Free Republic

"I remember thinking, as I kneeled at gunpoint with my hands bound on my living room floor, that there had been a terrible, terrible mistake."

EAST COUNTY – A marijuana field with an estimated 48,000 to 51,000 plants was found in the Cleveland National Forest in what authorities called one of the largest illegal-growth operations discovered in San Diego County. A sheriff's deputy piloting the department's ASTREA helicopter found the field late last week. The deputy is trained to spot marijuana plantings from the air. The final plants were removed Thursday by federal agents, sheriff's deputies and state employees, who were flown by helicopter to the remote mountain area south of Paso Picacho campground in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. The plants covered about the size...

AUSTIN -- A coalition of municipal and county officials along Texas' 1,200-mile-long border is challenging Gov. Rick Perry's statements that property owners and local law enforcement are being overwhelmed by smugglers and gangs from Mexico. "Your remarks, if accurately reported, create a public impression of lawless hordes overrunning the border region and do not reflect our collective experience," Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, said in a letter to Perry. "While each of our communities has their own unique issues, being overwhelmed by criminal elements from Mexico is not one of them." Foster made the...

TIJUANA, Mexico — Firefighters found six bodies inside a burning car in Tijuana, and 15 people were killed in three separate shootings in another northern Mexican border town besieged by drug violence, authorities said Tuesday. Near Mexico's southern border, meanwhile, the bullet-ridden bodies of eight men suspected to be drug traffickers were found in a Guatemalan frontier town. In Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, four bodies were found in a burning compact car's seats and two in the trunk, according to a police report Tuesday. The victims' identities and the motive for the killings were not released, but...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen burst into a drug treatment center in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10 people, the second such mass killing this month. Police say nine men and one woman were killed in the attack just before midnight Tuesday at the Anexo de Vida center in Mexico's most violent city. Two people were seriously wounded. Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Chihuahua state police, said Wednesday the identities of the gunmen and the motive for the attack have not yet been established. But officials have said in the past that drug...

Philadelphia police said a man out buying drugs flagged down officers after he couldn't find the car he'd parked with his 6-year-old stepson inside. The man, 31, was charged with endangering the welfare of a child and recklessly endangering another person. Police said the suspect had driven from Lehigh County to Philadelphia to buy drugs before he flagged down a police car around 4:30 Saturday morning. Authorities said he explained that he couldn't find the car with the boy inside.

Mexico announced recently that it will decriminalize the possession of "small amounts of drugs"—marijuana, cocaine, LSD, methamphetamines, heroin and opium—"for personal use." Individuals who are caught by law enforcement with quantities below established thresholds will no longer face criminal prosecution. A person apprehended three times with amounts below the minimum, though, will face mandatory treatment. For the government of President Felipe Calderón, which has spent the last three years locked in mortal combat with narcotrafficking cartels, this seems counterproductive. Is the government effectively surrendering to the realities of the market for mind-altering substances? Or could it be that the new...

ACAPULCO, MEXICO - Police have found the bodies of five men dumped in a landfill near the Mexican resort city of Acapulco. Authorities say the men had been shot to death and police officers found a note with the bodies signed "The boss of bosses." At least 50 bullet casings and duct tape were also found at the scene. Police believe the murders are connected to drug violence.

In the summer of 1996, California’s Maxine Waters publicly accused the United States government of introducing crack cocaine into mostly black South Central L.A. She said the government was complicit in destroying the inner city. Thirteen years later, at the hands of the above, we are witnessing the U.S. actually abetting a drug dealer, Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez wanted to expand membership in his “Friends of Hugo” club and needed money to retain power. Oil prices were down but cocaine trafficking could fill the gap. It was becoming difficult to export drugs to the US from Venezuela, Cuba, etc., so...

A housekeeper ...discovered some "goody bags" when cleaning up a motel room. Not long after the discovery of various illegal drugs and paraphernalia in room 126 of the hotel, the Cortez Police Department was called in to investigate the incident. Items seized as evidence by police officers include up to 30 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, 1.2 grams of methamphetamine, 10 glass pipes, four of which contained meth residue and Xanax, Carisoprodol 350 mg and two Fentaynyl Transdermal patches, all controlled substances... The manager ...said two men called his office later Tuesday "asking if they could have their friends' bags,"

Some people cancel holidays abroad, others stage yard sales or start shopping at low-cost supermarkets. To that list must now be added a new way to get through economic hard times: grow cannabis. Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession. So far this year, police in parts of the country where cannabis is traditionally grown have chopped down plants with a...

When the government accuses a doctor of running a "pill mill," prosecutors portray every aspect of his practice in a sinister light. Prescribing painkillers becomes drug trafficking, applying for insurance reimbursement becomes fraud, making bank deposits becomes money laundering and working with people at the office becomes conspiracy. When Siobhan Reynolds thinks a doctor has been unfairly targeted for such a prosecution, she tries to counter the official narrative by highlighting the patients he has helped and dramatizing the conflict between drug control and pain control. But now the government has turned its reinterpretive powers on Reynolds, portraying the pain...

Firefights in Matamoros Violence associated with organized crime and the drug trade continues throughout Mexico, with the number of homicides so far this year reaching almost 5,000. For comparison, the 5,700 organized crime-related killings in 2008 made that year the deadliest yet in the country’s cartel war. With nearly four months left in 2009, it is all but inevitable that 2009 will be another record year for violence. One particularly noteworthy incident from this past week occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 4 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas. The incident began after Mexican authorities...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Felipe Calderon replaced his point man in the drug war Monday, accepting the resignation of the attorney general whose image was tarnished by charges that his top confidant was on the take. The departure of Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora constituted the biggest shakeup in Calderon's offensive against organized crime. The president said it signified the second phase of his six-year presidency, which will reach its halfway mark in December. Calderon said the changes did not signal a relaxation in the government's assault on vicious drug cartels. But the president's all-out war has drawn criticism as...

Rosalio Reta: "I liked the lifestyle... killing people" Prisoner 1447523's name is Rosalio Reta. He was born and raised in Texas. By the age of 13 he was an assassin for one of Mexico's drug cartels. Convicted of two murders (he says he killed many more), he will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars. Hanging around with his friends in Mexico (in the border areas many people frequently cross over on business and pleasure), one told him his brother worked for a cartel. "I thought it was cool. Got involved. That's how everything started. There's no way...

This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Alvarez v. Smith, a challenge to the state of Illinois' Drug Asset Forfeiture Procedure Act (DAFPA). (Disclosure: the Reason Foundation, publisher of Reason.com, joined in an amicus brief in the case.) The six petitioners in Alvarez each had property seized by police who suspected the property had been involved in a drug crime. Three had their cars seized, three had cash taken. None of the six were served with a warrant, none of the six were charged with the crime. All perfectly legal, at least until now. ...(snip)... In...

EDINBURG — As the old adage goes, it’s better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it. With that in mind, say hello to the B.E.A.R. — the Rio Grande Valley’s newest tool to fight potentially violent standoffs and manhunts. The armor-plated vehicle stands more than 12 feet tall and can carry at least three six-member SWAT teams inside — or rescue 35 schoolchildren. A detachable battering ram at the front of the vehicle promises to smash through suspected drug cartel members’ reinforced lairs or other structures. Eight openings in the...

The racism of marijuana prohibition Enforcement of marijuana laws disproportionately affects young African Americans -- even though their usage rates are lower than whites'... So while the purported mainstream is delighting to "Weeds" and contemplating the new revenue that state-regulated marijuana would generate, there's even greater urgency to ending the prohibition of marijuana. California can't wait any longer to end the racist enforcement of marijuana laws.

Developing story in Georgia, where church pastor Jonathan Ayers was shot and killed by undercover narcotics officers during a botched drug sting on Tuesday afternoon. Ayers was not the target of the investigation. Police were apparently after a woman Ayers had dropped off just prior to stopping at the convenience store where police confronted him. Surveillance video shows a black SUV pulling up to the store, and plain-clothes officers jumping out with their guns drawn before the vehicle has stopped. Ayers' car then backs into the picture, and the officers fire into his car as he drives off. Ayers was...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Mexican soldiers arrested a suspected drug gang leader linked to a 2006 border incursion by armed traffickers into Texas and the killing of an anti-crime activist in July, the army said late Saturday. The army said in a statement that soldiers acting on a tip about armed men detained Jose Rodolfo Escajeda in Nuevo Casas Grandes, in northern Chihuahua state. Escajeda and three other suspects detained with him Friday allegedly worked for the Juarez cartel, named after the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. The suspects were riding in bullet-resistant vehicles. The...

Before condos in Williamsburg started selling at a loss and weekend flights to L.A. dropped to under $200, New York's cocaine dealers were supplying good times to people who indulged like the party wouldn't end. Before the recession, "I was making deliveries every night of the week," ... "Back then, I could afford to pick and choose. If I didn't know the address — forget it. If I didn't like their accent — forget it. On most nights, there were more people wanting than I could get to." Then the stock market crashed, and people started losing Sammy’s number. But...

Mexican candidate, his wife and 2 sons killed Published: 9/5/09, 6:10 PM EDT VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) - Gunmen killed a state congressional candidate and his wife and two sons in their home Saturday in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, in southern Mexico. Jose Francisco Fuentes Esperon, 43, was found dead along with his wife, 38, and two sons aged 9 and 13, in the state capital, Villahermosa, according to state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez Lastra. Fuentes Esperon was a former university rector, and was widely known in the state capital. The state government immediately offered to provide protection for...

My home state of California usually interacts with the federal government by genuflecting. But, on a few issues - very few, that is - they’ve got plenty of backbone. Most notably, marijuana. Last week, the California State Senate passed Senate Joint Resolution 14 (SJR14), calling on the federal government to end their “interference in state medical marijuana laws.” If passed by the Assembly, it will be sent on to Congress and the White House as an official position of the California legislature. THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE CLAUSE Under the Constitution of the United States, the federal government is authorized to exercise...

LAVONIA, Ga. (ABP) -- Members of a Southern Baptist church in Northeast Georgia want answers about the police-shooting death of their 29-year-old pastor in a drug-sting operation gone wrong. Jonathan Ayers, pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia, Ga., died during the night of Sept. 1, hours after being shot by undercover police officers outside a gas station where he had just gotten money from an ATM machine. The Stephens County Sheriff's Office initially identified the shooting victim as a suspect involved in a drug transaction. Later officials clarified that drug enforcement agents were not investigating Ayers, but a...

(Sept. 4) -- Plainclothes officers shot and killed a small-town pastor when the 28-year-old father-to-be resisted efforts to question him about a passenger in his car who was the target of a drug sting, authorities said. Jonathan Paul Ayers of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia wasn't targeted in the probe that ended in gunfire at a gas station Tuesday, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. But drug task-force agents opened fire on him after he tried to avoid them, putting his car in reverse and striking one of the officers.

Plainclothes officers shot and killed a small-town pastor when the 28-year-old father-to-be resisted efforts to question him about a passenger in his car who was the target of a drug sting, authorities said. Jonathan Paul Ayers of Shoal Creek Baptist Church in Lavonia wasn't targeted in the probe that ended in gunfire at a gas station Tuesday, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokesman John Bankhead said. But drug task-force agents opened fire on him after he tried to avoid them, putting his car in reverse and striking one of the officers. Bankhead said agents approached Ayers after he dropped a woman...

Border Crackdown Makes Farming in U.S. Forests Attractive; Cartel Links Suspected Marijuana growers, many believed to be affiliated with Mexican drug cartels, are aggressively expanding their illegal farming operations in the U.S., clearing land to plant pot in dozens of national forests from coast to coast. Illicit cannabis farms on public land first sprang up in California more than a decade ago and remain a serious problem in that state. But in the past two years, the U.S. Forest Service has documented a rapid expansion of the practice. Authorities have discovered pot farms in 61 national forests across 16 states...

MERCEDES - Police are searching for the men responsible for a home invasion near Mercedes on Monday night. The homeowner says the men stormed the house claiming to be from the FBI, then beat him with their guns. He says they demanded money and drugs, when he told them he didn't have what they wanted, they stole his a car and sped off. He says the part that scares him the most, is that his wife and baby were home at the time of the attack. He's now planning to move to get them out of a dangerous situation.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - Gunmen broke into a drug rehabilitation center, lined people against a wall and shot 17 dead in a particularly bloody day in Mexico's relentless drug war. The brazen attack followed the killing of the No. 2 security official in President Felipe Calderon's home state. The attackers on Wednesday broke down the door of El Aliviane center in Ciudad Juarez, lined up their victims against a wall and opened fire, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the regional prosecutors' office. At least five people were injured. Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad...

ST. LOUIS, MO—Bobby Garrett pled guilty to conspiracy, wire fraud, making false statements and theft of government funds, Acting United States Attorney Michael W. Reap announced today. Bobby Lee Garrett, Leo Liston, and Vincent Carr were police detectives employed by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, assigned to the Crime Suppression Unit. Officers assigned to the Crime Suppression Unit typically handled investigations involving auto theft, burglary, illegal narcotics sales, and firearms offenses, and usually carried out their duties while working in plain clothes and unmarked cars. According to statements made in court by Assistant United States Attorney Hal Goldsmith at...

In a ruling with broad implications for computer privacy, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that federal investigators went too far when they seized the digital records of a drug testing company and kept the results of confidential drug tests performed on all Major League baseball players during the 2002 season. According to published reports, 104 players tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. The names of four of them — Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and (now retired) Sammy Sosa — were leaked to the press by an anonymous source or sources. The court...

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA – About a dozen people met at a Rancho Santa Margarita corner this morning to honor a border patrol agent killed in July and to voice their objections to illegal immigration. At a vigil at Avenida Empresa and Avenida de Las Banderas, Orange County residents held candles, American flags and signs that said "Stop Illegal Immigration" and "Where's the outrage" with a picture of slain border patrol agent Robert Rosas.

Kenneth Melson, acting director of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, was in San Antonio, Texas, on August 12 for the signing of a new agreement with ranking Mexican counterparts to more effectively interdict gun smugglers moving weapons into the hands of Mexico’s drug cartels. The pact, which is designed to allow for a far greater number of serial number traces of captured weapons long kept off limits in Mexican military vaults, is part of President Barack Obama’s new push to address the problem. Controversy has erupted between Second Amendment rights advocates and gun ban advocates...

The Drug Enforcement Administration Friday announced that it found 14,500 marijuana plants growing in a Colorado national park, authorities say are linked to Mexican drug cartels...... they have seen an increase in outdoor marijuana operations run by Mexican drug cartels. In the most recent Colorado case, the marijuana was found in "the remote, rugged terrain" of Pike National Forest, which is about 60 miles southwest of Denver. "The persons who were involved in this criminal activity had no regard for the damage caused to the forest and environment by the waste they left behind," said Jeffrey D. Sweetin, special agent...

McALLEN, TX—Reymundo Guerra, 52, of Rio Grande City, Texas, has been sentenced to 64 months in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons without parole for using his position as Sheriff of Starr County, Texas, to facilitate a drug trafficking organization’s ability to conduct its illicit business in exchange for cash, United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today. The former Starr County Sheriff was sentenced this afternoon by United States District Judge Randy Crane. In addition to the prison term, Judge Crane ordered Guerra further serve a four-year-term of supervised release – a form of probation with stringent conditions –...

The supreme court in Argentina has ruled that it is unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption. The decision follows a case of five young men who were arrested with a few marijuana cigarettes in their pockets. But the court said use must not harm others and made it clear it did not advocate a complete decriminalisation. Correspondents say there is a growing momentum in Latin America towards decriminalising drugs for personal use. The Argentine court ruled that: "Each adult is free to make lifestyle decisions without the intervention of the state." Supreme Court President Ricardo Lorenzetti...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Baby boomers, now well into middle age, are still turning on to illegal drugs, doubling the rates of illicit drug use for the older generation, according to U.S. government statistics released on Wednesday. The rates of people aged 50 to 59 who admit to using illicit drugs in the past year nearly doubled from 5.1 percent in 2002 to 9.4 percent in 2007 while rates among all other age groups are the same or decreasing, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported. "These findings show that many in the Woodstock generation continue to use...

Mexico City, Mexico (AHN) - The Mexican government decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs, including cocaine, heroin and marijuana, officials said Friday. The move to decriminalize drug possession by enacting a law is to curb corruption in the police force and encourage addicts to seek treatment.Thousands of people have lost their lives in a drug war in Mexico. The reports and officials put the number of deaths at 11,000 over the last three years, but experts say that the unofficial figure could be higher. President Felipe Calderon, who took office in late 2006, has stepped up his government's...

Drug War: Mexico surprised everyone Thursday by "decriminalizing" drugs for "personal use" to refocus its resources. This may sound good to some, but it's waving a white flag at drug cartels that will now take advantage.President Felipe Calderon's signing off on a law to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana, LSD, methamphetamines, cocaine and heroin for consumers was justified as a move to differentiate low-level addicts from powerful traffickers and direct enforcement resources to the latter. It may appeal to some who think legalization will end Mexico's violence, but it's more likely to undermine Mexico's fight against cartels. The move will...

SOUTH OF SAN JUAN — A group of suspected drug smugglers attacked two U.S. Border Patrol agents with rocks during a chase near the Rio Grande on Thursday evening. Agents were following a vehicle loaded with marijuana when the driver stopped at the riverbank and fled on foot, Border Patrol spokesman John Lopez said. As agents approached the vehicle to retrieve the drugs, five men emerged from the dense brush and began hurling large rocks at them. “For what reason, that’s unknown to us,” Lopez said about the group’s possible motive. “But the danger presented by a rock in that...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge. The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.

<p>MEXICO CITY — The U.S. State Department is warning Americans to stay away from President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan, where drug cartel members killed 18 federal agents last month.</p> <p>The alert issued Thursday does not recommend against traveling to Mexico, but says recent violence has prompted the U.S. Embassy to urge Americans to delay unnecessary travel to Michoacan and the border state of Chihuahua, where two Americans were abducted and killed in July.</p>

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- A man is suing the Kissimmee Police Department for an arrest over mints. When officers pulled Donald May over for an expired tag, they thought the mints he was chewing were crack and arrested him. May told Eyewitness News they wouldn't let him out of jail for three months until tests proved the so-called drugs were candy. May said he was just minding his business, driving home from work, when a Kissimmee police officer pulled him over near 192. "I don't know how it occurred," he said. May was pulled over for an expired tag on his...

Three were arrrested last month for making meth in the motel. CROSS LANES W.Va. -- A Cross Lanes Motel is closing down, after a meth lab was discovered there. 13News was told by a spokesperson for Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper, that the parent company of the Cross Lanes Motel 6, is voluntarily shutting down the facility. The Metro Drug Unit arrested three people for making meth in the motel last month. The motel will close at 12 p. m. Saturday. It is not known when it will reopen.

PENITAS - FBI agents are questioning two teenagers who allegedly attacked a Border Patrol agent. Authorities say the suspected smugglers ran over the agent with an all-terrain vehicle. It happened south of Penitas overnight, while the agent was patrolling the levee on foot. Officials say the agent shot at the suspects, before they fled and abandoned the ATV. Border Patrol agents, backed up by police, rushed to the scene after getting calls about an officer down and shots fired. Authorities launched an all-out search with ground and air units. They found and arrested the teen suspects early this morning. The...

More than 140,000 cannabis plants destroyed in police operation 18-Aug 11:22 More than 140,000 cannabis plants were seized and more than 1100 people arrested in police's national cannabis operation. The number of plants destroyed during the 2008-09 operation increased by 17,000 from 2007-08, Detective Senior Sergeant Scott McGill at Police National Headquarters said. More than 820 searches had been conducted in this year's operation, leading to about 141,000 plants being destroyed , 1125 people arrested, 191 firearms seized and about $400,000 worth of stolen property recovered. Based on the New Zealand Drug Harm Index, it was estimated that $379 million...

MEXICO CITY – The death toll in the brawl among inmates at a jail in the northwestern Mexican state of Durango rose to 20 on the weekend, officials said Sunday. Though it was quelled by security forces, officials said, the battle between rival groups of inmates that erupted on Friday at Prison No. 2 in the Mexican municipality of Gomez Palacio also resulted in 25 prisoners being injured by gunfire and bladed weapons. Nineteen prisoners were killed outright in the turf battle, but on Saturday, another prisoner being treated at a medical center succumbed to the gunshot wound to the...

Date: August 15, 2009 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FIRE INVESTIGATORS DETERMINE CAUSE OF LA BREA FIRE GOLETA, CA... A week-long investigation by U.S. Forest Service Special Agents, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit and Fire Investigators has revealed the cause of the La Brea Fire. Investigators revealed that the La Brea Fire was started by a cooking fire in a marijuana drug trafficking operation. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Narcotics Unit has confirmed that the camp at the origin of the fire was an illegal marijuana operation believed to be run by a Mexican National Drug Organization. The Narcotics Unit has...

Mexico has replaced all 700 of its customs inspectors with agents newly trained to fight drug smuggling. The government has sent soldiers to airports and border crossings across the country to take back the guns issued to the inspectors. Tax Administration Service spokesman Pedro Canabal says the officers were not fired. Instead, the agency decided not to rehire them when their contracts expired over the weekend.