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

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Will Colombia stop fighting coca with Monsanto's glyphosate?

Research by the World Health Organisation sparks recommendations to suspend aerial fumigations of coca plants.

Picture a red jeep bumping up and down a longish, straight, red dirt road in rural Colombia and, coming from the opposite direction, one lone motorcyclist. The two vehicles draw near and stop. “Amigo, we have problems,” says the motorcyclist to the jeep driver, “they’re fumigating.” “Where?” He gestures back in the direction the jeep has come from. “Two planes.”

That was all that was said. Nothing else required. The motorcyclist sped off to do whatever you do when you’re faced with such a terrifying prospect: planes spraying your home, land and loved ones - or the home, land and loved ones of someone you know - with a cocktail of chemicals including glyphosate.

That exchange took place somewhere east of a town named San Jose del Guaviare in Colombia’s Guaviare department, one of the biggest coca-producing regions in the country that has “likely” just overtaken Peru to reclaim “its position as the world’s principal cocaine producer”, according to InSight Crime’s interpretation of recently-released US White House statistics. The planes were taking off from San Jose and piloted by US citizens because the Colombians weren’t considered skilled enough to spray accurately enough - or so I was told.

Aerial fumigations using glyphosate - developed and patented by US-based firm Monsanto - have been carried out in Colombia for more than 20 years, and have become the cornerstone of the US-financed and -supported so-called “War on Drugs.” The stated aim is to destroy the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, and it is estimated that at least 1.6 million hectares have been sprayed.

Many people, both in Colombia and abroad, have condemned and protested the fumigations for years. The stated reasons - aside from the fact they haven’t succeeded in eradicating coca cultivation - are legion. One such reason is that they have killed 1,000s of hectares of legal crops belonging to 1,000s of campesinos, Afro-Colombians and indigenous people, and because of devastating environmental impacts including destroying soil fertility, contaminating water, and pushing coca cultivation deeper into particularly environmentally sensitive, biodiversity-rich regions like the Amazon.

Other reasons include intensifying Colombia’s civil war, facilitating killings and abuses by paramilitaries, encouraging support for guerrillas, forcing people to flee to neighbouring Ecuador, increasing poverty, and causing appalling health impacts. Headaches, vomiting, eye irritations, skin rashes and burnings, poisoning, lower sperm counts, miscarriages, hair loss, respiratory problems including lung cancer, foetal deformations, destruction of red blood cells and mental health disorders have all been reported.

“We find significant effects of spraying campaigns on the probability of occurrence of dermatological problems (skin irritations, highlight burnings, etc.) and abortions,” found one recent, particularly controversial study co-written by Daniel Mejia, the president of the Colombian government’s Advisory Commission on Narcotics Policy, based on fumigations between 2003 and 2007. “Our results corroborate some of the results in the medical literature (e.g., the negative effects of exposure to glyphosate on dermatological problems and abortions).”

But will the fumigations now be suspended or, even better, stopped altogether? In March the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced the results of nearly a year’s research, published in The Lancet, which found that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”, that it causes “DNA and chromosomal damage in human cells”, and “there is convincing evidence that [it] also can cause cancer in laboratory animals.” Colombia’s Health Ministry responded the following month by recommending the “immediate suspension” of glyphosate fumigations, and the president himself, Juan Manuel Santos, appears to agree. El Colombiano reported comments by the Conservative party president that Santos would heed the ministry’s advice, and that now appears to have been confirmed by the president himself during a speech he gave on Saturday, 9 May, at a hospital in Bogota.

“I’m going to ask the government functionaries and ministers who sit on the National Narcotics Council that in their next meeting [scheduled for 15 May] they suspend the use of glyphosate in the spraying of illegal crops,” said the president, citing the Health Ministry’s recommendation and a 2014 order by the Constitutional Court to investigate the potential risks of glyphosate fumigations as contributing to his decision.

Santos followed that statement with an appearance on Colombian television yesterday, 11 May, where he said “We must find strategies [to combat cultivation] that are more effective and cause less harm to the environment and public health.”

Monsanto has responded to the WHO’s research by calling it “Junk Science”, “biased” and “irresponsible.”

“We are outraged with this assessment,” Dr. Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s Chief Technology Officer, is quoted as saying. “This conclusion is inconsistent with the decades of ongoing comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world that have concluded that all labeled uses of glyphosate are safe for human health. This result was reached by selective ‘cherry picking’ of data and is a clear example of agenda-driven bias.”

Others disagree. Dario Aranda, a journalist from Argentina, where glyphosate is used across almost 30 million hectares, calls the WHO’s conclusions “late” but “welcome.”

“[It] has confirmed what fumigated peoples, their neighbours fighting with them, social organisations and academics outside the business sector have been saying for more than 10 years,” he wrote in an article published by lavaca.org two days after the WHO’s research was made public. “The world’s most used herbicide affects people’s health.”

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'You can’t trust anybody': the Mexicans caught up in the drug war just south of Texas

Cartel violence in Tamaulipas state has claimed 254 lives in the first three months of this year, but has largely gone unreported in the press

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When Carlos Ulivarri heard that a body had been dumped by the side of a road just outside his hometown of Rio Bravo, a few miles south of McAllen, Texas, he knew he had to act fast.

But he did not even consider contacting the authorities.

Hours earlier, Ulivarri’s son, Luís Carlos, 23, had been shot in a bar, and then dragged into the night after an altercation with a group of men presumed to be members of a local drug cartel.

At first, Ulivarri held out hope his son might be alive. But at 10am the next morning, a friend called to say that a corpse had been spotted on a road outside town which marks the frontline between two warring cartel factions.

Ulivarri, the president of the Rio Bravo chamber of commerce, knew that the body might disappear for good if he did not move quickly, but he did not want to risk a confrontation with either gang, who are both known to monitor the road.

So instead of calling the police and waiting for an escort, he drove alone to the site, bundled his son’s body into his car, and brought him home for the last time.

“We are on our own,” Ulivarri said in a phone interview from his office in Rio Bravo, just six miles from the Donna international bridge into Texas.

“Everybody is frightened here, there is lots of danger and you can’t trust anybody. Lots of people are sending their children away to the United States but that is not the solution.”

Rio Bravo sits on the northern edge of Tamaulipas, a state which is currently gripped by a patchwork of conflicts between rival factions of the Gulf cartel.

It is a war which according to official figures has claimed 254 lives in the first three months of this year, but has largely gone unreported in the Mexican and international press.

Earlier this month, the US state department warned against all but essential travel to Tamaulipas. “Violent conflicts between rival criminal elements and/or the Mexican military can occur in all parts of the region and at all times of the day,” it said.

And if the public circumstances of Luís Carlos Ulivarra’s murder illustrate the brazen quality of cartel violence, his father’s reaction reflects the pervasive distrust many locals feel towards the official response.

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Colombia suspends spraying illegal coca fields with herbicide over cancer link | World news | The Guardian

Move marks end of decades-long strategy to counter drug trafficking after a number of studies suggest glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans

Move marks end of decades-long strategy to counter drug trafficking after a number of studies suggest glyphosate is probably carcinogenic to humans

Colombia will suspend aerial fumigation of illegal coca plants in light of a number of studies linking the herbicide it has used to cancer, a move which marks the end of a decades-long strategy in the country’s fight against drug trafficking.

Related: Last flight looms for US-funded air war on drugs as Colombia counts health cost

The Andean country is one of the world’s biggest producers of cocaine, which is derived from the coca plant. Its leftist rebel groups, the Farc and ELN, as well as criminal gangs make huge sums from their involvement in its production and trafficking.

Colombia, which produces some 300 tonnes of cocaine per year, has fumigated illicit coca crops for two decades with financial and technical help from the United States, using the herbicide glyphosate. The strategy also included spraying of poppies, used to make heroin.

“We’ve taken the decision by a majority of 7-1, to suspend the spraying of areas with glyphosate,” the health minister, Alejandro Gaviria, said, referring to the vote taken by the National Narcotics Council late on Thursday.

Various scientific reports, including one by the World Health Organisation, have suggested that the weed killer is likely carcinogenic to humans, Gaviria said.

Spraying will be halted after administrative formalities are completed, which could take several weeks, he added.

Glyphosate is a key ingredient in the world’s most widely used herbicide, Roundup, produced by Monsanto Co.

Monsanto officials have said the chemical has been proven safe for decades and the company has demanded a retraction from WHO over its report linking the herbicide to cancer.

President Juan Manuel Santos called for an end to the fumigations last week, adding law enforcement should intensify its efforts against other parts of the drug trafficking supply chain, which include clandestine laboratories and smuggling networks.

Local communities have expressed concerns that exposure to glyphosate has caused illnesses, among them cancers and birth defects. Colombia was the only South American country still using the chemical, authorities said.

The defence ministry and other entities which fight narcotics trafficking will be tasked with recommending other ways to eradicate illegal plants, the minister added, including possibly increasing the amount of it manually uprooted.

Over the past three decades, more than 1.6m hectares of land in Colombia have been sprayed using the chemical.

Opposition figures have expressed fears that a halt to spraying may increase coca and cocaine production.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Home-brewed heroin? Scientists create yeast that can make sugar into opiates | Science | The Guardian

Researchers have managed to reproduce the way poppies create morphine in the wild, but warn that the technology needs urgent regulation

Researchers have managed to reproduce the way poppies create morphine in the wild, but warn that the technology needs urgent regulation

Home-brewed heroin could become a reality, scientists have warned, following the creation of yeast strains designed to convert sugar into opiates.

The advance marks the first time that scientists have artificially reproduced the entire chemical pathway that takes place in poppy plants to produce morphine in the wild.

Scientists warned that the findings could pave the way for opium poppy farms being replaced by local morphine “breweries” and called for urgent regulation of the technology. In theory, opium brewing would be no more difficult to master than DIY beer kits, raising the possibility of people setting up Breaking Bad-style drug laboratories in their own homes.

Tania Bubela, a public health professor at the university of Alberta and co-author of a commentary on the research in the journal Nature, said: “In principle, anyone with access to the yeast strain and basic skills in fermentation could grow morphine-producing yeast using a home-brew kit for beer making.”

The team behind the advance have stopped one step short of linking together the entire chemical chain within a single easy-to-brew yeast strain, and announced a self-imposed moratorium on the work to allow law enforcement agencies and regulators time to catch up.

“We’re certainly not aiming for the illicit drugs market, that’s for sure,” said Vincent Martin, a microbiologist at Concordia University in Québec and co-author. “We realised that we’re entering into a brave new territory here. Me and my collaborators felt that various regulatory bodies should be consulted and talked to and we should build a consensus of how to take this forward.”

The findings, published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, mark a turning point in efforts that have been made for more than a decade to replicate in microbes the 15-step chemical pathway in the poppy plant.

Scientists had previously succeeded in reproducing the second half of the chemical pathway, but the initial conversion of glucose to a compound called reticuline had proved a sticking point. The latest study cracks this problem for the first time by inserting genes from the poppy plant, sugar beet and a soil-dwelling bacteria into yeast.

Several existing yeast strains are available that can turn reticuline into morphine, and the scientists said that combining the two halves of the process was now feasible – although they have not yet attempted this final step.

“What you really want to do from a fermentation perspective is to be able to feed the yeast glucose, which is a cheap sugar source, and have the yeast do all the chemical steps required downstream to make your target therapeutic drug,” said John Dueber, lead author and a bioengineer at the University of California, Berkeley. “With our study, all the steps have been described, and it’s now a matter of linking them together and scaling up the process. It’s not a trivial challenge, but it’s doable.”

He predicted a timeline of a “couple of years, not a decade” for the reliable production of controlled drugs by sugar-fed yeast.

Being able to synthesise opiates in the laboratory raises the possibility of engineering new therapeutic forms of the drug, designed to be less addictive, more powerful or longer lasting, for instance.

“It creates a platform for finding new chemical structures that could have a lot of potential benefits,” said Martin.

However, it also raises concerns about the yeast falling into the wrong hands. In their commentary, Bubela and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) call for urgent regulation of the technology warning that it could lead to an alternative system for current criminal networks, particularly in North America and Europe, where the drugs are in high demand. “Because yeast is so easy to conceal, grow and transport, criminal syndicates and law-enforcement agencies would have difficulty controlling the distribution of an opiate-producing yeast strain,” the authors write. “All told, decentralised and localised production would almost certainly reduce the cost and increase the availability of illegal opiates - substantially worsening a worldwide problem.”

Future strains of morphine-producing yeast could be designed to have unusual nutrient requirements as a biocontainment measure, Bubela suggests. Such strains should also be kept in bio-secure facilities in the future, with similar safeguards to those used by researchers working with anthrax or smallpox.

Globally, more than 16 million people use opiates illegally. The drugs come from the misuse of prescription pain medications and from illegally cultivated poppy crops in countries such as Afghanistan, Laos and Mexico.

“The time is now to think about policies to address this area of research,” said Dueber. “The field is moving surprisingly fast, and we need to be out in front so that we can mitigate the potential for abuse.”

Martin said the team had no plans to complete the chain until regulations were in place to do so safely. “If this is something that we shouldn’t do, let’s talk about it now,” he added.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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50 duizend liter chemicaliën voor drugs gevonden bij grote actie | Binnenland


In het zuiden van het land heeft de politie vandaag een grote actie gehouden tegen drugscriminaliteit. Daarbij werd onder meer in een loods in Den Bommel (Goeree-Overflakkee) 50.000 liter aan chemicaliën aangetroffen voor het vervaardigen van synthetische drugs. Twee personen zijn opgepakt.

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Naast de politie waren bij de actie het OM, de douane en de gemeenten betrokken bij de operatie. In totaal ging het om honderd man. De actie is onderdeel van de aanpak van de drugscriminaliteit in het zuiden van het land. Daarvoor is extra politiecapaciteit beschikbaar.


Bron: Volkskrant

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‘Ambtenaren in advies: voorkom bolletjesvluchten vanaf Eindhoven’



Ambtenaren van de ministeries van Veiligheid en Justitie, Financiën en Infrastructuur en Milieu willen dat het kabinet voor de plannen van Arke gaat liggen om vanaf november van Eindhoven naar Curaçao en Aruba te vliegen. Nieuwsuur meldt dit vanavond op grond van een geheime ambtelijke nota.

Arke, onderdeel van TUI, maakte afgelopen februari bekend dat het vanaf november twee keer per week wil gaan vliegen vanaf Airport Eindhoven naar Curaçao en Aruba. Daarmee zou Eindhoven het eerste regionale vliegveld zijn met intercontinentale vluchten. De ambtenaren van de drie ministeries adviseren in de nota dit soort vluchten uit landen met een ’100-procentcontroleregime’ voor drugs alleen vanaf Schiphol toe te staan.

Volgens de ambtenaren is er te weinig tijd om voor 1 november alle benodigde apparatuur, opvangruimtes en personeel klaar te hebben om de vluchten op bolletjesslikkers te controleren. Ook zouden de voorzieningen hiervoor te duur zijn; er zou een investering van 11 miljoen euro nodig zijn plus nog jaarlijks 18,5 miljoen euro aan personeelskosten.

In een reactie aan Nieuwsuur zeggen Arke en Eindhoven Airport dat ze ‘formeel niet op de hoogte zijn’ van een ambtelijk advies.

Mochten wij hierover in de daarvoor bestemde overleggen formeel berichtgeving ontvangen, dan zullen Arkefly en Eindhoven Airport hierover in gesprek gaan. In deze overleggen is 1 november tot nu toe het uitgangspunt geweest voor de start van deze operatie.

Volgens NRC-economieredacteur Mark Duursma is het voor zowel de luchthaven als Arke vervelend als het advies wordt opgevolgd door de betrokken ministers:

“Beide partijen hebben geďnvesteerd om dit mogelijk te maken. Voor Arke is het bovendien de eerste intercontinentale bestemming en het bewijs dat het ook lange afstandsvluchten aankan. Ook voor de toekomstige ontwikkeling van Lelystad Airport zou dit negatief kunnen uitpakken. Nu pakken dit soort regionale luchthavens vooral de chartervluchten naar goedkope vakantiebestemmingen, maar ik kan me voorstellen dat ook Lelystad op den duur ambities in de richting van intercontinentale vluchten heeft.”

Volgens Duursma zou ook Schiphol, dat overigens een meerderheidsbelang in Eindhoven Airport heeft, doorgang van dit advies met lede ogen aanzien.

“De Schiphol Group die ook eigenaar is van Lelystad en de luchthaven van Rotterdam wil juist dat de regionale vliegvelden zich ontwikkelen tot serieuze luchthavens zodat Schiphol zelf verder kan doorgroeien. Schiphol zelf wil zich steeds meer richten op de zakelijke transfers.”

Schiphol is de snelst groeiende grote luchthaven van West-Europa. Het aantal vliegbewegingen in het handelsverkeer nam vorig jaar met 3 procent toe en het aantal tonnen vervoerde vracht met 2,5 procent. Ook het aantal passagiers dat via Eindhoven Airport komt, groeide naar 4 miljoen, 6,5 procent van alle passagiers.
Bron: Trouw

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Lib Dem leadership candidate Norman Lamb calls for cannabis legalisation | Politics | The Guardian

Lamb criticises ‘catastrophic failure’ of war on drugs and urges rational, education-based approach

The Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Norman Lamb has called for the UK to legalise, regulate and tax the sale of cannabis.

The former care minister and MP for North Norfolk said 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.

He said he wanted immediate legalisation of the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, and said there should be a swift evidence-based policy change in relation to recreational use.

Lamb acknowledged that the legalisation of recreational use would require a UN treaty change, which he said could be secured at the 2016 meeting of the general assembly on the UN’s drug control system.

“There has been a catastrophic failure of the war on drugs, with thousands of lives lost,” Lamb said. Drug laws were “criminalising so many young people, which blights their lives because of a decision about personal use which then affects their careers and creates a global criminal network”.

He added: “As a parent, I have real concerns about the dangers of drugs, both legal and illegal. But I think that it’s much better to take a rational, education-based approach rather than the approach that we take at the moment.”

The Liberal Democrats 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 experiments in the US and Uruguay.

Lamb’s only opposition in the leadership race is Tim Farron, the former Lib Dem president and key figure on the left of the party. Farron is thought to be the frontrunner and has secured the formal backing of three of the party’s eight MPs (Mark Williams, John Pugh and Greg Mulholland); the heads of the Scottish and Welsh branches of the Lib Dems, Willie Rennie and Kirsty Williams; the party’s only surviving MEP, Catherine Bearder; and more than 100 former Lib Dem election candidates.

Lamb has been publicly endorsed by Tom Brake, the MP for Carshalton and Wallington, and Shirley Williams, a founding member of the Social Democratic party, which joined with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988.

On Monday, Julian Huppert, a former MP and a campaigner for drug law reform, backed Lamb and his cannabis policy.
“This is not the first time Norman has called for bold changes based on looking at the evidence – he’s done so on mental health, on prison reform and more,” Huppert said. “I think this is exactly the bold leadership we need, and hope people who feel likewise will support Norman.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Mexico's election faces disruption as radical teachers burn ballot papers | World news | The Guardian

Relatives of disappeared join protests amid breakdown in credibility of electoral authorities, widespread corruption claims and murders

Radical teachers and relatives of Mexico’s disappeared have vowed to disrupt voting in the country’s coming national election on Sunday, towards the end of an electoral campaign that has been marked by the murders of candidates amid serious questions about fairness and legitimacy.

“We are ready to install and operate all the polling stations,” Lorenzo Córdova , the head of the national electoral authorities, told international observers. They are in Mexico to monitor the election that will elect all new members of the lower house of congress, as well as nine new governors and hundreds of new mayors. “But if the conditions put the physical integrity of our staff, or the voters, in danger we will not do it. We are not responsible for security.”

Related: Third political candidate killed ahead of Mexico's midterm elections

Córdova was talking about a group of radical teachers whose efforts to roll back education reform now include a movement that aims to block the working of polling stations in five southern states.

The protests are at times violent and have been particularly intense in Oaxaca where the teachers have ejected electoral officials from their offices across the state, burned ballot papers, clashed with the security forces and severely affected the distribution of petrol.

In the state of Guerrero, protesters have included relatives of people who have been killed or disappeared in the drug war violence that has ragedin Mexico for the past eight years.

There is particularly tension around the town of Tixtla, a centre of protest since 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers college in the town disappeared after being attacked by cartel gunmen and municipal police, last September.

Local media has reported 21 murders around the country directly associated with the elections. These include three candidates and one would-be candidate, whose beheaded body was dumped beside a message that read “this is going to happen to all the fucking politicians who don’t get in line”.

Security expert Alejandro Hope said the murders of candidates were the logical consequence of a climate in whichdisparate drug cartels are sowing terror and political vendettas can be hidden behind a tendency to blame all assassinations on organised crime. He also stressed the failure of the authorities to provide protection for candidates.

“Given the prevailing conditions,” Hope wrote in El Daily Post, “the surprise is not that some candidates get killed, but that the number of corpses is not much higher.”

The credibility of the elections has also been damaged by questions surrounding the ability of the electoral authorities to guarantee fairness.

“I cannot think of an election where the reputation of the electoral authorities has been so low,” said political analyst Federico Estevéz. “That does not bode well.”

Much of the criticism has centred on the failure to rein in the Green Party’s systematic flouting of campaigning rules, such as the amount of political advertising permitted. The Green party, widely alleged to be among the most corrupt in Mexico, is an ally of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) of President, Enrique Peńa Nieto.

Related: Mexico's Greens: pro-death penalty, allegedly corrupt – and not very green

The fact that no major party is free of allegations of serious corruption has helped give maverick independent candidate Jaime Rodriguez – nicknamed El Bronco – a shot at winning the governorship of the rich northern state of Nuevo Leon, according to most polls. Elsewhere, however, corruption allegations have prompted a movement to spoil ballot papers.

“Spoiling my ballot paper is the only way I can see of stripping the system of legitimacy, shaking it up and reforming it so that it favours citizens,” national political commentator Denise Dresser said in a YouTube video.

For all the signs of crisis, the elections appear set to produce a balance of power that differs little from the one in place since the last time the country voted, in 2012. Polls suggest that the PRI will remain dominant, and with the help of the Greens, could even obtain a majority in congress.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Iran opent 150 nieuwe klinieken voor alcoholverslaafden

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De Iraanse regering opent binnenkort 150 nieuwe klinieken voor alcoholverslaafden. Opmerkelijk, want alcohol is verboden in de streng islamitische republiek

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De autoriteiten schatten dat, ondanks het verbod dat sinds de Iraanse revolutie van 1979 geldt, ongeveer 200 duizend Iraniërs een alcoholprobleem hebben. 'Persoonlijke redenen zijn de belangrijkste factoren die leiden tot de verspreiding van alcoholconsumptie in de samenleving', zei vice-minister van Gezondheid Alireza Mesdaghinia in 2012. 'Sommigen denken dat dit de manier is om met hun frustraties om te gaan.'

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Iran scoort nog een stuk hoger als het gaat om drugsgebruik. Het hoofdkantoor van de Iraanse drugsbestrijdingsdienst schat dat ongeveer 3 miljoen Iraniërs verslaafd zijn aan drugs (met name opium, al zijn heroďne, crack en crystal meth in opkomst). Er zijn ook onderzoeken die suggereren dat het aantal eerder richting de 10 miljoen gaat. Iran telt daarmee het hoogste aantal drugsgebruikers ter wereld.

Het land kent, verrassend genoeg, een progressief drugsbeleid. Er zijn ongeveer 600 klinieken voor drugsverslaafden, waar patiënten schone naalden krijgen om drugs de injecteren. In alle grote steden zijn methadonklinieken en verslaafden die op straat leven worden geholpen door de vele ngo's die in het land actief zijn.

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Op donderdag 11 juni 2015 09:46 schreef Basp1 het volgende:
Coalitiepartner VVD is fel tegenstander van regulering van wietteelt, maar laat in een reactie weten de zorgen over gezondheidsrisico's te delen.

"Het is dan ook goed dat in het regeerakkoord is afgesproken het gehalte werkzame stoffen terug te brengen en het THC-gehalte voor softdrugs is inmiddels gemaximeerd op 15 procent", stelt VVD-Kamerlid Foort van Oosten.

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OM wil snellere berechting van drugsverdachten



Het Openbaar Ministerie werkt aan het creëren van ‘fast lanes’ die een snellere berechting van drugsverdachten mogelijk moeten maken. Dat zei de hoofdofficier van justitie van Limburg, Roger Bos, vandaag op een bijeenkomst in Tilburg waar de resultaten werden gepresenteerd van een negen maanden geleden begonnen offensief tegen de vaderlandse drugsmaffia.

Bos presenteerde de resultaten samen met burgemeester Peter Noordanus en het hoofd van de landelijke recherche Wilbert Paulissen. In Brabant, Zeeland en Limburg zijn sinds oktober 125 rechercheurs actief om samen met FIOD, OM en Belgische collega’s alle drugshandel in het zuiden nadrukkelijker aan te pakken. Volgens Bos wil justitie “de strafrechtelijke keten versnellen om sneller vonnissen te kunnen krijgen”.

Nu duurt het vaak jaren voordat verdachten in een drugsonderzoek voor de rechter staan. Bos zei dat dit onder meer komt omdat advocaten de strafzaken vertragen door vele tientallen getuigen op te roepen. Hij zei niet hoe hij dit probleem denkt op te lossen.

Het drugsoffensief in het zuiden heeft tot nu toe onder andere geleid tot een inbeslagname van ruim 100.000 liter aan chemicaliën die worden gebruikt voor de productie van XTC en amfetaminen. Er werden 200.000 pillen in beslag genomen en 116.000 hennepplanten. In totaal werden 149 mensen gearresteerd.

Volgens Paulissen slaagt de politie er goed in de “criminele infrastructuur in het zuiden te verstoren”. Hij zei te verwachten dat het recherchewerk zal leiden tot een verhoging van de prijzen van drugs en een verplaatsing van de criminele activiteiten. Noordanus zei dat “een prioriteit is de productie van drugs stevig terug te dringen”. In zijn stad Tilburg wordt volgens onderzoek jaarlijks zo’n 750 miljoen euro omgezet in de drugshandel die er aan 2.500 mensen werk biedt.

“Brabant hoeft geen land van heiligen te worden”, aldus Noordanus maar de huidige situatie acht hij onacceptabel. “Ik wil een stad besturen waar mensen op een normale manier geld verdienen. De huidige omvang van de drugshandel ondergraaft de rechtsstaat”. Volgens hoofdofficier van justitie Bos is door het huidige justitie offensief “de onschuld van hennep” definitief verdwenen.

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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

quote:

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.

quote:

'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.
[/b]

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

quote:

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.'

quote:

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

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Drug trafficking and corruption bankroll Guatemalan politics, says report | World news | The Guardian

Gangsters have infiltrated politics by financing campaigns, putting up candidates and creating construction companies to win government contracts

Drug money and corruption are now key sources of financing for political parties in Guatemala, a prominent anti-crime commission said on Thursday, ramping up pressure on the Central American country’s battered political establishment.

Just two months from a presidential ballot, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a United Nations-backed independent group working with prosecutors to root out corruption, said that political contributor anonymity is facilitating links to organised crime.

“Corruption is the principal source of financing for political parties,” Ivan Velasquez, commissioner at the CICIG, told a news conference. The group’s investigations have rocked the government and led to the arrest of some high-ranking officials, including the central bank chief.

The report said that drug trafficking had infiltrated local politics by financing campaigns, putting its own members up as candidates and creating construction companies that later won government contracts.

Since Guatemala decided in April to renew the CICIG’s mandate, encouraged by the United States, corruption scandals have prompted several key politicians in the country to stand down, including vice-president Roxana Baldetti.

Guatemala’s president, Otto Perez, who has not been directly accused of any wrongdoing, is waiting to see whether US Congress decides to strip him of his immunity to be investigated over pending cases.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Durham police stop targeting pot smokers and small-scale growers | Society | The Guardian

Durham PCC Ron Hogg says move is an effort to cut costs, keep users out of criminal justice system and focus resources on organised crime

A police force in the north-east of England will no longer actively pursue cannabis smokers and small-scale growers in order to prioritise its resources against more serious crime.

Durham’s police and crime commissioner, Ron Hogg, said the move was an effort to cut costs and keep users out of the criminal justice system, while focusing scarce resources on gangs and organised crime.

Indicating his support for the decriminalisation of drug use, Hogg also said he was prepared to meet the home secretary, Theresa May, to discuss the matter.

The move has been interpreted as a shift towards the effective decriminalisation of cannabis. However, Mike Penning, the policing minister, has already responded to the news by reaffirming that growing cannabis is illegal.

Hogg told the Guardian that his policy for Durham was about prioritisation. He insisted that his officers would still enforce the law if they got complaints from the public about cannabis users and growers.

“The focus of what we are trying to do is target those who produce drugs on a larger scale,” he said. “Our communities want us to focus on drug dealers in the streets. They don’t want dealers in the streets at the same time as their children are playing.

“It’s illegal to grow and use cannabis and we will still enforce the law. However, what we will try and do is engage with users and help them if that’s what they want.”

He said that continuing cuts to policing had made such prioritisation more important. “There’s a resource issue, we must also be clear about that, but we are doing it because it’s the right approach.”

The policy was first revealed in a meeting between Hogg and pro-cannabis activists from local chapters of the UK Cannabis Social Clubs in the first week of July. At the meeting Hogg confirmed rumours that Durham police were no longer actively working to detect small-scale cannabis growers and users, said John Holiday, a local activist.

Holiday – not his real name – said Hogg was clear that the policy was not intended as a free-for-all. He said: “It’s still illegal. If you were to light up in front of a policeman or go into a police station and tell them you’ve got a ten-bag you would still be arrested.

“The idea is discretion: don’t piss off your neighbours.”

The move follows a conference hosted by Hogg in Durham last November where police, drugs professionals and activists, including some from local cannabis clubs, debated the future of drugs policy. Following the summit, Hogg wrote a letter to the prime minister with a warning that current drug laws were failing.
“Policy on drug addiction should be moved to the Department of Health, in order for the focus to be on treating rather than punishing,” Hogg’s letter said.

Neil Woods, vice-chair of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (Leap) UK, hailed Hogg’s move, saying that although police officials prioritised their officers’ work all the time, it was “quite bold to word it in the way that he is doing”.

Woods, a former undercover drugs detective, agreed with suggestions that drug crime could get less attention from police as they are forced to reassess priorities as budgets are pared back in the name of austerity.

“If you consider that a taxpayer pays Ł400 towards fighting the war on drugs in this country, the financial pressures are going to take us there,” he said.

Woods added: “It’s an important, small, incremental step in the right direction. I think it’s necessary and I’m pleased that they are brave enough to very publicly make this step.

“I applaud their move. No one should ever be criminalised for drug possession.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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US navy seizes submarine with seven tonnes of cocaine on board | World news | The Guardian

The vessel was intercepted off the coast of El Salvador and four suspected smugglers taken into custody

US authorities have seized a submarine-like vessel loaded with more than eight tonnes of cocaine off the coast of El Salvador.

US Navy, Customs and Border Protection and Coast Guard personnel took part in the operation last Saturday.

The semi-submersible vessel was tracked in international waters off the El Salvador coast by US aircraft. It was intercepted by the Coast Guard after a speedboat began to approach.

Inside the semi-submersible, authorities found 274 bales packed with 7,650kg (16,870 pounds) of cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Four suspected smugglers were taken into custody.

Traffickers use submarine-like vessels to move large amounts of cocaine because their low waterline profile makes them difficult to detect.

The interdiction is part of a 15-nation effort targeting international drug traffickers.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Ecstasy and LSD use reaches new high among young | UK news | The Guardian

Findings on drug use are serious blow to government’s hardline strategy

The use of ecstasy and LSD among young adults has spiked over the last two years, with survey results indicating the numbers taking the drugs in the past 12 months up 84% and 175% respectively.

An estimated 157,000 more people aged 16-24 took ecstasy over the past year compared to two years ago, according to figures released on Thursday. About 49,000 more used the hallucinogen LSD over the same period.

An estimated one in 20 young people have used ecstasy in the past 12 months, according to the latest data. Use of LSD is still much lower, with around 0.4% of young people – about one in 200 – using it.

Both drugs saw year-on-year increases in consumption by the young of around 40%.

The figures will be a serious blow to the government’s hardline strategy on drug use. In an effort to combat an increase in the numbers of new designer drugs a recent bill was introduced that would ban all new psychoactive substances.

But even as overall drug use remained flat, the statistics from the Crime Survey of England and Wales show a sharp rise in the use of two class-A drugs which are among the drug war’s major targets.

Among most of the population – those aged 16-59 – use of ecstasy in the past year has risen an estimated 37% since 2012/13, while use of LSD is up 117%. The reasons for the surge in the popularity of LSD are unclear, but one expert said the rise in ecstasy use could be explained by an increase in the availability of relatively pure MDMA – that drug’s active ingredient.

The figures also illustrate how young adults remain the most likely age group to take drugs: they indicated 19% of 16-19 year-olds and 20% of 20-24 year-olds took any drug within the past year. By contrast, only 2% of 55 to 59 year-olds did so.

The survey found that use of new psychoactive substances (NPSs), more commonly referred to as legal highs, was generally concentrated among young adults. Around 3% of 16-24 year-olds took an NPS within the past year, compared with 1% of 16-59 year-olds.

Those young adults who took NPSs were most likely to acquire them over the counter. An estimated 39% bought them from a shop, while 37% got them from a friend, neighbour or colleague. Only 1% of young people reported using the Internet to buy NPSs.

The survey results also appears to indicate a rise in the number of people mixing different drugs. Of those people who took drugs within the past year, 9% reported having used more than one drug at once, compared to a previous figure of 7%. The drugs most likely to be mixed with other drugs were mephedrone (68%), ecstasy (57%), amphetamines (50%) and tranquilisers (35%).

Professor Fiona Measham, who chairs a working group on polysubstance use for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said that the increase in the number of 16-24-year-olds using ecstasy from 3.9% to 5.4% represented an important development.

“My view is that increased purity from 2010 onwards across Europe is making ecstasy in pill, powder and crystal form increasingly attractive combined with easy availability and relatively low prices,” she said.

Separately, figures released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that the numbers of young people aged 11 to 15 who have ever tried smoking, drinking or drugs are at their lowest levels since 1982.

More than 6,000 pupils in 210 schools in England were asked a series of questions about smoking, drinking and drug use. Less than one in five (18%) said that they had ever smoked, the lowest figure since the survey began. The proportion of 11 – 15-year-olds who said they had tried e-cigarettes was slightly higher at 22%.

The results are consistent with a continuing decline in the number of children trying tobacco over the past decade. In 2003 as many as 42% said they had tried smoking. Meanwhile, 38% of 11-15 year-olds reported having tried alcohol, also the lowest level recorded since the survey began. In 2003 the figure was 61%.

The number of 11-15 year-olds who reported having ever tried drugs also hit a new low of 15%, down from 30% in 2003. Cannabis remains the drug most likely to be sampled by young people: of the 10% of pupils who said that they had tried drugs within the past year, 7% reported trying cannabis.

The survey also sheds light on young people’s attitudes towards why other young people their own age decided to smoke or drink. The most common reason, at 85% for smoking and 79% for drinking, was “to look cool in front of their friends”.

But there was a variety of other motivations: 72% of young people said they thought their peers smoked because “their friends pressure them into it”, while 70% thought it was because they were addicted to cigarettes. A smaller group, 67%, thought their friends drank in order to be more sociable, and 66% said they thought they drank for a rush or a buzz.

Measham, who is professor of criminology at Lancaster University, said the popularity of ecstasy, which has long been associated with rave culture, dipped when fashions changed in the 2000s and people moved onto alcohol and cocaine.

“I think now people have got back into raving,” she said. “Really there has been a resurgence in dance music, I’ve seen that in my undergraduates. My students all want to be part-time DJs and promoters.”

The rise in LSD use was more difficult to explain. “It was popular in the mid-90s when it got down to about 50p a tab,” Measham said. “So I think the risk to reward ratio for dealers was not there.” Although there were no sentencing guidelines, at the time dealers could expect to get about a month in jail for each tab of ecstasy in their possession, she said.

Again the increase in LSD use could simply be down to fashion, Measham speculated. “The 70s are back in fashion, for women’s fashions at least - you have these sort of revivals and cycles.”

Measham said relative scarcity of the drug could also be a factor, with some users shunning substances they feel have become too popular and too accessible because they are no longer cool. “Maybe there’s a whole load of stars aligning in relation to that,” she added.

Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation, which researches psychedelic drugs, said she had heard anecdotal reports that more people were using LSD. “I think there’s more around now,” she said. “There was a kind of great shortage and now I think more people have got into it.

“Hopefully the terrible taboo on it will slowly pass away because actually it’s completely non-toxic and if it’s taken in the right conditions it can be a very useful substance.”

The policing minister, Mike Penning said: “There are positive signs our approach to drugs is working as there has been a long-term downward trend in drug use over the last decade.

“However, we continue to be concerned about the harms caused by drug misuse, including ecstasy and other class A drugs, new psychoactive substances and prescription only medicines.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

Zangeres Zonder Naam - Mexico

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Coffeeshop Den Bosch beschoten | NOS

Vanmorgen rond 04.30 uur zijn zeker twintig schoten gelost op de Bossche coffeeshop Chip 'n Dale in de Hinthamerstraat.

Er zijn geen gewonden gevallen, zegt de politie. Op het moment van de schietpartij was er niemand in de coffeeshop.

Op een paar kilometer van de coffeeshop vond de politie zo'n tien minuten na de schietpartij een uitgebrande auto. Of het de vluchtauto van de dader(s) was, moet onderzoek uitwijzen.

In de Hinthamerstraat zitten meerdere coffeeshops. Deze week werden de eigenaressen van een van die andere coffeeshops aangehouden, omdat zij mogelijk iets te maken hadden met twee mannen die tientallen kilo's drugs bij zich hadden, vermoedelijk bestemd voor de shop.

Het is niet duidelijk of de schietpartij van vannacht en het incident van deze week iets met elkaar te maken hebben.

Bron: nos.nl

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Opium is Replacing Marijuana Plants in most Mexican States - The Yucatan Times

The plants growing along an increasing number of Mexican hillsides reflect trends in illegal drug use here in the United States. While marijuana fields easily outnumbered poppy plantations in prime Mexican growing regions, both government and international-agency statistics show those numbers have reversed as Mexican-origin heroin use in the US has exploded.

According to the Mexican daily Reforma, the leading marijuana production states in Mexico are Chihuahua, Guerrero, Jalisco, Durango, Sinaloa and Oaxaca. Between 2007-2010, the Mexican army discovered 432,561 marijuana fields in these areas. But that number plummeted by 56 percent between 2011-2014, as soldiers only found 187,056 marijuana plantations during that time frame. Mexico’s military department known as SEDENA indicated that opium poppies have been replacing marijuana plants in these states.

Shifts in illegal drug production by Mexican cartels tend to occur rather quickly in response to changes in demand from the US market. Unlike cocaine, which has to be brought into Mexico from other countries, heroin and marijuana can both be grown and processed internally. This allows cartels to dictate to their growers what kinds of plants they need to grow and in what quantities.

Guerrero, currently one of the most violent states in Mexico and home to the Guerreros Unidos Cartel and infiltrated by Jalisco Nueva Generación drug organization, remains first in poppy production. However, Chihuahua—across the border from southwest Texas—has seen the fastest increase in production, tripling its crop size in the past four years.

According to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration statistics released in May 2015 by the Drug Enforcement Administration, between 2007-2013 the number of heroin addicts in the US almost doubled from 161,000 to 289,000.

Besides, deaths involving heroin more than tripled between 2007 (2,402) and 2013 (8,260).



Bron: www.theyucatantimes.com

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Drugsdeal
^{Een driedelige reeks over de regulering van drugs}


“Red het land, sta drugs toe!” Met die oproep schreven Frits Bolkestein, Els Borst, Hedy d’Ancona en anderen in 2010 een hartstochtelijk pleidooi voor de regulering van niet alleen wiet maar ook een flink aantal harddrugs. “Het verbod op drugs kost miljarden: het leidt tot misdaad en is slecht voor de volksgezondheid. Hef het op.”

Ooit was Nederland een toonbeeld van tolerantie met haar gedogen. Tegenwoordig lopen we met ons vreemde “voor- en achterdeurbeleid” achter, zelfs op verschillende staten in Amerika, toch de bakermat van de enorm averechtse en zelfs verslavende ‘war on drugs’. Door vooraanstaande politici, denkers, gebruikers en experts wordt al jaren geroepen om regulering.

De Balie en D66 nemen die uitdaging aan en onderzoeken in deze driedelige reeks wat nu eigenlijk de gevolgen zijn van de regulering van drugs. Eerst onderzoeken we de feiten wat betreft de kosten én opbrengsten en de gevolgen voor de volksgezondheid, daarna bespreken we, op basis van de verzamelde feiten, de grote vraag van het debat: kunnen we samen een nieuwe deal maken over drugs?

“Al ruim veertig jaar zijn drugs verboden. Maar het gebruik is groter dan ooit en niets wijst er op dat het verbod werkt. Wél is duidelijk dat het verbod schade veroorzaakt. De ongehoorde omvang daarvan dringt echter nauwelijks tot de publieke opinie door. Deze – ook letterlijk – ongehoorde feiten zijn de grote afwezige in het drugsdebat.” - Red het land, sta drugs toe! NRC Handelsblad, 18-10-2010

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Greater Manchester police step up patrols in wake of drug gang shootings | UK news | The Guardian

Detectives believe three separate turf wars are being played out, with most high-profile shooting that of Salford ‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey

Police have stepped up patrols on the streets of Manchester following a spate of shootings between rival drugs gangs.

Detectives believe three separate battles are being fought for “vacant turf” in north and south Manchester after four key drugs suspects were arrested earlier this year.

The turf wars are believed to be being played out in the Newton Heath area in north Manchester, in Wythenshawe in the south of the city and in Salford, Greater Manchester.

The most high-profile recent shooting came when Salford’s “Mr Big”, Paul Massey, was murdered outside his home 12 days ago.

Massey is believed to have been mediating between two warring gangs fighting for drugs rights in the city when he was shot four times.

Related: Salford's 'Mr Big' Paul Massey 'had been mediating between two warring gangs'

DCI Howard Millington, the senior investigating officer, issued an appeal for a man seen carrying a gun in nearby Clifton Country Park two days before Massey was killed.

He said: “It has been just over a week since the murder of Paul Massey and our investigation continues to catch whoever did this.

“We are keen to speak to a man who was seen at 7pm on Friday 24 July 2015, in Clifton Country Park. He was near to the entrance to Giants Seat Farm about 150 yards before the Giants Seat Garden Centre. He was in what was described as a white Renault Kangoo van.

“The man is described as white, in his late 30s to early 40s, about 5ft 10in tall, of average build, with a round face, and was wearing a black hat, black jacket, grey and black camouflage trousers, and was carrying a torch and a gun.”

Investigators believe a separate flare-up in the north of the city is linked to the arrests in March. Three houses in Ancoats and Newton Heath were the target of shootings on 27 March, followed a month later by gunshots in nearby Blackley and Chadderton.

A well-informed source said the turf war in north Manchester had been going on since jailed police killer Dale Cregan shot dead father and son David and Mark Short in 2012.

Two recent shootings in Wythenshaw are not considered to be connected to the north Manchester rivalries.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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165 miljoen euro aan cocaďne onderschept in onderzeeër

De Amerikaanse kustwacht heeft een zelfgemaakte onderzeeër met daarin een voorraad cocaďne ter waarde van ten minste 165 miljoen euro onderschept bij de kust van Mexico. Dat bericht NBC News. Nooit eerder in de geschiedenis van de kustwacht vond er zo'n grote onderschepping plaats.

De kustwacht arresteerde vier vermoedelijke smokkelaars. De onderzeeër is op 18 juli onderschept, maar het nieuws is nu pas naar buiten gekomen. Aan boord van het vaartuig lagen 275 balen samengeperste cocaďne. De onderzeeër werd gespot door een vliegtuig van de Amerikaanse marine, die vervolgens de kustwacht inschakelde.

'Elke onderschepping van zo'n half-afzinkbaar en zelfbesturend schip verstoort internationaal georganiseerde misdaadnetwerken en helpt het versterken van de veiligheid en stabiliteit op het westelijk halfrond', zei Charles W. Ray, viceadmiraal en commandant van het Pacifisch gebied in een verklaring.

De kustwacht probeerde het vaartuig naar de kust te slepen, maar het zonk met 1814 kilo cocaďne aan boord. Er kon 5443 kilo van de onderzeeër worden gehaald voordat het vaartuig zonk.

Onderzeeër geliefd bij smokkelaars

Colombiaanse smokkelaars maken al bijna tien jaar gebruik van onderzeeërs. 'Je ziet alleen de uitlaatpijp en de stuurhut vanuit de lucht', zei Allyson Conroy van de Amerikaanse kustwacht.

Ten minste 25 onderzeeërs zoals deze zijn sinds november 2006 onderschept door de Amerikaanse kustwacht. Op 16 juni onderschepte de kustwacht er nog een. Er bevond zich 2476 kilo cocaďne aan boord.

Bron: www.volkskrant.nl

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Murder and drug trafficking allegations cast pall over Argentina primary election | World news | The Guardian

Government says claim that cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández leads double life as drug kingpin ‘the Walrus’ is part of smear campaign by conservative media

Government says claim that cabinet chief Aníbal Fernández leads double life as drug kingpin ‘the Walrus’ is part of smear campaign by conservative media

Lurid allegations of murder and drug smuggling have overshadowed the build-up to this weekend’s primary elections in Argentina as outgoing president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner attempts to ensure a Peronist ally follows her to the Pink House.

The claims have been leveled against the president’s cabinet chief, Aníbal Fernández, who a convicted gangster recently claimed was living a double life as a trafficking kingpin known as “the Walrus”.

The ruling camp say the story has been fabricated by the opposition and the powerful Clarín media group – which has often clashed with President Fernández – in an attempt to dent the popularity of Peronist candidates ahead of Sunday’s open party primaries. The vote, in which Argentinians can vote for any candidate from any party, will offer a gauge of public opinion ahead of the presidential election on 25 October.

Opinion polls suggest Fernández’s preferred successor, Daniel Scioli – the current governor of Buenos Aires – is ahead of his rivals. He will run uncontested as the candidate of the ruling Frente Para la Victoria (Victory Front) this Sunday, while the conservative opposition alliance Cambiemos (Let’s Change) will see three candidates challenge for the nomination, including the frontrunner Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires.

But the campaign has been overshadowed by press reports claiming that the president’s righthand man Fernández masterminded the murder of three drug smugglers who triangulated the sale of vast amounts of the prescription drug ephedrine (used for the production of methamphetamine) between China and Mexico via Argentina in 2008.

Although press accusations of involvement with drug cartels have been raised before, these reached fever pitch this week after one of the criminals convicted for the triple murder alleged on the country’s most-watched television news programme Periodismo Para Todos that it was Fernández, then the justice minister, who had given the order.

Speaking from prison, convict Martín Lanatta claimed Fernández ordered the killings to elbow his way into the profitable business.

“The ephedrine-smuggling business ended up entirely in the hands of Aníbal Fernández with intelligence people,” said Lanatta.

He and another witness linked to the drug ring, José Luis Salerno, claimed Fernández was known under the code name “the Walrus” because of his abundant mustache.

The cabinet chief has denied the accusations. “I’m leading the polls,” said Fernández, who is running for governor of Buenos Aires province in the October elections. “They’re trying to keep me from becoming governor.”

The more sober side of the campaign has focused on the extent to which the next president will continue the Kirchnerist policies of the past 12 years, particularly with regard to workers’ rights, fighting inequality, controls on the economy and relations with international financial markets. Macri has promised a change of direction and more business-friendly policies.

Scioli is considered a relatively moderate figure inside the Peronist movement, but he has chosen a key ally of Fernández as his running mate and adopted a leftist stance in campaign speeches praising trade unions and pledging increased spending on public works and education.

Critics claim the outgoing president will maintain a strong influence if he wins. Scioli derided suggestions that Fernández will be a backseat driver.

“You know what, I’m going to do it my way,” he told supporters on Thursday, pledging to fight inflation and make Argentina more attractive to foreign investment.


Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Sydney man becomes oldest person charged with cocaine smuggling – at 91 | Australia news | The Guardian

Retired surgeon Victor Twartz ‘legitimately scammed’ by Indian gang over internet, one of 40 Australians arrested on home soil in such cases since 2013

A 91-year-old devout Christian with a penchant for tweed suits is believed to have become the oldest person to be charged with drug trafficking after he was duped into importing almost 5kg (11lbs) of cocaine from India to Australia.

Police say retired dental surgeon Victor Twartz was scammed by a drugs gang who groomed him via email and lured him into importing the class A drug last month, disguised in bars of coloured soap.

Twartz appeared briefly at court in Sydney on Tuesday, dressed in a three-piece tweed suit, after being charged with importing a commercial quantity of the drug. His case was adjourned until October.

Speaking to reporters afterwards, he said he had been tricked into importing the drugs. Citing the new testament book of Revelation, he said those responsible should be cast into a “lake of fire”.

Interviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald at his nursing home in a Sydney suburb, Twartz said: “I’m 1,000% against drugs. I don’t even drink alcohol.”

His son, Peter Twartz, told ABC News his father is a devout Seventh Day Adventist with no criminal background.

“His background is as a dentist, he is significantly religious,” Peter Twartz said. “There is no way that he would knowingly [have] anything to do with drugs — he sees it as a scourge.”

The Australian federal police’s organised crime commander, David Stewart, would not go into detail about what Twartz had been promised by the group, but said he had been in touch with them over many months.

Police were tipped off by Twartz’s family but were unable to stop him leaving Australia, Stewart said in Canberra. “There is certainly some evidence to suggest that this man was legitimately scammed by this group and exploited.

“There were warnings issued to him about his activities both here and overseas ... but you can only provide people with certain warnings. At the end of the day they’ll make their own choices.”

Twartz was returning to Australia from Delhi on 8 July when he was caught carrying 27 bars of soap, filled with about 4.5kg of cocaine.

He claims he was duped by people he met in Delhi after he was contacted online. He was handed a bag just before he boarded his flight and told it contained gifts for a person in Australia.

“I looked carefully at what was in the soap,” Twartz told the Herald. “I scraped it and it was certainly soap but there were these streaks of white stuff in between. I thought it was additional perfume or that was the style of Indian soap.”

Stewart said in the past two years 40 Australians have been arrested locally and more overseas in similar scams.

The internet is making it easier for organised crime syndicates to groom people using social media, Stewart added, with vulnerable Australians – particularly the elderly and mentally ill – targeted. But he warned ignorance was not a defence and urged the public to steer clear of any offer that sounds too good to be true.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Kinderen zwaargewond door chemische stof in bos Zutendaal

In een bos in het Belgische Zutendaal, zo’n twaalf kilometer van Maastricht, zijn vier kinderen zwaargewond geraakt doordat ze door een plas fietsten waar vermoedelijk chemisch afval in was gedumpt.

Dat melden Belgische media. De kinderen zouden eerste- en tweedegraads brandwonden hebben opgelopen. Twee andere kinderen en de begeleider raakten niet gewond.

Momenteel wordt het water onderzocht, om vast te stellen om wat voor stof het gaat en het spul uit het bos te verwijderen. De politie wil ook achterhalen of op andere plaatsen in het bos afval is gedumpt.

Steeds meer drugsafval wordt gedumpt in de natuur. In Nederland wordt 90 procent van het gedumpte drugsafval gevonden in het zuiden van het land; Brabant spant de kroon. Zo’n 30 procent van alle drugsfabrieken staat in Brabant, Limburg of Zeeland. De oude traditionele Hollandse criminele netwerken verschuiven hun activiteiten steeds meer vanuit de Randstad naar het zuiden van Nederland.
Bron: NRC

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België - Einde wietverbod komt in zicht - RollingStoned.nl

Hoewel de zomer niet eens voorbij is, durft de voorzitter van de Mambo Social Club ‘m al te benoemen tot ‘fraai’. Op wietgebied dan toch zeker, nu de publieke opinie in België snel switcht naar pro-cannabis, steeds meer mensen hun eigen medicijn verbouwen en dat ook nog eens eenvoudiger is dan ooit…

Nu de zomer stilletjes op zijn einde loopt, kunnen we zeggen dat het een mooie Belgische zomer is geweest voor onze geliefde plant. Het debat over cannabis lijkt eindelijk op gang te komen in België. Als er ergens peilingen worden gehouden over de regulering van cannabis dan wordt duidelijk dat er een maatschappelijk draagvlak is voor de regulering van cannabis en dat de meerderheid van de bevolking hier ondertussen achterstaat.

De voordelen van regulering beginnen ook bij het grote publiek bekend te raken, het is op dit moment enkel een kwestie van tijd voor onze plant bevrijd wordt.

In België hebben de cannabis social clubs ondertussen bewezen dat het mogelijk is een goed systeem op te zetten waar zowel de recreatieve als de medische gebruikers van cannabis mee geholpen zijn. Op die manier hoeven de leden van deze clubs zich niet meer via het illegale circuit te bevoorraden en zijn ze zeker van de kwaliteit. Dit is mogelijk binnen het huidige wettelijke kader dankzij de ministeriële richtlijn van 2005 die ervoor zorgt dat mensen die één cannabisplant kweken voor hun persoonlijke gebruik niet vervolgd hoeven te worden.

In de praktijk hangt dit echter van de willekeur af, sommige mensen worden vervolgd terwijl anderen voor gelijkaardige praktijken ongemoeid gelaten worden.

Gelukkig hebben heel wat mensen door dat het vrij simpel is om je eigen plantje te kweken en dat je hiervoor heus niet gestudeerd moet hebben of grote investeringen hoeft te doen. Met een zakje potgrond van het lokale tuincentrum, een goed zaadje en zon en water kom je al een heel eind. Alles wat je wil en moet weten is eenvoudig terug te vinden op internet tegenwoordig, je hoeft eigenlijk je huis nog niet meer uit om aan de slag te kunnen. Mochten er toch problemen zijn met je kweek dan zijn er heel wat forums of sites als RollingStoned waar je advies kan vinden en waar er zeker iemand is die je kan verder helpen. Het kweken van je eigen plantje was nog nooit zo eenvoudig als vandaag en steeds meer en meer blowers ontdekken wat een fijne hobby tuinieren is.

Steeds meer en meer mensen ontdekken ook de medicinale eigenschappen van de plant en komen er achter dat het simpel en eenvoudig is om je eigen medicijn zelf te kweken en zelf te maken. Dankzij internet en Youtube is het voor iedereen een koud kunstje om er achter te komen hoe je zelf olie, boter of zalf van cannabis maakt.

Gelukkig durven er ook steeds meer en meer mensen hun stem te laten horen in het debat en zijn er meer en meer mensen die zich uitspreken voor de regulering van cannabis omdat ze de zinloosheid en het perverse van het huidige systeem doorzien en begrijpen dat het ook heel anders kan. Dankzij de ontwikkelingen die er wereldwijd zijn is ondertussen in de praktijk bewezen dat regulering werkt.

Het momentum dat er is is nog nooit zo groot geweest als vandaag de dag. Je voelt aan alles dat het einde van de prohibitie nabij is en dat er betere tijden aankomen. We are winning, het is enkel nog een kwestie van tijd. Of waarom je tandpasta niet terug in de tube kan stoppen…

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Inwoners bepalen drugsbeleid gemeente Nijkerk - Omroep Gelderland

Uit analyses van rioolwater in de gemeente blijkt dat er bovengemiddeld veel drugs worden gebruikt. De gemeente nodigt zo veel mogelijk mensen uit om mee te denken over het beleid dat drugsgebruik moet verlagen.

Maar hoe groot is het probleem? Volgens onderzoek is het Nijkerkse drugsgebruik vergelijkbaar met die van een gemiddelde grote stad. Wat betreft cocaďne scoort in het onderzoek alleen Amsterdam hoger. Het gebruik van XTC ligt op het niveau van Amsterdamse cijfers uit 2011. Uit onderzoek blijkt dat 70 procent van de jongeren wordt behandeld voor drugsgebruik raakt binnen een jaar weer in de problemen.

Welzijnsorganisatie Welstede onderzocht onlangs het drugsgebruik in Nijkerk. Wethouder Marly Klein is verantwoordelijk voor het drugsbeleid in de gemeente Nijkerk: 'Uit het onderzoek van Welstede bleek dat Nijkerk niet veel afwijkt van het landelijk gemiddelde, maar er is nog steeds sprake van een behoorlijk gebruik. De onderzoeken spreken elkaar misschien tegen, maar dat er gebruikt wordt is duidelijk. Het probleem is voldoende duidelijk, dat we er een vervolg op willen geven.'

Eerste beeld en aanzet voor drugsvraagstuk

De gemeente wil tot een praktische aanpak komen. Er komt niet een officieel beleid, maar wel een plan van aanpak. De gemeente nodigt zo veel mogelijk betrokkenen uit die met verslaving te maken hebben. Dat kunnen instanties zijn die met verslavingszorg te maken hebben, maar ook ouders. Alle partijen mogen meedenken over preventie, handhaving en alles wat met drugsgebruik te maken heeft.

'Dat soort input is heel belangrijk,' zegt wethouder Marly Klein, die verantwoordelijk is voor het drugsbeleid in de gemeente Nijkerk. 'Wij hebben de wijsheid ook niet in pacht. De huidige aanpak sluit niet aan bij de behoefte en ouders weten zelf ook heel goed wat er speelt. Ze hebben ook ideeën over hoe ze drugsgebruik kunnen voorkomen en willen daarover meepraten.'

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Colombia overspoeld met Nederlandse xtc



Nederlandse drugsbendes hebben het Zuid-Amerikaanse continent kennelijk ontdekt als groeimarkt voor xtc. In het hippe uitgaansleven van grote Colombiaanse steden als Medellin, Bogota, Cali en Cartagena verdringt dure Nederlandse xtc het lokaal spotgoedkope witte feestpoeder. Met name in de dancescene kijken cokedealers jaloers toe hoe de in megapartijen aangevoerde partypilletjes gretig aftrek vinden.

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De tendens dat Europese en dan vooral Nederlandse drugsbendes Colombia hebben ontdekt als belangrijk afzetland, wordt ook gesignaleerd door de International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). In sommige gevallen vinden zelfs ruiltransacties plaats tussen criminele organisaties. Grote partijen coke worden dan geruild tegen xtc.

Bron: Telegraaf

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Instituto Manquehue - With no DEA in sight, Bolivia keeps reducing coca fields


Drug dealing now represents less than 1% of the Andean country's GDP, in a sustained reduction ever since the expulsion of the United States DEA agency.


According to data from the United Nations, Bolivia achieved a reduction in the amount of coca fields — the plant which is used as a raw material for the elaboration of cocaine — approximately in an 11% since the year 2014, and in over a 30% since 2010, which amounts to four consecutive years of decline, from over 30 thousand to some 20 thousand hectares.



Morales stressed that the progress against drug trafficking was possible after the 2008 expulsion of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — accused of conspiracy and espionage — together with a significant national effort.

The data, presented in the form of satellite images and imaging studies, were published last week in a report which was jointly presented by Antonio De Leo, representative of the UN Office Against Drug and Crime, and the Bolivian president, Evo Morales.



De Leo congratulated the Bolivian government over the good news, indicated that the area for the growing of coca is the lowest in twelve years, and asserted the participation of social movements, coca unions and different local authorities in the process.



During his speech, Morales stressed that the progress against drug trafficking was possible after the 2008 expulsion of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) — accused of conspiracy and espionage — together with a significant national effort. The head of state also celebrated that drug trafficking no longer has a significant weight in the economy of the Andean country, now corresponding to less than 1% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).



Bolivia is the third world producer of coca, after Peru and Colombia, and approximately a 40% of the production ends up in the illegal market. The rest is consumed traditionally, chewed or in tea, as a natural analgesic.


Bron: en.institutomanquehue.org

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To Improve Police-Community Relations, End the War on Drugs | James Gierach

Protests and violence have captured the attention of world media following the first anniversary of the day police Officer Darren Wilson fatally shot unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Yet President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, charged with improving police-community relations and reducing crime, has largely overlooked one of the elements most essential to accomplishing this goal: the need to reform drug policy. Ending drug prohibition is essential to restoring peace in the streets, reforming our criminal justice system, and healing our communities. Until those policies change, black communities will continue to fall victim to American policing gone awry.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a nonprofit of police, judges, prosecutors, and other criminal justice professionals dedicated to ending the War on Drugs, recently submitted the following statement to the Task Force:

"The drug war created [America's] crisis in policing and destroyed public support [for policing] in some quarters.... Both police and academic leaders have offered... their ideas [to the Task Force] regarding improved community policing, better training, more accountability, civilian review boards, grand jury reform, ending police impunity for misconduct, etc. These recommendations have merit and capacity for improved policing and better community relations. However, LEAP believes that without reforming U.S. and global drug policy, no reform or set of reforms can stop the unending perversion of American values, virtues [and]... policing [practices]."

It is the time-honored mission of police to "serve and protect" communities, but that mission has been corrupted by decades of failed drug enforcement policies. Federal grants and departmental promotion policies reward drug arrests, creating a monetary and personal incentive to focus on drug offenses instead of serious crimes. Violent crime has taken a back seat to drug enforcement for too long, and has changed the way police relate to marginalized communities, who no longer see police as protectors, but as aggressors.

Meanwhile, police are playing doctor, giving people addicted to drugs an arrest record rather than the treatment options and medical attention that would allow them to improve their lives.

LEAP called upon President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing because we believe in introducing a new drug policy paradigm based upon human rights, harm reduction, education, accessible medications, economic development, racial equality, respect for the law, and respect for law enforcement. We now call on all Americans concerned with the state of our justice system to contact Congress and the President to end the War on Drugs. Call upon them to jointly push for an amendment of the three United Nations Drug-Control Treaties that serve as fountainhead for the global War on Drugs. Call upon them to replace the criminalization-and-incarceration model of drug policy with a system of legalized, controlled, and regulated drug markets, treating drug abuse as a health problem and not a law enforcement issue.
Bron: www.huffingtonpost.com

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UK sees huge rise in heroin and morphine-related deaths | Society | The Guardian

Increase contributes to total mortality rate from drug poisoning rising to the highest level since comparable records began in 1983

Heroin and morphine-related deaths have increased by almost two-thirds over the past two years, contributing to the mortality rate from drug poisoning rising to the highest level since comparable records began in 1983.

Official figures show there were 952 deaths involving the substances last year – their highest level since 2001 – compared with 579 in 2012, bucking a decline in previous years, according to Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures published on Thursday.

They contributed to the mortality rate from drug misuse rising to 39.9 deaths per million population.

Heroin-related fatalities – which are combined with those from morphine because heroin breaks down in the body into morphine, so either may be recorded on the death certificate – accounted for 42% of total drug misuse deaths.

Harry Shapiro, a drug information and policy analyst, described the figures as “pretty shocking”.

The former director of communications for now-defunct independent monitoring body DrugScope said: “There’s been such a focus on legal highs, new psychoactive substances, that to some extent maybe we’ve been taking our eye off the ball a bit [regarding illegal drugs]. We’ve certainly had declining drug use [in the recent past].

“From a policy point of view, we might have got a bit ‘we’ve ticked all the boxes on this, we’re doing well.’ There are figures here and from the Crime Survey of England and Wales, [which showed a spike in use of ecstasy and LSD among young adults] that suggest we are not ticking all the boxes.”

Public Health England calculated last year that around 60% of drug-related deaths between 2007 and 2012 were people who had not been in treatment at all, or in the previous five years.

Shapiro said the ONS figures raised questions about whether people were being let down by the commissioning process, leaving treatment too early, or being put off by an increasing reluctance to prescribe methadone.

He added that the 2013 abolition of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse had put responsibility for treatment in the hands of local authorities but that they were under extreme financial pressures.

The ONS recorded an increase in the number of deaths involving heroin/morphine across all age groups bar people aged 70 or over between 2013 and 2014. Shapiro said ageing problems could be combining with complications from heroin use to increase the mortality rate.

The ONS highlighted an increase in supply of the drug, after a “heroin drought”, which it said had led to an increase in the purity of street heroin and declining prices, from Ł74.32 per gramme purity-adjusted in 2011 to Ł49.55 in 2013. However, Shapiro suggested this was probably the “least controversial version of events”.

He said: “The issue is really: is anyone going to do anything about it and come up with a national strategy to deal with drug-related deaths? It’s not just in relation to morphine.”

Deaths involving cocaine increased sharply last year to 247 from 169 in 2013, reaching an all-time high of 4.4 deaths per million population, according to the ONS. It was the third year in a row the mortality rate for cocaine-related deaths had increased.

Rosanna O’Connor, director of alcohol, drugs and tobacco at Public Health England, described the rise in heroin-related deaths as “a great concern”.

She said: “Fewer people are using heroin but the harms are increasingly concentrated among older, more vulnerable users and those not recently in touch with their local drug treatment services. Reassuringly, overall drug use has also declined and treatment services have helped many people to recover but these figures show the need for an enhanced effort.

“We need to ensure the most vulnerable users can access drug treatment services.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Onderzoek 43 vermiste Mexicaanse studenten heropend

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Na zes maanden onderzoek concludeert het team van onafhankelijke experts dat de studenten niet zijn verbrand op een vuilnisbelt, zoals de regering beweert. Wat er wel met ze is gebeurt, blijft onduidelijk. Een van de schokkendste bevindingen van het rapport betreft de rol van de federale politie en het leger. Zij wisten op het moment dat de studenten werden aangevallen precies wat er gebeurde. En ze deden niets.

Op 26 september vorig jaar gingen studenten van de lerarenopleiding in Ayotzinapa naar Iguala, een kleine stad in de zuidelijke deelstaat Guerrero. De studenten, jongens tussen de 17 en 26 jaar oud, kaapten daar een aantal bussen die ze wilden gebruiken voor transport naar een demonstratie in Mexico Stad. Politieagenten openden het vuur en hielden een urenlange klopjacht. Er vielen zes doden en sinds die nacht zijn 43 studenten spoorloos verdwenen.

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Creating a Crime: How the CIA Commandeered the DEA

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The outlawing of narcotic drugs at the start of the Twentieth Century, the turning of the matter from public health to social control, coincided with American’s imperial Open Door policy and the belief that the government had an obligation to American industrialists to create markets in every nation in the world, whether those nations liked it or not.

Civic institutions, like public education, were required to sanctify this policy, while “security” bureaucracies were established to ensure the citizenry conformed to the state ideology. Secret services, both public and private, were likewise established to promote the expansion of private American economic interests overseas.

It takes a book to explain the economic foundations of the war on drugs, and the reasons behind the regulation of the medical, pharmaceutical and drug manufacturers industries. Suffice it to say that by 1943, the nations of the “free world” were relying on America for their opium derivatives, under the guardianship of Harry Anslinger, the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).

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The war on drugs is largely a projection of two things: the racism that has defined America since its inception, and the government policy of allowing political allies to traffic in narcotics. These unstated but official policies reinforce the belief among CIA and drug law enforcement officials that the Bill of Rights is an obstacle to national security.

Blanket immunity from prosecution for turning these policies into practice engenders a belief among bureaucrats that they are above the law, which fosters corruption in other forms. FBN agents, for example, routinely “created a crime” by breaking and entering, planting evidence, using illegal wiretaps, and falsifying reports. They tampered with heroin, transferred it to informants for sale, and even murdered other agents who threatened to expose them.

All of this was secretly known at the highest level of government, and in 1965 the Treasury Department launched a corruption investigation of the FBN. Headed by Andrew Tartaglino, the investigation ended in 1968 with the resignation of 32 agents and the indictment of five. That same year the FBN was reconstructed in the Department of Justice as the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD).

But, as Tartaglino said dejectedly, “The job was only half done.”

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In its report, the Abzug Committee said: “It was ironic that the CIA should be given responsibility of narcotic intelligence, particularly since they are supporting the prime movers.”

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DCI William Webster formed the CIA’s Counter-Narcotics Center in 1988. Staffed by over 100 agents, it ostensibly became the springboard for the covert penetration of, and paramilitary operations against, top traffickers protected by high-tech security firms, lawyers and well-armed private armies.

The CNC brought together, under CIA control, every federal agency involved in the drug wars. Former CIA officer and erstwhile Twofold member, Terry Burke, then serving as the DEA’s Deputy for Operations, was allowed to send one liaison officer to the CNC.

The CNC quickly showed its true colors. In the late 1990, Customs agents in Miami seized a ton of pure cocaine from Venezuela. To their surprise, a Venezuelan undercover agent said the CIA had approved the delivery. DEA Administrator Robert Bonner ordered an investigation and discovered that the CIA had, in fact, shipped the load from its warehouse in Venezuela.

The “controlled deliveries” were managed by CIA officer Mark McFarlin, a veteran of Reagan’s terror campaign in El Salvador. Bonner wanted to indict McFarlin, but was prevented from doing so because Venezuela was in the process of fighting off a rebellion led by leftist Hugo Chavez. This same scenario has been playing out in Afghanistan for the last 15 years, largely through the DEA’s Special Operations Division (SOD), which provides cover for CIA operations worldwide.

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Belastingdienst verkoopt kweekspullen voor hennepteelt door



De Belastingdienst heeft in beslag genomen kweekbenodigdheden voor hennepteelt gisteren zelf verkocht op een veiling. Dat lijkt strijdig met de nieuwe Opiumwet, die “handelingen ter voorbereiding of vergemakkelijking van illegale hennepteelt” verbiedt.

Vloeibare meststoffen, koolstoffilters, ventilatorboxen en droogrekken, artikelen die growshops sinds 1 maart niet meer mogen verkopen, zijn via veilinghuis BVA Auctions verkocht. De artikelen zijn afkomstig van een growshop met een belastingschuld.

Het is niet voor het eerst dat de overheid artikelen van growshops in beslag neemt en ze daarna op de veiling brengt. Eind april was het de dienst Domeinen van het ministerie van Financiën dat in beslag genomen goederen aanbood, onder meer afzuigslangen, geurfilters en een kweektent - nuttig voor het verwijderen van geuren bij hennepteelt. Een “misverstand”, zei de woordvoerder toen. De spullen hadden moeten worden vernietigd. De kavel zou alsnog zijn ingetrokken.

Ditmaal is de kavel, ‘Tuinbouwmaterialen te Zwolle’, volgens de Belastingdienst “gewoon” executoriaal verkocht. De artikelen zijn volgens de fiscus “niet specifiek te koppelen aan hennepteelt omdat zij overal verkocht worden”, zegt een woordvoerder.

“Een goed voorbeeld zijn de plantenvoedingsstoffen. Die kun je bij ieder tuincentrum of op internet aanschaffen, een directe link met hennepteelt is er niet.”

Verbazingwekkend, vind de eigenaar van een Brabantse groothandel, waar een deel van de artikelen oorspronkelijk vandaan komt. Zijn advocaat, Frank Van Ardenne:

“Bij een politie-inval in april is juist zijn hele inboedel met identieke artikelen in beslag genomen omdat verkoop wél in strijd zou zijn met de nieuwe Opiumwet”.

De nieuwe wet verbiedt de verkoop van artikelen die vermoedelijk worden gebruikt bij grootschalige hennepteelt. Op grond daarvan heeft de politie inmiddels tientallen growshops ontruimd. Veel apparatuur is vernietigd. Over de rechtmatigheid van die inbeslagnames lopen vele procedures. Advocaat André Beckers heeft de kavel gisteren op een zitting waar hij een growshopeigenaar verdedigde, al genoemd als voorbeeld van het inconsistente beleid.

“Hoe kan de Belastingdienst dit nu in hemelsnaam doen?”

Dat de overheid opnieuw zelf growshop-artikelen verkoopt is “bizar”, zegt Jan Brouwer, hoogleraar algemene rechtswetenschap van de rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

“Met links wordt er afgepakt en met rechts verkocht. Helderheid in het wietbeleid ontbreekt al jaren. De overheid hoort met één mond te spreken, maar intussen spreken wetgever, rechters, Belastingdienst en burgemeesters elkaar voortdurend tegen. Gevolg: volstrekte willekeur.”
Bron: NRC

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Liesbeth van Tongeren: 'Bezuinigen? Ze kunnen beter de wiet legaliseren'

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'Inderdaad. Wij gaan proberen beide begrotingen te wijzigen. In onze tegenbegroting zit meer geld voor veiligheid en justitie. Bijvoorbeeld door het legaliseren van wiet, dat levert een enorme bezuiniging op.'

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Smugglers soak rice in cocaine in bid to beat Argentine customs | World news | The Guardian

Drug-sniffing dogs discovered about 30kg of cocaine absorbed into grains of rice at the port of Rosario, headed for Europe via Africa

Argentine customs agents found about 30kg (66lb) of cocaine hidden in a way they had never seen before – drug-sniffing dogs found it had been absorbed into grains of rice headed for Europe via Africa, an official said on Wednesday.

The bust underscores the role Argentina has come to play as a shipping point for cocaine produced in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, destined for Africa, and then smuggled north to the lucrative markets of Europe.

Related: Murder, drug cartels and misery counter Argentina's claims of falling poverty | Patrick Greenfield

Imaginative drug runners soaked rice in water that had been mixed with cocaine, said Guillermo Gonzalez, chief of narcotic investigations for Argentina’s customs agency. When the water evaporated the rice was left invisibly “impregnated” with the addictive stimulant.

“It’s a new method,” Gonzalez said. “This is the first time we’ve seen technology this sophisticated.”

Rather than employing a chemical process to extract the cocaine from the rice once it reached its destination, Gonzales said the traffickers probably planned to grind the grains into fine powder and sell it as cocaine.

“Pure cocaine is too strong to be ingested without being cut with something. It may have been their plan to cut this shipment with the same rice that was used to carry it,” he said.

Twelve suspects, among them Argentines and Colombians, have been arrested in what people are calling “operation white rice”.

The scheme was discovered on 17 September when drug-sniffing dogs detected cocaine in a cargo of 50kg rice sacks at a warehouse in the port city of Rosario. It was kept secret for a week while security agents hunted for more suspects.

“The investigation indicates we have to keep looking. We know that these are international criminal organizations,” Gonzalez said.

The plan was to ship the cargo to Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony called by crime experts as Africa’s first “narco-state”. Each of the white sacks was stamped “country of origin: Argentina”.

The South American country is a major world food provider. On the banks of the Paraná river, Rosario, the birthplace of the iconic revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and soccer phenomenon Lionel Messi, is a departure point for millions of tonnes of soy, wheat and corn harvested from the Pampas grains belt.

But international drug enforcement officials have taken to calling Rosario “the Tijuana of Argentina” for what it has in common with the Mexican border city used to move cocaine into the US.

Experts say the drug enters Argentina by truck or plane from Andean cocaine-producing countries to the north. The smuggling routes narrow the closer shipments get to Rosario, increasing violent competition among gangs to control the final steps toward the Paraná river, leading south to Buenos Aires and shipping lanes of the Atlantic Ocean.

Drug-related killings spiked so high in Rosario last year that federal forces were called in to provide security.
Bron: www.theguardian.com

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Ex-police chief to head pro-legalisation National Cannabis Coalition | Society | The Guardian

Tom Lloyd, who will chair new cannabis law reform umbrella group, says he regrets arresting drug users during his career as a police officer

A former chief constable is to head a new umbrella organisation of cannabis law reform campaign groups that will seek to change views about the use of the drug.

Tom Lloyd, formerly of Cambridgeshire police, will chair the National Cannabis Coalition (NCC), an alliance of groups calling for legal access to the drug for recreational use for adults and for medicinal use for anybody who needs it.

Lloyd has said he now regrets investigating and arresting drug users during his career as a policeman in London and Cambridge. “When you think about arresting somebody who is in possession of drugs, are you really catching a criminal?” he asked. “When it came to law enforcement I think I caused more harm than good.”

The new organisation, which incorporates groups including Norml UK, the UK Cannabis Social Clubs and the United Patients Alliance, aims to move from grassroots protests to political campaigning, targeting decision makers in UK drug policy.

“A major problem in drug law reform, and the resistance to it, is that people look at people, whether they are heroin users or stoners, and they just think they are not serious people,” Lloyd told the Guardian.

He said that traditional tactics, including the annual 4/20 day picnic in Hyde Park, were doing little to transform this perception, but many people involved in the campaign to reform cannabis laws had brought strong evidence into the debate.

“There is a deeper message and that message gets clouded and subverted by the vested interests and it’s to some extend ridiculed,” he said. “I feel that we have got the opportunity to show that we are people who are very sincere and credible, with a lot of valid information.”

Related: I tried recipes from the Cannabis Kitchen Cookbook, then I needed a long nap

The NCC’s constituent groups will still campaign on their own terms, Lloyd said, with the aim of the coalition being to coordinate efforts across the country and to reach key policymakers, whose opinions can have a big impact on official decisions.

Although the new group is still in its early days – without its own website or social media pages – it comes along at a time when the campaign to reform cannabis laws is gathering pace. Two police commissioners have recently said they will not target small-scale cannabis users and growers. Next month MPs will debate cannabis legalisation in Westminster after more than 200,000 people signed a parliamentary petition calling for reform.

Lloyd said: “The world is changing: Uruguay has now legalised it; you have got legal production in states in America; in half the states you can get medicinal cannabis. America is a very powerful player.”

Nevertheless, the government seems dead set against changing the law. The biggest challenge the group faces is transforming the narrative surrounding cannabis use. Lloyd, like many others lobbying for reform, believes this will come through the work of groups campaigning for the right to use cannabis as a medicine.

But he added: “It’s difficult to draw a line between what might be medicinal use and what becomes what we call recreational use, because anybody who wants to consume cannabis to de-stress is doing something which is probably an improvement to their health. I don’t think there is a distinction between the two.”

Jonathan Liebling, of the United Patients Alliance, which campaigns specifically on medical cannabis use, said the hope was that bringing together a range of reform groups would eliminate wasted opportunities and overlapping efforts.

Most of the alliance’s work involves lobbying MPs by urging members to write letters and turn up to surgeries, and Liebling claims a number of successes. “It’s very easy for an MP, especially a Conservative MP, to respond to an email and give you the standard party line,” he said. “But it’s much harder for them to stand in front of an MS sufferer and tell them they can’t have their medicine.”

Liebling and Lloyd will share a platform, along with Lady Meacher, a crossbench peer who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform, in London on Monday for a pre-debate public meeting on medicinal cannabis. Medicinal users of the drug will tell their stories about how it helps them to deal with their conditions.

However, there is a big omission in the list of groups constituting and supporting the NCC. Clear, Britain’s largest membership-based cannabis reform group, is not a part of the coalition, with Liebling saying that their views and tactics are not compatible.

Related: Medicinal cannabis and the caregiving community giving it away for free

“They don’t like the epithet ‘stoners’, they will criticise people for looking a certain way,” Liebling said. “They have separated themselves in that regard and the rest of us said you are welcome to join the NCC but you have to stop shouting at us.”

Peter Reynolds, the president of Clear’s executive committee, disputed the claim that the organisation had turned down a chance to join, saying that they had never been invited. However, he was clear that they would not sign up at this stage and added that, with more than 500,000 followers on social media, Clear was one of the UK’s biggest pressure groups on any issue.

“We have some very difficult differences of opinion with the way that the campaign ought to be run,” Reynolds said, adding that although he had respect for the work of the United Patients Alliance, he felt that other groups who sought to take their cannabis use into the street were counterproductive.

“We would unashamedly criticise anybody who behaves in that way because we feel that the new approach that we have brought to the campaign in the past five years has been proven to work. In many ways UPA is the closest to that approach, but the whole stoner, go and smoke in a policeman’s face tactic has failed.”

He added: “There is not going to be a revolution. The government is not going to stand up and say we were wrong and you are right, but we are making slow progress. I’m confident that we will have some degree of medicinal access within this parliament.”
Bron: www.theguardian.com

quote:

Xtc-team politie veel te zwaar belast | NOS

De specialisten van de politie die worden ingezet om illegale xtc-laboratoria op te rollen worden veel te zwaar belast. De Inspectie SZW heeft vastgesteld dat de agenten veel te lange dagen maken en onvoldoende rust krijgen. Politiebond ACP spreekt van een levensgevaarlijk situatie.

De werkbelasting komt terug in een nog niet gepubliceerde boeterapport van de Inspectie en is in handen van het ANP en ingezien door de NOS. In één geval is een dienst van 26,5 uur vastgesteld.

De zogeheten Landelijke Faciliteit Ontmantelen (LFO) - een team van vier specialisten - is opgezet om xtc-laboratoria te ontruimen. Dat gebeurt vele tientallen keren per jaar. Sinds een paar jaar zijn daar de dumpingen van chemicaliën in het bos bij gekomen. Daardoor is de werklast sterk toegenomen.

De Inspectie SZW onderzocht de werktijden en vond in vier weken tijd 48 overtredingen van de Arbeidstijdenwet. Behalve de uitzonderlijk lange dienst maakten medewerkers weken van meer dan 60 uur. Werkdagen langer dan 15 uur kwamen regelmatig voor. Eén medewerker moest 28 dagen achter elkaar werken zonder vrije dag. Sommigen hadden geen enkel weekend vrij, terwijl twee vrije weekenden per maand is voorgeschreven.

De Inspectie verwijt de Nationale Politie ook dat er geen inventarisatie is gemaakt van de risico’s die de medewerkers van het LFO lopen. Dat is noodzakelijk omdat zij in hun werk te maken krijgen met giftige of bedwelmende stoffen. Ook kan er iets ontploffen.

ACP-voorzitter Gerrit van der Kamp noemt de situatie bij het LFO levensgevaarlijk en onverantwoord. De medewerkers werken met gevaarlijke stoffen en moeten uitgerust en scherp zijn als ze een drugslab betreden. Ook omdat er boobytraps kunnen zijn aangebracht. Van der Kamp is bang dat de medewerkers gezondheidsrisico's lopen. Hij vraagt zich ook af waarom het rapport, dat al in maart is opgesteld, tot nu toe is achtergehouden.

De Landelijke Eenheid van de Nationale Politie, waaronder het LFO valt, geeft toe dat de werkdruk bij het xtc-team hoog was. Er wordt vaak een beroep op hen gedaan, om de locaties veilig te stellen voor nader onderzoek. Volgens een woordvoerder zijn er nu vier mensen extra aangenomen. Zij zijn begin volgend jaar volledig inzetbaar. Ook is er inmiddels een risico-inventarisatie gemaakt.

Bron: nos.nl

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Anti-Marijuana Politician Charged With Possession of Marijuana - Counter Current News



A New York State Republican assemblyman who opposed medical marijuana legislation at every turn was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. The police found the marijuana after they pulled him over for speeding.

A statement released shortly after the March 2013 incident, law enforcement officials reported that state police discovered Steve Katz had a “small bag” of marijuana on him.

A New York State Trooper said that the 59-year-old assemblyman had been driving 80 miles per hour in 65 mph zone. He noticed the marijuana and took Katz into custody, charging him with possession before he was finally bailed out.

Katz had voted against the legalization of medical marijuana back in June.

The New York Times noted that the Republican assemblyman also sits on New York’s Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee.

Katz said that this was merely an “unfortunate incident” during a press conference.

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

Watch the local report that aired in March of 2013 (article continues below).

Now here’s where the story gets really interesting…

After the arrest, the Republican politician flipped his position on marijuana, even joining the investor network of San Francisco-based marijuana investment and research firm The ArcView Group.

ArcView CEO Troy Dayton said that Katz is “gung-ho” about marijuana.

He says that he hopes to help pool millions of dollars of investment capital and fund marijuana-related start-ups.

“For me, entering this industry at this time is a dream come true from a child of the Sixties all grown up,” Katz said, completely ignoring his history as an opponent of medical marijuana.

“I decided to vote what I believed to be the vote of my constituents. The day after that I told my wife, ‘Next year, I really don’t care. I’m voting for medical marijuana because that’s what I believe in and I’m not comfortable with what happened.’ … I knew how I was going to vote and I felt great about it. I knew how I was going to vote a year before the police incident.”

The marijuana bust was “an epiphany,” he explained. “‘You’re turning me into a criminal? You got to be kidding.’”

Katz says he knows doctors, lawyers, businessmen and pillars of their community who all use marijuana.

“We’re all criminals? This is ridiculous,” he emphasized.

The arrest he faced “didn’t change anything other than make me decide that I was going to not only be a champion for medical marijuana, and for its total legalization, I was going to become part of the wave that’s building in the industry itself. ;It’s a great feeling. It’s very liberating;.”

“Steve Katz is not an anomaly,” Dayton said. “In the last few months numerous very prominent and seemingly unlikely investors have joined our investor group. People from all walks of life are realizing that cannabis may be the next great American industry.”

(Article by M. David)
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Bron: countercurrentnews.com