Lisbon's light-touch drugs policy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8106689.stm

In 2001, the Portugese government decriminalised recreational drugs including heroin and cocaine in an attempt to reduce the number of hard drug users in the country. Eight years later, Claudia Hammond visited Lisbon to see whether the change in the law had been effective.

And the results? Fears that Portugal would become a haven for drug tourists have not come true and the number of deaths from drugs has decreased.

Japan sentences Hasidic Israeli to 8 years in jail after Ecstasy bustjap

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082624.html

A Japanese court sentenced an Israeli to eight years in prison on Friday after convicting him of attempting to smuggle Ecstasy into the country, according to friends of his family. The Israeli, who was a minor at the time of the crime, is the youngest of three yeshiva students arrested a year ago while attempting to enter Japan with suitcases containing large quantities of Ecstasy pills.

Goldstein, Grinwald and the minor were arrested in April 2008 at Tokyo's Narita International airport after arriving on a flight from Amsterdam. Customs officials found that they were carrying 90,000 Ecstasy pills after suspicions were raised over their large suitcases.

Six Israelis charged with drug trafficking in California

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/08/26/2008-08-26_six_israelis_charged_with_drug_trafficki.html

LOS ANGELES - A man suspected of being one of Israel's most powerful crime bosses is charged with using a Los Angeles gang to distribute a million Ecstasy pills and paying one of the gang's members to kill a man for stealing a large drug shipment.

Abergil and his brother Mier Abergil were arrested Sunday in Israel. They face extradition to Los Angeles, where Itzhak Abergil would be charged with murder and his brother with racketeering and conspiracy.

Almost 200 Afghan drug cartels traffic heroin to Russia

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090506/121461476.html

MOSCOW, May 6 (RIA Novosti) - About 180 Afghan drug cartels are trafficking heroin to Russia, as drug production has increased more than 40 times since 2001, the head of the Federal Drug Control Service said on Wednesday.

And who has been in control in Afghanistan since shortly after 2001?

Mexico Senate OKs bill to legalize drug possesion

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN28349522?rpc=64

MEXICO CITY, April 28 (Reuters) - Mexico's Senate approved a bill on Tuesday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of narcotics for personal use, in order to free resources to fight violent drug cartels.

The bill, proposed by conservative President Felipe Calderon, would make it legal to carry up to 5 grams (0.18 ounces) of marijuana, 500 milligrams (0.018 ounces) of cocaine and tiny quantities of other drugs such as heroin and methamphetamines.

Former upstate NY police chief faces drug charges

Full Article - Syracuse.com

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (AP) — A former Schenectady police chief has been charged with conspiring to distribute drugs in upstate New York. Gregory Kaczmarek (KAZ'-mar-ack) was arraigned along with his wife on a second-degree conspiracy charge Thursday. The Kaczmareks are also charged with multiple counts of felony cocaine possession and conspiracy to sell marijuana.

Lisa Kaczmarek was charged earlier this year after a state investigation that also led to the arrest of her son and more than 20 other people. Authorities say they picked up drugs on Long Island and sold them in the Albany area. When Kaczmarek was named chief in 1996, he met with reporters to deny rumors he used cocaine. He retired in 2002 amid a corruption scandal.
The Kaczmareks declined to comment Thursday morning.

1 Fired, 4 Suspended in Botched Drug Sting

Full article - WFTV Orlando

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- An investigator was fired Thursday and four other Tallahassee police officers were suspended two weeks without pay for their roles in a botched drug sting that led to the death of a young informant.

A grand jury reported Aug. 1 that it found police undercover operations negligent in the shooting death of 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman, who was killed in the aborted sting in early May. Two men -- Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw -- await trial on first-degree murder charges.

Hoffman, a recent Florida State University graduate, had been arrested for using and selling marijuana and ecstasy. Police said the drug investigation was a way for her to avoid prison time.
She was given $13,000 to buy drugs and a gun from suspected dealers at a park in a sting arranged by police. Her body was found two days later in rural Taylor County.

Air-conditioned drugs smuggling tunnel discovered on US-Mexico border

Full Story - Telegraph

Mexican police have arrested eight men after discovering a sophisticated drug smuggling tunnel complete with air conditioning and a lift being dug close to the US border.

The 150 yard-long passageway was found in northwest Mexico less than 65 yards from the US border and close to the California town of Calexico. It was 1.4 yards wide and 5.4 yards below ground with an electric rail for transporting containers, ventilation, lights and air-conditioning, according to Juan Miguel Guillen, director of police in Mexico's northern Baja California state.

Officials discovered the clandestine passage after reports of suspicious activity, including the presence of armed men, at a house in Mexicali, across the border from Calexico. They moved in and arrested eight suspects, found below ground digging the tunnel.

The 2,000-mile border between the US and Mexico is the major gateway for much of the cocaine and marijuana that enters the States. The attempted use of tunnels as a means to smuggle in drugs - and also illegal immigrants - is not uncommon. At least 75 have been discovered along America's border with Mexico since the 1990s, according to Lauren Mack, of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 63 of those since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

White House Has No Information On Hundreds Of Kidnapped, Executed Americans In Mexico

Infowars

Cybercast News Service specifically asked Press Secretary Dana Perino last Friday for information pertaining to a still operative travel alert issued by the State Department, which warned travelers that violence "equivalent to military small-unit combat" was taking place along the southern U.S. border with Mexico.

"Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," said the State Department alert.

Perino told CNS that she did not know whether the President was aware of the alert or not.

A follow up email to the White House requesting specific information on legal action concerning 128 documented cases of murders and executions of Americans in Mexico in the last two years was met only with a recommendation to contact the attorney general of Mexico.

CIA Drug Ops Conspiracy (vid)

Mexican Drug Cartel Violence Off the Charts

Infowars

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A powerful coalition of drug gangs led by Mexico’s most-wanted man is collapsing, meaning the surge in bloodshed and police killings will get worse, a senior U.S. counternarcotics official said.

“The Sinaloa cartel is weakened, divided … . There are internal disputes, rivalries, betrayals,” the official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters in an interview. “You’re going to see more violence.”

Related: A Primer to the World Drug Trade...

Oliver North Beats the Rap

NYTimes

Oliver North, quarterback of the Iran-contra scandal, has won dismissal of his criminal convictions because the prosecution can't prove he had a perfect trial, utterly free of error. He pronounces himself "totally exonerated."

That's a wild overstatement. It's as though Ernesto Miranda had claimed that the Supreme Court gave him a character reference when it threw out his famous confession for crimes in Arizona because the police had not read him his rights.

Fighting illegal drugs is the single most effective way of taking on the ruling elite and derailing the New World Order

Ziopedia

The 600 billion dollar illegal drug trade is the Achilles heel of the ruling elite. Attacking it is probably the single most effective way of fighting the New World Order. Although the monopolistic sale of illegal drugs is not the only source of income for the ruling elite, it is the main source of finance for the 'Matrix', the evil machine that keeps the entire system together.

Sonny Bono "Assassinated" By Hitmen?

The Australian

SONNY Bono, former husband and singing partner of superstar Cher, was clubbed to death by hitmen on the orders of drug and weapons dealers who feared he was going to expose them, a former FBI agent claims.

Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed.
"It's nonsense for anyone to now try to suggest that Bono died after crashing into a tree. There's zero evidence in this autopsy report... to show such an accident happened. Instead, there's powerful proof he was assassinated.
"This was an evil plot that was carried out to almost perfection by ruthless assassins," Mr Gunderson told the paper.

His claims have reportedly been backed by top forensics experts who fear Nevada authorities were too quick to call the death a skiing accident.
Investigator Bob Fletcher had also confessed he sent evidence of a 10-year study that linked top US government officials to arms and weapons dealers to Bono less than a month before his death, the Globe reported.
"(Bono) was going to make it his No.1 priority... There's no doubt in my mind Sonny was murdered by someone who needed him silenced," Mr Fletcher told the paper.

Ex-DEA Head Admits CIA Imported Cocaine

Award-Winning Reporter details Media Blackout on Mexican Military Incursions

Source-InfoWars

Sara A. Carter, National Security and Pentagon reporter for the Washington Times, spoke to the Alex Jones show today regarding consistent incursions into the U.S. by armed Mexican troops aiding illegal smugglers.

"This is a very serious national security issue in many respects and it deals with an array from smuggling humans, to smuggling narcotics, and the whole mix up is that there's many people within the Mexican government and military that have already been bought and sold out to the drug cartels."

Cop Plants Weed on Suspect, Caught on Dashcam

Click Here for Video

Study doubts effectiveness of antidepressant drugs

Source-Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Antidepressant medications appear to help only very severely depressed people and work no better than placebos in many patients, British researchers said.

Researchers led by Irving Kirsch of the University of Hull reviewed a series of studies, both published and unpublished, on four antidepressants, examining the question of whether a person's response to these drugs hinged on how depressed they were before getting treatment.

They were Eli Lilly and Co's Prozac, also known as fluoxetine, Wyeth's Effexor, also called venlafaxine; GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil, also called Seroxat or paroxetine, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's drug Serzone, also called nefazodone, which it no longer markets in the United States.

Popular Mexican Singer of Narco-Ballads Killed

Source-UPI

MEXICO CITY, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- A popular Mexican singer of songs about the country's drug trafficking was killed by drug gang members, El Universal reported Thursday.

Known as the "Little Rooster," Jesus Rey David Alfaro was gunned down in the border town of Tijuana, along with his manager and assistant.

The body of Alfaro, believed to have ties to the Arellano Felix cartel, was discovered last week with a bullet wound to his head, said authorities. He was the latest of at least a half dozen singers killed this year by drug traffickers.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has sent thousands of soldiers to border towns in a crackdown on rampant drug trafficking and crime associated with smuggling.

* * * * * * *

Also See: Mexican Country Music Singers Being Killed

American Drug War: The Last White Hope

Click Here to Watch!

AmericanDrugWar.com