Drugs & Prohibition

Mexico to create new national police force to fight drug cartels

"Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto announced the creation of a national police force to crack down on crime and battle the country’s powerful drug cartels. The force — a gendarmerie based on the model of Spain’s Guardia Civil — would be 10,000 strong. Currently Mexico has a patchwork of city and state police, along with some national police. Pena Nieto also said he was allocating $8.8 billion for social programs aimed at preventing crime. Pena Nieto, 46, is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the party that ran Mexico for 71 years ending in 2000." Continue reading →

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Highway Robbery, Cajun Style

"After Tina Beers was stopped for a suspected traffic violation, the officer conducted a search of her minivan because she appeared nervous. He found a large amount of cash that had been bundled in rubber bands and shrink wrap. He claimed that the method of packing the cash suggested that it was drug proceeds, and confiscated it. No crime was committed, no charges were filed, there was no probable cause for the seizure -- but because the money was wrapped in a certain way, and the female driver was nervous in the presence of an armed tax-feeder, the highway robbers in uniform get to keep the cash." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHighway Robbery, Cajun Style

Highway Robbery, Cajun Style

"After Tina Beers was stopped for a suspected traffic violation, the officer conducted a search of her minivan because she appeared nervous. He found a large amount of cash that had been bundled in rubber bands and shrink wrap. He claimed that the method of packing the cash suggested that it was drug proceeds, and confiscated it. No crime was committed, no charges were filed, there was no probable cause for the seizure -- but because the money was wrapped in a certain way, and the female driver was nervous in the presence of an armed tax-feeder, the highway robbers in uniform get to keep the cash." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingHighway Robbery, Cajun Style

Son of top DHS border cop busted for running cocaine

"Four south Texas police officers, including the son of a top cop advising the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on border issues, were charged Thursday with accepting thousands of dollars in bribes to guard cartel cocaine shipments. One of the officers arrested, 29-year-old Alexis Rigoberto Espinoza, is the son of Hidalgo Chief of Police Rodolfo Espinoza. Another one of the officers, 29-year-old Jonathan Treviño, is the son of Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño. The elder Treviño also serves on the Southwest Border Task Force, a group established by DHS chief Janet Napolitano in 2009 to advise her on border issues." Continue reading →

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Activists to U.S.: Release 5 Prisoners Serving Life Terms for Marijuana

"Recently, the law office of Michael Kennedy filed an historic legal petition with the federal government seeking clemency for five elderly prisoners serving lifetime sentences for cannabis-only related crimes. I’m vexed to no end when they make the ridiculous claim: ‘no one gets arrested for marijuana anymore and certainly no one is incarcerated for the stuff!’ This federal petition to release these men back to their loving families and to get off the tax roll is born out of the non-profit organization called Life For Pot, where the groups is tracking at least twenty prisoners serving life sentences for cannabis-only related offenses." Continue reading →

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Mandatory Sentences Face Growing Skepticism

"Three decades of stricter drug laws, reduced parole and rigid sentencing rules have lengthened prison terms and more than tripled the percentage of Americans behind bars. The United States has the highest reported rate of incarceration of any country: about one in 100 adults, a total of nearly 2.3 million people in prison or jail. State spending on corrections, after adjusting for inflation, has more than tripled in the past three decades, making it the fastest-growing budgetary cost except Medicaid. Even though the prison population has leveled off in the past several years, the costs remain so high that states are being forced to reduce spending in other areas." Continue reading →

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Drug-sniffing Dogs and their Handlers

"Please remember this video the next time someone says, 'Well if you have not done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.' The officer admits putting illegal narcotics on cars randomly around town–enough to have a dog 'alert' to anyone’s car, whether they have ever used drugs or not. This isn’t an officer 'caught on tape.' The officer readily admits that this is what he does." Continue reading →

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The Unfathomable Depravity of the CIA

"Fifty-nine years ago, a CIA bioweapons expert named Frank Olson attended a secret meeting where he was unwittingly given a drink laced with an experimental hallucinogenic compound now known as LSD. In the early hours of November 28, Olson fell to his death from the window of a 13th-floor hotel room. The Agency described the incident as a suicide, concealing the LSD test until 1975. His sons now filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit claiming that the scientist was murdered to conceal illegal interrogations that had been conducted by the agency using biological agents he had developed, resulting in the deaths of detainees in Norway and Germany." Continue reading →

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“Officer of the Month” Admits to Planting Drug Evidence

"In April, Reichert, a K-9 officer who specializes in drug interdiction and seizures, was recognized as 'Officer of the Month' for what was described as his 'proactive and innovative philosophy of law enforcement.' His novel approach involves manufacturing evidence and lying under oath – a fact recognized in multiple federal court rulings and Reichert’s brief termination in 2009 after he was put on a roster of police officers considered unsuitable to testify in court. In a subsequent video deposition, Reichert has admitted to planting narcotics evidence on vehicles in motel parking lots near the interstate, supposedly as a training exercise." Continue reading →

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Washington bar opens its doors to pot smokers

"Frankie’s Sports Bar & Grill, owned by one Frank Schnarr, is thought to be the first of its kind anywhere in the U.S.: a bar that lets patrons toke up freely. Schnarr has set up the second floor of his bar as a private club called 'Friends of Frankies.' Interested patrons are charged a $10-a-year fee to access the lounge, where they can smoke marijuana freely. Schnarr was already in the headlines back in 2006, when he fought the state’s anti-smoking law and won. In the wake of Washington’s successful referendum to reform the state’s marijuana laws, he figured he would try to be the first again." Continue reading →

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