Posts Tagged ‘marijuana legalization’

This Week in Drugs (April 29, 2011)

Apr 29th, 11 / 2 Comments

Although the Justice Department said in 2009 that it would not prosecute medical marijuana patients, U.S. attorneys in California and Washington state have told officials they intend to enforce the federal laws that prohibit marijuana’s manufacture and distribution, The Arizona Republic reports. This news comes as Arizona officials begin implementing the voter-approved medical-marijuana dispensaries which took effect April 14. Although the news makes many investing in the medical-marijuana industry nervous, a spokesman for Arizona U.S. attorney Dennis Burke said the U.S. attorney plans to release a statement soon to clarify enforcement of federal law in Arizona.

Ahwatukee Foothills entrepreneur Dave Levine has invented the Cannabis Container Vending Machine and a heavy plastic container called the “Cann Can” – short for “cannabis can,” The Arizona Republic reports. The Cann Can contains “smoke shop” products like lighters, rolling papers, and pipes that dispensaries may not want to stock. Levine says the machine costs less than $2,700 and includes several sets of plastic cans that can be purchased empty and customized by dispensaries. “This is a way to avoid the inconvenience of a used-up lighter, or having to go buy different items on an a la carte basis,” Levine said. “The container holds everything a patient needs.”

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has announced his 2012 bid for the presidency, The Hill reports. Known for his “small-government” policies, Johnson rose to national prominence largely due to his advocacy of marijuana legalization. The libertarian-leaning former governor has made little effort to appeal to the more traditional parts of the GOP’s base, saying of his stance on legalization, “It is what it is. From the context of ‘The Emperor Wears No Clothes,’ I’m the only politician that’s saying the emperor is wearing no clothes. That’s not such a bad deal.” Check out Johnson’s issue-oriented group titled “Our American Initiative,” here.

Mexico’s Highway 101 through the border state of Tamaulipas, once busy this time of year with families traveling to celebrate Easter together, has become an empty ghost highway, The Washington Post reports. As rumors spread that psychotic kidnappers are dragging passengers off buses and as authorities find mass graves amassing to more than 145 bodies, people began calling it “the highway of death.”

As Mexico’s mainstream media agrees to guidelines for covering the drug war, an anonymous blogger running the site “El Blog Del Narco” continues to break the goriest stories, Al Jazeera English reported. The blog pulls many unedited, gruesome pictures uploaded by citizens to social networking sites like Facebook. While presenting one side of the violent story of drug war violence, the blog has even posted the statements of a purported spokesman for the Gulf cartel, allowing for a new medium for communication between hit men, traffickers, dealers – and the people affected by their violence. Visit the NSFW Narco Blog here.

Residents of Mexico City’s upscale San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood discovered the dismembered body of a woman scattered over three blocks, The Associated Press reports. The discovery comes as authorities investigate the death of four women and a 14-year-old girl whose throats were slit in Acapulco over the weekend. All five worked at a beauty parlor in a neighborhood known for prostitution and drug dealing, according to the chief of detectives for the Guerrero state police. The mass killing of women is unusual in Mexico’s drug war but there is no indication that the two cases are related.

After five years and more than 34,000 dead in Mexico’s drug war, many Mexicans are organizing a movement called “ya basta” or “enough,” to bring an end to the violence, PBS NewsHour reports. Mexicans have gathered in marches and protests across the country in response to the violence that has killed thousands and displaced many more.

Illegal searches by the NYCPD occur very often but are rarely challenged in court, WNYC reports. Many defendants are told that they face “insurmountable obstacles when fighting marijuana charges” and the illegal searches that often lead to their arrests. More than 50,000 people have been arrested in New York City for marijuana possession last year and a great deal of the arrests take place in the police precincts where the most “stop-and-frisks” occur. More than a dozen men arrested told WNYC they were arrested for marijuana possession through illegal searches, none of which challenged the illegal search in court.

The US government said today that it would increase aid to Mexico’s state police in it’s anti-drug operations with a $500 million aid increase under the crime-fighting Merida Initiative, AFP reported. Many experts believe the nation’s state police are the weakest link in the fight against drug cartels due to a high rate of corruption. A statement after a meeting attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Mexican counterpart Patricia Espinosa condemned the “criminality and violence” of the drug war. This comes as the number of victims unearthed from mass graves in northern Mexico has risen to 279, Reuters reports.

The US’ seeming indifference to Mexico’s violent drug war has enraged frustrated Mexicans, according to Reuters. Even with today’s increase in aid the support pales in comparison to the more than $1 trillion spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. With an increasingly brutal war raging south of the border, Mexican historian Enrique Krauze told Reuters the Merida Initiative is “almost an insult.” Krauze said Mexicans can expect ten years of war “on [their] own,” adding, “The Obama administration has been a huge disappointment for us.”

Should Washington provide more aid to Mexico? Is the drug war winnable? Tell us what you think and check out The Economist’s interactive map of Mexico’s drug war violence.

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This Week in Drugs (April 2, 2011)

Apr 2nd, 11 / 2 Comments

The Arizona health department released its final draft of medical-marijuana rules on Monday, The Arizona Republic reported. After a four month process, the state’s medical-marijuana program begins April 14 when patients can begin the application process through Arizona’s department of health services. Qualifying patients with certain debilitating conditions can receive up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks from between 120 and 126 dispensaries throughout the state or cultivate up to 12 marijuana plants if they live 25 miles or farther from a dispensary.

Meanwhile, a Delaware bill legalizing medical marijuana cleared the Senate 18-3 on Thursday and now moves on to the House, BusinessWeek reported. Under the bill, with a doctor’s written recommendation, patients with certain serious or debilitating conditions that could be helped by marijuana would be allowed to possess up to six ounces.

MSNBC featured U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado) this week, who supports legalizing marijuana. Polis said that legalizing marijuana would be a “death blow” against cartels, save money and lives. (Link to Polis’ page: fearlesscampaign.com/drugpolicy) Is a member of Congress’ support of legalization proof that drug policy reform has gone mainstream? MSNBC notes a Gallup Poll that shows support for legalization in the U.S. has gone up to 46 percent in 2010 from 31 percent in 2000.

America’s drug czar Gil Kerlikowske addressed calls for legalization in a q & a with Foreign Policy saying, “I’ve never seen any of the legalization arguments that say, here’s how it will work and here’s how we’ll regulate it. Heaven knows, we’re not very successful with alcohol.” Read the interview here.

A Texas jury has found two men guilty of kidnapping an American drug trafficker murdered in Ciudad Juarez in 2009, the Associated Press reports. In this rare case of drug war violence spilling across the border, prosecutors say Cesar Obregon-Reyes and Rafael Vega broke into the house of Sergio Saucedo, bound he and his wife and kidnapped him in front of their children for a Mexican drug cartel. Saucedo was found dead with his hands chopped off on a street in Juarez, across the border from El Paso.

A United Nations report has called on the Mexican government to consider withdrawing the military from the streets following a sharp increase in human rights abuse claims since the Army was first deployed four years ago to fight drug traffickers, The Christian Science Monitor reports. The UN human rights office working group responsible for the report said the military and other government forces have become involved in an increasing number of cases of rape, torture, disappearance and arbitrary shooting. Because troops are tried in military courts instead of civil courts for rights abuses, most cases go unpunished. Calderón has sent a proposal to Congress to try cases of torture, rape, and disappearance in civic courts, but many say that change is not enough.

Mexico’s Attorney General Arturo Chavez resigned Thursday, in the face of  harsh criticism from women’s groups that he did little to solve hundreds of rapes and murders plaguing the state of Chihuahua, the San Francisco Examiner reported. Marisela Morales has been nominated to take Chavez’s place as the first woman to fill the post in Mexico’s history if confirmed by the Mexican Senate. Chavez, nominated in 2009, is the second attorney general to resign since Calderon took office in 2006.

U.S. lawmakers debated Thursday expanding border security and whether military involvement is necessary in fighting the Mexican drug war against cartels, UPI reports. Members of the House Homeland Security subcommittee were shown videotapes of Gulf and Los Zetas cartel members attacking military and law enforcement in Mexico. Both the House and Senate are writing bills for border security next year and expanding the $1.4 billion Merida Initiative designed to help the Mexican government battle the organized crime syndicates.

Finally, check out this eye-opening story from The Washington Post on the La Familia drug cartel, “Mexico’s drug lords fall, but war goes on.”

-DR & AJC

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This Week in Drugs (March 27, 2011)

Mar 27th, 11 / 2 Comments

Northern Arizona University associate professor Veronica Perez Rodriguez is reportedly safe after being briefly kidnapped in Juarez, The Arizona Republic reported. The 35-year-old anthropology professor was visiting her family last Friday when armed men abducted her in what is known as “express kidnapping.” Rodriguez was released in less than 24 hours, but it is unclear if she was forced to pay a ransom.

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, approximately 230,000 people have been displaced by Mexico’s drug war, the Associated Press reports. The report is based on independent studies by local researchers; the Mexican government does not compile figures on people who have had to flee their homes because of turf battles between drug enterprises. “An estimated half of those displaced crossed the border into the United States, which would leave about 115,000 people internally displaced, most likely in the States of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila and Veracruz,” the report states. According to the study, Mexico has done little in response to the mass displacement of its people, although a government census suggests an exodus in some areas.

Hundreds of Mexican news outlets agreed on Thursday to first-ever guidelines for covering the drug war that has drastically increased risks for journalists, The Los Angeles Times reported. Since Calderon’s term, 22 journalists have been murdered in Mexico, at least eight in direct response to reporting on crimes and corruption. The guidelines also urge news organizations to unite against threats to journalists, such as by jointly publishing stories. Under the 10-point accord, the companies should draw up standards for showing violent images such as decapitated bodies and provide more context when reporting on drug violence.

Fresh from a long and hard civil war, El Salvador is now struggling as Mexican drug gangs have begun utilizing the Central American nation’s new, U.S.-funded highway to traffic cocaine north, The Los Angeles Times reports. “El Caminito,” or the little pathway, is being infiltrated by street gangs with roots in Los Angeles and Mexican drug cartels using secretive networks left over from the civil war and the new land route to move drugs. Combined with El Salvador’s use of the U.S. dollar as official currency that makes it easier to launder money, the conditions set the scene of a new chapter in the violent turf wars of Mexican drug cartels.”

U.S. Border Patrol agents recovered more than 2,200 pounds of marijuana in two separate incidents Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Ajo Station agents used surveillance to locate 31 bundles of marijuana hidden in brush in the first incident. In the second, agents followed a suspicious vehicle later found abandoned containing 30 bundles of pot.

Months after the release of the first Wikileaks cables, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual resigned last week, The Economist reported. Although the Mexico City cables were “milder than most,” a furious Felipe Calderón criticized Pascual’s “ignorance” and believed he should go. Pascual’s assessments of Mexico’s mishandling of the drug war and the “grey” senior members of Calderón’s National Action Party, his relationship with the daughter of a leading opposition politician and the fact that he is an expert on the delicate subject of failed states likely all contributed to his ousting.

Four men straw purchasing guns in North Texas bought more than $100,000 in assault rifles over the past six months, including one that was used in a shootout in Mexico that killed eight, federal authorities allege. NBC reports that the men are accused of purchasing 129 assault rifles since October, usually two at a time, that have been used in Mexico’s bloody drug war. They face federal charges of conspiracy to deal firearms without a license.

Federal regulators are forcing banks on California’s North Coast to investigate the financial transactions of clients who may be dealing marijuana, including many operating legally in the medical marijuana industry, according to The Press Democrat. Bringing the local banks into the drug war and instructing them to spend time and money in search of illegal activity has led some banks to simply close the bank accounts of medical marijuana dispensaries to avoid the hassle.

A Las Vegas medical marijuana advocate was arrested in a raid of her house after Metro Police suspected she and her husband of selling marijuana, 8 News Now reports. Medical marijuana patient Rhonda Shade says about  40 mature plants were confiscated by police. Read more here. Read about recent medical marijuana raids by the DEA in West Hollywood here and in Montana here.

Meanwhile, a new report shows medical pot sales have grown to rival Viagra, Time reports. Sales have reached $1.7 billion in states where it is legal, compared to annual Viagra sales of $1.9 billion. The report’s editor, Ted Rose, “noted that 1 in 4 Americans lives in a state in which medical marijuana is legal, and that nearly 25 million people in those states have medical problems for which the drug can be prescribed.” Rose projects sales to reach $8.9 billion in five years.

A new study by CUNY Professor Harry Levine and attorney Loren Siegel shows New York City has spent $75 million arresting people for possessing small amounts of marijuana in 2010 alone. Each arrest costs at least $1,000 to $2,000 and 50,383 people arrested for marijuana in 2010. Most of the marijuana confiscated is found through controversial “stop and frisk” practices. The NYPD made 600,000 recorded “stop and frisks,” and many additional unrecorded stops last year.

As of Thursday evening, all ten representatives and all five senators of Seattle’s state legislative delegation has gone on the record in support of taxing, regulating, and legalizing marijuana, Slog reported. The unheard of uniform support for legalization in Seattle represents a significant shift in the mainstream acceptance of marijuana.

-DR & AJC

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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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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 (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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This Week in Drugs (Nov. 12, 2010)

Nov 12th, 10 / 2 Comments

by David Robles

Results from the Nov. 2 general election in Arizona are still coming in, with medical marijuana Proposition 203 now within 725 votes of winning as of Friday afternoon. Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell told The Associated Press that provisional ballots were leaning in favor of the measure. The gap has narrowed significantly since election day, when the measure was failing by about 7,000 votes. There were approximately 59,000 outstanding ballots left to count as of Friday afternoon. UPDATE: Prop. 203 passed!

Will California’s failed Proposition 19 launch a global conversation about marijuana prohibition? Reuters had an interesting post-election analysis on the measure here.

Gulf cartel leader Ezequiel “Tony Tormenta” Cardenas, or “Tony the Storm,” was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, on Friday according to the Associated Press. The next day, gunmen from the rival Zetas gang hung messages mocking his death. The Zetas, a gang of hit men formed more than a decade ago by former Mexican soldiers, split from the Gulf cartel earlier this year. President Obama called his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderon on Saturday “to reaffirm United States support for Mexico’s efforts to end the impunity of organized criminal groups,”  according to a statement from the White House. More than 31,000 people have been killed in Mexico since Calderon took office and launched his cartel crackdown in December 2006.

This week saw a continuation of the flagrant drug war violence in Mexico with at least 20 murdered over the weekend in Ciudad Juarez, the AP reported Monday. Seven men believed to be attending a family party were gunned down Saturday night and 11 others were killed the same day, including two whose bodies were found dismembered. Two Juarez police officers were gunned down in their patrol car on Sunday.

As the Mexican army’s role as Mexico’s chief policing force increases, reports of human rights violations have followed suit, according to Al Jazeera English. The National Human Rights Commission reported more than 1,800 violations allegedly committed by the army in 2009, a more than 800 percent increase since President Calderon took office in 2006.

A 12-year-old boy known only as El Ponchis, or “the cloak,” is allegedly working as a hired assassin for the South Pacific Drug Cartel leader Jesus Radilla, according to The Sun. Macabre videos of the boy depict him clubbing a man with a weapon marked “CPS” (Cartel Pacifico del Sur), posing with a rifle by a dead body, and slitting the throats of gang enemies nearly to the point of decapitation.

The ATF’s anti-gun trafficking initiative, Project Gunrunner, has “significant weaknesses,” according to a Department of Justice report Tuesday. The report criticized the ATF for focusing on less important gun dealers and “straw purchasers”rather than higher-level traffickers, smugglers, and the “ultimate recipients of the trafficked guns” in Mexico, Reuters reported, along with unsystematic sharing of intelligence with partners in the U.S. and Mexico. (Read our past coverage of gun trafficking to Mexico here.)

On Tuesday U.S. federal appeals court judge Juan Torruella told an audience at the University of Puerto Rico that legalizing marijuana and perhaps other drugs is a better way to combat drug abuse and crime. Nominated to be a federal judge by President Ford and elevated to the appeals court by Reagan in 1984, Judge Torruella believes legalization is the only “realistic” alternative following the loss of the drug war at great societal cost, according to AP.

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This Week in Drugs (Nov. 5, 2010)

Nov 5th, 10 / 7 Comments

By David Robles

As of Friday mid-afternoon, Arizona Proposition 203 to legalize medical marijuana had narrowed its loss to about 4,600 votes, according to campaign manager Andrew Myers. Myers told CrawfordOnDrugs he is optimistic the measure will pass because early ballots are trending in favor of medical marijuana. There remain about 300,000 early and provisional ballots left to count, he said.

California’s attention-getting Proposition 19 to legalize marijuana for recreational use by adults was defeated Tuesday, thanks in part to the elderly, Salon.com reported. According to a tweet from AP’s Jennifer Agiesta, six in 10 California voters under 30 say they voted “yes” while seven in 10 seniors say they voted “no” on Proposition 19. Although the  marijuana measure was defeated Tuesday, many proponents of marijuana policy reform believe that marijuana legalization is a matter of when, not if. Plans for new campaigns to legalize the drug by 2012 have materialized not only in California, but Colorado as well. Although the outcome is unknown, marijuana policy has become a mainstream issue.

Read more here.

Despite the astounding number of accidental deaths related to prescription drug abuse (seven every day in Florida), Gary Martin of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office told addiction prevention and treatment professionals attending a conference on prescription drug abuse that “the misuse of prescription drugs is second only to marijuana abuse as a drug problem.” U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske (who called for an end to the “War on Drugs”) told the Broward and Palm Beach New Times that legalizing marijuana would not answer the country’s problems, saying, “Marijuana is not medicine…Treatments should be determined by scientists and not by voters.”

According to a new British study that takes societal effects into consideration, alcohol is more destructive than crack cocaine and heroin. The study evaluated and ranked substances on how destructive they are to users and society as a whole. Heroin, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine were the most lethal to users, but alcohol ranked above heroin and crack cocaine as having the most dangerous wider social effect.

The drug war saw a particularly eventful week with the seizure of 30 tons of marijuana following the discovery of a tunnel between Mexico and California. The San Diego Tunnel Task Force discovered the 600-yard underground tunnel after observing suspicious activity involving a tractor trailer truck later found to be carrying 10 tons of marijuana packed in large cargo boxes. The tunnel connects a warehouse in Tijuana to the warehouse in Otay Mesa and is equipped with a rail, lighting, and ventilation systems.

The bodies of 18 men found in mass grave outside Acapulco may solve the mystery of 20 men who were whisked away by gunmen in late September shortly after arriving in Acapulco on vacation, the Los Angeles Times reported. In a grainy Youtube video, two beaten, bruised men confess to killing the group of 20 and reveal where they are buried. On Tuesday, police checked an anonymous telephone tip that lead to the discovery of two corpses believed to be the men who appear in the video. The 6-by-12-foot mass grave was found near the men who had an attached note that attributed their murders to a drug-trafficking gang operating in the area.

Expreso de Matamoros daily reporter Carlos Alberto Guajardo Romero died today during a confrontation between Mexican federal agents and armed gunmen in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, making him the 66th Mexican journalist killed since 2000.

At least three main papers in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas state, across from Texas, are being forced to print press releases from the Zeta cartel, Global Post reported. The press releases began arriving by email to police reporter who acts as the Zeta liaison with the press. Newspaper editor Martha Lopez says “stories” often attempt to make the Mexican army look bad, such as stories about army human rights abuses. “Some of those stories are accurate in a small way, but they are exaggerated. Sometimes they are not true,” Lopez said.

-DR

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