Archive for the ‘Drug Policy’ Category

This Week in Drugs (March 5, 2011)

Mar 4th, 11 / 1 Comment

Agent John Dodson of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has spoken out against the “Fast and Furious” program, saying it lets guns “walk” into the hands of Mexican cartels, CBS reports. The program, intended to track guns to the hands of criminals in order to build a case, allows straw-purchased guns to move into Mexico, something Dodson’s ATF bosses have denied. The gun that killed a U.S. immigration official in Mexico last week has been traced to a gun smuggling ring operating near Dallas, The Associated Press reported. After the bad press, ATF’s Chief Public Affairs officer sent an internal memo to ATF Public Information Officers in an effort to “lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF.”

The Mexican military arrested three junior officers and 10 soldiers near Juarez last week in connection with the trafficking of 928 kilograms of methamphetamine and 30 kilograms of cocaine, the AP reported. With corruption notoriously widespread among Mexican police, many worry it may spread to the country’s tens of thousands of troops pitted against the drug cartels. Mexico’s defense secretary said in a statement that all 13 have been convicted of drug and organized crime charges in the trafficking of the more than $120 million worth narcotics, CNN reported.

Mexican president Felipe Calderon has said WikiLeaks’ release of diplomatic cables concerning Mexico’s handling of the drug war has caused “severe damage” to its relationship with the United States, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The State Department’s criticism of the Mexican government contributed to Calderon’s frustration, particularly one that suggested Mexican military officials had “risk-averse habits.” Although Calderon suggested tensions were such that he could not work with the American ambassador, he met with President Barack Obama this week in a meeting characterized as one to “mend fences,” NPR reported. They unveiled a deal on Thursday that would end a nearly 20-year ban on Mexican trucks crossing the U.S. border. Read more from The Wall Street Journal here.

While Calderon was in the U.S., 17 bodies were found in the state of Guerrero and gunmen killed four in Ciudad Juarez, PBS reports. Two Pemex oil workers were also murdered on Thursday near the Texas border, according to Reuters. Unsurprisingly, the violence has taken a toll on tourism in many parts of Mexico. Read more here. In spite of warnings from American officials, college students are once again heading south of the border for spring break. Read more from CBS here.

The 20-year-old who made headlines by becoming the police chief of her town has reportedly fled and is seeking asylum in the United States, according to The Christian Science Monitor. Marisol Valles Garcia, the police chief fled the city of Praxedis G. Guerrero and a single mother, has been receiving death threats from criminal gangs who wanted her to work for them for some time. It remains unclear if the reports of her fleeing are accurate.

Rights activists willing to speak out against the violence of the drug war are being targeted by violent cartel hitmen, Reuters reported. Their homes have been set ablaze, disabled family members have been murdered and children targeted, causing the very people willing to speak out to flee for their lives.

In Seattle, U.S. drug czar and former Seattle police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said he doesn’t “think legalization arguments hold up,” The Seattle Times reports. Kerlikowske was in town to be the keynote speaker at the convention of the Seattle-based Science and Management of Addictions Foundation to talk about prescription drug abuse but many in the Emerald City had questions of a greener nature. “If legalization is a way to fund the country and states and cities, I think we’re making a significant mistake when we think it’s just a benign drug,” he said. But the local and national attitude towards legalization is shifting, according to a Pew Research Center poll.  Some 45 percent of Americans now favor legalization, up from 16 percent in 1990, while 50 percent remain opposed, down from 81 percent two decades ago. Outside of the event, protesters gathered to support the Times’ endorsement of legalization. “Gil, get with the Times,” one sign read. Read The Seattle Times‘ interview with the drug czar here.

-DR

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This Week in Drugs (Feb. 25, 2011)

Feb 25th, 11 / 1 Comment

Federal authorities have launched a nationwide crackdown on drug cartels following last week’s murder of a U.S. agent in Mexico. Arizona’s acting Special Agent in Charge, Doug Coleman, said several hundred DEA agents teamed up with hundreds more federal and local officers, resulting in 31 arrests. “The overall message here is that we as U.S. law enforcement are going to do something when we see that a cartel in Mexico is going to target U.S. agents,” Coleman told The Arizona Republic. By Thursday morning, law enforcement nationwide had seized more than $4.5 million in cash and nearly 20 guns, arrested more than 100 people and confiscated about 23 pounds of methamphetamine, 107 kilograms of cocaine, 5 pounds of heroin and 300 pounds of marijuana. Read more about the crackdown from The Washington Post here.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon will meet with President Obama next week to address the drug war’s increasing violence, especially the murder of a U.S. agent near Mexico City, Business Insider reports. Mexican defense officials told The Wall Street Journal the attack was a mistake in identity, however some believe the agents may have been targeted by the cartel. Either way, U.S. lawmakers are considering ways of arming U.S. agents in Mexico, something that has not been allowed since a 1990 agreement. Read more from Fox News here.

The Pinal County (AZ) Sheriff’s Office reported Wednesday morning the arrest of 102 suspects and the seizure of 3,200 pounds of marijuana after a four-day operation in the Vekol Valley and Silver Bell Mountain areas, The Arizona Republic reports. The drug and human trafficking-focused operation also resulted in the recovery of seven stolen vehicles and 12 firearms.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a bill Tuesday outlawing the sale of synthetic marijuana, commonly known as ‘Spice,’ the Phoenix Business Journal reports. The federal and state government are moving to make Spice and its sister compounds, once legally sold at smoke shops, illegal.

Months after Butte County, Calif., law enforcement coordinated raids on seven marijuana dispensaries, the District Attorney’s Office has yet to file criminal charges or return confiscated money to the dispensary owners, Toke of the Town reports. More than 100 law enforcement officers on served search warrants June 30 on seven marijuana dispensaries and 11 residences.

A 10,000-square-foot hydroponics store enthusiastically marketing itself as the “Wal-Mart of weed” will open tomorrow in Sacramento, The Sacramento Bee reports. The first national franchise for a company that bills itself as a supply and training destination for legal pot growers, weGrow attracted national attention for its unfettered embrace of pot culture.

Washington’s largest newspaper, The Seattle Times, published an editorial last Friday calling for the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana in the state of Washington. According to Seattle’s alternative news site The Stranger, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske contacted the newspaper to speak personally with the editorial board after the editorial appeared. Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey told The Stranger that the White House called “right after our editorial ran, so I drew the obvious conclusion… he didn’t like our editorial.” The meeting, scheduled for next Friday, hasn’t stopped The Seattle Times from publishing pro-pot editorials like one urging House Speaker Frank Chopp to allow a hearing on House Bill 1550, state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson’s bill to legalize marijuana and sell it through the Washington state liquor stores.

A man in Fitchburg, Mass., became the 10th to die in US drug enforcement operations this year after being shot by a state trooper on Tuesday, StoptheDrugWar.com reports. According to the police, 21-year-old Roger Padilla refused to pull over, leading the trooper on a brief pursuit to a cul-de-sac. The trooper stepped out of his black, unmarked SUV and repeatedly commanded Padilla to exit. According to police, Padilla began driving his car toward the trooper at which point he was fired upon and killed.

New Colombian criminal bands are springing up to take over cocaine production and fill a void created by the U.S.-backed drug war, Reuters reports. Linked to former paramilitary groups, the gangs have slaughtered human rights activists, public officials and civilians, the United Nations said on Thursday.

Finally, the wealthy Mexican city of Monterrey has become a ‘city of massacres’ as drug war violence erupts in the streets. Watch the PBS NewsHour video here:

-David Robles

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Zoraya’s Story: Drug court offers treatment & hope

Feb 23rd, 11 / 3 Comments

 A row of plastic coins in silver, red, orange and green are affixed along the side of a mirror in Zoraya Arias’ bathroom at the Center for Hope treatment center in Mesa. There are nine of them – one for every month she has stayed clean.

 “I keep things to remind myself: I have a life worth living,” she tells me.

Zoraya, 25, is a former meth addict with the kind of life story that makes you think that maybe if it were you, you might have turned to meth to numb your frontal lobe, too. When Zoraya was six years old she saw her mother gunned down in a drive-by shooting during a family picnic in their front yard in Central Phoenix. A few years later, her dad went to prison. She has a middle school education. She started using alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and other drugs in her teens. She had her first child at 19. She stuck around for a few months, then she took off, leaving her son with his father’s family. She started using meth.

In the beginning “a twenty” of meth ($20 worth) would last her for a week. By the end, she and her friends would put away an “eight ball” that costs $200 in a few hours. To make money for meth, Zoraya became a “party girl.” When men asked if she was a prostitute she would say “no, but I’m not free.” At first, she lived in denial. Then she started walking the streets in stilettos and turning tricks at the La Quinta where she lived for a while. The drugs and prostitution came together in a vicious cycle: she had to get high to do what she was doing; she had to do what she was doing to get high. “I did things I never thought I would do,” she says. She got pregnant again and lost the baby.

Eventually the cops showed up at the La Quinta. She was arrested and put on probation. She didn’t get any treatment. She kept using meth. She was arrested again and went to jail. This time, she was placed in Maricopa County Drug Court.

I met Zoraya last month while researching drug court for a feature article that will appear in the April medical issue of Phoenix Magazine. Drug court is an alternative to incarceration, a program that combines drug treatment and probation to help addicts get clean and stay out of crime. In Arizona, the program is post-conviction: Participants are assigned to drug court as part of probation, with the threat of a prison term hanging over their head if they mess up. It is the only place in the criminal justice system here where an addict is guaranteed to get intensive drug treatment regardless of ability to pay. Research shows that treatment is much more effective than incarceration in helping to break the cycle of addiction and crime, and yet even though most Arizona prisoners have underlying substance abuse issues few get treatment. (And the treatment that is available is often not sufficient to meet their needs.)

Drug courts have been touted as one of the most successful criminal justice innovations of the last two decades. Research commissioned for the federal government’s National Institute of Justice found they save money, reduce crime and fight addiction. (Read more from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals here.)

For Zoraya, drug court combined with residential treatment has helped her get on the path to turn her life around. “I gained so much because I wanted to change my life,” she says. “Drug court gave me so many chances and opportunities.”

At first, she continued using even while participating in drug court. She was ordered into residential treatment. When she tried to slit her wrist, they kicked her out. She draws her finger up the inside of her left forearm along a ridge of scars. She’s been “a cutter” since age 10 – it is a coping mechanism, she tells me. The facility was not equipped to deal with her mental health issues, too. She went to another facility and got kicked out again. She was thrown in jail for 45 days last year. It was there that her attitude turned around. In May, she was admitted to the Center for Hope, a long-term residential facility specifically designed for women with children and mental health challenges.

The Center for Hope is a non-descript commercial building, set back from a residential street. While most residential facilities keep patients 30-90 days, the Center for Hope is a yearlong program that also helps with transitional housing afterward.  Children under four years old can stay there with their mothers.

Zoraya says the program has taught her how to cope with her past and prepare for the future. “I learned to understand and forgive my past. I have made a lot of mistakes and I am willing to make amends with everyone and myself,” she says. She is working on her GED and looking for a job in retail. She wants to be a peer counselor to help others get off drugs. One day, she would like to open a restaurant with her party girl name, “Ra Ra’s Bar & Grill.” She specializes in cooking soul food. “I learned I am a strong woman. I am determined to do more in life,” she says. “Although, there are a lot of things that happened, I don’t let it get to me. I don’t want to sound conceited…” She throws her dark hair back and laughs: “I love the way I am now!”

In her room at the treatment facility, she points to a picture of a too-thin woman with poorly bleached hair and hollow eyes. It is hard to recognize the curvy, happy, bubbly woman she is now in that image. She pulls out an old ID card to prove it.

Her room is a shrine for the son she left behind and for her own budding hope. She shows a visitor a picture of the boy, C.J., in a frame that says “My Angel.” She says she is getting better for him. More pictures of him are all around the room, along with photos of friends and family members. Inspirational messages are everywhere: on picture frames, clipped and pasted to the walls, on a poster behind the door: “Seize the moment.” “Be yourself.” “It’s time to feel good again.” “Survivor.”

In a criminal justice system far better at punishing drug addicts than rehabilitating them, Zoraya’s turnaround through drug court is a an example of one of the things we may be doing right.

–AJC

Read Amanda J. Crawford’s feature on Maricopa County Drug Court, “All Rise, Some Fall” in Phoenix Magazine’s April medical issue.

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Drug Policy, Prisons, Social programs

This Week in Drugs (Feb. 11, 2011)

Feb 12th, 11 / 4 Comments

Updated and corrected 2/12/11

Sixteen men and women were added to the death count in Mexico’s bloody drug war on Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported. Six women and a man were shot in a bar in Ciudad Juarez after gunmen stormed the building. Earlier in the day, a shootout between soldiers and suspected cartel members left nine dead in the state of Zacatecas.

Cartel-hired hitmen are killing rivals and wreaking havoc in Mexico’s second city, Guadalajara, just as it prepares to host the Pan American Games, Reuters reports. Here in the state of Jalisco, where automatic gunfire and flaming blockades in the street were once inconceivable, the drug killings have more than doubled last year to almost 600, with about half of them in Guadalajara.

Mexican police found the bodies of five men who were dumped on the side of the road in Zacatecas after being executed with a shot to the head. A total of 41 people were killed over last weekend due to drug-related violence in Mexico, including two boys from El Paso. An estimated 34,200 people have been killed since Calderon declared war on the drug cartels in 2006.

The Mexican police chief of Guadalupe, Erika Gandara, is still missing after being kidnapped two days before Christmas, Fox News reports. After her predecessor was murdered and decapitated, Gandara was the only applicant for the job.

First Hillary Clinton, now US Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal has called the Mexican drug war an “insurgency,” The Christian Science Monitor reported. Westphal suggested the US might need to send in troops, offending the Mexican government. He has since apologized and retracted his remarks.

As the war rages on, the shipping industry is getting nervous with cartels operating along important shipping lines. Read more from The Packer here.

Read more about the spread of the drug war into Guatemala here.

Syndicated columnist Ruben Navarrette believes what happened in Egypt could happen in Mexico. “The situation in the Middle East commands attention because one spark could ignite the whole region. But Mexico is way beyond sparks. It is on fire.” Read more here.

A Denver man became this year’s seventh US drug war fatality on Thursday, StoptheDrugWar.org reports. Police say Richard Arreola was under surveillance as part of a drug investigation when he approached an undercover officer while carrying a”log gun” and a revolver. The officer radioed that he was being approached and then reported shots fired.

Montana’s House of Representatives voted this week to repeal the state’s six-year-old medical marijuana law. Supporters of the repeal argued that many people using medical marijuana in the state are not ill, CNN reports. Some opponents of the repeal are instead seeking tighter regulations on medical marijuana.

Meanwhile, police agencies in Arizona are gearing up to police abuses of the state’s new medical marijuana law, the Arizona Republic reports.

-DR

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This Week in Drugs (Feb. 5, 2011)

Feb 5th, 11 / 2 Comments

Mexican authorities in Guadalajara were scrambling Tuesday night to regain control of the country’s second-largest city after violent clashes between criminal gangs and police, the Associated Press reports. The suspected drug cartel gunmen used grenades and forced civilians out of their cars, using them as roadblocks on major streets. Fernando Guzman Perez, interior secretary of the state of Jalisco, said the seven coordinated attacks were likely in retaliation for  recent arrests of drug cartel members.

This prompted American officials to warn U.S. citizens not to drive at night in certain areas of Guadalajara, the AP reports. A message on the website of the U.S. consulate in Guadalajara posted  Thursday said the consulate had prohibited U.S. diplomatic personnel from traveling the highway to the airport at night, and that it “recommends that U.S. citizens consider similar precautions.”

The Ladies Professional Golf Association canceled the Tres Marias Championship in Morelia, Mexico, over safety concerns regarding the violence from the drug war. LPGA spokesman David Higdon told the AP that its security firm “determined the safety issues were too severe” but the association hopes to return next year if conditions have improved.

Emilio Gutierrez Soto, the Mexican journalist who fled across the border after saying he received death threats due to his critical coverage of the Mexican military, spent seven hours pleading his case to Immigration Judge Robert Hough in El Paso before it was rescheduled for May 9, 2012. The AP reports that Gutierrez and his son were placed in immigration jail for seven months but that Gutierrez has obtained a work permit and is supporting his son and himself with odd jobs in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Border Patrol Agent Bryan Gonzalez was allegedly fired for talking to a fellow agent about Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and stating his opinion on the matter of legalization of marijuana. Gonzalez has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his termination violated the First Amendment.

Former South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has recently spoke out on America’s drug war by calling the government’s response a failure and advocating the end of drug prohibition, The Post & Courier of Charleston, S.C., reports. Ravenel, who is still serving a term of three years of probation for a 2007 cocaine conspiracy charge, called drug abuse a “medical, healthcare and spiritual problem, not a problem to be solved with a criminal justice model.”

The largest medical cannabis dispensary in Berkeley, Calif., the Berkeley Patients Group, owes the state $6 million in taxes and interest from three years when it did not pay, reports The 420 Times. The group disputed the tax in 2007 saying medical marijuana should be left untaxed like other medicines, but lost its case. Now, California wants the money.

Washington Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson of Seattle has once again called for the state legislature to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and over, My Ballard reported. Dickerson says legalization could generate $400 million every two years and ease the budget shortfall.

With Republicans in the House looking to limit spending in the next fiscal year, supporters of drug policy reform are suggesting cutting the DEA’s budget. Marijuana Policy Project’s Steve Fox told Talking Points Memo, “The entire federal budget dedicated to keeping marijuana illegal and carrying out all the enforcement measures to do so is really something that is long past its prime.”

-DR

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This Week in Drugs (Jan. 28, 2011)

Jan 28th, 11 / 2 Comments

Amid the horrific violence seen in Mexico over the course of President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, the nation’s capital had become a safe refuge for Mexicans fleeing drug war violence in the country’s extremities. But according to the LA Times, the Mexican military has increased its presence in Mexico City recently, raiding a hotel and a house in middle-class districts and arresting one suspected member of the Zetas cartel.

The Mexican government has vowed not to back down in the fight against La Familia drug cartel despite the criminal organization claiming to have dissolved itself, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Mexican officials remain skeptical on the mysterious banners making the claim, believing it could be a plot to divert focus from the cartel. Mexico’s security spokesman, Alejandro Poire, said “there would be no truce” with La Familia, however he did not comment on the banners in the state of Michoacan.

A group of middle-class Mexican women on pink motorcycles has begun handing out food and medicine to the poor in Ciudad Juarez, Reuters reported Monday. The motorcycle club that calls itself “Las Guerreras” (The Female Warriors) rides out on their hogs every Sunday to dangerous neighborhoods, handing out cash, medicines, food, clothing and even birthday cakes, all paid for out of their own pockets.

During her visit to Mexico this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commended Calderon’s fight in the drug war, calling it “courageous” and adding that there is “no alternative,” LA Times reported Tuesday.

Avelardo Valdez of The Houston Chronicle argues otherwise: “Failure to curb drug war exposes Mexico’s weakness.”

Surveillance video from last Friday at the U.S./Mexico border near Naco, Ariz., shows drug smugglers employing a catapult to launch small bales of marijuana across the border, ABC News reported. National Guard troops monitoring the surveillance cameras contacted Mexican authorities who arrived to find approximately 45 pounds of marijuana, the catapult and the SUV belonging to the smugglers who fled the scene before police arrived.

Federal officials said Tuesday they have busted a network of gun buyers and smugglers responsible for arming Mexican drug cartels, arresting 17 people named in a 53-count indictment, The Wall Street Journal reports. Authorities in Phoenix have busted gun-smuggling rings in the past—including last year’s seizure of 1,300 weapons that were heading south from Arizona and New Mexico. Dennis Burke, U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona called the smuggling and straw purchasing of weapons “a huge problem” for the state. “The drug cartels go shopping for their war weapons in Arizona,” Burke said. “One of Arizona’s top exports is weapons for drug cartels.”

During Thursday’s YouTube Q-and-A session, President Obama found out that a burning question on the mind of Americans is his stance on legalizing marijuana. Although he said he is not in favor of legalizing pot, he thinks that drug use should be looked at more as a public health problem than a legal issue.

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne believes medical marijuana in the is subject to the state sales tax. One proposal would tax marijuana at a stunning 300 percent. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Steve Farley, said the tax could reduce the amount that people who use medical marijuana: “We all know that not all this will necessarily go to sick people,” he told the Arizona Republic. Andrew Myers, executive director of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Association said the tax would push medical marijuana out of reach of those who need it. 

So you think you know all the various conditions that people say can be treated with marijuana? Try this fun pot quiz.

–DR

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This Week In Drugs (Jan. 22, 2011)

Jan 22nd, 11 / 1 Comment

With Amanda covering of the horrific Tucson shootings and my own trip to Mexico City, it’s been an eventful break for us here at CrawfordOnDrugs.com, but the drug war never sleeps.

Police in Monterrey, Mexico found five mutilated bodies outside the wealthy city last Tuesday, part of a series of attacks that have killed 23 people. Reuters reports the bodies of the five men, their arms and legs chopped off, were dumped on a street in the town of Montemorelos just south of Monterrey. Part of the same string of killings, three brothers were killed in a drive-by-shooting while they were eating tacos, gunmen killed five men in a working class neighborhood, and a woman died of a heart attack after witnessing the multiple homicide. Nine others were killed within a span of 24 hours.

In a surprise move by President Alvaro Colom, hundreds of Guatemalan troops flooded the northern state of Alta Verapaz last month to combat Mexico’s feared Zetas drug gang in small towns near the border, Reuters reported. What the president has declared a “state of siege,” has been extended for another 30 days as the military struggles to block cartel destabilization and “recover governance in Alta Verapez.” Read more about the long reach of the drug war here and watch a video on Mexico’s increasing role in the production of our Meth here.

Mexican journalist Marcela Turati Munoz has compiled the stories of victims of the drug war in her new book, “Fuego Cruzado,” Spanish for ‘crossfire.’ CNN reports that Turati hopes the book, for which she interviewed the families of slain victims in 10 states across Mexico, will give voice to the innocent victims of drug war violence and encourage others to “reflect on what happened before and think about what type of society we are forming, with so much suffering, so much pain and so many losses.”

A journalist on the other side of the conflict, Emilio Gutierrez Soto arrived at a federal court Friday to plead his case for U.S. asylum, claiming he fled across the border with his 15-year-old son after receiving death threats for his critical coverage of the military in Mexico’s bloody drug war, the AP reports.

AFP reports that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will make a one-day visit to Guanajuato, Mexico on Monday to discuss tackling Mexico’s violent drug gangs and the financial crisis with Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa.

Mexico’s former president Vicente Fox, once known for being hard on crime and drugs in particular, told Time that his views have shifted dramatically in favor of complete legalization of the production, transit, and sale of prohibited drugs. “Prohibition didn’t work in the Garden of Eden. Adam ate the apple,” Fox says. While there have been countries in the past who have decriminalized the personal possession of many drugs, none has ever legalized them fully due to rigid U.N. treaties. Fox says the country cannot wait for the whole world but should instead plow on with reform.

To read about the results of Portugal’s 10-year experiment with the decriminalization of all drugs, listen to NPR‘s story here.

Arizona legislators are moving to pass a bill that would classify synthetic cannabis as a dangerous drug prohibited for sale, transfer, or use under Arizona’s Criminal Code. To read more about synthetic cannabis (a.k.a. “Spice”), check out my story on the DEA’s temporary nationwide ban here.

Sold under the same guise as synthetic cannabis, which is marketed as “incense,” a synthetic drug sold as “bath salt” is flying off the shelves of head-shops across the nation WMBB.com reports. A psychoactive stimulant in the form of a white powder that is snorted, the packaging of brands like “Blue Silk,” “White Lightning” and “Mojo Diamond” all say they are not for human consumption, making it available legally.

In Utah, police shot and killed a man within seconds of storming his parents’ home in a drug raid that resulted in a small amount of pot and an empty vial of what may have contained meth. Todd Blair, 45, raised a golf club when the narcotics strike force entered his house. Within seconds, without demanding he drop the club or raise his hands, Sgt. Troy Burnett fired three shots, killing Blair. To read the full story from the Salt Lake Tribune, click here. To see the video of the raid, go here.

-DR

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This Week in Drugs (Dec. 17, 2010)

Dec 17th, 10 / 8 Comments

Arizona’s state health agency released draft rules today on medical marijuana, legalized in November by voters’ approval of Proposition 203. (Read the draft rules here.) Among other things, the rules require that patients have an existing relationship with a physician or that they see the same doctor for their marijuana recommendation as they do to treat their condition — which would help to scale down the number of doctors whose practices center around marijuana. The rules also clarify what we’ve been pointing out to critics for a while: the only kind of chronic pain that counts in Arizona is pain associated with a debilitating disease or illness. The Arizona Republic does a good job of explaining the draft rules here. The public now has three weeks to comment on the proposed regulations.

The Los Angeles Times‘ editorial board delivered a well-earned slap down to Obama’s drug czar this week for blaming increased marijuana use by teens on medical marijuana and California’s failed Proposition 19 to legalize recreational pot. The newspaper points to a spring study that shows no increase in marijuana use by teens in states where medical marijuana is legal. And, indeed, the proof is undeniable that prohibition hasn’t stopped marijuana use: “There’s little evidence that continued criminalization has discouraged teen drug use, but better education might,” the newspaper writes.

The Obama administration is taking a logical (albeit probably overdue) step to stem the flow of assault weapons to Mexico by proposing a temporary requirement that gun dealers near the border report multiple sales of assault weapons. The feds already track multiple handgun sales, but not of semi-automatic weapons like AR-15s and AK-47s used by cartels for battles with the Mexican army. The National Rifle Association has already called out the move as an assault on the second amendment, according to The Washington Post. Read my take on our inconsistent and illogical gun laws and the “iron river” of guns flowing to Mexico here.

U.S. diplomatic cables published to WikiLeaks show Cuban frustration with Jamaica’s lack of response to drug smuggling to the United States, CNN reports. According to the cables, Cuban officials “collectively and continually … express frustration over the GOJ’s [Jamaica's] consistent ignoring of Cuban attempts to increase the flow” of drug-related information between the two countries.

Mexican officials announced this week that more than 30,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon launched his escalated drug war in 2006. About 12,500 people were killed from January-November 2010, compared with 9,600 in all of 2009, the Associated Press reports. The BBC reports Ciudad Juarez’ death toll has reached 3,000 for the year; 10 times the figures for 2007. In the past three years, 7,386 people had been killed in Ciudad Juarez. CNN looks at the new numbers in light of a new report from the Stratfor global intelligence company that shows the violent cost of the government’s efforts to take down cartel leaders. While dangerous individuals are eliminated, the efforts also upset the balance of power and lead to more bloodshed: “This imbalance has increased the volatility of the country’s security environment by creating a sort of vicious feeding frenzy among the various organizations as they seek to preserve their own turf or seize territory from rival organizations,” the report says.

The populace response to the death of a Mexican drug lord this weeks shows the complexity of the relationship between some cartels and citizens. Slain cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez (a.k.a. “The Craziest”) of La Familia Michoacana was mourned as a religious leader after being gunned down by authorities. His cult-like cartel bills itself as the protector of the Michoacan state. A peace march organized by the local government turned into a rally in support of Gonzalez, the Associated Press reports. Read the CNN profile of Gonzalez here.

Meanwhile, the Mexican government’s corruption case against 35 local officials for working with La Familia has fallen apart and all but one of the suspects has been released, The Los Angeles Times reports.

For once, the United States is exporting something marijuana-related to Mexico: growing techniques. Reuters reports on new more sophisticated production practices pioneered on marijuana in the U.S. that are now being used to produce higher-grade marijuana in Mexico. As part of the article, Reuters emphasizes that U.S.-sold marijuana provides the bulk of the cash used by cartels to finance their violent battle against the Mexican government.

An Afghan drug lord now facing narco-terrorism charges was a U.S. informant, The New York Times reports. The article illustrates the conflict the U.S. faces in fighting terrorism and the global drug war at the same time.

A video of pop-star Miley Cyrus smoking the natural herb, salvia, has been swirling around the internet. Salvia divinorum, also known as Diviner’s or Seer’s Sage, is a psychoactive plant smoked for its dissociative effects and hallucinatory experiences. Legal in Cyrus’ home state of California, it has been banned in states like Oklahoma, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Illinois, Virginia, North Dakota, and Delaware. See the TMZ video here.

The Open Society Institute* posted an interesting blog this week on the vilification of pregnant women who use drugs. The international non-profit points to governmental scare tactics in places like Russia that are not based in science and only serve to further marginalize women and prevent them from seeking treatment.

The Drug Policy Alliance and other criminal justice reform groups are asking supporters to fast on Dec. 22 and sign a petition to urge President Obama to create an “effective process” to review applications for commutations and grant sentence reductions to federal prisoners serving overly harsh time for drug violations and other crimes. Read and/or sign the petition here. Recently, Obama granted his first pardons, but did not take action, as some had hoped he would, to reduce sentences of people convicted before changes this year to alleviate some of the disparity between punishments for powder verse crack cocaine.

–AJC

*Full disclosure: Amanda J. Crawford is a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow with the Open Society Institute, which helps to support her work on CrawfordOnDrugs.com

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Drug Policy, Guns, Mexican drug cartels, This Week In Drugs, U.S.-Mexico border

Chemical-laced “Spice” soon to be illegal

Dec 17th, 10 / 13 Comments

The DEA has implemented a temporary ban on the chemicals used to make synthetic marijuana, a.k.a. Spice or K2, effective Dec. 24. The chemical-drenched product was developed in response to prohibition of marijuana — and has proven more dangerous than natural cannabis. CrawfordOnDrugs’ David Robles explores the issue.

by David Robles

Cigarette smoke unfurling from his mouth, 23-year-old Kevin Tighe shakes his head and crosses his arms, the bong-lined shelves behind him eerily spotlighted in the fluorescent glow of the head shop. Packets and vials of synthetic marijuana are displayed in the glass case before him, but he says he hopes all of it will be gone in a few days.

“I will do whatever I can to help get this stuff off the street,” he says.

Tighe works at a shop in Tempe making and selling pipes, bongs and, until recently, synthetic cannabis commonly known as “Spice.” Sold as herbal incense and often labeled as “not for human consumption,” synthetic cannabis products like Spice and K2 have become increasingly popular, especially among teens and young adults. “Spice” is promoted as a safe and legal alternative to a marijuana, but the American Association of Poison Control Centers has received nearly 2,000 reports of people becoming ill after smoking synthetic cannabis products since the start of 2010, compared to about a dozen such reports in 2009.

The spike in poisonings has  prompted the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to use its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control five chemicals used in the making of synthetic cannabis. A November 24 press release from the DEA specified that possessing or selling products containing the chemicals JWH-018; JWH-073; JWH-200; CP-47,497; and cannabicyclohexanol will be illegal in the United States for at least one year beginning Dec. 24 while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services studies whether “Spice” should be permanently controlled.

“These products have not been tested on people and because most evidence is anecdotal, it is important to do further research,” says Barbara Carreno, a spokeswoman for the DEA. “You’re taking a chance with your physical and psychological health when you use [synthetic cannabis].”

Tighe explains the process for producing the synthetic cannabis once made in his smoke shop: Employees weighed out 56 grams of Pedicularis densiflora (commonly known as Indian Warrior herb) and sprayed it with a mixture of 40 mL of acetone and 3.6 grams of a chemical he calls “J-dub,” a moniker for one of any number of analgesic chemicals found naturally in cannabis including those recently banned by the DEA. The mixture is left to sit overnight, allowing the acetone to evaporate leaving only the “J-dub” coated potpourri.

Dr. John W. Huffman, the Clemson University organic chemist whose research is responsible for first synthesizing the many analogues of marijuana’s active ingredient Tetrahydrocannabinol, told the Associated Press in November that the chemicals “are dangerous and anyone who uses them is stupid.” According to Huffman’s Clemson University profile, his research through the National Institute on Drug Abuse focused on “the potential development of new pharmaceutical products and an exploration of the geometry of both the cannabinoid brain and peripheral receptors.” The chemicals began being used by manufacturers of synthetic cannabis in countries like China and Germany before eventually finding their way to the United States. Of the 450 synthetic cannabinoid compounds developed through his research, three will be illegal under the new DEA rule.

Although the effects of smoking synthetic cannabis are not widely known, reports include vomiting, seizures and hallucinations. Tighe says he believes it is also very addictive.

“[The shop] has been broken into three times; all three times our ‘Spice’ stash was cleared out but they didn’t break or steal anything else,” Tighe says. “They probably got away with $3,500 of product.” He attributes the theft to a gripping addiction to spice, noting that some customers buy more than two packets a week.

After the break-ins, shop security was tightened with extra locks, security cameras and an extra metal door. A thief attempting to break into the shop was caught on the new security cameras, his face recognizable to the shop employees as a returning “Spice” customer.

A young man in his early thirties, chatting with his mother-in-law over his cell phone, walks into the shop and buys a gram of King Krypto brand “herbal incense.” Tighe says the man, who is a regular, picks up a sparkling package adorned with the Rastafarian lion at least weekly. At an average of $20 a gram, synthetic cannabis can be purchased online, through magazines, smoke shops, head shops, and at some convenience stores and gas stations, raising worry for many parents.

On Dec. 2, parents and community members in Tempe, Ariz., attended an informational workshop on synthetic cannabis hosted by the Tempe Union High School District’s No Parent Left Behind University program. A speaker at the event, Stephanie Siete, Director of Public Relations for Community Bridges, Inc., says synthetic cannabinoids are between five to 15 times as potent as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

“The effects are not marijuana. They are much more intense,” Siete says. “The bottom line: People are getting really sick.”

Siete’s presentation on the dangers of synthetic cannabis included a video message from an Indianola, Iowa, family whose son committed suicide after suffering a “K2 induced panic attack” within an hour of smoking the fake pot back in June 2010.

Tempe Union High School District Associate Superintendent Gregory Wyman attributes the increasing number of “Spice”-related cases to curiosity and availability and says educating kids and parents is vital.

“Just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s safe,” Wyman said. “[Designer drugs have] kind of grown exponentially and because everything is so new, it’s what makes education for parents and for kids so important.”

At the parent workshop, Mojgan Kavian says her eighth grade son at Kyrene Middle School met a boy on the bus who was put in time out for selling “Spice” he says was given to him by his older brother.

“It’s amazing how normal it is for that kid that he’ll tell [my son] on the bus about it,” Kavian says. “He told me it wasn’t a big deal. He said, ‘Mom, it’s legal.’”

In the final weeks before the official DEA ban on the chemicals used to make “Spice,”  Tighe says he will continue to offer the only advice his job allows him:

“Until it’s out of the store I tell my customers whatever they do with it when they leave the store is their business but it’s not for human consumption. I tell them I wouldn’t smoke it.”

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Drug Policy

This Week In Drugs (Dec. 10, 2010)

Dec 10th, 10 / 1 Comment

It looks like country music legend Willie Nelson will probably not see jail time after he was arrested Nov. 26 for possession of marijuana. Border patrol agents in Texas boarded Nelson’s tour bus and found marijuana allegedly belonging to the singer. At first, it appeared Nelson, who had a prior arrest for marijuana, would see several months in jail. But the pot weighed less than expected, and fell just within the limit for a misdemeanor. After Nelson’s arrest, he told CelebStoner that people should form a “Teapot Party” that would “lean a little to the left” and work to legalize marijuana. As of Friday evening, the “party” had nearly 42,000 fans on Facebook and chapters around the globe.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution this week condemning the cultivation of illicit marijuana crops on federal parklands and urging the Office of National Drug Control Policy to come up with a strategy to dismantle Mexican drug cartel operations on federal land. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, said on the House floor that he believes the only way to stop the cultivation of marijuana on public lands is to legalize and regulate it — a sentiment also expressed by drug policy advocates in response to the resolution.

Check out the Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann’s take on the future of drug policy reform from this week in The Nation.

The Obama administration is gearing up to crackdown on California’s medical marijuana industry. California Watch reports that the administration has warned the city of Oakland that a plan to allow indoor pot farms to grow medical marijuana is a violation of federal law — part of a larger shift in federal strategy to clamp down on the state’s medical marijuana industry.

Students at Columbia University woke up Tuesday morning to police cars, drug dogs and battering rams in a raid on fraternity houses in which five students were arrested and charged with running a campus drug ring. The raid, dubbed “Operation Ivy League,” resulted in the arrest of five students who allegedly sold a variety of drugs, including Adderall, marijuana, Ecstasy, cocaine and LSD-laced Altoid mints, CNN reports. Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) blasted the raid as an example of the overly harsh response to drug use, which we cannot “arrest our way out of.”

A 14-year-old hitman for the South Pacific cartel was captured and arrested last Friday on his way to the Cuernavaca airport, Time reported. Known by his nickname, “El Ponchis,” San Diego-born Edgar Jimenez Lugo told Mexican authorities he was on his way to visit his stepmother when he and his older sister were detained. Jimenez says he was kidnapped at 11 and was forced to commit the murders and decapitations of  four men for the SPC. Officials have warned that cartels would hire teenagers to do their dirty work, a trend that has been seen more and more throughout the course of the drug war violence in Mexico.

Four people were killed, including a teenager, and seven people were wounded after nearly 500 shots were fired in separate attacks on a pair of drug rehab centers in Juárez on Sunday night. Meanwhile, officials in Acapulco are teaching school children how to duck for cover if they hear gun fire, Reuters reported.

Soldiers killed six gunmen across the border from Texas in the northern state of Tamaulipas on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that soldiers also seized 24 assault rifles, five grenades, two grenade launchers and three bulletproof cars following the incident. The bodies of four men were also found in Cancun Tuesday night although police say they were found in neighborhoods far from where U.N. Climate Change conference is taking place.

As drug war violence rages on in Mexico, the nation’s capital has become the eye of the hurricane to which many small business are fleeing in an attempt to escape “the grizzliest drug murders and daytime shootouts,” The US Daily reports. Some 5,000 business owners fled to Mexico City recently from states near the U.S.-Mexico border.

For a look at the drug war’s effect on the Mexican state of Michoacan, see the Reuters timeline here.

Read intelligence consultant Sylvia Longmire’s CNN editorial comparing drug cartels to terrorists here.

–AJC & DR

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Drug Policy, Mexican drug cartels, This Week In Drugs