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

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Call off war on drugs, leader of Guatemala tells the west

Otto Pérez Molina says regulated narcotics market must be introduced to forestall threat to democracy from drug cartels

The west's "war on drugs" has failed and continuing with prohibition will only cost more lives, the Guatemalan president, Otto Pérez Molina, declares in an interview in the Observer.

In a further sign that the global consensus on drugs is fragmenting, Pérez Molina will use a debate at this week's Davos forum in Switzerland to attack the international community for its support for prohibition, and to call for a regulated narcotics market.

"I believe western countries fail to understand the reality that countries such as Guatemala and those of Central America have to live in," said Pérez Molina. "There has been plenty of talk, but no effective response. I believe, ultimately, that this is due to a lack of understanding on the part of western countries."

He said western leaders must look beyond their domestic agendas. "A message should be sent to the leaders of the countries with the biggest drug markets. They must think not only of… the context of their country, but of what is happening in the world, in regions such as Central America, where this destruction, this weakening of democracy, is happening. They must be open to recognising that the struggle against drugs, in the way it has been conducted, has failed."

Up to 400 tonnes of cocaine are transited through Guatemala each year, up from seven tonnes in 2008, because US-led operations in the Caribbean and the Pacific have prompted the cartels to seek alternative trafficking routes.

Pérez Molina said the cartels now pose a serious threat to the Guatemalan state. "Drug traffickers have been able to penetrate the institutions in this country by employing their resources and money," he said. "We are talking about the security forces, public prosecutors, judges. Drug money has penetrated these institutions and it becomes an activity that directly threatens the institutions and, therefore, the democracy of countries."

He said the cartels were getting stronger. "The flow of arms towards Central America from the north and deaths in our country have grown."

He does not favour full legalisation of narcotics but is arguing for the introduction of a regulated drugs market. His comments come shortly after two US states, Colorado and Washington, voted to legalise marijuana. He predicted that attitudes within the US government would see the country soften its stance on prohibition.

"There is going to be a change away from the paradigm of prohibitionism and the war against drugs, and there is going to be a process that will take us towards regulation. So I would expect a more flexible and more open position from President Obama in his second term."

Pérez Molina also said he has a message for western drug users. "They should reflect not only on the harm to their own health, but also on the deaths that enable them to consume that cocaine."

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George Soros backs Guatemalan president's call to end war on drugs

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros said the war on drugs had endangered political stability and security in many countries

George Soros has thrown his support behind the president of Guatemala's efforts to end the war on drugs.

Soros, who is best know for leading a run on the pound in 1992 that forced the UK out of the European exchange rate mechanism, said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that world leaders had their best chance in at least two decades to rethink their approach to drugs.

"Drug policy has endangered political stability and security in many countries, and not just in Latin America," he said, citing Mali as one of several African countries to suffer.

Soros told a press conference that austerity was encouraging politicians, even in the US, to rethink the war on drugs. "Incarceration is hugely expensive … The cost of alternatives is smaller than the cost of incarceration," he said.

The billionaire philanthropist was speaking alongside the Guatemalan president, Pérez Molina, who announced that he would host a meeting of Latin American leaders to discuss the issue in June. The gathering will involve several groups including the Berkeley Foundation and Soros's own organisation. "Prohibition, this war on drugs, has seen cartels grow and the results are not what we looked for," Molina said. "There is a new trend towards drugs now – not war, but a new perspective and a different way of dealing with the problem."

Molina is determined to use Davos to shift the focus of the drugs debate from morality to science. He told the Observer last week that drug money had penetrated Guatemala's judicial system and security forces, and that he favoured a regulatory approach to drugs, rather than the extremes of a full-blown war on drugs or a policy of liberalisation.

Yasmin Batliwala, chair of Westminster Drug Project, agreed that politicians must tackle the problem by helping users rather than punishing them. "Drug dependency should be seen as a health and social problem, not a crime. Offenders with drug dependency and mental illness should be sent into treatment rather than to prison," she said.

"It is time to take drug dependency out of law enforcement and into the health framework, where it belongs. The war on drugs has failed and it is clear that we need a new approach at both a national and a global level."

Soros admitted that he did not know what the best solution to the problem was. "The answer will only be found by trial and error," he said.

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Briton Lindsay Sandiford sentenced to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking

Grandmother from Redcar was arrested in May after Bali police said they found £1.6m-worth of cocaine in her suitcase

A British woman has been sentenced to death after attempting to smuggle £1.6m-worth of cocaine into Bali.

Lindsay Sandiford, a 56-year-old grandmother, originally from Redcar in Teesside, was arrested for drug trafficking in May last year after local police said they found almost 5kg of cocaine in the lining of her suitcase.

There were gasps of surprise in Denpasar district court as the sentence was handed down; the prosecution had sought a 15-year prison term, not the death penalty, but the judge ruled that Sandiford's attempted crime had damaged Bali's image.

Sandiford wept as judges handed down the sentence, covering her face with a scarf as she left the courtroom to return to prison. She earlier told the court she was forced into taking the drugs into the country by gangsters who were threatening to hurt one of her children, saying "the lives of my children were in danger".

Sandiford is now expected to appeal within the next 14 days. If all legal avenues are exhausted she could ask the president for clemency. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has granted clemency to four drug offenders on death row since taking office in 2004.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "We can confirm that a British national is facing the death penalty in Indonesia. We remain in close contact with that national and continue to provide consular assistance. The UK remains opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances."

Delivering the sentence, a panel headed by Judge Amser Simanjuntak said Sandiford had damaged the image of Bali as a tourist destination and weakened the government's anti-drug programme. "We found no reason to lighten her sentence," he said.

In her witness statement earlier in the trial, Sandiford expressed regret for her actions. "I would like to begin by apologising to the Republic of Indonesia and the Indonesian people for my involvement. I would never have become involved in something like this but the lives of my children were in danger and I felt I had to protect them," she said.

During the trial, her lawyer read out a statement from her son that said: "I love my mother very much and have a very close relationship with her. I know that she would do anything to protect me. I cannot imagine what I would do if she was sentenced to death in relation to these charges."

Reprieve, a legal action charity, said Sandiford was a vulnerable target for drugs traffickers, pointing to an expert report from Dr Jennifer Fleetwood that was put before the court. Fleetwood concluded that Sandiford's vulnerability would have made her an ideal target for drugs traffickers, noting that: "There is … evidence to suggest that a trafficker would seek someone who was vulnerable. Having reviewed extracts from Lindsay's medical records I know that Lindsay has a history of mental health issues … This may have unfortunately made her an attractive target for threats, manipulation and coercion."

Harriet McCulloch, an investigator at Reprieve, said Sandiford maintained that she only agreed to carry the package to Bali after receiving threats against the lives of her family. "She is clearly not a drug kingpin – she has no money to pay for a lawyer, for the travel costs of defence witnesses or even for essentials like food and water," she said. "She has co-operated fully with the Indonesian authorities but has been sentenced to death while the gang operating in the UK, Thailand and Indonesia remain free to target other vulnerable people."

Martin Horwood, Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire, where Sandiford lived previously, said the sentence came as a shock, as Indonesian prosecutors had not sought it.

"The days of the death penalty ought to be past. This is not the way that a country that now values democracy and human rights should really be behaving," he told BBC News. "When the prosecutors asked for something less than the death sentence, for a custodial sentence, then I guess I'm afraid some of us perhaps relaxed a little and this has come as a real shock that the judges have actually delivered a sentence which is obviously much, much harsher than the one that was actually requested by prosecutors."

Three other Britons were alleged to be involved in the same plot to smuggle drugs into Bali. Julian Ponder faces being executed by firing squad if found guilty of playing a role in the smuggling scheme when his verdict is given on Wednesday. He is accused of receiving the drugs in Bali, but claimed he was trapped.

His lawyers said he was told Sandiford was delivering a present for his child's birthday and, when he met her to receive the gift, police officers arrested him. His partner, Rachel Dougall, 38, from Brighton, received a one-year jail sentence in the Denpasar district court last month. She had already been in jail for eight months awaiting trial and could be reunited with her daughter by April.

Property developer Paul Beales, a long-time Bali resident, was also spared a harsh sentence when judges gave him four years for possession of a small amount of hashish.

Indonesia has one of the strictest drug policies in the world, with about 40 foreigners on death row convicted of drug crimes, according to a March 2012 report by Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy.

Five foreigners have been executed since 1998, all for drug crimes, according to the institute. There have been no executions in the country since 2008, when 10 people were put to death.

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OM eist maximale straf, hasjbaas gevlogen

Met 8 jaar cel heeft het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) dinsdag voor de rechtbank in Arnhem de hoogst mogelijke straf geëist tegen een 38-jarige Arnhemse hasjbaas, hoewel die inmiddels in Marokko woont en niet uitgeleverd kan worden.

Justitie beschuldigt Ahmed C. van het invoeren en doorverkopen van 65.000 kilo hasj en het witwassen van 23,5 miljoen euro tussen 2005 en 2008. Zijn 49-jarige halfbroer Khalid el B, die altijd al in Marokko verbleef, moet wegens het witwassen van minstens 9 miljoen euro 4 jaar cel opgelegd krijgen, vindt de aanklager.

De officier van justitie gelooft dat C. een enorme internationale hasjhandel bestierde en dat hij de winsten gebruikte voor huizen, auto's, hotels, schepen en investeringen in nieuwe transporten. 'Kijk je naar de enorme schaal van deze zaak, dan verbleken zogenaamd gevestigde hasjcriminelen als Willem Holleeder en wijlen Charles Zwolsman bij deze verdachte', stelde de aanklager.

Hoewel de officier niet aantoont dat C. zelf ooit een gram hasj aanraakte, bewijzen onder meer een aangetroffen hasjboekhouding, telefoonverkeer, onderschepte transporten door anderen, geldstromen en verhullende leenconstructies dat C. spin in dit hasjweb was, vindt het OM.

De winsten werden witgewassen in huizen in Nederland, Spanje en Marokko, via bankrekeningen van de halfbroer en met voorgenomen investeringen in bizar luxe jachten. 'Ik ben van plan om 23 miljoen en 9 miljoen van de heren te plukken in aparte zaken, hoewel ik denk dat C. inmiddels genoeg hotels heeft om zich zelfs dan nooit meer zorgen te maken.'

Volgens advocaat Bart Nooitgedacht, die in de zaak twee keer succesvol wraakte, moet de rechtbank de zaak meteen naar de prullenbak verwijzen omdat justitie allerlei spelregels heeft overtreden. Zo niet, dan is de zaak volgens hem überhaupt niet te bewijzen omdat de aanklager van alles aanneemt zonder dat er deugdelijk bewijs is. Als de rechtbank daar anders over denkt, vindt hij dat de halfbroers alsnog een vrijgeleide moeten krijgen om hun verhaal te komen doen zonder het risico dat ze direct achter slot en grendel verdwijnen.

De uitspraak wordt in februari verwacht.

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Nederland blijft spil in drugshandel

^{Nederland is Europa's 'hoofdproducent' van harddrugs}

Of het nu gaat om de internationale handel in cocaïne, cannabis of XTC, Nederland is en blijft een sleutelrol vervullen. Dat blijkt uit een rapport van Europol.

België en Nederland zijn een belangrijke doorvoerhaven voor cocaïne, zo staat in het rapport.

Beide landen vervullen ook een belangrijke rol in de internationale handel in hasj. Nederland heeft ook een belangrijke rol in de handel van methamfetamine naar Scandinavië.

'Hoofdproducent' van harddrugs
Nederland wordt ook door veel andere Europese landen aangeduid als het land bij uitstek waar xtc vandaan komt. Nederland is Europa's 'hoofdproducent' van de harddrug, zo stelt Europol.

Europol meldt verder dat Chinese bedrijven en groothandels in Nederland de doorvoer van synthetische drugs binnen de Europese Unie faciliteren, doordat ze gebruik maken van een netwerk van Chinese gemeenschappen. Ook neemt het aantal verdachten van Marokkaanse afkomst in de handel in synthetische drugs toe.

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De puurste en goedkoopste coke te vinden in Nederland

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'Het is belangrijk dat we een beter beeld krijgen van de impact van drugshandel op de Europese samenleving en economie', verklaarde eurocommissaris Cecilia Malström van Binnenlandze Zaken in het voorwoord het belang van het onderzoek.

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Amerikaanse gevangenissen barsten uit hun voegen

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Het rapport maakt duidelijk dat steeds meer gevangenen veroordeeld zijn voor inbreuken op de immigratiewet en wapenbezit, maar dat de grootste groep achter slot en grendel zit voor relatief onbeduidende drugsmisdrijven. Deze aanpak doet de misdaadcijfers niet dalen, waarschuwt CRS-analist Nathan James, auteur van het rapport.

Hij verwijst naar misdrijven waarbij iemand anders de plaats van de gearresteerde inneemt. "Als je een serieverkrachter opsluit, kan je er zeker van zijn dat hij niet meer zal toeslaan en dat er hoogstwaarschijnlijk ook niemand zijn plaats inneemt. Maar bij een drugdealer ligt dat anders. Het is niet zeker dat de drughandel stopt als je een dealer oppakt", legt James uit.

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Fears of violence creeping into Mexico City

War on drugs has largely stayed away from the capital, but now police are warning it could spread.

The war on drugs in Mexico has largely stayed away from its capital city. But now some police chiefs are warning the violence could spread.

On Sunday, 18 suspected members of La Familia cartel were arrested in connection to recent killings in Mexico City's suburbs.

Adam Raney reports.

Fears of violence creeping into Mexican capital

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Colombiaanse FARC wil legalisering drugs

(Novum/AP) - De rebellenbeweging FARC heeft de Colombiaanse regering woensdag opgeroepen de kweek van marihuana, papaver en coca te legaliseren, evenals de persoonlijke consumptie van drugs afkomstig van deze planten. De hoofdonderhandelaar van de FARC bij de vredesgesprekken met de regering, Ivan Marquez, presenteerde het voorstel als onderdeel van het standpunt dat de rebellen innemen in de gesprekken.

"De legalisering van de consumptie samen met een goede scholing van jongeren, zoals dat in het verleden is gebeurd met tabak en alcohol, kan ook met cocaïne worden gedaan", zei Marquez. Hij zei ook dat Colombia, tegelijk met de legalisering, het probleem moet oplossen 'van de boeren die uit economische noodzaak coca verbouwen'.

De FARC heeft lang geld verdiend aan de kweek van coca, het basisingrediënt van cocaïne, om zijn gewapende strijd te financieren. De Colombiaanse en andere regeringen beschuldigen de FARC ervan betrokken te zijn bij illegale drugshandel, waaronder het smokkelen van drugs naar Venezuela. De rebellen ontkennen die beschuldigingen. Deskundigen betwijfelen of voor een vredesakkoord lokale FARC-commandanten die geld verdienen aan de drugshandel overgehaald kunnen worden ermee te stoppen.

President Juan Manuel Santos heeft gezegd open te staan voor een debat over de legalisering van drugs. Hij heeft de Verenigde Staten en andere ontwikkelde landen opgeroepen hun verantwoordelijkheid te nemen als grootste consumenten van illegale drugs.

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Marijuana Bills introduced in Congress: Efforts Surge to Reform Marijuana Laws

Driven by a groundswell of public opinion, Colorado and Washington state last November became the first states in the U.S. to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. That wave of support, it now seems clear, has echoed through the U.S. Congress, which Tuesday formally questioned the federal government’s prohibitionist drug policy in the form of marijuana reform bills.

Representatives Jared Polis, D-Colo., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced two separate bills that would drastically change U.S. marijuana laws by addressing what they say are the human and fiscal costs associated with marijuana-related arrests.

It’s not the first time marijuana reform bill have been introduced in Congress, but Tuesday’s measures are considered historic in scope and give further momentum to a marijuana legalization movement that has surged recently from Colorado to Washington to Latin America.

The Polis bill, the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act, would call on the federal government to regulate marijuana much like it does alcohol. Under the measure, cannabis growers would have to obtain a federal permit in states that legalize the drug. The bill does not force any state to legalize pot, but it does allow states that approve recreational and medical marijuana regulatory systems to operate without the fear of crackdowns from the Drug Enforcement Administration. The measure would also transfer authority to regulate marijuana from the DEA to a renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms.

“In my short time in Congress, and certainly over the last few decades, Americans have increasingly come to the conclusion that the drug war is a failed policy,” said Polis. “While substance abuse is a real problem we need to address, we need to address it increasingly as a public health issue more than a criminal issue.”

The Blumenauer bill, meanwhile, would create a taxation framework for pot similar to that in place for tobacco and alcohol. The Marijuana Tax Equity Act would impose an excise tax of 50% on the “first sale” of marijuana, from growers to processors or retailers. The measure would also tax pot producers $1,000 annually and other marijuana-related businesses $500. Blumenauer said that imposing such a tax would help lower the national deficit while providing funds for drug treatment centers and law enforcement units.

“There is an opportunity for us to make, at a minimum, a $100 billion difference over the next 10 years,” said Blumenauer.

There were 1.5 million drugs arrests made in the U.S. in 2011, according to the FBI. Of those arrests, over 660,000 were for possession of marijuana. The enforcement of federal marijuana laws, including incarceration, costs at least $5.5 billion annually, according to study by the CATO Institute. In New York state alone, the estimated cost of marijuana related arrests surpasses $75 million every year, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a non-profit that supports drug policy reform.

Passage of the two bills remains a long shot, according to analysts, but Rep. Blumenauer said the measures are just the beginning of a Congressional push to reform what he calls “antiquated, ineffective and, in some cases, nonsensical federal policies and laws.” Blumenauer pointed to a growing swell of support for marijuana reform measures among his colleagues on Capitol Hill.

In December, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said he intends to hold hearings on the conflicts between state and federal marijuana laws. And Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, D-Calif., is soon expected to introduce a measure that would allow states to establish pot policies without federal interference.

“These are the first two of what will probably be eight, 10 bills or more,” said Blumenauer, referring to Tuesday’s measures. Added Polis: “There is growing support within the Democratic caucus and also within the Republican caucus for reexamining the future of the drug war.”

The sudden flurry of federal action on cannabis comes as national polls highlight an outpouring of support for marijuana legalization in recent years. A Gallup poll in October showed that a record high 50% of Americans believe marijuana should be legal. By contrast, just over 30% of Americans held the same view in 2000. Support for medical marijuana is even stronger. A 2012 Gallup poll indicated that 70% of Americans believe it should be legal for a doctor to prescribe pot to reduce pain and suffering.

“Congress is frequently a lagging indicator for public opinion,” said Polis. “Public opinion is that it should be up to states and local governments how to deal with marijuana—it’s just a question of how we’re going to catch up, not if.”

Congressmen Blumenauer And Polis Move To End The Federal Prohibition Of Marijuana

Congressmen Blumenauer And Polis Move To End The Federal Prohibition Of Marijuana

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PvdA wil gemeentelijke wietplantages toestaan

Minister Ivo Opstelten (Veiligheid en Justitie) moet zijn verzet tegen de plannen voor gemeentelijke wietplantages opgeven. Daarvoor pleit de PvdA. Gemeentelijke kwekerijen zullen volgens de partij een oplossing bieden voor de georganiseerde misdaad.

PvdA-Kamerlid Myrthe Hilkens zei vrijdagmorgen op Radio1 dat de partij Opstelten er niet toe wil bewegen om onmiddellijk met dat experiment te beginnen, want 'dat ligt wel wat complexer'. 'Wat wij zouden willen is dat er een moment zou komen waarop we in één klap kunnen overstappen op een nieuw beleid', aldus Hilkens.

'Het kabinet is daar tot nu toe te verdeeld over geweest. Mijn partij wil wel gaan praten met die gemeenten die al hebben aangegeven niet onwelwillend te staan tegenover eigen wietteelt.'

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Recordvangst hasj in Westland

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Video Een vondst van 6,5 duizend kilo hasj in het Westland; volgens de politie en het Openbaar Ministerie een recordvangst.

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Grenades go off near U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

NUEVA LOREDO, Mexico, Feb. 8 (UPI) — Three grenades exploded in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, just outside the U.S. Consulate, rattling the neighborhood but causing no injuries, officials said.

The grenades apparently were used in a fight Thursday between members of the Zetas drug cartel and the Gulf cartel, which is trying to reclaim the territory, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Fighting between the two groups, one-time allies, has left a string of burned-out homes and bodies. Sources told the Morning News seven people have been killed in recent days, including three Americans.

Nuevo Laredo, an entry into Texas via Interstate 35, is known as the Zetas’ headquarters.

The Morning News said the Gulf cartel is believed to be backed by the Sinaloa crime organization as it tries to eliminate the Zetas and control the profitable drug route into the United States.

“Things will only heat up,” one person, speaking anonymously, told the newspaper. “This thing goes in waves, and we’re about to see a huge wave.”

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Federal Prosecutors Will Go After Washington And Colorado Marijuana Distributors

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Federal prosecutors will crack down on recreational marijuana dispensaries and growers even in states where they are legal, U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told a Canadian news magazine this week. The statement appears to be the first from a federal official to state explicitly that the federal government will prosecute dispensaries and producers once they are licensed in Washington and Colorado. During an interview on 20/20, President Obama told Barbara Walters only that the federal government has “bigger fish to fry” than going after recreational users, but did not address those who produce or distribute marijuana. MacLean’s reports:

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Peru Plans to Reduce Coca Production First Time in Eight Years

Peru plans to destroy coca bushes this year at a faster pace than growers expand output as the government seeks to curtail cultivation that has expanded for six straight years.

The government will eradicate a record 22,000 hectares (54,363 acres) of coca plants this year, which will reduce the size of the crop by 6 percent, Carmen Masias, the nation’s drug czar, told reporters in Lima.

Peru’s cultivation of the plant used to make cocaine increased 2 percent to 62,500 hectares in 2011, according to the United Nations, even after the government removed about 10,000 hectares of bushes. The Andean nation, which previously relied solely on foreign aid to finance eradication, will contribute 40 percent of this year’s $30 million budget to expand the program, Masias said. Total spending on the drug fight will rise 16 percent to $278 million.

“Eradication is completely indispensable but must go hand in hand with development” of alternative crops, such as cocoa and palm oil, Masias said. The U.S. government, the main source of drugs aid to Peru, agreed last year to provide $135 million through 2017 for alternative development, she said.

President Ollanta Humala’s government removed about 14,000 hectares of coca bushes last year, 40 percent more than in 2011, to slow growth in a crop that the United Nations says now rivals Colombia’s as the world’s largest.

The drive to curtail cultivation will be extended to the valley of the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro Rivers, an area of jungle in the south of the country where holdout members of the Shining Path, a Maoist insurgency group, are active, Masias said.

The government is also removing coca bushes for the first time in the Monzon valley in northern Peru, where the crop has been grown for the drug trade for 80 years, she said.

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Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail

How HSBC hooked up with drug traffickers and terrorists. And got away with it

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The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses.

People may have outrage fatigue about Wall Street, and more stories about billionaire greedheads getting away with more stealing often cease to amaze. But the HSBC case went miles beyond the usual paper-pushing, keypad-punching­ sort-of crime, committed by geeks in ties, normally associated­ with Wall Street. In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.

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That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis. What is different about this settlement is that the Justice Department, for the first time, admitted why it decided to go soft on this particular kind of criminal. It was worried that anything more than a wrist slap for HSBC might undermine the world economy. "Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer at a press conference to announce the settlement, "HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."

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Police chief of Mexico border city is missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The police chief of the violent Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo is missing, authorities said Monday.

Tamaulipas state prosecutors said they have opened an investigation into the whereabouts of Roberto Balmori Garza, police chief of the city across the border from Laredo, Texas.

Tamaulipas prosecutors said in a brief statement that state officials in Nuevo Laredo will be in charge of the investigation.

Local media reported that two of Balmori Garza's brothers were found shot dead Sunday inside the trunk of a car in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon. One of his brothers was a federal investigator, media reported.

Tamaulipas prosecutors' spokesman Ruben Dario said Balmori Garza disappeared over the weekend. He said he couldn't give any other information on the case or confirm the media reports of the death of Balmori Garza's brothers.

Nuevo Laredo, a stronghold of the Zetas drug cartel, has been the scene of bloody drug-gang turf battles since the beginning of the year.

Two years ago, gunmen killed a retired army general who had been police chief of Nuevo Laredo for a month. Two of his bodyguards also were slain and two suffered wounds.

The Zetas, known for its viciousness, has been fighting its former ally, the Gulf cartel, in Mexico's northeast since early 2010.

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Mexican drug cartels penetrate southern Europe

BRUSSELS – One of Mexico’s largest and most dangerous drug cartels has expanded its activities throughout the world, including Spain, Italy and the Western Balkans.

“The reach of drug trafficking cartels, in particular the Sinaloa cartel, is one that is frankly global,” said the US deputy assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, Brian Nichols, on Thursday (8 November) in Brussels.

American media cite the cartels as reaping billions in profits from hubs stationed only in and around the United States.

But the Sinaloa cartel retains a special status.

In 2010, it allegedly infiltrated the Mexican government, placing informants to secure territory inside the country and to take out rivals. Some, working in conjunction with local crime lords, have already been arrested in Spain and in Italy.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels, Nichols said the cartel is principally interested in moving cocaine but also has interest in marijuana, methamphetamines and ecstasy.

“In terms of their presence in southern Europe, I think they are looking for an entry point, they are looking for markets where they can move their products,” said Nichols.

The globalised nature of the drug cartels has pushed national enforcement authorities to work closer together.

Nichols said the US is engaged with the Dutch and the UK in the Caribbean. Agents from Italy, Spain and the UK in Central America are working closely with US rule of law and counter-narcotic experts to investigate and crack down on the networks.

“Most of the leads we follow up on in Europe are developed in the Americas, whether it’s Mexico or Columbia or Peru,” said Nichols.

The Mexicans are not the only ones with an acute business interest in the Western Balkans. Colombians and Peruvians are also making in-roads.

“People in Western Balkans are talking to their suppliers in Mexico, in South America,” said Nichols.

The joint efforts of crime fighting units from across the globe is a relatively new phenomenon.

South American countries, for instance, are partnering investigations in the Western Balkans and sharing their knowledge and intelligence. “[It] previously is not something you would have seen,” said Nichols.

EU secret police

But in Europe, some elusive cross-border investigations and police networks have been in place for at least two decades.

An inquiry by a handful of members from the left-leaning group in Germany’s Bundestag received some insight into activities over the summer after pressing the government for information for over two years.

According to their research, the Dutch launched an International Working Group on Police Undercover Activities (IWG) in 1989. The group has grown.

Agents from all around Europe allegedly meet to exchange experience on all matters related to the covert deployment of police officers.

A source familiar with the group told the deputies that one such meeting in 2007 included “police authority representatives from European states, as well as from Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.”

Germany’s federal government told the deputies in May that its own foreign agents are carefully selected and take on considerable risks “that put their lives and health in danger.”

German officials also stated they rely on the dedication and specialist expertise of the agents when it comes to combating the most serious of crimes like human trafficking, with some organised crime syndicates or networks are involved in murder and kidnappings.

“[This] can only be opposed effectively by the German state if there are such officers who express a willingness to undertake covert operations,” the federal government told the deputies.

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Man zwaargewond door meerdere politiekogels bij drugsactie

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De man sloeg op de vlucht na een geplande drugsactie van de politie. Toen hij er in zijn auto vandoor ging, zette de politie met de nodige wagens de achtervolging in. Op de rotonde bij de Merwedelaan en Rijnstraat ramde de man een andere auto. De inzittenden daarvan raakten niet gewond.

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Mexico, Central America discuss war on drugs

San Jose (US), Feb 20 (AFP) Leaders of Mexico and Central America gathered today for a summit focused primarily on the relentless violence sweeping the region from the US-backed war on drug trafficking.

The United States says 90 per cent of the cocaine shipped there from South America passes through Mexico and Central America. In Mexico alone some 70,000 people have died in drug-related violence since the government deployed army troops to fight drug cartels.

Central America in the 1980s was ravaged by civil wars, and now finds itself again awash in blood as its serves as a gateway to the north, with penetration from Mexican cartels and grinding poverty that makes lucrative drug trafficking a lure hard to resist.

The violence has mainly affected an area known as the Northern Triangle. It is formed by Honduras, likened to one big airport for clandestine drug flights; Guatemala, penetrated by the most bloodthirsty of the drug cartels, Los Zetas; and El Salvador, which is enjoying a respite after a truce among street gangs.

The summit here in the capital of Costa Rica will be attended by Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto, Guatemalan President Otto Perez and President Porfirio Diaz of Honduras. It was not clear if Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua or Ricardo Martinelli of Panama will show up. Guatemala's Perez has called in recent international forums such as the Davos meeting in Switzerland for a change in strategy, saying the US-backed hardline approach is yielding nothing but dead bodies. He has suggested legalising drugs to remove the profit motive.

Pena Nieto has not commented on this idea. But he has promised a new strategy based on better cooperation among countries and more intelligence work, although he has kept army troops deployed in the war on drugs.

The countries at the summit will also discuss how to boost trade. Trade between Mexico and its smaller neighbours to the south has already quintupled over the past decade to USD 8.2 billion, according to the Mexican finance ministry.

This will be the Mexican president's first trip outside the country since taking power in December.

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Rethinking Drug Policy Assumptions

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Contrary to the above assumption, the “Iron Law of Prohibition” states that prohibition leads to higher dosage levels and more dangerous modes of administration. These consequences follow naturally from the illegal market. Black marketeers want to pack as much of an outlawed substance as possible into the minimum volume, which is the definition of a high-dosage level; and purchasers, because of the inflated black market price, want the biggest bang for their buck. Similarly, because injecting is so efficient a way of using an expensive substance, there is an economic motivation to use this more dangerous means of administration.

Under Prohibition, the United States went from a nation of drinkers of safe beer (low-dosage alcohol) to drinkers of higher-dosage and often contaminated whiskey. After Prohibition the country gradually returned to its preference for beer. Similarly, over time users have gone from smoked opium to injected heroin; from low-dosage cocaine in the original Coca-Cola to inhaled powdered cocaine to crack; and from lower THC levels in marijuana to higher levels. In addition, because marijuana is bulky and has a strong odor it has the black market disadvantages of taking up a lot of space and being relatively easy to detect. This drives up the price of marijuana relative to cocaine and heroin, and creates an economic incentive for users to switch from soft to hard drugs.

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A major study published in American Psychologist back in 1990 contradicted the assumption that drugs hook victims. Its findings, summarized in the studys Abstract, have long been known, but are startling to many non-experts, and are worth quoting here:

. The relation between psychological characteristics and drug use was investigated in subjects studied longitudinally, from preschool through age 18. Adolescents who had engaged in some drug experimentation (primarily with marijuana) were the best-adjusted in the sample. Adolescents who used drugs frequently were maladjusted, showing a distinct personality syndrome marked by interpersonal alienation, poor impulse control, and manifest emotional distress. Adolescents who, by age 18, had never experimented with any drug were relatively anxious, emotionally constricted, and lacking in social skills. Psychological differences between frequent drug users, experimenters, and abstainers could be traced to the earliest years of childhood and related to the quality of parenting received. The findings indicate that (a) problem drug use is a symptom, not a cause, of personal and social maladjustment, and (b) the meaning of drug use can be understood only in the context of an individuals personality structure and developmental history. It is suggested that current efforts at drug prevention are misguided to the extent that they focus on symptoms, rather than on the psychological syndrome underlying drug abuse.

In other words, instead of saying that drugs hook victims, a better causal model for drug abuse is to say that people with significant problems self-medicate. In addition, this description of drug use fits with what we know about adolescence. That is, in our individualistic culture, adolescence is a time of experimentation with different options during the transition from childhood to adulthood. Teenagers work summer or part-time jobs, and they are exposed to courses in a variety of disciplines so that they can make informed career decisions. Dating is an institution that provides young people with experience in forming, maintaining, and dissolving intimate relationships, so that they have a basis for selecting a life partner. In a similar way, teen experimentation with forbidden psychoactive substances can be seen as a way of learning their effects so that people can decide whether to use them in the future.

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'Drugsafval kan leiden tot ecologische ramp'

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Staatsbosbeheer zegt dat de kans op een ecologische ramp reëel is nu steeds vaker drugsafval in de natuur wordt aangetroffen. Het gaat om overblijfselen van de fabricage van synthetische drugs, die vaak bestaan uit vaten met zuren en chemicalieën.

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Kustwacht verhindert drugstransport in Cariben

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De toestel spotte vorige week tijdens een routinevlucht een verdacht vaartuig waarna de Amerikaanse kustwacht werd ingeschakeld. Toen die naderde brachten de verdachten de boot met circa 500 kilo drugs tot zinken.

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De onderschepping had plaats in het kader van de operatie Martillo. Hierin proberen een aantal landen in de regio een eind te maken aan de drugssmokkel.

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US drugs prosecutors switch sides to defend accused Colombian traffickers

After working to take down cartels, former officials say America's 'war on drugs' is misguided and the human cost too high

US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.

Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.

"I'm not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides," said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the Department of Justice. "And I'm not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That's what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases."

The fence-jumpers include Bonnie Klapper, who was feted for taking down the Norte del Valle cartel, Leo Arreguin, who headed the DEA's office in Bogota, and reportedly former members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Ice. They work in separate legal practices with their own clients, not as a group.

In interviews with the Guardian, Feitel and Klapper spoke of recognising the humanity of their clients and called for alternatives to a four-decade-old "war on drugs" which costs billions of dollars and incarcerates thousands.

Feitel (pictured) called for cocaine and cannabis to be legalised and complained that extradited drug suspects were treated worse than Guantanamo Bay detainees. "I don't think I could ever be a prosecutor again. The human drama that I see on this side is sometimes more than I can bear."

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How the Sinaloa cartel “won” Mexico’s drug war

Sixty thousand lives later, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán's crew remains in tact -- and could be getting stronger

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Compared to its humble beginnings in the 1980s, when it controlled only a single Pacific trafficking route into Arizona, the cartel’s territorial expansion has been staggering. Key areas it now controls include most of Mexico’s Pacific coast states and parts of central Mexico.

Even more impressive is its global reach. Sinaloa operatives have been arrested from Egypt to Argentina and from Europe to Malaysia. Properties attributed to El Chapo Guzmán have been seized in Europe and South America. US law enforcement reports that the group is now present in all major American cities. Recent US court documents involving the case of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, Mayo Zambada’s son, even suggest the Sinaloa cartel now controls the cocaine trade in Australia.

Earlier this month, Chicago named El Chapo Guzmán public enemy number one, the first to receive that title since the citys legendary crime boss, Al Capone.

Sinaloas share in the drug market is titanic. Even by the most sober estimates, Mexican drug trafficking amounts to over $6 billion per year, with El Chapos Sinaloa cartel controlling an estimated half of that market, raking in billions each year.

No wonder Forbes has listed El Chapo Guzmán on its annual list of billionaires since 2009.

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Noorwegen: heroïne-roken gedogen

Noorwegen wil het roken van heroïne gaan gedogen. De regering hoopt het aantal overdoses te kunnen terugdringen door drugsverslaafden van het injecteren van de drug af te krijgen.

Het land kent een van de hoogste percentages drugsverslaafden in heel Europa. Jaarlijks komen er meer mensen om door drugsgebruik dan door verkeersongelukken: 262 tegen 168 in 2011. Ongeveer eenderde van die sterfgevallen kwam door heroïne.

Chinezen

In Noorwegen zijn tussen de 8800 en 12.500 heroïneverslaafden, waarvan het grootste deel de drug spuit. Verslaafden kiezen vaak voor injecteren, omdat het goedkoper is, bovendien is de roes sneller en heviger. Dergelijk gebruik werd de laatste jaren oogluikend toegestaan.

Het roken van heroïne (chinezen) is minder gevaarlijk dan injecteren: behalve dat er een kleinere hoeveelheid voor nodig is, is de kans op overdraagbare ziektes kleiner. Minister Støre van Gezondheid vindt daarom dat chinezen ook gedoogd moet worden.

Niet legaal

Støre benadrukt dat gedogen niet betekent dat de drug legaal wordt. "Ik ben pragmatisch. Het gaat mij om de resultaten", zei hij op televisie. "Als injecteren meer risico's geeft, dan is het beter om roken ook te gedogen."

Volgens Støre staat een meerderheid van het Noorse parlement achter de plannen.

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Theresa May orders study into which drug laws work in other countries

Review will look at 'depenalisation' in Portugal, but home secretary rejects MPs' call for rapid royal commission on reform

An international "what works" study of drug laws, including Portugal's policy of scrapping criminal penalties for personal possession, has been ordered by the home secretary, Theresa May.

But she has rejected a call from the Commons home affairs select committee for a rapid royal commission to report by 2015 on how to reform Britain's 40-year-old drug laws.

The international review, to be led by the Liberal Democrat Home Office minister, Jeremy Browne, will include a visit to Portugal where the policy of "depenalisation" with its strong emphasis on getting users into treatment rather than jail clearly impressed MPs. The Portuguese policy stops short of decriminalisation as trafficking and dealing in drugs remain illegal and subject to strong police enforcement action.

The study will also look at the effects of the recent decisions in the American states of Washington and Colorado to legalise marijuana for recreational as well as medicinal use. It will also look at the international response to the rapid emergence of new psychoactive drugs or "legal highs" which have been appearing on the market at the rate of more than one a week.

The move represents a significant official acknowledgement of the recent shift in the Westminster consensus towards drug policy reform, as well as the more radical approach of the Lib Dem ministers in the coalition.

"The government does not believe there is a case for fundamentally re-thinking the UK's approach to drugs – a royal commission is simply not necessary," says May's official response to the MPs.

"Nonetheless, we must continue to listen and learn from emerging trends, new evidence and international comparators. In particular we will build on the commitment in the drug strategy to 'review new evidence of what works in other countries and what we can learn from it' and conduct a study on international comparators to learn more from the approach in other countries," says May.

The home secretary's official response says the government has no intention of decriminalising drugs but adds that any debate of alternative approaches should be focused on clear evidence and analysis.

She adds that the review will look at a number of countries that cover "a spectrum of approaches" to drug policy and assess their effectiveness in cutting drug use and reducing harm to individuals and communities. Its terms of reference will include looking at best practice as well as the different legal responses to the emergence of "legal highs". Britain has a system of temporary banning orders for the new psychoactive drugs which remain legal to possess but not sell or import while a full evaluation is carried out.

Browne said drugs were illegal because they were dangerous and destroyed lives and blighted communities.

"Drug usage remains at its lowest level since records began with National Treatment Agency statistics published yesterday showing that the number of heroin and crack cocaine users in England has fallen below 300,000 for the first time," said the minister responsible for crime prevention.

"We have listened carefully to the recommendations made by the home affairs select committee and will shortly undertake an international study to gather evidence on successful approaches that other countries are taking."

Drug reform policy groups, including Release and Transform, both responded to the announcement on Twitter by questioning how open-minded the home secretary could remain while ruling out decriminalisation before the study got under way.

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"Drug reform policy groups, including Release and Transform, both responded to the announcement on Twitter by questioning how open-minded the home secretary could remain while ruling out decriminalisation before the study got under way".

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Former DEA chiefs worry Obama abandoning drug war

Eight former directors of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said in an open letter published Tuesday (PDF) that they’re worried the Obama administration is abandoning the war on drugs by allowing Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana.

“Our earlier attempts to have the Attorney General announce that he will enforce the Controlled Substances Act in Colorado and Washington have fallen upon deaf ears,” former DEA administrator Peter Bensinger said in an advisory sent to Raw Story. “Sadly, at this point we can only conclude that it is probably not Eric Holder’s decision.”

All eight former DEA chiefs — John Bartels, Peter Bensinger, Robert Bonner, Thomas Constantine, Asa Hutchinson, John Lawn, Donnie Marshall and Francis Mullen — addressed their letter to Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), who will question Attorney General Eric Holder during a Wednesday session of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Bensinger, who ran the drug war under the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, added that if the Obama administration fails to sue officials in Washington and Colorado to stop legalization in its tracks, it essentially means Holder “is willing to abandon his responsibilities as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the United States.”

The letter coincides with a statement by the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board, which urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to stand up for America’s international obligations to uphold marijuana prohibition.

Critics of marijuana prohibition, on the other hand, point to the social harms caused by criminalizing millions of people around the world every year for using a substance that’s less harmful than society’s intoxicant of choice, alcohol. A 2010 study published in the medical journal Lancet ranked alcohol as the most harmful inebriating drug of all, even above heroin and crack cocaine. Tobacco, similarly, was ranked roughly as damaging to society as cocaine.

Despite the latest science on drug abuse and the potential medical value of marijuana-based drugs, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 considers marijuana to be a Schedule I drug with no medical value whatsoever. That scheduling means the U.S. government considers the herb to be more dangerous than substances like oxycodone, morphine and opium.

DEA officials who signed the letter to Leahy and Grassley also warned that officials in Colorado and Washington who engage in the legalization rulemaking process are committing felony crimes.

“Indeed, those who carry out the Colorado and Washington legislation are aiding and abetting violation of federal law, itself a felony under federal law,” former DEA administrator Robert Bonner wrote. “This may not be the perfect storm, but it can only lead to the perfect train wreck. That is why we are urging Attorney General Holder, as he did in the case of the Arizona immigration law, to file a lawsuit challenging the Colorado and Washington laws without delay.”

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, sees things differently. “The former DEA chiefs’ statement can best be seen as a self-interested plea to validate the costly and failed policies they championed but that Americans are now rejecting at the ballot box,” he said in an advisory. “They obviously find it hard to admit that – at least with respect to marijuana – their legacy will be much the same as a previous generation of agents who once worked for the federal Bureau of Prohibition enforcing the nation’s alcohol prohibition laws.”

The Department of Justice has not announced whether any such lawsuits are forthcoming, continually saying that a review of the matter is underway. President Obama, who’s admitted to smoking marijuana as a young man, has previously said he does not support drug legalization of any kind, but as a state senator in Illinois in 2004 he called the war on drugs “an utter failure” and backed removing criminal penalties for small marijuana possession offenses.

It’s not clear if Obama’s views have evolved since then. Nevertheless, Obama said in December that he does not support legalization “at this point,” but added that the government has “bigger fish to fry” than adults who consent to using marijuana in states that permit it. His administration, however, has doggedly pursued merchants that sell marijuana in states that have legalized the drug for medical use.

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The letter coincides with a statement by the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board, which urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to stand up for America’s international obligations to uphold marijuana prohibition.

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United Nations says changing U.S. marijuana laws violate international drug conventions

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Cannabis decriminalisation measures across the United States, including the medical use of marijuana in California, have been sharply criticised by the United Nations, which has warned Washington they violate the international drug conventions.

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Steeds meer jongeren met alcoholvergiftiging

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Van 2007 tot 2010 bleef het aantal alcoholvergiftigingen redelijk stabiel, maar de laatste jaren laten een forse stijging zien. Vooral jongens tussen de 15 en 19 jaar gaan zich te buiten aan grote hoeveelheden alcohol. In deze categorie doet zich grootste stijging voor.

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De Tweede Kamer ging afgelopen week akkoord met een verhoging van de leeftijd waarop jongeren alcohol mogen drinken van 16 naar 18 jaar.

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De recente cijfers bewijzen de noodzaak van deze verhoging, zegt staatssecretaris Van Rijn in Brandpunt. 'Alcohol onder de 18 is niet normaal, naar die nieuwe sociale norm moeten we toe', aldus Van Rijn.

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Europese drugsmarkt groeit als gevolg van crisis

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Er zijn twee redenen voor de verontrustende groei. Ten eerste gaan meer jongeren drugs verkopen en produceren om geld te verdienen. Vooral zelfgekweekte cannabis blijft populair. Ten tweede zorgt de crisis er voor dat overheden gaan besparen op het drugsbeleid, vooral op behandelingsmogelijkheden en schadebeperkende maatregelen.

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Schutters richten bloedbad aan in badplaats Mexico

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Twee mannen openden het vuur in de bar; een van hen met een machinegeweer, de ander met een handvuurwapen. Over de toedracht van de moorden is nog niets bekend. Mexico wordt al jaren geteisterd door geweldsuitbarstingen, die vaak voortkomen uit drugshandel. Meer dan 70.000 Mexicanen zijn sinds 2007 omgekomen door drugsgerelateerd geweld.

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U.N. development chief flags failings of "war on drugs"

(Reuters) - There is increasing evidence that the war on drugs has failed, with criminalization often creating more problems than it solves, said Helen Clark, the head of the United Nations Development Program.

Speaking ahead of Thursday's presentation of the UNDP's 2013 Human Development Report, Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, said Latin American leaders should be encouraged to develop different policies to tackle the drug scourge.

"I've been a health minister in my past and there's no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue," Clark told Reuters in an interview.

"Once you criminalize, you put very big stakes around. Of course, our world has proceeded on the basis that criminalization is the approach," she added.

Clark did not prescribe remedies to the Latin American governments but said they should "act on evidence," noting that she favoured treating drugs as a public health problem.

In recent years, many Latin American governments have begun to openly challenge the 40-year orthodoxy of the U.S.-led "war on drugs" that seeks to stamp out the cultivation and distribution of drugs like marijuana and cocaine.

Clark declined to comment on the responsibilities the United States should shoulder in any new drug policy and advised Latin American governments against adopting an "us-and-them" stance when dealing with the United States and consumer countries.

UNDP spokeswoman Christina LoNigro later said in a statement that Clark had not criticized the U.S. policy on the so-called war on drugs.

"She was speaking about the negative effects the drug trade has had on development in some Latin American countries in the context of the Human Development Report," she added.

BLOODSHED

Frustrated by ceaseless bloodshed and a perception that the United States has not done enough to curb its own drug consumption, many leaders in the region are now speaking openly about the possibility of legalizing drugs.

In Mexico, more than 70,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since the start of 2007.

Supported by the United States, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who left office in December, launched a military offensive on drug gangs soon after taking office in late 2006. Rather than quelling the violence, killings rose and Calderon gradually moved away from his hardline stance.

At the U.N. General Assembly in September, Calderon and the leaders of Colombia and Guatemala - traditionally three of the most reliable U.S. partners on drug control - called on world governments to explore new alternatives to the problem.

In Latin America and other regions, calls are growing for new thinking on how to combat the trade in illicit drugs and the resulting bloodshed, Clark noted.

They have said "that the approach being followed has failed so we need a fresh set of eyes on this as well. And I think the debate going on at the regional level is a very, very useful one," Clark said, referring to Latin America.

The latest UNDP report argues that growing prosperity in the traditionally poor global south is driving gains in human development there. As a result, it said, "stronger voices from the south are demanding more representative frameworks of international governance."

Among those demands are growing calls to redraw the battle lines of the "war on drugs."

"To deal with drugs as a one-dimensional, law-and-order issue is to miss the point," Clark said. She stopped short of calling for outright legalization, but said the focus should be on keeping illegal profits out of criminal hands.

"We have waves of violent crime sustained by drug trade, so we have to take the money out of drugs," she said.

One of the arguments for legalizing drugs is that it would take away a key source of revenue for traffickers.

"The countries in the region that have been ravaged by the armed violence associated with drug cartels are starting to think laterally about a broad range of approaches and they should be encouraged to do that," said Clark.

"They should act on evidence," she added.

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Steve Katz Arrested: New York State Assemblyman Charged With Marijuana Possession

A New York State assemblyman who has opposed medical marijuana legislation was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana after he was pulled over for speeding this week.

In a statement released Friday, authorities reported that state police discovered Steve Katz had a "small bag" of marijuana in his possession during a traffic stop on the New York State Thruway around 10 a.m. Thursday.

A New York State Trooper noticed the smell of marijuana after stopping the 59-year-old assemblyman for driving 80 miles per hour in 65 mph zone. Katz was taken into custody and charged with possession before being released.

The arrest is particularly curious since Katz, who represents parts of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess counties, voted against the legalization of medical marijuana in June. As the New York Times notes, the Republican assemblyman also serves on New York's Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee.

Katz addressed the "unfortunate incident" during a press conference Friday.

"This should not overshadow the work I have done over the years for the public and my constituency,” Katz told reporters. "I am confident that once the facts are presented that this will quickly be put to rest."

The assemblyman was first elected to represent New York's District 94 in 2010, and was reelected in 2012 for another two-year term. He is expected to appear in court for the possession charge on Mar. 28.

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As UN Orders Expanded Global Drug War, Critics Fight Back

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Among the most prominent and vocal opponents of the UN’s ongoing narcotics machinations is Socialist Bolivian President Evo Morales (shown), who slammed the global prohibition regime as a failure. Even former Soviet Communist diplomat-turned planetary drug czar Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (ODC), admitted as much when he said "the overall prevalence of drug use is not decreasing.” Morales, however, went much further.

Speaking to the 56th session of the UN CND on Monday, the fiery South American leader said the international war has caused soaring violence and is being used as an "instrument of geopolitical domination." In typical fashion, Morales also took swipes at the U.S. government, which under Obama has expanded its ruthless, unconstitutional campaign of terror throughout Latin America under the guise of fighting the UN-mandated drug war. Morales slammed what he termed the “political use" of the drug war by "certain powers.”

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While Morales was busy denouncing the UN-mandated drug war, a prominent U.S.-based organization known as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) was in Vienna making its case for total legalization of all drugs. The increasingly influential coalition of lawmen — judges, prosecutors, police officers, and others; people who have served on the front lines of the “war” and know what it really is — sent a four-member delegation to the UN summit.

LEAP Executive Director Neill Franklin, a 34-year law enforcement veteran of the Maryland State Police and Baltimore Police Department, says that ending drug prohibition would reduce violence, eviscerate the cartels, protect taxpayers, and more. He told The New American that UN mandates on the drug war were having a negative effect, and that it was time to call it quits when it comes to having the international organization ordering national governments to wage endless war on unapproved substances.

“We live in a global society in which each country is impacted by the actions of every other. This is particularly true in the war on drugs where the mandates of the UN system of drug prohibition greatly restrict the types of reforms countries can enact,” Franklin explained in an e-mail. “We're talking about a quickly adaptable multinational system of trade powered by forces that are more powerful than some countries — and a substantial part of the national economy of others.”

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Critics of the failed UN-mandated prohibition approach often point to Portugal, which decriminalized all drugs — everything from marijuana to cocaine and heroin — about a decade ago. Studies show that since then, drug abuse has been cut in half already. Drug-related crime has also plummeted. Indeed, around the world, and especially in Latin America and parts of Europe, the Portuguese model is being seen as increasingly promising — especially when compared to the unconstitutional U.S. drug war mandated by the UN in direct conflict with the American Constitution.

Other elements that came under fierce criticism at the Vienna summit were outlandish UN claims that U.S. states were not free to set their own policies on marijuana. Citing invalid international treaties purporting to mandate a planetary war on drugs, the global body’s top drug warriors blasted voters in states like Colorado and Washington for legalizing the controversial plant for recreational use.

Even the 20 or so states that have nullified unconstitutional federal statutes by approving cannabis for medicinal use were attacked by the UN, which claimed it “warned” the Obama administration to crack down on the phenomenon. However, as Thomas Jefferson and the U.S. Supreme Court, among others, have explained, the federal government cannot expand its powers simply by ratifying treaties, and the Constitution does not provide any authority to regulate substances — that is why alcohol prohibition required an amendment.

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Marseille in ban blind geweld waarbij verkoolde lijken op straat worden gedumpt


Samen met het Slovaakse Kosice is Marseille dit jaar de culturele hoofdstad van Europa. Juist nu kampt de tweede stad van Frankrijk met een plaag van zwaar straatgeweld, dat doet denken aan de meedogenloze Mexicaanse drugsoorlog. Vorig jaar waren er minstens 24 moorden door het gangstergeweld. De voorbije twee weken vielen er weer vijf doden. De moorden dragen vaak dezelfde schrikwekkende stempel: het slachtoffer wordt op straat met kogels doorboord en vervolgens in brand gestoken. Verkoolde lichamen zijn immers lastiger om te identificeren.


Het was gangsterbaas Faris Berrahma die de methode voor het eerst introduceerde in het straatgeweld in Frankrijk. Het leverde hem de bijnaam 'Le Rôtisseur' op ('rôtir' betekent 'braden'). Op 24 april 2006 werd Berrhama zelf vermoord door rivaliserende bendes. In Bar des Marroniers was hij naar de voetbalmatch Lyon-AC Milan aan het kijken toen liefst tien gemaskerde schutters het vuur openden. Berrahma werd dodelijk getroffen door negen kogels. Ook twee van zijn kompanen kwamen om bij de bloedige aanslag.

Neergeschoten voor gevangenis
Hierdoor laaide de gangsteroorlog (die rond drugs, wapentrafiek en invloed draait) alleen maar op. Die wordt nu meer en meer op straat uitgevochten. Vorige week werd een gangster, die nog maar net was vrijgelaten uit de Baumettes-gevangenis, vlak voor de uitgang van de gevangenis neergeschoten. Enkele dagen werden twee jongeren van 21 jaar afgeslacht op de openbare weg. Een andere jongere werd gewond bij de nietsontziende schietpartij in de Cité des Bleuets. Vrijdag werd dan weer een verkoold lijk aangetroffen, wat een drugsrazzia van de politie ontketende. De identificatie van het verkoolde slachtoffer is bijna onmogelijk en daarom deed de politie een oproep om vermiste personen te komen aangeven.

Kalasjnikovs
De lokale autoriteiten stonden lang machteloos tegen het buitensporige geweld. Aanvalswapens als Kalasjnikovs zijn erg geliefd bij de straatbendes. De boeven kunnen ze al voor enkele honderden euro's aanschaffen in het illegale wapencircuit. De laatste tijd boekte de politie dankzij een gerichter antwoord wel enkele successen.

Reactie Hollande
De regering van de erg onpopulaire president François Hollande (volgens de laatste peiling is liefst 70 procent van de Fransen ontevreden over zijn beleid) blijft niet bij de pakken zitten. Vorig jaar besliste Parijs al om extra agenten te sturen naar de gewelddadige havenstad, maar nu Marseille ook nog eens cultruele hoofdstad van Europa wordt en het imago onbesmeurd zou moeten blijven, voert minister van Binnenlandse Zaken Manuel Valls de druk nog op. Er werden nog eens 240 agenten ter versterking naar Marseille gestuurd en de eerste resultaten zijn volgens Valls al zichtbaar gezien de grote hoeveelheden drugs die in beslag werden genomen. Ook het systeem met verklikkers werpt meer en meer vruchten af. Zo hopen de agenten stilaan het op de criminelen verloren terrein weer terug te winnen.

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Russia Looks to Increase Influence in Latin America Drug War

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Russia is to step up multilateral cooperation in counternarcotics operations in Latin America, in what may also be a play to increase its geopolitical influence in the region.

The director of Russia's Federal Narcotics Service, Viktor Ivanov, announced plans to work with several Latin American countries in carrying out joint counternarcotics operations, training law enforcement agencies, improving user rehabilitation facilities, and helping develop common anti-drug policies.

Much of that investment will be in Nicaragua, where Russia is setting up an anti-drug training center, which will see Russian law enforcement experts train agents from seven countries in areas such as tactics and use of technology.

Ivanov also announced plans to increase security cooperation with Peru, and, in the coming year, begin training, information exchange, and joint monitoring of trafficking operations.

Ivanov added that Moscow police had identified trafficking routes into Russia in which cocaine is concealed in plantain shipments leaving Ecuador or in Colombian flowers shipped to Russia from via the Netherlands. He also highlighted West Africa as an increasingly popular transit point.


InSight Crime Analysis

Russia plays a central part in the global drug trade, but primarily as the world's largest consumer of heroin, which is generally trafficked in from Asian countries such as Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, according to European police force Europol, it also has a growing consumer market for cocaine. Europol also identified the former Soviet countries around Russia as possibly the next emerging entry point for cocaine into Europe.

However, the reasons for Russia's attempts to increase its influence in Latin America may also have a geopolitical angle. In an October 2012 tour of the region, Ivanov suggested his intention was to develop an alternative multilateral consensus around tackling drug trafficking that bypasses US dominance both in Latin America and in Asia.

In the past, Ivanov has criticized the US government's "heavy-handed methods of militarizing the region," in tackling drug trafficking. However, his suggested drug control strategies do not stray far from conventional thinking and the policies emanating from Washington and seem more focused on rivaling US influence than changing tack in the drug war.

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Silk Road: the online drug marketplace that officials seem powerless to stop

Authorities around the world know about the website, but closing it is another matter – partly because it uses Bitcoins

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Mark Johnson* rifles through his mail as he gets home from work. Among the usual bills is a small padded envelope. Though it doesn't have his name on, it's the package he's most interested in: inside lie two grams of, he hopes, relatively pure MDMA.

Johnson has no idea who has sent him the envelope: he has never met his dealer, and never will. The delivery was facilitated through a website called Silk Road, an underground eBay-like site which has become the core marketplace for buying and selling drugs online – and despite law enforcement authorities across the world being fully aware of its operation they have, so far, been powerless to stop it.

The site has been shrouded in secrecy even since it was founded in February 2011, but research due to be formally published later this year tracked its growth during six months of last year. Over those months, sales on the site doubled, hitting $1.7m a month.

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Op maandag 25 maart 2013 15:28 schreef BlueRoom het volgende:

[..]

laatste 2 kunnen natuurlijk zelf ook toetreden tot de markt, slecht argument dus

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Politie knoeit met afgeluisterde gesprekken in drugszaak

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Uit het gepubliceerde vonnis blijkt dat verbalisanten verslag maakten van een gesprek waarbij de telefoon niet eens werd beantwoord. “NN man zegt dat ie een half boekje heeft gekregen”, staat er als weergave van een gesprek waarbij de telefoon niet werd opgenomen. In gesprekken waaruit blijkt dat de verdachte koper is van drugs wordt hij opgevoerd als dealer. En als een vrouw de telefoon opneemt, wordt dit in het verbaal toegeschreven aan de mannelijke verdachte.

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De officier van justitie Sylvia Kubicz omschreef de valse processen-verbaal op de zitting als een vergissing en als een vormverzuim van geringe betekenis. De rechters zeggen de officier van justitie absoluut niet te volgen in haar standpunt. Volgens de rechtbank zijn de onjuistheden in de verbalen klaarblijkelijk doelbewust opgesteld.

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Follow the Money: How Former Anti-Drug Officials Ridiculously Still Say Pot Is Dangerous in Order to Make a Lot of Cash

Former DEA agents and cops are lobbying for tougher drug laws that make them rich.

When eight former DEA chiefs signed a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder earlier this month, demanding that the feds crack down on Washington and Colorado, the states which voted last November to legalize marijuana, there was more than just drug-war ideology at stake. There was money.

Two of the elder drug warriors, Peter Bensinger (DEA chief, 1976–1981) and Robert DuPont (White House drug chief, 1973–1977), run a corporate drug-testing business. Their employee-assistance company, Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, the sixth largest in the nation, holds the pee stick for some 10 million employees around the US. Their clients have included the biggest players in industry and government: Kraft Foods, American Airlines, Johnson & Johnson, the Federal Aviation Administration and even the Justice Department itself.

“These are not just old drug war architects pushing a drug war model they’ve pushed for 40 years,” says Brian Vicente, a Denver lawyer and co-author of Colorado’s Proposition 64, which legalized marijuana for recreational use. “These guys are asking Eric Holder to pursue prohibition policies that line their own pockets.”

Bensinger and DuPont both deny money is their motive. “It’s true we might benefit from keeping marijuana illegal,” says DuPont. But he argues it's equally true that marijuana legalization could benefit his bottom line, putting forth the old drug-war line that legalization would create more users. “The more success legalization has, the better it is for our business because they are creating a problem for employers,” he says. “That would be smart for us.” DuPont also points out that only 15% of their business is made up of training employers to detect the warning signs of drug and alcohol abuse and supplying third-party testing. But both men are involved in industry-controlled lobbying groups like the Drug & Alcohol Industry Testing Association, which backed the Drug Testing Integrity Act of 2008, outlawing products that help people beat drug tests and keeping their business healthy.

By inserting themselves into the legal-pot debate, Bensinger, DuPont and other drug warriors benefit by promoting their own legacies and bolstering their own business, lobbying and consulting interests—even in the face of an increasingly skeptical public. A 2011 Gallup survey showed that half of Americans favor legalizing weed. “This letter that they signed is their attempt to once again become relevant within the public policy debate that has largely turned its back on such archaic viewpoints,” says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the pro-marijuana nonprofit, National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

The time-honored revolving door between government and business swings fast and often. It can be straightforward, like the appointment of banking behemoth Goldman Sachs' alumni as economic policymakers by recent presidential administrations. But when it comes to the drug war, the family tree is more like a thicket of interests among law enforcement, federal and state prisons, pharmaceutical giants, drug testers and drug treatment programs—all with an economic stake in keeping pot illegal.

Bensinger and DuPont are longtime allies of the marijuana prohibition group that sent the letter to Holder, Save Our Society from Drugs (SOS), which was founded by Mel Sembler, a Florida shopping-mall magnate, and his wife, Betty. The Semblers also founded Straight Inc.—a drug-treatment program that used sleep deprivation, beatings and psychological abuse to treat 10,000 teenage patients, in nine states, from 1976 to 1993, at $1,400 a month plus a $1,600 per patient evaluation fee, raking in millions. Straight wasshut down after investigations in state after state corroborated the hundreds of complaints. But the Semblers, longtime major Republican Party fundraisers, retain their influence as behind-the-scenes bankrollers of the anti-drug faction.

The department of the White House drug czar, otherwise known as the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), is another arm of the government’s war on drugs that can be lucrative to incumbents. Andrea Barthwell, MD, former deputy drug czar during President George W. Bush’s first term and his point person against medical marijuana, has earned a living both treating drug addicts and lobbying against policies that weaken marijuana laws—and cut into her own bottom line.

As a past president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)—a group that opposes medical marijuana, and whose members’ business model could be threatened by legalized marijuana, since two-thirds of its clientele are court-ordered pot users trying to avoid jail time—Barthwell has been one of its fiercest attack dogs. In ASAM campaigns against Oregon and Illinois’ medical marijuana initiatives, she called those who favor medical marijuana “cruel” and “snake oil salesman.” She denounces this pain-relief and anti-nausea approach for patients with cancer and AIDS because, she claims, it is unregulated and unproven (the Institute of Medicine declared medical marijuana useful in 2003, and since then many studies, and many more users, attest to its benefits.)

Yet Barthwell was happy to jump from the ONDCP to the payroll of GW Pharmaceutical in 2005, lobbying for the Canadian company’s Sativex—a liquefied marijuana spray, extracted from whole plant cannabis, for the same pain benefits. Even as the American Medical Association and federal lawmakers maintain that pot has no medicinal value, Big Pharma is applying for dozens of cannabis-based new medicines in order to take hold of of the $1.8 billion medical marijuana industry, as NORML’s Paul Armentano pointed out five years ago in the Huffington Post.

Barthwell, like Bensinger and DuPoint, also has a financial stake in the prohibition treatment culture. She is founder and CEO of EMGlobal LLC, parent company of the Chicago-based Two Dreams Outer Banks drug treatment center, and is also a director of Catasys Inc., which provides substance abuse programs and behavioral health management services to companies, health plans and unions—a role for which she received $77,994 in compensation in 2011.

When it comes to the drug war, money rolls into whichever corporate pockets are willing to play ball, whether it’s big-time lobbyists or broadcast TV networks. Barry McCaffrey—President Clinton’s second-term drug czar and a former Army general, who also signed the recent letter to Holder—was in charge of the purse strings at ONDCP. He oversaw a money-soaked, ham-handed propaganda campaign: In 1999, his office hired PR giant Fleishman-Hillard (at $10 million a year), which encouraged TV networks to slip anti-drug messages into sitcoms and dramas in exchange for ad time worth millions. The secret effort allowed networks to avoid running PSAs, freeing up airtime for paid ads. Networks also gave the ONCDP advance copies of scripts to review. It’s estimated that between 1998 and 2000, the networks received up to $25 million in benefits.

At the same time, McCaffrey was sharpening his stick for the battle against medical marijuana, flatly denying that patients in pain could receive relief from pot. After he left the drug czar’s job, he went on the payroll of military contractors, promoting their interests in the Iraq war as a frequent talking head on national network TV, never disclosing his financial ties.

Lobbying your former employer—whether it’s the government itself or taxpayers who foot the bill—is the No. 1 way one-time public servants can serve themselves. The same is true of current state-paid employees, like cops and other law enforcement personnel whose job it is to crack down on illegal weed smoking. As Armentano notes, federal grants that target illegal drug use are a major source of funding for local police coffers, paying for new hires, equipment and coveted overtime pay.

John Lovell, a lobbyist for police associations in Sacramento, California, not only obtains those grants, he is a front-line fighter on behalf of the cops to keep pot illegal. When California weighed Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana in 2010, Lovell helped manage the opposition campaign. During the fight, according to a reviewof lobbying contracts by Republic Report, Lovell’s company received $386,350 from police groups, including the California Police Chiefs Association. The same report noted that Lovell helped local police departments apply for drug war money from President Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In 2009 and 2010, state police groups sought some $75 million from the feds to conduct a Campaign Against Marijuana Planting. Lovell represented one such group.

Indeed, law enforcement agencies around the country could lose as much as $11 billion in taxpayer money if marijuana prohibition is repealed, according to Harvard economics professor Jeff Myron. Weed arrests account for half of all drugs arrests in the US. The tangled money trail can seem at times like something from a smoke-filled Cheech and Chong plot.

In 2009, the California Police Chiefs Association posted on their website a position paperagainst pot for pain, courtesy of a group called Friends of the DEA. “Requiring the DEA unequivocally to take a ‘hands-off’ approach, no matter how egregious the dispensary’s practices, will not serve the best interests of patients. Uncontrolled proliferation of dispensaries will seriously undercut our FDA drug approval system and deprive patients of important regulatory protections,” the group argued. What the paper didn’t note was that Friends was a lobbying group headed by Michael Barnes, a former Bush appointee to the drug czar’s office, as first pointed out by CounterPunch that year. The nine-page, heavily footnoted position paper was written by none other than Andrea Barthwell, MD, the promoter of Sativex, which is likely to receive FDA approval soon.

Among the biggest financial winners from the war on pot are private prisons and the army of DEA agents, local deputies and SWAT teams who help fill them up. Since 1980, federal prisons have ballooned some 790% because of the war on drugs, which began in earnest the previous decade. Private prison companies have seen their business soar. Corrections Corporation of America (CAA), the largest operator in the US, with 60 facilities and a 90,000-bed capacity, had $1.7 billion in tax-payer-funded revenue last year. The GEO Group, a worldwide player with 53,000 beds, pulled in $1.6 billion in government-funneled revenue.

In its 2010 annual report, CAA is fairly transparent about its stake in the anti-drug battle: “Any changes [in laws] with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.” Last year, both companies stuffed millions of dollars into the pockets of Washington lobbyists to pressure lawmakers to maintain the status quo, as revealed in an investigation by Laura Carlsen in March's Counter Punch magazine.

“My most powerful adversity is the police-prison industry,” says former cop–turned–drug policy specialist Howard Woolridge, who lobbies lawmakers for marijuana reform for Citizens Opposing Prohibition. “They can say, ‘If you don’t vote for more prohibition, we will tell people you are soft on drugs on and soft on crime.’ The Fraternal Order of Police is looking out for their 326,000 members’ paychecks. If they say you’re soft on crime, they can move upward of 2% of the electorate. In a close election, that’s victory and defeat.”

Vincente doesn’t doubt that the Bensingers, Bathwells and McCaffreys are fervent believers in their anti-pot mission, even as they earn their living on its front lines or flanks. The same people who wrote to Holder battled Vincente's initiative as well. “It’s what they do—they get together and sign letters,” he says. For the older fighters, says Paul Armentano of NORML, “Their motivation is the fact their failed polices have been proved wrong. All they have is the ability to try to intimidate a couple of high-ranking officials. Most of America has moved on.”

Attorney General Eric Holder may recognize this. He has told members of the Senate that the Obama administration is still formulating its policy toward the states that legalized pot. “We are considering what the federal response to those new statutes will be,” Holder said at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week. “We will have the ability to announce what our policy will be relatively soon.” So far he has not answered the drug warriors' letter.

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Spaanse agenten runnen drugsbende

Spaanse opsporingsautoriteiten hebben op het Canarische eiland Fuerteventura een drugsbende opgerold die werd gerund door politieagenten. Negen dienders van de Guardia Civil zijn opgepakt, samen met elf burgers. Dat werd woensdag bekendgemaakt.

De autoriteiten verdenken de bende van grootschalige smokkel en handel in hasj, afkomstig uit Marokko. De betrokken agenten waren gestationeerd in de toeristische centrum van Corralejo in het noorden van Fuerteventura. Behalve van drugsmokkel worden ze ook verdacht van onder meer marteling, afpersing en belastingfraude.

De bende kon worden opgerold, nadat twee agenten waren betrapt op het strand, terwijl zij een boot met 1000 kilo drugs aan het uitladen waren.

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Homegrown crystal meth industry sparks west Africa crime wave

Clandestine methamphetamine laboratories discovered in Nigeria signal disturbing new chapter in regional drug trade

One May evening last year, as a tropical downpour lashed Lagos, Nigerian drug enforcement agents received the tipoff that would lead to a game-changing bust. Hours earlier, Baez Benitez Milan, a car dealer from Paraguay, had entered the country, telling airport officials that this, one of Africa's most notoriously gridlocked, chaotic cities, was ideal for plying his motor trade.

Instead, he drove to an unfinished, weed-choked building on the deserted outskirts of town, and holed up there for weeks. When agents eventually stormed the building, they found an amphetamine-producing factory capable of churning out 25kg of white crystal meth powder, or "ice", every few hours. Benitez Milan was, in fact, a Colombian drug runner named Gonzalo Osorio, whose skills in the rapid setup of clandestine laboratories commanded a $38,000 (£25,000) weekly fee. The factory, one of an intended three, was among the earliest to be discovered in west Africa, and signalled a disturbing new chapter in the regional drug trade.

For the past decade, west Africa's creek-lined coast has been a pipeline for trafficking South American cocaine to Europe and Asia. About $1.25bn of illicit trade has passed through annually, responsible in part for destabilising huge swathes of the region, from Mali's recent turmoil to the narco-state of Guinea-Bissau. But now homegrown criminal syndicates that previously earned cuts by providing mules for Latin American cartels are cooking up their own slice of the global drug pie. Their narcotic of choice is methamphetamine, a highly profitable powder concocted using readily available and legal ingredients.

"This is the next niche for criminal groups in west Africa because you can easily cook it at home, and you can easily adjust it for supply and demand. It is slowly but surely spreading in the region," said Pierre Lapaque, head of the United Nations office on drugs and crime in west Africa, whose latest report highlights the rising trade.

Four large-scale crystal meth labs have been discovered in Nigeria. Shipments of precursor chemicals have been seized in neighbouring Benin and Togo and in Guinea officials discovered huge vats used to cook MDMA, a similar synthetic drug.

Bola, a lanky drug baron with twitching hands who is based in downtown Lagos, said only local wrestlers bought synthetic drugs when he started peddling eight years ago. "It was difficult to sell. Now the guys selling [meth] to big boys and foreigners in the VIP dens can no longer come to areas like this because they will be robbed. Everybody knows they make big money," he said.

Behind Bola's stifling, corrugated iron shop selling dusty cartons of soft drinks is a warren of cramped brick-walled rooms barely high enough to stand up in. Ghoulish in the occasional shard of sunlight piercing through the haze, dealers and glassy-eyed users slump on wooden benches, hunch over chessboards or incessantly chop and wrap mounds of crystalline powder.

Most international orders come from South Africa and more recently Asia "because many people are afraid to go. The punishment there if they should catch you … " Bola mimed a knife across his throat, indicating the death penalty.

A kilo of meth exported to south-east Asia, where some countries have reported a 250% increase in traffickers from west Africa arrested over five years, brings in $45,000. In Bola's den, poorer users pay $1.20 for a single hit.

Crystal meth was traditionally brewed by US biker gangs but laws were tightened in 2005, curbing production. Thousands of miles away, there was unintended fallout. "Cocaine trafficking was falling because we were making record seizures. Suddenly we started making more and more interceptions of methamphetamine leaving the country, but nothing at all was coming in. We realised criminals had started making it within our borders," said Mitchell Ofojeyu, an official at the heavily guarded headquarters of Nigeria's drug enforcement agency.

Some worry the effects of this new trade will spill over into local communities, raising the spectre of rising crime and health problems.

"The warning signals are there that this really is a problem that could run amok in years ahead if comparable resources aren't devoted to the human consumption side," said Alan Doss, a senior adviser at the Geneva-based Kofi Annan Foundation.

For now, widespread unfamiliarity among the local population has sometimes got in the way of curbing the trade. When Nigerian officials discovered their first meth factory, they wanted to storm the site immediately.

"We didn't realise the chemicals were so poisonous. It was our international partners who told us: 'Look, you basically have to kit yourself up as if you're going to the moon'," said Ofojeyu.

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Op zondag 31 maart 2013 21:00 schreef 16meter het volgende:

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Dat zou het hele probleem oplossen.

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Mexican drug cartels move deeper into US to tighten grip on narcotics market

Cartel threat looms so large that a Mexican kingpin is Chicago's public enemy No 1 – despite never setting foot in the city

Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the US border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States – an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.

If left unchecked, authorities say, the cartels' move into the American interior could render the syndicates harder than ever to dislodge and pave the way for them to expand into other criminal enterprises such as prostitution, kidnapping-and-extortion rackets and money laundering.

Cartel activity in the US is certainly not new. Starting in the 1990s, the ruthless syndicates became the nation's No 1 supplier of illegal drugs, using unaffiliated middlemen to smuggle cocaine, marijuana and heroin beyond the border or even to grow pot here.

But a wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the US cartel operatives are suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the mid-west, south and northeast.

"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.

The cartel threat looms so large that one of Mexico's most notorious drug kingpins – a man who has never set foot in Chicago – was recently named the city's public enemy No 1, the same notorious label once assigned to Al Capone.

The Chicago crime commission, a non-government agency that tracks crime trends in the region, said it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because Guzman leads the deadly Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in Chicago and in many cities across the US

Years ago, Mexico faced the same problem – of then-nascent cartels expanding their power – "and didn't nip the problem in the bud," said Jack Killorin, head of an anti-trafficking program in Atlanta for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "And see where they are now."

Riley sounds a similar alarm: "People think, 'The border's 1,700 miles away. This isn't our problem.' Well, it is. These days, we operate as if Chicago is on the border."

Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

Mexican drug cartels "are taking over our neighborhoods", Pennsylvania attorney general Kathleen Kane warned a legislative committee in February. State police commissioner Frank Noonan disputed her claim, saying cartels are primarily drug suppliers, not the ones trafficking drugs on the ground.

For years, cartels were more inclined to make deals in Mexico with American traffickers, who would then handle transportation to and distribution within major cities, said Art Bilek, a former organized crime investigator who is now executive vice president of the crime commission.

As their organizations grew more sophisticated, the cartels began scheming to keep more profits for themselves. So leaders sought to cut out middlemen and assume more direct control, pushing aside American traffickers, he said.

Beginning two or three years ago, authorities noticed that cartels were putting "deputies on the ground here," Bilek said. "Chicago became such a massive market … it was critical that they had firm control."

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Grote partij drugsafval in bos bij Oisterwijk aangetroffen

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In een bos bij Oisterwijk in Noord-Brabant zijn in de nacht van dinsdag op woensdag 41 vaten met drugsafval gevonden. Een vat lekte. Dat meldde de politie woensdag. Wie de vaten heeft gedumpt, is nog niet bekend.

In Noord-Brabant zijn de afgelopen maanden vaker vaten met afval van synthetische drugs gevonden. Zo was er half maart een vondst bij Waspik en eind januari bij Alphen, ten zuidwesten van Tilburg.