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

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Mexican woman jailed for combatting cartels: 'It is a sacrifice that had to be made' | World news | The Guardian

Nestora Salgado is a mother of three who was thrown into a high-security prison on kidnapping charges after returning to Mexico from the US to take up the fight against Guerrero’s narcos – yet her indomitable character remains intact


Nestora Salgado is not a woman who caves in easily.

A child bride who soon became a single mother of three, Salgado was still a teenager when she left her hometown in the mountains of southern Mexico to rebuild her life in the US.

Two decades later, she returned home to lead an armed rebellion against drug traffickers and corrupt local authorities – only to be accused of kidnapping and imprisoned.

Salgado spent 21 months in a high-security jail until a hunger strike galvanized international support for her case and helped secure her transfer last month to the medical wing of a more relaxed facility.

Now, in her first interview with the international press, Salgado argued that she was guilty of nothing more than helping her community stand up to the narcos and their corrupt political allies, and called on the Mexican government to release her and drop all the charges.

“I have no regrets about what I did, and I never will have any regrets,” she told the Guardian. “I am not a person who likes to confront the authorities, but in a place where dialogue is not possible, what else can you do?”

Related: Masked gunmen took over a Mexican town and police stood by as 13 men disappeared

Salgado’s extraordinary story has unfolded amid a fierce debate about the role of armed vigilante groups that have sprung up across the country to fight the cartels, but have themselves been accused of murder, extortion and – in some cases – even acting as proxies for rival crime groups.

Mexican officials argue that nobody has the right to take the law into their own hands. Salgado’s supporters say she is merely a community leader who has been criminized for exposing the Mexican state’s failure to enforce the rule of law.

Sitting on her prison hospital bed in white and blue flannel pyjamas, Salgado, 43, said she had never underestimated the risks involved in taking a stand.

“The government is against people who want to do the right thing and protect their communities,” she said. “I know I have made my family suffer, but it is a sacrifice that had to be made.”

Salgado’s indomitable character was forged in Olinalá, high in the mountains of Guerrero, a state in southern Mexico with a long history of repression and rebellion.

The town is best known for the intricately lacquered boxes produced by local craftsmen – and for the opium poppies grown in the surrounding hills.

The sixth of seven children, Salgado says her childhood was happy, if brief. She was married at 14, but within five years her husband emigrated to the US. The plan had been for him to send money to support the family, but it never arrived. Struggling to make ends meet, Salgado decided to entrust her daughters to her sisters and head north too.

She soon joined her husband in Washington state. In those days, it was still relatively easy for migrants to cross the border safely, so in 1992 Salgado sent for her children. Saira was five, Ruby was three and Grisel was one.

The family settled in the Seattle suburb of Renton, but according to Salgado, the reunion was not a happy one: her then-husband drank and beat her, and the couple separated. Soon after, she met her current husband, Jose Luis Villa, who is now a driving force of the cross-border campaign to secure her release.

Life in Seattle was tough, but good, she says. Salgado and Villa both worked two or three jobs, and sent money to her family in Olinalá whenever they could, but Salgado didn’t return home until 2000 when she obtained her US residency.

The visit was a reminder of the harsh reality of she had left behind, Salgado said. “It really hurt me to see my people still living in such poverty,” she said. “I had got used to the United States.”

Salgado took the family to live in Olinalá for a year, hoping it would make her daughters appreciate the opportunities they had in the US. She also became more outspoken against day-to-day corruption and lawlessness. “Living in the United State had opened my horizons and made me conscious of rights,” she said.

Related: Mexico drug war continues to rage in region where president fired first salvo

Guerrero has long been one of Mexico’s most lawless regions, but in 2006 the state was plunged into a open conflict by a military-led offensive against organized crime.

The campaign helped shatter the once-mighty Beltran Leyva cartel, but numerous splinter groups sprang up in its wake. One of these, Los Rojos, took control of Olinalá. Kidnapping, extortion, disappearances and murder became common; cartel gunmen walked the streets with impunity.

“At first you just try to keep a distance out of fear, but then it starts to move your heart,” Salgado said of the terror. “You get angry when the authorities do nothing.”

That fury erupted in October 2012 at the funeral of a taxi driver who had been kidnapped and killed by cartel thugs. A rumour broke out that a second driver had been abducted – and Salgado decided that enough was enough.

She helped organize the crowd as they disarmed the local police, then commandeered a police car to drive around town, using a megaphone to urge townspeople to join the rebellion. Within hours, the gunmen were driven from town, and an ad hoc militia armed with hunting rifles and AK-47s had set up checkpoints.

The ragtag force gained a figleaf of legality within an older tradition of community policing in Guerrero’s indigenous communities. But it also tapped into another strand of the region’s history – that of armed uprisings against the Mexican state.

Under the leadership of “Comandanta Nestora”, the Olinalá community police arrested suspected wrongdoers and detained them for “re-education”. Meanwhile the group also built ties with radical community groups allegedly linked to the region’s defunct guerrilla movement.

But many locals chafed at the Salgado’s high-handed manner and called for the military to take over security in the town. Anger focussed on the detention of three teenage girls accused of dealing cocaine for their narco boyfriends. Soon after, Salgado incurred the displeasure of local politicians when she detained a well-connected town official she accused of fraternizing with the narcos.

By then, even some of Salgado’s supporters suspected she had gone too far, quietly admitting that she had perhaps been politically naive in her attempt to cut through the web of local politics and organised crime.

“I knew that when I started to expose the municipal government that there was a risk I would be arrested or killed,” she said. “I didn’t care. It was necessary.”

Authorities put out an arrest warrant for kidnapping, and on 21 August 2013, Salgado was detained by the army.

She was sent to a high-security jail over 1,000km (620 miles) away from Olinalá – a move her lawyers describe as the first of many violations of due process in the government crackdown crackdown on vigilantes.

“The arrest and prosecution of Nestora was clearly a political decision,” said Salgado’s lawyer, Leonel River. “The case is full of violations.”

Salgado’s supporters also allege mistreatment within the jail. They say she has been isolated from other inmates, denied medical attention for spinal injuries sustained in a 2002 car accident, and that visits from her legal council and family have been severely restricted.

In January, calls by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for urgent action to improve her conditions did little to help. But suggestions from the Guerrero state government that it would consider dropping the kidnapping charges faded after a backlash from high-profile anti-crime campaigners associated with the political right.

The case, meanwhile, inched through Mexico’s labyrinthine judicial system, in which cases are still mostly fought in written arguments, often behind closed doors.

On 5 May, Salgado decided to stop eating in protest at her treatment. “I was prepared to die,” she said of the hunger strike that she maintained for 31 days.

The hunger strike focused new attention on her cause which has been taken up by supporters on Mexico and the US, and at the end of May, Salgado was transferred to the medical wing of a relatively relaxed women’s prison on the southern outskirts of Mexico City

At first, Salgado said she would continue to refuse food until she was freed, but was persuaded to end the hunger strike when doctors warned she risked permanent damage. Meanwhile, discrete negotiations with state authorities continue – though Salgado’s supporters are wary of raising their hopes too soon.

“We are facing a monster in Mexico and we know how dirty politics are,” said her husband, José Louis Villa. “The government gives three choices to activists. You can be bought, you can be killed or you can be put in prison.”

Meanwhile, La Comandata remains defiant. In an 30-minute interview, she only appeared to drop her guard for a brief moment as she described seeing herself in the mirror last month for the first time since her arrest.

“They try to destroy you in that place,” she said. Then she straightened her back and continued: “But I am strong.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Smuggling tonnes of cocaine through an Italian port - Al Jazeera English

Gioia Tauro, Italy - In Calabria, one of Italy's poorest regions, the Gioia Tauro port has become known for the massive quantities of cocaine transported by organised crime groups.

"The port was born with an original sin," said Roberto Di Palma, an Italian magistrate and mob researcher, during a conversation with Al Jazeera at his Reggio Calabria office.

The "original sin" Di Palma refers to is the 'Ndrangheta, Europe's most powerful crime syndicate, an organisation that is more dangerous and influential than the Mafia, its better-known Sicilian cousin.

The coastal road leading to the Gioia Tauro port runs past a number of abandoned warehouses and un-farmed plots of land. In Calabria - home to powerful 'Ndrangheta families with global influence - the illegal activities of organised crime dwarf the revenues of the legal economy.

The Gioia Tauro port is one of Europe's largest when it comes to transhipment, the term the shipping industry uses to describe ports used primarily as intermediate destinations.

Every year 3.6 million containers arrive at the Gioia Tauro port, a number that makes it extremely difficult for the companies operating there, as well as the team of 25 policemen supervising it, to control the port's inflows and outflows.

"How can we check everything?" a nearly desperate company manager told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

"It's nearly impossible. If we checked every cargo, no ship would stop and the port would die."

Di Palma said "when it comes to drug trafficking, it is always hard to have reliable numbers. What we can say with certainty is that in terms of numbers of drug requisitions by port authorities, Gioia Tauro tops Europe".

90 percent purity

When estimating cocaine volumes, authorities involved in fighting narcotrafficking use what is known as the one-to-10 rule of thumb.

According to this rule, for every police seizure there are about nine drug shipments that freely transit through the port.

According to data published by the DIA, the Italian law enforcement agency dealing with organised crime, between 2011 and 2014 total seizures amounted to 5.5 metric tonnes, implying that almost 50 tonnes of cocaine probably transited through the port over that time period.

Vincenzo Caruso, who is in charge of port security and a lieutenant colonel with the Guardia di Finanza, a police force that deals with financial crimes, said in a phone interview with Al Jazeera that "the cocaine arriving in Gioia Tauro is usually about 90 percent pure, meaning that it can be cut up to four times before being placed on the market".

Given that the average street price of cocaine in Western Europe is somewhere between 60-70 euros ($67-79) a gram, the estimated market value of the cocaine that transited through Gioia Tauro between 2011 and 2014 is somewhere between 30bn-35 billion euros ($34bn-39bn).

Italian police estimate the 'Ndrangheta controls between 60-80 percent of Europe's cocaine market. Narcotrafficking, coupled with other activities including real estate, the illegal arms trade, and hazardous waste management, yield the group an annual revenue of roughly 56 billion euros ($63bn), more than the combined annual revenue of Deutsche Bank and McDonald's.

Data from the UNODC, the UN agency monitoring drug trafficking and consumption, show the volume of seizures have declined. However, Di Palma said these numbers should be taken with caution, since the 'Ndrangheta has recently refined its smuggling techniques, for a time duping port authorities.

Refining techniques

The 'Ndrangheta's new smuggling technique is called "rip-off" and is at the centre of a new book Oro Bianco (White Gold), authored by Nicola Gratteri and Antonio Nicaso, the world's top researchers on the Calabria-based crime syndicate.

A few years ago, cocaine smuggling was mainly carried out by establishing fake cargo companies under the control of the 'Ndrangheta.

But now the group relies on men whom it has placed in key ports along cocaine trafficking routes, a technique it first experimented with in Gioia Tauro, a port where it was able to take more risks thanks to the strong influence it exercises in the region.

The strategy involves a 'Ndrangheta member strategically placed at a port who opens up a container bound for Gioia Tauro, and hides cocaine parcels inside it. His counterpart in Gioia Tauro is then informed of the container's number. When it arrives at the Italian port, the crime syndicate rushes to empty it before customs or police are able to check it.

"It's nearly impossible for authorities to find out what is going on," a port worker in Gioia Tauro told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

"There are just too many containers coming and going, and the 'Ndrangheta's influence is strong despite the work of the authorities."

The recent economic crisis also plays a role. A number of companies operating in Gioia Tauro were hit heavily and at risk of going bankrupt. The 'Ndrangheta loaned money to companies in crisis, allowing them to take them over and operate in the port without anyone noticing.

The new smuggling technique has two benefits, Nicaso and Gratteri told Al Jazeera.

It reduces costs because the criminal organisation no longer has to open up fictitious cargo companies. It also diminishes risk, because cocaine is smuggled in smaller quantities - up to 200kg per shipment. If seized, the loss is not a major setback.

Impossible to halt

This makes it harder for authorities to stop the inflow.

Nevertheless, the Gioa Tauro Guardia di Finanza has been quick to find ways to fight the "rip-off" technique.

Caruso and his men were the first to take notice. As the Guardia di Finanza caught on, it started checking the codes on the cargo container locks to see whether they were tampered with. If the code was different, the cargo probably contained a drug parcel.

This strategy has now been imitated across Europe by other national authorities fighting narcotrafficking.

As authorities discovered more and more containers that had been tampered with, the 'Ndrangheta responded by forging locks with the same numerical code as the original in order to bypass police checks.

This made it once again hard, if not impossible, for Gioia Tauro's authorities to find drug parcels. However, Caruso said "new prevention techniques are being developed, and we are certain we'll soon have positive results".

Di Palma, Gratteri, Nicaso, and Caruso complain that the 'Ndrangheta and its cocaine smuggling are often falsely considered to be a local or national problem; the 'Ndrangheta is an organised crime network that operates on an international scale.

Authorities in Gioia Tauro can put up a fight, they say, but until there is a coordinated effort by international police, it may be nearly impossible to bring to a halt an industry worth billions.

Bron: www.aljazeera.com

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Men in fake ambulance accused of smuggling drugs into UK | UK news | The Guardian

Four Dutch men dressed as paramedics arrested in car park in Smethwick, West Midlands. after amphetamine and ecstasy found in vehicle

Four Dutch men have been charged with attempting to smuggle hundreds of kilos of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, into Britain inside a fake ambulance.

Men dressed as paramedics were arrested by National Crime Agency (NCA) officers in a car park in Smethwick, West Midlands, on Tuesday.

Packages of drugs were found behind interior panels, in cupboards and under the floor of the vehicle, police said. Wraps of amphetamine and three holdalls containing thousands of what are believed to be ecstasy pills were also discovered.

The seizure of about 270 kilos of drugs followed a surveillance operation by the NCA officers, who watched as two men arrived in Birmingham in the ambulance on Tuesday morning and met two others.

The officers, who were assisted by West Midlands police, arrested four men at a car park on Hill Street in Smethwick. Two men from London who were seen leaving the car park shortly before the ambulance arrived were arrested nearby.

Brent Lyon, from the NCA’s armed operations unit, said: “This was an audacious plot. We believe the two men in the ambulance posed as paramedics to avoid unwanted attention when entering the country through Harwich. Our officers were ready and waiting though and stopped the drugs from being distributed to crime groups across the country.”

Four Dutch men – Olof Schoon, 37; Leonardus Bijlsma, 55; Dennis Vogelaar, 28; and Richard Engelsbel, 50 – were charged with drug offences and appeared at Birmingham magistrates court on Thursday morning.

All four have been remanded in custody until 2 July when they will appear at Birmingham crown court. The two men from London have been bailed pending further inquiries.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Lib Dems: legalise medicinal cannabis and possession of drugs for personal use | Society | The Guardian

‘Locking up drug users is not the answer,’ says Lord Paddick, who has tabled amendments to government’s controversial psychoactive substances bill

Liberal Democrat peers have called on the government to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use and legalise medical cannabis.

Brian Paddick, the party’s home affairs spokesman in the Lords and a former London mayoral candidate, has tabled a series of amendments to the government’s psychoactive substances bill, including decriminalisation of the possession of all drugs for personal use and the legalisation of medicinal use of cannabis when it is prescribed by a doctor.

The psychoactive substances bill, which will be debated in the Lords on Tuesday, seeks to outlaw legal highs, which have been blamed for a number of deaths in recent years. But the draft legislation has been criticised for being badly drafted and containing too broad a definition of psychoactive substances.

Lord Paddick, who was deputy assistant commissioner for the Metropolitan police before his retirement, also called for the government to delay the new laws until a full independent, evidence-based review of existing laws had been carried out.

Paddick said that, instead of tackling the threat of these new drugs, the proposed legislation was likely to make things worse.

“When I was a police officer, I realised that locking up drug users is simply not the answer,” he said. “We have to learn the lessons of why our current approach is failing before we make the same mistakes with new psychoactive substances as we have done with other illegal drugs.”

Decriminalising personal possession would free up police resources, ensure addicts got treatment and social users received the education they needed to keep them safe, said Paddick.

Arguing for the legalisation of cannabis use for medical purposes, he said: “There can be absolutely no justification for seriously ill people, prescribed medicine by a doctor, to be forced to become drug smugglers.

“We aren’t talking about fake prescriptions for those wishing to get high. We are talking about properly prescribed doses of pain relief for those with serious conditions.”

Despite losing 48 of their 56 MPs at the last election, leaving them as the fourth biggest party in the Commons with only eight MPs, the Lib Dems have 101 members in the Lords, making up 93% of their parliamentary party.

The Conservative party has 228 members, Labour has 212 and there are 178 crossbenchers, meaning the Lib Dems have significant potential to unite with others to amend government legislation.

Liberalising drugs laws has always been a key Lib Dem policy, with the party’s two leadership candidates, Tim Farron and Norman Lamb, both backing calls for the UK to legalise, regulate and tax the sale of cannabis.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Eindhoven stopt met controleren coffeeshops

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Steeds meer gemeenten stoppen met het zogeheten ‘ingezetenencriterium’: dat alleen Nederlanders softdrugs mogen kopen in coffeeshops en buitenlanders worden geweerd om drugstoerisme tegen te gaan. Te veel rompslomp zeggen de betrokken burgemeesters.

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'Gemeenten negeren verbod regulering wietteelt' | NU - Het laatste nieuws het eerst op NU.nl

Dat meldt Nieuwsuur donderdag na een rondgang. Het televisieprogramma spreekt van een patstelling.

"Het wordt tijd dat Den Haag de ogen opent voor de realiteit en de achterdeurproblematiek rondom de hennepteelt", stelt burgemeester van Weert Jos Heijmans (D66).

Weert is een van de 55 gemeenten die het zogenoemde 'Joint Regulation'-manifest ondertekende. In Wageningen werd onlangs een motie aangenomen die stadsbestuur aanspoort te blijven zoeken naar mogelijkheden voor regulering.

Volgens burgemeester van Zwijndrecht Dominic Schrijer (PvdA) zijn de problemen zo groot dat nieuw beleid niet kan wachten.

"Je moet kiezen voor een totaalverbod op softdrugs óf voor het reguleren van de wietteelt om zo via de geleidelijke weg de criminaliteit te verdringen."

Hij wil dat wietteelt onder staatstoezicht aan banden wordt gelegd en gecontroleerd.

De Tweede Kamer nam in mei met een krappe meerderheid een CDA-motie aan waarin het kabinet wordt opgeroepen gemeenten "geen enkele ruimte" te geven om wietteelt zelf te organiseren.

Burgemeester Schrijer denkt dat het CDA hiermee aan het voorsorteren is voor de volgende verkiezingen. "Door het zo politiek te maken, wordt de hele discussie geblokkeerd", stelt de burgervader.

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China's 1st official drug report shows alarming situation - CCTV News - CCTV.com English

^{06-24-2015 15:12 BJT}

China has released its first ever official report on the general situation on drug-related crimes and measures to deal with them.

Narcotics authorities say that the country faces a serious drug abuse problem, and warns that its spread and related crimes will continue to increase over the next few years.

The Chinese government is one of the world’s toughest on drugs. But that does not mean the country faces less of a problem.

On Wednesday, the National Narcotics Control Commission published the first official report on drug use in China, in which some alarming figures were released.

The report shows that by the end of 2014, there were nearly 3 million registered drug users in China, and the actual number of users is estimated at 14 million. That means one out of every hundred Chinese is a drug user. The number has been rising at a staggering pace of 40 percent each year since 2008.

"The ages of arrested drug users are becoming lower and lower. In 2014, over half of them were under 35. Moreover, in the past, most drug takers used to be found among marginalized groups such as jobless people, poor farmers or migrant workers. But recently, we find that drug abuse is gradually spreading to groups like regular employees, freelancers, celebrities and even civil servants," said Liu Yuejin, minister assistant of Public Security Ministry.

As Chinese people become richer, drugs have become more widespread, particularly in bars and clubs.

Another unsettling fact is that these people tend to use synthetic drugs, which are more addictive and dangerous than traditional drugs like heroin and opium. In 2014, four out of every five people caught were users of synthetic drugs.

"The excessive use of synthetic drugs can cause mental disorders, which often prompts dangerous behaviors like suicide, murder and rape. Unlike traditional drugs, which generally cause people to be silent and go inward, synthetic drugs make people excited and go to the extreme. That is a serious threat to public safety," Liu said.

China's narcotics authorities say that following this report they are going to publish regular reports on the drug situation in the country. They say while China is determined to crack down on drugs, it also finds it impossible to do it alone. They are therefore calling for stronger international cooperation to make that happen.

Geographically, China is very close to the world's two top drug exporting regions, with drugs flooding across the border. One is called the Golden Triangle, along the Mekong River, and the other called the Golden Crescent, near the border of Afghanistan.

"The rampancy of drug production and exporting there is partly because of the restive situation in those regions. China attaches great importance to cooperation with relevant countries. And we spare no effort in assisting them to calm the situation and crack down on drugs," Liu said.

As the crackdown continues to intensify, police say that the fight against drugs also needs systemic efforts from society to tackle this complicated and rising problem.

Bron: english.cntv.cn

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How Britain's khat ban devastated an entire Kenyan town | World news | The Guardian

Mild stimulant used to be Maua’s most valuable export, bringing prosperity to all involved. A year since it was outlawed, the local economy has been devastated

In a quiet and unassuming town tucked away in a hilly part of eastern Kenya, the British home secretary Theresa May’s name is spoken with barely concealed anger. Since her role in the ban of the town’s most valuable export, she’s become a universally vilified figure.

For more than two decades, Maua enjoyed booming business propelled by the growth and sale of khat, known locally as miraa, a popular herb whose leaves and stems are chewed for the mild high they offer.

But last year the UK, home to one of khat’s biggest markets, declared the stimulant a class C drug and banned all imports, prompting Maua’s rapid descent into economic purgatory.

Since the early 1990s, Britain has imported between 2,500 to 2,800 tonnes a year, according to the Home Affairs committee. Although in its initial findings the committee could not find a compelling health or social reason to ban khat, May’s argument – that continuing to allow trade in the UK would spawn off an illegal export corridor to other European countries where it is banned – won out in what became a controversial cultural debate.

Now that people are no longer making money from miraa, they do not have money to buy food

Now, a year after the legislation was signed, residents in Maua have been hit hard by a shrinking local economy that has left many facing poverty.

Edward Muruu is one of the earliest pioneers of the khat export trade. A retired headmaster at a local primary school, he says he has experienced unprecedented losses since the ban came into effect.

“I used to ferry miraa (khat) from Maua to Nairobi four times a week using 27 Toyota Hilux trucks, where it was repackaged for export. I used to make around Ł2,100 a month. Now I am lucky if I bring in Ł250 per month,” he says.

With the European market gone, the only place left for Muruu to sell his stimulant is Somalia, where consumers now dictate how much they pay – and it’s not much.

“The other issue with the Somali market is that the only people who can transport miraa to Mogadishu are Kenyan Somalis, meaning that the rest of us drivers have been put out of work,” says a former worker of Muruu’s, who only identified himself as Kanda.

According to Kanda, if non-Somali drivers attempt the trip they are attacked along the journey. For a town of its size and location, Maua has a disproportionately large number of residents of Somali heritage, most of whom are involved in the khat trade as middlemen. They are also big consumers themselves.

The effects of the London ban have reached everybody in the khat micro-economy, from the big name traders like Muraa to the small fish who depend on the trade for their survival.

Although Muraa has made investments that have cushioned him against the blows of a deeply depleted income, those at the lower end of the food chain have not been so lucky.

Miriti Ngozi, chairman of the Miraa Traders Association, says that many farmers and traders are no longer able to pay school fees or even buy enough food for their families.

The miraa trade was the heartbeat of this town; it drove everything else

“You have to understand that in this region, subsistence farming has long been overshadowed by the more prestigious miraa farming. Now that people are no longer making money from miraa, they do not have money to buy food and many families are sleeping hungry,” he says.

Yet many remain reluctant to uproot their khat crops and plant maize instead, holding on to the hope that their fortunes might one day return.

Pius Mbiti, a trader in his early 30s, is a qualified vet but says that he makes most of his income from picking and selling the stimulant.

“On a good day I used to make up to Ł12 which, when supplemented with earnings from my vet practice, was enough to take care of my family. But since the ban I am lucky if I make even Ł2 pounds,” he says.

He cannot rely on animal medicine any more either because farmers no longer have the money to pay for his services.

This narrative is familiar across the town, with the common refrain being that shutting down miraa imports to London is killing businesses indirectly linked to the herb.

“The miraa trade was the heartbeat of this town; it drove everything else. With revenue from miraa so drastically low, people no longer have the money to buy things,” says Lawrence Kobia, who owns a bookshop. He says that his sales have plummeted by more than 40% since last year.

In its submissions to parliament, the Home Office committee warned that banning khat would result in the formation of a black market – as seen in the United States and other European countries including Norway and Holland.

Related: This ban on khat is another idiotic salvo in the UK's disastrous war on drugs | Ian Birrell

Although initially khat sold for between Ł3 and Ł4 a kilogram in Britain, the committee reported that if it was banned the price could increase to Ł318, similar to its price in the US.

Their predictions turned out to be true: there has been a proliferation of the stimulant in London since the ban. While the border police have no statistics on seizures, the London Metropolitan police says it has handled a number of khat-related offences.

A spokesperson said that in the first six months after the ban came into effect, a total of 68 warnings and 14 penalty notices were issued. In addition, 36 people were arrested for possession of the herb, four of whom were later charged.

In the meantime, the Kenyan government is trying hard to get the ban lifted, with president Uhuru Kenyatta even promising the farmers in Maua as recently as February that he will petition to have the market reopened for them.
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The farmers, however, see this as a cheap political move to whip up support, complaining that no tangible rewards have come from promises made by politicians regarding the matter in the past.

But the squabbling over high-level politics in Kenya and the workings of the parliament in Britain are meaningless to the miraa farmer in Maua, whose only worry is where the next meal will come from.

Bron: www.theguardian.com

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'Inept' head of family drug-dealing gang sentenced to nine years in jail | UK news | The Guardian

A couple who were part of a family-run multimillion-pound drugs ring spent Ł40,000 on their wedding and lived a lavish lifestyle while still claiming benefits, a court heard.

Carl Honey-Jones, 31, described by a judge as the “inept” head of his family-run conspiracy, was brought before a judge, along with his wife and four other relatives, to be sentenced for their part in a cocaine supply ring in Swansea.

Prosecutor Ian Wright QC said Honey-Jones and his wife, Donna, lived the kind of lavish lifestyle reserved for the rich and famous, while continuing to claim benefits. The couple jetted off on all-inclusive trips to the Maldives and paid for a family holiday to Lapland. They also spent Ł40,000 on their wedding – getting married at a 14th-century church before going to a reception by horse and cart.

Swansea crown court heard the Honey-Jones’s frivolous spending had made them conspicuous to the authorities. They drove top-of-the-range Audis and BMWs, both with private number plates, and lived in a suburban four-bedroomed home while still in minimum-wage jobs and claiming thousands in benefits.

Carl Honey-Jones, 31, was sentenced to a nine-year custodial term, while his wife, 32 – whose lawyer has insisted was just “taking cash from her husband and spending it” – had her sentence adjourned until 6 July.

Four other relatives were involved, including Honey-Jones’s father-in-law Brian Harding, 58, who mixed cocaine with cutting agents in his garage; and Honey-Jones’s cousin, Matthew Jones, 24, described in court as Honey-Jones’s “right-hand man”.

Donna Honey-Jones’s brother and sister also inadvertently gave themselves up after calling the police to report that they had received threats from gangsters.

Judge Paul Thomas said the Honey-Jones operation – which saw large quantities of cocaine brought from Liverpool to Swansea – was motivated by greed. He said: “Carl Honey-Jones, you were the dealer principal and in your case it financed a extravagant lifestyle of foreign holidays, a lavish wedding and luxury cars.

“The sums involved were in the seven-figures and you, Carl Honey-Jones, was at the very top of that conspiracy. Although it was was lucrative, the operation that you led was inept and amateurish.

“Top-of-the-range cars and luxury brands in Penlan road were bound to attract suspicion.” The drugs network was taken apart after police raided 11 addresses in Swansea last year.

Cocaine with a potential street value of Ł750,000 and almost Ł60,000 in cash were seized, along with expensive jewellery – including a genuine Rolex watch – as well as cars and quad bikes.

Detectives also found a notebook detailing drug deals – with the amounts described in court as “eye-watering”.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Suiker is belonend, maar minder verslavend dan drugs

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'Drugs zorgen inderdaad min of meer voor een blijvende verandering in de hersenen, terwijl je van suiker direct afkickt', zegt Aart Jan van der Lelij, hoogleraar endocrinologie aan het Erasmus MC en niet betrokken de promotie van De Jong. 'Daardoor zul je niet snel zien dat iemand een bejaarde berooft van een zakje suiker wanneer hij daar al paar dagen van onthouden is.'

Toch reageren de hersenen tijdens het consumeren zelf wel degelijk vergelijkbaar, zegt Van der Lelij. 'Het probleem is dat suiker inmiddels overal in zit, van pindakaas tot kokosnootmelk. Door de belonende werking ervan zijn mensen constant gebrand op meer, meer, meer.'

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Norman Lamb: more than half of Tory ministers have taken drugs | Politics | The Guardian

Lib Dem leadership candidate attacks ‘pathetic’ drug laws and says majority of government ministers will ‘almost certainly’ have taken drugs in their youth

Liberal Democrat leadership hopeful Norman Lamb has said that more than half of current government ministers “almost certainly” tried illegal drugs in their younger years.

Speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Public Policy Research thinktank on Wednesday evening, the MP for North Norfolk described the UK’s current drugs laws as pathetic and a “monumental failure of public policy”.

“We have the crazy situation that, almost certainly, more than half of this government – half of the government ministers in a Conservative government – will have taken drugs in their younger years,” said Lamb, a former care minister under the coalition government.

“They put it down, in a very middle-class way, to youthful indiscretion, while other fellow citizens end up criminalised and their careers blighted as a result of taking a substance that is less dangerous than substances that are entirely legal.”

Lamb has previously called for the UK to legalise, regulate and tax the sale of cannabis, arguing that the UK should draw on examples from US states such as Colorado, which legalised the possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use by over-21s in November 2012.

“We have tobacco, which kills about 100,000 people a year in our country,” said Lamb. “We have alcohol, which causes untold damage to families. We’ve lost our own former leader to an illness of alcohol addiction and yet we chose to criminalise young people for smoking a joint.”

Charles Kennedy, who was Lib Dem leader between 1999 and 2006, died in early June aged 55 after a long struggle with alcohol addiction.

“This is pathetic, outrageous public policy,” said Lamb. “At the same time as giving billions of pounds to international criminal networks. What an extraordinary position we’ve got ourselves into.”

A 2007 biography of the prime minister, Cameron: the Rise of the New Conservative, by James Hanning and Francis Elliott, tells how David Cameron was punished for smoking cannabis at Eton in 1982, weeks before his O-level exams.

According to the book, Cameron was fined, grounded for two weeks, and given the school’s traditional punishment of a “Georgic”: copying out hundreds of lines of Latin poetry. Cameron has never denied the story.

Former Conservative frontbenchers David Willetts, Francis Maude, Chris Grayling and Oliver Letwin have all admitted to smoking cannabis in their youth as have Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper.

Lamb has spoken openly about his own family’s experience with his son’s mental ill-health and problems with drugs. “Look, as a father I’m actually rather hostile to drugs,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of people being affected by the influence and certainly not the addiction of a range of drugs, legal or illegal … But I don’t want my sons to be criminalised if they chose to do something like that.”

The Lib Dems have historically been supportive of liberalising drug laws. Their general election manifesto this year pledged to allow doctors to prescribe cannabis for medicinal use and to establish a review to assess the effectiveness of legalisation in the US and Uruguay.

Lib Dem peers have tabled a series of amendments to the government’s psychoactive substances bill, which seeks to outlaw legal highs. The amendments include the decriminalisation of the possession of all drugs for personal use and the legalisation of medicinal use of cannabis when it is prescribed by a doctor.

Lamb is competing with the MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, to replace Nick Clegg as party leader. Members will cast their ballots under an alternative vote system and the winner will be announced on 16 July.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

What happened when Portugal decriminalised drugs?

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Economist Films: For 20 years The Economist has led calls for a rethink on drug prohibition. This film looks at new approaches to drugs policy, from Portugal to Colorado. “Drugs: War or Store?” kicks off our new “Global Compass” series, examining novel approaches to policy problems.

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Chileen mag voortaan zes wietplanten telen

Chili staat op het punt het gebruik van marihuana te legaliseren. Woensdag stemde de Tweede Kamer met een ruime meerderheid in met de wetswijziging. Als ook de senaat akkoord gaat mogen Chilenen voortaan zes wietplanten in huis hebben en naar hartelust blowen.

Bron: www.volkskrant.nl

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Mexicaanse drugsbaas El Chapo ontsnapt uit gevangenis



Mexico’s meest notoire drugsbaas Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán is gisteravond ontsnapt uit een zwaarbewaakte gevangenis. Het is de tweede keer dat de voormalige leider van het Sinaloa-kartel uit een gevangenis breekt.

Dat blijkt uit een verklaring van de Mexicaanse veiligheidscommissie. Guzmán is voor het laatst gezien toen hij ‘s avonds ging douchen. Nadat zijn cel werd gecontroleerd, bleek dat Guzmán weg was.

Een zoekoperatie in het gebied rondom de gevangenis is inmiddels in volle gang. Uit voorzorg zijn alle vluchten van het vliegveld van Toluca, nabij de gevangenis, geannuleerd.

El Chapo (De Kleine) werd in februari vorig jaar gearresteerd in de badplaats Mazatlan. Hij wordt gezien als één van de grootste drugsbazen van Mexico. Onder zijn leiding werd het Sinaloa-kartel een van de machtigste drugsbendes in het land. Het kartel kreeg na een bloedige strijd met andere bendes de controle over een aantal belangrijke drugsroutes naar de VS en was in meer dan vijftig landen actief. Guzmán vergaarde een enorm fortuin, wat hem zelfs in de miljardairslijst van het zakenblad Forbes deed belanden.

Bron: NRC