Category Archives: War On Drugs

Im always fascinated when I watch a modern crime drama by the clever ways in which forensic crime scene investigation can bring people to justice. The technology has progressed so rapidly in the last four decades and the databases containing our biometrics have become

so comprehensive that you wonder how anyone gets away with car theft, let alone murder. So why do a third of murders in the USA regularly go unsolved and why did our own detection rates in London fall to similar levels last year?

I find that failure to solve the worst of crimes both shocking and surprising. In Londons case, it can be partly explained by the fact that the number of murder detective teams was drastically cut and detection rates plummeted.

One of Britains most successful (ex) drugs enforcement officers, Neil Woods, has raised the question of whether we have become so fixated by the war on drugs that it takes priority over everything else. If this is the case and drug gangs are seen as the biggest challenge confronting modern policing then why isnt anyone discussing solutions at this general election? The Greens have long believed in decriminalisation, but there are now many ex law enforcement officers, like Neil Woods, saying it publicly and many more still in uniform who think it privately.

We need to look at a different solution for each drug, but the direction would be towards decriminalisation with hard drug use returning to its previous status as a medical issue, while the softer drugs are heavily regulated and taxed, as we do with cigarettes and alcohol. In one go we pull the rug from under the multi-national trade in illegal drugs and deprive criminal gangs of their most lucrative source of income. The huge spending on drugs enforcement can be gradually scaled back and we can reallocate those police resources onto more conventional forms of crime.

The best historical example of decriminalisation happening is the ending of the prohibition of alcohol in nineteen thirties America. People had carried on drinking throughout prohibition, which made the gangs rich and elements of the justice system corrupted by the easy money.

Boris hopes that restoring 20,000 of the policing jobs that have been cut because of austerity, will be enough to win him votes. Labour are determined to expose it as the token gesture. As Greens we look at the big picture and big solutions. While the mainstream political debate is focused upon policing numbers, Greens want to discuss what those police are used for and what crimes are prioritised.

This isnt just because we can see police resources being wasted tracking and arresting environmental campaigners involved in Extinction Rebellion, or clamping down on local communities opposed to fracking. This is about the scandal of hundred of thousands of crimes being listed as not worth investigating by the police who see no hope of providing justice to the victims of car crimes, or vandalism, burglaries or theft, due to the lack of obvious evidence.

For all the technological progress, the police have a well-established system which stops them putting extra work into over a third of crimes, beyond the initial report stage.

Take for example my personal priority, creating safer roads. 40 people a day are killed or injured on the roads in the UK in hit and run collisions. We have lawless roads because of the historical decline in the numbers of traffic police and austerity has halved those numbers since 2010.

If you are one of the thousands of pedestrians killed or seriously injured on our roads, then there is now over a one in ten chance that the driver will have tried to escape without stopping. For all our cameras and forensic teams, the truth remains the same as when a traffic police sergeant told me back in 2001 the best way to kill someone and get away with it, is to run them over.

The debate about policing needs to be a debate about people and priorities, not just money.

Jenny Jones is a Green Party member of the House of Lords.

With the UK now set for a General Election on December 12, Bright Green is publishing a series of articles from the spokespeople of progressive political parties on how their policies would transform the country. This article is part of that series all articles can be found here.

Image credit: zxzoomy Creative Commons

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The problem with policing isn't funding - it's priorities | Jenny Jones - Bright Green

Opinion: The slaughter of women and children caught America's attention, but the real turning point for Mexico came with cartel violence weeks before.

Mexican soldiers patrol around the city of Culiacan on Friday Oct. 18, 2019.(Photo: Augusto Zurita/Associated Press)

We were the only two people sitting at a very long backyard picnic table,because our kids and wives had become great friends. All around us kids were running and playing.

The topic was culture, or actually the contrast of cultures.

He and his family are citizens of Mexico, who, because of his work, live in Arizona. He was describing to me the differences between our two countries.

He pointed to the end of the picnic table, to a cellphone I hadnt noticed, but that one of the kids or moms must have left there. He said, If this were Mexico, that would be gone.

If there is an important distinction between the two nations, it is the petty corruption that permeates daily life south of the border. People do not have much, he explained, and thus would not pass up the opportunity to take something of value that could put food on the table tomorrow.

I dont believe he was making a value judgment. He is a proud Mexican, and once put his culture on full display at an outdoorquinceaera for his 15-year-old daughter. There was music, dancing, food, all redolent of a culture fully alive. When it was over, I told him, In my next life, I want to be born Mexican.

But he and his wife are Mexican living in the United States, separated from their families and enjoying the relative peace from the troubles down there.

Mexico today is becoming more and more a narco state on the road to collapse. Wide swaths of the country have been taken over by drug gangs, who if they dont overtly tell you who is in charge, will in a moment settle the question with guns.

This is a seminal year for our neighbors down south, not because a family of white European fundamentalist Mormons was gunned down in broad daylight nine mothers and children murdered.

That kind of slaughter is all too common in Mexico.

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The people of Mexico are unsettled and sensing a turning point because of what happened only weeks earlier inCuliacn, the capital city of Sinaloa State. There a patrol of about 30 soldiers from Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obradors newly formed National Guard was moving through a residential area, probably with intent, when someone started shooting at them.

They followed the gunfire to a home where they found four men, one of them Ovidio Guzmn Lpez, the 29-year-old son of drug lord Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn, once considered the worlds biggest drug dealer.

DIAZ: Culiacn gun battle proves (again) that Mexico can't fight the cartels

El Chapo, the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel is now rotting in a maximum-securityprison cell in Colorado, serving multiple life sentences. Two of his sons, including Ovidio, have been indicted, and so Ovidio was taken into custody.

Very soon after the soldiers found themselves surrounded by an armed force of some 400 sicarios, the Spanish word for hitmen or drug-gang militias. Vehicles outfitted with large-caliber automatic weapons descended on the city. The narcos were taking over.

They set tanker trucks and other vehicles on fire in major intersections to make it hard for national security forces to respond and started firing upon the National Guard troops.

The people of Culiacn were horrified by the piercing sound of large-weapons fire and took cover. Black clouds boiled up over their city and made Culiacn look like hell on earth.

The origin of the place name Culiacn is uncertain, but it may have been taken from the wordcoahuacanor "palace of snakes."Surrounded by snakes, the National Guard decided this was not the time to go to war with the Sinaloa cartel. They stood down. The drug lords held the town for a while and used that time to break out 30 of their compadresfrom jail.

Lpez Obrador, the president the Mexicans call "AMLO," said, This is no longer a war."

AMLO was elected in part to end the policies of two prior Mexican presidents, Felipe Caldern and Enrique Pea Nieto, who had declared war on the cartels and had pursued, with the help of the United States, a decapitation strategy of taking out the cartel bosses.

"This isno longer about force, confrontation, annihilation, extermination, or killing in the heat of the moment, AMLO said.You cant put out fire with fire.

When you take fire to the cartels, fire erupts and the murder rate leaps even higher, as it did to record levels. AMLO came in promising a new tactic abrazos no balazos or hugs not bullets.

His strategy is social programs to fight poverty, a ban to end corruption, a call to all Mexicans to exemplify good behavior.

But how do you hug the men who have completely corrupted your institutions, your courts, your police departments? How do you exhort to good behavior those who would kidnap 43 young college students from Iguala and murder them all at once?

How do you communicate with men who communicate by rolling five severed human heads onto a dance floor in Uruapan? Or who ambush and murder 14 police officers in Michoacn?

How can you ever make peace with those who would fire more than 200 rounds from assault weapons atwomen and children, killing nine of them?

The only way you do is to surrender. And that is what AMLO did.

If Caldern and Pea Nieto relied solely on enforcement, Lpez Obrador has chosen to give up the legitimate power of the state,"wrote Mexican journalist and Univision anchor in Los Angeles in an op-ed in theWashington Post.The Mexican government capitulated. Cartels will surely take notice.

Thats an absolute destruction of the rule of law and its going to get worse, said Derek Maltz, former chief of special operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration, to theWall Street Journal.

What we saw in Culiacn, said Edgardo Buscaglia, an expert on organized crime at Columbia University to the (London)Guardian, was the parallel state showing itself.

And in Mexico, this was a watershed, said Ismael Bojrquez, editor of the investigative Sinaloa weekly Ro Doce to theGuardian. Life goes on, yes, but not in the same way. We dont know if this will now be the reaction every time criminal groups feel threatened and we know even less what the federal government intends to do about it.

Those who believe marijuana legalization in the United States will end this scourge need to understand that marijuana is not the cash crop it was once believed to be for the Mexican mob.

In 2009, the Rand research organization found that the estimates of marijuana incartel exports were wildly overstated:

The claim that 60 percent of Mexican DTO (drug trafficking organizations) gross drug export revenues comes from marijuana is not credible. There is no public documentation about how this figure is derived, and government analyses reveal great uncertainty. RANDs exploratory analysis on this point suggests that 1526 percent is a more credible range.

The range of drugs and drug markets are expanding and diversifying as never before, reports the UN World Drug Report for 2018. And Mexican cartels are pushing out in the trafficking of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl.

The United States will not in our life time legalize those dangerous street drugs.

That means Mexican cartels will control market share. In fact, they have become diversified conglomerates.

[In] this global business logic through franchises, Sinaloa resembles the hamburger chains we all know, and thats why we say this cartel is a multinational drug company, Jorge Hernndez Tinajero, author and researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, toldSmall Wars Journal.

So the Mexicans have a problem. They dont have security. They dont control their state. They face an elemental struggle to be a civilized societyand it wont be achieved by words or safety nets.

The cartel bosses and their minionsare not Mexicans. They are enemies of the people and the state. They have to be destroyed. Defeating them will require force, yes, but also shrewd tactics and policies.

Mexico will need leadership from the top and from the grass roots.

Leadership at the top needs to shore up the court system so it actually dispenses justice. Theyll need to build up the army and local law enforcement to start protecting the Mexican people. Today they do not. Ninety-eight percent of all violent crime in Mexico nowgoes unsolved, reports theWashington Post.

Leadership from the bottom, from the Mexican people, needs to declare that the casual corruption in daily life is no longer tolerable. That a cellphone that disappears from a backyard picnic table ultimately gives license to bulletsthat fly in Culiacn.

Phil Boas is editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic. He can be reached at 602-444-8292 or phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

Read or Share this story: https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/philboas/2019/11/16/mexico-has-reached-turning-point-destroy-cartels-itself/4178290002/

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Mexico has reached a turning point: Will it destroy the cartels or itself? - AZCentral

Drug arrests are classified into four categories: 1) heroin or cocaine and their derivatives, 2) marijuana 3) synthetic or manufactured drugs like fentanyl and 4) other dangerous non-narcotic drugs like barbiturates.

In 2018, there were 663,367 arrests involving marijuana, up from 659,700 in 2017, nearly 92 percent of them for possession. The F.B.I.s crime data includes only the top charge for each arrest, so if a suspect is found with drugs while being arrested on a more serious charge, the drug possession would not be counted in the agencys statistics.

I always caution people to read the U.C.R. data as an approximation because its imperfect, said Tess Borden, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who worked on a report published by the A.C.L.U. and Human Rights Watch in 2016: Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States.

According to New York States Division of Criminal Justice Services, there were 75,897 arrests for drug felonies and misdemeanors in New York in 2018, which includes any arrest where fingerprints were taken. About 35 percent of those arrests involved people who were identified as white; 37 percent as black; 25 percent as Hispanic; and 2 percent as Asian. The remainder were listed as other/unknown. (In New York State, blacks make up 18 percent of the population, and Hispanics 19 percent.)

We know from national survey data that people of all races use drugs in their adult lifetimes at approximately the same rates, Ms. Borden said. So the fact that we have great variances in who is arrested tells us about police priorities.

In 2021, the F.B.I. plans to begin using its National Incident-Based Reporting System to track crime data, which has more detail about a greater number of crimes.

This reporting system also contains information about the quantity of drugs involved in an arrest. Analyzing 700,000 drug arrests using this data for 2004, 2008 and 2012, the authors of the Sharks and Minnows paper found that about 40 percent of those arrests were for possessing or selling a quarter of a gram or less of drugs. And 20 percent were for possessing or selling drugs weighing between 0.25 grams and one gram. (A packet of Splenda sweetener weighs one gram.)

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Is the War on Drugs Over? Arrest Statistics Say No - The New York Times

The vice-president of the Philippines, Leni Robredo, has accepted President Rodrigo Dutertes offer for her to play a lead role in his deadly crackdown against drugs, even though the former human rights lawyer is critical of the campaign and has been warned it could be a political ploy to destroy her.

Robredo said that by agreeing she may be able to save lives from a campaign that has killed thousands of mostly petty drug suspects in purported gun battles with police.

Many have expressed concerns that this is an insincere offer, that its a trap which only aims to undermine and put me to shame, said Robredo. While it can be said that this offer is just politicking and that the agencies wont really follow me and would do everything so I wont succeed, Im ready to endure all of these.

If I can save even one innocent life, my principles and my heart tell me that I should try.

Dutertes communications secretary, Martin Andanar, welcomed Robredos decision. We believe that the loudest critics should act beyond mere observers, but be active contributors for change, he said.

Nicholas Bequelin, an Amnesty official for the region, said: Vice-president Robredo must be granted power to halt the daily killings and change the deadly command structure we have documented, otherwise this move will be an empty gesture. Her appointment does not change the fact that the Duterte administrations war on drugs amounts to crimes against humanity.

After Robredos criticism of his drug campaign, Duterte formalised an offer to appoint her as one of two heads of an inter-agency committee that includes the police and the military and is tasked with overseeing and coordinating the governments efforts to combat illegal drugs.

Duterte launched the crackdown after he took office in mid-2016. More than 6,300 mostly petty drug suspects have been killed and about 1.3 million others have surrendered, officials have said. Human rights groups have cited a higher death toll and accused some police of killing unarmed suspects based on flimsy evidence and altering crime scenes to make it look like the suspects violently fought back.

At least two complaints for mass murder have been filed before the international criminal court over the large-scale deaths, but Duterte has vowed to continue with the bloody campaign up to the last day of his presidency in June 2022.

Presidents and vice-presidents are separately elected in the Philippines. Robredo, 58, is a respected former human rights lawyer and political newcomer.

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Rodrigo Duterte hands over 'war on drugs' to vice-president and critic - The Guardian

Last summer, Brian Besser, Drug Enforcement Administration District Agent in charge of Utah, told reporters that Mexican drug cartels have all of a sudden gotten involved in this vape cartridge industry, and reasonably so, because they know they are going to make money off of it.

This makes sense. Prohibition incentivizesinnovations in the production and distribution of illicit substances to make detection more difficult. It is very hard to identify illicit drugs that are processed in liquid form and combined with scented juices in vaping cartridges.

On November 1, Agent Besserinformed reportersof a DEA intelligence report stating illicit fentanyl is being found in bootleg vaping cartridges in various parts of the country, although not yet in Utah.

The Utah Department of Health reports more than 100 people have been hospitalized in the state for vaping-related illness, with one death. 90 percent of the patients admitted to using bootleg THC cartridges.

There is a grim lesson in this tragic intersection of the war on drugs with the war on vaping: prohibition kills.

Prohibition of marijuana promotes bootleg and homemade concoctions of THC vaping liquids sold in cartridges in the underground market, where they are often mixed with unsafe solvents. Prohibition of opioids causes innovativeand more deadlyways of producing and distributing the drugs.

NowAxiosreports the Food and Drug Administration may announce plans next week to ban all flavored vaping products except for tobacco and menthol. Menthol and tobacco flavored liquids will remain legal because those flavors are believed to be more popular with adults than children.

But as I havewritten, flavored vaping cartridges are the preferred method of more than 90 percent of adults who use e-cigarettes to switch off of much more harmful tobacco smoking. This deprivesadult tobacco smokersof an effective means of harm reduction. And the sale of e-cigarettes to those under age 18 has been prohibited since 2016.

Minors who wish to vape are still managing to get their e-cigarettes in the underground market. Once flavored liquids are banned, diverted legal and regulated flavored vaping cartridges will no longer be one of thesources for their preferred kind of vaping. They will have to rely on bootleg vaping cartridges sold in the black market, which are fast becoming a new industry for Mexican drug cartels.

Illicit fentanyl is already the number one cause of opioid-related overdose deaths, comprising nearly90 percentof opioid overdose deaths in places like Massachusetts.

If the FDA goes through with a ban on flavored vaping cartridges, expect news reports of an epidemic of vaping-related deaths in minors attributed to fentanyl.

This article first appeared at the Cato Institute.

Jeffrey A. Singer is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and works in the Department of Health Policy Studies.

Image: Reuters.

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The War On Drugs 2.0: Vaping Is Officially In The DEA's Crosshairs - The National Interest Online

Last summer, Brian Besser, Drug Enforcement Administration District Agent in charge of Utah, told reporters that Mexican drug cartels have all of a sudden gotten involved in this vape cartridge industry, and reasonably so, because they know they are going to make money off of it.

This makes sense. Prohibition incentivizesinnovations in the production and distribution of illicit substances to make detection more difficult. It is very hard to identify illicit drugs that are processed in liquid form and combined with scented juices in vaping cartridges.

On November 1, Agent Besser informed reporters of a DEA intelligence report stating illicit fentanyl is being found in bootleg vaping cartridges in various parts of the country, although not yet in Utah.

The Utah Department of Health reports more than 100 people have been hospitalized in the state for vaping-related illness, with one death. 90 percent of the patients admitted to using bootleg THC cartridges.

There is a grim lesson in this tragic intersection of the war on drugs with the war on vaping: prohibition kills.

Prohibition of marijuana promotes bootleg and homemade concoctions of THC vaping liquids sold in cartridges in the underground market, where they are often mixed with unsafe solvents. Prohibition of opioids causes innovativeand more deadlyways of producing and distributing the drugs.

Now Axios reports the Food and Drug Administration may announce plans next week to ban all flavored vaping products except for tobacco and menthol. Menthol and tobacco flavored liquids will remain legal because those flavors are believed to be more popular with adults than children.

But as I have written, flavored vaping cartridges are the preferred method of more than 90 percent of adults who use e-cigarettes to switch off of much more harmful tobacco smoking. This deprivesadult tobacco smokersof an effective means of harm reduction. And the sale of e-cigarettes to those under age 18 has been prohibited since 2016.

Minors who wish to vape are still managing to get their e-cigarettes in the underground market. Once flavored liquids are banned, diverted legal and regulated flavored vaping cartridges will no longer be one of thesources for their preferred kind of vaping. They will have to rely on bootleg vaping cartridges sold in the black market, which are fast becoming a new industry for Mexican drug cartels.

Illicit fentanyl is already the number one cause of opioid-related overdose deaths, comprising nearly 90 percent of opioid overdose deaths in places like Massachusetts.

If the FDA goes through with a ban on flavored vaping cartridges, expect news reports of an epidemic of vaping-related deaths in minors attributed to fentanyl.

More here:

War on Drugs Meets War on Vaping--This Won't End Well - Cato Institute

MANILA (Reuters) - The vice president of the Philippines on Wednesday accepted President Rodrigo Dutertes offer of a lead role in his brutal war on drugs, even though she expected her political rivals administration would try to thwart her progress.

FILE PHOTO: Philippines' Vice President Leni Robredo speaks during a Reuters interview, at the Quezon City Reception House, Metro Manila, Philippines December 12, 2016. REUTERS/Ezra Acayan

The appointment follows criticism by Leni Robredo in an interview with Reuters and subsequent media appearances, which angered Duterte, whose drugs crackdown has killed thousands and prompted activists to call for international intervention.

Allies had warned Robredo, who was elected separately and has an adversarial relationship with Duterte, that the offer of drugs tsar, or a joint chair of a panel on illegal drugs, was a trap to ensure her embarrassment and failure.

She said she was skeptical about Dutertes motives, but would take a chance.

I am against the killings of the innocent, I am against abuses committed by officials. He knows my criticism. He knows what I plan to fix, Robredo told a news conference.

If the president is thinking that I will keep quiet because I accepted the offer, he is wrong.

Dutertes loyalists had urged her to take the role, saying she had plenty of criticism and should put her ideas into practice.

Ronald dela Rosa, a policeman turned senator and former drugs war commander, said Robredo had a chance to impress.

This is the time for her to shine... I will pray for her success, he said on television.

The crackdown is popular among Filipinos, with a September opinion poll showing 82% of respondents believed it effective, although critics say it has been failed to curb addiction or drugs supply or rein-in drugs kingpins.

Activists accuse police of executions and cover-ups on a massive scale being ignored by the government. Police killed only in self-defense, the administration says.

In an Oct. 23 interview, Robredo said the death toll was too high and international help should be sought if the government kept tolerating abusive police.

On Wednesday, she said she had nothing to lose.

If could save at least one innocent life, my principles and heart are telling me I should give this a try, she said.

They are asking me if I am ready for this job? My question is: Are you ready for me?

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Robredo would be welcome in Dutertes cabinet.

Her acceptance shows she is smarter than her colleagues in the opposition, he said in a text message.

Additional reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Robert Birsel and Clarence Fernandez

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Philippines VP accepts Duterte's offer of post in drugs war - Reuters

Its time to make peace with the longest-running war in our society today. How can our society be aware of such a problem, have access to resources, yet still implement punishment over treatment? When comparing treatment versus punishment it is evident that treatment saves money and lives while punishment most often creates a cycle of repeated abuse andincarceration.

Substance abuse is not a war to be won. Its a reality that its time we face.

The war on drugs has been going on for 105 years, in that time we have seen drug availability, drug use, overdose rates, incarceration for drug crimes, and costs to American taxpayers increase, so what exactly have we done in this war but be defeated time and time again? The costs to provide treatment over punishment is significantly less and has a much greater effect in reducing an individuals chance of re-entering the criminal justice system and overcoming substance abuse.

There is currently a bill in the Legislature, LD 1492, that has been implemented to reform drug sentencing laws. This bill would reduce sentencing laws for individuals convicted with drug offenses and ultimately reduce the cost to taxpayers. The current sentencing for drug offenses often does not fit the crime and only creates a path to future incarceration. Its time to ask ourselves what can we as a society do differently to fight this war, and realize that incarceration has done nothing.

Kayla Bailey, New Gloucester

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Kayla Bailey: End the war on drugs - Lewiston Sun Journal

Here are two facts that, when read side by side, might hurt your brain. A 2018 study found no correlation between legalizing marijuana and crime rates, with some states, like California, actually experiencing a decrease in crime. However, crime is rising as it relates to marijuana in one respect: FBI data shows that marijuana arrests increased for the third consecutive year.

The War on Drugs, despite calls to treat drug addiction as a public health issue, is not over. As the New York Times highlights, drug-related arrests are on the rise once again following a nine-year decline. Arrests tied to drug possession have also increased for the past 30 years, from about 67% in 1989 to just over 86% in 2018. Small amounts of possession account for a large portion of these arrests, too.

An important note: The FBIs data is imperfect. The federal agency compiles data submitted from 18,586 agenciesat the federal, state, and local level. For 2018, only 16,659 jurisdiction sent in data. New York City was among the groups who did not submit.

The data contains another flawthe FBI only lists the most serious criminal offense in its arrest cause report. That means someone first apprehended for marijuana possession but who was later committed for something like aggravated assault would not be included in these drug-related arrest numbers.

Photo by FatCamera/Getty Images

The FBI plans to change that, however. In 2021, the agency will unveil its National Incident-Based Reporting System, which will track crime date on a more detailed level. For example, the amount of drug someone has on their possession when arrested will be recorded. That type of information could influence policymaking.

RELATED: Where In The Country Are You Most Likely To Be Arrested For Marijuana Possession?

Authors of a paper titled Sharks and Minnows in the War on Drugs: A Study of Quantity, Race and Drug Type in Drug Arrests used the FBI data in 2004, 2008, and 2012 to analyze 700,000 drug arrests. They found that 40% of all drug possession arrests were for trace amountsa quarter of a gram or less. Drug possession between a quarter gram and one gram accounted for another 20% of all arrests. That means a majority of all drug arrests from their analysis were for a gram or less.

A big issue, as the Times reported, is that local and state agencies still use arrest numbers as a mark of achievement. By arresting more people, the thinking goes, they are doing more work. But that line of thinking has become outdated in recent years by policymakers and academics alike. You may wonder what police do when the law eliminates drug possession as a cause for arrest.

As it turns out, they do better work. Following legalization in Vermont, the Burlington Police Department decreased roadside traffics stops by 70%; The Stanford Open Police Project reported that roadside searches were cut in half in Washington and Colorado post-legalization. As these arrests falls, a different 2018 study found that police in legal marijuana states made more arrests for violent crimes, burglaries, vehicular theft, and property crime.

RELATED: How Social Reform And Cannabis Legalization Are Linked

Our models show no negative effects of legalization and, instead, indicate that crime clearance rates for at least some types of crime are increasing faster in states that legalized than in those that did not, the researchers behind the study wrote.

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The War On Drugs Isnt Over, According To The FBI - The Fresh Toast

By The Fresh Toast's Rudy Sanchez, provided exclusively to Benzinga Cannabis.

Some factors, such as breed and environment, can considerably lower the performance of dogs enlisted to serve in the war on drugs.

In retelling a story about being stopped by police while trafficking narcotics in 1994, Mr. Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z, describes a conversation where he tells the racial-profiling officer he does not consent to a search of his vehicle. The officer then calls for a drug detecting drug, and now that dog becomes one of Mr. Carters 99 problems. But a nosey dog finding Hovas hidden drugs was far from certain.

According to research conducted on the efficacy of drug sniffing canines, some factors, such as breed and environment, can considerably lower the performance of dogs enlisted to serve in the war on drugs.

Astudyby Polish researchers from the Department of Animal Behavior at the Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding of the Polish Academy of Science, found that on average, dogs found hidden drugs correctly only 87.7% of the time, with false indications happening about 5% of the time, and in 7% of cases, the dogs were unable to find the hidden substances.

Photo by Deonny Rantetandung via Unsplash

The group found that German Shepherds were the top narc dog, while terriers, who are often used due to their small size, were poor performers. Dogs also performed better indoors than outdoors, while familiarity with room had no significant impact. Finding drugs outdoors or inside of a car were the most difficult tasks for Mans Best Friend; these drug sniffing dogs were only 58% accurate when searching within a car.

Some drugs can also leave residual odors that dogs do not distinguish from the actual presence of substances, with cannabis buds and hashish leaving thestrongestafter-odors, all dogs signaled the presence of hashish a day after it was removed from the location, and 80% did so after 48 hours.

Police dogs and their efficacy is often perceived as highly accurate and nearly infallible. K9s are also immune from racial and other biases, and agencies all over the world rely on their keen sense of smell to find hidden narcotics. Even if Fido isnt perfect, the studys researchers point out dogs are still the best tool for the job.

2019 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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Drug Sniffing Dogs: How Accurate Are They? Can They Smell Your Weed And Hash? - Benzinga