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

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Mexico arresteert opnieuw leider groot drugskartel

De Mexicaanse politie heeft de leider van het beruchte drugskartel Los Zetas opgepakt. Het is Omar Trevino Morales. Hij was de baas van het kartel sinds de arrestatie van zijn broer in juli 2013.

Morales werd woensdagochtend (plaatselijke tijd) aangehouden in de stad Monterrey. Hij was een van de meest gezochte misdadigers in het land. Zijn arrestatie komt enkele dagen na de aanhouding van een andere bendeleider, Servando Gomèz van het Tempelierskartel.

Het kartel Los Zetas, dat voor een groot deel bestaat uit goedgetrainde gedeserteerde militairen, staat bekend als zeer gewelddadig. Het wordt onder andere verantwoordelijk gehouden voor de moord op 72 immigranten in San Fernando in 2010.

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ChristenUnie blokkeert legaliseren softdrugs bij herziening belastingsysteem

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De ChristenUnie zal niet instemmen met een nieuw belastingstelsel waar de legalisering van softdrugs een onderdeel is.

Dat zegt ChristenUnie-leider Arie Slob vrijdag tegen NU.nl. Zaterdagochtend volgt een uitgebreid interview.

D66 presenteerde onlangs een initiatiefwetsvoorstel om de wietteelt te reguleren. Op deze manier wordt de 'achterdeur' van coffeeshops legaal, waardoor er ook belasting over geheven kan worden.

D66-leider Alexander Pechtold liet vervolgens weten het plan op tafel te willen leggen bij de onderhandelingen over een nieuw belastingsysteem, de komende tijd een van de grootste uitdagingen voor het kabinet.

Zowel D66 als de ChristenUnie horen bij de "constructieve" oppositiepartijen die met de coalitie hierover meepraten.

Als het aan Slob ligt kan Pechtold zijn wietplan dus thuis laten. "Als je bij D66 binnenloopt dan zit je meteen met je hoofd in de wietdampen", stelt hij.

"Die partij heeft het belastingplan gekoppeld aan het softdrugsbeleid. Wij zien het als een gezondheidsvraagstuk, zij als een financieel vraagstuk. Maar ik zou geen geld willen verdienen aan de verslaving van anderen. Daar sta ik diametraal tegenover."

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Fractielid stapt op na 'nieuwe corruptieverdenking' VVD

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De mannen worden ervan verdacht de benoeming van de burgemeester in de gemeente Stichtse Vecht te hebben beïnvloed in het voordeel van VVD'er Rob Bats. De verdenking is bijvangst in het onderzoek naar fractievoorzitter Kathalijne de Kruif van de VVD in Stichtse Vecht.

Zij werd vorige maand aangehouden op verdenking van het handelen in hennep en het witwassen van drugsgeld. De VVD in de gemeente liet dinsdag weten dat 'mevrouw De Kruif heeft aangegeven dat het niet in het belang van de gemeente, de inwoners, de gemeenteraad, haar partij en haarzelf is als zij nog langer politiek actief is'.

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Drugsdeal met Cees H. doet VVD-bewindslieden das om

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De zaak rond Cees H. kwam maandag in een stroomversnelling nadat bekend werd dat het betalingsbewijs was opgedoken van de overeenkomst met H. Daarmee werd ook het bewijs geleverd dat Opstelten niet de waarheid sprak in de Tweede Kamer. De drugscrimineel H. incasseerde 4,7 miljoen gulden, en niet 1,25 miljoen zoals Opstelten vorig jaar beweerde.

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Hooijmaijers wil dat justitie 'zijn omkopers' voor de rechter daagt

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Vandaag krijgt de ex-gedeputeerde van de provincie Noord Holland te horen hoe lang justitie wil dat hij moet zitten. De rechtbank veroordeelde hem in 2013 tot 3 jaar cel, omdat hij zich had laten omkopen, geld had witgewassen en valsheid in geschrifte had gepleegd. Uit de tenlastelegging van het OM blijkt dat justitie hem in hoger beroep verwijt dat hij voor circa 1,2 miljoen euro aan giften en beloften voor betalingen heeft ontvangen.

157 Zangeres zonder Naam Mexico

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Irish Es are smiling – ecstasy and other drugs temporarily legal in Ireland

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Possession of ecstasy and other drugs is currently legal in Ireland, but only for a day, after a court ruling on Tuesday morning.

A written judgment released by the Republic’s court of appeal said part of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, which allows certain substances to be controlled, is unconstitutional, meaning all government orders banning substances such as ecstasy and magic mushrooms are void – and it is not an offence to possess them.

Specifically, the court found that the act was being added to via ministerial order and without consulting the Oireachtas (both houses of the Irish parliament) and deemed this unconstitutional.

The appeal court’s ruling came in favour of a man who was prosecuted for possession of methylethcathinone, which was among a number of substances put on the controlled drugs list in 2010.

Stanislav Bederev denied the charge of having the substance for supply in 2012, and then brought a high court challenge in Dublin seeking to stop his trial, claiming that additions to the 1977 act were unconstitutional.

Bederev’s legal team argued it was not lawful to put the substance on the controlled drug list because there are no principles and policies guiding the introduction of such rules – and specifically no consultation with the Irish parliament.

The Irish government now has to force through emergency legislation in its parliament on Tuesday evening in response to the ruling.

The emergency law won’t come into place until the Republic’s second chamber, the Seanad, endorses the legislation. Following that the country’s president, Michael D Higgins, will have to gave his approval.

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Prescription drugs involved in 82% of overdose deaths, Victoria coroner says

Overdose deaths involving prescription drugs twice as common as those involving illegal ones and increasing rapidly, medical conference told

The number of deaths associated with prescription drugs used to treat stress, anxiety and insomnia are increasing at a “frightening” rate, a coroner has told attendees at a medical conference in Melbourne.

Prescription drugs were involved in 82% of the 384 overdose deaths investigated by the Victorian coroner’s court in 2014, Audrey Jamieson told the International Medicine in Addiction conference on Saturday.

This was 6% higher than the rate of deaths involving prescription drugs in 2011, she said, and almost double the number of deaths in which illicit drugs were involved.

Benzodiazepines were most commonly implicated in toxic deaths, Jamieson said, a class of drugs which includes the medicine more commonly known as Xanax, Serepax and Valium, prescribed for anxiety, panic and sleep disorders.

The drugs were involved in 55% of overdose deaths investigated by the court last year, compared with 49.7% four years ago.

“It’s frightening,” Jamieson said.

“Benzodiazepines as a contributor to mixed-drug toxic deaths is there, you can see it in the statistics. I hardly ever investigate a matter where the cause of death is mixed drug use where a benzodiazepine isn’t seen.”

Opioids, used to treat pain, were implicated in 48.4% of deaths, followed by antidepressants and antipsychotics.

Benzodiazepines contributed to a significant number of deaths involving alcohol, opioids, illicit drugs and antidepressants, the coroner said, highlighting the dangers of mixing substances.

As of February last year, Australia’s drug regulator, the Therapeutic Good Administration, rescheduled Xanax to make it a controlled drug – a substance deemed to have a high potential for abuse and addiction – which means restrictions have been placed on its prescription.

And while it was too early to see the impact of this on deaths and hospital admissions, Xanax was not the only prescription drug being abused by Australians, the conference heard.

Their widespread abuse meant the harms they caused were second only to alcohol, and were significantly greater than harm caused by illicit drugs, Associate Professor Nicholas Lintzeris, who is director of drug and alcohol services at South Eastern Sydney local health district, said.

The impact was being felt across socioeconomic and age groups, he said, as more people used them to cope with even the short-term stresses of life.

“Historically in Australia, people over 60 or 70 were not identified as a population that used drugs or alcohol, but that’s changing now with baby boomers getting older,” Lintzeris said.

“They’re the first generation to use alcohol and prescription drugs more widely, and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down in their 70s and 80s.”

People expected to live longer and enter their later years pain-free, Lintzeris said.

There was a societal expectation that there was a pill for almost anything, and he said prescription monitoring systems to prevent “doctor shopping”, as well as better patient education about the risks and harms of prescription drugs, was needed.

Consumers needed to know that some prescription drugs, such as opioids, were highly addictive; that when taken in combination with other drugs such as alcohol, prescription drugs could be deadly; and that there were often non-drug alternatives, such as counselling or physiotherapy, that may work better for patients than drugs, he said.

Doctors also needed to reconsider prescribing so readily and widely, he said.

“We need much greater resilience in the community about what we can expect from healthcare and medicine,” Lintzeris said.

“There’s been over-reliance on medications to address those problems at the expense of talking therapy like counselling, and we also must look at how society is structured and how it may be causing harm.”

While sessions with a psychologist were currently subsidised by the government for conditions such as depression and anxiety, Lintzeris said no such subsidy for counselling occurred for patients suffering from chronic pain, making drugs too often the first choice for patients and doctors.

Speaking during a panel discussion on prescription drug abuse at the conference, Lintzeris called for government to force the pharmaceutical industry to make the harm profiles of drugs more readily available before they could be allowed into the market.

Dr Belinda Lloyd, who heads research at the Turning Point drug and alcohol centre in Melbourne, said it was important to ensure patients who needed pain and anxiety medications were not prevented from accessing them.

“It’s not about unduly limiting access to humane and proper healthcare, but we do need to balance that minimising risk of harm,” she said.

“We’ve seen a substantial increase in prescription drug availability and related harms in Australia. We need to enhance awareness of their risks.”

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Alaska police raid former TV anchor Charlo Greene's marijuana dispensary

Police served search warrants at marijuana activist Charlo Greene’s cannabis club after receiving reports of illegal sales but she reopened the next day

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Anchorage police served search warrants at marijuana activist Charlo Greene’s Alaska Cannabis Club after receiving reports of illegal marijuana sales.

The police took marijuana and impounded a Dodge Dakota and a Jeep Liberty on Friday, KTUU reported.

Greene is a former television reporter who gained notoriety when she quit her job on live TV in September with an expletive and announced she’s becoming an advocate to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Alaska.

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DEA Approves MDMA In Clinical Trials For Anxiety Patients

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has approved the first clinical trial of MDMA being used to treat patients with debilitating anxiety due to terminal illness, highlighting a changing attitude toward using psychedelic drug therapy on those with severe nervous disorders.

Communications Director Brad Burge at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) tells Al Jazeera America that the trial will test 18 subjects, each with proven life-threatening illnesses, in a non-hospital setting. The sessions will be monitored by on-site therapists to offer "support and conversation" to the patients. By pairing the drug with psychotherapy, MAPS hopes that the month-long trial will prove to lessen patients' anxiety symptoms associated with being terminally ill and create opportunity for more studies and trials to be conducted with psychedelic drugs. He explains that the trial is part of a larger $20 million plan to make MDMA an FDA-approved prescription medicine by 2021.

This trial is one of many that MAPS has overseen, including MDMA testing with sufferers of PTSD in addition to studies with LSD, Psilocybin ("magic mushrooms"), and the plant-based brew Ayahuasca, to lessen the symptoms associated with mental illnesses. A similar trial, brought to light by Vice earlier this year, studied the dissociative drug Ketamine and its effectiveness as an antidepressant.

It is the ultimate hope of MAPS that trials like these will prove the therapeutic quality of MDMA and other psychedelic drugs. Burge remains convinced that this is what "really good science shows, despite decades of propaganda and government misinformation."

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Brabantse burgemeesters vrezen machtige criminelen

De georganiseerde criminaliteit dreigt de baas te worden op sommige plekken in Nederland. Twee Brabantse burgemeesters waarschuwen in de Volkskrant voor de toenemende ondermijning van het gezag door criminelen.

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Criminelen uit de drugsscene en de vrouwenhandel delen de lakens uit in buurten, infiltreren in het openbaar bestuur en zetten het gezag onder druk. Burgemeesters worden stelselmatig bedreigd.

Zangeres Zonder Naam - Mexico

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UK: This Is What's Actually in Your Ecstasy

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You know those dance floor lifers you sometimes meet in the smoking areas of nightclubs, the greying men with sweat-logged shirts wrapped around their necks, blabbering through locked jaws about how much better pills were back in the day? They are all officially wrong.

The latest data on ecstasy – taken from pills seized by police in England and Wales between July and October of last year – reveals that the average pinger contains 108mg of MDMA, making them the strongest they've ever been in the UK.

For context, "back in the day" – i.e. during the Second Summer of Love, as rave took off here in the late-80s and early-90s – most pills were around the 80mg mark. Which, as it happens, is close to what's seen by ecstasy researchers as the "acceptable" dose (70-75mg) for an average-sized adult during one drug-taking session.

As recently as 2009, because law enforcement agencies managed to disrupt the supply chain of the precursor ingredients used to make ecstasy, most pills in the UK contained zero MDMA. Instead, largely because of a seizure in Cambodia in 2008 of 33 tons of the precursor chemical safrole oil – enough to supply the UK ecstasy market for five years – pills contained a mixture of BZP, speed or caffeine. They were basically duds, which is one of the reasons mephedrone sales reached the extraordinary heights they did.

It was the popularity of mephedrone, however, that helped to really open up the online drug trade, which – in turn – has enabled the mass supply of high quality ecstasy pills.

At Glastonbury Festival last year, all the pills seized contained MDMA, which is a pretty good sign of the current state of play. This potency surge also applies throughout Europe; in Holland, where most pills are made and where they've always been of higher quality than they are in Britain, the average strength is 140mg. In Spain, 120mg pills are the norm.

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Op woensdag 1 april 2015 14:50 schreef Prutzenberg het volgende:
Oeps!

Indiana's Controversial "Religious Freedom" Act Just Unintentionally Legalized Marijuana

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‘Minister verdraaide feiten over wietteelt’



Onderzoekers zijn niet te spreken over hoe hun publicaties over wietteelt door hun opdrachtgever, veelal het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie, zijn gepresenteerd. Dat leert een rondgang langs wetenschappers en onderzoekers.

Onwelgevallige publicaties zijn uitgesteld, conclusies selectief naar buiten gebracht (‘cherry picking’) en vraagstellingen zo gestuurd dat de uitkomst het beleid ondersteunt. Oud-minister Ivo Opstelten (VVD) gebruikte de rapporten om de harde aanpak van wietteelt te rechtvaardigen, maar het wetenschappelijk fundament daarvoor is brozer dan voorgesteld.

Twist

Zo zou het overgrote deel van de nederwiet naar het buitenland gaan. Elke poging van burgemeesters om wietteelt te reguleren veegde het ministerie er de afgelopen jaren mee van tafel. Zolang veel wiet de grens over gaat, is de gedachte, helpt regulering niet tegen illegale plantages en georganiseerde misdaad in Nederland.

Maar de KLPD-onderzoeker die in 2006 het rapport publiceerde waarop het ministerie de hoge exportschatting baseerde, kaartte intern aan dat dit niet de conclusie was uit zijn onderzoek. Daaruit bleek namelijk: we weten het niet. Diezelfde conclusie, getrokken door onderzoekers van het Wetenschappelijk Onderzoeks- en Documentatiecentrum in een nieuwe exportschatting vorig jaar, werd door Opstelten eveneens verdraaid. Onderzoekers die aan het rapport meewerkten zeggen “teleurgesteld” te zijn.

Dat regulering strijdig is met de wet en met internationale verdragen, is een andere belangrijke pijler van het harde aanpak van wietteelt. Opstelten liet onderzoeksbureau Rand Europe in 2013 een overzicht maken van landen die wietteelt toestaan of ermee experimenteren. Het bureau zegt verbaasd te zijn over de twist die de oud-minister aan het rapport heeft gegeven. Zijn conclusie, dat regulering in andere landen minder ver gaat dan gedacht, stond er niet.

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Op zaterdag 11 april 2015 10:03 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Ja maar totaal niet opgepakt door de oppositie waarmee we kunnen concluderen dat de zich progressief profilerende partijen ook niet meer dan een wassen neus zijn.

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Parents of missing Mexican students tour US to push for new investigation

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Velez, along with other family members of the missing Mexican students, are on a caravan tour of the United States, trying to raise awareness and support for further investigation into the attack, which took place 26 September in the city of Iguala.

The students, from Rural Normal School at Ayotzinapa, a nearby teacher training academy known for its social activism, were detained by police, allegedly under orders from the local mayor. The police handed the students over to a drug gang called Guerreros Unidos, which massacred them, according to the official government account. Partial remains from at least one student were later found in a mass grave, after extensive forensics testing.

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Along with help in the search for answers, members of Caravana 43 are calling for an end to aid provided to Mexico under the Merida Initiative, a federal effort that has given $2.3bn to Mexico since 2008 to fight drug trafficking. Caravana 43 members say those funds are being used to suppress dissent, not fight drug cartels.

“The weapons that are given to Mexico through this plan are used to kill us, not help us,” said Velez.