Latin America: Latin America On Its Way To Legalizing Drugs, Experts Say

BUENOS AIRES – Latin America is headed towards the decriminalization of drug possession for personal consumption, according to experts and officials who took part in a regional conference in Buenos Aires.
Those attending the 1st Latin American Conference on Drug Policy, which ended Friday, also said that legislative reforms are [...]

US says Afghan poppy eradication ‘failure’

The United States admits that its efforts in eradicating opium poppy production in Afghanistan have proven to be of no avail.
Washington’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke said on Sunday that the current measures taken against poppy growers had been “a failure”.
“The Western policies against the opium crop, the [...]

Canada’s ‘Prince of Pot’ Vows to Defeat U.S. War on Drugs

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  —  Psychedelic rock booms through The Toker’s Bowl. Young and some not-so-young people smoke pot through a variety of devices in the store’s Vapour Lounge. And owner Marc Scott Emery stands in the middle of it all, proclaiming his goal of defeating the U.S. war on drugs.
Known [...]

Comment: Get real, drug czars

ELEVEN years ago, the United Nations pledged to win the war on drugs within a decade. It has failed.
At this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held in Vienna in March, there was a two-day session to evaluate the progress since 1998. In his opening remarks, the head [...]

Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia

The declassified documents in original format and with Spanish translation are available here
Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties [...]

Drug-Friendly Netherlans to close prisons for lack of criminals

For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed — falsely — that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse. They may have trouble wrapping their little brains around this:
The Dutch government is getting ready to close [...]

Mexican NGOs, Brigadier General, Unite in Letter Against Plan Mexico

May 7, 2009
Yesterday, 72 Mexican civil society organizations and a Brigadier General of the Mexican Army sent the following letter to US Congress demanding that all military aid to Mexico be immediately halted. The letter comes as the US House of Representative is considering more than doubling 2009 funding for the war [...]

Former Mexican President Calls for Legalization

British agent loses top secrets

A British agent has left top secret information about covert operations on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia.
The incident occurred after the drugs liaison officer left her handbag on the bus. In the handbag there was a computer memory stick containing the names, code names, addresses [...]

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?

Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It’s not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled “coffee shops,” Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don’t enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer [...]

Mexican Drug War: Soldiers vs. Soldiers

The most offensive casualties the Mexican Army has suffered in the war on drug trafficking aren’t the result of confrontations with hitmen.  Rather, they’re executions carried out by ex-brothers-in-arms, trained by the Mexican National Defense Ministry, who have joined the ranks of organized crime, or by cells protected by high-ranking [...]

Arrests of U.S. border agents on the rise

WASHINGTON — A rising number of U.S. border enforcement officers are being arrested on corruption charges as Mexican drug cartels look to bribes as a way to get around tougher enforcement, border officials say.
Investigators arrested 21 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on corruption charges in the fiscal year that [...]

Obama in Mexico

US President Obama today set foot in Mexico City today, and Narco News
publisher Al Giordano is there, reporting and following his steps:
“We will no doubt hear more of the same over-the-top statements of
support for President Calderon from his US counterpart, who recently
went so far as to compare Mexico’s illegitimate [...]

Child Casualties in Mexico Drug War

Mexico, Apr 13 (Prensa Latina) A total of 610 children have died as a result of the war waged by Mexican drug cartels, reports a study of the national Defense Secretary (SEDENA).
This institution together with the Navy and different police institutions has participated for almost two and a half years [...]

CIA Updates Digital Archive, Restricts Access

The Central Intelligence Agency maintains a regularly updated electronic archive of declassified historical records that have been publicly disclosed, but it has effectively squandered the utility of digitizing these records by refusing to make them available online.
The CIA to its credit has done more than any other agency to scan [...]

Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower

More Than $1 billion In Private-Sector Weapons Exports Approved For Mexico Since 2004
Mainstream media and Beltway pundits and politicians in recent months have unleashed a wave of panic in the nation linking the escalading violence in Mexico, and its projected spread into the U.S., to illegal weapons smuggling.
The smokescreen being [...]

Why Secretly Funded DEA Surveillance Planes Aren’t Flying

WASHINGTON — The first sign of trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s new surveillance planes surfaced almost immediately.  On the way from the manufacturer to the agency’s aviation headquarters, one of them veered off a runway during a fuel stop.
The malfunction last spring was only the beginning.  A month later, the [...]

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs, a distinction which continues through to the present.  Last year, working with the Cato Institute, I went to that country in order to research the effects of the decriminalization law (which applies to all substances, including cocaine and heroin) and to [...]

Bolivia’s Morales Calls for Recognition of Legal Coca Use in N.Y. Times Editorial

WASHINGTON – Bolivian President Evo Morales said in an editorial published by The New York Times that the international community should remove coca from its list of banned substances.
“The millions of us who maintain the traditional practice of chewing coca have been, according to the (1961 United Nations Single Convention [...]

Colombian VP calls for end to US anti-drug program

BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombia’s vice president said Sunday the United States should end a multi-billion-dollar anti-drug program which has long been the main plank in Washington’s fight against drugs in Latin America.
In an interview with local daily El Tiempo, Francisco Santos said Washington’s military-focused Plan Colombia should end because [...]

US Prepares to Do to Mexico What it Has Done to Pakistan

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen briefed President Barack Obama over the weekend on the so-called drug war in Mexico and the prospect of increased US military involvement in the conflict south of the border.
Mullen had just returned from a six-day tour of Latin America, which took him [...]

Economist Cover Story: Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution

A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert [...]

DEA’s Operation Xcellerator is Another Justice Department Dog and Pony Show

Despite the  “Largest and Hardest Hitting Operation to Ever Target” the Sinaloa Cartel, the DEA is Merely Treading Water in the War on Drugs
On February 25, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) held a press conference celebrating the culmination of Operation Xcellerator, which it says resulted in the arrests [...]

Wikileaks cracks NATO’s Master Narrative for Afghanistan

Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the “story” NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists.
The encrypted document, which is dated October 6, and believed to be current, can [...]

International Narcotics Control Board Releases 2008 Report

Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2008
The International Narcotics Control Board has released the latest Report on international drug controls. The report begins with an overview of international drug control conventions, including history, achievements, challenges, and recommendations. It then explains the operation of the international drug control [...]

Ecuador says expelled diplomat was ‘CIA chief’

The US diplomat Ecuador expelled from the country earlier this week was a CIA station chief, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday.
“Last week we expelled the US embassy’s (Mark) Sullivan from the country. He was, let’s be clear, the director of the CIA in Ecuador,” Correa told his weekly radio [...]

Anti-Drug War Marchers block Mexico-US border

Hundreds of people in Mexico have blocked key crossings into the US in protests against the deployment of the army to fight drug traffickers.
Traffic was brought to a halt on a number of bridges in several border towns in northern Mexico.
The protesters accused the army of abuse against civilians. Government officials [...]

Announcing Two Scholarships in Journalism and Organizing

Applications Due March 15 to Be Eligible for Free Attendance at the April 24-26 Workshop at the Rowe Conference Center in Massachusetts
The Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, together with the Rowe Conference Center, announces the availability of two scholarships to attend the weekend workshop, The Organizing of [...]

At least our Mexican neighbors are still standing up for their freedom (and ours)

February 16, 2009:  The government has 45,000 troops and 5,000 police battling several thousand cartel gunmen in 18 states. But most of the action is in a few states along the U.S. border. Two years of violence have left over 8,000 dead. The drug cartels are not strong enough to defeat [...]

Last of 36 DEA agents leave Bolivia

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday, ordered out by President Evo Morales even as Bolivian police reported that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise.
Morales demanded the DEA’s exit in November as part of a dispute between U.S. [...]

U. N. Crime Chief Says Drug Money Used To Keep Banks Afloat

VIENNA: The United Nations‘ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian [...]

Five Essential Things We Must Do to Stop America’s Idiotic War on Drugs

The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars waging its 40-year “war on drugs,” responsible for the imprisonment of 500,000 of our fellow American citizens. Despite this enormous waste of money and lives, drugs are as easily available and cheap as ever. The drug-warmongers say it is all for [...]

Academics and the Chihuahua Government Say Decriminalizing Drugs is a Subject That Can’t be Avoided

Mexican lawmakers and legal experts decry El Paso Mayor John Cook’s veto of a City Council resolution that proposed a debate over drug decriminalization
Yesterday, the El Paso mayor’s rejection of a debate over decriminalizing drug use was considered on the Mexican side of the border to go against the necessity [...]

Ecstasy For Treatment Of Traumatic Anxiety

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2009) — Treatment with a pharmacological version of the drug ecstasy makes PTSD patients more receptive to psychotherapy, and contributes to lasting improvement. Norwegian researchers explain why.
People who have survived severe trauma – such as war, torture, disasters, or sexual assault – will often experience after-effects, in [...]

EZLN Criticizes the Drug War

During the Festival of Dignified Rage in Chiapas, Subcomandante Marcos breaks the EZLN’s silence on the drug war
On the first day of the Zapatista National Liberation Army’s participation in the Festival of Dignified Rage, its spokesperson Subcomandante Marcos discussed the drug violence that has increasingly plagued Mexico.  Marcos’s speech marks [...]

Students ’should be given smart drugs to get better exam results’

Ministers and doctors should consider making the drugs available without prescription and for non-medical use, said John Harris, director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the University of Manchester.
The drugs, which include Ritalin, more commonly prescribed for attention deficit problems, could help students achieve better grades [...]

Freedom of the press as a foreign concept

Yes, we reporters might get stuck covering the late shift or — egad! — a parade. When disaster strikes or a source calls back on deadline, the nights can be long. Newspaper layoffs and hard economic times can cast a pall over just about everything we do.

But those concerns seem a [...]

The Pentagon is muscling in everywhere. It’s time to stop the mission creep

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of civilian [...]

ACLU Challenges Border Patrol’s Searches

SEATTLE — The note from U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan to the U.S. Border Patrol was short and to the point: Stop sending petty marijuana cases to his office.”
It is our long-standing policy to use limited federal resources to pursue the sophisticated criminal organizations who smuggle millions of dollars of drugs, guns [...]

Airman facing bribery charges. Sgt. Rommel Schroer, waits in Guam

An airman who fled to the Philippines to avoid bribery charges in the U.S. is on Guam waiting to be transferred to the states.
A complaint was filed against Sgt. Rommel Schroer Oct. 18, 2006, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, charging him with conspiracy to commit bribery and [...]

Lourdes Cárdenas: Drug War Threatens Mexican Democracy

It has been more than a year since I wrote a column in this publication about my reasons for not being optimistic in regard to Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s strategy to crack down on criminal organizations and to stop the growing violence associated with drug trafficking.
Unfortunately, there is not yet any [...]

Mexico More Dangerous Than Iraq, Due to Drug War

The escalating drug war in Mexico has now made America’s southern neighbor a more dangerous place than Iraq, according to Strategy Page, a military affairs Web site.

Marijuana Smokers in Switzerland Pin Hopes on Support of Voters

Markus Walther is tired of hiding a habit of three or four joints a day. He’s hoping Swiss compatriots will vote to let him to step out of the haze.Switzerland holds a referendum today on legalizing marijuana, Europe’s most widely used illicit drug, after supporters gathered the 100,000 signatures needed [...]

US Police Train Mexican Police to Torture

La Jornada has revealed that some of the trainers responsible for the torture classes given to Leon, Guanajuato, Special Tactics police are San Diego, California, police officers from that city’s SWAT team. Other trainers came from the private Mexican company Sniper, according to the Mexican government. The government released [...]

March base Predator unit to train next generation of pilots

The 163rd Air National Guard at March Air Reserve Base is beginning a new mission.
After two years of being the only National Guard unit to fly unmanned Predator drones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it will begin training the next crop of Predator pilots. The goal is to increase the military’s capacity for [...]

Officer David Bratzer: Illicit Drugs Should be Legal

David Bratzer and I share at least one opinion in common: That it costs us a pointless fortune to maintain the charade of having effective drug laws in Canada.
It’s no big deal that I hold that opinion. Anyone who knows the kind of things I write about wouldn’t be too surprised to discover I’m of [...]

Eisenhower on the MID

Family Racked by CIA Cover-Up

Former Poquoson resident Gloria Luttig learned this week that her daughter’s and granddaughter’s deaths were shrouded by a CIA cover-up.
“My daughter was murdered. My granddaughter was murdered,” Luttig said during a phone interview from her home in Pace, Fla., outside Pensacola.
Veronica L. “Roni” Bowers, 35, was aboard a small floatplane April 20, 2001, flying with [...]

CIA lied about shoot-down of missionary plane, report says

An investigation by the agency’s inspector general finds that officials covered up details of the 2001 incident over Peru that killed two Americans and wounded three other people.

Arrest of Interpol official sparks security breach concerns

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — A vicious turf war between drug cartels and Mexican authorities that has left as many as 4,300 dead so far this year may have caused a breach in the internal security systems of Interpol, the international police organization.
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