceration rate. African Americans were jailed at nearly six times the rate of white people.

Compton, a poverty-stricken 10-square mile city of 97,000 souls in south LA, filled a disproportionate number of prison bunks. This, after all, was home to the rap group NWA, which scorched into popular culture with the double platinum album Straight Outta Compton, featuring tracks like Fuck Tha Police and Gangsta Gangsta. Bullet holes pockmarked the courthouse.

Griffith, paid by the state to defend clients who could not afford their own lawyers, watched the system flip from excessive lenience – in the 1970s you could kill and get just three years – to excessive harshness. “When three-strikes came in, that’s when everything became completely insane,” he said. “People were doing life for cases where no one died.”

Gun possession triggered ever-longer mandatory terms, regardless of whether the gun was unloaded and stuck in a waistband, or loaded and stuck in someone’s face. Possessing heroin or crack cocaine became a felony.

“It gave cops an enormously strong incentive to arrest people because they were cheap statistics,” Griffith said.

Police routinely testified that upon their approach, “startled” suspects “dropped” rocks of crack cocaine, a lie giving a legal pretext to search, said Griffith. “It kept the whole machinery going.”

Police got collars, courts got cases and prisons – which multiplied exponentially – got inmates. “These were largely victimless crimes. Incarcerating people on drugs charges is just absurd. But it was essentially funding the system.”

Carole Telfer, 60, another veteran public defender, said felony convictions condemned vulnerable people to unemployment and lack of federal assistance after lengthy terms inside. “It just ruins their life,” she said. “You can’t in good conscience handle all these cases and say it’s fair.”

Griffith said a zip code lottery compounded injustice. In heavily black and latino areas like Compton and Inglewood, juries were sceptical of police testimony and prosecutors tailored cases accordingly, resulting in lighter sentences. Locals nicknamed Compton the “love court” for its relatively sympathetic hearings.

Griffith called it a model of cooperation and camaraderie between clerks, prosecutors, public defenders, and judges. Wealthy areas like Torrance and Long Beach, in contrast, were more polarised and imposed heavier sentences. “Old white people sending a message: don’t come to our town or you’ll get screwed. Venue is everything.”

Both lawyers have been victims of crime. Griffith was badly beaten and robbed. Telfer had a shotgun pointed at her during a robbery. As citizens, they said they wanted dangerous people kept off the streets. Focusing on largely harmless drug users diverted police from chasing murderers, rapists, and child molesters, they said.

Both believe California’s lock-’em-up spree blurred the distinction between bad people and people who had done bad or stupid things. “Draconian sentencing seems inhumane. We’re saying this person is beyond redemption,” said Griffith.

Defence lawyers may be expected to say such things, but the nation’s top law-enforcer, attorney general Eric Holder, said much the same when changing federal jail policy last year.

California voters, fed up with huge prison bills and emboldened by low crime rates, also agree. In 2012, they approved proposition 36, which eased the three-strikes law, and earlier this month they approved proposition 47. It reclassifies common drug violations and certain thefts – about a quarter of all crimes - from potential felonies to misdemeanours. Inmates serving felony sentences for such offences have a three-year window to apply for reduced sentences.

An estimated 40,000 are eligible. In Compton, 115 have already been freed, with more due as the courts work through the backlog. Telfer is the designated attorney for such cases, which means continuous calls from clients and their relatives. Her phone rang about two dozen times while she spoke to the Guardian.

“We’re kind of inundated,” she said.

Prosecutors are unhappy. Jackie Lacey, the LA county district attorney, said in a phone interview she agreed with reclassifying minor offences as misdemeanours but said the new law created new problems.

A felony charge encouraged offenders to do drug rehab if offered as an alternative to jail, but a misdemeanour strips that incentive because county jails have no space for those charged with lesser offences. “Just a few minutes and they’re out. You have removed that leverage,” said Lacey.

The law also raises the hurdle for proving dangerousness, meaning prosecutors may struggle to keep violent offenders inside. “There are unintended consequences here,” she said. Even so, the DA pledged to apply the law as the will of the people.

Compton’s public defenders shared concerns about addicts skipping rehab and also about thieves feeling emboldened to steal goods valued up to $950, a misdemeanour.

But it was a small price, said Griffith, for correcting a system which jailed generations of essentially harmless people. “It’s a brave new world. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do: getting people out of custody who are supposed to be out of custody.”

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Global Drug Survey 2015: why you should tell us what you take

Help us in this scientific research to find out the world’s drug consumption patterns. See what we learned from last year’s study and what we hope to find out in this one

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For the last few years the Guardian has been collaborating with the Global Drug Survey to find out about what drugs people take, how and why. If you have not already done it then you can take the survey here.

Last year 80,000 people from across the globe completed the survey on their drug usage, making it the largest research project of its kind. It gives us a wealth of information about how people were approaching the consumption of substances both legal and illegal.

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The aim of this year’s survey is to to reach 120,000 people. It has been launched in partnership with media organisations in20 different countries and has been translated into 10 separate languages.

The study will, as always, look at prevalence, price, purity, value for money and the proportion of people seeking medical treatment but there are a few specific areas that will be explored this year including:

Performance enhancing drugs - weight loss agents and anabolic steroids
Cognitive enhancers - Ritalin, modafanil and atomoxetine use among students and working people
The dark net - now Silk Road has closed, how are people buying drugs online?
Nitrous oxide - the risks of neurological harm from this drug
E-cigarettes - whether these might be used for something other than nicotine
Why do people stop using different drugs - and when?

Completing the survey will help us cover a subject which is, for obvious reasons, often shrouded in secrecy. The researchers do not track or store IP addresses, browser types, or other identifying information. As always though, caution is suggested when sending information over the internet.