The World Wide War on Drugs #7 - Uruguay is tegen, wie volgt?

quote:

Op dinsdag 9 september 2014 14:25 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

[..]

interview op de site.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 12:39 schreef Boswachtertje het volgende:

Zeer interessante kijk op de hele gebeurtenis. Zijn prikkelende stelling: als de rijke verwende westerse jeugd nou eens geen drugs zou gebruiken, dan zou er geen markt meer zijn..

quote:

Was opzich altijd wel voor legaliseren, maar dit zet me toch wel aan het denken!

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 12:56 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Als je een oorlog tegen drugs wil voeren moet je natuurlijk degene aanpakken die het gebruikt, dat is degene die de 'schade' doet. Niet degene die alleen maar plantjes kweekt. Het is ook veel effectiever, ga met drugshonden het uitgaansleven in en pak iedereen op en sluit ze een paar jaar op, en het is grotendeels afgelopen met drugsgebruik. Je hebt dan alleen wel een tekort aan artsen, advocaten, boekhouders en consultants.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 12:56 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:Die hele war on drugs draait dan ook om klassenjustitie, nationaal en internationaal. Je vergiftigt vanuit vliegtuigen de arme boeren die geen andere keus hebben dan coca verbouwen, en je laat de snuivende of blowende rich kids er met een waarschuwing vanaf komen.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 12:56 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:Ik heb het filmpje niet gezien, maar ik zie nog steeds niet waarom iemand die ik niet ken en die mij niet kent voor mij zou mogen bepalen welke stoffen ik tot mij neem.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 13:15 schreef Boswachtertje het volgende:

[..]

Hitchens geeft aan dat dit lastig is, maar wel zou moeten gebeuren ja. Alleen zegt hij dat er juist van dit pad is afgestapt, zoals je hieronder zelf ook al aangeeft. De wetten worden niet meer gehandhaafd - wat zou inhouden dat juist de gebruiker keihard wordt aangepakt, met alle gevolgen van dien.

quote:

Dit is idd het gevolg van een softe aanpak van de gebruiker. Wel interessant om te zien dat justitie op Lowlands juist keihard heeft opgetreden (http://spunk.nl/blog/max-(...)s-nu-fucked-for-life) en dat er dan wordt gesproken hoe zielig het is - terwijl de consequenties van illegaal drugsgebruik bij wet zijn vastgelegd en dus ook bij de gebruiker bekend zijn. Wordt het een keer toegepast, dan is het opeens oneerlijk. Wat dat betreft moet ik erkennen dat ik Hitchens veel zinnige dingen vind zeggen, die regelrecht ingaan tegen hoe ik er zelf ooit tegen aan keek..

quote:

Ik kan het aanraden het filmpje toch te bekijken, zijn betoog duurt +/- 20min, daarna zijn er vragen en antwoorden.
Om op je vraag een antwoord te geven; hij stelt dat jij niet weet wat voor gevolgen (op korte en langere termijn) het gebruik van de stoffen voor jou en je omgeving hebben en dat de gevolgen heel schadelijk kunnen zijn voor de samenleving. Gezinnen worden door gebruik ontwricht, mensen krijgen allerlei psychische problemen en uiteindelijk draait de samenleving op voor de kosten. Dus vandaar dat hij stelt dat er keihard moet worden opgetreden tegen drugs. Daarnaast plaatst hij het marihuanagebruik in een groter kader van individualisering dat in de jaren 60 in gang is gezet.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 13:28 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:
Het is inderdaad hypocriet om vele tienduizenden tot slachtoffer van de war on drugs te maken terwijl de veroorzakers van de drugsindustrie met rust worden gelaten. Als je het het niet waard vindt om de veroorzakers op te sluiten, dan is het een vrijblijvende oorlog om de oorlog. The war isn't meant to be won, it's meant to be continuous.

quote:

Het recht is wat meer dan alleen de wet, en dat wordt daar wel geschonden. Als het al niet de wet zelf is wat betreft de regelingen mbt een eerlijk proces en rechtsbijstand.

quote:

Ah gut, iemand die denkt beter te weten wat goed voor mij is dan ik zelf. Als ik nou in een vlaag van egomane bedilzucht meen beter te weten wat goed voor hem is dan hijzelf, mag ik hem dan met staatsgeweld onder invloed van drugs brengen?

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 12:39 schreef Boswachtertje het volgende:
Ik ben nu een video uit de OP aan het kijken; 'Peter Hitchens - There is No War on Drugs'

Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: Peter Hitchens - There is No War on Drugs

Zeer interessante kijk op de hele gebeurtenis.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 13:53 schreef Boswachtertje het volgende:


Ik denk dat hij heel uitgesproken is. Hij noemt het gebruik van geestverruimende middelen 'stupifying'. Daar kun je het mee eens zijn of niet, maar hij bekent iig kleur

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 17:32 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Nee hoor. Gewoon logisch. Je kan geen miljarden-kartels opbouwen met die paar zwaar verslaafde zwervende junks. De bulk word recreatief gebruikt door normale mensen met een baan en een leven, met genoeg geld om af en toe te feesten zonder meteen failliet te gaan. De meeste mensen komen helemaal niet in problemen door drugs. Hoogstens met de War on Drugs.

Helaas komen "ervaringsdeskundigen" (hulpverleners en politie) alleen in aanraking met die 10% die wel verslavingsgevoelig is, en van dat soort mensen hoor je altijd dat "iedereen die er aan begint verandert in een verslaafde zwervende stelende junk". Maar die mensen zien de overige 90% dan ook niet.

quote:

Op woensdag 10 september 2014 17:39 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Dat is zijn voorkeur en mening. De ellende begint als je die mening bij anderen gaat afdwingen.

Ik heb het recht om zo stom te zijn als ik wil.

Iedereen is anders. Een echte ADHD-er word rustig van speed en druk van wiet. Het is idioot van Hitchins om voor die ADHD-er te bepalen hoe die met drugs om moet gaan.

Drugs als LSD en XTC hebben opmerkelijke resultaten laten zien in de fysieke en geestelijke hulpverlening. Het is dom en kortzichtig om alle middelen op 1 hoop te gooien.

quote:

Op donderdag 11 september 2014 17:12 schreef Boswachtertje het volgende:

[..]

Het was voor mij een nieuwe kijk op de zaak.

[..]

Heb je de video bekeken?
Ik heb hem niet horen zeggen dat hij voor de ADHD'er bepaalt hoe er met drugs om wordt gegaan. Hij stelt in zijn verhaal dat er te snel drugs wordt voorgeschreven voor kinderen en daar heeft hij zijn vraagtekens bij. Ook bij het bestaan van ADHD overigens..

Op je laatste punt vermoed ik dat hij daar anders in staat, zelf weet ik daar niet genoeg van om beide kanten van het verhaal te kunnen belichten.

quote:

Op vrijdag 12 september 2014 03:44 schreef heiden6 het volgende:
Authorities seize Philadelphia couple’s home following son’s first drug offense

"War on Drugs" = terrorism

quote:

Illegale straatdealers spinnen garen bij wietpas

^{_{12 september 2014}}

ROERMOND - De illegale straatdealers die als sissende strontvliegen op je afsuizen om hun shit, wiet en harddrugs aan de man of vrouw te brengen hebben profijt gehad - en nog steeds - van de wietpas. Hun beste vriend heet Yvo Opstelten, VVD-minister van Veiligheid en Justitie. Want door invoering van de wietpas lopen de straatdealers met bolle zakken vol groot geld rond. De enige die dat niet lijkt te zien is Opstelten zelf.

Een onderzoeksrapport van Intraval waaruit blijkt dat de dealers zich bijna dood lachen als gevolg van de wietpas heeft hij niet gelezen, maar hij weet wel wat erin staat: uit het rapport zou de heilzame werking van de wietpas blijken. Om die reden vroeg D66-kamerlid Pechtold zich af of de 70-jarige Opstelten niet te oud is voor zijn vak.

De meeste media schreven na verschijning van het rapport alleen dat drugstoeristen hun weg naar onder meer Limburg weer gevonden hebben. ‘Drugstoeristen komen weer naar coffeeshops in zuiden van het land’, kopte het Eindhovens Dagblad. En de Belgische website Newsmonkey meldde ‘We hebben onze weg weer gevonden naar Hollandse coffeeshops’. De kortste samenvatting van het Intraval rapport gaf Tom Blickman van het Transnational Drug Institute (TNI), via Twitter: ‘Zinloze exercitie & meer jonge straatdealers’.

Misschien aardig om de slotconclusie van het rapport ‘Coffeeshops, toeristen en lokale markt: evaluatie van het Besloten club- en het Ingezetenencriterium voor coffeeshops – Eindrapportage’ hier te citeren:

De invoering van het Besloten club- en Ingezetenencriterium in de zuidelijke provincies heeft robuuste veranderingen op de legale en illegale lokale cannabismarkt teweeggebracht. Zowel de straatenquete als de cohortstudie tonen dit duidelijk aan en lokale experts en etnografische veldstudie ondersteunen de resultaten. Direct na de invoering kelderde het marktaandeel van de coffeeshops en raakten deze zowel softdrugstoeristen als lokale klanten kwijt. Vooral de illegale straathandel (straatdealers, drugsrunners, 06-dealers) profiteerde. Een jaar later -het Besloten clubcriterium is inmiddels afgeschaft en de handhaving van het Ingezetenencriterium in een aantal gemeenten opgeschort- keren de klanten gaandeweg terug naar de coffeeshop en is de straathandel enigszins getemperd. Maar er is zeker geen sprake van volledig herstel. De illegale cannabismarkt blijft groter dan voorheen en een deel van de toeristen en vooral jongere lokale gebruikers blijven via dealers hun hasj en wiet kopen. Het snelle geld van de illegale handel heeft bovendien zijn weerslag gehad op de straatcultuur in de wijken.

Het Verbond voor Opheffing van het Cannabisverbod schrijft:

De ‘beleidsreactie’ van minister Opstelten op het rapport doet vermoeden dat hij het niet heeft gelezen. Citaat: ‘Het onderzoek ondersteunt het coffeeshopbeleid van dit kabinet ten aanzien van het bestrijden van het drugstoerisme en de daarmee gepaard gaande overlast. Het besluit om het Ingezetenencriterium te handhaven en het Besloten clubcriterium te beëindigen wordt met het onderzoek ook -achteraf- ondersteund.’ Tenzij het stimuleren van de illegale markt het beleidsdoel is, kan niemand die het rapport heeft gelezen met droge ogen beweren dat de bevindingen handhaving van het Ingezetenencriterium (buitenlanderverbod) ondersteunen.

Voormalig Maastrichtse coffeeshophouder Marc Josemans verzucht: ,,De onderzoekers concluderen dat de illegale cannabismarkt groter blijft dan voorheen en dat niet alleen een deel van de coffeeshoptoeristen, maar ook - vooral jongere - lokale gebruikers in het illegale circuit hun hasj en wiet zijn blijven kopen.''

,,Het rapport bevestigt dat er gemeenten zijn waar op papier het ingezetenencriterium geldt en streng lijkt te worden gehandhaafd, terwijl dit in de praktijk niet gebeurt. Volgens eerder onderzoek van Mevrouw Maalsté (2014) wordt slechts in 15% van de coffeeshopgemeenten het I-criterium gehandhaafd.'' Het I-criterium handhaven betekent dat buitenlanders de coffeeshops niet inmogen. In Maastricht mag dat niet (met desastreuze gevolgen, bloeiende criminele straathandel), in Roermond bijvoorbeeld weer wel.

quote:

Secret suburban meth labs fuelling the ice scourge leave behind costly mess for innocent homeowners

INNOCENT homeowners are being forced to shell out up to $80,000 to clean and refit rental properties which have been turned into clandestine methamphetamine labs.

As the ice scourge spreads through Victoria, the call for specialised meth lab decontamination is growing.

Operators say some homes need to be stripped back to the wall studs to rid them of invisible toxic chemicals, sometimes costing more than $70,000. And for some, the bill is not covered fully — or at all — by their insurance.

“For many properties the levels (of methamphetamine) are so high to begin with, because the property has been used for that activity for a long time, that we will take out the kitchen, the bathroom, the cabinetry, anything that will trap those organic contaminants and a lot of the plaster on the internal framework will be removed,” Dr Cameron Jones, owner of Biological Health Services, said.

Meth lab cleaners say they have tested and cleaned hotel rooms, factories, rental properties and repossessed homes.

For some owners of rental properties, the first sign that their property has been used as a meth lab comes with a prohibition notice from council ordering a clean-up.

Steve Penn, from TACT Bio-Recovery, said he had done clean-ups of clandestine meth labs in tiny country towns, in a high-rise apartment and in the suburbs.

“It is not just a general clean — it’s catastrophic,” Mr Penn said.

He said discovering their property had been used as a meth lab was devastating for landlords.

He said the chemicals used often ate away at light switches and corroded taps and fittings, as well as contaminating plaster, roof insulation, carpets, curtains and contents.

He had even heard of boats being used as meth labs.

Dr Jones said the clean-up cost could be more than $70,000 but averaged $20,000 to $25,000.

“These gaseous vapours tend to go everywhere in a home,” Dr Jones said.

quote:

Rise of the Super Drug Tunnels: California's Losing Fight Against Smugglers

quote:

"You can't fight markets," says David Shirk, associate professor of international relations and director of the Justice in Mexico project at the University of San Diego. "When a market reaches a certain size, you can't fight it."

Joe Garcia, a deputy special agent with the Department of Homeland Security and head of the San Diego Tunnel Task Force, would beg to differ. He and his colleagues have spent much of their careers doing just that, discovering more than 200 drug tunnels under the California-Mexico border since the inception of the task force in 1990.

"We want to make it so unattractive to do the type of work that they do, that they'll go somewhere else," says Garcia.

Garcia and his team are skilled at discovering tunnels and filling them up and have garnered favorable local press coverage on a number of big drug busts. But despite these high-visibility wins for Garcia's team, a recent report from the California Attorney General's office paints a picture of a California-Mexico border that's leakier than ever and reports that California has surpassed Texas as the nation's top methamphetamine entry point.

Rise of the Super Drug Tunnels: California's Losing Fight Against Smugglers

quote:

Decades of experience and improvements in technology have honed the tunnel task force's proficiency at detecting and eliminating tunnels, and Garcia's team has all but stamped out amateurish, unskilled smuggling operations. In this challenging environment, the most sophisticated and well-funded operations have cornered the market and see a bigger and better payout at the end of the proverbial, and literal, tunnel. As a result, the team has discovered numerous so-called "super tunnels" over the past five years: deep, multi-million dollar, professionally constructed tunnels boasting elevator shafts, high-powered ventilation, and even electric trains, possibly making them some of California's first ever profitable rail projects.

quote:

Thousands charged with drug possession walk free, leaving taxpayers with the tab

Michael Halpert, a baby-faced public defender, is glancing through a file when his client, a bleary-eyed African-American woman who was arrested for drug possession, is called to the bench.

It’s a busy Friday in July. Halpert estimates that as many as 100 people are led from a crowded jail cell in the basement of the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue into the courtroom each day where a judge will determine their bond. A lot goes into the decision: the defendant’s criminal history, the probability that he will miss the next court date, or worse, commit another crime while out on bond. If a judge is worried about any of these things, money is attached to the bond, increasing the odds that the defendant will return to the Cook County Jail until his next court date.

Halpert has been keeping unofficial courtroom stats since he was reassigned from traffic to bond court last spring. By his count, roughly half of the cases called this summer were for possession--usually heroin or cocaine. Most involve amounts that would be considered a misdemeanor if they were filed in a federal court or 13 other states. “It’s almost always small amounts,” he says, “less than 1 gram.”

It’s no surprise that drug possession is the No. 1 reason people were in Cook County Jail last year. That’s been the case for the better part of the past decade. Since 2006, people have been booked and released more than 100,000 times for possession, according to jail records. And during that same time period, taxpayers have spent $778 million jailing people on the lowest-level possession charges. Sheriff Tom Dart, who oversees the jail, estimates that it costs $143 a day to detain an inmate.

The figures are staggering, and all the more troubling in light of another factor: 1 in 3 of these cases are dismissed, which means many users are released from a costly stay in jail without treatment, only to come back weeks or months later.

Halpert says the mostly poor, African-American drug abusers who flood the courts are likely to get picked up by police again. “It’s sweeping the problem under the rug temporarily,” he adds.

Last November, The Chicago Reporter investigated the rising costs at Cook County Jail, driven, in part, by arrests for low-level crimes, including drug possession. Despite growing political pressure to get a handle on jail costs, judges, county officials and prosecutors don’t agree on how to address the problem, let alone how to treat the drug users who cycle through the court system and the jail. While Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Dart push for programs that would divert people from jail, judges are afraid of letting the wrong person go and prosecutors continue to press charges for possession of small quantities of drugs.

Many judges have started swapping bond fees for house arrest, particularly if a defendant doesn’t have any violent crimes on his record.

Retired Judge Lawrence P. Fox has overseen special drug courts that focus on alternative sentencing since the late-1990s. He says jail time can help break addiction, but only if there is drug treatment. The drug courts have helped decrease the number of drug abusers sent to prison. But for people who are being held short-term without a conviction, according to the jail’s executive director, there is little help.

After 40 years in the courts — as a supervising narcotics court judge before being assigned to the felony trial call through 2010 — Fox has concluded that the problem is too big for the courts to fix. “There are so many people that use and abuse drugs,” he says. “My gut is the only thing you can do is decriminalize it. Under a certain amount make it a citational offense.”

“I’m not saying I’m in favor of it,” Fox adds, “but it’s the only thing you can do.”

Chicago police made an average of 76 arrests for drug possession each day last year, more than any other crime. That’s down slightly from 81 the year before. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office has a reputation for pursuing the charges with little review.

Critics say the aggressive enforcement is part of an unofficial agreement between police and prosecutors that goes like this: Police make high-volume arrests to maintain neighborhood order, prosecutors rubber-stamp the charges and punt to judges, who decide which ones to drop.

Like prosecutors, judges don’t want to be responsible for letting a violent person walk free. High-cost bonds are one way to avoid blow back.

Electronic monitoring has become a more palatable option. The number of monitors issued by judges under growing pressure to get a handle on jail costs has more than doubled from 725 last year to 1,752 this year, the Illinois Supreme Court recently reported.

The state’s high court has been monitoring bond court, nudging along the expansion of electronic monitoring after Preckwinkle called for an intervention last year. Under house arrest, defendants are monitored by the Sheriff’s Office.

There’s a growing concern that the “effort to get people out of jail quicker” is backfiring, Fox says. A big reason is the uptick in the number of people arrested on fresh charges for straying from their homes, which carries a felony escape charge. Halpert estimates that he sees between two and four of the escape cases pass through his courtroom each day.

“To a future employer,” Fox says, “that looks a lot worse than drug possession.”

Meanwhile, police and prosecutors — “the gatekeepers” for who lands in court, according to Ali Abid, a lawyer with the court advocacy group Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice — continue to push through the charges.

The State’s Attorney’s Office reviews the facts behind most felony charges before formally filing a case, however, drugs are the exception.

It’s been a point of contention for years. Preckwinkle has called for expanding the formal felony review to drug cases. The idea was among a series of recommendations by a state commission at the beginning of the decade to head off dead-end drug cases.

“The problem with having the courts as the de facto review is the cost,” Abid says.

Public defenders say there’s an unwritten rule in the courts, where most cases unravel because of probable cause issues: If there is less than 1 gram of drugs involved, the case is likely to be kicked out.

“[Judges] can see this $143 a day hemorrhaging out of the county,” Abid says. “They know that they [defendants] are just going to get high again and they’re not a risk to public safety.”

Kathleen Kane-Willis, director of the Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy at Roosevelt University, studied the dismissals a few years ago. She and a team of researchers staked out a handful of preliminary courtrooms, where cases advance to after bond court, and noticed the pattern. As far as the jail population goes, 8 out every 10 times a possession case was dismissed during the past eight years, it involved the lowest-level — a class 4, felony charge.

“Maybe if the drug arrests were bigger,” Kane-Willis says, “judges would be more willing to overlook a bad arrest.”

Fox, a former preliminary court judge, disagrees. “So many of those cases are bad stops,” he says. If there were probable cause issues, he says judges think, “Why go any further with this case?”

Whether it’s intentional or not, Kane-Willis says, the system appears to be “correcting” itself more often in low-level drug cases than others.

“Can you imagine if we [convicted people] in all of these cases?” Kane-Willis adds. “The system can’t handle it.”

Public support for the war on drugs may be waning, but Illinois lawmakers don’t appear poised to change drug laws soon. The focus has turned to administrative fixes and, in Cook County, there are a lot of competing ideas for how to reduce the number of non-violent people clogging the courts and jail.

Over the past couple of years, the people with the power to make those changes — judges, prosecutors, police and county officials who control the budget that pays for it all — have been bickering over who’s responsible. But there are signs that they’re beginning to work more cooperatively.

In July, the state’s high court sent a group of them on a trip to Washington D.C. and Maryland to study pretrial systems that don’t rely on cash bonds or electronic monitoring.

Juliana Stratton, the executive director of the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, says the goal is to make the jail a place for people who “are a threat to public safety. Those are the people who should be in jail.”

But on a Friday in July, the bond court at 26th Street and California Avenue shows no signs of slowing down.

Within a minute of Halpert’s first client being whisked away, four more possession cases are called back-to-back.

Prosecutors rattle off a history of drug-related charges. The judge finds probable cause with each one and reels off the next court date, usually three weeks away.

“Everybody knows it’s futile,” Halpert says. “But it’s one of those things where everybody buries their head in the sand.”

quote:

Thailand steps up its dubious war on drugs

quote:

At 5am uniformed officers armed with M-16 rifles and urine testing kits blitzed residential areas, identifying potential ‘suspects’ purely on the basis of their age and appearance. Those unfortunate enough to be selected were goaded by police to confess to using recreational drugs, or else face a mandatory, on-the-spot pee test.

“Hundreds” of startled Thais were made to decant their urine into little plastic capsules provided by the police. If the test was negative, then the urine would stay its natural colour and the ‘suspect’ would go free. But if the test was positive, then the urine would turn a dreaded purple, and the ‘suspect’ would be detained at a nearby police station.

By the end of the two-hour operation, 83 “drug addicts” and 22 “small-time dealers” had been arrested, according to a statement made by Police Major General Itipon Piriyapinyo. Itipon did not reveal the total number of people tested, but he lauded the search and arrest tactic as an efficient, humane and exemplary way of tackling Bangkok’s drug problem.

quote:

Last week’s raid, and Itipon’s subsequent comments, are symptomatic of the limbo stage in Thailand’s drug war, in which drug abuse is widely accepted to be a medical problem, rather than a criminal one, yet the persecution and stigmatisation of drug users continues unabated. In recent years Thailand has diverted hundreds of thousands of drug users away from criminal penitentiaries and into compulsory treatment centres, yet the growing perception of drug users as “patients” remains fundamentally at odds with existing laws that criminalise consuming drugs or possessing drugs for personal use.

quote:

Cocaine found in Vatican librarian's car

Bedridden cardinal's aide entrusted vehicle to two men, who bought drugs thinking they were protected by diplomatic plates

A car bearing Vatican diplomatic plates was stopped in France with 4kg of cocaine and 200g of cannabis on board.

The car belongs to the 91-year-old Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mejia, emeritus librarian at the Holy See, who retired in 2003 and who is bedridden after a heart attack. Pope Francis, a fellow Argentinian, visited Mejia in hospital in Rome two days after being elected.

French radio reported that the cardinal's private secretary entrusted the vehicle to two Italian men to take it for its annual checkup. The two men drove to Spain to buy the drugs, thinking they would be protected by the diplomatic plates, according to RTL radio – a scenario not yet confirmed by legal sources.

The pair were picked up on Sunday at a toll station near Chambéry, in the French Alps, on their way back. Neither of the men had a Vatican diplomatic passport, so the Vatican was not directly implicated, French legal sources said.

The Vatican confirmed that the car had been stopped in France with the drugs on board and stressed that no staff were involved in the incident.

quote:

Islamists bankrolled by large-scale African drug-smuggling operation

Militant groups paying west African drivers up to £8,600 to transport cocaine to Europe under noses of UN peacekeepers

Islamist groups in northern Mali are paying local drivers to smuggle drugs and migrants across the desert for shipment to Europe, according to sources in Timbuktu.

Smuggling operations are the financial backbone of Islamist groups such as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim). Their total territorial and economic control of the vast, hostile Sahara region is dwarfing the impact of western military efforts, despite dozens of French bombing raids and the deployment of close to 10,000 United Nations peacekeepers in Mali.

On Sunday, a new armed group calling itself the Caliphate Soldiers in Algeria (Jound al Khilafa fi Ard al Jazayer) announced it had split with Aqim and sworn loyalty to Islamic State (Isis), fighting in Syria and Iraq.

On the same day, a Chadian peacekeeper was killed and four others were injured when their patrol vehicle hit a remote-controlled device near Aguelhok, close to the Algerian border with northern Mali. He was the eighth peacekeeper to be killed since the end of June, following a surge of rocket, suicide bomb and landmine attacks, against nine during the entire first year of the UN deployment in Mali.

Other evidence also points to the emboldening of jihadist groups. More than 18 months after the start of French operations against Islamist insurgents in northern Mali, militant groups are offering young men monthly salaries of 300,000 CFA francs ($600, £370) – or 10 times Mali's minimum wage – to become jihadi fighters.

One driver of a 10-ton desert-going lorry in Timbuktu said he had been offered 7 million CFA to deliver 150kg of cocaine to Libya.

"You leave in a convoy of brand new fuel-injected petrol Toyota 4x4s, with extra fuel tanks," the driver explained. "You are given a Thuraya [satellite phone] and a Kalashnikov. The cocaine is in a spare tyre, in the driver's seat, and tucked between the fuel tanks."

South American cocaine is smuggled through the desert along several routes. In 2009, a burnt Boeing 727 was found in the desert near Gao in north-eastern Mali. "Air Cocaine" was reported to have carried up to 10 tons of cocaine.

"You travel in a convoy of up to 14 cars, and there are several routes," the driver confirmed. "The one I know about runs through Gao, Niger and Chad, to Libya. It is the same route that is used by Africans wanting to get on boats to Europe.

"As payment, you get to choose between keeping the car and 7 million CFA francs ($14,000). But it is dangerous, mainly because the drivers turn on each other."

The driver, whose identity is being withheld for his protection, said he began working the trans-Sahara run after tourists stopped coming to Timbuktu in 2011, due to kidnap fears. "The first 1,000km to the salt mines at Taoudenni take six days. There's me and a small crew of other blacks. The boss is always an Arab; after a further two days, we reach Algeria and he takes the wheel.

"If you get lost, which often happens after a sandstorm because you cannot see the stars, then the boss will most probably find his way. The Arabs can just touch the sand, dig a little and understand which is the right way to go.''

French troops have reported uncovering a number of "service stations" in the desert, after their positions were given away by informants. But the driver said any destroyed fuel stores are quickly replaced by others. "No one wants to run out of fuel in the desert – you would die of thirst."

The smuggling cartels appeal to Mali's general population by flooding markets with cut-price everyday items. In Timbuktu, Guardian reporters saw bootleg diesel, white goods, cigarettes, housewares, pasta, sugar, powdered milk and flour on sale in all markets at below-market prices.

Residents of the city, which has a 1,200-strong UN military and police force, say smuggling of all types is encouraged by Malian soldiers, gendarmes and officials who take bribes.

Nigerian brigadier general Koko Essien, who was sector commander until August, said: "The smuggling is a real worry. The cartels control the economy. Politically, the armed groups do not always agree – some are Islamic extremists, others not – but when it comes to business they work together. We worry that military hardware could be hidden in the trucks from Algeria and Mauritania."

But David Gressly, deputy special representative of the UN secretary general in Mali, said ending smuggling is not the job of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma). "Minusma focuses on stabilisation, including the protection of civilians and ceasefire monitoring. Counter-terrorism [and] drug interdiction is not in our mandate so that is not what we are going to do. Northern Mali needs development but that is going to take five, 10, 15 years," he said.

Talks are under way in Algiers between Mali's government and groups demanding self-rule for the north. But it seems unlikely that these will produce a package for everyone that is more appealing than illegal trade.

France recently moved its main base out of Mali, to Chad. As a result the UN has beefed up its presence with 450 Dutch special forces based in Gao, equipped with attack helicopters and unarmed drones. Sweden has pledged a similar 'elite' deployment for the UN in Timbuktu. But it will not be in place until February.