Free Republic

Gunmen in Honduras have shot dead the head of the country's anti-drug trafficking operations.Police said retired Gen Julian Aristides Gonzalez was travelling in a car in the capital, Tegucigalpa, when attackers on a motorcycle opened fire. Honduras is a major route for drugs smuggled from South to North America. The nation, mired in political crisis since President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in June, also has one of the highest murder rates in the region. Gen Aristides, director general of the national office for combating drug trafficking, was travelling by car through Tegucigalpa when two attackers on a motorcycle opened fire,...

Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He wasn’t describing the federal government’s nearly century-long war on drugs but he might as well have been. Despite ample lip-service for “hope” and “change,” the Obama administration’s cynical response to the escalating drug prohibition-related violence around the Mexican border epitomizes Einstein’s oft-quoted observation. Since 2008 more than 7,000 people—over 1,000 last January alone, including Mexican civilians, journalists, police, and public officials—have been killed in clashes with warring drug traffickers. Wire-service reports estimate that Mexico’s drug lords employ over 100,000...

Unconfirmed reports of fatalities but no reports of American casualties PROGRESO —The international bridge here was closed Saturday afternoon after a shooting across the border in Nuevo Progreso. There were unconfirmed reports from witnesses crossing back from Mexico that one to five people were dead after gunfire among soldiers and other armed individuals. Identities of the victims remain unknown. A representative at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey confirmed there was gunfire in Nuevo Progreso and said the consulate had received unconfirmed reports of two fatalities. However, the consulate had received no notification of any American casualties as of about 6...

A while back in (December, 1906) prominent members of New York's Jewish community organized a strike against Christmas exercises in the city's public schools. In light of state laws prohibiting the teaching of "religious doctrines or tenets of any particular Christian or other religious sect," they asked the Board of Education to bar school-based festivities that had in the past included such elements as religious hymns, pictures of the Madonna, holly, mistletoe, and Christmas trees. (They also maintained that any "symbols of Judaism, Mohammedanism, or infidelism" should be banned as well.) When the Board of Education failed to respond to...

PALMVIEW - Police say a traffic stop yielded everything from prescription pills to ecstacy pills. Police stopped a car driven by 22-year-old Mario Guadalupe Saenz on Monday. Inside they found black tar heroin, xanax pills, cocaine, marijuana and several ecstasy pills. The ecstasy caused some concerns, because it was brightly colored and made to look like popular cartoon characters like Homer and Bart Simpson, The Smurfs, and even President Barack Obama. "It's very unusual cause of the way the ecstasy are being shaped and the way they're colorful. It looks like a vitamin for kids," says Lenny Sanchez of the...

At This School, It’s Marijuana in Every Class By TAMAR LEWIN SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter. But at Med Grow Cannabis College, marijuana is the curriculum: the history, the horticulture and the legal how-to’s of Michigan’s new medical marijuana program. “This state needs jobs, and we think medical marijuana can stimulate the state economy with hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars,” said Nick Tennant, the 24-year-old founder of the college, which is actually a burgeoning business (no baccalaureates here) operating from a few bare-bones rooms in a Detroit suburb. The six-week,...

MATAMOROS — Mexican newspapers are reporting the death of a Brownsville woman after a Mexican army soldier in Matamoros accidentally misfired his weapon Lizbeth Marín Garcia, 36, was pronounced dead early Saturday morning at the Alfredo Pumarejo General Hospital. According to various newspapers including El Diario, El Bravo and Contacto, Marín was inside a friend’s house at approximately 11 p.m. Friday at the corner of Primera and Solernau streets when a stray bullet went through a window, through the couch where she was sitting and struck her in the back piercing a lung. The shot was an accidental misfire from...

First Marijuana Coffee Shop Opens In America The first marijuana coffee shop in the US has opened, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax the policing of medical use of the drug. "We hope to have classes, seminars, even a cannabis community college, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis." The cafe is in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club called Rumpspankers. It is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who hold an official medical marijuana card. There are...

After decades of mistrust and sometimes betrayal, Mexican and U.S. authorities are increasingly setting aside their differences to unite against a common enemy. According to interviews in Washington and Mexico City, the two countries are sharing sensitive intelligence and computer technology, military hardware and, perhaps most importantly, U.S. know-how to train and vet Mexican agents. Police and soldiers secretly on the cartels' payroll have long poisoned efforts at cross-border cooperation against some of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations. "The recognition by both sides, at the highest levels, that we have a shared responsibility for drug trafficking and serious crime...

<p>The former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection called Monday for the U.S. to reinstitute the ban on assault weapons and take other measures to rein in the war between Mexico and its drug cartels, saying the violence has the potential to bring down legitimate rule in that country.</p>

EL PASO, Texas -- The widespread violence in Juarez is affecting a lot of things in El Paso, including the UTEP athletic program. The basis of UTEP's athletic teams are formed by recruiting student-athletes from across the state and country to study and play in El Paso. And now many of them, especially their parents, are now expressing concern about what is going on across the border. UTEP's campus is located just a few football fields away from Juarez, where thousands have been murdered this year, and that is not easy to hide. "I just recruited a girl from Sweden...

A shootout at this hospital in Mexico claims two more lives — victims of the country's bloody drug war. The hospital is in Ciudad Juarez — the epicenter of the drug cartel violence convulsing Mexico. Two gunmen burst into the emergency room looking to finish off two rival gang members wounded in an earlier shootout. Witnessess said the pair fired their weapons as they roamed the corridors, looking for their targets. Patients and staff fled the building in terror. Police rushed to the scene, shooting dead two gunmen outside the hospital and arresting several others inside. The men being hunted...

PORTLAND, Oregon — The United States' first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration's move to relax policing of medical use of the drug. The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban. "This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members," said Madeline Martinez, Oregon's executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. "Our plans go beyond serving food...

The Atlantic Foreign Affairs December 2009 In the almost three years since President Felipe Calderón launched a war on drug cartels, border towns in Mexico have turned into halls of mirrors where no one knows who is on which side or what chance remark could get you murdered. Some 14,000 people have been killed in that time, the worst carnage since the Mexican Revolution, and part of the country is effectively under martial law. Is this evidence of a creeping coup by the military? A war between drug cartels? Between the president and his opposition? Or just collateral damage from...

MONTERREY, Mexico — When soldiers tried to halt a suspicious-looking SUV that was being escorted through Monterrey by a state policeman, the officer radioed for backup. In minutes, police from 40 patrol cars surrounded the troops, drawing their guns and sending the soldiers diving for cover in an hour-long standoff. Confrontations like that are happening with increasing frequency in Mexico's wealthiest city as soldiers fight corrupt police officers helping drug cartels — in addition to taking on the drug dealers themselves. This year alone, police and soldiers have confronted one another more than 65 times, The Associated Press has learned...

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico – Gunmen killed a police commander Friday here in Mexico's deadliest city, across the border from El Paso. He was the second senior police official gunned down in northern Mexico in recent days. Noel Martínez, a former military officer who was a district supervisor for the police in Ciudad Juárez, was shot inside his car Friday morning, police spokesman Jacinto Segura said. The city is caught in a turf war between rival drug cartels. Drug violence has killed more than 2,000 people in Juárez this year. In the northern town of García, outside Monterrey, five police officers...

GARCIA, Mexico - A Mexican police chief has been murdered after being on the job for only five days. Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza is the latest officer suspected of being killed by a drug cartel. He was the police chief of Garcia, a town outside Monterrey. Esparza was on his way to confront drug cartel members who were threatening the city's mayor. Officials say the suspects opened fire on the police chief's car. The chief, two former soldiers, and two police officers were all killed. Five police officers and five other suspects were arrested and are behind bars at...

California is bankrupt. Ten weeks after a nasty budget fight concluding in a compromise everyone hates, the state is broke. They’ve legalized gambling and the state is still broke. They’ve raised the alcohol tax and the state is still broke. They’ve raised the tobacco tax and the state is still broke. So the new push: Legalize pot, tax it and we’ll all be saved. Don’t get me wrong: if you want to legalize Mary Jane, go ahead. I don’t have a problem with the drug or people who smoke it. But if you think this will be the magical fix-all,...

Early Saturday morning, 7Online.com, the website for ABC's New York affiliate WABC-TV, reported the previous night's arrest of Jason Shih, an alleged campaign worker for Governor Jon Corzine (D-NJ) charged with "possession of a controlled narcotic and paraphernalia that is used for distribution." For some reason, although the headline "Corzine campaign worker arrested" shows up in a Google News search, the page is no longer available: "We are sorry, but the URL you requested could not be found. The page you are looking for may have been renamed, moved, or deleted." A search of "Jason Shih" and "Corzine" at 7Online.com...

The British Government's chief drug adviser has sparked controversy by claiming ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol. Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, attacked the decision to make cannabis a class B drug. He accused former home secretary Jacqui Smith, who reclassified the drug, of "distorting and devaluing" scientific research. Prof Nutt said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness. And he claimed advocates of moving ecstasy into class B from class A had "won the intellectual argument". All drugs, including alcohol and tobacco,...

Patients Who Benefit From Marijuana Disturbed By 'Abuse'. An ear ache, $50, and eight minutes of a doctor's time was all that was needed to obtain a Medical Marijuana certificate from the state of Colorado. A CALL7 investigation found people in medical marijuana clinics and dispensaries coaching potential customers on how to obtain a certificate from the state with something as simple as an earache. the medical marijuana business in Colorado is booming because the fear of federal prosecution vanished with the election and recent statements of President Barack Obama, who said the federal government will not get involved in...

Police have captured a suspected member of a notorious drug cartel. The Jalisco state attorney general's office says Abel Valadez Oribe is accused of trafficking drugs, kidnapping and extortion. Valadez Oribe is also known by the nickname of "El Clinton"and is a suspected leader of the La Familia Michoacana cartel. He was arrested on a highway in Guadalajara late Tuesday. The La Familia cartel mixes violence and pseudo-religion to inspire its traffickers and says its purpose is to protect the local population from rival drug gangs.

SAN FRANCISCO — These are heady times for advocates of legalized marijuana in California — and only in small part because of the newly relaxed approach of the federal government toward medical marijuana. State lawmakers are holding a hearing on Wednesday on the effects of a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate the drug — in what would be the first such law in the United States. Tax officials estimate the legislation could bring the struggling state about $1.4 billion a year, and though the bill’s fate in the Legislature is uncertain, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated...

Lingo is grim as new terms spring up to describe violence MEXICO CITY — Words can hardly convey how vicious, how over the top, Mexico's drug war has become. So those involved invented some. The Mexican media now have a special expression for being lined up and shot, and another for being dumped in the trunk of a car. There are also terms for mafia kidnappings, for drug-gang spies and for the hand-scrawled notes hit men leave with their victims' bodies. The lingo is grim, but how else to portray such savagery as beheadings and bodies cut up and cooked...

2 Foster Children Killed, 3 Others Seriously Injured After Van Crossed Yellow Lines Suspect Allegedly Removed Middle Row Of Seats, Had Children Sit On Floor QUEENS (CBS) -- A Queens woman behind the wheel of a minivan that crossed the yellow lines and crashed into another van on Monday, killing two foster children inside the van, was charged with manslaughter Tuesday, and sources tell CBS 2 drug paraphernalia was found inside her vehicle. Police say Sheila Bethea, 45, was driving a Mazda minivan with six passengers – five foster children between the ages of 5 and 15 and a 43-year-old...

...The U.S. (federal and states) will spend about $47 billion this year on drug enforcement, clogging our court systems and overcrowding our prisons, in many cases dooming young men to a life in the underclass...And I don’t think we’re getting a good value for our $47 billion. In fact, I think our efforts may be counterproductive, and that we should explore a more sensible route, the same one we use for alcohol and tobacco. In short, legalize it, regulate it and tax it. Legalization would quickly shrink that $47 billion annual cost of law enforcement to a small fraction of...

Note: The following text is a quote: DEA Mourns the Loss of Three DEA Special Agents in Afghanistan OCT 26 - WASHINGTON, DC – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) today confirmed that three Special Agents were killed during a counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan. “Today, the Drug Enforcement Administration mourns the tragic loss of three DEA Special Agents and seven U.S. service members killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan,” said Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “The incident occurred during the early morning hours of October 26, when these heroic individuals were returning from a completed, joint counternarcotics mission.”...

The Justice Department says it's backing off the prosecution of people who smoke pot or sell it in compliance with state laws that permit "medical marijuana." Attorney General Eric Holder says "it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers." Party hardy! I mean -- let the healing begin! I don't think the federal government should be spending a whole lot of time on small-time druggies, and I'm undecided about legalizing pot, which enjoys 44 percent support among the general public, according to a recent poll. Recreational use is not...

MCALLEN - The U.S. Coast Guard patrols the coasts, and a limited stretch of the Rio Grande, but a bill in the works would change that. Congressman Henry Cuellar wants the coast guard to work out a plan that would help secure the 1200 miles of the river. It's aimed at addressing drug and human smuggling along the river. Right now, the river is only patrolled by local law enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. The bill is called the Coast Guard Authorization Act.

Local, state and federal police respond to bridge number one and two in force following a shootout in Nuevo Laredo. The officers were armed with high-powered weapons in an attempt to keep any of the gunmen from coming across the border. They checked people and vehicles coming into the US for several hours. It was a quick response following the shootout between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers near the US Consulate. An American Consulate in Nuevo Laredo was put on lock down after the shots were fired. Mexican police will not release very much information. We do know that the...

MEXICO CITY – A general is among the nearly 4,000 officers and men who have deserted from the Mexican army during the past 6½ years, Milenio newspaper reported Monday, citing government documents. The defense department opened legal proceedings for desertion against 3,972 soldiers between 2003 and July 2009. Among the soldiers being investigated are a general and more than 1,000 other officers. The report does not specify the number of those cases that have arisen since December 2006, when newly inaugurated President Felipe Calderon began deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to battle Mexico’s powerful drug cartels. Since then, there...

The AP reports that "federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law. The guidelines to be issued by the department do, however, make it clear that agents will go after people whose marijuana distribution goes beyond what is...

A new study finds that the development of bullous lung disease occurs in marijuana smokers approximately 20 years earlier than tobacco smokers. A condition often caused by exposure to toxic chemicals or long-term exposure to tobacco smoke, bullous lung disease (also known as bullae) is a condition where air trapped in the lungs causes obstruction to breathing and eventual destruction of the lungs.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws. The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration. The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.

Obama Won't Seek to Arrest Medical Pot Users Federal prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws, officials say October 19, 2009 WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday. Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of...

In one case, an innocent man died in gang’s 3 tries to kill target It was not the first time a rival tried to kill Mexican drug cartel-connected gangster Santiago “Chago” Salinas, but it would be the last. When 28-year-old Salinas was shot in the head at point-blank range three years ago at the Baymont Inn & Suites hotel on the Gulf Freeway, it was the latest round in a deadly feud that has played out here and in Mexico. Just a few weeks before, Salinas' brother-in-law who also had lived in Houston, was found dead, charred in a barrel...

Twelve bodies were discovered in the western Mexican state of Guerrero today. Ten were beheaded and mutilated in the latest drug war killings. The bodies of two men were found in the trunk of a car just a few hundred feet from one of the most famous attractions in Acapulco. In another part of the state, drug hit men killed, beheaded and mutilated the bodies of ten rivals and left the bodies in plastic bags in a delivery truck. One of the messages said, "The familia doesn't kill innocent people." More than 14-thousand people have died in drug-related violence since...

"Deadliest city in the world" JUAREZ, Mexico -- The drug violence in Juarez, Mexico, just across the Texas border, is growing worse. So far this month, nearly 100 people have been killed. The city now holds the infamous title of "deadliest city in the world." Eyewitness News Anchor Art Rascon traveled to Juarez and he has a closer look at the violence in the region. The world sees Juarez as repeated scenes of bloodshed where drug cartels rule. On any given night, as we drive the back streets of Juarez, they are eerily empty. The main streets are filled with...

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Farmers from North Dakota and Vermont and four others trying to plant hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration have been arrested. Arlington County police spokeswoman Detective Crystal Nosal says six people were charged with trespassing on Tuesday. They were among 21 people protesting the ban on farming of hemp, which is related to the illegal drug marijuana. The Hemp Industries Association says the protesters turned to civil disobedience for the first time. The group is lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill. They want to grow hemp for non-drug products. North Dakota farmer Wayne...

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The number of airplanes smuggling cocaine through Honduras has surged since the United States suspended drug cooperation in the wake of an army coup, the Central American country's drugs chief said on Tuesday. Honduras has been internationally isolated since soldiers exiled President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint on June 28, and it lost $16.5 million of U.S. military aid after the putsch. Drugs chief Julian Aristides said Honduras' de facto government, engulfed in a serious political crisis, had no clear anti-drugs strategy, although he added that Zelaya's government had also not fought trafficking well. In the last month...

A Houston man found asleep with a corpse inside a closet of a vacant home has been charged with misdemeanor drug offenses, authorities said Monday. Cody Jean Plant, 21, was discovered Sunday after the owner of the house reported hearing voices and seeing signs of forced entry at the home in Cypress, about 25 miles northwest of Houston, according to a Harris County Precinct 4 Constable official. Authorities did not immediately release the dead man's identity. "There were two guys in the closet. They appeared to be sleeping, one was snoring and the other was deceased," said Assistant Chief Deputy...

LAREDO, Texas -- A Texas Highway Patrol trooper found 5,408 lbs. of marijuana inside a school bus after pulling over the vehicle north of Laredo, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said. The driver fled on foot from the scene. The bus was marked to resemble a United Independent School District bus. DPS officials estimate the marijuana is worth more than $1.7 million. DPS continues to investigate leads in the case.

SAN FRANCISCO — Marijuana advocates are gathering signatures to get at least three pot-legalization measures on the ballot in 2010 in California, setting up what could be a groundbreaking clash with the federal government over U.S. drug policy. At least one poll shows voters would support lifting the pot prohibition, which would make the state of 40 million the first in the nation to legalize marijuana. Such action would also send the state into a headlong conflict with the U.S. government while raising questions about how federal law enforcement could enforce its drug laws in the face of a massive...

ARCATA, Calif. — Stiff competition from thousands of mom-and-pop marijuana farmers in the United States threatens the bottom line for powerful Mexican drug organizations in a way that decades of arrests and seizures have not, according to law enforcement officials and pot growers in the United States and Mexico. Illicit pot production in the United States has been increasing steadily for decades. But recent changes in state laws that allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes are giving U.S. growers a competitive advantage, challenging the traditional dominance of the Mexican traffickers, who once made brands such as...

Milton Friedman puts forward a compelling case for the legalization of drugs

....This article is not another polemic about why it should or shouldn't be (legalized). Today, in any case, the pertinent question is whether it already has been -- at least on a local-option basis. We're referring to a cultural phenomenon that has been evolving for the past 15 years, topped off by a crucial policy reversal that was quietly instituted by President Barack Obama in February....

Mexico's nimble drug cartels are leapfrogging tightened border security and establishing sophisticated marijuana-growing operations in North Texas and Oklahoma, law enforcement officials say. "There is no doubt" that three big marijuana fields uncovered this month in Ellis and Navarro counties "have a tie to the border and a Mexican drug cartel," said a drug investigator for the Department of Public Safety. "They brought the tenders up here from Mexico to do the work.

CLINTON — When Sally Harpold bought cold medicine for her family back in March, she never dreamed that four months later she would end up in handcuffs. Now, Harpold is trying to clear her name of criminal charges, and she is speaking out in hopes that a law will change so others won’t endure the same embarrassment she still is facing. “This is a very traumatic experience,” Harpold said. Harpold is a grandmother of triplets who bought one box of Zyrtec-D cold medicine for her husband at a Rockville pharmacy. Less than seven days later, she bought a box of...

A Chilton County [AL] woman is fighting an effort by federal prosecutors to seize her home and 40 acres in a marijuana case against her husband, who committed suicide during his trial. Mara Lynn Williams, 56, a cancer survivor who works as a nurse at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, said she knew that her husband, Royce, 53, used marijuana for chronic pain after multiple surgeries. But she said she did not know he was growing it on their acreage, and she was not charged in the criminal case. Her husband was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in a car...