Category Archives: War On Drugs

Police described it as the first "narcosubmarine" to be intercepted in Europe, adding in a statement that it had been found in waters off the northwestern region of Galicia on Saturday, stuffed with 152 neatly-wrapped bales of cocaine.

The estimated street value of the drugs is 100m, Javier Losada, head of the central government delegation in Galicia, told reporters on Wednesday.

"This is a historic operation, one that will mark a before and after for security forces as they now contend with this new possibility," Losada said.

Video released by Spanish police on Wednesday showed divers entering the rusty vessel through a small top hatch before they refloated it using air bags.

Spanish officials said they were initially tipped off about the vessel by an inter-governmental working group on drug smuggling, setting off a search that tracked down the submarine on Saturday night.

Rough waters had complicated efforts to transfer the drugs to another boat, leading the suspects to sink the submarine before abandoning it. As they did so, they were spotted by patrolling officers, police said.

Police arrested an Ecuadorian national on the scene who was wearing a wetsuit. On Sunday morning a second Ecuadorian was arrested while a third suspect remains on the run.

Police, noting that the use of submarines to transport drugs in the Americas is quite common, described the submarine as "homemade" and capable of transporting between three and five tons of cocaine.

It was later transported to a port in Cangas, in Pontevedra province, where the cocaine-filled packages were removed from the interior, police added. The investigation continues, as police work to determine the origin of the drugs and who they were destined for.

Spanish police said the operation also relied on help from police forces from Brazil, Portugal and the United States.

PA Media

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Discovery of narcosubmarine carrying three tons of cocaine hailed as an 'historic' turning point in war on drugs - Independent.ie

Corazon, the recovery coach,says the Cascadia Psychedelic Community, which she founded, is one in a network of more than 100 local psychedelic societies stretching from San Francisco to Norway, Britain, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republicand even Nashville. At an international conference last year, representatives of those societies traded notes on decriminalization, legalizationand intracommunity challenges, including efforts to guard against sexual abusers operating as therapists.

Closer to home, the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society, which seeks to decriminalize all entheogenic plants and fungi throughout Jefferson County, has already made its case to the local health board, city council, mayor, police chiefand county commission. "So far, everyone has been curious, open-mindedand helpful," says Erin Reading, a member of the campaign.

All in all, says Corazon, were happy to be getting a second or third or 11th chance, whichever it is, to realize the full medical and social potential of psychedelics.

The first chance came serendipitously, in 1943, when a Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffmann accidentally absorbed a bit of lysergic acid diethylamide, a prospective respiratory stimulant he had developed, and experienced apsychedelic trip. Hoffmann went on to synthesize psilocin, psilocybinand other hallucinogens and to hail LSD, his original "problem child," as a valuable aid to meditation and psychotherapy.

In the 1950s and early 60s, psychotherapists reported bracing, even miraculous results using LSD to treat alcoholism, depressionand anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Even Bill Wilson (Bill W.), the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, tried it and hailed its potential; Cary Grant announced his 60 sessions with LSD had made him a happy man. Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life magazines, and his wife, the conservative icon Clare Booth Luce, were enthusiastic psychedelic samplers and boosters. One of Luces headline writers coined the term magic mushrooms.

Then, what Licata calls bad marketing in the form of countercultural excess and the messianic antics of the psychedelic researcher-turned-showmanTimothy Leary got in the way.

Fantastic, sometimes fabricated tales of LSD-induced suicides and other horrors became media staples. President Richard Nixon, fearing (rightly) that chemically assisted mind expansion might encourage dissent and war resistance, declared the first War on Drugs. Drugs proved handy scapegoats and political cudgels just as they would in the 1980s, when the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations rekindled the war. In the 1972 campaign, Nixons supporters falsely but successfully tarred Democrat George McGovern as the candidate of acid, amnesty [for draft resisters] and abortion.

And so psychedelics joined heroin and marijuana on the federal Schedule I list of drugs with "no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse." Funding dried up and research died for nearly three decades. Studies restarted, quietly, in the late 90s and have accelerated since. Better-controlled formal trials and extensive, if covert, treatment experience have supported the earlier findings.

The new John Hopkins center will explore psilocybins effectiveness at treating opioid addiction, Alzheimer's disease, PTSD, chronic Lyme disease, anorexia, and alcohol use in people with major depression. MDMA (Ecstasy), an amphetamine derivative with effects resembling the classic psychedelics, has proven so effective at treating PTSD in early trials that FDA approval for general use is widely anticipated by 2021.

Contrary to what their Schedule I listing presumes, LSD and psilocybin have in seven decades shown virtually no addictive or fatal overdose potential (though they can trigger severe psychological effects in vulnerable individuals, especially in casual, unguided use). Now these drugs are getting another chance in the courts of politics and public opinion.

But is decriminalization even needed in the relatively liberal, tolerant venues like Seattle where its most likely to succeed?

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Mushrooms, meetups and mainstreaming the movement to decriminalize drugs - Crosscut

AFTER Vice President Leni Robredo has been unceremoniously dismissed as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (Icad) by President Rodrigo Duterte, the question now that many are asking is whether or not this is a boon or a bane to her political future.

Being just a heartbeat away from the presidency there is no doubt that she covets the position and there seems to be no other political stalwart in the opposition that can surpass her popularity nor her perceived leadership status as being the forceful person that could likely unseat Duterte.

There could not be a better exemplification of this than the latest saga of her 19-day stint as anti-drug czar when she ended being booted out by the President for not delivering the suitable solution to Dutertes anti-drug campaign, which Robredo criticized as obviously not working.

While Robredo may be right in recognizing that Dutertes war on drugs should not only be viewed in the context of a criminal offense but also in relation to medical and sociological problem, what made her acceptance of the very sensitive job dubious is the fact that until her last day she did not have anything to offer that could be considered the policy foundation of her own anti-drug campaign.

Because Robredo has been very critical of Dutertes bloody war on drugs, the people in general, and Duterte in particular, were expecting that as soon as she accepted the Icad position she would hit the ground running with her concrete and decisive steps to make the governments war against illegal drugs more effective with less destruction of lives, in contrast to Dutertes style that has been highly denounced as cold-blooded.

Alas, it did not come out as highly expected and it disillusioned everybody, including the President. This even prompted Dutertes sidekick, Sen. Bong Go, to twit Robredo, saying, Tokhang turns to toklang [talk lang], in reference to Dutertes distrust of Robredo when the former noted that the latter had been talking to various groups critical of his war on drugs right after she accepted the position to be the governments drug czar.

And so, what is making it a dilemma for Robredo now is that right after Duterte dismissed her as Icad co-chair she vowed to continue the fight and announced that she would disclose something she discovered in the course of waging her version of the war on drugs.

Well, it has been over a week now since her firing and still no published revelations of her discovery. What is it really that she wants the Filipino people to know about Dutertes war on drugs?

Are these unfavorable or unpalatable revelations going to be part of the weapons in Robredos political arsenal to be used against Duterte in her quest for the presidency in 2022?

What to reveal is a dilemma hounding Robredo at the moment, but her greatest dilemma of all, however, is in her presidential aspiration where she has to turn around to her favor the high satisfaction rating Duterte is presently getting in his war on drugs and an equally high approval rating that Duterte is enjoying as President.

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Tell it to SunStar: Robredos problem - Yahoo Philippines News

District Town Officers, Town Officers, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of Revenue & Customs staff, Nuku'alofa. 26 November 2019.

District Town Officers and Town Officers will start promoting tax awareness and assist government with the war on drugs, after the Ministry of Revenue and Customs (MoRC) requested support at a Tax Awareness Program held on 26 November inNukualofa.

MoRC Acting CEO Mr Maamaloa Fotofil and staff explained the core functions of the ministry to the officers who will promote the information to the community through their fono meetings, kava social groups and other gatherings including churchfunctions.

The officers were also expected to advise their communities on any related Revenue and Customs matters they come across. This included compliance with business registration, especially for those who are running businesses without a licence to avoid payingtaxes.

In fighting the war on drugs, the officers will assist the government by monitoring their communities for evidence of the import or dealing of illicitdrugs.

During the program, it was agreed that both parties would continue to meet twice a year in March and August on an annualbasis.

Tax awareness programs will be held separately in all villages from April to June everyyear.

The program links to the Tax Week theme 'Smart borders for a prosperous Tonga' which was celebrated inOctober.

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District Town Officers to assist with tax and drugs awareness - Matangi Tonga

Holly Walker, Contributing WriterNovember 15, 2019

The United States has been engaged in a so-called War on Drugs since President Richard Nixon announced it as part of his law and order presidency in 1971; nearly five decades later, it does not appear to be losing steam.

In the early years of the War on Drugs, the federal government and law enforcement took every effort to clean up the streets, primarily in large cities such as New York and Detroit. The campaign resulted in rapidly increasing rates of mass incarceration, which continues to disproportionately affect African American and Hispanic communities across the United States today. This was the goal of the Nixon administrations anti-drug campaign, according to John Ehrlichman; Nixons former advisor admitted in 1994 that the real enemies were the anti-war left and African Americans fighting for their civil rights.

By associating these communities with certain drugs and subsequently criminalizing them, the desired result of limiting their power and influence on the wider American public soon emerged. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country in the world; it accounts for only 5% of the worlds population, but more than a quarter of the worlds prison population. Similarly, while African Americans and Hispanics constitute approximately 32% of the US population, in 2015 they comprised 56% of all incarcerated people in the United States.

Nevertheless, since the Obama administration, the federal government has attempted to decrease the number of inmates serving life sentences by steadily releasing inmates imprisoned for non-violent, drug-related crimes. In December 2018, Congress successfully enacted the First Step Act, which will release roughly 3,100 US inmates, including many convicted of drug offenses, from federal prisons. Nearly 1,700 further inmates had their sentences reduced after a provision in the law retroactively recalculated sentences to reduce disparities between those who committed crimes involving crack versus powder cocaine, according to Reuters. During the War on Drugs in the latter decades of the twentieth century, the majority of those convicted for crack offenses were racial and ethnic minorities; the enactment of this provision is in line with changing prison demographics, with the gap between the number of black to white prisoners steadily narrowing over the past decade.

Given these statistics, perhaps it is safe to say that the War on Drugs at least in its traditional iteration is over. However, in recent years, the conversation has shifted away from cocaine and towards cannabis, especially as more and more states push for legalization. Although still illegal on the federal level, cannabis has been decriminalized by fifteen states and legalized in another eleven states and Washington D.C. as of June 2019. However, according to Business Insider, the prohibition of cannabis in the United States has inherently racist and xenophobic origins, intended to first criminalize Mexican immigrants in the early twentieth century; by the mid-twentieth century, African Americans were also being targeted. Even the popularisation of the Spanish word marijuana was deliberate for law enforcement to emphasize the dangers of the drug when possessed and used by racial and ethnic minorities.

This disparity has persisted into the twenty-first century. In 2013, the ACLU reported that black people were four times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis, despite both groups using the drug recreationally at a similar rate. Furthermore, in September 2019, the FBI released new crime statistics which revealed that the rates of cannabis-related arrests increased exponentially from previous years, despite the greater push towards legalization. In 2018, US police made over 1.6 million total drug arrests, which translates to one every 19 seconds.

As we draw closer and closer to the new decade, it is clear that the War on Drugs is still being fought in the United States, though in some ways, it does not look much like it did in the 1970s and 1980s. While cannabis-related arrests are on the rise, so is the number of Americans pushing for legalization and decriminalization across the United States. Furthermore, the discourse surrounding drug addiction is gradually changing from criminalization to rehabilitation, and the federal First Step Act is representative of a potential shift towards a less demonizing culture surrounding drug usage and addiction. However, the ongoing opioid crisis is a continual issue that affects several different demographics across American society.

Furthermore, in the last year, even vaping and e-cigarettes are in the Drug Enforcement Administrations crosshairs due to an increase in bootleg vaping cartridges, according to a recent article in the National Interest entitled The War On Drugs 2.0. E-cigarette-related injuries, seizures and even deaths have also increased public fear surrounding vaping, which is evidently being treated in a similar way to more traditional drugs like cannabis and opioids by the DEA. As the types of drugs change, then, their continued criminalization by the United States government is persistent. The War on Drugs, soon to reach its half-century birthday, is far from over.

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The War on Drugs in 2019: Far From Over - The Scarlet

I have always stayed away from drugs, legal or otherwise, but they are a problem that we cant ignore. Recent events reveal the futility of drug prohibition. The massacre of the LeBaron fundamentalist Mormons in the Mexican border state of Sonora is a terrible tragedy.

The large extended LeBaron families are descended from immigrants who fled to Mexico in the late 19th century to freely practice their religion, which allows for polygamy or plural marriage, as the Mormons call it. The tragedy has made obvious the folly of the U.S. war on drugs. This war is driven by the puritanical urge to police human behavior. In the context of religious liberty, which we see as one of our greatest achievements, its noteworthy that Mexico is much more tolerant of polygamy as a religious belief than the U.S. where it is outlawed. But we are spiritual descendants of the Puritans and we have a cultural trait that drives us to ban, prohibit, or make illegal anything seen as abhorrent, immoral and dangerous, even if there is insufficient evidence to justify the ban.

This is why alcohol was made illegal during Prohibition and why there is now a wave of indignation and a movement to ban vaping. And this is why polygamy is illegal and why recreational drugs are illegal. We might abhor polygamy, but in our righteous wrath at the deaths of American women and children we have forgotten that polygamy was the reason that the American LeBarons chose to flee to Mexico. Our sense of moral superiority is so strong that there have been loud calls for a U.S. military intervention to destroy the drug gangs in Mexico. You might feel that this kind of thing would work both ways. Not so. Many of the dead in the recent El Paso Wal-Mart massacre were Mexican citizens. In response the Mexican government politely offered to help U.S. authorities fight the white supremacists who inspired the massacre. But the offer was rejected.

The slaughter of the innocents in Sonora was gruesome but maybe some good can come out of it. Maybe it will make us reevaluate our drug policies, as if the deaths of 150,000 Mexicans (a conservative estimate) since 2006, when the Mexican government at the insistence of the U.S. began its war on the cartels, were not enough to make us forsake our fruitless war on illegal drugs. The war in Mexico now has the character of a full-blown insurgency, with large swaths of the country under the control of the cartels, the often corrupt and ineffectual government having ceded authority to the stronger force. It is not a good thing to have a close neighbor in the throes of horrific violence. The war against the cartels will spread into our country. The disorder extends to Central America, causing the unending flow of migrants headed for our southern border.

We have not benefited from the huge expenditure of treasure and the spilling of blood. We know from their ubiquitous presence that the war on drugs has not stopped the flow of cocaine, heroin, meth, marijuana, etc. into the U.S. But it has caused the incarceration of 500,000 Americans.

Our constitutional due process rights and freedom from unlawful search and seizure are routinely violated by federal authorities who confiscate billions in asset forfeitures every year. Many police agencies have become addicted to easy money from asset forfeiture, leading to increased militarization of civilian police, never a good idea in a democracy. The police focus on the drug war and emphasis on tactics more suitable to urban warfare has led to a breakdown of communication and trust between law enforcement and local communities. This has made police work more dangerous. And there are ripple effects. We have an opioid epidemic, with tens of thousands dead from doctor-prescribed painkillers. But with the scrutiny on doctors and opioids, sufferers turn to the old stand-by, heroin, further incentivizing criminals in Mexico to supply this market.

Lets be honest. We have an insatiable appetite for drugs and the addictions they breed. Man-made laws cannot control this.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, a lecturer in U.S. Southwest history, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D., is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS, a lecturer in U.S. Southwest history, and a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

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COLUMN: We should end the war on drugs - Colorado Springs Gazette

Following news of the brutal and tragic slaying of women and children in La Mora, Mexico, President Trump took to Twitter to call on Mexico to offer American support in Mexicos drug war. This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president! he tweeted.

While President Trump is right to want to see those responsible held accountable for their actions, its wrong to pretend that governments havent been waging a war on drugs for several decades now and that it has been anything other than a costly failure.

For decades, drug prohibition has provided a lucrative revenue source for cartels, street gangs, terrorist organizations and guerilla groups around the world.

While millions of Americans have been hit with criminal records, and hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed in conflicts financed by drug trafficking, what do we have to show for it?

An opioid crisis. Continued street gang violence. And perpetually destabilized neighbors to the south. Alas, the message now, as in years past, is the same: We must double down on a failed approach.

In 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon deployed the military to reduce drug violence in the Mexican state of Michoacn. The intentions were good, but the results have been tragic.

According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, since 2006, about 150,000 organized crime-linked murders have happened in Mexico, with violence getting worse in recent years.

Former presidents of Mexico Vicente Fox and Ernesto Zedillo have come to realize that the war on drugs cannot be won and have called for legalization and other reforms to global drug policy. Its a position Trump himself once held. Were losing badly the war on drugs, Trump said in 1990. You have to legalize drugs to win that war.

Little has changed since 1990, though Trump had the right idea then.

The status quo does little to nothing to stop drug abuse, while enriching violent cartels. More of the same or a wall wont change that.

If Americans want a more stable Mexico and Central America, as well as a more humane drug policy, they should support drug law reform.

-- Orange County Register, MediaNews Group

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Editorial: War on Drugs has been a failure - The Reporter

THE presidential palace wants to ban a foreign human rights activist for allegedly interfering in President Rodrigo R. Dutertes deadly war on drugs.

Phelim Kine, former deputy director for Asia of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, should be banned for tweeting that Mr. Duterte and his henchmen should be arrested for instigating mass murder, presidential spokesman Salvador S. Panelo said at a briefing yesterday.

He has already reached a conclusion this is a murderous country, he said.

Mr. Kine also wrote he was ready to come to the Philippines to help advise Vice President Maria Leonor G. Robredo on how to end this murderous drug war.

Philippine police have said they have killed about 6,000 people in illegal drug raids, many of them resisting arrest. Some local nongovernmental organizations and the national Commission on Human Rights have placed the death toll at more than 27,000.

Mr. Duterte earlier put the vice president in charge of his anti-illegal drug campaign.

Mr. Panelo said the human rights activists entry into the Philippines was an intrusion into the nations sovereignty.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr. on Monday warned Mr. Kine he would be denied entry.

Mr. Duterte in August ordered all agencies to reject loans and grants from 41 countries that had backed a probe of his deadly war on drugs that has killed thousands.

The United Nations Human Rights Council on July 11 ordered its human rights office to present a comprehensive report as it expressed concerns about human rights violations in the Philippines.

The body adopted a resolution that Iceland proposed and 17 other nations voted for. Twenty-four other nations who co-sponsored the resolution did not vote.

The resolution drew the ire of Mr. Duterte, who writhes at Western condemnation of his drive that is widely supported by Filipinos.

The UN council urged the government to cooperate with UN offices by allowing visits by its officials and by refraining from all acts of intimidation or retaliation.

The resolution also called on the Philippines take all necessary measures to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, to carry out impartial investigations and to hold perpetrators accountable.

The government has dismissed the council order, saying states who supported it had been misinformed about the Philippine situation.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address in July, Mr. Duterte said drug traffickers must be put to death, noting that the illegal drug menace persists despite his deadly war on drugs.

Majority of Filipinos remained satisfied with Mr. Dutertes war on drugs despite worldwide criticism, according to the Social Weather Stations June poll.

The polling firm found that 82% of Filipinos were satisfied with the governments illegal drug campaign, while only 12% were dissatisfied, resulting in an excellent +70 net satisfaction rating. GMC

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Gov't to block foreign activist critical of drug war - BusinessWorld Online

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter,The Daily Appeal.

Last week, voters delivered decisive wins for Democrats in Virginia, giving the party full control of state government for thefirst time since 1994, according to the New York Times. Daniel Nichanian of The Appeal: Political Reporthighlighted the victoriesof three Democratic prosecutor candidates running on decarceration platforms in the state: The Election Day results overhauled Virginias landscape in particular, broadening the geography of decarceration, and paving the way for advocates to scale upcounty-level reforminto demands for statewide change.

The legislature could tackle proposals to decriminalize pot, restrict disenfranchisement, lessen sentencing guidelines and felony thresholds, and strengthen discovery rules, Nichanian wrote. The newly elected prosecutors all pledged to challenge the lobbying power of the Virginia Association of Commonwealths Attorneys, the state prosecutors group that consistently opposes reform.

With Democrats taking control in the state and voters in multiple jurisdictions supporting prosecutor candidates who believe it is their responsibility to tackle mass incarcerationin their jurisdictions and at the state levelthe stage should be set for the state to shrink the footprint of and repair some of the harm inflicted by the criminal legal system.

For this reason it is especially important to follow one of the major issues that Virginia Democrats ran on:gun control.

For too long, the central debate in gun control policy has been between Republicans who oppose limits on gun ownership and Democrats who advocate limits. In this debate, the NationalRifleAssociation and its adherents are the easy villains. But this obscures the questions aboutthe type of policies adopted, as Daniel Denvir haspointed out. For too long, gun control has defaulted to using criminal law and the punishment system, with the familiar, inexcusable risks for people of color, particularly Black, Latinx, and Native men and boys.

In a 2015 law review article, Benjamin Levin, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School,arguedthat the lessons of the war on drugs should be applied to gun control policies.

Like criminal drug statutes, existing and proposed criminal gun possession statutes should also trigger skepticism from critics of mass incarceration, Levin wrote. If we are concerned about mass incarceration because of its social or economic costs, we should subject to close scrutiny any legislation that further ramps up punishment or potentially increases the number of individuals serving extended sentences.

Levin looked at how gun possession laws were the product of two troubling trends. Criminal laws that target gun possession, he wrote, stand at once as markers of two concurrent, and seemingly inconsistent, trends in U.S. penal culture: criminal law as the regulatory mechanism of choice and punitive, extended incarceration as the dominant form of punishment. That is, the state governs through crime, stripping the criminal offense of many of its exceptional qualities; yet, the state punishes as though the criminal law remains exceptional, a space reserved for those who have violated the deep-seated moral values of the community, rather than those who have fallen afoul of yet another legislative diktat.

What is urgent, Levin wrote, is to consider how we might imagine a legal architecture for gun regulation that avoids the pitfalls of the War on Drugs. And in what might serve as a caution for (mostly Democratic) legislators and journalists around the country, he noted that, We live in a world of hard cases, and criminalization and turning to criminal punishment should be hard. Recognizing the seriousness of a social problem should not necessarily be enough to trigger a harsh criminal solution. Recognizing criminal laws staggering social costs should be the legacy of the War on Drugs.

Last month, The AppealsMedia Framecolumn looked at one-sided reporting on gun violence in Charlotte, North Carolina. When the problem of gun crime is examined through the eyes of law enforcement only, the solutions to the problem are unsurprisingly myopic,wroteAdam Johnson. Those interviewed in the piece believe the answer lies with tougher laws and more resources for police and prosecutors. The well-documented idea that gun violence could be prevented or deterred byinvesting in resourcesinto health clinics, anti-poverty programs, recreation centers, schools, public parks, or other public services that improve community ties and increase standards of living is never explored.

The debates, which develop momentum after mass shootings, also ignorethe complexity of gun violenceand the reality that gun deaths are largely suicides and homicides that disproportionately affect communities of color. Black men and boys make up 6 percent of the U.S. population but are more than half of the countrys gun homicide victims.

(In a policy plan released last month, Senator Cory Booker, a Democratic presidential candidate, and Representative Steven Horsford introduced abillthat would fund a multi-year approach to addressing gun violence that does not default to using the criminal legal system. The plan calls for the allocation of $90 million a year to reducing gun violence. As The Guardianreported, the bill does not include any gun control provisions: its focused on strategies that prevent shootings by focusing on the people, not the guns. It is explicit about lessening the reliance on policing, requiring cities to give at least half of their federal grant dollars under the bill to community organizations that provide services to high-risk people, or to a public department that is not a law enforcement agency.)

In Virginia, the gun control bills championed by Governor Ralph Northam bills seem to rely onfurther criminalizationof gun possession. As voters, media outlets, and state representatives and prosecutors move on from the recent elections, we should pay attention to whether the measures that Democrats introduce to reduce gun violence will build on or flatly contradict the recognition that mass criminalization and mass incarceration are not the social policies we need.

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Democrats Should Deliver On Gun Control That Doesn't Feed Mass Incarceration - The Appeal

EL CHAPO WATCH--Just as the post-mortem analyses of the botched capture and release of El Chapos son, Ovidio Guzman, was dying down, Mexico suffered another atypical act of violence.

The execution of three women and six of their children in the state of Sonora shocked the public in Mexico and the United States, where the family held dual citizenship, and once again put President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador on the defensive.

Murder by organized crime, the presumed culprit, is the stuff of daily news here since the drug war was launched in late 2006. But the massacre of women and children, members of a powerful and well-known agribusiness family, in a remote area on the border of Chihuahua and Sonora where they have lived for a century, on the surface makes no sense. A crime this notorious, involving US citizens, brings down major binational heat on a drug cartel, something they normally try to avoid.

Information has been confused and contradictory, The Secretary of Public Security and Protection, Arturo Durazo, stated the day after, Nov. 5, that it could be a case of mistaken identity. Media and social media have rejected the claim, and with good reason. Over the years, the mistaken identity or it was an accident motive in Mexican forensics has become shorthand for wed rather not talk about this. We saw it in the 1993 killing of the Catholic Cardenal Posadas, and the inexplicably high number of cases of security forces and high-level government officials who have fallen from the sky. Local reporters have confirmed that the drug cartels that control this part of the country know who travels these roads. A child who surviveddescribedthat assailants fired on his mother as she pleaded for her family. Also the vehicles were not together when the attacks occurred, a sure-fire sign that this was neither a mistake nor crossfire.

There has also been a startling lack of clarity on exactly where the crime occurred, what direction the caravan of three vehicles was traveling, why security forces took so long to arrive on the scene, and who did what, when. The governments chronology records that the crime was reported at 1:00 PM, and the military arrived six hours later despite the fact that they have headquarters located in Agua Prieta and Casas Grandes, both just several hours away from the scene of the crime.

Lpez Obrador responded to a question on the delay saying that the National Guard, located in nearby towns of Janos, Moctezuma and Zaragoza, arrived earlier, but he did not say when and there is no data to back it up. He also did not explain why the Army confirmed the number of dead four hours after arriving and then undercounted by five. Or why Sonora and Chihuahua state security forces launched the operation to seal off the area at 8:30 PMseven and a half hours after the first report. By that time, all you can expect to catch in the net are other security forces and the press, which rapidly swarmed to this usually forgotten part of the country.

In addition to being a highly militarized area, the place where the massacre took place is the home turf of AMLOs Secretary of Security. Durazo was born and raised in Bavispe, Sonora, the town near the site. For many Sonorans, this is not a coincidence. They believe that the crime could be a message to the Secretary. The night before the ambush, there was an attack in Agua Prieta that left two dead. Durazos cousin is mayor of Agua Prieta.

The Sonora state government is in charge of the investigation, with assistance from the federal Attorney Generals office. The governor, Claudia Pavlovich, has requested assistance from the FBI, although Lopez Obrador has stated repeated that Mexico has thecapacity to solvethe crime.

Durazo and the president requested that the press not speculate until the results of the investigation are in, but social media and the press have been ablaze with speculation.

Send in the Marines?

Donald Trump fired out a series of tweets on the shooting Nov. 5, portraying a family from Utah trapped in crossfire. He used the tragedy to relaunch the war on drugs in Mexico and offered to send in the army: If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!

He followed up: This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!

AMLO rejected the warpath as a failed strategy from the past, while thanking Trump for his offer, which he insisted was not interventionist. But openly proposing sending in a foreign army is the definition of interventionist, and an outright provocation for Mexico, which has historically been sensitive about protecting its sovereignty after centuries of US. Invasions.

More information will emerge, but whats important is to find out the motive of the massacre, to read this crime in the context of this phase the public security crisis and its implications. Womens bodies have long been used to gruesomely mark territory and this is disputed turf, but this crime goes further.

To murder mothers and babies is a macabre way to challenge the power of the state. Why would the cartels throw down the gauntlet in this place, at this time? There are three main hypothesis and quite possibly the truth lies in a combination: First, the ambush was a response to what a criminal group perceived as a direct threat from the LeBaron family to its interests in the area. This part of Mexico is an important drug trafficking route and family members have also mentioned huachicoleo or gas theft in the area. There have also been pitched battles over water use.

Second, it is a message for Durazo and the federal government to back off. What specific measure could have provoked such a strong message is unclear. Third, it is part of a broader plan to destabilize the new government. The attack comes on the heels of the bizarre and embarrassing failed arrest in Culiacan, and triggers critics at home and interventionists abroad. It has put an international spotlight on violence and insecurity in the country which, according to the president himself, is the biggest challenge his government faces. The crime has prompted a revival of the spurious failed state accusations against Mexico from those who would like to see the nation folded into the U.S. security perimeter.

In any case, something big and uncommon is at stake here. Any attempt to chalk it up to a turf battle between local crime groups should be met with skepticism.

And even before the reports come in and a clearer picture emerges, one thing is certain: for those who benefit from war in Mexicoand there are many, on both sides of the borderthe LeBaron massacre is the perfect crime.

(Laura Carlsenis the director of theAmericas Programin Mexico City and advisor to Just Associates (JASS) Published most recently in counterpunch.org).

-cw

See more here:

Mexico's LeBaron Massacre and the War That Will Not End - City Watch