|
|
|
The Panama Unit operated one of the most efficient drug-robbery rings in Texas, taking money from some dealers and traffickers while using their weapons and cars to rob others. Illustration by John Ritter, Image of Alexis Espinoza in illustration by Gabe Hernandez/“The Monitor”/AP Images The temperature was nearing triple digits when Jonathan Treviño strapped on his bulletproof vest, slipped his .40-caliber Glock into his ankle holster and got ready to go to work. It was Thursday, July 26th, 2012, one of those summers in South Texas when the hot air settles on the Rio Grande Valley like a blanket. The Gulf breeze was already sticky as Treviño climbed into his unmarked Chevy Tahoe and started it up. Treviño was a police officer in Mission, a bustling city of 80,000 on the Texas-Mexico border. Part of a flourishing bilingual metropolitan region with five international bridges, Mission also sits firmly in one of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s 28 HIDTAs, or High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas – smuggling hot spots where the federal government spends an extra $240 million a year battling narcotics. Nearly 800,000 pounds of marijuana and several tons of cocaine are seized there every year, on their way to street corners and living rooms all over the country – and that’s not counting the stuff that does get through. As the leader of an elite street-level narcotics squad, Treviño was in the middle of the action. |
|
From Rolling Stone Magazine
January 3, 2014 2:25PM ET
|
|
Legal marijuana in America is now estimated to be a $1.43 billion industry. And it’s expected to grow to $2.34 billion in 2014. If those numbers hold, the 64 percent increase – a steeper trend line than global smartphone sales – would make pot one of the world’s fastest-growing business sectors. Matt Taibbi on the yuppie prohibition league denouncing pot legalization Signs of the new age abound. In Colorado, retail marijuana stores welcomed their first legal-age customers (21 and older) on January 1st. Washington state is expecting to license the first of its projected 334 pot shops by late spring. A Gallup poll taken last fall found that 58 percent of Americans supported legalization, a 10-point uptick from the year before. Alaska and Oregon will likely vote to go legal in 2014; California and five other states are expected to do the same in 2016. The legalizing states aren’t going in half-assed, either. Officials tasked with ramping up a marijuana regulatory system are taking to it with a tradesman’s pride. “We are going to implement Initiative 502,” says Sharon Foster, the brassy chairwoman of the Washington State Liquor Control Board, at a public hearing last fall. “This state is not going to allow it to fail.” |
| From Rolling Stone Magazine Blow by Blow: 10 Politicians Linked to Cocaine Congressman Trey Radel isn’t the first politician to make headlines from white lines Freshman Congressman Trey Radel (R-Florida) became the first sitting U.S. representative to be convicted for a cocaine offense this week. The 37-year-old Radel pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession charges, following from his attempt to score about 3.5 grams of coke for $250 from an undercover cop in late October. (Radel had recently voted with Republican colleagues to drug-test food stamp recipients – an irony not lost on minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who remarked, “It’s like, what!?“) Radel, blamed his “extremely irresponsible choice” on “the disease of alcoholism.” The first-time offender was sentenced to one year of probation. READ THE ARTICLE |
  |
It’s Time to Fire the DEA The DEA was created in 1973 to enforce federal drug laws. The results have been devastating: wasted resources, mass incarceration, racial disparities, civil rights violations and scandal after scandal. Treating drug use as a criminal justice issue instead of a health issue has led to disaster. Yet Congress has rarely scrutinized the agency, its actions or its budget. For more than 40 years, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has fueled mass incarceration, wasted taxpayer money, and blocked scientific research. It’s time for change. |
Published by the
 |
 |
 |
| End the Drug War for these Reasons |
| Nixon and the Start of the Drug War |
Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs |
America can end its war on drugs. Here's how. |
| Prison Fellowship on Drug Crime |
|
U.S. Ramps Up Drug War in Afghanistan
|
the Nation says: |
It's Time to Legalize Marijuana and Abolish the Drug Czar |
|
 Hemp for U.S. |
| Hemp for Victory Movie |
| Wikipedia on Hemp for Victory |
It's Time To Abolish The DEA And America's "War On Drugs" Gulag
|
 |
Gateway Drug Hypothesis |
These Doctors Want to Abolish the DEA
|
End the Drug War and Abolish 21st Century Slavery
February 20, 2016
| Podcast
|
600 US churches call for an end to the ‘war on drugs’ |
| Apr 19, 2012 @ 09:39 PM 349,781 Let's Be Blunt: It's Time to End the Drug War Art Carden , Contributor Using economics to understand the world. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. |
Industrial Hemp Bill passes Kansas House |
 We are Legion. We are here, now. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
