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

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

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interview op de site.

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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..

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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..

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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

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

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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.

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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.

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

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Het was voor mij een nieuwe kijk op de zaak.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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

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"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

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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.

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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.”

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Thailand steps up its dubious war on drugs

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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An alternative to the war on drugs

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In an article in the British Medical Journal, Steve Rolles summarises Transform's flagship publication, 'After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation', arguing that we need to end the criminalisation of drugs and set up regulatory models that will control drug markets and reduce the harms caused by current policy.

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Admits to Committing Abuses in the War Against Drugs

Felipe Calderon said “it’s not the doctor’s fault” for trying to cure Mexico from the disease of organized crime.

In an interview with El Pais on Tuesday, former Mexican President Felipe Calderon concedes that he made mistakes in Mexico’s war on drugs. He admitted that 60,000 to 70,000 dead represented a lot of casualties in his war on drugs, which spanned from 2006 to 2012.

“Yes, that’s a lot. And each one weighs on me more than anything, but those homicides were committed by criminals that I was fighting against,” he said.

The National Commission on Human Rights has also alleged there was a sharp increase in torture and mistreatment complaints during that period. "It’s true that federal operations increased and that there were abuses. However, they were the exception, not the norm. In all cases, the government took note and acted according to rule of law to bring to justice those responsible,” Calderon said.

Asked what part of his strategy he would have changed, Calderon said: “I would have started the changes a lot earlier, with greater force and more resources.” If he had done nothing, Mexico today would have been an open stage for organized crime, he argued.

Calderon referred to organized crime as a national sickness, which like a cancer patient, needs radical chemo-therapy like measures to cure. It leaves the patient in pain, but “it’s not the doctor’s fault.”

Moving forward, the ex-statesman said that now “I sleep better. I have less problems to think about.”

For a more indepth look at the impact of the war on drugs in Mexico, see The Legacy of the War on Drugs in Mexico

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Mother of dead girl says Mexican troops executed 22 drug-gang suspects

Incident occurred in southern Mexico on 30 June
Government says fierce shootout injured one soldier

A woman says she saw Mexican soldiers shoot and kill her 15-year-old daughter after a confrontation with a suspected drug gang, even though the teenager was lying wounded on the ground. Twenty other people were shot and killed in rural southern Mexico after they surrendered and were disarmed, the mother told the Associated Press.

The Mexican government has maintained that all died during a fierce shootout when soldiers were fired on in the early morning of 30 June. That version of events came into question because government troops suffered only one wounded, and physical evidence at the scene pointed toward more selective killings.

The witness said the army fired first at an armed group holed up in a warehouse. She said one gunman died in the initial shootout, and another gang member and her daughter were wounded. The rest of the gunmen surrendered on the promise they would not be hurt, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

After the gang surrendered, the girl, Erika Gomez Gonzalez, lay face down in the ground, a bullet wound in her leg. Soldiers rolled her over while she was still alive and shot her more than half a dozen times in the chest, her mother said. Another suspected gang member was injured in the initial attack.

“A soldier stood the kid up and killed him,” said the witness, who said she had gone to the warehouse the night before to try to retrieve her daughter from the gang she had apparently joined.

The soldiers interrogated the rest of the gang members in front of the warehouse, and then took them inside one-by-one, she said. From where she stood just outside the warehouse and in army custody, she heard gunshots and moans from the dying.

Several days after the killings, AP reporters took pictures of the warehouse and found little evidence of sustained fighting. There were few stray bullet marks and no shell casings. At least five spots along the warehouse’s inside walls showed the same pattern: one or two closely placed bullet pocks, surrounded by a mass of spattered blood, giving the appearance that some of those killed had been standing against the wall and shot at about chest level.

After the AP report, the state of Mexico prosecutors’ office released a statement saying there was “no evidence at all of possible executions”. The office said it found ballistic evidence of “crossfire with a proportionate interchange of gunshots”.

The state government refused to release autopsy reports the AP requested under Mexico’s freedom of information law, declaring them state secrets to be guarded for nine years.

Interviewed separately, relatives of three other gang members who were killed and a doctor who saw Erika Gomez Gonzalez’s body said the wounds were consistent with the mother’s account of how they were killed – with an incapacitating wound and a burst of gunshots to the chest. The death certificate for Gomez Gonzalez, seen by reporters, confirmed that she died on 30 June outside the town of San Pedro Limon, where the killings occurred, and gave bullet wounds as the cause of death. There are no details in the certificate on ballistics or the type of weapon used.

The gravestones of two other of those killed, Marcos Salgado Burgos, 20, and his brother, Juan Jose Salgado Burgos, 18, also record their death on 30 June.

Separately, a teenager in the nearby town of Ixcapuzalco said his older brother was among the 22 dead. He said he saw the body and said there was a bullet wound to the left leg – “it destroyed his knee” – and a shot through the back with an exit wound through the chest. His account could not be independently corroborated.

None of the relatives wanted to be identified, for fear of reprisals. The army and the state of Mexico so far have not provided a list of those killed. Human Rights Watch has demanded that the case be thoroughly investigated and that the witness be protected.

According to Erika’s mother the shootout was initiated by the army. This would be a violation of its own rules of engagement, which allow soldiers to fire on armed civilians only if the civilians fire first, and if soldiers’ or civilians’ lives are in danger. The army did not respond to requests for comment.

The federal attorney general’s office said there was an open investigation into the incident but that no evidence has been found so far to corroborate the witness’ account, originally reported by the magazine Esquire Latinoamerica.

The woman spoke angrily last weekend about her daughter’s death. She said she spent a sleepless night sitting on a pile of bricks on 29 June, after arriving to retrieve her runaway daughter.

The girl was involved with the wrong crowd, she said. The group had traveled from the town of Arcelia in Guerrero state to nearby San Pedro Limon in three pickups, with guns. All were teenagers or in their early 20s. Little is known about what the gang was up to or had been doing in the days before the shootings.

Local officials said Arcelia is controlled by the La Familia drug gang, which was run out of Michoacan state, where it was founded and now controls parts of the impoverished Tierra Caliente, or hot land, in neighboring Guerrero. Drug trafficking and conflicts with the military have occurred there for decades. Some farmers grow and traffic marijuana and poppies for opium, and violence is common.

Recently, supporters of the gang blocked roads and burned four Coca-Cola trucks, leading the soft drink company to shutter its distribution centre in Arcelia. Local journalists say they have been threatened for publishing stories the drug cartel didn’t like.

It was unclear if the AP was allowed to report freely in the area because the story casts the army in a poor light. But the gang appeared to keep close tabs on AP reporters while they were in the region. During an interview with the dead girl’s mother in a parking lot, a young man appeared, arms propped on the back of a pickup truck, staring fixedly and remaining until the end.

The area is patrolled heavily by army and marine units. When reporters were at a local soccer match interviewing a relative of the two dead brothers, a three-man marine detachment stood nearby. The unit’s leader told the journalists “It’s my turn to interview you”, and asked them what they were doing and where they were staying. Other marines photographed the journalists and their press ID cards.

Recalling the morning of her daughter’s death, the mother said confusion broke out inside the warehouse before dawn when one of the young gunmen appeared, shouting: “They’re on us!”

Troops from the Mexican army’s 22nd military zone were on patrol. Soldiers trained a spotlight on the warehouse and opened fire on those inside, she said.

After an initial exchange of gunfire, soldiers called out to those inside, saying their lives would be spared if they surrendered. They walked out with their hands on the back of their necks, she said.

The soldiers took her, two other women and two young men who claimed to be kidnap victims to a semi-enclosed room at one side of the entrance to the warehouse. From there, under soldiers’ custody, the woman could only catch glimpses of what was happening inside

“I was afraid to see too much,” she said, noting some of the detainees were shot standing, some were kneeling.

After a couple of hours, the two men who had claimed to be kidnap victim were separated from the three women, taken off by soldiers and shot, apparently because they did not believe their claims, she said.

The army said in its initial press release that soldiers rescued three women who were kidnap victims. The mother says she was one of three women taken by the army to the Mexico state capital, Toluca, and turned over to a state prosecutors’ agent. The other two women were promptly arrested and are still in custody.

The mother said she was photographed next to the guns confiscated from the gang and told she too would be arrested if she didn’t cooperate with authorities and confirm their version of events. She said she did not know the agent’s name, but described her as a tall woman with close-cropped hair who was constantly holding a cigarette.

She was later taken to the federal attorney general’s organised crime unit in Mexico City, and finally released with no charges.

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Drug War Debate Divides Latin America, U.S. at OAS Summit

Latin American governments traditionally allied with the U.S. on anti-drug efforts are increasingly divided ahead of a regional summit as countries from Costa Rica to Colombia seek a debate over legalization.

Officials from the 35 members of the Organization of American States are meeting in Guatemala City today in a special session called a year ago to address counter-narcotics policies. Uruguay last year made sales of marijuana legal and leaders or former leaders in Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador and Belize have said legalization should be debated.

As the human and financial toll from drug trafficking climbs, the U.S., which backed an $8 billion effort to fight drug-smuggling rebels in Colombia and funds interdiction and alternative crop programs across the hemisphere, has seen its historic position against legalization undermined by voter-backed referendums in Washington and Colorado supporting marijuana sales.

“There is no common position, least of all in the Americas,” Ecuador President Rafael Correa said during a visit to Guatemala last month. “The strategy against drugs has been a disaster. Things are being discussed now that used to be taboo.”

In a report published this month, Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos, who once led security operations supported by the U.S.-funded “Plan Colombia” counter-narcotics program, called for a fresh debate over how to fight illegal drugs.

‘New Approaches’

“The world needs to discuss new approaches,” he wrote in the report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy, whose members include former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. “If that means legalizing, and the world thinks that’s the solution, I will welcome it.”

Costa Rican president Luis Guillermo Solis in June called for a debate on legalization, adding that “it’s not an issue we can solve right now.” Former Mexico President Vicente Fox has called the current approach toward illegal drugs “useless” and a “total failure.”

William Brownfield, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, said in a June teleconference “we have to accept that some countries will prescribe marijuana aggressively, while others, like Uruguay, will legalize it throughout their country.”

Brownfield called legalization “simplistic” during a trip to Panama this week, and the White House this month identified 22 countries as major illicit drug-producing or drug-transit countries, 17 of which are in Latin America or the Caribbean.

’Related Crimes’

“International cooperation remains the cornerstone for reducing the threat posed by the illegal narcotics trade and related crimes carried out by criminal organizations,” the White House said in a statement this week.

Illegal production of coca, the main ingredient in cocaine, is at its lowest level since estimates were collected in 1990, the U.S. said. The U.S. is the single-biggest consumer of cocaine, while nearly all coca production takes place in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

U.S. funding for anti-narcotics operations in Latin America and the Caribbean could fall by as much as 29 percent in 2015, including cuts to security initiatives such as Plan Colombia, the Merida Initiative for Mexico and the Central American and Caribbean Regional Security Initiatives, according to a report this month by the Congressional Research Service.

At the 43rd regular session of the OAS General Assembly in June 2013, member states called drugs a “public health problem” that must be accompanied by a “human rights perspective,” while demanding stronger efforts to fight the supply and demand of illicit drugs.

“There are still a lot of countries that associate drugs with violence and there is a fear that legalization could lead to more violence,” OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said in a phone interview. “We have to be flexible. Things don’t change overnight.”

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A Chart That Says the War on Drugs Isn't Working

The controversial war on drugs not only costs a lot, it has done almost nothing to curb the drug addiction rate since 1970, according to this stunning chart by documentary filmmaker Matt Groff comparing the cost of drug control to the drug addiction rate. Groff used the rate of addiction to illicit drugs from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pairing it with federal drug control budget spending numbers from the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy.

Groff, who made the chart for his new documentary on the drug war The 1315 Project, says that it shows the costly war on drugs simply isn't working. A note: The numbers on this chart alone don't add up to $1.5 trillion, which represents a more inclusive count of drug control spending, with prison costs and state level costs determined by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but instead to $800 billion. Groff included that $1.5 trillion because the chart appears in the documentary as a source discusses that more complete amount.

As you can see, while the blue illicit drug addiction rate line has remained relatively steady at about 1.3 percent, the green line for drug control spending has skyrocketed. The increased spending did not correlate to lower addiction rates. "Drug use and abuse exists on a spectrum and as a society we must accept that some portion of the population will be addicted to drugs even if we don’t like it," Groff says.

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As Heroin Use And Teenage Pot Smoking Fall, Alarm About Them Rises

Survey data released last week by the federal government cast doubt on a couple of widely accepted beliefs about drug use trends: 1) that the nation is in the midst of an escalating “heroin epidemic” and 2) that loosening marijuana prohibition encourages teenagers to smoke pot.

In the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), the number of respondents who reported using heroin in the previous month fell by 14 percent last year, despite ever-rising concern about a new “heroin epidemic.” While NSDUH probably misses a substantial number of heavy users (exactly how many is unclear), the trends identified by the survey still should indicate whether heroin consumption is on the rise or on the wane (as both government officials and journalists tend to assume). Hence it is instructive to compare past-month heroin use measured by NSDUH (in thousands of users) with mentions of a “heroin epidemic” in the newspaper and wire service articles collected by Nexis:

On the face of it, there is no clear relationship between the level of heroin use and the level of press attention to it. Notice that the spike in 2006, when the number of past-month users was higher than it has been in any year since then, seems to have prompted no journalistic response whatsoever. The more gradual increase seen after 2009, by comparison, coincided with an initial drop in “heroin epidemic” mentions, followed by a slight increase. Then the number of mentions skyrocketed, rising from 82 in 2011 to 273 in 2012 and 633 in 2013. So far this year there have been more than 2,300 references to a “heroin epidemic” in these news sources, reflecting the tremendous attention attracted by the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death on February 2 (which was caused by “mixed drug intoxication” but generally attributed to heroin alone). That single incident seems to have generated more talk of a “heroin epidemic” than everything else that happened in the previous 12 years. In any case, coverage of the putative epidemic really took off around the time when heroin use started to fall.

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Army unit in Mexico killings has past controversy

Associated Press= MEXICO CITY (AP) — An army officer and seven soldiers who face disciplinary action for their participation in the killing of 22 people in rural southern Mexico belong to an army battalion with a history of incidents.

The Mexican Defense Department said the eight were involved in the June 30 incident in San Pedro Limon, an encounter that the military initially reported as a shootout but that a witness has described as a massacre.

They belong to the 102nd Infantry Battalion of the 22nd Military Zone in Mexico state, according to media reports and two people with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the press. The battalion is based in San Miguel Ixtapan in the remote southwestern part of the state, about an hour's drive north of where the killings happened.

The area is said to be controlled by La Familia cartel, though it is also land where rival drug gangs have been fighting for territory.

The battalion was in the news last December when members shot four employees of the town of Arcelia in nearby Guerrero state, including the director and deputy director of municipal transportation, as they drove on a rural road returning from a shooting range. Arcelia is also the hometown of several of those killed in the June shootout. Media reports said the employees, who were carrying rifles and dressed in hunting camouflage, were mistaken for criminals. A sergeant, a corporal and two soldiers were arrested.

The 102nd was also in the spotlight in February 2012. Citing legal documents, the newspaper Reforma reported that throughout 2010 and into early 2011, soldiers in the battalion took money to inform La Familia of their operations. Six people, including two officers, were charged.

The latest incident was initially reported as a firefight on June 30 in which 22 suspected criminals were killed and one soldier was wounded. The official version came into question when The Associated Press visited the scene days later and found no signs of a prolonged battle.

Last week, a woman who says she witnessed the events told the AP that only one person died in an initial gunbattle and that the rest were shot after surrendering. The witness said the dead included her 15-year-old daughter, Erika Gomez Gonzalez, who had been wounded in the leg and was lying on the ground when she was killed.

The newspaper La Jornada published photos Friday showing bloody bodies, purportedly in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, with investigators and military personnel still at the scene.

The bloodstains on the cinderblock wall, evidence markers and debris shown in the pictures match those that AP journalists photographed days after the deaths were reported by the army.

Among the dead in the photographs is a girl lying on her back in the manner that the witness described. Erika Gomez's brother identified her in the photograph, lying next to an assault rifle, by her bloody and mud-covered clothing.

"I bought her that T-shirt," Saddam Guzman Gomez told the AP. "It's not true that she was shooting. They planted that gun. It looks like she was crawling."

Many of the dead are shown sprawled beside the wall of the warehouse. All pictured are holding or lying near assault rifles, which in some cases appear propped against the bodies. Most have mud on their knees, indicating they may have been kneeling or lying face down.

The AP is not distributing the photographs because it cannot determine their source.

A plain yellow envelope containing the photos on a USB memory stick was sent anonymously on Wednesday to MVT, a local news agency in Mexico state, said the agency's director, Mario Vazquez. He checked the photos with those his agency took the day of the shooting and concluded it was the same scene.

The officer and seven soldiers face disciplinary action for their participation, but the army has remained mum on what roles they played. They were being held at a prison in Mexico City on charges of crimes against military discipline, disobedience and dereliction of duty.

The federal Attorney General's Office is also carrying out a civil investigation, and the governmental National Human Rights Commission is conducting its own probe.

On Friday, Mexico's secretary of the interior defended the armed forces in a meeting in the lower house of Congress.

"If there was something they have done wrong, it would be the exception," Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said of the eight detained soldiers. "It's an isolated incident and doesn't reflect the behavior of our great army and navy in Mexico."

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The Role of the Media in the War on Drugs

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The war on drugs would have been impossible for the government to wage for the last 40 plus years without support from the media. The drug war is horrific. Earlier this month, a DEA agent shot a grandmother reaching for her child during a raid that found no drugs. In the summer, a SWAT team in Georgia threw a flashbang into a baby's crib, critically injuring it. There are more than 150 such raids each day in America, so there are a lot of horrifying stories that come out of that, on a regular basis. Rarely, if ever, do such stories break out of the local news and into the national news cycle. There is no equivalent of the Ferguson story when it comes to the drug war. But these stories are just as frightening and outrageous.

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The twisted way in which the media distorts the particulars of the drug war—sanitizing its destruction and hyperbolizing the dangers of its targets—has always perplexed me. Before coming to Reason I spent several years working at NBC and Fox News, and worked with people who had been all around the business for years and even decades. And there's a lot of drug use in journalism. A government study in 2007 found about 13 percent of employees in media admitting to using drugs in the previous month, in the top five professions for drug use. So how do so many members of the media get the drug war so wrong? I suppose for the same reason staffers in DC all seem to smoke pot but their bosses are mostly against legalizing the thing.

That's starting to change. Just like the politicians—the new first estate—are slowly catching up with the public and easing their positions against drugs, so the fourth estate will as well. In neither case will it be because politicians or journalists suddenly found religion. It will be because public opinion has shifted despite their best attempts to control it, because of the proliferation of media sources and viewpoints that make it increasingly more difficult for the powers that be to define the terms not just of the drug war debate but of the acknowledged realities of the drug war.

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How Should Our Society Deal With People Who Use Drugs?

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The war on drugs is a cruel joke. The U.S. spends more than $50 billion a year on the "war on drugs" with the goal of creating a "drug-free society" -- yet there has never been a "drug-free society" in the history of civilization. Virtually all of us take drugs every single day. Caffeine, sugar, alcohol, marijuana, Prozac, Ritalin, opiates and nicotine are just some of the substances that Americans use on a regular basis.

Drugs are so popular because people use them for both pleasure and for pain. Drugs can be fun. How many of us enjoy having some drinks and going out dancing? How many of us enjoy a little smoke after a nice dinner with friends? Many people bond with others or find inspiration alone while under the influence of drugs. On the flip side, many people self-medicate to try to ease the pain in their lives. How many of us have had too much to drink to drown our sorrows over a breakup or some other painful event? How many of us smoke cigarettes or take prescription drugs to deal with anxiety or stress? Throughout recorded history, people have inevitably altered their consciousness to fall asleep, wake up, deal with stress, and for creative and spiritual purposes.

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Hoe 57 Mexicaanse studenten plots verdwenen in de nacht

Een vrijdagnacht in de Mexicaanse stad Iguala in de zuidelijke staat Guerrero begint met een feestje en eindigt in zes doden en 57 vermiste studenten. De burgemeester waagde aan het begin van die avond nog een dansje op live muziek van een lokale band, maar hij ging naar bed voordat het geweld uitbrak. Die nacht botsten jongeren met de politie en liep de situatie volledig uit de hand.

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Op woensdag 1 oktober 2014 07:14 schreef Basp1 het volgende:
BNN met een petitie tegen het strenge straffen van mensen met gebruikershoeveelheden.

http://petities.nl/petitie/een-pil-te-veel-maakt-geen-crimineel

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Het is niet zo dat we het bezit van harddrugs uit het strafrecht willen halen. Ook willen we het gebruik van harddrugs niet promoten.

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Op woensdag 1 oktober 2014 16:53 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

Wat een kut-petie. Niet getekend.

[..]

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Op woensdag 1 oktober 2014 16:54 schreef Basp1 het volgende:

[..]

Het zal met kleine stapjes moeten, waarom meteen alles willen. Het is toch een kleine moeite en als ze genoeg handtekeningen hebben mogen onze politici weer eens drankneus opstelten lastig vallen hiermee.

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Op woensdag 1 oktober 2014 21:27 schreef OllieWilliams het volgende:
http://www.vox.com/2014/1(...)on-maps-charts-facts

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'Nederlanders in cel Spanje voor xtc-handel'

Een 23-jarige en een 25-jarige Nederlander zijn door een rechtbank in het Spaanse Alicante veroordeeld tot elk 6 jaar gevangenisstraf voor de smokkel van 54.000 xtc-pillen. Ook moeten de twee samen een geldboete van ruim 705.000 euro betalen. Dat is de straatwaarde van de drugs.

Dat meldt de Spaanse krant La Verdad vandaag op gezag van justitie. Het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken kan het bericht nog niet bevestigen.

De Nederlanders zijn in mei dit jaar aangehouden in de oostelijke havenstad Dénia. Ze wilden vandaaruit de veerboot naar Ibiza nemen. De politie vond tijdens een inspectie 54.000 xtc-pillen in de brandstoftank van de auto. De pillen waren in 21 zakken verdeeld.

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Culture High: The Riveting Truth Behind Marijuana Prohibition

If watching the trailer for The Culture High doesn't put you on the edge of your seat, there's not much that will. It features some of the foremost names in the marijuana legalization movement and is sure to land with a major impact when it hits theaters. Check out the trailer and be sure to check out the full film later this month:

Journeying across the North American landscape, The Culture High is the riveting story that tears into the very fiber of modern day marijuana prohibition to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motives governing both those who support and oppose the existing pot laws. With budgets to fight the war reaching billions and arrests for simple possession sky rocking to nearly a million annually, the debate over marijuana’s legality has reached epic proportions. Utilizing the quirky yet profound nature of its predecessor, The Union: The Business Behind Getting High, The Culture High raises the stakes with some of todays biggest names, unprecedented access to footage previously unobtainable, and incredibly moving testimonials from both sides of the spectrum. Top celebrities, former undercover agents, university professors and a slew of unforgettable characters from all points of view come together for an amusing yet insightful portrait of cannabis prohibition and the grasp it has on society as a whole. The Culture High will strip search the oddity of human nature and dare to ask the question: What exactly is going on here?

The film will premier is on Oct 11 and the public theatrical release is on Oct 17th.

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PvdA wil onderzoek naar kosten overmatig drankgebruik

De PvdA wil dat staatssecretaris Martin van Rijn (Volksgezondheid) een groot onderzoek laat doen naar de maatschappelijke kosten van overmatig alcoholgebruik. De uitkomst kan gebruikt worden om het beleid daar op af te stemmen. Tweede Kamerlid Marith Rebel zal dat vanavond zeggen in KRO Brandpunt. Rebel zal het ook voorstellen tijdens een debat met Van Rijn deze week, laat ze in een toelichting weten.

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Huge majority thinks 'war on drugs' has failed, new poll finds

An increasing proportion of Britons favours a more liberal approach to drugs and would support decriminalisation strategies, according to a comprehensive survey commissioned by the Observer.

An overwhelming majority also believes that the so-called "war on drugs" is futile, with 84% saying that the decades-long campaign by law enforcement agencies against the global narcotics trade can never be won.

The poll provides welcome reading for those campaigning for illegal drugs to be decriminalised, with 27% saying that Britain's drug laws are not liberal enough. A previous Observer survey into the nation's drug-taking habits, in 2008, recorded a figure of 18%, suggesting a society that is steadily moving towards greater tolerance of drug use.

The proportion of Britons who believe certain drugs should be decriminalised has risen from 27% to 39% since 2008.

More than half (52%) support the introduction of initiatives like that recently pioneered by two US states, Colorado and Washington. Colorado's decision to legalise the sale of recreational marijuana has been hailed a success by some, with reductions of crime reported in the state capital of Denver and concerns about social breakdown yet to be borne out.

In the UK, however, there appears to be little appetite among Tories for a fresh look at drugs policy despite David Cameron, as a young MP, endorsing more lenient penalties for ecstasy possession and formerly sitting on a parliamentary committee that called for an international debate on the legalisation of drugs. The Liberal Democrats are currently examining the decriminalisation of all drugs for personal use and allowing cannabis to be sold on the open market. This week the party will discuss a policy paper advocating such options at its annual conference.

Prohibition has failed to curb the popularity of narcotics, as the number of Britons who have taken drugs continues to increase. Almost a third of the adult population – up from 27% in 2008 to 31% now – say they have taken an illegal substance – about 15 million people. While men and women are equally likely to have taken drugs, those aged 35-44 are the most likely to have used narcotics, with almost half this age group having taken them.

Across all age ranges, around three million people continue to take drugs, half of whom are aged 16-34.

If drugs were decriminalised, however, the proportion of Britons who have never previously tried drugs but who would consider doing so in the future would increase fourfold to 16%, offering some proof to hardliners that drug laws act as a deterrent.

The effect would be most pronounced among young people. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, 30% of those who have never taken drugs say they would consider doing so if substances were decriminalised.

The recession appears to have a had an impact on drug consumption. In the 2008 poll, conducted towards the beginning of the global economic slump, 35% of users were more likely to use drugs in a pub/club/bar environment. This has now fallen to 16%, possibly an indication of more straitened circumstances. Users spend an average of £74.36 on drugs each month, compared with the £54.58 an average drinker spends on alcohol a month or the £76.73 a smoker spends on tobacco.

Concerns that legal highs would create an explosion in drug use have yet to appear, with only one in 10 Britons saying they had tried them. Among those aged 25-34 the proportion to have tried legal highs almost doubles to 19%.

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Marokkanen overwegen legaliseren wietteelt

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Ecuador Frees Thousands Of Drug Mules

LIMA, Peru — In Latin America’s latest challenge to Washington’s “war on drugs,” Ecuador has quietly begun releasing thousands of convicted cocaine smugglers.

The move is a result of the country’s new criminal law, which took effect Aug. 10. It treats “drug mules” who commit the low-profit, high-risk offense more as vulnerable people exploited by cartels than as hardened criminals.

The reform retroactively applies heavily reduced jail sentences to those already convicted of attempting to transport relatively small amounts of drugs — often hidden dangerously inside their own bodies — out of the Latin American country.

Around 500 mules have already been freed and at least another 2,000 are expected to follow, says Jorge Paladines, national coordinator of the Public Defender’s Office. The sentence reduction is not automatic and can only happen after a court hearing, which the prisoner has to request.

“There is a policy of seeing mules as victims of the drug trade,” Paladines told GlobalPost. “I don’t like using the term ‘sentence reduction,’ because was their sentence fair to start with? This is really about sentence proportionality.”

This is hardly the first time Ecuador’s populist leftist president, Rafael Correa, has defied the United States. In the past, he’s granted asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and booted the Drug Enforcement Administration out of the country.

But this time, Correa has an unusually personal reason for his stance: His father was imprisoned in the US for three years in the 1970s for being a drug courier.

Although he usually avoids the subject, Correa has revealed he had a “difficult childhood” as a result.

Ecuador actually produces virtually no cocaine. But it is a major stop-off point for much of the coca-derived powder produced by its Andean neighbors, especially Bolivia and Peru.

Under its previous Narcotic and Psychoactive Substances Law, anyone caught smuggling up to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of drugs received a mandatory sentence of between eight and 12 years — even if the actual amount was miniscule.

Under the new law, carrying less than 50 grams (1.8 ounces) gets you three to six months in jail, while the penalty for someone transporting up to 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) is between one and three years.

The harshest sentence of 10-13 years is reserved only for those moving more than 5 kilograms (11 pounds).

Most mules are caught with between 1 and 2 kilograms. They conceal it in their luggage or often in their own bodies, crammed into tiny capsules and then swallowed or, for women, stuffed into the vagina. If the capsules leak, the smuggler can die from a massive overdose.

Experts say the micro-traffickers tend to come from poor families, often with limited education, and are easily preyed upon by cartels, whose members mislead them about the risks. Payment for a single run is thought to vary from $5,000 to as little as $1,000.

“The objective [of this law] has been to decriminalize poverty,” says Gerardo Esteva Vallejo, a lawyer from Spain who has been visiting Ecuador since 2007 to provide legal support for Spanish prisoners there. “This is a crime that, of course, is only carried out by people of limited resources.”

There are currently 85 Spanish mules in Ecuadorean jails and another 24 convicted in the South American nation but now serving their sentences in their homeland, Esteva Vallejo says. Their numbers have swelled in recent years with Spain gripped by economic crisis, including a ruinous unemployment rate that nearly hit 27 percent last year.

Many return to Spain “mentally and physically broken” after their time in harsh prison conditions, he adds.

Yet experts say most low-level traffickers behind bars in Ecuador and other Latin American nations are locals. They’re often women, including sex workers, single mothers and drug addicts who are desperate for cash.

According to the International Drug Policy Consortium, the number of women behind bars in this region almost doubled from 40,000 in 2006 to 74,000 in 2011, with around 70 percent on drug charges.

Hannah Hetzer, Latin America expert at the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based group that advocates for looser anti-narcotics laws, welcomed Ecuador’s new “fairer sentencing” that would allow convicted mules to “rejoin their families.”

“This is an important step towards fixing a broken criminal justice system that often falls most unjustly on the most marginalized,” she added.

Ecuador’s jam-packed jails — estimated to hold double their intended capacity — can definitely use the relief.

Overcrowded penitentiaries are a serious problem in much of Latin America. That partly stems from the police’s hyper focus on drug arrests since countries here adopted United Nations treaties and succumbed to US pressure to lock up more narco-traffickers, according to Systems Overload, a report on the region’s prison crises. Washington is even accused of conditioning economic aid and trade benefits on governments’ willingness to play by its drug war rules, the report says.

Some of the region’s leaders have been trying to turn the situation around.

In 2008 and 2009, Correa pardoned more than 2,000 convicted drug smugglers. But the new criminal code enshrines reduced sentences in law rather than leaving them to the whim of the president.

Correa has called the previous law "barbaric" for conflating small time possession offenders with major traffickers.

“I know where that drug law came from: imposed by the gringos at the beginning of the 1990s and accepted submissively by [Ecuador’s] appeaser governments [concerned they would lose their] visa to the United States,” the president said in 2011.

America’s narco evolution

Ironically, Washington actually appears to be subtly backpedalling from the hard-line approach President Richard Nixon unveiled in 1971. US officials have called for an end to the term “war on drugs,” to treat the issue as a public health problem, and to reduce sentences for low-level drug dealers.

Outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder has complained about America’s “overreliance on incarceration.” “It comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate,” he saidin March.

In an email to GlobalPost, the US Embassy in Quito said its officials are “aware” of the South American country’s legal reform but did not comment on it. Officials are informing the handful of US citizens in prisons there so they can apply to have their sentences reviewed, the embassy added.

Ecuador’s Interior Ministry did not answer requests for comment, and officials haven’t made public exactly how many prisoners could benefit from the reform.

Paladines, the Public Defender’s Office coordinator, says the country currently has 6,700 people in prison convicted of drug offenses, around 5,600 of whom have been convicted for possession. “Not many of them are drug lords,” Paladines adds.

But how could someone make such a bad judgment as to attempt to board an international flight with illegal drugs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?

Esteva Vallejo, the Spanish lawyer, responds: “I ask the same question. The truth is they [the mules] don’t really understand the potential repercussions of what they are doing.”

“They are typically people who have not traveled abroad before, and some may think that in developing nations, the police and officials in the airport may not be that well trained or equipped.”

“Of course, the gangsters encourage that and lie to them and tell them they won’t get caught.”

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Morocco considers legalising marijuana cultivation

bdul Khaleq Bin Abdullah strode among towering marijuana plants and checked the buds for the telltale spots of white, indicating they are ready for harvest.By September much of the crop has been picked and left to dry on the roofs of the stone-and-wood huts that dot the Rif valley, the heart of Morocco’s pot-growing region. Bin Abdullah openly grows the crop despite the risk: “We are regularly subject to blackmail by the gendarmes,” he said as he scythed through stalks and wrapped them into a bundle.

Morocco’s marijuana farmers live in a strange limbo in which the brilliant green fields are largely left alone, while the growers face constant police harassment. A new draft law may bring some reprieve: It aims to legalise marijuana growing for medical and industrial uses, in a radical step for an Arab nation that could alleviate poverty and social unrest. But it faces stiff opposition in this conservative country, as well as the suspicions of farmers themselves, who think politicians can do nothing to help them.

Morocco is joining many other countries, as well as some US states, in re-examining policies toward drugs and looking to some degree of legalisation. But Morocco has a strong taboo toward drugs, despite the centuries-old tradition of growing the plant in the north.

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Germany's biggest ever stash of heroin found by police - video

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German police have found 330kg of heroin hidden in jars in a truck in Essen, west Germany, they announced on Thursday. Two brothers have been arrested following the find, which adds up to more than the entire amount of heroin seized in the country in 2013. The drugs are believed to have a street value of around ¤50 million

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België: einde gedoogbeleid drugs

De nieuwe Belgische regering gaat het bezit en gebruik van softdrugs weer hard aanpakken. Volgens Belgische media maakt de regering van premier Michel een einde aan het gedoogbeleid.

Het bezit van alle drugs is in België verboden, maar justitie vervolgt meerderjarigen niet als ze voor eigen gebruik hooguit 3 gram in huis hebben. De processen-verbaal worden systematisch geseponeerd.

De nieuwe regering wil daar een eind aan maken; ook bezit van een paar gram voor eigen gebruik wordt binnenkort weer aangepakt.

In Antwerpen, waar de Vlaams-nationalist Bart De Wever burgemeester is, wordt bezit van softdrugs al niet meer gedoogd. De Wever voert een harde strijd tegen softdrugs in zijn stad.

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Lebanon cannabis trade thrives in shadow of Isis war – video report

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With war raging against Islamic State (Isis) in Syria and Iraq, illegal marijuana plantations are thriving in neighbouring Lebanon. In the past, the Lebanese government has routinely destroyed the crops, found in the east of the country, but it is now busy battling militants. Farmers say the government's lack of economic investment in the region has forced people to cultivate the drug

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Mexico violence flares as fury grows over fate of missing students

Demonstrators attack government building with rocks and Molotov cocktails in protest at alleged abduction by police


Hundreds of students and teachers smashed windows and set fires inside a state capital building in southern Mexico, as fury erupted over the disappearance of 43 young people believed abducted by local police linked to a drug cartel.

The protesters called for the safe return of the students from a rural teachers’ college in Guerrero state, missing since 26 September, even though fears have grown that 10 newly discovered mass graves could contain their bodies.

Associated Press photographs showed smoke billowing from the government building in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero, and flames licking from office windows. Firefighters battled the blaze.

Government spokesman Jose Villanueva Manzanarez said the protesting members of a teachers’ union initially tried to get into the state congress in Chilpancingo but were repelled by anti-riot police. They then headed to the state government palace.

With the support of hundreds of students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college, the teachers blockaded the capital building, attacking it with iron bars, rocks and Molotov cocktails, he said.

The violence came more than two weeks after police in Iguala, also in Guerrero state, opened fire on the teacher’s college students, killing at least six. Witnesses have said that dozens of students were taken away by police and have not been seen since. Twenty-six local police officers have been detained, and officials are attempting to determine if any of the students are in the mass graves nearby.

The confrontation in Iguala shed light on a widespread problem with local police in Mexico: They are often linked to organised crime. In the case of Iguala, the police who attacked the students were working with the local cartel, Guerreros Unidos, according to testimony of those arrested.

Monday’s protests came after police in Guerrero shot and wounded a German university student in a reported case of mistaken identity, prosecutors said.

The victim, Kim Fritz Kaiser, is an exchange student at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico City campus, said the institute’s director, Pedro Grassa.

He told the Milenio TV station on Monday that Kaiser was in good condition and that that the injury was not grave, though Kaiser would remain under observation.

Kaiser was in a van with other students another German, two French and six Mexicans travelling back from Acapulco and passing through Chilpancingo just after a confrontation between police and kidnappers that killed one officer.

Police tried to stop the van, believing it was suspicious. Police said they opened fire when they heard something that sounded like a shot or detonation, said Victor Leon Maldonado of the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office. The students kept driving, fearing that armed men might be trying to kidnap them, the state prosecutor, Inaky Blanco, said.

Maldonado told reporters in a press conference that the officers shot at the bottom of the van, trying to hit the tyres to make it stop. Kaiser was shot in the buttocks. The police involved have been detained and their weapons are being tested, according to a statement from the state attorney general’s office.

A US state department travel warning issued last week said American citizens should avoid Chilpancingo along with all parts of Guerrero state outside of the Pacific resorts of Acapulco, Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo and the tourist attractions of Taxco and the Cacahuamilpa caves.

A previous warning in January already advised against travel in the north-western part of the state near the border with Mexico state, where Iguala is located.

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Principiële wietkwekers uit Bierum ontlopen werkstraf

Twee principiële wiettelers uit het Groningse Bierum zijn donderdag zonder straf weggekomen met het telen van hennep. Volgens de rechtbank in Groningen past hun teelt in het Nederlandse gedoogbeleid.

De twee zouden op verantwoorde wijze wiet hebben geteeld, vervoerd en verkocht.

Het Openbaar Ministerie (OM) had twee weken geleden nog werkstraffen geëist tegen het paar voor de illegale teelt van hennep. De twee kwekers telen al jaren uit principe en zijn al meerdere keren veroordeeld.

De rechtbank in Groningen zegt dat de twee zich wel schuldig hebben gemaakt aan hennepteelt, maar legt bewust geen straf op.

De afgelopen jaren zijn in Bellingwolde en later in Bierum plantages van het stel opgerold, waarbij 2.500 wietplanten, negenhonderd stekken en acht kilo henneptoppen in beslag zijn genomen.

De 49-jarige man en de 39-jarige vrouw kweken wiet sinds 2009. Ze telen biologisch zonder bestrijdingsmiddelen, knoeien niet met de elektriciteit en dragen belasting af. De kwekers zeggen geen bemoeienissen te hebben met het criminele circuit.

Ze betalen de hoge stroomrekening en de belastingen en houden een transparante administratie bij. Ook leveren ze alleen aan door de gemeente goedkeurde coffeeshops.

Gedoogbeleid

De verdachten menen dat het gedoogbeleid niet klopt en willen dat veranderen. Ook de rechtbank wijst erop dat het huidige gedoogbeleid op sommige punten niet duidelijk is.

"Nu de verkoop van softdrugs uit deze coffeeshops gedoogd wordt, impliceert dit ook dat de coffeeshops bevoorraad worden en mitsdien dat ten behoeve van die aanvoer, ook geteeld wordt. Over de vraag hoe die bevoorrading dan plaats moet vinden laat het beleid zich niet uit", staat in de uitspraak van de rechtbank.

Open

De rechtbank benadrukt dat de verdachten tegenover de politie, het OM en de Belastingdienst altijd open zijn geweest over de teelt. Ze ontvingen naast hun drugsinkomen geen uitkering.

Bovendien hebben ze de wiet op een veilige manier geteeld. De teelt zou geen overlast hebben veroorzaakt voor de omgeving.

De rechtbank vindt dat de verdachten hebben gehandeld naar de belangrijkste doelstellingen van het softdrugsbeleid, "te weten het belang van de volksgezondheid en het handhaven van de openbare orde".

Opstelten

Minister Opstelten van Veiligheid en Justitie zegt het een verrassende uitspraak te vinden van de rechter in Groningen. "Verder wil ik er niet te veel over zeggen, want ik wil het Openbaar Ministerie niet voor de voeten lopen."

De minister wees op een vergelijkbare zaak die eerder in Leeuwarden onder de rechter kwam. "Daar was de uitspraak anders. Het gaat hoe dan ook ons beleid niet veranderen, want we houden ons aan internationale verdragen."

Niet houdbaar

D66-Kamerlid Magda Berndsen zegt in een reactie dat de "de achterdeur van coffeeshops nu openstaat". Berndsen: "Het Opstelten om de teelt van cannabis illegaal te houden is niet langer houdbaar door deze uitspraak van de rechter."

D66 zet al langer in op regulering van wietteelt door Opstelten. "Het is de enige oplossing voor een groot deel van de problemen waar gemeenten nu mee kampen", zegt Berndsen.

"Hiermee kunnen we de gezondheidsrisico's beperken, politiecapaciteit voor andere prioriteiten inzetten en brandgevaarlijke situaties voorkomen. En in de tussentijd roep ik Opstelten op om de experimenten met wietteelt toe te staan."

"Dit is allerminst een steun in de rug voor Opstelten", reageert Michiel van Nispen van de SP. "Zelfs rechters vinden nu dat het huidige beleid niet meer kan. Hij zal donderdagmiddag tijdens een debat in de Tweede Kamer de minister aansporen om stappen te zetten in de richting van gereguleerde wietteelt."

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Tilburg mag kantoor coffeeshopketen Grass Company sluiten

REDA/TILBURG – Burgemeester Peter Noordanus van Tilburg mag het kantoor van de verdachte coffeeshopketen The Grass Company sluiten, maar niet meteen.

Het pand aan de Kooikerstraat moet op 17 november dicht zijn. De rechter in Breda heeft dat gisteren bepaald in een kort geding.

In de kelder onder het kantoor werd bij een inval in juli bijna 10 kilo softdrugs gevonden die was bedoeld voor de vier coffeeshops van het bedrijf. De rechter meent dat The Grass Company meer tijd moet krijgen om het pand te verlaten omdat de burgemeester wist dat de handelsvoorraad er werd verwerkt en hij eerder bewust niet heeft opgetreden.

Het was voor de derde keer in een paar jaar dat de voorraad van het bedrijf werd opgerold. De coffeeshopketen en de eigenaar worden onder andere verdacht van witwassen, corruptie en belastingfraude.

Tegen de sluiting van het kantoor loopt ook nog een bodemzaak.

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Op donderdag 16 oktober 2014 15:27 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

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Op donderdag 16 oktober 2014 15:27 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

[..]

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"Het gaat hoe dan ook ons beleid niet veranderen, want we houden ons aan internationale verdragen."

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Op donderdag 16 oktober 2014 16:50 schreef Basp1 het volgende:
witwassen, corruptie en belastingfraude.

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Op donderdag 16 oktober 2014 17:18 schreef Deeltjesversneller het volgende:

[..]

dan krijg je dat

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Op zondag 1 juni 2014 21:40 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Dagblad De Limburger gaat onderzoek doen naar de Limburgse wiet-economie.

[..]

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Op donderdag 16 oktober 2014 18:24 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
[ afbeelding ]

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Would Joe Biden Put His Son In Prison For Doing Coke?

So the son of our Vice President was booted from the military for doing coke. This must be an awkward situation for Joe Biden, given his role in cracking down on drug use over the last few decades. Joe Biden created the position of “drug czar,” a key step in the drug war. As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986, he played a major role in passing mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. He was the main sponsor of the RAVE Act in 2003, meant to crack down on MDMA use, which would have held club owners liable for providing “paraphernalia” like glowsticks and water. He still vocally opposes marijuana legalization.

To be clear: Hunter Biden wasn’t caught with actual cocaine. He just failed a drug test. But what if he'd happened to be found with a little bag in his pocket? Would Joe Biden would find it fair for him to serve 87 months, which is the average federal sentence for drug possession?

Of course, were Hunter Biden to be caught with powder cocaine, he would likely fare better than someone caught with crack. To his credit, Joe Biden himself has pushed for reducing the longstanding sentencing disparity between crack and regular cocaine, but possession of 28 grams of crack still triggers a five-year minimum sentence. It takes 500 grams of regular cocaine to trigger the same sentence. That’s an 18-to-one difference. (African Americans make up 83 percent of people convicted for crack offenses, even though the number of white crack users is 40 percent greater than that of black users, according to a National Institute on Drug Abuse study).

America has more prisoners than any other country—a quarter of all people behind bars in the entire world are in US prisons or jails. Nearly half of all federal prisoners are serving sentences for drugs. Many of them won't have a chance to "regret" their mistakes and move on, as Hunter Biden has said he will.