Drug Policy Reform

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Did you know that the U.S. has been operating surveillance drones in Mexico, providing air support for the Mexican military, tracking the movements of Mexican citizens, sharing state of the art spy technology with Mexican officials, and sending CIA agents to help Mexico train drug informants? Did you know the DEA has more employees stationed in Mexico than any of its other foreign posts? That Mexican nationals trained and bankrolled by the CIA raid Mexican drug cartels? Or that the CIA runs high-tech “fusion centers” in Mexico City, Monterrey and elsewhere?

— Drug War Logic: These Costly, Failed Policies Must Continue Indefinitely (via azspot)

Reblogged from AZspot

ikenbot:

Stop CISPA: Save the Internet from the US

Right now, the US Congress is sneaking in a new law that gives them big brother spy powers over the entire web — and they’re hoping the world won’t notice. We helped stop their Net attack last time, let’s do it again.

Over 100 Members of Congress are backing a bill (CISPA) that would give private companies and the US government the right to spy on any of us at any time for as long as they want without a warrant. This is the third time the US Congress has tried to attack our Internet freedom. But we helped beat SOPA, and PIPA — and now we can beat this new Big Brother law.

Our global outcry has played a leading role in protecting the Internet from governments eager to monitor and control what we do online. Let’s stand together once again — and beat this law for good. Sign the petition then forward to everyone who uses the Internet! [Click]

Reblogged from CWL

Puerto Rico debates legalizing marijuana use in a first for the US territory

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico â Dozens of people marched Saturday through Puerto Ricoâs capital amid growing support for a recent bill filed by a former police chief that aims to legalize marijuana for personal use, unleashing an unprecedented debate in this conservative U.S. territory.

Reblogged from Latino Sexuality

thenewinquiry:

The New Inquiry Magazine, Vol. 15, “Weed”

From the Editor’s Note:

There’s a zero percent chance that America is going to have any chat about weed without some giggles. Laughter isn’t just an effect of the drug; it’s the only rational response to a president who belonged to the smoking club “Choom Gang” and says he truly believes we should still imprison people for getting high. Here in New York, Michael Bloomberg jokes to the cameras about inhaling and enjoying it even as he uses prohibition to justify a street war against the city’s black and brown youth. So long as gay marriage corners the market on liberal self-righteousness, policy makers can still get away with laughing off pot. But if the president was right and weed helps you see through hypocrisy, bullshit, and cheap moralism, America is going to have to be as stoned as hell for this national conversation.

Read more

Reblogged from The American Bear

The House I Live In | Documentary about America's Failed Drug War | Independent Lens

Reblogged from The American Bear

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Everywhere in Latin America one finds a tremendous resentment of the United States, and that resentment is always strongest among the poorer and darker peoples of the continent. The life and destiny of Latin America are in the hands of United States corporations. The decisions affecting the lives of South Americans are ostensibly made by their government, but there are almost no legitimate democracies alive in the whole continent. The other governments are dominated by huge and exploitative cartels that rob Latin America of her resources while turning over a small rebate to a few members of the corrupt aristocracy, which in turn invests not in its own country for its own people’s welfare but in the banks of Switzerland and the playgrounds of the world.

— Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

Reblogged from CWL

Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron on Why Drugs Should be Legalized

thedailyfallout:

“Harvard University professor Jeffrey Miron has advocated the legalization of drugs for decades. In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview, he explains why prohibition is more dangerous than selling drugs in supermarkets.”

Reblogged from The Daily Fallout

US drugs prosecutors switch sides to defend accused Colombian traffickers

sinidentidades:

US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.

Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.

“I’m not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides,” said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the Department of Justice. “And I’m not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That’s what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases.”

The fence-jumpers include Bonnie Klapper, who was feted for taking down the Norte del Valle cartel, Leo Arreguin, who headed the DEA’s office in Bogota, and reportedly former members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Ice. They work in separate legal practices with their own clients, not as a group.

In interviews with the Guardian, Feitel and Klapper spoke of recognising the humanity of their clients and called for alternatives to a four-decade-old “war on drugs” which costs billions of dollars and incarcerates thousands.

Reblogged from SIN FRONTERAS

Tags: war on drugs drug war politics drugs

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We have seen enough over the past 16 years from the states that have legalized medical marijuana to know that the benefits are real and the alleged dangers overblown. With this data in hand, the DEA should reclassify marijuana to acknowledge its possible medical uses.

— Will The Federal Government Legalize Pot Nationwide? | TIME.com (via sylviac)

Reblogged from distributed leisure

adam-wola:

This map, from U.S. Coast Guard testimony at a Tuesday House hearing, shows sites of major 2010-2012 drug seizures.

Surprising to me here is the intense density of seizures in Puerto Rico, the lack of same in Mexico, and the overwhelming frequency with which non-urban seizures in the United States happen along interstate highways.

Reblogged from Adam Isacson's Latin America Blog

Tags: drug war war on drugs marijuana

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