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

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Op woensdag 5 december 2012 17:02 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Nederland staat de laatste tijd bol van de anti-drugs propaganda:

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Ruim dertig arrestaties en forse drugsvondst in Den Haag

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Een langlopend drugsonderzoek in de regio Den Haag heeft dit jaar 31 arrestaties van verdachten, ruim vijfduizend xtc-pillen en ruim 150 kilo cocaïne opgeleverd. Het onderzoek begon vorig jaar al en inmiddels zijn vier arrestanten veroordeeld, meldt de politie vanochtend.

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Mexico's top cop resigns ahead of shake-up

Plagued by rumours of corruption, Luis Cardenas Palomino has posted an open letter of resignation on Facebook.

Luis Cardenas Palomino, one of the most senior Mexican federal police officials, has rejected charges of corruption as he announced that he will resign on December 31.

"After 23 years of public service, I have made the decision to move into the private sector," Cardenas, the top cop in charge of regional security, wrote in an open letter posted on Facebook on Saturday.

Cardenas Palomino faces no charges of wrongdoing, but under his watch there was a shoot-out in June between police in the Mexico City airport that killed three officers, and an attack by federal police in August on a US diplomatic vehicle that wounded two US agents.

"As a public official, I have been exposed to criticism, much of it empty and unfounded," including charges of corruption, he said.

"I leave this institution with my head held high, without having committed any act of which I must repent," Cardenas Palomino wrote.

The federal police is being reorganised as part of a major security overhaul by Mexico's new president, Enrique Pena Nieto.

Mexico's congress passed a law last week that closed the ministry of Public Security, a pillar in the fight against drugs under former president Felipe Calderon.

The federal police will now be under the control of the ministry of interior.

Pena Nieto, who took office December 1, runs Latin America's second biggest economy that is also engaged in a relentless drug war that has killed more than 60,000 people in the last six years.

In June federal police smuggling drugs from Peru killed three agents who attempted to arrest them at the Mexico City international airport. Cardenas Palomino eventually replaced all 348 officers responsible for airport security.

In August, federal police opened fire on on what turned out to be a car with diplomatic plates. The attorney general's office has charged 14 federal police officers with attempted murder, while five police commanders have been
accused of lying in the case.

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Colombia's "Widow of the Mafia" Assassinated

Lorena Henao Montoya, known as the "Widow of the Mafia," was murdered after assassins on a motorcycle strafed her car with bullets in the province of Armenia, just the latest chapter in a widening drug war.

Henao Montoya, age 43, was the widow of Ivan Urdinola, and the sister of Orlando Henao Montoya, alias "the Overall Man." Both men were heads of the now-defunct Norte Del Valle Cartel (NDVC), which according to US authorities smuggled more than 500 tons of cocaine from Colombia. Urdinola died in prison in February 2002 under suspicious circumstances, perhaps poisoned. His wife Lorena had herself been imprisoned on drug-related charges, after being arrested in Panama in 2004. She was been released in May 2011 after serving a sentence for conspiracy, fraud and bribery. Her daughter with Urdinola, Emma, aged just 23, is in prison for murder.

InSight Crime Analysis

There are various theories as to the motives behind the killing of Lorena Henao. One is that relatives of her ex-husband wanted properties that she controlled. Another theory is that some of her relatives in the powerful Henao criminal clan, who make up part of the Machos gang which now works with the Urabeños, saw her as an obstacle to business.

National Police Chief General Jose Roberto Leon Riaño said the police were working on the theory that she as killed as part of pending debts and problems with the Rastrojos.

Her murder is almost certainly linked to the wider drug war along the Pacific coast after the surrender to US authorities of Javier Calle Serna, alias "Comba." Comba has delivered to US authorities much of the internal workings of the Rastrojos, the powerful drug syndicate that he led. This has resulted in widespread violence in Rastrojos strongholds with rival traffickers settling accounts and seeking to take over territory, as the criminal gang implodes.

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Burgemeester Van der Laan: 'Dit was wild west'

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De dodelijke schietpartij van zaterdagavond in de Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam verdient de kwalificatie 'wild west'. Dat zei burgemeester Eberhard van der Laan van Amsterdam zondag in het tv-programma Buitenhof. Ook zijn twee motoragenten 'van heel dichtbij' beschoten, maar zijn ze er 'gelukkig goed van af gekomen'.

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Mexico Considers Legalizing Marijuana

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The Mexican Congress was presented a bill in November that would legalize marijuana use, production, and sale from within the country. Government leaders told Reuters that they are one of multiple Latin American countries unhappy about the U.S. policy of prohibition:

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Italian council chief blocks filming of anti-mafia TV series in Naples suburb

Angelo Pisani refuses to allow cameras into Scampia for follow-up to Gomorrah film, criticising 'exaggeration' of problems

The northern Neapolitan suburb of Scampia is notorious for its drug wars, clan battles and ever-growing casualty list. But the long-suffering area was at the centre of a rather different kind of conflict at the weekend after a war of words erupted between its local politicians and Italy's most prominent anti-mafia campaigner over the filming of a follow-up television series to the 2008 hit film Gomorrah.

In what he said was an attempt to protect the area and its inhabitants from disproportionately bad publicity, Scampia's local council chief, Angelo Pisani, will not allow cameras into the neighbourhood for the making of the upcoming drama, which is to be called Gomorrah after Roberto Saviano's chilling exposé of the Neapolitan underworld, which in turn spawned Matteo Garrone's film.

"It is time to say enough of the exploitative use of Naples and this area in particular," Pisani told the Corriere del Mezzogiorno. "The constant exaggeration – only of the negative things, which exist, it cannot be denied – solves nothing; on the contrary, it worsens the problems and confirms the stigma."

The mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, said that while he played no part in Pisani's decision, he supported it. "We are tired of seeing Scampia reduced … to a place of conquest for the warring Camorra, as if nothing else existed in Scampia beyond the drug-pushing and the feuding clans," he said, likening the Gomorrah effect on the local area to a "negative media brand" that he claimed had left locals "exasperated".

To Saviano, however, the Naples-born writer and scourge of the Camorra, this smacked of little more than "pure, sly censorship" aimed at deflecting attention from the problems of Scampia and politicians' inability to solve them.

"How can you want to block the recounting of the contradictions of a place which, actually, should be at the forefront of national interest every day?" he wrote in a savage column for La Repubblica. Saviano, who has played a supervisory role in the 12-part series, accused local politicians of "shifting attention from the problem to the recounting of the problem". He added: "When nothing changes because of incompetent management, it is better [for politicians] that the organs of the press, writers' pens and directors' TV cameras remain silent, switched off, idle and still."

Filming for the television series, the work of production companies Fandango and Cattleya for Sky Italia, is set to begin within weeks. Saviano's book, published in 2006, and Garrone's subsequent film, were credited with exposing the work of the powerful Neapolitan mafia to the world.

But Scampia, scene of continuing bloody turf wars between rival Camorra factions over multimillion-pound drug markets, remains deeply troubled. Last week, one of the area's most notorious fugitives, Antonio Mennetta, 28, was arrested in a villa near Salerno. On the run from murder and criminal conspiracy charges since September, he was described by police as the head of the powerful Girati clan of Scampia.

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Op zaterdag 5 januari 2013 17:15 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

Inside Story Americas - Has Bolivia's coca-growing scheme worked?

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Bolivia Says They Have Evidence That US Is Plotting To Destabilize Nation

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“There is so much evidence to hand over to the President of the USA to say to him: Stop harassing the Bolivian government, stop politically cornering and ambushing us!” Quintana stressed. He added that investigations into drug-trafficking and human rights abuses would reveal a “permanent battle” waged by the US to impede progress in Bolivia.

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The country’s US ambassador was ejected in 2008 after being accused of plotting against the Bolivian government by President Evo Morales. The US quickly followed suit, removing its Bolivian ambassador.

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A significant bone of contention in these tensions is drug-trafficking in Bolivia. A damning report released by the American government last year ranking Bolivia, along with Venezuela and Burma, as “failing demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements.”

President Morales denied the findings, accusing the US of hypocrisy and calling the illicit drugs trade with Latin America the US’ “best business.”

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Bolivia scores coca leaf victory at UN

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Bolivia says that it has been re-admitted to the UN's anti-narcotics convention after persuading member states to recognise the right of its indigenous people to chew raw coca leaf, which is used in the making of cocaine.

Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, had faced opposition from Washington in his campaign against the classification of coca as an illicit drug.

"The coca leaf has accompanied indigenous peoples for 6,000 years," said Dionisio Nunez, Bolivia's deputy minister of coca and integrated development, on Friday. "Coca leaf was never used to hurt people. It was used as medicine."

The leaf was declared an illegal narcotic in the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, along with cocaine, heroin, opium and morphine and a host of chemical drugs.

Bolivia withdrew from the convention a year ago and said it would not rejoin unless coca chewing was decriminalised.

The country's condition for rejoining the convention met resistance from 15 countries, including the United States and the rest of the G8 group of industrial nations, according to UN spokeswoman Arancha Hinojal.

But the objections received by the United Nations ahead of Thursday's midnight deadline fell far short. In order to block Bolivia's return to the convention a full third of its signatories - or 63 - needed to object.

Among nations objecting were Germany, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, Britain, Japan, The Netherlands and Portugal. Notably, neither Peru nor Colombia, the world's two other cocaine-producing nations, filed objections. Nor did any other South American nation.

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Decriminalise drugs, inquiry by cross-party peers says

The possession and use of all illegal drugs should be decriminalised, a cross-party group of peers has said.

The least harmful should be regulated and sold in licensed shops, with labels detailing risks, the group concluded.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform (APPG) said criminal sanctions did not combat drug addiction, and only marginalised users.

A recent call by MPs for a royal commission on drug decriminalisation was rejected by the prime minister.

Mr Cameron's official spokesman said: "The prime minister's very strong, clear view is that the approach we currently have is the right one and is working."

The APPG - comprising two Conservatives, two Labour peers, one Liberal Democrat and four crossbenchers - took evidence from 31 experts and organisations, including the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

While the supply of the most dangerous substances should remain banned, users caught with a small quantity of any drug should not be penalised, it said.

"The Misuse of Drugs Act is counter-productive in attempting to reduce drug addiction and other drug harms to young people," said group chairwoman Baroness Meacher.

The 1971 act was in desperate need of reform, the group said.

'Relatively safe'

"What we're saying is there are drugs a great deal safer than alcohol and tobacco," Baroness Meacher told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Citing "legal highs" available as substitutes for ecstasy, she said: "If those much safer drugs were provided - say, in a chemist, very carefully labelled - at least you'd know what was in it.

"At the moment 60 million ecstasy tablets are sold every year to young people, all through criminal gangs and the illegal dealers.

"What we're saying is if young people are going to buy these things, is it not better that they know exactly what is in them? They will not be contaminated because they will be provided through legal channels. And the young people will in fact be relatively safe."

In support of decriminalising the use of all drugs, the report made reference to the model in Portugal, where there has been a fall in the number of young addicts under a form of decriminalisation.

The group said: "Some young people will always want to experiment and they are at real risk if they can only buy the less harmful drugs from the same dealers who are trying to push the most harmful ones.

"The illegal dealers also have a clear incentive to adulterate their product to increase their profits."

The chief executive of the charity DrugScope, Martin Barnes, said: "Today's report adds yet further weight and support for a review of drug legislation and the Misuse of Drugs Act.

"DrugScope supports the recent call by the Home Affairs Committee for a Royal Commission - which has the potential to secure cross-party support - to look at options for reform, including decriminalisation.

"While there is positive evidence of an overall decline in drug use, the drug market and related harms is changing, not least the emergence of so-called 'legal highs'. The emphasis should be on public health, prevention and education but it is also right to question whether current legal frameworks and approaches to enforcement are effective in addressing drug use and harms."

The drugs charity Release welcomed the report by the APPG and said: "The evidence shows that decriminalisation will reduce the harm related to drug use.

"The research we have published as part of our campaign calling for decriminalisation shows that drug use hasn't significantly increased in any of the countries that have already taken this measure."

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Drug Abuse Resistance Education

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The D.A.R.E. program is consistent with the "zero-tolerance orthodoxy of current U.S. drug control policy." According to researcher Dr. D. M. Gorman of the Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies, it supports the ideology and the “prevailing wisdom that exists among policy makers and politicians."[40] It also meets the needs of stake holders such as school districts,[41] parents, and law enforcement agencies. "D.A.R.E. America also has been very successful in marketing its program to the news media through a carefully orchestrated public relations campaign that highlights its popularity while downplaying criticism."[29]

Psychologists at the University of Kentucky concluded that "continued enthusiasm [for D.A.R.E.] shows Americans' stubborn resistance to apply science to drug policy."[42]

Marsha Rosenbaum, who headed the West Coast office of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy reform organization, provided an opinion for a 1999 Village Voice article, "In D.A.R.E.'s worldview, Marlboro Light cigarettes, Bacardi rum, and a drag from a joint are all equally dangerous. For that matter, so is snorting a few lines of cocaine." D.A.R.E. "isn't really education. It's indoctrination."[43] Rosenbaum also stated, "Part of what makes D.A.R.E. so popular is that participants get lots of freebies. There are fluorescent yellow pens with the D.A.R.E. logo, tiny D.A.R.E. dolls, bumper stickers, graduation certificates, D.A.R.E. banners for school auditoriums, D.A.R.E. rulers, pennants, D.A.R.E. coloring books, and T-shirts for all D.A.R.E. graduates."[43]

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Drug policy must change, urges police chief [VIDEO]

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The government's drugs strategy in England and Wales is not working because it focuses too much on criminal prosecutions, a police chief has told the BBC.

Tim Hollis of Humberside Police says responsibility for drug policy should be moved from the Home Office to Health.

His words come on the same day as the British Medical Association called for addicts to be treated the same way as people with any other illness.

Mark Easton reports.

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Legalization's Biggest Enemies

Meet the drug warriors working to roll back hard-won advances in marijuana policy

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The marijuana legalization initiatives that triumphed in Washington and Colorado this past fall faced surprisingly little organized opposition. Money tells the story: Washington's pro-legalization initiative I-502 raised more than $6 million dollars from supporters, while the campaign against it pulled less than $16,000. In Colorado, meanwhile, proponents of Amendment 64 raised more than $2 million dollars, outdoing opponents, who raised about half a million. The anti-drug lobbyist groups that came out en masse against California's legalization initiative Proposition 19 in 2010 were hardly visible in either state, partly because the prison-industrial complex wields less political power there.

So what happens now? The biggest immediate threat to legalization in Washington and Colorado is the federal government, but even the feds might be hard-pressed to stomp out reform. "While there are actions the federal government and its U.S. Attorneys could theoretically take to – in the short term – impede the full implementation of a legal retail cannabis market in Colorado, Washington, and potentially elsewhere, the reality is that federal officials ultimately lack the manpower, public support, and as a consequence, the political will to – in the long term – turn back cannabis legalization," says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "The genie is already out of the bottle, and it cannot be put back in."

But before marijuana legalization spreads from Washington and Colorado to other states, it will have to get past a group of hardened drug warriors, many of whom have developed a personal interest in maintaining prohibition. While most of these ideologues lack the authority to actually change laws, their larger purpose is to maintain the marijuana propaganda machine and push back against pro-legalization rhetoric. Here are the top five people threatening to halt the state-by-state legalization domino effect that many pot activists hope is coming soon:

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3. Michele Leonhart

Employees in what has been called the "arrest and prosecution industry" from the Drug Enforcement Agency down to local police chiefs and district attorneys often rely on the drug war not just for their paychecks, but their sense of purpose. As the DEA's chief administrator, Michele Leonhart is in charge of making sure the fight is on, regardless of where the facts lie. At a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing this June, Leonhart revealed the department's rigidity when she repeatedly, absurdly refused to acknowledge that marijuana is less harmful than other drugs, like heroin. Video of the exchange between Leonhart and Representative Jared Polis (D-Colorado) quickly went viral. The head of America's top drug agency simply refused to acknowledge what most Americans accept as simple truth: That different health risks are associated with different substances. Rather than make a fact-based case for DEA policy, Leonhart revealed the great lengths to which her organization will go to avoid conceding any ground.

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War On Drugs Has Not Been Worth The Costs: Poll

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Only one in five Americans think that America's war on drugs has been worth the costs, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

According to the new poll, 53 percent of Americans say that the war on drugs has not been worth the costs, while only 19 percent say it has been. Another 28 percent are not sure. Among political independents, the drug war is even less popular. The term "costs" in the survey was not defined, so respondents could have been considering both qualitative and quantitative costs of the war on drugs.

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The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Jan. 14-15 among 1,000 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, though that inherent variation does not take into account other potential sources of error, including statistical bias in the sample. The poll used a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance. Additional crosstabs for the poll are available here.

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Senate Judiciary Chair Declares Defeat In War On Drugs

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The Senate’s most senior member lamented the utter failure of the so-called “War on Drugs” and other draconian criminal justice policies Wednesday morning. During an address on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s 2013 agenda, Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) expressed alarm over high rates of imprisonment, harsh mandatory minimum sentences and federal crackdowns of marijuana laws legal under state law. “We have imprisoned people who should not be there and we have wasted money that should be spent on other things,” he said.