Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009
Subject: #397 The Drug War South Of The Border

THE DRUG WAR SOUTH OF THE BORDER

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #397 – Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Headlines from Tuesday and Wednesday morning newspapers alert
us.

Wave of Drug Violence Is Creeping into Arizona From Mexico, Officials
Say http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n223.a04.html

El Paso Police Investigate Threats Against Juarez Mayor
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n223.a06.html

A Treaty That Can Help Stem Drug Violence in Mexico
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n223.a07.html

Colombia’s Worry: Looser US Ties
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n224.a02.html

Mexico Attorney General: We Don’t Need U.S. Troops to Intervene in
Drug War http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n224.a03.html

Gov. Perry Wants U.S. Troops Guarding Border http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n224.a04.html

Mexico Drug War Prompts Federal Contingency Plan http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n224.a05.html

Today the Los Angeles Times website states that there has been 7,337
drug war related deaths in Mexico since January, 1997 as the newspaper
continues it’s Mexico Under Siege series http://mapinc.org/find?255

You know the solution as do the former Presidents as reflected in
their OPED below. Please write those LTEs as they help shape public
opinion. Please also contact the folks who represent you in Congress
and President Obama. What you do does make a difference.

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Pubdate: Mon, 23 Feb 2009

Source: Wall Street Journal

Copyright: 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Contact: [email protected]

Authors: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, CeSar Gaviria and Ernesto Zedillo

Note: Mr. Cardoso is the former president of Brazil. Mr. Gaviria is a
former president of Colombia. Mr. Zedillo is a former president of Mexico.

Cited: The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy
http://drugsanddemocracy.org/

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS A FAILURE

We Should Focus Instead on Reducing Harm to Users and on Tackling
Organized Crime.

The war on drugs has failed. And it’s high time to replace an
ineffective strategy with more humane and efficient drug policies.
This is the central message of the report by the Latin American
Commission on Drugs and Democracy we presented to the public recently
in Rio de Janeiro.

Prohibitionist policies based on eradication, interdiction and
criminalization of consumption simply haven’t worked. Violence and the
organized crime associated with the narcotics trade remain critical
problems in our countries. Latin America remains the world’s largest
exporter of cocaine and cannabis, and is fast becoming a major
supplier of opium and heroin. Today, we are further than ever from the
goal of eradicating drugs.

Over the last 30 years, Colombia implemented all conceivable measures
to fight the drug trade in a massive effort where the benefits were
not proportional to the resources invested. Despite the country’s
achievements in lowering levels of violence and crime, the areas of
illegal cultivation are again expanding. In Mexico — another
epicenter of drug trafficking — narcotics-related violence has
claimed more than 5,000 lives in the past year alone.

The revision of U.S.-inspired drug policies is urgent in light of the
rising levels of violence and corruption associated with narcotics.
The alarming power of the drug cartels is leading to a criminalization
of politics and a politicization of crime. And the corruption of the
judicial and political system is undermining the foundations of
democracy in several Latin American countries.

The first step in the search for alternative solutions is to
acknowledge the disastrous consequences of current policies. Next, we
must shatter the taboos that inhibit public debate about drugs in our
societies. Antinarcotic policies are firmly rooted in prejudices and
fears that sometimes bear little relation to reality. The association
of drugs with crime segregates addicts in closed circles where they
become even more exposed to organized crime.

In order to drastically reduce the harm caused by narcotics, the
long-term solution is to reduce demand for drugs in the main consumer
countries. To move in this direction, it is essential to differentiate
among illicit substances according to the harm they inflict on
people’s health, and the harm drugs cause to the social fabric

In this spirit, we propose a paradigm shift in drug policies based on
three guiding principles: Reduce the harm caused by drugs, decrease
drug consumption through education, and aggressively combat organized
crime. To translate this new paradigm into action we must start by
changing the status of addicts from drug buyers in the illegal market
to patients cared for by the public-health system.

We also propose the careful evaluation, from a public-health
standpoint, of the possibility of decriminalizing the possession of
cannabis for personal use. Cannabis is by far the most widely used
drug in Latin America, and we acknowledge that its consumption has an
adverse impact on health. But the available empirical evidence shows
that the hazards caused by cannabis are similar to the harm caused by
alcohol or tobacco.

If we want to effectively curb drug use, we should look to the
campaign against tobacco consumption. The success of this campaign
illustrates the effectiveness of prevention campaigns based on clear
language and arguments consistent with individual experience.
Likewise, statements by former addicts about the dangers of drugs will
be far more compelling to current users than threats of repression or
virtuous exhortations against drug use.

Such educational campaigns must be targeted at youth, by far the
largest contingent of users and of those killed in the drug wars. The
campaigns should also stress each person’s responsibility toward the
rising violence and corruption associated with the narcotics trade. By
treating consumption as a matter of public health, we will enable
police to focus their efforts on the critical issue: the fight against
organized crime.

A growing number of political, civic and cultural leaders, mindful of
the failure of our current drug policy, have publicly called for a
major policy shift. Creating alternative policies is the task of many:
educators, health professionals, spiritual leaders and policy makers.
Each country’s search for new policies must be consistent with its
history and culture. But to be effective, the new paradigm must focus
on health and education — not repression.

Drugs are a threat that cuts across borders, which is why Latin
America must establish dialogue with the United States and the
European Union to develop workable alternatives to the war on drugs.
Both the U.S. and the EU share responsibility for the problems faced
by our countries, since their domestic markets are the main consumers
of the drugs produced in Latin America.

The inauguration of President Barack Obama presents a unique
opportunity for Latin America and the U.S. to engage in a substantive
dialogue on issues of common concern, such as the reduction of
domestic consumption and the control of arms sales, especially across
the U.S.-Mexico border. Latin America should also pursue dialogue with
the EU, asking European countries to renew their commitment to the
reduction of domestic consumption and learning from their experiences
with reducing the health hazards caused by drugs.

The time to act is now, and the way forward lies in strengthening
partnerships to deal with a global problem that affects us all.

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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009
Subject: #396 Obama’s Take On The Drug War

OBAMA’S TAKE ON THE DRUG WAR

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #396 – Sunday, 22 February 2009

Today the Denver Post printed the column below Hopefully the
syndicated column will be printed in many more newspapers.

Please contact your local newspapers to request that they print the
column. Newspaper editors should know how to obtain columns from the
Washington Post Writers Group.

Among the important issues addressed in the column is United Nations
drug policy summit in Vienna next month. We also reflected our concern
in this FOCUS Alert http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0392.html

News clippings which mention our President may be found here
http://www.mapinc.org/people/Obama

Please let the Obama administration know your views. You may send a
short message to the White House by using the webform on this page
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ You may call the White House about
the issue at 202-456-1111 or send a fax to 202-456-2461. Reports
indicate that it may be necessary to call repeatedly to reach the
phone number, but that your efforts are carefully noted when you do
reach the number.

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Pubdate: Sun, 22 Feb 2009

Source: Denver Post (CO)

Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Writers Group

Contact: [email protected]

Author: Neal Peirce

OBAMA’S TAKE ON THE DRUG WAR

Fissures are suddenly forming along the edges of the giant iceberg of
America’s multibillion-dollar “war” on drug use, first formally
proclaimed by President Richard Nixon in 1971.

But so much depends on what President Barack Obama decides to do with
the issue.

This month a Latin American commission headed by former Presidents
Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and
Cesar Gaviria of Colombia condemned harsh U.S. drug prohibition
policies that are based, in Gaviria’s words, “on prejudices and fears
and not on results.”

Fueled by Americans’ drug appetite and dollars, drug-gang violence is
engulfing Mexico, threatening the very stability of the state with
massive corruption and close to 6,000 killings last year.

Brazil is afflicted with daily gun battles between police and gangs in
urban slums. And despite years of intensive U.S.-backed efforts to
eradicate Colombia’s cocaine exports, official reports show they’ve
risen 15 percent in this decade. A high proportion are smuggled into
the U.S.

The drug war, the former presidents charge, is imperiling Latin
America’s democratic institutions and corrupting “judicial systems,
governments, the political system and especially the police forces.”

As both the world’s largest drug consumer market and the lead voice in
setting global drug policy, the United States, the Latin leaders
argue, has huge responsibility now to “break the taboo” that’s
suffocated open debate about the wisdom of a clearly failed 38-year
“war.”

The leaders are placing hopes in Obama, who as a candidate said the
“war on drugs is an utter failure” and talked favorably about more
public health-based approaches.

Given that history, and given this president’s openness to hearing
diverse points of view, it’s hard to believe he’ll maintain the stony
wall of indifference to drug policy reform that all his predecessors
since Nixon have maintained.

Still, there are crucial issues of politics and timing. One can just
imagine White House advisers telling Obama to steer clear of the drug
issue, that it could be as perilous and distracting as gays in the
military were for President Bill Clinton in his first year in office.

Against that background, the Latin leaders’ statement itself may help
move the compass. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug
Policy Alliance, calls their manifesto (www.drugsanddemocracy.org) “a
major leap forward in the global drug policy debate.” One reason:
these are conservative, highly respected leaders.

Gaviria, as president of Colombia in the early ’90s, for example,
worked with U.S. anti-narcotics agents to hunt down and kill Pablo
Escobar, the cocaine kingpin.

But Gaviria and his fellow former presidents, along with Latin mayors,
writers and other respected leaders joining in their declaration, say
it’s time to recognize that force and prohibition have failed to stop
dangerous narco-trafficking.

It’s high time, they propose, to focus on harm reduction and
prevention efforts — following European models to change the status
of addicts from drug buyers in an illegal system to that of patients
cared for in a public health system. They also suggest considering
decriminalizing possession of marijuana for personal use — a step
Obama recently indicated he’s not ready to take.

And they say they’ll be watching how the U.S. handles the meeting of a
key United Nations-sponsored Commission on Narcotic Drugs which
convenes in Vienna next month. The commission is to review the
prevailing, harsh, U.S.-molded drug policies the U.N. General Assembly
set in 1998. But there’s the question: Will Obama (and Hillary
Clinton’s State Department) send reformers, or just bureaucrats who’ve
soldiered in our blind-alley war on drugs? Drug reformers were
disappointed when Obama recently passed over public health advocates
to appoint a police chief — Gil Kerlikowske of Seattle — as the
country’s new drug czar (director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy).

But Kerlikowske does appear to have worked harmoniously with Seattle’s
cutting edge of drug reforms — well-established needle exchange
programs, marijuana arrests declared the lowest law enforcement
priority through public initiative, and a local bar association that’s
a national model in finding alternatives to drug prohibition laws.

So there are gleams of hope at the end of a long tunnel. And what
better time than this wrenching recession to shift law enforcement to
legitimately serious crimes, starting to discharge the hundreds of
nonviolent drug offenders held in our bulging, cost-heavy jails and
prisons?

Predictably, any shift will be tough. Many law enforcement agencies
count on the jobs — and seizures of cash — that the drug “war”
delivers. Our “prison-industrial complex,” guard unions included,
remains potent. And federal law actually prohibits the drug czar from
recommending legalization of any proscribed drug, no matter what his
personal judgment may be.

We have dug ourselves a deep hole. Only forthright and courageous
leadership is likely to start us on a saner path. Can this be “the
time?” Please, Mr. President.

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009
Subject: #395 Three B.C. Newspapers Call For The Legalization Of Drugs

THREE B.C. NEWSPAPERS CALL FOR THE LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #395 – Tuesday, 10 February 2009

Three major British Colombia newspapers have called for Canada to at
least consider legalizing drugs. The violence associated with the drug
trade has escalated to the point where the newspapers are calling for
new directions to be considered.

The Province published an editorial Sunday “Legalization Needs Study”.
The editorial starts by plainly stating “This newspaper has
traditionally opposed the legalization of drugs.” While the editorial
doesn’t jump headfirst into support for legalization, it does
acknowledge that now is time to debate the issue. Read the editorial
at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n146/a01.html

Then Monday the Victoria Times-Colonist published an editorial “Gun
Epidemic Prescriptions” which ends stating:

“And it is time to recognize that gangs and guns are linked
inextricably to the huge profits in the drug trade. Those profits are
possible because of a failed, prohibition-based drug strategy. It’s
time to begin legalizing and controlling distribution as part of an
entirely new approach to reducing the damage done by guns.” See
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n155.a02.html

Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun columnist, addressed the same topic Monday
with this column http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n155.a03.html

With the facts on our side, we may influence the debate. Please read
the editorials and column at the above links where you will also find
contact information for sending letters to the editor.

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Prepared by: Stephen Young www.drugsense.org/current.htm

=.

Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009
Subject: #394 Kellogg’s Gets Stupid Over A Bong

KELLOGG’S GETS STUPID OVER A BONG

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #394 – Monday, 9 February 2009

By now just about everybody who may read this Alert is aware of the
photo of Michael Phelps inhaling from a bong which was printed on
Sunday, February 1st by the British tabloid newspaper News of the World.

A high resolution .jpg copy of the photo, which you may download – and
perhaps print out for your own use, like pasting on a Kellogg’s cereal
box – is here http://www.mapinc.org/images/phelps.jpg

The News of the World article is here http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n140/a11.html

The result has been a firestorm of articles and opinions printed in
newspapers as you may read at this link:

http://www.mapinc.org/people/Michael+Phelps

Please target the newspapers with your letters to the
editor.

Other suggested actions you may wish to take:

Please take time today to contact the Kellogg Corporation. Tell them
that you oppose their decision to drop Michael Phelps and that, as a
result of their actions, you will not be purchasing any Kellogg’s
related products for the next three months (or until the company
decides to reinstate the Phelps as their spokesperson).

There are several ways you may make your opinion known to the
company.

You can call Kellogg’s main telephone number during east coast
business hours, Monday through Friday, at: (269) 961-2000 or toll free
at: 1 (800) 962-1413.

You may email Kellogg’s consumer services department by visiting:
http://www2.kelloggs.com/ContactUs.aspx

You may contact Kellogg’s media relation department at: 269-961-3799
or via e-mail at [email protected]

You may email Kellogg’s corporate responsibility department at:
[email protected].

You may email Kellogg’s investor relations department at:
[email protected].

Or you may write the Kellogg Company a letter at: One Kellogg Square
P.O. Box 3599 Battle Creek, MI 49016-3599

Join the Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s petition campaign. Phelps
still faces a potential four-year suspension from the International
Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency. If you have a
Facebook account, please join thousands of others in signing a
petition demanding that the IOC and WADA not suspend Phelps from
international competition. http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/62

**********************************************************************

Two other FOCUS Alerts are still active which need your support. Both
focus on actions the Obama administration has yet to take.

Please Keep the Pressure Up http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0393.html

Take Action Please – Time Lag In Vienna? http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0392.html

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009
Subject: #393 Please Keep The Pressure Up

PLEASE KEEP THE PRESSURE UP

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #393 – Thursday, 5 February 2009

Today the Washington Times published the article below announcing that
the Obama administration would eventually end the Drug Enforcement
Administration’s medicinal marijuana raids. Please help insure that
the Obama administration takes action quickly

You may send a short message to the White House by using the webform
on this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You may call the White House about the issue at 202-456-1111 or send a
fax to 202-456-2461. Reports indicate that it may be necessary to call
repeatedly to reach the number above, but that your efforts are
carefully noted when you do reach the number.

Please also contact the Department of Justice. You may send an email
to [email protected] and call Attorney General Eric Holder at (202)
353-1555. Please call during office hours, Monday through Friday, 9 am
to 5 pm, Eastern time.

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Pubdate: Thu, 5 Feb 2009

Source: Washington Times (DC)

Copyright: 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.

Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/A1kAshhc

Authors: Stephen Dinan and Ben Conery

Referenced: The Mail Tribune interview with Obama
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n000/a189.html

BUSH HOLDOVERS AT DEA CONTINUE POT RAIDS

Drug Enforcement Administration agents this week raided four medical
marijuana shops in California, contrary to President Obama’s campaign
promises to stop the raids.

The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr.
Obama nominates someone to take charge of DEA, which is still run by
Bush administration holdovers.

“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to
circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior
leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects
them to review their policies with that in mind,” White House
spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

Medical use of marijuana is legal under the law in California and a
dozen other states, but the federal government under President Bush,
bolstered by a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, argued that federal
interests trumped state law.

Dogged by marijuana advocates throughout the campaign, Mr. Obama
repeatedly said he was opposed to using the federal government to raid
medical marijuana shops, particularly because it was an infringement
on states’ decisions.

“I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to
circumvent state laws on this issue,” Mr. Obama told the Mail Tribune
newspaper in Oregon in March, during the Democratic primary campaign.

He told the newspaper the “basic concept of using medical marijuana
for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs
prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate.”

Mr. Obama is still filling key law enforcement posts. For now, DEA is
run by acting Administrator Michele Leonhart, a Bush appointee.

Special Agent Sarah Pullen of the DEA’s Los Angeles office said agents
raided four marijuana dispensaries about noon Tuesday. Two were in
Venice and one each was in Marina Del Rey and Playa Del Ray — all in
the Los Angeles area.

A man who answered the phone at Marina Caregivers in Marina Del Rey
said his shop was the target of a raid but declined to elaborate,
saying the shop was just trying to get back to operating.

Agent Pullen said the four raids seized $10,000 in cash and 224
kilograms of marijuana and marijuana-laced food, such as cookies. No
one was arrested, she said, but the raid is part of an ongoing
investigation seeking to trace the marijuana back to its suppliers or
source.

She said agents have conducted 30 or 40 similar raids in the past
several years, many of which resulted in prosecutions.

“It’s clear that the DEA is showing no respect for President Obama’s
campaign promises,” said Dan Bernath, a spokesman for the Marijuana
Policy Project in Washington, which advocates for medical marijuana
and for decriminalizing the drug.

California allows patients whose doctors prescribe marijuana to use
the drug. The state has set up a registry to allow patients to obtain
cards allowing them to possess, grow, transport and use marijuana.

Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy
group in California, called the raids an attempt to undermine state
law and said they were apparently conducted without the knowledge of
Los Angeles city or police officials.

He said the DEA has raided five medical marijuana dispensaries in the
state since Mr. Obama was inaugurated and that the first took place on
Jan. 22 in South Lake Tahoe.

“President Obama needs to keep a promise he made, not just in one
campaign stop, but in multiple speeches that he would not be spending
Justice Department funds on these kinds of raids,” Mr. Hermes said.
“We do want to give him a little bit of leeway, but at the same time
we’re expecting him to stop this egregious enforcement policy that is
continuing into his presidency.”

He said he is aware that Mr. Obama has not installed his own DEA chief
but that new Attorney General “Eric Holder can still suspend these
types of operations.”

The Justice Department referred questions to the White
House.

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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009
Subject: #392 Take Action Please – Time Lag In Vienna?

TAKE ACTION PLEASE – TIME LAG IN VIENNA?

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #392 – Saturday, 31 January 2009

Today the New York Times published the editorial below. If the Obama
administration was paying attention to what Bush holdovers were doing
the editorial would not have been necessary.

Please help insure that the Obama administration takes action to
correct the problem quickly.

You may send a short message to the White House by using the webform
on this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You may call the White House about the issue at 202-456-1111 or send a
fax to 202-456-2461.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy has set up an action alert webpage
you may use to send an email the White House and to Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton at http://drugsense.org/url/9mnHvBOK

For background on the issue please see the Harm Reduction Coalition
FAQ at http://www.harmreduction.org/article.php?id=876 and this
Huffington Post article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n102/a06.html

**********************************************************************

Source: New York Times (NY)

Contact: [email protected]

Referenced: The letter by Members of Congress
http://www.harmreduction.org/downloads/Rice.pdf

TIME LAG IN VIENNA?

Programs that give drug addicts access to clean needles have been
shown the world over to slow the spread of deadly diseases including
H.I.V./AIDS and hepatitis. Public health experts were relieved when
President Obama announced his support for ending a ban on federal
funding for such programs.

Unfortunately, Mr. Obama’s message seems not to have reached the
American delegation to a United Nations drug policy summit in Vienna,
where progress is stalled on a plan that would guide global drug
control and AIDS prevention efforts for years to come. The delegation
has angered allies, especially the European Union, by blocking efforts
to incorporate references to the concept of “harm reduction” — of
which needle exchange is a prime example — into the plan.

State Department officials said that they were resisting the
harm-reduction language because it could also be interpreted as
endorsing legalized drugs or providing addicts with a place to inject
drugs. But the Vienna plan does not require any country to adopt
policies it finds inappropriate. And by resisting the harm-reduction
language, the American delegation is alienating allies and sending
precisely the wrong message to developing nations, which must do a lot
more to control AIDS and other addiction-related diseases.

Some members of Congress are rightly angry about the impasse in
Vienna. On Wednesday, three members fired off a letter to Susan Rice,
the new American ambassador to the United Nations, urging that the
United States’ delegation in Vienna be given new marching orders on
the harm-reduction language. If that doesn’t happen, the letter warns,
“we risk crafting a U.N. declaration that is at odds with our own
national policies and interests, even as we needlessly alienate our
nation’s allies in Europe.”

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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2009
Subject: #391 2008 – A Retrospective

2008 – A RETROSPECTIVE

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #391 – Sunday, 11 January 2009

2008 saw 11,442 new news clippings added to the Media Awareness
Project http://www.mapinc.org/ archives. Of these about six thousand
were about marijuana or hemp.

Over a half million different readers from about 125 countries
accessed the clippings during the year. Selections of the 600 most
read clippings by area of the world can be found at the following links:

http://mapinc.org/find?369 2008 in Review – Australasia

http://mapinc.org/find?370 2008 in Review – Asia

http://mapinc.org/find?366 2008 in Review – Canada

http://mapinc.org/find?368 2008 in Review – South America

http://mapinc.org/find?367 2008 in Review – United
Kingdom

http://mapinc.org/find?365 2008 in Review – United
States

During the 2008 National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Conference the Hunter S. Thompson NORML Media Award
http://mapinc.org/pix/norml_award3.jpg was presented to the Media
Awareness Project in memory of Derek Rea.

The year 2008 was good for our Letter to The Editor writing activists
– even though wars, the election, and the economy tended to push
reform issues off the pages of newspapers – with 1,862 letters printed
that we know of as shown at http://mapinc.org/lte/ . DrugSense
recognizes the accomplishments of letter writers at
http://www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm .

The Media Contact On Demand database now contains 31,147 records and
is being continuously updated. More reform organizations are using
this amazing free resource http://www.mapinc.org/mcod/ .

Thirty-three Focus Alerts http://www.mapinc.org/focus/ and four
DrugSense Insider Newsletters http://drugsense.org/insider/ were
produced covering a wide range of topics.

It has also been a busy year for the Drug Policy Central
http://www.drugpolicycentral.com/ webmastering/website hosting team
supporting 124 reform websites and over 200 email lists and forums.

An Acceptable Use Policy http://www.drugsense.org/aup.htm was
introduced. The Acceptable Use Policy is designed to help protect Drug
Policy Central, its clients, and the Internet community from
irresponsible or illegal activities.

DrugSense introduced a new activist Board of Directors composed of Don
E. Wirtshafter, J.D., Chair; Mark Greer, President and Executive
Director; Mary Jane Borden, MBA, APR, Secretary and Business Manager;
Matt Elrod, Webmaster and Senior Tech Support; and Tom Angell, Media
Relations Director for LEAP http://www.drugsense.org/pages/whoweare
.

We have probably left out something we did during the past year that
is important to you, but it is hard to keep on top of all that happens
at DrugSense.

DrugSense thanks you all, our friends and supporters, for all you have
done to support the effort in this past year.

Because the economy, and the stock market, has hit some major
DrugSense funders hard we know that some will decrease funding during
2009. Thus DrugSense asks for your financial support to help us keep
doing what we do.

Please visit http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm .

Thank You

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP/DrugSense Family of Activists

=.

Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2008
Subject: #390 ‘It’s A War’

‘IT’S A WAR’

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #390 – Monday, 29 December 2008

‘It’s A War’ – Mexican President Felipe Calderon

6,847 – Mexico’s estimated Drug War related deaths since January 2007
– more than the U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war.

The Mexican government has deployed about 45,000 soldiers and 5,000
federal police to 18 states to fight its Drug War.

Since June the Los Angeles Times has been printing an outstanding
series under the series title ‘Mexico Under Siege’ – 61 articles to
date.

You may read the entire series and future articles as they are added
here http://mapinc.org/find?255

Will Mexico win it’s Drug War? The series may cause you to
doubt.

There is a solution, perhaps the only solution, to end the death and
destruction caused by our current failed policies –
legalization!

DrugSense thanks you all, our friends and supporters, for all you have
done to support the effort in this past year.

Because the economy, and the stock market, has hit some major
DrugSense funders hard we know that some will decrease funding during
2009. Thus DrugSense asks for your financial support to help us keep
doing what we do during the next year.

Please visit http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

Thank You

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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

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Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2008
Subject: #389 The Pentagon Is Muscling In Everywhere

THE PENTAGON IS MUSCLING IN EVERYWHERE

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #389 – Sunday, 21 December 2008

Sometime an OPED catches our attention because it pulls together
information which may have been below the radar for many of us. Such
is the OPED below that was printed today on page B01 of The Washington
Post.

The author, Thomas A. Schweich served the Bush administration as
ambassador for counter-narcotics in Afghanistan and deputy assistant
secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs.

The OPED covers much related to the military and the war on drugs.
Near the end it references the Posse Comitatus Act. For more on the
Act please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act As
the wiki notes over the past dozen years the Act has been gutted.

We remember the death on May 20, 1997, of Esequiel Hernandez, Jr.
documented on this webpage http://www.dpft.org/hernandez/gallery/index.html
as the first known death resulting from the changes in the Act. Thus
we hope that the next administration follows the recommendations at
the end of the OPED.

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Contact: [email protected]

Pubdate: Sun, 21 Dec 2008
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2008 The Washington Post Company
Author: Thomas A. Schweich

THE PENTAGON IS MUSCLING IN EVERYWHERE

It’s Time To Stop The Mission Creep

We no longer have a civilian-led government. It is hard for a lifelong
Republican and son of a retired Air Force colonel to say this, but the
most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration is the encroachment
of the Department of Defense into a striking number of aspects of
civilian government. Our Constitution is at risk.

President-elect Barack Obama’s selections of James L. Jones, a retired
four-star Marine general, to be his national security adviser and, it
appears, retired Navy Adm. Dennis C. Blair to be his director of
national intelligence present the incoming administration with an
important opportunity — and a major risk. These appointments could
pave the way for these respected military officers to reverse the
current trend of Pentagon encroachment upon civilian government
functions, or they could complete the silent military coup d’etat that
has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most
Americans and the media.

While serving the State Department in several senior capacities over
the past four years, I witnessed firsthand the quiet, de facto
military takeover of much of the U.S. government. The first assault on
civilian government occurred in faraway places — Iraq and Afghanistan
— and was, in theory, justified by the exigencies of war.

The White House, which basically let the Defense Department call the
budgetary shots, vastly underfunded efforts by the State Department,
the Justice Department and the U.S. Agency for International
Development to train civilian police forces, build functioning
judicial systems and provide basic development services to those
war-torn countries.

For example, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Justice Department
and the State Department said that they needed at least 6,000 police
trainers in the country.

Pentagon officials told some of my former staffers that they doubted
so many would be needed.

The civilians’ recommendation “was quickly reduced to 1,500 [trainers]
by powers-that-be above our pay grade,” Gerald F. Burke, a retired
major in the Massachusetts State Police who trained Iraqi cops from
2003 to 2006, told Congress last April. Just a few hundred trainers
ultimately wound up being fielded, according to Burke’s testimony.

Until this year, the State Department received an average of about $40
million a year for rule-of-law programs in Afghanistan, according to
the department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
Affairs — in stark contrast to the billions that the Pentagon got to
train the Afghan army. Under then-Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, the Defense Department failed to provide even basic security
for the meager force of civilian police mentors, rule-of-law advisers
and aid workers from other U.S. agencies operating in Afghanistan and
Iraq, driving policymakers to turn to such contracting firms as
Blackwater Worldwide. After having set the rest of the U.S. government
up for failure, military authorities then declared that the other
agencies’ unsuccessful police-training efforts required military
leadership and took them over — after brutal interagency battles at
the White House.

The result of letting the Pentagon take such thorough charge of the
programs to create local police forces is that these units, in both
Iraq and Afghanistan, have been unnecessarily militarized — producing
police officers who look more like militia members than ordinary beat
cops. These forces now risk becoming paramilitary groups, well armed
with U.S. equipment, that could run roughshod over Iraq and
Afghanistan’s nascent democracies once we leave.

Or consider another problem with the rising influence of the
Pentagon: the failure to address the ongoing plague of poppy farming
and heroin production in Afghanistan. This fiasco was in large part
the result of the work of non-expert military personnel, who
discounted the corrosive effects of the Afghan heroin trade on our
efforts to rebuild the country and failed to support civilian-run
counter-narcotics programs.

During my tenure as the Bush administration’s anti-drug envoy to
Afghanistan, I also witnessed JAG officers hiring their own manifestly
unqualified Afghan legal “experts,” some of whom even lacked law
degrees, to operate outside the internationally agreed-upon,
Afghan-led program to bring impartial justice to the people of
Afghanistan. This resulted in confusion and contradiction.

One can also see the Pentagon’s growing muscle in the recent creation
of the U.S. military command for Africa, known as Africom. This new
command supposedly has a joint civilian-military purpose: to
coordinate soft power and traditional hard power to stop al-Qaeda and
its allies from gaining a foothold on the continent.

But Africom has gotten a chilly reception in post-colonial Africa.
Meanwhile, U.S. competitors such as China are pursuing large African
development projects that are being welcomed with open arms. Since the
Bush administration has had real successes with its anti-AIDS and
other health programs in Africa, why exactly do we need a military
command there running civilian reconstruction, if not to usurp the
efforts led by well-respected U.S. embassies and aid officials?

And, of course, I need not even elaborate on the most notorious effect
of the military’s growing reach: the damage that the military
tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and such military prisons as Abu
Ghraib have done to U.S. credibility around the world.

But these initial military takeovers of civilian functions all took
place a long distance from home. “We are in a war, after all,” Ronald
Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, told me by way of
explaining the military’s huge role in that country — just before the
Pentagon seemingly had him removed in 2007 because of his admirable
efforts to balance military and civilian needs. (I heard angry
accounts of the Pentagon’s role in Neumann’s “retirement” at the time
from knowledgeable diplomats, one of them very senior.) But our
military forces, in a bureaucratic sense, soon marched on Washington
itself.

As military officers sought to take over the role played by civilian
development experts abroad, Pentagon bureaucrats quietly populated the
National Security Council and the State Department with their own
personnel (some civilians, some consultants, some retired officers,
some officers on “detail” from the Pentagon) to ensure that the
Defense Department could keep an eye on its rival agencies.

Vice President Cheney, himself a former secretary of defense, and his
good friend Rumsfeld ensured the success of this seeding effort by
some fairly forceful means.

At least twice, I saw Cheney staffers show up unannounced at State
Department meetings, and I heard other State Department officials
grumble about this habit.

The Rumsfeld officials could play hardball, sometimes even leaking to
the press the results of classified meetings that did not go their way
in order to get the decisions reversed.

After I got wind of the Pentagon’s dislike for the approved
interagency anti-drug strategy for Afghanistan, details of the plan
quickly wound up in the hands of foreign countries sympathetic to the
Pentagon view. I’ve heard other, similarly troubling stories about
leaks of classified information to the press.

Many of Cheney’s and Rumsfeld’s cronies still work at the Pentagon and
elsewhere. Rumsfeld’s successor, Robert M. Gates, has spoken of
increasing America’s “soft power,” its ability to attract others by
our example, culture and values, but thus far, this push to
reestablish civilian leadership has been largely talk and little action.

Gates is clearly sincere about chipping away at the military’s
expanding role, but many of his subordinates are not.

The encroachment within America’s borders continued with the
military’s increased involvement in domestic surveillance and its
attempts to usurp the role of the federal courts in reviewing detainee
cases.

The Pentagon also resisted ceding any authority over its extensive
intelligence operations to the first director of national
intelligence, John D. Negroponte — a State Department official who
eventually gave up his post to Mike McConnell, a former Navy admiral.

The Bush administration also appointed Michael V. Hayden, a four-star
Air Force general, to be the director of the CIA. National Security
Adviser Stephen J. Hadley saw much of the responsibility for
developing and implementing policy on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
— surely the national security adviser’s job — given to Lt. Gen.
Douglas E. Lute, Bush’s new “war czar.” By 2008, the military was
running much of the national security apparatus.

The Pentagon opened a southern front earlier this year when it
attempted to dominate the new Merida Initiative, a promising $400
million program to help Mexico battle drug cartels.

Despite the admirable efforts of the federal drug czar, John P.
Walters, to keep the White House focused on the civilian
law-enforcement purpose of the Merida Initiative, the military runs a
big chunk of that program as well.

Now the Pentagon has drawn up plans to deploy 20,000 U.S. soldiers
inside our borders by 2011, ostensibly to help state and local
officials respond to terrorist attacks or other catastrophes. But that
mission could easily spill over from emergency counterterrorism work
into border-patrol efforts, intelligence gathering and law enforcement
operations — which would run smack into the Posse Comitatus Act, the
long-standing law restricting the military’s role in domestic law
enforcement. So the generals are not only dominating our government
activities abroad, at our borders and in Washington, but they also
seem to intend to spread out across the heartland of America.

If President-elect Obama wants to reverse this trend, he must take
four steps — and very quickly:

1. Direct — or, better yet, order — Gates, Jones, Blair and the
other military leaders in his Cabinet to rid the Pentagon’s lower
ranks of Rumsfeld holdovers whose only mission is to increase the
power of the Pentagon.

2. Turn Gates’s speeches on the need to promote soft power into
reality with a massive transfer of funds from the Pentagon to the
State Department, the Justice Department and USAID.

3. Put senior, respected civilians — not retired or active military
personnel — into key subsidiary positions in the intelligence
community and the National Security Council.

4. Above all, he should let his appointees with military backgrounds
know swiftly and firmly that, under the Constitution, he is their
commander, and that he will not tolerate the well-rehearsed lip
service that the military gave to civilian agencies and even President
Bush over the past four years.

In short, he should retake the government before it devours him and us
— and return civilian-led government to the people of the United States.

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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

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