Tag Archives: Drugs & Vice

Uncertainty dominates new hemp market

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“Would-be hemp farmers are having mixed success navigating red tape on everything from seed acquisition to processing the finished plant. It will take years, farmers and regulators agree, before there’s a viable market for hemp.  Hemp is prized for oils, seeds and fiber, but its production was prohibited for five decades because the plant can be manipulated to enhance a psychoactive chemical, THC, making the drug marijuana.  The Farm Bill enacted this year ended decades of required federal permission to raise hemp, but only with state permission and checks to make sure the hemp doesn’t contain too much THC.  Fifteen states have removed barriers to hemp production.”

http://www.dailynews.com/business/20140607/uncertainty-dominates-new-hemp-market

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Reefer Madness Redux

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“What’s especially obnoxious about these conclusions is that they argue marijuana ‘damages lives’ but ignore the devastating effects of long-term incarceration on the individuals and families swept up for non-violent criminal violations into the West’s massive penal-industrial complex. There is plenty of evidence that prohibition doesn’t work and that the blight from those kinds of policies – as well as the individual and familial ruin – is considerably worse than the item being prohibited. Of course, the pharmaceutical companies that are doubtless supportive of ‘studies’ like this don’t care about the larger social costs.”

http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/35376/Anthony-Wile-Reefer-Madness-Redux/

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ATF’s Operation Gideon Raises Questions of Fairness, Justice, and Race

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“The stash house was fictional, those drugs never existed, and the brains behind the plot were not criminals, but federal agents.  Dissenting judges argued that the practice of enticing poor young men into robbing stash houses raised questions not only of fair play, but also of constitutionality. The dissenters were particularly concerned that federal agents targeted primarily minority neighborhoods.  According to USA Today, as of last year, the feds had already locked up more than a thousand people who its agents had enticed into conspiracies to rob fake drug stash houses.  The defendants also got hit with longer sentences based on the imaginary amounts of drugs that were going to rob.”

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2014/may/30/operation_gideon_atf_raises_que

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Tampa SWAT Team Kills Marijuana Grower In His Home

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“The Bay News 9 story used anodyne language to describe the raid, saying only that police ‘entered’ the residence. It is not clear from the reporting whether this was a no-knock raid or how the police entered the residence.  Police said one man in the front of the house surrendered when the SWAT team entered, but that Westcott, who was found armed in a back room, pointed his gun and officers and was then shot.  Although police repeatedly referred to ‘narcotics,’ the only ‘narcotic’ Westcott was accused of selling was marijuana. Police found a hydroponic marijuana grow in his home.  Westcott had no prior criminal record except for one incident of driving without a license.”

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2014/may/30/tampa_swat_team_kills_armed_man

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U.S. Border Patrol Guns Down Fleeing Marijuana Smuggler

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“A Border Patrol agent shot and killed marijuana smuggler Luis Arambula, 31, as he fled on foot through an Arizona golf course.  The killing is bound to put CBP’s new use of deadly force policies to the test. According to the CBP’s new handbook, the use of deadly force is authorized only when there is imminent danger of death or serious injury to the agent or someone else.  That doesn’t appear to be the case with Luis Arambula. Border Patrol Agent Daniel Marquez shot him nine times as he ran through a golf course after his vehicle got stuck as he fled from agents.  Pima County sheriff’s deputies investigating the incident said Arambula was unarmed.”

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2014/jun/04/smuggler_shooting_immediately_te

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Is the War on Drugs Over?

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“There’s an international powwow scheduled for 2016, one that was moved up from 2021. And every day more articles and editorials appear that argue not just for the full legalization of pot but of illicit drugs in general. The best guess is that the power elite sees drug legalization as a global solution to a problem that knows no borders. One can make an argument that the ‘war on drugs’ may have been a kind of red herring designed to lead to the ‘directed history’ of an international solution. Of course, it is widely acknowledged that the ‘war on drugs’ has been a failure – but who would ever have thought it was going to be a success in the first place except for certain law enforcement types?”

http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/35358/Anthony-Wile-Is-the-War-on-Drugs-Over/

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Packet Alcohol More Abundant Than Water in West Africa

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“With distribution networks spanning the entire Mano River Market of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Ivory Coast, their products find their way to even the deepest jungle villages, typically sold at small stands known as hokas, characteristically consisting of an umbrella and collapsible box.  Their products, packaged in small plastic bottles and pouches and referred to generically as ‘packet alcohol,’ are more abundant than purified water in some regions of West Africa, and a single packet costs around 500 Leoneans, or 11 cents. A variety of spirits, many flavored with fruits and herbs, are available, all with their own creative slogans and depictions.”

https://news.vice.com/article/packet-alcohol-delivers-a-serious-hangover-in-sierra-leone

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Legal Pot in the US Is Crippling Mexican Cartels

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“Given the DEA’s historic relationship with the Sinaloa cartel, and the agency’s fury over legalized marijuana, it almost seems like the DEA wants to crush the legal weed market in order to protect the interests of their cartel friends. Almost.  ‘The DEA doesn’t want the drug war to end,’ said retired federal agent Terry Nelson, when asked about a possible connection between the agency’s hatred of legal pot and its buddies in Sinaloa. ‘If it ends, they don’t get their toys and their budgets. Once it ends, they aren’t going to have the kind of influence in foreign government. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but where there’s smoke there’s probably fire.’

https://news.vice.com/article/legal-pot-in-the-us-is-crippling-mexican-cartels

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Unarmed Florida Man Dies after Being Shot in Morning SWAT Raid

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“The Hallandale Police Department SWAT team arrived at Bowe’s home in the pre-dawn hours of May 8 to serve a search warrant related to suspected drug distribution at the duplex where he lived. ‘It appears the officers from the SWAT team felt threatened,’ Maj. Thomas Honan, a spokesman for the agency, said on the day of the shooting. He said the elderly dog broke free from its chain and charged the officers.  They came in the back door,’ Corneesa Bowe said. ‘Why shoot an unarmed person?’  Neighbor Fred Webb told the newspaper Bowe was ‘an honest man who worked every day’ at his business, a mobile car wash.  Police have not said whether they recovered any drugs or weapons.”

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2014/may/22/south_florida_man_dies_11_days_a

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3,200 Americans Serving Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses

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“The ACLU estimates that, of the 3,278 serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses, 65 percent are Black, 18 percent are white, and 16 percent are Latino, evidence of extreme racial disparities. Of the 3,278, most were sentenced under mandatory sentencing policies, including mandatory minimums and habitual offender laws that required them to be incarcerated until they die.  The federal courts account for 63 percent of the 3,278 life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent offenses. The ACLU estimates that federal and state taxpayers spend $1.8 billion keeping these people in prison for life instead of more appropriate terms.”

https://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/more-3200-serving-life-without-parole-nonviolent-offenses-finds-aclu

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