Drug War Chronicle, Issue #534 -(urls + editorial)

A Publication of Stop the Drug War (DRCNet)
David Borden, Executive Director,
http://stopthedrugwar.org/user/borden
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

New Offer: Clergy Against the War on Drugs Video
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/clergy_against_the_war_on_drugs_video

Students: Intern at DRCNet to help stop the drug war now!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

Enough is Enough: Stop the Deadly SWAT Raids:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/raidpetition

Table of Contents:

1. IN MEXICO, OPPOSITION TO PLAN MERIDA EMERGES
High US officials hit the road for Latin America this week in a
series of trips to lobby for passage of Plan Merida, the $1.4
billion anti-drug aid package for Mexico. But at a forum on drug
policy in Culiacan, Sinaloa, there was little but objections to
the plan, especially its emphasis on using the Mexican military
in the drug war.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/plan_merida_sinaloa_drug_forum

2. IN MEXICO'S DRUG HEARTLAND, A DEBATE ON ALTERNATIVES TO THE
DRUG WAR TAKES PLACE
Culiacan, Sinaloa, is the home of one of Mexico's most feared
drug trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel. This week,
it was also home to a groundbreaking conference on alternatives
to the drug war. As that conference ended Wedesday evening,
cops, soldiers, and narcos went at it on the streets of
Culiacan, leaving two cops and two narcos dead, and providing
poignant punctuation to the conference.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/culiacan_sinaloa_conference_alternatives_to_prohibition

3. DEDICATION: SEATTLE MUSICIAN TIMOTHY GARON, VICTIM OF THE
DRUG WAR
Seattle-area musician Timothy Garon passed away late last after
being denied a needed transplant by the University of Washington
Medical Center because of his medical marijuana use.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/timothy_garon_victim_of_the_drug_war

4. OFFER: NEW CLERGY ANTI-DRUG-WAR VIDEO
Clergy are speaking out against the war on drugs! Donate $16 or
more (or whatever you can afford) and we'll send you a copy.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/clergy_against_the_war_on_drugs_video

5. SENTENCING: WOMAN WHO FLED MICHIGAN DRUG SENTENCE 32 YEARS
AGO CAUGHT IN CALIFORNIA, FACES 20 YEARS
Susan LeFevre got busted in Michigan at age 19 for small-time
heroin sales. She copped a plea in hopes of leniency, but was
instead sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. In 1976, she
jumped the wall and fled to California, where she has led an
exemplary life every since. Now, thanks to an anonymous tip, she
has been tracked down and jailed pending extradition to
Michigan. Should she now have to serve her time?
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/susan_lefevre_michigan_heroin_sentence

6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
New Haven's former top narc heads to prison, a Louisiana DARE
officer goes down, a South Carolina jail guard gets caught
shooting cocaine, and an Idaho deputy gets caught ripping off
cash and drugs.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/police_drug_corruption

7. SENTENCING: FEDERAL CRACK SENTENCE REDUCTIONS BEGIN TO TAKE
HOLD
The US Sentencing Commission announced that changes in the crack
cocaine sentencing guidelines would be retroactive, allowing
current prisoners a chance at a sentence cut. In the month since
prisoners began to be able to apply for cuts, some 3,000 have
received them.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/crack_cocaine_sentencing_reductions_take_hold

8. MARIJUANA: NEW YORK CITY POT ARREST CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
New York City decriminalized marijuana possession nearly three
decades ago, but cops there still managed to arrest nearly
40,000 people for pot last year and 400,000 in the last decade.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/new_york_city_marijuana_arrests

9. EUROPE: DUTCH BAN ON MAGIC MUSHROOMS MOVES CLOSER
The Dutch are about to ban magic mushrooms. The cabinet passed a
proposal and sent it to parliament, where it is expected to be
approved.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/dutch_magic_mushroom_ban

10. CANADA: SUPREME COURT NIXES RANDOM USE OF DRUG DOGS
In contrast with the US Supreme Court, which held that a drug
dog sniff did not constitute a search, the Canadian Supreme
Court ruled last week that it does, and that random drug dog
searches are unconstitutional.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/canada_supreme_court_drug_dog_search_ruling

11. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of
years past.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/drug_war_history

12. STUDENTS: INTERN AT DRCNET AND HELP STOP THE DRUG WAR!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and
you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/drcnet_internships_to_stop_the_drug_war

13. JOB LISTING: FIELD COORDINATOR, AMERICANS FOR SAFE ACCESS,
OAKLAND
Americans for Safe Access is looking to hire a field coordinator
for their Oakland, California headquarters.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/asa_job_listing

(Not subscribed? Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up
today!)

================

1. In Mexico, Opposition to Plan Merida Emerges
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/534/plan_merida_sinaloa_drug_forum

This week, high-level US and Mexican officials spoke out in
favor of Plan Merida, the three-year, $1.4 billion anti-drug
package designed to assist the Mexican government in its ongoing
battle with violent drug trafficking organizations. But at the
same time officials like Attorney General Michael Mukasey and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates were visiting Latin America to
seek support for the plan, at a forum on drug policy in
Culiacan, Sinaloa, home of one of the most feared of the drug
trafficking groups, the Sinaloa Cartel, there was little but
criticism of the proposed aid package.

Since he took office at the beginning of last year, Mexican
President Felipe Calderon has deployed some 30,000 Mexican army
troops in the fight against the so-called cartels, which provide
much of the cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and marijuana
coming into the United States. US officials have praised Mexican
President Felipe Calderon for his aggressive efforts against the
cartels and seek to reward his government -- and especially the
Mexican military -- by providing high-tech equipment, training,
and other goods to the Mexican armed forces.

But despite the massive military deployments in border cities
from Tijuana in the west to Reynosa and Matamoros in the east,
as well as in the states of Guerrero, Michoacan, and Sinaloa --
all traditional drug-producing areas -- and the high praise from
Washington, Calderon's drug war has not gone well. Roughly 2,000
people were killed in Mexico's drug war last year, and with this
year's toll already approaching 1,000, 2008 looks to be even
bloodier. Yet the flow of drugs north and guns and cash south
continues unimpeded.

Bush administration and Mexican officials met over a period of
months last year and early this year to craft a joint response
that would see $500 million a year in assistance to Mexico,
primarily in the form of helicopters and surveillance aircraft.
Known as Plan Merida, after the Mexican city in which it took
final form, the assistance package is now before the US
Congress.

Congressional failure to fund the package would be "a real slap
at Mexico," Secretary of Defense Gates said in Mexico City
Tuesday as he met with General Guillermo Galvan, the Mexican
defense minister, Government Secretary Juan Mourino, and Foreign
Minister Patricia Espinosa. "It clearly would make it more
difficult for us to help Mexican armed forces and their civilian
agencies deal with this difficult problem," he told reporters.

The same day, Attorney General Mukasey was in San Jose, Costa
Rica, where in a speech to justice ministers from across the
hemisphere, he, too, urged Congress to approve the aid package.
Drugs, gangs, and violent crime on the border are "a joint
problem -- and we must face it jointly," he said. "By working
together, we can strengthen the rule of law and the
administration of justice, and we can combat transnational
criminal threats," Mukasey said.

That is what the Mexican government wants to hear. It negotiated
the aid package, and although President Calderon's ruling
National Action Party (PAN) does not hold a majority in the
Mexican congress, it can count on the support of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on the aid deal. Of the
three major parties in the Mexican congress, only the
left-leaning Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) is raising
concerns about the package, but the PRD is not strong enough in
the congress to block it.

But while official Mexico may want passage of the package, a
number of Mexican intellectuals, academics, political figures,
and former military officers attacked the plan to beef up the
Mexican military for US drug war aims at a forum this week at
the International Forum on Illicit Drugs
(http://www.riodoce.com.mx/cms/content.asp?company=100&proc=text&procid=FORODROGAS&search=)
hosted by the Culiacan weekly newsmagazine Riodoce.

"The US wants to fight drugs, crime, and terrorism. Bush and
Calderon have been talking about a new Plan Colombia, but the
anti-drug policies pursued so far have been a failure," said
Riodoce managing editor Ismael Boroquez, as he opened the
conference. "The phenomenon of drug trafficking is very complex
and reaches deeply into the fabric of our society. The system
benefits from the drug trade; the profits from it enter into our
economy and have benefited many businesses. Few sectors have
been able to resist the easy money. In a country that has not
been able to improve conditions for poor Mexicans, the drug
trade is an attractive alternative," he explained.

"Our government has authorized the use of federal police and
even soldiers to attack the drug trade, but this strategy is
mistaken and the government has wasted million of dollars that
could have gone to productive ends," Boroquez added.

"Our foreign policy has been subordinated to that of the
Americans, the policemen of the world," said Mexican political
figure Jorge Angel Pescador Osuna, the former Mexican consul
general in Los Angeles. "Fortunately, this Plan Merida
initiative has yet to be approved by the US Congress, and
hopefully, the voice of Mexico will be heard in this debate. We
think there are real solutions that are within the grasp of the
government and civil society," he said.

"They want to spend $500 million the first year, half of which
will go to buy military equipment and advanced technologies,"
said Pescador Osuna. "My first response is how nice. But then I
have to ask why we should use the military in areas that are
outside its competence. What we need here is to strengthen our
democracy, and we will not accomplish that by using the military
for civilian law enforcement."

"These kinds of anti-drug policies that focus on policing are
overwhelmingly simplistic," concurred Colombian economist
Francisco Thoumi, director of the Center for Drug and Crime
Studies at the University of Rosario in Bogota. "They do not
attack the problem at the base," he argued. "The drug trade is a
capitalist industry, and it accepts the losses of interdiction
and eradication as a cost of doing business. This kind of
enforcement looks good on TV and makes politicians and police
happy, but the industry goes on, and this doesn't solve the
problem."

"The idea with this is to give power to the armed forces," said
Luis Astorga, a researcher at the National Autonomous University
of Mexico in Mexico City and head of a UNESCO program devoted to
understanding the ramifications of the international drug trade.
"Calderon is doing nothing more or less than reconfiguring the
anti-drug struggle in Mexico by putting it in the hands of the
military. One question is how long this will last," he noted.

General Francisco Gallardo, a leading advocate of human rights
within the Mexican armed forces, was also critical. "The context
for Plan Merida is this new world order where the US struggle
for hegemony with China and the European Union," he argued. "The
US has militarized its foreign policy, and it wants us to
militarize our drug enforcement. But the function of the army is
to defend the sovereignty of the state, not to fight crime. That
is the job of the police," he said.

"Involving the military under the auspices of Plan Merida does
not respond to Mexican interests," Gallardo said. "It has a bad
effect on the institutional and judicial order of the nation.
The soldiers who kill innocents are absolved; they have
impunity," he said, citing the cases of several mass killings by
soldiers in Sinaloa, including an incident in Santiago de
Caballero in the mountains above Culiacan in late March, in
which four unarmed young men in a Hummer were killed by soldiers
on an anti-drug mission. "The drug trade is a matter for police
and the justice system, not the military," Gallardo concluded.

While the Bush and Calderon administrations are seeking to
steamroll opposition to the proposed aid package, it is clear
that Plan Merida is drawing heated criticism in Mexico. What is
less clear is whether that opposition can successfully block the
initiative on the Mexican side. Right now, the best prospects
for that appear to lie in the US Congress.

================

later
bliss -- C O C O A Powered... (at california dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cocoa that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

date: Fri, 02 May 2008 12:56:52 -0700 author: bobbie sellers