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US District Court Judge Julie Carnes sentenced former officer Arthur Tesler to five years in prison, Gregg Junnier to six years, and Jason Smith to 10 years. All three sentences were less than those called for by federal sentencing guidelines.

Johnston was killed about 7 p.m. on November 21, 2006. Three hours earlier, Tesler arrested and roughed-up a small-time drug dealer named Fabian Sheats and threatened to send him to prison unless he gave up another drug dealer. Sheats eventually pointed out Johnston’s home, apparently at random, telling Tesler and his partners he saw a dealer named “Sam” with a kilo of cocaine there.

The three officers wanted to make a buy, but didn’t consider Sheats reliable, so they called an informant named Alex White to come make the buy. But White was unavailable, so the trio simply wrote a false affidavit saying they had watched White make a cocaine buy at Johnston’s home. Shortly before 6:00 p.m., they had their no-knock search warrant. An hour later, Johnston was dead after firing upon the intruders she apparently thought were robbers.

Then the cover-up kicked in, with the trio creating more false documents to hide the truth. But their cover-up fell apart when their informant, Alex White, grew frightened and went to the FBI.

In her sentencing statement, Judge Carnes criticized the Atlanta Police Department for its performance quotas for search warrants and arrests, saying the “pressures brought to bear did have an impact on these and other officers on the force.” If anything good came from Johnston’s death, it will be “a renewed effort by the Atlanta Police Department to prevent something like this from ever happening again,” Carnes said. “It is my fervent hope the APD will take to heart what has happened here,” the judge said.

Courtesy: DRCNet

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The numbers for overall drug use are similar to those for recent years, although the survey reported marginal declines in cocaine and methamphetamine use among young people. Among 18-to-25-year-olds, cocaine use dropped to 1.7%, down 23% from 2006, while meth use dropped to 0.4%, down about a third from 2006.

Drug control officials attributed the decline to increased interdiction and enforcement leading to higher prices. But the decline could reflect the generational learning curve typically observed in drug use patterns over time.

The declines in illegal stimulant use were countered by an increase in the non-medical use of prescription pain pills. According to the survey, 4.6% of young adults reported using pain pills for non-medical reasons last year, a 12% increase over 2006.

Marijuana remains by far the most commonly used illicit drug, with an estimated 14.4 million people reporting use in the previous month. That is about 5.8% of the population, down slightly from 6% in 2006.

Baby boomers moving into their fifties are taking their drug habits with them, according to the survey. Illicit drug use among those 55 to 59 more than doubled to 4.1% last year.

Despite millions of drug arrests and hundreds of billions of dollars spent enforcing drug prohibition in the past three decades, drug use levels remain roughly where they have been for the entire period.

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Venezuela does not grow coca or process cocaine, but like other countries in Latin America, it has been used as a conduit, especially by traffickers from neighboring Colombia, the region’s largest coca and cocaine producer. The rise of the European cocaine market in recent years has undoubtedly made the country an attractive way station for cocaine headed east.

Venezuela (from the CIA World Factbook)

“The flow of cocaine through Venezuela – both north particularly through the Dominican Republic and Haiti but also into Europe through Africa and other places – has increased dramatically,” US drug czar John Walters told the Associated Press in a recent interview. He said smuggling through Venezuela had quadrupled since 2004, to about 250 metric tons last year, or about one-quarter of total regional (and thus global) cocaine production.

The remarks come as the US is pressing Venezuela to renew cooperation with it on drug trafficking, and are probably laying the groundwork for a looming decertification of Venezuela’s compliance with US drug war goals. Relations between the US DEA and the Venezuelan government have been almost nonexistent since Chávez expelled the DEA in 2005, charging that it was spying on his country. Only two DEA agents are currently stationed in Venezuela, and their activities are very circumscribed.

But Venezuela last weekend brusquely rejected renewed calls from Washington to accept a visit from Walters and resume cooperation on the drug front, saying it had made progress by itself and working with other countries. “The anti-drug fight in Venezuela has shown significant progress during recent years, especially since the government ended official cooperation programs with the DEA,” Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement. Renewing talks on drugs would be “useless and inopportune,” the statement said.

Walters had tried to “impose his visit as an obligation,” the foreign ministry complained. “The government considers this kind of visit useless and ill-timed and feels that this official would better use his time to control the flourishing drug trafficking and abuse in his own country,” the statement said. “Venezuela has become today a country free of drug farms, neither producing nor processing illicit drugs, and which has smashed records one year after another for seizing substances from neighboring countries,” it added.
That statement came one day after US Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy ruffled feathers in Caracas by saying that Venezuela’s failure to cooperate with the US was leaving an opening for traffickers. “The drug traffickers are taking advantage of the gap that exists between the two governments,” Duddy told reporters, citing the estimated fourfold rise in trafficking.

President Chávez responded to those remarks Sunday by calling them “stupid” and warning that Duddy would soon be “packing his bags” if he is not careful. Chávez also suggested that the US concentrate on its own drug use and marijuana production.

On Monday, Venezuelan Vice-President Ramón Carrizales echoed his chief, telling reporters in Caracas that Venezuela was cooperating internationally, just not on US terms. “The DEA asks for freedom to fly over our territory indiscriminately,” Carrizales said. “Well, they aren’t going to have that freedom. We are a sovereign country.”

Venezuela has seized tons of cocaine in recent years and has some 4,000 people behind bars on trafficking charges, he added. Most US-bound cocaine moves north by sea, he said, largely along Colombia’s Pacific Coast.

But the Bush administration wasn’t backing down. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormick said: “Our officials, including Ambassador Duddy, are going to continue to speak out on the state of US-Venezuelan relations… (and) what we see happening inside Venezuela. That does not foreclose the possibility of a better relationship… and certainly we’re prepared to have a better relationship,” he added, saying Washington first needed to see some unspecified actions by the Venezuelan government.

Good luck with that, said a trio of analysts consulted by the Chronicle. “There is little chance of increased cooperation,” said Ian Vasquez, director of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, who cited corruption within the Venezuelan government.

Prospects for a rapprochement on drug policy are low, said Adam Isaacson of the Washington-based Center for International Policy. “There is so much distrust between the two governments,” he said. “Chávez’s threat scenario is a US invasion, and a US military, security, or even police presence would be seen as probing for weaknesses. On the other hand, the US thinks Venezuela is on a campaign to bring Iran and Russia into the region, and Walters is an ideologue who thinks Venezuela is doing this to destabilize the region, you know, the idea of a leftist leader making common cause with drug traffickers. There is no trust, and there’s not going to be any trust. The drug war stuff is really only one aspect of that larger context,” he said.

“The Venezuelans have repeatedly stated they want to cooperate with the US on drugs, but Chávez deeply distrusts the US government,” said Larry Birns, head of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. “He has had a terrible time with activist US ambassadors and he feels they have intervened repeatedly in Venezuela’s sovereign affairs, but this could be a propitious moment. The Bush administration will get nowhere with any new anti-Chávez initiatives, so they just might be interested in taking some steps toward normalizing relations with Venezuela simply to show that the US is capable of using diplomacy.”

Still, said Birns, don’t look for any dramatic breakthroughs. “There won’t be any effective agreement on drug trafficking unless it’s part of a larger mix of confidence-building measures,” he said. “Hugo Chávez has a confrontational, combative personality, but he’s relatively clean when it comes to human rights violations or other derelictions, and that’s very frustrating for Washington. There will not be any comprehensive agreement on this issue, just some de facto improvements on a graduated basis because the necessary confidence between the two governments just doesn’t exist.”

All three agreed that cocaine trafficking through Venezuela is increasing, but none thought it was a matter of official policy. “It’s true there is now a lot of cocaine going through Venezuela,” said Isaacson. “While I don’t think that Chávez is actively trying to turn the country into a narco playground, I haven’t seen any major effort to root out drug-related corruption. Chávez also has problems controlling his national territory; there are security and public security problems, common crime is a serious problem, and organized crime is growing.”

“Venezuela has an income of $100 billion a year from oil revenues, why would they be interested in drug revenues?” Birns asked. “I’m sure there are some rogue elements in the government, but this is not a matter of state policy,” he said. “You can’t deny there is drug trafficking in Venezuela, but I can’t imagine that Chávez has anything to do with or gain from it. After all, he’s giving away hundreds of millions of dollars a year around the world, including the US, in oil and heating oil, so this just doesn’t seem like an income opportunity he would be interested in.”

The war on drugs is just a waste of time and resources, said Vasquez. “Asking countries to enforce US drug prohibition is asking them to do the impossible,” said Vasquez. “It hasn’t succeeded in Colombia, Mexico, or anywhere in the Andes. You see some ephemeral victories — you might kill a drug lord or shut down a cartel, but this is a multi-billion dollar multinational industry that can easily adapt to whatever is thrown at it.”

Asking for more enforcement is only asking for trouble, said Vasquez. “The more prohibition, the more law enforcement, the more violent it becomes,” he said. “There is no light at the end of the tunnel. To the extent that the drug war is more aggressively pursued, we can expect more violence and corruption.”

Still, there are things Venezuela could do to ease tensions, said Isaacson. “Venezuela could be more cooperative in monitoring its airspace, sharing radar information, even allowing occasional US verification flights like the other Latin American countries do,” he said. “And as Fidel Castro has done, they need to take a hard line against drug corruption in the state – it can eat a state from the inside out.”

But if Chávez can be accused of playing politics with the drug issue, so can the US, said Isaacson. “US anti-drug goals look even more politicized. I’m sure Venezuela will be decertified, and people will fairly say they’re singling out Venezuela because they’re leftists and say bad things about the US. Meanwhile, Colombia, with the world’s largest coca crop, and Mexico, which has a huge drug trafficking industry, will get a pass because they’re pro-US.”

“The US certification process on drugs is very tarnished,” agreed Birns. “All of these annual mandates from Congress on drugs and terrorism and the like have been carried out in an archly political manner. The US minimizes the sins of its friends and maximizes those of its enemies.”

Washington’s problems with Venezuela are just part of an overall decline in US influence in the region, said Birns. “With countries like Peru having high growth rates because of the increased valuation of natural resources across the board and new resource discoveries, with Brazil on the verge of becoming a superpower, with various new organizations of which the US is not a part, like the Rio Group and the South American security zone, our leverage over Latin America is waning. The only way to achieve real results on any of these issues is earnest negotiation where real concessions are made.”

Courtesy: Drug War Chronicles

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How can the same substance be both demon drug and miracle cure? Science historian Nicolas Rasmussen of the University of New South Wales in Sydney provides some answers to that question – and much more – in “On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine.” What Rasmussen is really interested in is the interaction between the pharmaceutical industry, the medical profession, and broader social forces afoot in Western culture, and amphetamines make a fascinating, if surprising, vehicle for his meditations.

As Rasmussen tells us, amphetamine was first tested on a human on June 3, 1929, when Los Angeles chemist Gordon Alles injected himself with his new concoction. As Rasmussen’s reproduction of Alles’ testing notes put it early in the experience, “Feeling of well-being.” Later, he reported “a rather sleepless night” where his “mind seemed to race from one subject to another.” Still, Alles reported feeling fairly well the next morning.

Pharmaceutical companies had a new product. Now, they had to figure out something to use it for. First off the mark was the Benzedrine inhaler, marketed for relief of nasal congestion. But by the 1940s, amphetamine tablets by the millions were being used by soldiers on all sides of World War II as energy- and morale-enhancers. Within a few more years, amphetamines were being widely prescribed for an ever-increasing array of “diseases,” including obesity and neurotic depression. By the late 1960s some 5 million Americans were gobbling down amphetamines under a doctor’s supervision, and another 2 or 3 million were using them as “thrill pills” outside the bounds of medical practice.

While Rasmussen provides lots of detail on the marketing strategies of various pharmaceutical companies, the needs of doctors to deal with patients complaining of low grade depression, malaise, lack of energy, and obesity, and the increasing clamor of Americans for pills that would make them feel more energetic, gregarious, and productive – oh, what All-American desires! – what is most fascinating for students of American drug policy is the way his narrative lays the blame for the creation of subsequent amphetamine abuse problems squarely at the feet of market-hungry pill makers, pill-pushing doctors, and, of course, the American military, which exposed millions of GIs to the pleasures – and dangers – of speed. But at some point, he argues, the “push” from drug companies and doctors was complemented by a “pull” from consumers who developed a liking for the drug and its stimulant effects.

As Rasmussen notes, a thrill-seeking speed subculture emerged almost immediately, beginning with University of Minnesota students in the 1930s who were given Benzedrine inhalers in clinical trials, decided they liked them, and took them home to party and study with. By the late 1940s, some of those millions of GIs exposed to amphetamines during the war had continued using speed and were bringing awareness of it to the general population. By the 1950s, Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs were enshrining it in a nascent counterculture, and by the 1960s, as legal amphetamine production reached record highs, speed abuse was identified as a serious problem, not only by doctors, researchers, law enforcement, and fear-mongering politicians, but also by the counterculture itself.

At the beginning of the 1970s, the federal government intervened, severely crimping the speed supply and – voilà! – the illicit speed industry took off. As Rasmussen puts it: “Naturally, once the national supply of pharmaceutical amphetamine was sharply cut by federal action after 1971, demand for home-made speed grew, driving down quality and strengthening the position of the motorcycle gangs. Making a popular drug illegal, without reducing demand, only spurred the development of organized crime to supply consumers – with inferior and often dangerous products. It was the same with alcohol in the days of Prohibition.”

In other words, meet the progenitors of today’s meth lab cookers, thanks to prohibitionist actions. And although I don’t recall Rasmussen mentioning it, the restrictions on legal amphetamine production came shortly before the reemergence of cocaine as a popular recreational drug in the late 1970s and 1980s. Ironically, amphetamine’s trajectory from miracle cure to demon drug mirrored cocaine’s earlier but similar trajectory. For some, amphetamines had replaced cocaine; now, perhaps, cocaine was replacing amphetamine.

These days, methamphetamine is a demon drug, but its close relatives in the amphetamine family, amphetamine-type stimulants differing from meth by only the addition or subtraction of an atom or two from the basic amphetamine molecule, are once again wildly popular at the doctor’s office and on the street. The roughly 2.5 billion tablets of amphetamine-type stimulants such as Ritalin (for ADD and ADHD), Preludin (obesity), and Redux (ditto) now being prescribed annually is the same amount of speed being produced medically as at the height of the “amphetamine epidemic” of the 1960s. Ten million Americans are gobbling speed as you read these words, more than did so at the height of the “epidemic.”

With widespread use of amphetamine-type stimulants, we can expect an increase in unhappy side effects, Rasmussen predicts, ranging from dependence to amphetamine psychosis, as well as the subsequent development of a market for “downers.” In the past heroin and barbiturates played that role; now, he suggests, prescription pain pills will fill the need.

What is needed is not only more law enforcement to deal with the illegal meth trade, but harm reduction measures for amphetamine users and means to reduce demand, Rasmussen concludes. And more control over the pharmaceutical industry, including stronger restrictions on marketing and promotion, as well as tighter controls on the role of pharmaceutical companies in doing medical research for marketing purposes.

“On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine” is a fascinating book for students of drug policy and drug use in the broader social, economic, and political context of the West, and the United States in particular. It is most helpful in aiding one to think clearly and broadly about how patterns of drug use emerge, the institutional factors behind them, and the way we respond to them. And it is a clarion call for reform of the US pharmaceutical industry, as well as a riveting social history of speed.

About the author: Phillip S. Smith is a  writer/editor for Drug War Chronicle

Courtesy: Drug War Chronicle

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This BBC reporter suffers the consequences of standing downwind of a massive cannabis/coca leaf bonfire. Guess you can call it an occupational (or recreational) hazard.

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Bolivia is the world’s number three coca and cocaine producer, behind Colombia and Peru, and has a government sympathetic to coca growers. But it has insisted it is combating the diversion of coca into the illicit cocaine market under the slogan “zero cocaine, not zero coca.”

 That stance is a direct rebuke to the US, which seeks to eradicate all coca as an illicit drug crop. It also flies in the face of the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which classifies the coca plant as a narcotic.

The US has pledged about $25 million in anti-drug aid to Bolivia this year, but next year Bolivia will do it on its own, funding the anti-drug unit at $16 million.

“One of Bolivia’s responsibilities is to tackle drug trafficking, with our own… resources, with our vision, with our hard work,” Ilder Cejas, an anti-narcotics adviser working for the Interior Ministry, told Reuters. The US will be allowed to collaborate with funds and advisors, but only within programs designed by the government, he added.

While the US government has been critical of Bolivia’s coca production policy, the US ambassador said the US would continue to support anti-trafficking efforts. “We value the work of the (anti-narcotics unit) and the national police against drug trafficking… We want to continue collaborating,” Ambassador Philip Goldberg was quoted as saying by the La Paz daily La Razón last Friday.

Courtesy: Drug War Chronicle

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An FBI spokesperson told the press, “This significant seizure prevented these drugs from entering our community.” But doesn’t that depend on how one defines the term “these drugs”? If the term is meant to refer to that particular shipment, then yes, that specific pile of cocaine will (probably) not enter the Philadelphia community.

If, however, the term is meant to refer to cocaine itself, the type of drug, it’s doubtful – no, impossible – that the seizure could reduce the amount of it in Philadelphia, at least not for very long. The problem is that drug traffickers are clever and industrious people, and they expect that some of the stuff that they ship to any given region is going to get intercepted. On any given day, they probably don’t expect a record to get set, on that particular day. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t prepared if it does. Doubtless one or more batches are now moving up I-95 or some other artery, or are headed to Philly through some other means of transport, if they’re not already there.

The truth is that there probably won’t be a shortage of cocaine in Philadelphia for even a week, if there is any shortage of it even now. By the end of two weeks, there will be little evidence left at all that a record-sized drug bust ever occurred, other than the police records and the past media reports. Of course the authorities won’t be particularly eager to inform the press that their record-sized drug bust has been completely undone by the force of the market. Ironically, media would probably not consider the lack of long-term impact from the bust to be newsworthy, because that’s literally what has happened on every previous occasion.

Ultimately, the bust itself is the best proof that the bust won’t make any difference. Arrests and seizures and prosecutions for drugs are the norm for the United States, in Philadelphia and everywhere else. Yet for all that effort, sustained and conducted aggressively for decades, the demand for cocaine is still so strong that the quantities in which it is found continue to set records. And that is a record of failure by any reasonable definition of the word.

So while I’m sure the press conference was exciting for the people involved in it, I’m not excited, and I don’t see why I should be. When people decide that it’s time to try something different, because they realize how much they’ve been throwing away in money and manpower and lives, that will be much more exciting than a pile of powder and a group of law enforcement brass behind a podium ever could be.

Source: Drug War Chronicle

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