The bullshit war on drugs

Friday, July 27, 2012

Did Mexican Official Blow Lid Off CIA-Managed Drug Trade?

Eric Blair
Activist Post

For the last three decades several leaks have come out indicating that the CIA is directly involved in illegal drug trafficking.

From planes registered to the CIA caught with tons of cocaine, whistleblowers exposing the the phony police war on drugs or that cartels worked directly with US agencies, to the CIA/Pentagon protecting the poppy crop in Afghanistan whose opium trade exploded after the 2001 invasion; the evidence is mounting that the CIA is clearly involved in some manner.

Although the idea that the CIA is involved in illegal drug trafficking is still relegated to conspiracy theory, this week a Mexican official openly accused the CIA of "managing" the drug trade.

According to Al Jazeera:

The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international security forces 'don't fight drug traffickers', a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico has told Al Jazeera, instead 'they try to manage the drug trade'. 

Allegations about official complicity in the drug business are nothing new when they come from activists, professors, campaigners or even former officials. However, an official spokesman for the authorities in one of Mexico's most violent states - one which directly borders Texas - going on the record with such accusations is unique. 

'It's like pest control companies, they only control,' Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, the Chihuahua spokesman, told Al Jazeera last month at his office in Juarez. 'If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs.'

These statements are the first of this type from an elected official in Mexico.  Of course, the Mexican government and other local officials said Villanueva's claim is ridiculous and repeatedly used the term "conspiracy theory" to shut everyone up about it.   read on...                                                                               

                                                                                        Europe Field-Tests the Drug Policy Spectrum

Two trends are emerging in European countries' drug policies; the expensive and failing approach of criminalization and one based on scientific evidence and harm reduction.

July 20, 2012  |  

 

 

 

 

 

One hundred years after the first international drug control treaty was signed the failure of the "war on drugs" is indisputable. In Europe two distinct trends are emerging around how countries are choosing to tackle drug policy; a punitive, criminalization approach--which is failing dramatically and expensively--or one based on scientific evidence and harm reduction--which is bearing fruits.

Punitive, law enforcement-focused drug policies are usually an outcome of unrealistic expectations, prejudice and lack of knowledge. Contrary to ample evidence, it remains many politicians' belief that harsh drug laws deter people from experimenting with illicit substances, lower demand for drugs, and help the police to apprehend drug suppliers. These misguided assumptions are increasingly questioned and the Czech Republic is emerging as a global example of an effective, evidence over ideology approach to drug policy.

In the post-Soviet 1990s, greater personal freedoms in the then Czechoslovakia led to more widespread and visible drug use and drug markets. Czech politicians felt the urge to respond to what they believed was a new social problem. By 1998, a few political parties rode a wave of popular distaste for the drug scene, and the Czech government was pressured to change its liberal drug policy. The modification, although unfavorable, was slight. The new law stated that the possession of illicit drugs in amounts greater than a certain threshold amount should be criminalized. The legislators did not, however, specify what these limits were.

In an unexpected move, the Czech government commissioned a scientific evaluation of the impact of the new law. This rarely happens when drug laws are made harsher. "According to the study, criminalizing drug possession did not have the desired deterrent effect, did not have a health benefit, and was economically costly to society," concludes a newly published report on Czech drug policy by the Open Society Foundations.    read on...