Category Archives: War On Drugs

(Flickr/Oregon Department of Transportation)

Phillip Smith | February 13, 2017

In a sharp break with the Obama administration, which distanced itself from harsh anti-drug rhetoric and emphasized treatment for drug users over punishment, President Donald Trump last week reverted to tough drug war oratory and backed it up with a series of executive orders he said were designed to restore safety in America.

Were going to stop the drugs from pouring in, Trump told law enforcement professionals of the Major Cities Chiefs Association last Wednesday. Were going to stop those drugs from poisoning our youth, from poisoning our people. Were going to be ruthless in that fight. We have no choice. And were going to take that fight to the drug cartels and work to liberate our communities from their terrible grip of violence.

Trump also lambasted the Obama administration for one of its signature achievements in criminal justice reform, opening the prison doors for more than 1,700 drug war prisoners who had already served sentences longer than they would have under current, revised sentencing guidelines. Obama freed record numbers of drug traffickers, many of them kingpins, Trump complained.

And in a sign of a return to the dark days of drug war over-sentencing, he called for harsher mandatory minimum prison sentences for the most serious drug offenders, as well as aggressive prosecutions of drug traffickers and cracking down on shipping loopholes he claimed allowed drugs to be sent to the US from other countries.

In a New Hampshire campaign speech during the campaign, Trump called for more treatment for drug users and more access to overdose reversal drugs, but there was no sign of that side of the drug policy equation in Wednesdays speech.

Last Thursday, Trump backed up his tough talk with action as, at the Oval Office swearing in of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he rolled out three executive orders he said were designed to restore safety in America, but which appear to signal an increasingly authoritarian response to crime, drugs, and discontent with policing practices.

The first, which Trump said would reduce crime and restore public safety, orders Sessions to create a new Task Force on Crime Reduction and Public Policy, which will come up with strategies to reduce crime, including, in particular, illegal immigration, drug trafficking and violent crime, propose legislation to implement them, and submit a report to the president within a year.

The second, regarding transnational criminal organizations and preventing drug trafficking, directs various federal law enforcement agencies to increase intelligence sharing and orders an already existing interagency working group to submit a report to Trump within four months describing progress made in combating the cartels, along with any recommended actions for dismantling them.

Im directing Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to undertake all necessary and lawful action to break the back of the criminal cartels that have spread across our nation and are destroying the blood of our youth and other people, Trump said Thursday.

The third directs the Justice Department to use federal law to prosecute people who commit crimes against police officers, even though they already face universally severe penalties under existing state laws.

Its a shame whats been happening to our great, truly great law enforcement officers, Trump said at the signing ceremony. Thats going to stop as of today.

The tough talk and the executive orders provoked immediate alarm and pushback from human and civil rights advocates, drug reformers, the Mexican government, and even the law enforcement community. The apparent turn back toward a more law-and-order approach to drugs also runs against the tide of public health and public policy opinion that the war on drugs has been a failure.

In a report released last Friday, dozens of senior law enforcement officials warned Trump against a tough crackdown on crime and urged him to instead continue the Obama administrations efforts to reform the criminal justice system.

The report was coauthored for Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration by former Dallas Police Chief David Brown, who won wide praise for his response after a gun man killed five of his officers last year.

Decades of experience have convinced us of a sobering reality: Todays crime policies, which too often rely only on jail and prison, are simply ineffective in preserving public safety, the report said.

The presidents crime plan would encourage police to focus on general lawbreaking rather than violent crime, the report said. The Justice Department already spends more than $5 billion a year to support local police, much of it spent on antiquated law enforcement tools, such as dragnet enforcement of lower-level offenses and Trumps plan would repeat this mistake, the officials wrote. We cannot fund all crime fighting tactics.

Drug reformers also sounded the alarm.

This rhetoric is dangerous, disturbing, and dishonest, said Bill Piper, senior director for national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance. We have had a war on drugs. It has failed. Tough talk may look good before the cameras, but history has taught us that cracking down on drugs and building walls will not stop the supply or use of drugs. It mostly causes the death and destruction of innocent lives. Trump must tone down his outrageous rhetoric and threats, and instead reach out to leadership from both parties to enact a humane and sensible health-based approach to drug policies that both reduce overdose and our countrys mass incarceration crisis.

Indeed, most public health experts argue that the prohibitionist approach to drugs has been a failure. They point to research such as a 2013 study in the British Medical Journal that found that despite billions spent on drug prohibition since 1990, drug prices have only decreased and purity increased, making getting high easier and more affordable than ever before.

These findings suggest that expanding efforts at controlling the global illegal drug market through law enforcement are failing, the authors conclude.

Public health analysts also point to research showing that between 1991 and 2001, even when the drug war was in full effect, the rate of illicit drug use among teens rose sharply, while their cigarette smoking rate fell off a bit and their alcohol use dropped sharply. The substances that are legal for adult use were less likely to see increases than ones that are prohibited, the analysts point out.

Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Luis Videgaray also chimed in to note that there wouldnt be any Mexican drug cartels without American demand for drugs and to remind Washington that its not just whats being exported from Mexico that is a problem, but whats being imported, too.

For years, from the Mexican perspective, people say, OK, the problem with drugs that its creating so much violence, so many deaths of young people in Mexico is because theres demand for drugs in the US, Videgaray said. We happen to be neighbors to the largest market for drugs. From the American perspective, its just the other way around, he said, adding that both countries need to get past the blame game.

And if the US is serious about helping Mexico disrupt the cartels business model, it needs to stop the southbound traffic in cash and guns.

We need to stop illegal weapons flowing from the U.S. into Mexico, Videgaray said. We always think about illegal stuff moving through the border south to north, but people forget that most guns and were not talking small guns, were talking heavy weapons they get to the cartels and create literally small armies out of the cartels.

Human Rights Watch reacted to a comment from Attorney General Sessions at his swearing in ceremony that crime is a dangerous permanent trend that places the lives of American people at risk, by noting that crime is down dramatically by all measures over the past 20 years despite a slight increase in violent crimes between 2014 and 2015. There is no dangerous permanent trend in violent or non-violent crime, it pointed out.

And Amnesty International swiftly reacted to the executive order calling for new federal penalties for crimes against police.

Law enforcement officers face unique hardships and challenges due to the nature of their work, said Amnestys Noor Mir. Authorities are already able to vigorously prosecute crimes against law enforcement officers, and there is no history to suggest that officers are not fully protected by current laws. This order will not protect anyone, and instead it creates additional penalties that could cause people to be significantly over-prosecuted for offenses including resisting arrest.

There is a better way, said Mir, but that would require going in a radically different direction than where the Trump administration is headed.

This order does nothing to address real and serious problems in the US criminal justice system, he said. Relationships between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve could instead be improved by investing in reform of the criminal justice system and better training for officers. Police already have laws protecting them, but there is no federal standard for the prosecution of officers who unlawfully kill civilians. Implementing a standard for lethal force in line with international standards will protect both police and civilians.

The Trump administration has outlined an approach to drugs and criminal justice policy with dark Nixonian and Reaganite underpinnings, promising more, more, more heavy-handed policing, more swelling prison populations, and more not less distrust and suspicion between police and the communities they are supposed to serve and protect.

And, in typical Trump fashion, his brash, draconian approach to the complex social problems around crime and drugs is creating a rapid backlash. Whether the rising opposition to Trump can rein in his authoritarian impulses and regressive policy approaches to the issue remains to be seen, but a battle to stop the slide backward is brewing.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionlicensefromStopTheDrugWar.organd was first published here.

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Donald Trump Vows 'Ruthless' War on Drugs and Crime - The Daily Chronic

W.A. Bogart, professor, University of Windsor. Courtesy Dundurn Press.

By Karen Weil and John Guzzon Modern Times Magazine

Feb. 14, 2017 The War On Drugs has been raging in the United States for nearly a century, and over that time period, the U.S. government has perpetuated the battle to its partner nations around the world.But what has The War On Drugs really accomplished?Drug use has not been reduced despite massive budgets and the militarization of police forces around the world and especially in border areas. And, while spending on interdiction and other law enforcement tactics have gone up, illicit drug use in the United States has, in fact, been increasing.According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2013, an estimated 24.6 million Americans aged 12 or older 9.4 percent of the population had used an illicit drug in the past month. In 2002, it was only 8.3 percent. Some espouse even greater law enforcement approaches. Others propose that the only way to reduce drug use or to limit its devastating impacts on the world, is to legalize it.In 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policywhich included amongst its ranks former presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the prime minister of Greece, and former high ranking federal officials George P. Shultz and Paul Volckerrecommended legalization as the best course forward.A big reason is that the commission and others have taken this position is because it spends a lot of cash without getting the results.A recent book, Off The Street: Legalizing Drugs by W.A. Bogart, a professor at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, gets into the heart of the matter and then some. Bogart says the very nature of making something illegal is counterproductive to use reduction.He pointed to success in driving down tobacco use through public health campaigns as one example of why making substances people want to ingest illegal is doomed to failure. Bogarts previous work on eating habits and obesity led him to take the concept even further to drug use.He gratefully agreed to sit down with us to talk about his book, The War On Drugs and possible solutions. Included below are some snippets from our podcast. (link here)MT: Your last book addressed the psychological impacts on food consumption. Why did you decide to tackle illicit drug use?BOGART: Ive long been interested in looking at the affect law has on underlying social and economic issues...it became clear to me that non-medical use of drugs are an outlier. Other uses of drugs whether it is gambling, tobacco use or another, is 'permit but discourage.'MT: You make it clear early on in the book that you are not a drug user besides a glass of Shiraz, some champagne or a gin martini. Why was it important to state that?BOGART: When you write a book about consumption, it is very interesting how people speculate how much one is personally invested in the issues. In terms of my book before, regulating obesity, I had a number of incidents over the phone where the journalists would gradually move toward whether i was obese or not. I came to see people were curious to the extent there was personal investment in the topic...I also came to think that it was important that those who are persuaded for the case of moving towards legalization need to stand up for those who are using.MT: Talk about the history of criminalization of drug prohibition.BOGART: Up until the start of the 20th century, nonmedical use of drugs was something the law was ambivalent to. People used laudanum and opium as a daily pickup...Freud had a cocaine problem. Stevenson wrote Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a cocaine high. Drugs were widely available and widely used. Sure, people were concerned when people developed problems, but there was not the idea that prohibition was the answer....By the 1920s, the idea of prohibition of drugs and alcohol were enacted. The lessons of the cost of prohibition in regards with alcohol, though, was learned and countries moved over to the regulatory side, but that did not happen with drugs.MT: You termed the collapsing of criminalization as a hollowing out, please explain.BOGART: Lets start by answering what The War On Drugs has brought about. Its simple purpose was to end the use of drugs. We know in the 20, 30 or 40 years that it has been going on that suppression is not successful and some rates have even increased. The War, though, has increased collateral costs. We put people in jail because they use a substance and we have substantial resources being used to fight that war when those resources can be used by others. Governments have been deprived revenue sources from and industryand it is an industry. Children have also been hurt. What I mean by a hollowing out is that these changes will not suddenly occur. Many societies are trying to do something about these collateral costs and to do something, they have to move away from criminalization...Part of that hollowing out is the changing perceptions on marijuana.MT: How does prescription drug abuse factor in the legalization equation?BOGART: We have a horrible opioid crisis in Canada as well. It is a tragedy. But the way we are addressing it Canada actually points the way to legalization. I know of no responsible voice in Canada that says the solution is to round up these people and put them in jail. Many of them are committing a legal offense....We think it is better to save lives then throw them in jail.To get more, listen here http://www.moderntimesmagazine.com/ModernTimesPodcasts/170207-MT-Podcast.mp3 or signup via Google Play or ITunes by visiting OUR PODCAST PAGE.

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Is Ending The War On Drugs A Panacea? - Modern Times Magazine

President Donald Trump will take a ruthless approach to people who violate the nations drug laws.

Last week, Trump told law enforcement officials from all over the country that his administration intends to get tougher through the War on Drugs than ever before.During a meeting with the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the president told those in attendance that his projected $21.6 billion wall along the U.S. / Mexico borderand the tenacity of Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kellywould be all it would take the stop the drug cartels.

Its time to stop the drugs from pouring into our country. And, by the way, we will do that, Trump said. And I will say this: General, now Secretary, Kelly will be the man to do it, and we will give him a wall. And it will be a real wall. And a lot of things will happen very positively for your cities, your states, believe me.

President Trump then went on to inform the roomthat his plans to ramp up the drug warwere already in progress.

The wall is getting designed right now, Trump added. A lot of people say, oh, oh, Trump was only kidding with the wall. I wasnt kidding. I dont kid. I dont kid I dont kid about things like that, I can tell you. No, we will have a wall. It will be a great wall, and it will do a lot ofwill be a big help. Just ask Israel about walls. Do walls work? Just ask Israel. They workif its properly done.

So while many had hoped the new administration would take a more progressive approach to dealing with the illicit drug trade, it appears the U.S. is now on the verge of regressing to a time when hammer-fisted policies were king. Apparently, Trump is under the impression that he iscapable of doing what no other president before him has been able to do since President Nixon declared a War on Drugs more than four decades ago.

Unfortunately, Trumps new lease on the drug war may be devastating for the legal cannabis industry.

Last week, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions --a man who remains staunchly opposed to the concept of legal marijuana --was confirmed as the new Attorney General of the United States. There is now a great deal of concern that Sessions may soon cancel out the Obama Administrations hands off approach to legal weed, which is outlined in the Cole Memo, and force any business engaged in the cultivation and sale of marijuana to close its doors.

For the most part, however, the cannabis industry does not seemstoo concerned about encountering the wrath of AG Sessions, mostly because they believe the industry generates too much money for the Trump Administration to even consider such action.

But policy expertssay the cannabis industry couldn't be more wrong.

Your industry is small by any metric of American capitalism, said John Hudak of theBrookings Institution. You are a speck of dust in a clutter of dirt of American capitalism The president is planning to repeal the Affordable Care Act. If you think that hospitals, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry are small enough to be shaken down by the president, but the cannabis industry is too big to face the same challenge from the president, once again, youre insane.

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President Trump Just Renewed the War on Drugs - MERRY JANE - MERRY JANE

(Note: Strong language in seventh paragraph)

By Karen Lema and Martin Petty

MANILA When Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte summoned his security chiefs to an urgent meeting one Sunday night last month, his mind was already made up.

His military and law enforcement heads had no idea what was coming: a suspension of the police force's leading role in his signature campaign, a merciless war on illegal drugs.

There was only one reason for the U-turn, three people who attended the Jan. 29 meeting told Reuters. Duterte was furious that drugs-squad cops had not only kidnapped and murdered a South Korean businessman, they had strangled him to death in the headquarters of the Philippines National Police itself.

"He was straight to the point - 'I am ordering you to disband your anti-drug units, all units'," said Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who was at the meeting in the presidential palace.

Duterte decided that the much smaller Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) would take over the drugs crackdown, with support from the military.

It was a stunning turnaround by Duterte, who had until then stood unswervingly behind his police force through months of allegations that its officers were guilty of extra-judicial killings and colluding with hit men in a campaign that has claimed the lives of more than 7,600 people, mostly drug pushers and users, in seven months.

The blunt-spoken president had repeatedly defied calls from United Nations, the United States and the European Union to rein in his war on drugs, calling them stupid and 'sons of bitches'. Duterte's aides were used to his mercurial style, but they were taken aback that the killing of one foreigner would be enough to stop him in his tracks.

One explanation is that relations with South Korea are of huge importance to the Philippines for development aid, tourism, overseas employment and military hardware.

But security officials said it was the audacity of the killing of Jee Ick-joo and the attempt to use the war on drugs as a cover for kidnap and ransom that triggered his decision.

"It's all about the Korean. That it happened at all, it's really that (which) pissed him off," Lorenzana told Reuters.

PDEA Director General Isidro Lapena, who was also at the meeting, hadn't seen it coming either. He said in an interview that the president had lambasted the police force and told them that the "deactivation" and purge of its anti-drugs unit was now as important as the drugs war itself.

Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa told Reuters that Duterte had been "really mad" about the incident and, after the meeting, the president publicly denounced the police force as "corrupt to the core".

"SO OBVIOUS"

The president's legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, said the president, a former prosecutor, makes decisions strictly on the basis of the letter of the law. Activists' allegations of summary executions had no supporting evidence, he said, yet to Duterte, Jee's killing was irrefutable, audacious and embarrassing.

"The committing of that crime was so obvious," he said.

Worried that the incident would dent the Philippines' image in South Korea, Duterte sent Panelo to Seoul to apologize to acting president Hwang Kyo-ahn.

Seoul is Manila's biggest supplier of military hardware, donating or selling fighter jets, patrol boats, frigates and trucks.

About 1.4 million South Koreans visited the Philippines in the first 10 months of 2016 - a quarter of all tourists arrivals - lured by beaches, golf and the sex industry. Korean tourists spend an average $180-$200 daily, and their overall spending is triple that of U.S. visitors.

South Korea is the Philippines' fifth-largest source of development aid and in 2015 invested $520 million in areas like power, tourism and electronics manufacturing.

About 55,000 Filipinos work in South Korea and the Philippines attracts Koreans studying English, over 3,700 of them last year.

A South Korean diplomat in Manila said there were no threats or pressure on the Philippine government over the killing of the businessman, but Seoul wanted a guarantee of safety for its citizens and a secure investment climate.

Hoik Lee, president of the Korean Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines, said South Koreans felt increasingly unsafe in the country.

The chamber's membership has grown from 20 firms in 1995 to 500 companies now, including Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Hanjin and LG, but Lee estimated that the Korean community has shrunk by about a third to 100,000 people since 2013 despite the bright economic outlook in the Philippines.

"Police should protect us not kill us," Lee said. "That is why we are very upset and very shocked."

The number of Koreans murdered in the Philippines averages about 10 each year, accounting for a third of all Korean nationals killed overseas, according to Seouls foreign ministry.

However, South Koreans are perpetrators of crime as much as they are its victims in the Philippines, says the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, which has a Korean desk handling cases of kidnappings, murder, robbery, theft, extortion and fraud, mostly in Korean communities, where mafias operate.

For a Graphic on Tourism in the Philippines, click: here

For a Graphic on South Koreans in the Philippines, click: here

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul and Neil Jerome Morales and Manuel Mogato in Manila; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

UNITED NATIONS/SEOUL The U.N. Security Council denounced North Korea's weekend missile launch, urging members to "redouble efforts" to enforce sanctions against the reclusive state, but gave no indications of any action it might take.

CARACAS Venezuela's powerful vice president on Tuesday called his blacklisting by the United States on drug charges an "imperialist aggression" in the first bilateral flare-up under new U.S. President Donald Trump.

ANKARA Turkey-backed rebels have largely taken control of Syria's al-Bab from Islamic State militants, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Tuesday, but a war monitoring group said the jihadists still controlled most of the town.

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Death of a businessman: How the Philippines drugs war was slowed - Reuters

Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa, flanked by religious leaders, outside Bamburi Police Station in Mombasa County yesterday, where suspected drug traffickers arrested over the weekend were taken. [photo: Maarufu Mohamed/Standard]

At least nine people were arrested and heroin worth Sh170 million confiscated as the police intensified the war against drugs at the Coast.

Besides the 17 kilogrammes of heroin, the officers also recovered Sh18.4 million in cash from some of the suspects in night raids in several estates, including Nyali and Kisauni in Mombasa County as well as Kanamai in Kilifi County on Saturday and Sunday.

Coast region, particularly Mombasa, has been on the spotlight since late last month when the Government launched the anti-narcotics war.

The war was upped by the extradition of the Akasha brothers, alongside and Indian and a Pakistani, to the US to face drugs-related charges. And on Saturday, two retired South African soldiers were arrested when the police raided a hotel and an apartment in Mombasa.

However, lawyer Cliff Ombeta said Marc Anthony Faivelewitz and Barend David Nolte are innocent. He said they entered Kenya two weeks ago and were to work as bodyguards to one (Vijaygiri) Goswami.

Ombeta claims the two entered Kenya legally, on tourist visas, on the invitation by Goswami, the Indian national who was extradited to the US alongside Gulam Hussein of Pakistan, Baktash Akasha and Ibrahim Akasha to face drug trafficking charges.

ALSO READ: SA, Seychelles nationals held in narcotics crackdown

The South Africans were arrested at Nyali Beach hotel. They are said to have been in the process of obtaining new visas to enable them offer security services in Kenya.

Two Seychellois men, Nelson Vivian George's Domingeuz and Nedy Conrad Rodney Micock, were also arrested in a raid on an apartment in Nyali estate, Mombasa. Their legal status in Kenya was not clear with claims they have been deported.

The police have claimed four of the suspects are partners in international crime and have been on the list of wanted criminals for years. There are reports the arrests were as a result of combined efforts between officials from different security agencies and Interpol.

Ombeta admitted there are arrest warrants against the Seychellois but not the South Africans. Tanzanians were also among those arrested. The law student, identified as Wendy Kinyua, is said to have been found with a lot of cash at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa where she was reportedly trying to board a plane to Nairobi. The police have since linked her to the Seychellois Micock.

Yesterday, Shanzu Senior Principal Magistrate Diana Mochache gave the police five days to investigate the suspects. The prosecution said more people are set to arrested.

"The suspects should be detained in Nyali to allow the police complete investigations. They should, however, be treated fairly, given food and clean water," said Mochache.

Coast Regional Coordinator Nelson Marwa and head of the Anti-Narcotic Unit Hamis Massa said they will not relent until all drug dealers are arrested and prosecuted. Those nabbed in the Kanamai raid are Swaleh Yussuf Ahmed Kendereni and his in-law Farida Omar Said. They two are said to be key distributors.

ALSO READ: SA, Seychelles nationals held in narcotics crackdown

Also arrested was Kendereni's wife Asma Abdalla Mohamed who led detectives to Bamburi where 15 kilogrammes of heroin were found in a store belonging to Farida. Kendereni was among those taken to court yesterday. Rashid Athuman and Athuman Salim, found in Kendereni's company during the raid, were also arrested.

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Sh170m heroin recovered in war on drugs at Coast - The Standard (press release)

The PNP's Criminal Investigation and Detection Group will be the lead unit in the anti-gambling campaign

Published 2:00 PM, February 13, 2017

Updated 2:00 PM, February 13, 2017

NEW TARGET. PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa orders a 'war against illegal gambling.' File photo by Ben Nabong/Rappler

MANILA, Philippines After being booted out from President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, the Philippine National Police (PNP) will now be entering a "war against illegal gambling."

"The bottomline is the national advocacy to rid the country of all forms of illegal gambling activities that contribute to moral decay and provide an economic support system that sustains other forms of illegal activity," PNP chief Ronald dela Rosa said in a statement on Monday, February 13, a few days after Executive Order (EO) No. 13, which seeks to "intensify" the government's efforts against illegal gambling, took effect.

"Based on our own experience, illegal gambling activities, if left unchecked, breed corruption and may mutate into other forms of organized crime, including drug-trafficking, illegal vices, money laundering, and kidnapping," said Dela Rosa.

He added: "By this pronouncement, the PNP is hereby declaring war against illegal gambling."

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) will be taking the lead in implementing the EO on behalf of the PNP, Dela Rosa said.

Other government agencies involved include the National Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

It isn't the first time that Dela Rosa has announced the PNP's plan to curb illegal gambling. Back in August, when the war on drugs was in its early stages, Dela Rosa said illicit gambling would be next once they were finished targeting illegal substances.

But those announcements were made months before the PNP's abrupt exit from the war on drugs on Duterte's own orders.

The President, whose anti-drug campaign was a major campaign promise in 2016, ordered a stop to all police anti-drug operations after it was revealed that cops from the Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (AIDG) allegedly kidnapped and killed a South Korean businessman.

Duterte also ordered the disbandment of all AIDG units. The President said then that the PNP was "corrupt to the core."

'Double barrel' vs illegal gambling

Dela Rosa said that even before the EO was signed by Duterte, the PNP had already created a "double barrel" plan for illegal gambling similar to their plan for the war on drugs.

The PNP's approach to the drug war involved two facets "high-value targets" such as drug lords, and "Oplan TokHang" which targeted "street-level" drug personalities.

"TokHang," however, has been criticized for supposedly violating human rights. It has also been allegedly used by police as a smokescreen for illegal activities.

The Court of Appeals recently issued a permanent protection order for an alleged TokHang survivor and victims' families in Payatas, Quezon City.

Dela Rosa said the PNP initially planned to create an "Oplan TokHang" for gambling, but he added that they would "abide [by] the provisions of the Executive Order." Rappler.com

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After war on drugs, it's 'war vs illegal gambling' for PNP - Rappler

By Dante Pastrana 13 February 2017

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this month ordered the suspension of police involvement in his brutal war on drugs that has left thousands dead throughout the country. All units of the Anti-Illegal Drug Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) were ordered dissolved and the PNPs Operation Tokhang (Knock and Plead), a campaign of house visits and intimidation of those accused of illegal drug activity, was put on hold.

The pullback of the police by no means indicates the end of Dutertes war. It portends an even greater escalation. Vowing to continue the offensive until the end of his term, Duterte called on the military to take the front line. This will widen and deepen the violence being inflicted on the working class and the poor.

Duterte is not only militarising his war on the poor, conducted on the pretext of the anti-drug crusade. He has also moved to resurrect the hated Philippine Constabulary, the military apparatus of domestic repression, created by the United States during its colonial rule in the country and used by former President Ferdinand Marcos to implement martial law.

Duterte is proposing to make this section of the military responsible for continuing the program of state-sanctioned vigilante killings. This is a marked development in Dutertes own rapid drive toward dictatorial power and direct military rule.

The sidelining of the Philippine police followed the exposure last month of police involvement in the abduction and murder of Jee Ick Joo, a South Korean businessman. Jee was seized last October from his home in Angeles city, two hours from Manila, the countrys capital, by a PNP Anti-Illegal Drug Group unit under the guise of an anti-illegal drug operation.

On the same day, Jee was brought to Camp Crame, the PNP national headquarters, where he was strangled. The unit demanded and received $US100,000 in ransom for the by-then deceased Jee, and then, even more brazenly, demanded an additional ransom of nearly $100,000 more.

Three other South Koreans have since come forward claiming that they have also been accused of illegal drug activity by police, detained, beaten up and forced to cough up large sums of money for their release.

The toll of the war on drugs has been horrendous. Since Dutertes assumption of office, 7,080 people have been killedof that number, 2,555 by the police and 4,525 by death squads. Underscoring the intimate connection between the police and the death squads, following Dutertes orders, extrajudicial killings dropped sharply, from over 30 deaths a day to one a day.

On January 31, Amnesty International released a report on its latest investigation into the killings. Entitled, If you are poor you are killed: Extrajudicial Executions in the Philippines War on Drugs, the report states:

Police officers routinely bust down doors in the middle of the night and then kill in cold blood unarmed people suspected of using or selling drugs. In several cases documented by Amnesty International, witnesses described alleged drug offenders yelling they would surrender, at times while on their knees or in another compliant position.

They were still gunned down. To cover their tracks, police officers appear often to plant evidence and falsify incident reports.

According to the report, the killings have engendered an economy of death, where the police and the death squads are provided financial incentives for each death. It states:

A police officer with more than a decade of experience on the force, and who currently conducts operations as part of an anti-illegal drugs unit in Metro Manila, told Amnesty International that there are significant under-the-table payments for encounters in which alleged drug offenders are killed.

This source said the police are paid by the encounter The amount ranges from 8,000 pesos ($US161) to 15,000 pesos ($302) That amount is per head. So if the operation is against four people, thats 32,000 pesos ($644) Were paid in cash, secretly, by headquarters Theres no incentive for arresting. Were not paid anything.

In addition, Amnesty International recounts strong evidence of state authorities paying off assassins to carry out drug-related killings. Two individuals paid to kill alleged drug offenders told Amnesty International that their boss is an active duty police officer; they reported receiving around 10,000 pesos ($201) per killing.

The Amnesty report points to the class character of the war on drugs. Those killed are overwhelmingly from the urban poor. Many were unemployed and lived in informal settlements or squatter communities.

The killings mean further misery for already impoverished families, at times compounded by police officers stealing from them during crime scene investigations. A woman whose husband was killed said the police took goods she sold on commission, money she set aside for the electric bill, and even new shoes she bought for her child.

The targeting of the poor is no accident. Intensifying inequality is fuelling deep social tensions and unrest, with brutal repression the only answer of the Filipino ruling class.

The more than a decade of economic growth recorded for the Philippines has been built on the backs of the working class and the poor. In 2014, out of a population of 100 million, 50 people held over $74.2 billion in assets, equivalent to 25.7 percent of the 2014 gross domestic product. Their wealth increased $8.45 billion from the previous year, cornering 51 percent of economic growth for 2014.

This obscene level of wealth is a product of the export of cheap labour around the world and the brutal exploitation of even cheaper labour locally. Over 2.4 million workers are abroad as overseas contract workers, joining more than 8 million Filipino economic migrants. These overseas Filipinos, enduring long hours, low wages and few chances to visit family, sent back $29.1 billion last year.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the minimum daily wage in Manila is barely $10 and in the provinces, as low as $5 a day.

While huge wealth is being accumulating at one end of the social scale, more than 26 million people are living below the poverty threshold of a monthly income of $184. Of these, more than 12 million people are living in extreme poverty on less than $128 a month and could not even meet their basic food needs.

Amid growing social inequality and massive poverty, the Philippine ruling class is preparing to use the state apparatus and associated vigilantes to intimidate and suppress any opposition by the working class and the poor. That is the significance of Dutertes anti-drug war and his assumption of increasingly draconian powers.

Read the rest here:

Duterte militarises the war on drugs in the Philippines - World Socialist Web Site

This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

Attention deficit disorder isnt usually a welcome presidential attribute, but Mexicans can be thankful that Donald Trump has temporarily shifted his focus away from their country to pick fights instead with Iran, the European Union, China, California and the U.S. media.

The last time Trump addressed Mexico, right after the election, the peso fell 17 percent. Within days of his inauguration, Trump demanded that Mexico pay for a border wall, prompting cancellation of his planned summit meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pea Nieto.

As former Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhanlamented, it took only one week of bilateral engagement between the new U.S. administration and Mexico to throw the relationship into a tailspin. That relationship would be better if Trump had stuck to theview he expressedin November 2015: I dont care about Mexico, honestly. I really dont care about Mexico.

Someday soon, however, Trump will rediscover his interest in Mexico, and relations will likely suffer again. But Mexico need not take his abuse lying down. As the buyer of more than aquartertrilliondollars in U.S. exports the second largest market in the world for U.S. goods Mexico has some leverage if Trump tries to play rough with tariffs and trade.

And if Trump persists in sending a bill to Mexico City for his wall, Pea should seriously consider sending a bill in return to Washington to pay for the U.S. drug war.

The high cost to Mexico of the U.S. drug war

For years now, Mexico has paid an extraordinarily high price in lives and social disruption for Washingtons insistence that North Americas drug problem be tackled south of the border, where the drugs are grown and transported, rather than primarily in clinics and halfway houses at home to treat the medical and psychological issues of users.

Successive administrations, starting with President Richard Nixon, have demanded tough border controls, aerial spraying programs and DEA-backed anti-cartel operations in Mexico. All their efforts and sacrifices have been for naught. U.S. residentscurrentlyexport up to $29 billion in cash to Mexican traffickers each year to buy marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines and heroin.

Forcing that trade underground has taken a terrible toll on Mexico in terms of violence, corruption and social upheaval. Since 2006, when President Felipe Caldern ordered his military to join the war on drug traffickers, Mexico has lost about200,000 livesand 30,000 more have disappeared,dwarfingthe civilian death toll in Afghanistan and Iraq over that period.

The majority of them were victims of criminal organizations, but human rights organizations also reportsoaring rates of human rights violations, including torture and killing, committed by security forces.

The2016 Global Peace Index, prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace, estimates the total cost of violence in Mexico at $273 billion, or 14 percent of GDP, with no end in sight.Direct fiscal costsof fighting the war on crime were about $32 billion in 2015 alone. Yet the United States has contributed only about $2.5 billion since fiscal 2008 to Mexicos drug war, under the so-called Merida Initiative.

Mexicos pain shows no signs of easing. The New York Timesreportedin December that Mexico suffered more than 17,000 homicides in the first 10 months of last year, the highest total since 2012. The relapse in security has unnerved Mexico and led many to wonder whether the country is on the brink of a bloody, all-out war between criminal groups, it said.

Time for an alternative

In his last phone call with Mexican President Pea,Trump reportedly complained, You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have to be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out. According to one disputed account,Trump threatenedto send U.S. troops south of the border if Mexico doesnt do more to stop the drug problem.

Pea can continue to do Washingtons bidding,ensuring his political demise, or he can challenge Trump by asking why Mexico should fight North Americas drug war on its own soil and at its own expense. If he goes the latter route, hell have plenty of good company.

Former heads of state from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, along with other distinguished members of theGlobal Commission on Drug Policy, have called for normalization of drugs eliminating black markets and incentives for violence by legalizing individual possession and cultivation of drugs while instituting public health regulations. They note that such programs have succeeded admirably in Portugal and the Netherlands at reducing both the criminal and public health costs of drug abuse.

The harms created through implementing punitive drug laws cannot be overstated when it comes to both their severity and scope, they assert in their 2016 report, Advancing Drug Policy Reform. Thus, we need new approaches that uphold the principles of human dignity, the right to privacy and the rule of law, and recognize that people will always use drugs. In order to uphold these principles all penalties both criminal and civil must be abolished for the possession of drugs for personal use.

Support for decriminalization is growing in Mexico, where the supreme court in 2015approvedgrowing and smoking marijuana for personal use. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox nowadvocateslegalizing all drugs over a transition period of up to a decade.

Jorge Castaeda, a former Mexican foreign minister, recentlyopined, Mexico should take advantage of Californias decision to legalize recreational marijuana. Regardless of Mr. Trumps victory, the approval of the proposition in the United States most populous state makes Mexicos war on drugs ridiculous. What is the purpose of sending Mexican soldiers to burn fields, search trucks and look for narco-tunnels if, once our marijuana makes it into California, it can be sold at the local 7-Eleven?

Criticsrightly point out that what works in the Netherlands wont necessarily solve Mexicos problems. Its powerful drug gangs have diversified into a host of other violent criminal enterprises. They control territory, intimidate or corrupt law enforcement, and kill with impunity. Legalizing drug sales wont end their criminal ways, but it could erode their profits and let police focus on universally despised crimes with direct victims murder, kidnapping, extortion and the like.

As Mexican journalist Jos Luis Pardo Veirasremarkedlast year, Decriminalizing drug use will not fix a deeply rooted problem in this country, but it will allow Mexicans to differentiate between drugs and the war on drugs, between drug users and drug traffickers. This is the first step in acknowledging that a different approach is possible.

As for Trump, let him build his wall and see if that keeps out all the drugs. If not, maybe by then Mexico will be able to offer some useful advice on how to fight the drug problem not with guns, but with more enlightened policies.

Read the original here:

Unnecessary fighting south of the border: Mexico should ask Trump to pay for the drug war - Salon

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is changing his deadly war on drugs.

The change came after the killing last October of a South Korean businessman by Philippine police officers working on the drug war.

The police agency blamed for killing the businessman has been suspended from anti-drug efforts.

Duterte has put the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in charge of anti-drug efforts. Duterte said the Philippine military would also assist efforts to stop illegal drug selling and use in the Philippines.

The businessman, Jee Ick-joo, was picked up by police and quickly killed, according to news reports in the Philippines.

The news reports said police led his family to believe Jee was still alive for several weeks, as they continued to ask for ransom payments.

Police offered no evidence that the businessman had any connection to illegal drugs.

Choi Kyung-jin, left, widow of South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo, and their former housekeeper, appear before Philippine Senate Committee.

Duterte criticizes corrupt police

Duterte spoke this week to 400 police officers reportedly under investigation for corruption and other misconduct.

He said corrupt police would be sent for two years to a southern island that is a stronghold of Islamist militants.

Duterte also spoke about former Colombian President Cesar Gavirias recent column in the New York Times. The column was titled, President Duterte Is Repeating My Mistakes.

Duterte called Gaviria an idiot for warning that throwing more soldiers and police at the drug users does not work.

Gaviria wrote in the New York Times column that doing so is not just a waste of money, but also can actually make the problem worse.

Reuters news agency reported that Duterte said his war on drugs is different than Colombias because shabu, or methamphetamine, is the common drug choice in the Philippines. The drug damages the brain. Duterte said the effects of cocaine, the drug of choice by Colombias sellers and users, are not as bad.

Last week, Catholic Bishops in the Philippines wrote a letter that was read at church services. The letter called on Catholics to speak out against the violent drug war.

Let us not allow fear to reign and keep us silent, the bishops wrote.

Human Rights Watch has been critical of Dutertes war on drugs. The group says that more than 7,000 Filipinos have been killed in the war on drugs since Duterte became president in June of 2016.

Human Rights Watch has asked for the United Nations to investigate.

Phelim Kine, the Asian director for Human Rights Watch said that the Philippine police wont seriously investigate themselves, so the UN should take the lead in conducting an investigation.

Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English based on reporting by Reuters and other news sources. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and share your views on our Facebook Page.

_____________________________________________________________

ransom - n. money that is paid in order to free someone who has been captured or kidnapped

misconduct - n. bad behavior

idiot - n. a very stupid or foolish person

methamphetamine - n. a powerful, addictive, stimulant that affects the central nervous system

cocaine - n. a drug that is used in medicine to stop pain or is taken illegally for pleasure

reign - n. to rule

conduct - v. to carry out

Read the original:

President Duterte Changes and Defends Philippine Drug War - Voice of America

War on drugs in Kenya. (Photo: Courtesy)

The drug trafficking issue has made it to the news cycle yet again. This time it is driven by the extradition of Akasha sons to the US to face drug trafficking charges.

In the absence of solid data, anecdotal evidence ranging from the increase in arrests of traffickers to the magnitude of heists, indicates an increase in the volumes of drugs being transited through Kenya. Undoubtedly, this is a serious issue.

As a country, it seems that we speak and attempt to deal with the issue regularly, but often with little success. In my view, this status of events can be explained by the politicisation of the issue.

Gernot Klantschnig, an expert on social policy and international crimes, examined the War on drugs in Nigeria and showed how the efforts to deal with drug trafficking had been politicised. He examined the narrative on the governments efforts to deal with drugs and established that it was characterised by three core elements: crisis, correction and success. This seems to be the same case here in Kenya.

First, characterised as a worsening crisis, the drug issue is always presented in a highly sensationalised manner taking two broad dimensions. For one, the country is presented as inevitably heading down to become a narco-state, falling from its current respectable status. The most significant concern in this respect is that drug money is being used to attain positions of influence, particularly in politics.

This view appears to be somewhat validated by the regular connection of powerful individuals to the drug trade. Naturally this leads people to worry whether our law-enforcement agencies can adequately address the issue. The other dimension is the fear that drugs will wipe out an entire generation of youth and hence rob Kenya of her promising future. Senior leaders, including the President, have previously expressed concern that drugs, by ruining young lives, will deny our country a bright future.

ALSO READ: Joho opens up on drugs claims

These views are based on alarmist speculations of interested parties. Instead, the government approach to such an issue should be based on a solid base of evidence and analysis that helps shape the strategy of intervention.

The second part of the drug narrative is correction; communicating the idea that the government is doing something about it. In this respect, the government has on various occasions put drug dealers and traffickers on notice. The most recent of these statements was issued by the Inspector General of the Police, Joseph Boinnet, who said the State is determined to uproot the tree, the roots, the stem and the leaves.

This is often accompanied by threats, such as the one issued by the President recently that the State machinery would be used to cut off their operations and arrest key individuals involved in drug trafficking. On other occasions, the game is to name and shame as demonstrated by when the late Prof George Saitoti named suspected drug barons in Parliament when he was Minister for Internal Security.

Threatening people or naming and shaming them without arresting them and parading them in court opens the State up for criticism of politicising the issue. And often, the accused individuals respond to the claims, following a fairly standard script. Often, they start with denying the accusations and the proceed to indicate that they are good and responsible citizens even good Christians or Muslims - who are being targeted by their political and business rivals. As in the case of Joho last week, some of them dare the government to arrest them if they have evidence. The arrests are usually not forthcoming.

The final part of the narrative is success; often an indication that we are winning this war. Even in the absence of evidence, the government tries to demonstrate some form of success in their efforts.

However, whether it is destruction of drugs or extradition of suspects, or regular arrests of drugs and arrest of dealers and traffickers, these indications of success punctuate long durations of outright failure. To be fair though, such instance signals commitment on the part of government and demonstrate the competence of our law enforcement agencies that is often ignored.

Our limited success in these areas is demonstrated by the politicisation of efforts to deal with this vice ranging from over-emphasizing the importance of the issue, naming and shaming people without the evidence to charge them in court and celebrating small successes, without a view of how big victories would look like.

ALSO READ: Exposed: Secretive Akashas dynasty

Read more:

Why war on drugs fires up our soft political underbelly - The Standard (press release)