Daily Archives: February 8, 2021

We, in India, are debating one health crisis by bringing science and research to the foreground and, strangely, throwing science out of the window while debating another health-related disaster.Bring up the topic of the Covid-19 pandemic and the debate immediately shifts to the vaccine, the speed at which it has been developed and whether enough science has gone into it to make it safe. But bring up drug abuse in the country, and the focus immediately shifts to Sushant Singh Rajput, who was responsible for his untimely death and how many more film stars are likely to be questioned for smoking ganja. We dont ask how serious the drug problem is nationally, which states are worst affected, and whether we have adopted the right approach to fighting the menace.

If you believe that drug abuse cant be compared to the Covid-19 pandemic, do browse through Indias first-ever large-scale, nationwide survey of drug abuse, published in 2019 just before Covid-19 reached India. The Magnitude of Substance Abuse in India report by AIIMS Delhis National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre has established that there are roughly 63 lakh people in the country addicted to heroin and 25 lakh to pharmaceutical opioids. Another 50 lakh people are addicted to cannabis and 40 lakh to bhang.

And we havent even come to alcohol, which has roughly 5.7 crore people who have problems related to drinking while 2.9 crore who are dependent on it. Keep in mind that these numbers represent only the addicted and those with related problems. The actual number of drug and alcohol users is much higher.

By comparison, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen roughly 1.05 crore cases so far. Most of these people have recovered with the number of active cases till mid-January 2021 being a little more than two lakh across India. In sheer numbers, the drug abuse problem in India is worse than Covid-19. But the intention here is not to undermine the severity of pandemic. It is to highlight the fact that we have a serious drug abuse problem on our hands and to find a solution, we will need more than just a momentary emotional outburst over a film stars death.

Talk to authors of the AIIMS report and they will tell you some home truths. One, attempts to stop supply of drugs with brute policing have failed spectacularly around the world. The US War on Drugs is the best example. Trying to cut drug supply lines only led to a dramatic increase in the street price of drugs, encouraging smugglers to pump in greater quantities of deadlier drugs into the US.

This could be happening in India as well. Findings indicate that despite the existence of strict drug control laws and a multitude of agencies working towards drug supply control, a wide variety of the controlled drugs are being used and a sizeable number of Indians suffer from addiction to these drugs, the AIIMS report says. Results also indicate a shift in demand for psychoactive substances, from traditional, low-potency, plant-based products (opium) to more potent and processed products (heroin).

Instead, the focus should be on reducing drug demand. Countries like Portugal have decriminalised drug consumption. People caught with drugs for personal use are not sent to jail. Instead, they are counselled and provided mental health care support. It has led to a reduction in addicts.

Two, governments often get bogged down with the total number of people using drugs. Instead, they should focus on drug use disorders. Taking drugs is not as much a problem as addiction is.

And three, governments must categorise various drugs by the problems they cause and then devise a plan. Chasing ganja users is a waste of time. The AIIMS survey shows that the major drug problem category for India is opioids, and among opioids heroin is the biggest concern. In fact, many experts feel that Indias drug supply control measures are disproportionately geared towards seizing minor drugs and jailing petty users rather than catching the big fish smuggling deadly heroin. As one expert told this writer in Hindi, Ye chindi chor pakadne wali baat hai (we are only catching small fry).

The AIIMS report also points to the severe paucity of treatment facilities for drug and alcohol addicts in the country and the need for regional strategies for prevention and treatment. Just one single national level plan may not help. The drug problem in Punjab may differ from Mizoram.

As a first step in this, AIIMS experts have helped the Union government kickstart the Nation Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction. But, this is just the beginning of the fight. Real change will come when we, the citizens, will discuss drug demand reduction like we are discussing the merits and demerits of Covishield and Covaxin.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Drug abuse affects more people than Covid yet we bury the issue - The Times of India Blog

The last few weeks have been trying for the U.S.-Mexican relationship. They have called into question the principle of shared responsibility that underpins the joint effort to counter drug-fueled violence threatening citizens on both sides of the border, in the words of the 2008 Merida Initiative agreement, under which billions of dollars flowed to the Mexican military and judiciary. However, even if the Mexican government is now calling for nonintervention and respect for national sovereignty, regional challenges such as drugs, guns, and disease cross borders. And when the general formerly responsible for overseeing shared efforts to combat them is arrested on one side of the border on drug and money-laundering charges, then repatriated and exonerated, the repercussions are also shared.

Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda served as Mexicos national defense secretary during the Pea Nieto administration, from 2012 to 2018. On Oct. 15, 2020, Cienfuegos was arrested at the Los Angeles airport on drug trafficking and money laundering charges, making him the highest ranked official arrested in the United States on accusations of working with criminal groups, but not the only general in the Mexican army accused of helping drug traffickers. His arrest caused a media storm in Mexico and the United States because, among other reasons, apparently nobody within the Mexican government had been notified of the investigation or the impending arrest. It also put the small state of Nayarit and the criminal organization H-2 (the group alleged to have bribed Cienfuegos, whom they referred to as El Padrino, or the godfather, into helping move narcotics) on the map, both of which seldom feature in discussions of violence in Mexico.

For those who had followed the trial of Joaqun Guzmn Loera, also known as El Chapo, in New York, the impending legal proceedings against Cienfuegos promised an equal parade of colorful witnesses who would provide details on the relationship between organized crime and high-level Mexican officials. More importantly, while prosecution would not necessarily redress victims of the futile war on drugs, it would at least bring to justice a perpetrator who had abused his position within government for personal gain at the expense of Mexican lives.

It also had the potential of bringing to the fore significant vetting failures in the United States, and of helping improve vetting mechanisms for both countries. Cienfuegos was a close U.S. collaborator and even received in 2018 the William J. Perry Award for Excellence in Security and Defense Education given by the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies based at the National Defense University. Recipients of the award are individuals or organizations that advanced a cooperative international security environment, and/or promoted sustainable institutional capacity in the Americas.

This was not to be. To the dismay of observers and victims of violence, charges against Cienfuegos were dismissed in the United States in November and he was exonerated in Mexico on Jan. 15. From the moment his repatriation was announced, observers believed Cienfuegos had little to fear. A serious investigation by Mexicos attorney generals office would likely unleash significant infighting within the government, and history suggests it would have been unlikely to lead to conviction and punishment. When Cienfuegos was repatriated to Mexico, the attorney generals office had not issued a warrant for his arrest. Even before being exonerated, Cienfuegos was, in nearly every sense, a free man. To date, Cienfuegos guilt or innocence remains to be demonstrated in the court of law.

According to some sources, his repatriation was the result of a negotiation heavily influenced by the Mexican army. It is important to note that unlike the United States, where the Department of Defense oversees the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, in Mexico the army and the navy are separate secretariats with no authority like the Pentagon overseeing their activities. As a bargaining chip, the Mexican government apparently promised to prosecute Cienfuegos and continue to allow the operation of U.S. agents on Mexican soil in exchange for Cienfuegos return. Mexico failed on both accounts. On Dec. 15, the Mexican Congress approved changes to the 2005 National Security Law. The changes include the addition of paragraphs that regulate and control activities by intelligence agencies of foreign countries in Mexican territory. For some of us who follow and study the U.S.-Mexico relationship, these legal changes are, unfortunately, expected to severely hinder cooperation and hurt the relationship for years to come. This comes at a lethal time for the region, when COVID-19, homicides, and overdoses have killed Mexicans and Americans in record numbers.

Is Mexicos exoneration of Cienfuegos the end of the saga? Hardly.

A New Aggravation in the U.S.-Mexican Relationship

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is an agency with long-term memory. Enrique Kiki Camarena, a DEA special agent who was kidnapped, tortured, and killed in Mexico in the 80s, has become an integral part of the DEAs mythology, and to this day his murder is used as a rallying cry for the organization. Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the perpetrators of Camarenas murder, remains on the DEAs Most Wanted Fugitives list, and the organization offers $20 million for information leading to his arrest. As explained by the DEA on its 40th anniversary, the Camarena case was

a turning point internally and externally. [The] DEA went to war with the government of Mexico about the kidnapping of Kiki Camarena. We didnt have many persons behind us. DEA overseas depends upon the integrity of the police with whom they work. That trust, that honor failed completely in Mexico with the loss of Kiki Camarena. It took the loss of Camarena for the nation to realize that we had to get serious about corruption in Mexico. And so, it was a telling moment for the Drug Enforcement Administration. [B]ut more importantly, I think, [it] established that a murder or kidnapping of a DEA agent or any federal official overseas is a crime against the laws of the United States no matter where in the world it takes place.

Given that the indictment against Cienfuegos was built on evidence provided by the DEA, the dismissal of his charges and his return to Mexico are bound to infuriate more than one special agent. This will only be exacerbated now that Mexico has exonerated Cienfuegos and President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador accused the DEA of fabricating the charges against him. But whatever Lpez Obradors feeling towards the DEA, the agencys intelligence is key for Mexican law enforcement. Last year, for example, intelligence the DEA shared with Mexicos Financial Intelligence Unit led to blocking approximately 2,000 bank accounts linked to the Crtel Jalisco Nueva Generacin criminal organization. Operation Agave Azul, as it was named, remains to date the most aggressive action by the Lpez Obrador administration against money laundering by criminal groups. Not long ago, the director of Mexicos Financial Intelligence Unit, Santiago Nieto, publicly thanked the DEA on his Twitter account for the intelligence that led to it.

To be sure, no government agency on either side of the border should be more important than the relationship. But without prosecution against Cienfuegos plus the law restricting U.S. agents, including those from the DEA, from operating in Mexico there is a new aggravation within the U.S.-Mexican bilateral relationship. Cienfuegos will become part of the call to arms used by the DEA to push for punitive and criminalizing drug policies (as opposed to a focus on public health) and a thorn in the relationship for years to come.

Biden Administration Puts Away the Carrots and Brings out the Big Stick

In the short term, it pushes the incoming Biden administration into a tougher stance. As my colleague Vanda Felbab-Brown has explained, this includes options like economic tariffs, arresting and prosecuting other Mexican officials, or cutting development aid to Mexico. The United States can do this not only because of the asymmetry that defines the bilateral relationship but also because there is hardly a consolidated bureaucratic corps on security matters in Mexico that can play hardball with the United States. This problem is not new, but the Lpez Obrador administration has implemented several substantial changes that have weakened Mexicos bargaining position at a time it wants to (regrettably) play the sovereignty card.

Some of the changes include the dissolution of the Federal Police and the creation of the National Guard, which has yet to meet its recruitment goals. The administration also brought back the Secretariat of Security and Civilian Protection, which was eliminated under the Pea Nieto administration. Furthermore, Martha Brcena, a career diplomat and Mexicos ambassador to the United States, announced her resignation in early December. Her replacement will be Esteban Moctezuma, current secretary of education, who has never served Mexico on a foreign policy assignment.

To say this is unfortunate would be an understatement. The bilateral relationship has been strained for a few years, starting with a slowdown during the Pea Nieto years, and worsened when the 2016 presidential candidate for the Republican Party referred to immigrants from the countrys southern neighbor as rapists, drug traffickers, and criminals. January 2021 presented an opportunity to steer the relationship back onto a productive course, allowing Mexico to bring to the table crucial issues like arms trafficking from the United States to Mexico. However, the hostility perceived by the United States as a result of Mexican actions in the Cienfuegos case is shutting a window of opportunity to deepen cooperation that ultimately benefits citizens in the region.

The Real Winners of the Godfather Scandal

The ultimate beneficiary of this breakdown in communications are criminal actors in the United States and Mexico who continue their profitable cross-border collaborations.

Advocates of U.S.-Mexican cooperation recognize there are many aspects in which security cooperation could be improved, starting with an approach to drug use and violence that focuses on public health rather than punitive policies. While I do not believe poppy growers in rural areas of Mexico are directly responsible for the loss of American lives, activities like transnational drug trafficking will continue to displace and kill both Mexican and U.S. citizens. In the current state of affairs, it should surprise nobody if we continue to hear devastating stories of mothers searching for their loved ones and count record numbers of homicides and overdoses on both sides of the border. Yet again.

With willful negligence and active hostility, through the exoneration of Cienfuegos and modification of a law that undermines U.S.-Mexican cooperation, the Lpez Obrador administration has pushed the United States into a defensive stand. After Mexico unilaterally unsealed the information the U.S. government shared for the Cienfuegos investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice accused the Lpez Obrador administration of violating an international treaty by releasing confidential U.S. documents. Furthermore, the United States has reserved its right to prosecute Cienfuegos in the future.

As a baseball fan, Lpez Obrador may do well to remember that in Americas favorite pastime, and unlike in most other sports, it is the defense that has the ball.

Cecilia Farfn-Mndez is head of Security Research Programs at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at U.C. San Diego and co-founder of the Mexico Violence Resource Project.

Image: Office of the Mexican President

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After Cienfuegos, Criminal Cross-Border Collaboration Continues; Governmental Collaboration Suffers - War on the Rocks

Channeling the spirit of America's entry into World War II, President Joe Biden has promised a mass mobilization of people and resources to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. But if defeating a virus is like waging a war, several important historical lessons and caveats should be kept in mind.

PRINCETON US President Joe Biden started his term with a beautifully crafted speech that caught the spirit of a country exhausted by Trumpism and COVID-19. Biden has promised a full-scale, wartime effort against the pandemic. But hasnt our tired world already been in the trenches for a year now?

On March 19, 2020, when Donald Trump belatedly started to act as though the coronavirus might be serious, he referred to our big war and promised to continue our relentless effort to defeat the Chinese virus. Similarly, Chinese President Xi Jinping on February 6, 2020, declared a peoples war against the virus.

Of course, Trumps war quickly went off the rails, as have previous US attempts to deploy the war analogy outside of a military or diplomatic context. In June 1971, President Richard Nixon, calling drug abuse public enemy number one, launched the war on drugs, which President Ronald Reagan expanded. Fifty years later, this mobilization is almost universally recognized as having failed.

Likewise, the war on terror, declared by President George W. Bush following the attacks of September 11, 2001, succeeded merely in preventing a precise repetition of that event. Not only were there plenty of other attacks elsewhere, but terror proliferated, becoming a tool for groups like US white nationalists and Trump supporters. The warriors against terror were fighting a tactic, not a target.

So, what does it take to win a war? For starters, victory requires a complete mobilization of people and resources. We cannot even hope to succeed against COVID-19 unless we marshal the contributions of many different individuals most of them low-paid, disadvantaged workers in health, transportation, logistics, and other critical sectors.

Historically, wars have been waged with the promise that those who fought them would be rewarded. World War II was transformative in the sense that not only was the enemy defeated, but a better world was built in its aftermath. Health care, education, and infrastructure were extended to the benefit of society at large.

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Victory also depends on great logistics, as a spokeswoman for the courier and freight service UPS pointed out during a White House event early in the crisis. But great logistics hasnt happened. Instead, COVID-19 test results are still routinely held up for the oddest reasons, and the United States has scarcely even bothered with virus monitoring or contact tracing.

Without sound logistics management, everything else can fall apart. In World War I, Czarist Russia produced more than enough grain to feed its population, but the big cities endured terrible starvation. Officials blamed the inadequate rail system. In fact, there were plenty of railcars to transport grain, but they were in the wrong place. Rail workers had no shoes, and thus could not turn up for work.

Pandemics, like wars, produce shortages of critical resources, whereupon decentralized procurement can trigger bidding wars, with local and state agencies pushing up the prices of protective equipment, medical supplies, or vaccines. Disputes about prioritizing vaccination are likely to create tension between organized groups, from pensioners and medical providers to teachers and other essential workers. In wars that are waged successfully, the management of supplies is centralized to prevent their diversion to inefficient or undesirable uses.

Wars also give rise to international competition, which can fuel anger of the kind expressed by European Union citizens who see vaccinations proceeding faster in the United Kingdom and Israel than in their own countries. The companies that produce vaccines Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, and Sanofi have facilities in many countries. But they need to be able to operate worldwide without worrying about how production will affect pricing strategies in segmented markets.

Another issue for suppliers is transient demand. Vaccine manufacturers face a problem analogous to that of armament manufacturers before and during wars: if they invest in gigantic production plants, they will end up with massive unused facilities when the war is over. Hence, there needs to be more clarity (and creativity) about how the infrastructure used against COVID-19 can be repurposed. At least the novel techniques used in the mRNA vaccines will be useful to combat a wide range of diseases and disorders in the future.

Wars also need to be paid for. In the past, countries facing the prospect of a massive war bill assumed that in victory they could impose the costs on the defeated power. The Trump administration tried this approach when it insisted that China should pay a big price for its role in the pandemic, especially considering that it had already returned to economic growth before the end of 2020. In any case, even friends and allies will squabble over the settling of war debts. In the case of COVID-19, the only realistic scenario is that no one else is going to pay; demands for reparations will merely poison international diplomacy.

Finally, the war on COVID-19 has involved massive fiscal and monetary stimulus, far beyond the levels in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. As such, it is important that governments start preparing long-term stabilization programs to prevent bottlenecks, shortages, and price increases when the emergency is over.

This may sound like attempting to square a circle. The key is to focus precisely on the need of the moment, while accepting that many other needs cannot be easily determined. We need instruments for today that can also be used in different ways tomorrow. And while we look ahead to a better future, we also should prepare for higher taxes.

There is a model for managing such temporal dilemmas. The post-WWII vision relied on a surge of economic dynamism that provided a bridge from war to peace. Without strong, shared growth, the burden of the war would have been unbearable. Only a transformative vision of a generally healthier society can help us overcome todays dismal reality.

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What's in a War? by Harold James - Project Syndicate

When Andra Day was initially approached about auditioning for the title role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, director Lee Danielss new film about the revolutionary jazz singer, she balked. First of all, (a) Im not an actress, and (b) just no, says the 35-year-old singer and songwriter, who credits Holiday, nicknamed Lady Day by jazz saxophonist Lester Young, with influencing her own musical style. For a first-ever acting gig, playing a figure of that magnitude felt daunting. I was like, I dont want to remake Lady Sings the Blues, Day says, referring to the 1972 Holiday biopic that earned Diana Ross an Oscar nomination. I love Dianas performance. She murdered it. Im good.

In the music world, Day has amassed her own laundry list of accomplishments. Shes toured with Lenny Kravitz, been nominated for two Grammys, and even sung at the White House. But her powerful performance in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, which hits theaters this month, is set to launch her into a new stratosphere. Based on Johann Haris 2015 book, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, the film tells the story of commissioner Harry Anslinger (played by Garrett Hedlund), head of the U.S. Treasury Departments anti-drug agency, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and his pursuit of Holiday, whose outspokenness about racism and controversial 1939 recording of the Abel Meeropol protest song Strange Fruit, about lynchings in the South, made her the target of a pressure campaign by conservative authorities for two decades.

Takashi Seida

Anslinger had previously attempted to take down other high-profile members of the jazz community on drug charges, including Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker. But the tight crews around them always proved impenetrable. So he shifted his focus to a more vulnerable mark: Holiday, who struggled with both alcoholism and heroin addiction. The government couldnt stop Holiday from singing Strange Fruit, but Anslingers bureau offered another way to silence her, repeatedly levying drug charges against her and subjecting her to numerous arrests. She would leave clubs, and cops would chase her, shooting into her car trying to kill her, just for singing that song, just for who she was, Day says.

When Im in movies, Im losing myself in another person, and you have a responsibility to that person.

In many ways, Holidays entire lifeone filled with both triumphs and misfortuneswas an act of protest. In preparing to play her, Day studied diligently. Holidays godson, Bevan Dufty, whose father, William Dufty, co-wrote Holidays 1956 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, generously gave Day access to interviews conducted with people who knew Holiday. Day also spent time with current and recovering addicts, delving into the rituals and ravages of heroin addiction. As Day immersed herself further into Holidays life, she says she unintentionally went Method; she even started smoking cigarettes and swearing, as Holiday famously did. It was just allowing myself to be more recklessnot reckless, but sort of self-damaging in my behaviors, she says. Day also understood the importance of bringing herself to the role. Do not shed yourself, her acting coaches told her. You have to have Billie and bring Andra through Billie. Day says the process was not that different from the one she goes through when shes singing. Im losing myself in myself, she says. But when Im in movies, Im losing myself in another person, and you have a responsibility to that person.

Daniels initially had his own doubts about casting Day in the role. Its hard working with a first-time actor, he says. But they had dinner and, as both tell it, clicked instantly. Daniels says it was how he saw the soul of Billie Holiday in Day that clinched it for him. I dont think she was aware of it, he says.

Danielss confidence helped boost Days own. I got to a point where I realized, Okay, Im saying no to this because Im scared, she says.

For me, it was [about] vindicating her legacy.

Day, who was born near Seattle, was raised with her three siblings in the diverse community of Southeast San Diego, California. She attended the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, which focused heavily on musical theater. She says she always knew she could sing, but it wasnt until she starred as Ti Moune in the schools production of Once on This Island that those around her took note too. Everybody was like, Yeah, this is where its going to be at for you.

Soon Day began writing and recording on her own. But it was a chance encounter with Stevie Wonders then wife, Kai Milla, that eventually led to Day landing a record deal with Warner Music Group.

Days own song Rise Up, off her 2015 debut, Cheers to the Fall, has become an unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the lessons of Holidays willingness to speak out and use music as a vehicle for activism are not lost on her. For me, it was [about] vindicating her legacy, she says of The United States vs. Billie Holiday. I want the younger generation to say, Thank you, Billie Holiday. This is the mother of civil rights, and you need to know that, [and] what she sacrificed for that.

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Andra Day on Playing Billie Holiday in 'The United States vs. Billie Holiday' - HarpersBAZAAR.com