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Smoking marijuana lowers your sperm count???

"there's evidence marijuana is also bad news [for your sperm count]"

Hmmm ... are Dr. Mehment Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen on the governments side in the insane and unconstitutional drug war and acting as propaganda spin masters for Uncle Sam, or does marijuana actually reduce your sperm count???

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Sperm improvement plan all men can follow

April 21, 2012 -- 8:00 PM

Dr. Mehment Oz, Michael Roizen

Popular in Health

We bet you've heard the news linking high LDL cholesterol and saturated fat intake (greasy cheeseburgers and premium ice cream) to low sperm counts -- while good-fat foods like fish and walnuts are associated with a bigger, better baby-making squad. Our favorite headline (kudos to Maine's Bangor Daily News) says it all: "Sperm goes limp with fatty foods, while fish perks them up." But don't stop there. If you're a man concerned about fertility (or a spouse hoping for a baby soon), we have a do-it-yourself male fertility improvement plan.

Healthy sperm and a robust sperm count improve your odds that a single sperm will survive its ultra-marathon journey and meet an eligible egg. And sperm have different functions. Some act like blockers to stop other sperm, which makes "survival of the fittest" sense for animals with multiple mates during rutting season, while others are sprinters designed to beat a path to the egg. More than half of a guy's sperm are the sprinter/swimmer type, and those oval heads need to be strong enough to break through an egg's tough outer layer.

So giving your sperm a healthy "makeover" makes sense for every couple trying for a baby. If you are younger than 34 and have been trying but haven't conceived in 12 months, or if you're 35 or older, talk with your doctor. And take these steps, starting today, for superswimmer sperm:

» Eat less (like none) of the bad fats and more of the good ones. Eating lots of saturated fat -- found in red meats, processed meats, full-fat dairy products and many snack foods and desserts -- can reduce sperm counts by 38 percent and slow the swimming ability of the remaining 62 percent. But getting more omega-3 fatty acids from fish like salmon and wild trout means higher counts. To get more omega-3s you can also take a supplement of 1,500 mg DHA (the most active omega-3) daily for 10 weeks, then cut back to 1,000 mg a day.

» Hang out at the farm stand. Filling up on fruit and veggies protects sperm quality and quantity by revving up your body's defenses that keep 'em healthy.

» Add vitamin D3 and zinc. Plenty of vitamin D3 helps sperm swim better and faster. Aim for 1,000 IU a day from a D3 supplement. Add 12 mg of zinc a day for a healthy sperm count and superior shape. Find zinc in your multi; great and healthy food sources include poultry, beans, cashews and no-fat, no-added-sugar yogurt.

» Get that laptop off your lap and your phone out of your pocket. Surfing the web or checking email with a Wi-Fi-connected laptop humming in your lap is bad news for sperms' swimming skills and the precious DNA (yours!) cargo they carry. Phones may hamper male fertility, too.

» Keep cool where it counts. Sperm production needs temperatures cooler than the rest of your body, which is why hot tubs, a fever and even a desk job can torpedo your count. Take stand-up breaks at work, let 'em breathe, and make the switch to boxers from briefs. Tight skivvies can reduce sperm counts by up to 50 percent. Cyclists, mix up your exercise routine, too.

» Skip the drinks and smokes. Smoking slashes your sperm count by 13 percent to 17 percent and triggers genetic abnormalities; there's evidence marijuana is also bad news. More than one beer, glass of wine or cocktail a day also messes with sperm quality. After two drinks, sperm get mixed up and travel in weird directions.

» Stay trim for your swimmers. Adding extra pounds subtracts from your sperm count and ups the number of abnormal sperm in your arsenal. Why? Obesity may alter hormone levels and heat up your testicles.

» Don't hold back in the bedroom. Daily fun between the sheets improves sperm quality dramatically. Compared to several days of abstinence, daily intimacy reduces DNA damage in sperm by about 30 percent.

Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of "The Dr. Oz Show," and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Medical Officer at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute. For more information, go to realage.com.

Congressman Ben Quayle is a drug war terrorist

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Phoenix hearing to focus on drugs at border

by Erin Kelly - May. 18, 2012 08:49 PM

Republic Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - A congressional panel will meet Monday in Phoenix to talk about ways to improve information-sharing among government agencies to thwart the flow of illicit drugs from Mexico into Arizona.

Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., said he pushed to have the field hearing in Phoenix because much of the marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine smuggled across the border ends up in Phoenix drophouses before being distributed nationwide.

"Phoenix is really ground zero," said Quayle, who will lead the hearing as vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee's 12-member subcommittee on border issues.

Quayle said he wants subcommittee members to get a better feel for the seriousness and complexity of the drug problem by hearing from Arizona-based law-enforcement officials and visiting the state.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, is one of the panel members expected to attend the hearing, which will begin at 10 a.m. at the Arizona National Guard's Building M5101, Russell Auditorium, 5636 E. McDowell Road.

"I'm really hoping that the other members of Congress can talk to and learn from the Arizonans who will be there," Quayle said.

Monday's hearing will feature witnesses from federal and state agencies talking about their efforts to improve intelligence-sharing to fight the cartels.

During the hearing, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will point to more than a dozen major programs and scores of smaller ones in which they work with local, state and international agencies to target drug smuggling.

Arizona examples include Operation Pipeline Express, a multi-agency investigation that dismantled a huge drug-trafficking organization suspected of smuggling more than $33 million worth of narcotics a month through Arizona's western desert.

That operation led to the creation in January of the West Desert Task Force, which is led by Homeland Security Investigations and the Border Patrol and includes the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, the Tohono O'odham Police Department and the Bureau of Land Management.

Quayle said he has heard mixed reviews from state law-enforcement officials about interagency cooperation.

The police know everything you do on your cell phone!!!

Also per the US Telecommunication Act which was passed around 1997 the manufacturers of telephone switches are required by law to make it easy for the cops to tap the voice on your phone line. All it takes to tap you phone is a few keystroke on a computer terminal and the police will be monitoring the audio of all your calls.

Most newer cell phones have GPS chips in them that tell the police your location. And even if your phone doesn't have a GPS chip in it the cops can get your location by triangulating it from the cell phone towers that receive your phones signal.

Last but not least with cell phones everything you do is broadcast on the airwaves and ANYBODY including the police can listen to your calls if they are close to the cell phone tower that is processing your call.

I certainly don't think you should be murdering and robbing people like in this article. But sadly most of the people in the USA are arrested not for real crimes, but for victimless drug war crimes which if you ask me should be legalized.

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Slain USC student's cellphone signal led to suspected killers

May 19, 2012 | 7:30 am

The cellphone of one of two USC graduate student slain last month helped lead police to their alleged killers, law enforcement sources told The Times.

The sources said one of the suspects arrested Friday took a cellphone from one of the victims and detectives were able to locate him by tracking signals sent by the device.

Authorities also identified a signal from a second cellphone in proximity to the victim's phone, they said.

The second phone was identified as belonging to the suspect.

At a news conference Friday evening, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck identified the suspects as Bryan Barnes, 20, of Los Angeles and Javier Bolden, 19.

Barnes was taken into custody Friday afternoon by a team of LAPD SWAT officers, along with FBI and other federal agents, who raided an apartment near the USC campus.

Bolden was arrested by the same team three hours later in Victorville and flown back to L.A. by helicopter.

Beck offered few details about the arrests. But police sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, said Barnes was the suspected gunman in the April 11 slaying of electronic engineering students Ming Qu and Ying Wu, both 23.

Bolden was believed to have been present when the students were gunned down during a robbery while sitting in Qu's parked BMW in the 2700 block of Raymond Avenue, the sources said.

The suspects were being held without bail and were expected to be booked on suspicion of murder late Friday. They are scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Beck said the suspects did not have extensive criminal records but were believed to have been involved in two earlier attempted slayings.

"Early on, forensic evidence made us suspect quite strongly that this was a part of a series of crimes committed by the same men," the chief said.

Ballistics tests on shell casings recovered at the scene of the shooting show they were fired from the same gun used in two other shootings, police sources said.

Detectives working on the two previous shootings had followed some "very tenuous" leads that they believed tied the earlier incidents to the primary suspect in the USC case, a police source said.

Beck and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa praised detectives for their work.

Villaraigoisa portrayed the arrests as a sign of how seriously the city takes public safety and sought to reassure an international audience, in Spanish and English, that Los Angeles is not a dangerous destination.

"Safety is priority No. 1 in this city," he said. "Students at our city's universities should feel safe in and around our campuses."

The mayor, the father of a college-age daughter, said his heart went out to the Chinese students' parents.

Competition for Fountain Hills lone medical-marijuana facility heats up

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Competition for Fountain Hills lone medical-marijuana facility heats up

Competition growing to be the 1 medical-marijuana facility allowed

by Edward Gately - May. 20, 2012 10:13 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The competition is expanding among applicants vying to open the only medical-marijuana dispensary that will be allowed in Fountain Hills.

Friday is the deadline for submitting license applications to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

So far, the town has approved five zoning-verification applications. The applicants are:

Restaurateur Josh Levine, for a dispensary on a vacant lot at 16935 E. Colony Drive.

Yvonne Wolf, co-owner of Wolf Brothers Construction Co., for a dispensary on a lot at 12008 N. Colony Drive.

The Healing Co., for a dispensary at 17007 E. Colony Drive.

Vladimir Buer of Buer Revocable Trust, for a dispensary at 16913 E. Enterprise Drive.

Douglas Shaughnessy, for a dispensary at 16939 E. Colony Drive.

Bob Rodgers, the town's senior planner, expects the number of applicants to be "fast and furious" for the next few days. "Everybody who has zoning verification will have their names thrown into a hat and one will get picked" for the state license, he said.

The Department of Health Services will be awarding more than 100 dispensary licenses statewide.

So far, no applications have been received for facilities in Fountain Hills and no licenses will be awarded until August, according to the department.

The number of zoning verifications has increased since North Chapel Community Bible Church relocated from an office building at 16929 E. Enterprise Drive.

Numerous applications previously had been rejected, mostly because they were too close to the church. The Healing Co., Buer and Shaughnessy applications were approved after the church relocation.

According to the Healing Co.'s website, it will "immediately establish itself as the model for all caregivers in the state." The Healing has "systems and procedures in place to ensure that all members are screened, verified and monitored in accordance with all applicable laws."

The applicant who receives the license for Fountain Hills will have to return to the town for a business license, Rodgers said. They will then need renovation and construction permits, and will have to meet the construction guidelines outlined in the town's medical-marijuana ordinance.

Support for pot in Califonia 2nd District House race

Support for pot in 2nd District House race

Joe Garofoli

Monday, May 21, 2012

Andy Caffrey, a Garberville resident running for Congress, stood before the media outside a former medical marijuana dispensary in Fairfax the other day and sparked up a - medicinal - joint.

No biggie. Caffrey has done that a couple of times lately on the campaign trail. If elected, the registered medical marijuana user has promised to light one up on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in support of the overall legalization of weed.

In just about any other congressional race in the country, Caffrey's puff would be launch-the-TV-attack-ads controversial. But not in the liberal Second District, which stretches from the Golden Gate Bridge through America's pot breadbasket to Oregon. The legalization question has been raised in nearly every debate - and drawn mostly amens.

It's a sign of the growing acceptance of marijuana. Although retiring Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, is one of the most liberal members of Congress, she opposes the general legalization of marijuana. She is fine with the medicinal use of marijuana, which was legalized in California in 1996, and opposes the recent federal crackdown on medical dispensaries, as do all 12 candidates - even the two Republicans.

Being pro-legalization in the Second District is not a hippie position. It's rooted in worrying about increasing violence connected with illegal grow operations, concerns about the environmental impact of pot farms and, most of all, the economy.

Major cash crop

With an estimated $1 billion worth of marijuana grown in the district, pot is a major industry, helping to prop up poorer communities in the northern end, where the median income is half of what it is in wealthy Marin County in the south.

"If you talk to environmental groups, they're not complaining about the timber industry anymore. It's the pot growers who are the main threat to the coho (salmon) streams," said pro-legalization Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who chairs the Assembly's Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife.

And while the pro-legalization candidates acknowledge that their future House colleagues won't be nearly as sympathetic toward pot, anti-drug-war advocates like Bill Piper said they "can create a debate in Congress."

"It helps where there is a discussion that moves toward regulating marijuana rather than just prohibiting it," said Piper, based in Washington, D.C., as national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

The pro-legalization candidates come to their positions in many ways.

Democratic Marin County Supervisor Susan Adams is a lifelong nurse who specialized in treating women with addiction issues. San Rafael Democrat Stacey Lawson is a wealthy business executive. Huffman is a longtime environmentalist with two young children.

"Nobody is shooting each other in public lands over illegal vineyards," Adams said. "Maybe it is time for us to take a look at a different strategy."

Even the two Republicans in the field - Dan Roberts and Michael Halliwell - aren't antagonistic toward legalization.

Roberts, a Tiburon securities dealer, is concerned that the federal raids on California's approved pot dispensaries are an abuse of federal power.

As a candidate, President Obama promised he "would not have the Justice Department prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users." But Obama has done little to stop the raids that have closed hundreds of dispensaries. Republican's position

"It's the so-called progressives, the Obama administration, that's coming in and closing dispensaries," said Roberts, who opposes legalization but "recognizes California law" regarding medical cannabis.

"They're attacking the marijuana users and growers and property owners in California," Roberts said. "I will be their best friend. I'm not going to call in the troops."

Caffrey said he and fellow House candidates John Lewallen, a nonpartisan seaweed harvester from Philo (Mendocino County), and William Courtney, a Democratic physician from Mendocino, have become so friendly over marijuana issues that they've dubbed themselves "The Emerald Triangle" - after the part of the district stretching through Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties that hosts the nation's largest pot-growing region.

The 54-year-old Caffrey uses medicinal marijuana to help with what he described as post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by several incidents, including losing all his possessions in the 1991 Oakland hills firestorm. The former Earth First activist was sharing a home with eight people when the fire struck.

But while Caffrey has focused much of his campaign on solving the climate crisis, he, too, is frustrated by the federal clampdown on dispensaries, including the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana. The Fairfax dispensary where he smoked his high-profile joint was the state's longest-standing licensed dispensary until it closed in December because of federal pressure.

'Legal landscape'

Sharing that concern is Lawson, who has received funding from some of the Democratic Party's top national donors and Emily's List, a powerhouse national organization that backs pro-choice female Democrats.

"We need to move toward a legal landscape where it can be taxed, it can be regulated and kept out of the hands of children, it can be monitored as a crop, where the right environmental protections can be put in place and where the revenue from a billion-dollar industry can go toward delivering the kind of social services we need in our district," she said.

Huffman, who has supported efforts to legalize marijuana in the state Legislature, said that until there is more pro-pot sentiment in Congress, California must bring "some integrity" to its medical cannabis laws and "try to make that something that is real and not a charade that is a front for trafficking."

For now, Huffman said, the challenge from this corner of California "is really an interim one: How can we bring some order to this situation while we wait for the rest of the country to relearn the Prohibition lesson."

Joe Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @joegarofoli. jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com

2,000 people framed by the police have been exonerated

I suspect that is only the tip of the iceberg, because most of these cases were high profile murder cases where lots of money and effort were spent to get the people who were framed by the police off of death row.

Police, prosecutors and elected officials tell us that they would rather have 100 guilty people go free then have one innocent person go to jail, but that is 100 percent BS!

People are routinely framed by the police for crimes they didn't commit. People routinely accept plea bargains for crimes they are innocent of rather the fact draconian penalties if they go to trial and fight a charge they are innocent of. I know two of these people who accepted plea bargains for crimes they didn't commit. They are Laro Nicol and Kevin Walsh.

I was framed by the Arizona Department of Public Safety for selling drugs. I was not convicted of the crime and I didn't spend any time in prison for it. Originally I suspected my arrest was a case of mistaken identity but I later found out by accident I was intentionally framed by the police because they "thought" I was selling drugs.

Source

Study: 2,000 convicted then exonerated in 23 years

(AP) WASHINGTON - More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities.

There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled.

The database compiled and analyzed by the researchers contains information on 873 exonerations for which they have the most detailed evidence. The researchers are aware of nearly 1,200 other exonerations, for which they have less data.

They found that those 873 exonerated defendants spent a combined total of more than 10,000 years in prison, an average of more than 11 years each. Nine out of 10 of them are men and half are African-American.

Nearly half of the 873 exonerations were homicide cases, including 101 death sentences. Over one-third of the cases were sexual assaults.

DNA evidence led to exoneration in nearly one-third of the 416 homicides and in nearly two-thirds of the 305 sexual assaults.

Researchers estimate the total number of felony convictions in the United States is nearly a million a year.

The overall registry/list begins at the start of 1989. It gives an unprecedented view of the scope of the problem of wrongful convictions in the United States and the figure of more than 2,000 exonerations "is a good start," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions.

"We know there are many more that we haven't found," added University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross, the editor of the newly opened National Registry of Exonerations.

Counties such as San Bernardino in California and Bexar County in Texas are heavily populated, yet seemingly have no exonerations, a circumstance that the academics say cannot possibly be correct.

The registry excludes at least 1,170 additional defendants. Their convictions were thrown out starting in 1995 amid the periodic exposures of 13 major police scandals around the country. In all the cases, police officers fabricated crimes, usually by planting drugs or guns on innocent defendants.

Regarding the 1,170 additional defendants who were left out of the registry, "we have only sketchy information about most of these cases," the report said. "Some of these group exonerations are well known; most are comparatively obscure. We began to notice them by accident, as a byproduct of searches for individual cases."

In half of the 873 exonerations studied in detail, the most common factor leading to false convictions was perjured testimony or false accusations. Forty-three percent of the cases involved mistaken eyewitness identification, and 24 percent of the cases involved false or misleading forensic evidence.

In two out of three homicides, perjury or false accusation was the most common factor leading to false conviction. In four out of five sexual assaults, mistaken eyewitness identification was the leading cause of false conviction.

Seven percent of the exonerations were drug, white-collar and other nonviolent crimes, 5 percent were robberies and 5 percent were other types of violent crimes.

"It used to be that almost all the exonerations we knew about were murder and rape cases. We're finally beginning to see beyond that. This is a sea change," said Gross.

Exonerations often take place with no public fanfare and the 106-page report that coincides with the opening of the registry explains why.

On TV, an exoneration looks like a singular victory for a criminal defense attorney, "but there's usually someone to blame for the underlying tragedy, often more than one person, and the common culprits include defense lawyers as well as police officers, prosecutors and judges. In many cases, everybody involved has egg on their face," according to the report.

Despite a claim of wrongful conviction that was widely publicized last week, a Texas convict executed two decades ago is not in the database because he has not been officially exonerated. Carlos deLuna was executed for the fatal stabbing of a Corpus Christi convenience store clerk. A team headed by a Columbia University law professor just published a 400-page report that contends DeLuna didn't kill the clerk, Wanda Jean Lopez.

Officials: Drug fight must focus on demand

Officials: Drug fight must focus on demand

by Daniel González - May. 21, 2012 11:11 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Federal and state law-enforcement officials told a congressional panel in Arizona on Monday that efforts to combat drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States must include reducing the demand for illegal drugs in this country, not just more enforcement.

The officials cited numerous examples in which increased collaboration between law-enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Mexico, especially when it comes to sharing intelligence, has been effective in combating international drug organizations that use Arizona as a major corridor to smuggle marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin into the country.

But they said more emphasis needs to be placed on reducing the demand for drugs.

"When I first started, I thought I was going to arrest my way out of the problem," said Elizabeth Kempshall, a former head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Arizona office who is now executive director of the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal program that coordinates drug-control efforts among local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies.

"I was going to arrest every bad guy, and we were going to eliminate the drug-abuse problem," Kempshall said. "But I've learned through experience and hard knocks that it has to be a coordinated approach between law enforcement, demand reduction and treatment."

Kempshall's comment came in response to a question from U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., during a bipartisan field hearing in Phoenix to look at ways to improve collaboration among law-enforcement agencies in combating international drug-smuggling organizations during a time of budget cuts. "We need to keep teaching our children about the dangers of drug abuse," Kempshall said.

Gosar had asked what could be done to stop the rise in superlabs in Mexico that produce methamphetamine to be smuggled into the U.S.

Matthew Allen, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Phoenix, told Gosar, "You might find this surprising coming from someone in law enforcement," but addressing the demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. is as important as cracking down on drug-smuggling organizations.

"It wouldn't get produced and it wouldn't come here if we didn't use it," Allen said.

The comments reflect a divide among some policy makers and law-enforcement officials over the nation's strategy in its war on drugs. Critics have noted that demand for illegal drugs has been largely untouched over the decades by billions of dollars spent attempting to halt their flow into the United States. But others have been reluctant to let up on the fight against suppliers in favor of more demand-oriented policies, calling it a soft-on-crime stance.

Brig. Gen. Jose Salinas, director of the Joint Staff of the Arizona National Guard, said a drug-prevention program run by the Guard at elementary schools is being eliminated because of military budget cuts. He praised the drug-prevention program as an important part of the Guard's counter-drug strategy, which includes providing intelligence analysis and other support to the Border Patrol and other federal agencies.

But the program's effectiveness "is very hard to quantify" and, as a result, is being cut, he said.

The hearing, held at the Guard's headquarters in Phoenix, was hosted by Reps. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz.; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas; and Gosar.

Lee said "one of the strongest messages I will take back to Washington" from the hearing is the need to do more about reducing the demand for drugs.

Quayle told The Arizona Republic after the hearing that he agreed. "We have to work on the demand side as well as the supply side," Quayle said.

In 2011, anti-drug-smuggling initiatives in Arizona disrupted or dismantled 37 drug-smuggling organizations, Kempshall said. The initiatives resulted in the seizure of more than 1.1 million pounds of marijuana last year, up 118 percent from the year before, she said.

Law-enforcement agencies also seized 1,600 pounds of meth and 560 pounds of heroin last year in Arizona, up 88 percent and 1,017 percent respectively, she said.

White House staff meetings decide who to murder with drone strikes

I never dreamed I would read an article about appointed White House bureaucrats sitting around having meetings in which they decide which of their enemies to murder with drone strikes.

Sure I don't like Emperor Obama any more then I liked Emperor Bush, but I was hoping Emperor Obama would be less of a war monger then Emperor Bush, but sadly I was wrong about that too.

My next question is when will these White House staff meeting start deciding to murder suspected drug dealers in the USA with drone strikes?

Sure the White House will admit it's unconstitutional to murder drug dealers in the USA, just like it is unconstitutional to murder suspected terrorists in the rest of the world, but they will come up with some cockamamie excuse to justify it like they always do.

Source

U.S. drone strike policy refined

White House takes lead in targeting terrorists

by Kimberly Dozier - May. 22, 2012 12:21 AM

Associated Press

WASHINGTON - White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets.

The move concentrates power at the White House over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan's staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists.

In describing Brennan's arrangement to the Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military's previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond. They spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. officials are not allowed to publicly describe the classified targeting program.

One senior administration official argues that Brennan's move adds another layer of review that augments rather than detracts from the Pentagon's role. The official says that, in fact, there will be more people at the table making the decisions, including representatives from every agency involved in counterterrorism, before they are reviewed by senior officials and ultimately the president.

The CIA's process remains unchanged but never included the large number of interagency players the Pentagon brought to the table for its debates.

And the move gives Brennan greater input earlier in the process, before senior officials make the final recommendation to President Barack Obama. Officials outside the White House expressed concern that drawing more of the decision-making process to Brennan's office could turn it into a pseudo-military headquarters, entrusting the fate of al-Qaida targets to a small number of senior officials. Previously, targets were first discussed in meetings run by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen at the time, with Brennan being just one of the voices in the debate.

The new Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has been more focused on shrinking the U.S. military as the Afghan war winds down and less on the covert wars overseas. With Dempsey less involved, Brennan believed there was an even greater need to draw together different agencies' viewpoints, showing the American public that al-Qaida targets are chosen only after painstaking and exhaustive debate, the senior administration official said.

But some of the officials carrying out the policy are equally leery of "how easy it has become to kill someone," one said. The U.S. is targeting al-Qaida operatives for reasons such as being heard in an intercepted conversation plotting to attack a U.S. ambassador overseas, the official said. Stateside, that conversation could trigger an investigation by the Secret Service or FBI.

Defense Department spokesman George Little said the department is "entirely comfortable with the process by which American counterterrorism operations are managed."

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

Drone strikes are highly controversial in Pakistan, too. Obama met briefly on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Chicago on Monday with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan has closed key routes used by NATO to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in response to a U.S. airstrike that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.

An example of a recent Pentagon-led drone strike was the fatal attack in January on al-Qaida commander Bilal al-Berjawi in Somalia. U.S. intelligence and military forces had been watching him for days. When his car reached the outskirts of Mogadishu, the drones fired a volley of missiles, obliterating his vehicle and killing him instantly.

The drones belonged to the elite U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. Berjawi, a British-Lebanese citizen, ended up on the command's list after a studied debate run by the Pentagon.

The Defense Department's list of potential drone or raid targets is about two dozen names long, the officials said. The previous process for vetting them, now mostly defunct, was established by Mullen early in the Obama administration, with a major revamp in the spring of 2011, two officials said.

Drone attacks were split between the command and the CIA, which keeps a separate list of targets, although it overlaps with the Pentagon list. By law, the CIA can target only al-Qaida operatives or affiliates who directly threaten the U.S. The command has a little more leeway, allowed by statute to target members of the larger al-Qaida network.

Under the old Pentagon-run review, the first step was to gather evidence on a potential target. The case would be discussed over an interagency secure video teleconference, involving the National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department, among other agencies. Among the data considered: Is the target a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates; and is he engaged in activities aimed at the U.S. overseas or at home?

If a target isn't captured or killed within 30 days after he is chosen, his case must be reviewed to see if he's still a threat.

The CIA's process is more insular. Only a select number of high-ranking staff can preside over the debates by the agency's Covert Action Review Group, which passes the list to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center to carry out the drone strikes. Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper is briefed on those actions, one official said.

Berjawi's name was technically on both lists, the Pentagon's and the CIA's. In areas where both the command and the CIA operate, the military task-force commander and CIA chief of station confer, together with representatives of U.S. law enforcement, on how best to hit the target. If it's deemed possible to grab the target for interrogation or simply to gather DNA to prove the identity of a deceased person, a special team is sent.

U.S. Circuit Court - F*ck sick people who need medical marijuana!!!!!

Source

San Francisco: Court rejects disabled citizens' bid to obtain medical marijuana

Bay City News Service

Posted: 05/22/2012 09:32:36 AM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- Four disabled Californians who want to use medical marijuana lost a bid to a federal appeals court in San Francisco Monday to seek a new path to carving out an exception to U.S. laws criminalizing the drug.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by a 2-1 vote rejected an effort by the plaintiffs to invoke the anti-discrimination provisions of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act as a basis for a right to obtain medical marijuana to alleviate severe paid.

Circuit Judge Raymond Fisher wrote, "We recognize that the plaintiffs are gravely ill," but said, "Congress has made clear...that federal law does not authorize plaintiffs' medical marijuana use."

California's voter-approved Compassionate Use Act of 1996 allows seriously ill patients to use marijuana with a doctor's approval. But the federal laws prohibiting the use of the drug supersede state laws.

Previous attempts by patients and medical marijuana advocates to seek an exception to the federal laws have been unsuccessful.

In 2001, in a case concerning the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the use of the doctrine of medical necessity as a defense against the federal laws,

In 2005, the high court turned down Oakland patient Angel Raich's argument that locally grown, noncommercial marijuana was beyond the reach of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.

More recently, lawsuits challenging a crackdown on large-scale marijuana dispensaries by federal prosecutors in California have been thus far unsuccessful.

In the case before the 9th Circuit, four Orange County residents sought to sue the cities of Costa Mesa and Lake Forest under the Americans with Disabilities Act for allegedly discriminating against them by closing down local marijuana dispensaries.

They based their claim on a provision of the ADA that says people can be defined as disabled, and therefore covered by the anti-discrimination provisions of the law, when they use an illegal drug under the supervision of a licensed health care professional.

But the appeals court majority said that exception would apply only to uses specifically authorized under the federal Controlled Substances Act, such as an experimental test of a drug, and not to use of the drug under California's law.

Matthew Pappas, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said his clients are disappointed and are considering an appeal to an 11-judge panel of the circuit court.

Jeffrey Dunn, a lawyer for Lake Forest, said, 'At the end of the day, no state, county or city can enact an ordinance that conflicts with federal law.

"It's all about being consistent with federal law," he said.

"War on terrorism" is just a lame excuse to expand the "war on drugs"????

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Chandler mother, sons lead police to major drug ring

Clues emerge from investigation of family

by Laurie Merrill - May. 23, 2012 06:16 AM

The Republic | azcentral.com

What ended as the multi-agency smashup of an international conspiracy to sell millions of dollars of Mexican narcotics to Arizona prisoners began as the simple probe of a Chandler mom and her sons, police say.

Ultimately, the investigation was called "Operation Family Tradition" and the mother and her sons the "Lara-Valencia Syndicate."

At least 44 suspects were arrested on more than 300 drug- and gang-related charges during two different sweeps, one of which was Friday.

Multiple indictments were handed down by the Arizona Attorney General's Office.

In all, 32 pounds of heroin and 5 pounds of cocaine were seized with a combined estimated street value of $1.7 million.

The drugs wound up on the streets of the East Valley as well as Arizona prisons, Chandler police Detective Seth Tyler said.

"It was available to anyone with an appetite for it," he said Monday.

It all started more than a year ago, in early 2011, when the Chandler police Narcotics Unit began investigating Grace Valencia and two of her nine sons, Ricky and Jonathan, who resided on the 200 block of South Dakota Street, Tyler said.

"Eight of the boys are involved" in the drug trade, Tyler said.

"Six are already in the state Department of Corrections."

Three of Valencia's sons -- Vincent Lara, 38; Angel Lara, 35; and Daniel Lara, 31 -- are serving sentences ranging from 10 to 14 years for a kidnapping conviction, according to reports.

Chandler police soon suspected that Valencia and her sons were part of a larger organization with gang and possibly international ties.

First, they called in the Chandler police Gang Unit.

Next, they called Arizona Department of Public Safety State Gang Task Force came on board.

DPS and Chandler investigators then learned the family and associates bought drugs directly from Mexico, smuggled them into prison and sold them to East Valley residents.

One prison visitor was apprehended trying to smuggle black tar heroin inside a sock, officials said.

Street and prison gang members and illegal-drug trade criminals comprised the organization, Tyler said.

As the enormity of what they were investigating was revealed, the investigators decided they required help from organizations with more resources.

They called on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Gang Investigations Group, the DPS Highway Patrol, the Arizona Department of Corrections Security Threat Group Unit and the state Attorney General's Office to help with the investigation.

"The family was definitely part of the distribution of drugs," Tyler said. "They were not small time. They were better organized. They were getting the drugs from Mexico."

The Attorney General's Office has named Ricky Valencia as one of the kingpins of the organization.

He was charged with a total of 107 counts.

Marijuana Is Real Medicine for a Long List of Ills

In this weeks edition (Thursday, May 24 2012) of the Phoenix New Times they ran an interesting article on medical marijuana.

The article was titled

"Marijuana Is Real Medicine for a Long List of Ills"

The article is too long for me to cut and paste and post here so you can read it at this URL

Another anti-marijuana drug article short on facts and full of baseless accusations

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Short: State thumbs nose at federal warning on “medical” pot

Posted: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 9:14 am

Guest commentary by Carolyn Short

Half of Arizona’s voters (49.9 percent) voted against “medical” marijuana, many suspecting it was just a scam to legalize pot. They’ve since been proved right. But what most opponents don’t know is that our elected officials could and should stop this law today. Prop 203 authorizes violations of federal law, and states can’t do that, not even by voter initiative. [Not really, many legal scholars say that ALL the Federal drug laws are unconstitutional per the 10th Amendment!]

It’s still a federal crime to grow, sell or possess marijuana, and it’s also a crime to help anyone doing those things. So state employees who license patients or dispensaries to grow, sell or possess marijuana are federal criminals. [Then how come NO state employees in any of the states that allow medical marijuana have been arrested and prosecuted by the Feds for these alleged crimes?] Landlords who rent to growers or dispensaries are federal criminals. [Sadly the Feds are trying to steal the property of private landlords who rent to people in the medial marijuana business] And those who lend money to marijuana businesses are federal criminals.

Several U.S. Attorneys have written letters warning that state employees, landlords, and financiers who help others violate the federal Controlled Substances Act can be prosecuted. Possible consequences include fines, jail time and forfeiture of property. [But again, NO state employees in any of the states that allow medical marijuana have been arrested and prosecuted by the Feds for these alleged crimes?]

When Democratic governors in Washington and Delaware received this warning, they shut down their dispensary programs immediately. As Washington Governor Christine Gregoire said, “No state employee should be required to violate federal criminal laws.” She believed it would be “irresponsible for her to leave her workers vulnerable.”

She’s right. Even if no one is prosecuting state employees now, nobody knows what a future administration (or even this one) might do, and the statute of limitations leaves state workers vulnerable for many years. If a future administration decides to prosecute, the state can’t pay the fine or go to jail for the employee.

However, when Republican Governor Jan Brewer received the exact same warning from Arizona’s U.S. Attorney, she ignored the warning, kept the letter secret from Attorney General Tom Horne, and continued with her plan to license dispensaries. Why?

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne filed a lawsuit in federal court asking Judge Bolton to advise him whether federal law preempts Prop 203, but he didn’t take a position for or against. Judge Bolton told the AG’s office to file an amended complaint taking a position, or she would dismiss the lawsuit. If he had taken a position, the judge would have overturned Prop 203, but Horne never filed an amended complaint. Why not? [That lawsuit was almost certainly a frivolous lawsuit. If it had any merit at all, drug war tyrants Governor Jan Brewer, Health Department Director Will Humble and Attorney General Tom Horne would have appealed it]

Last May, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery advised county employees not to issue licenses or permits under Prop 203, because they’d be violating federal law. Montgomery urged Tom Horne to issue a similar opinion to protect state employees, but Horne hasn’t acted. Why won’t he?

Governor Brewer, or our state legislative leaders, Senate President Steve Pierce and House Speaker Andy Tobin, could insist that Tom Horne issue that opinion. Why haven’t they?

These actions would be prudent and reasonable, and would bring Prop 203 to a grinding halt, but our state leaders refuse to act. Voter protection is no excuse because unconstitutional laws aren’t voter protected. [Again many legal scholars say that ALL the Federal drug war laws are unconstitutional per the 10th Amendment] For example, if Arizona’s voters decided that women couldn’t vote, a federal court would strike it down even if 99 percent of Arizonans voted in favor. So Horne, Brewer, Pierce and Tobin have every right and reason to halt the entire program. Why won’t they? [Look, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in all 50 states. The 18th Amendment gave the Feds the power to regulate liquor. But there never has been a constitutional amendment allowing the Feds to regulate marijuana or any other drug.]

Do our Republican leaders dislike President Obama and the federal government so much they’re opposing them on this issue even when they know the feds are right? That would be ironic because they’re fighting them over SB 1070, Arizona’s attempt to enforce federal law. Now they’re fighting them over Prop 203, Arizona’s attempt to violate federal law.

Elected officials should care equally about enforcing federal drug laws and federal immigration laws. Instead, they appear to despise illegal immigrants while embracing illegal drug users. Perhaps our well-intentioned leaders are getting bad advice.

Arizona now has the most lax marijuana law in the nation. [That is 100 percent BS! In California you can get a medical marijuana prescription or recommendation as it's called for having a headache, in Arizona you can't!!!] It’s clearly unconstitutional. The courts and the Obama administration have told our Republican leaders exactly how and why to get rid of it. What’s stopping them?

Carolyn Short, retired lawyer and Chairman of Keep AZ Drug Free, the organization that led the opposition to Prop 203.

Police Chief of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora murdered

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Killing of Sonora police chief stirs alarm

Cartel violence appears to be edging close to Arizona

by Daniel Gonzalez - May. 24, 2012 11:22 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

The killing of the police chief in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, last weekend has alarmed officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border and raised fears that the vicious drug-cartel violence that has plagued other regions may be spreading to an area that, for the most part, has been spared the bloodshed.

Luis Fredy Rodriguez Soqui, 40, a former federal prosecutor who became director of public safety two years ago, was killed days before the city was scheduled to be recognized as one of the safest in Sonora, the state south of Arizona.

He is the first police chief killed in Sonora in recent memory, Mexican officials said.

"Obviously, this is some violence that hits pretty close to home," Yuma Police Chief John Lekan said. Until now, drug-cartel violence "seems to have avoided our neck of the woods, so it's a cause of concern."

San Luis Rio Colorado is just across the border from San Luis, Ariz., and about 26 miles south of Yuma.

The fourth-largest city in Sonora, San Luis Rio Colorado is home to about two dozen maquiladoras, foreign-owned plants that take advantage of cheaper Mexican labor to assemble products for export, including a plant for Bose speakers.

The city is also the gateway for tourists from Arizona and California who travel to beaches along the Golfo de Santa Clara. The city's downtown, located just steps from the border, is lined with pharmacies and dental offices. Many Americans shop, buy prescription drugs and have dental work done there.

Rodriguez Soqui was credited by Mexican officials with reducing crime in San Luis and keeping the city safe from cartel violence.

He was driving from his home Saturday night when two gunman in a Dodge Durango SUV opened fire with high-powered assault-style rifles, according to Mexican authorities. Rodriguez Soqui was hit 18 times in the face and other parts of his body. He was killed instantly, authorities said.

As of Thursday, no one had been arrested.

"Safety has a price, and I believe (the police chief) has paid the price for turning San Luis into the safest city in Sonora," Mayor Joel Ricardo Aguirre Yescas said in a written statement.

Vow to maintain peace

According to news accounts, the killing of the police chief prompted more than 100 residents to take to the streets Monday evening, calling on government officials to prevent the city of 160,000 from turning into another Juarez or Nuevo Laredo, two cities along the Texas border where thousands have been killed in cartel-related violence.

Such killings are rare in Sonora compared with other border states. There were 320 cartel-related homicides in Sonora in 2011, compared with 2,925 in neighboring Chihuahua the same year, according to a March report by the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute.

San Luis also has a low homicide rate compared with other cities in Sonora, according to the Sonora Attorney General's Office. In 2011, the city had a homicide rate of 3.9 per 100,000 compared with 4.3 in Hermosillo, the capital, 9.8 in Obregon, the second-largest city, and 20.9 in Nogales, the third-largest. Rocky Point, a popular beach resort, had a homicide rate of 8.9 last year.

On Tuesday, San Luis' mayor promised to maintain peace after meeting with state and federal prosecutors and members of the Mexican military.

Santiago Barroso, the city's director of social communications, called the police chief's killing an "isolated incident." He said city officials want to assure investors and U.S. tourists that the city remains safe.

"What happened was really awful, but until now, this has been a very safe city," Barroso said. "It's been many years since anything like this happened."

Concerns rekindled

Police officials in Arizona said the killing of the police chief in San Luis Rio Colorado rekindled concerns of cartel violence spilling across the border.

Within an hour of the chief's death, Mexican authorities forwarded a description of the suspects' vehicle to law-enforcement agencies in Arizona, Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden said.

"One of our biggest concerns was that the suspect would enter the U.S.," he said.

Ogden said several recent heroin seizures suggest that tighter border security in the Nogales and western-desert areas is pushing drug trafficking into the Yuma area following years of declines there in both drug and human smuggling.

"We have had indications that the drugs have been moving this way," he said.

Lekan, the Yuma police chief, said crime in the city has fallen in recent years or remained stable. Yuma, which has a population of about 88,000, had three murders in 2010, up from two in 2009, according to the most recent FBI crime statistics. Yuma had a total of 550 violent crimes in 2010, down from 570 the year before.

More than 50,000 people have been killed in cartel-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calder�n launched a crackdown in 2006. Most of the violence is related to cartels battling with the government or with other cartels over control of smuggling routes into the U.S.

In Sonora, drug trafficking is controlled by the Sinaloa cartel, which is headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, said Elizabeth Kempshall, director of the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal program that coordinates drug-control efforts among local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies.

Kempshall speculated that Rodriguez Soqui was killed because he refused to cooperate with the cartel or "didn't do something that he promised he would do."

Police killings rise

Rodriguez Soqui is the latest victim in a string of high-ranking police officials killed in Mexico in recent months.

In January, gunmen killed the director of public safety in Zacatepec, in the central state of Morelos.

In February, the director of police investigations in Culiacan, Sinaloa, and his brother were gunned down in a parking lot.

In March, the bullet-riddled body of the police chief of the city of Juan Aldama in Zacatecas was found in the neighboring state of Durango.

Officers have been targeted in Sonora, as well.

In 2011, the deputy police chief in Nogales and a Sonoran state police officer were killed. In 2010, the police chief in Rocky Point and his bodyguard were shot in an ambush but survived.

Ernesto Munro Palacio, Sonora's secretary for public safety, said several officers have been killed in Sonora in the past few years. But he said this was the first time in recent memory a police chief has been killed.

Munro Palacio said he had seen Rodriguez Soqui five days before he was killed, at a meeting in Hermosillo. He characterized Rodriguez Soqui, a father of three, as a dedicated police officer and credited him with making San Luis one of the safest cities in Sonora. He speculated that the police chief may have been targeted for his anti-drug smuggling work.

"We have bad eggs and good eggs, and this was one of the good ones," Munro Palacio said. "Probably he was trying to stop the drugs from going to the U.S., and they killed him."

Carlos Navarro, attorney general of Sonora, declined to speculate on a motive.

"There are many ideas floating around at the moment," Navarro said.

Mexican and U.S. news outlets reported that the attack was captured by video-surveillance cameras mounted in the neighborhood where the police chief lived, but Navarro could not confirm that. At the scene, investigators found more than fifty 7.62x39mm shell casings fired from an AK-47-style assault rifle, he said.

The number of police officers killed by drug-cartel violence in Mexico has escalated in recent years, according to the Trans-Border Institute report. Since 2008, the year the newspaper Reforma began tallying police deaths, 2,147 officers have been killed in clashes with organized criminals, the report said. Last year, 572 officers were killed, down from 718 the year before but up from 475 killed in 2009 and 385 killed in 2008, the report said.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the San Luis City Council unanimously approved a replacement for the slain Rodriguez Soqui.

During a special meeting, Ramon Armando Leon Feliz, 45, a San Luis native, was sworn in as the new police chief. Leon Feliz has been a member of the city's Police Department since 1997 and most recently served as commander.

Will Humble pretends to search for new uses of medical marijuana

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Arizona may add more uses for medical marijuana

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - May. 24, 2012 09:55 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Arizona health officials will hear testimony today at 1 p.m. to consider adding four new conditions to the state's medical-marijuana program.

Health officials are considering whether to add depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and migraines as "debilitating conditions," which would allow qualified people to legally use medical pot to treat them.

Arizona would become the only state in the nation to allow medical marijuana for anxiety and depression, according to Will Humble, director of the state Department of Health Services, which oversees the program. He has said New Mexico is the only state that actively allows medical marijuana for PTSD.

The voter-approved law requires the state to periodically accept and evaluate petitions to allow new medical conditions into the program.

Friday also is the deadline to apply for a medical-marijuana dispensary. The state allows 126 dispensaries; as of 4:30 p.m. Thursday, the state received 205 applications.

President Obama - a pot smoking hypocrite!!!!!

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Obama’s high school pot-smoking detailed in Maraniss book

By Olivier Knox | The Ticket

Bill Clinton he was not. When it came to smoking pot, the teenage Barack Obama had rules. You had to embrace "total absorption" or face a penalty. When you smoked in the car, "the windows had to be rolled up." And he could horn his way in, calling out "Intercepted!" and grab the joint out of turn.

Best-selling author David Maraniss' "Barack Obama: The Story" describes the future president's teenage antics, notably his copious marijuana smoking, details of which were published early Friday by Buzzfeed. While the book won't be released until June 19, vast sections of it were already available Friday on Google Books.

Starting on page 293, the reader begins to get the dope on high school-age Obama's group of basketball- and fun-loving buds, who dubbed themselves the "Choom Gang," from a verb meaning "to smoke marijuana."

"As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called 'TA,' short for 'total absorption.' To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled," writes Maraniss, author of a biography of the 42nd president.

"When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang from marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "'Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,' explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo."

Obama also made popular a pot-smoking practice that the future president and his pals called "roof hits." When they smoked in the car, they rolled up the windows, and "when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling," Maraniss writes.

Obama "also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted' and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind," according to the text.

Maraniss details how the Choom Gang relaxed at a spot they called "Pumping Stations" partway up Mount Tantalus on Oahu.

"They parked single file on the grassy edge, turned up their stereos playing Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, and Stevie Wonder, lit up some 'sweet-sticky Hawaiian buds,' and washed it down with 'green bottled beer' (the Choom Gang preferred Heineken, Beck's, and St. Pauli Girl)," according to Maraniss.

"No shouting, no violence, no fights; they even cleaned up their beer bottles. This was their haven, in the darkness high above the city and the pressures of Punahou," he writes.

They also operated by consensus (NATO-style!), with any member able to "veto" a suggestion. "Whenever an idea was broached, someone could hold up his hand in the V sign (a backward peace sign of that era) and indicate that the motion was not approved. They later shortened the process so that you could just shout 'V' to get the point across," says Maraniss.

Sure, they drove around in a VW bus nicknamed the "Choomwagon." And their dealer was a "freakin' scary" guy named Ray who met a grisly end. "Many years later they learned that he had been killed with a ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover." (On his yearbook page, Obama says "Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.")

But Maraniss also suggests that Obama, like, oh, everyone in the world, embellished his mischief.

"Later in life, looking back on those days, Obama made it sound as though he were hanging out with a group of misbegotten ne'er-do-wells, what he called the 'club of disaffection.' In fact, most members of the Choom Gang were decent students and athletes who went on to successful and productive lives as lawyers, writers, and businessmen," the author says.

Obama was a solid student, and adept at what some readers might know as "osmotic learning."

"He seemed nonchalant, yet performed well. How did he do it? He told his Choom Gang mates that the trick was if you put the textbook under your pillow the night before you would perform better on an exam. 'It never worked for me,' said Topolinski."

Mexico's 2 major crime cartels are now at war

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Mexico's 2 major crime cartels are now at war

by William Booth - May. 24, 2012 11:46 AM

Washington Post

MEXICO CITY -- The two most important criminal organizations in Mexico are engaged in all-out war, and the most spectacular battles are being fought for the cameras as the combatants pursue a strategy of intimidation and propaganda by dumping ever greater numbers of headless bodies in public view -- the victims most likely innocents.

No longer limiting themselves to regional skirmishes, the older, established drug-smuggling Sinaloa cartel is now fighting the brash, young paramilitary Zetas crime organization across multiple front lines in Mexico in a desperate fight, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials and security analysts on both sides of the border.

The two gangs and their surrogates continue to quietly kill each other, but they are also staging public massacres in order to terrify civilians, cow authorities and taunt outgoing President Felipe Calderon, who has made his U.S.-backed confrontation against the cartels a centerpiece of his administration.

"What was once viewed as extreme is now normal. So these gangs must find new extremes. And the only real limit is their imagination, and you do not want to know what is the limit of psychopaths," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a nonpartisan think tank.

In the past month alone, in what authorities describe as gruesome version of text messaging, the two criminal groups and their allies deposited 14 headless bodies in front of city hall in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, and hung nine people, including four women, from a bridge in the same city.

They have left 18 dismembered bodies in vans near Lake Chapala, an area frequented by tourists and U.S. retirees outside Guadalajara. They used a dump truck to unload 49 more corpses, missing not only heads but also feet and hands, outside Monterrey, Mexico's main industrial city.

To guarantee the widest possible audience, they posted a video of themselves dumping the bodies, plus a banner: "Gulf cartel, Sinaloa cartel, marines and soldiers, nobody can do anything against us or they will lose. . . . "

It was signed with names of Zeta leaders.

"We've had over recent weeks these despicable inhuman acts in different parts of the country that are part of an irrational struggle mainly between two of the existing criminal organizations and their criminal allies," said Mexico's interior minister, Alejandro Poire.

Many of the victims have not been identified, and in the case of the 49 decapitated corpses, their heads have not yet been recovered. It appears likely the victims might not have been members of the warring groups but street criminals, addicts, civilians or migrants just passing through on their way to the United States.

"The killings are done to draw a response from the media, from the government, to bring in the military. So these victims, they are not members of the organizations. They are just random guys. All the evidence suggests this," said Jorge Chabat of the Center for Investigation and Economic Studies, an expert on the drug trade.

"They have never been very careful about who they kill," Chabat said. "They just kill."

For the past few months, based on wiretaps, intelligence from informants and arrests, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agents say they have been watching the Zetas make incursions deep into the Sinaloa cartel's traditional territories -- even in Sierra Madre towns such as Badiraguato and Choix, once thought as impregnable strongholds for Sinaloa's leader, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the most wanted man in Mexico.

The motivation behind the massacres? "These acts show force. They tell the world, the government, their opponents, that 'I am alive! You have not defeated me. I still am here.' They show muscle," said Martin Barron, an expert on security at the National Institute of Criminal Science.

"Now why have things gone so far? Such brutality? Why cut off the heads, hands and feet? Previously, these organizations settled matters with a bullet in the head. Not anymore. Now there is a psychopathology at work. Some of these people obviously enjoy this, and they are teaching their surrogates, teenagers, to enjoy it," Barron said.

To bolster their defense of regions they control, and to destabilize their opponents, both groups have taken the fight to the other's territory. Part of this strategy is to "heat up the plaza" -- a plaza being a city or town where a criminal group controls corrupt officials and police as well as smuggling routes, a network of safe houses, armories of stashed weapons, and teams dedicated to spying, collecting money and killing.

By heating up a plaza, the warring sides hope to bring in a forceful response by the authorities -- sending in the army or marines, who round up local crime cells and put pressure on the dominant group.

The assassins almost always leave "narcomantas," neatly printed manifestos full of expletives and obscure rants that claim authorship for the killing.

Sometimes the manifestos are accurate; other times they are designed to confuse. In the case of the 49 mutilated bodies left last week outside Monterrey, the Zetas first asserted responsibility for the massacre, then denied it in other banners hung across the state, then finally took credit, perhaps reluctantly, when Mexican military forces arrested Daniel Elizondo, alias "The Madman," a leader of the local Zetas cell.

Elizondo told authorities he had been ordered by the Zeta leadership to dump the bodies in the center of in Cadereyta, an industrial town on the outskirts of Monterrey, but that he became frightened and put them on the highway leading outside of town.

There is no way to know whether Elizondo's confession was true or made under duress. Those arrested for massacres are never tried in open court, the records are almost impossible to obtain, and most are never put before a judge but sent to jail and eventually released. Mexico's prosecution rate for homicides is low.

U.S. law enforcement and Mexican analysts say the outbreak of war is not designed to directly influence the July 1 presidential election.

But front-runner Enrique Pea Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which hopes to return to power after 12 years, has stressed that he is more interested in lowering violence than in drug trafficking.

This would put Pea Nieto squarely against the Zetas, who specialize more in carjacking, kidnapping, extortion and smuggling migrants than in smuggling cocaine and marijuana.

Post researcher Gabriela Martinez contributed to this r

Arizona officials hold medical pot hearing

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Arizona officials hold medical pot hearing

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - May. 25, 2012 10:16 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Fifteen years after returning home from war, Crush Estrada could still smell the death and destruction from his days as a helicopter gunner for the Air Force, his wife, Cory Tyszka, said Friday.

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and other medical conditions, his doctors prescribed narcotics, sleeping pills and a host of other drugs to help him through the long days and nights. The pills helped but often caused other problems. He couldn't sleep through the night and "he was a zombie" during the day, Tyszka said.

Her remarks came during a 21/2-hour public hearing at the Arizona Department of Health Services, which could expand the state's medical-marijuana program to include PTSD, depression, anxiety and migraines as qualifying conditions for medical-marijuana ingestion.

Tyszka said she would often awake to her husband's night terrors. First came the heavy breathing, then the panic, the shaking, swearing and then tears.

About a year ago, Tyszka's husband received certification to smoke marijuana under the state's medical-marijuana program. She has Crohn's disease and also is part of the state's medical-marijuana program.

"He now can sleep through the night," she said. "It makes him able to function during the day as well. He can do things now. He doesn't get frustrated at the smallest things."

More than two dozen people spoke in favor of expanding the state's medical-marijuana program at the hearing, offering anecdotal evidence and medical records to show how pot helped them deal with night terrors, sleeping difficulties, irritability, frustration, headaches and other conditions caused by illnesses.

Several doctors and anti-drug advocates sympathized but spoke against expansion, saying there is no evidence to prove the benefits of medical marijuana. They also said it could create dangerous situations on the road and in the home.

One opponent pointed out that there is no standardization of marijuana dosage and suggested that adding conditions could encourage further abuse.

State health officials must periodically consider adding conditions to the program under the 2010 law approved by voters.

Department of Health Services Director Will Humble, who oversees the medical-marijuana program, expects to decide whether to add any of the proposed conditions by mid-July. He will consider Friday's testimony when making that decision, he said. [Expects to decided??? What a lie!!! His mind is already made up and he will not approve any new uses for medical marijuana!!!]

"This is an important part of the process," he said. "But I want to make sure I'm basing my decision on good science, and I'm really looking at the full weight of evidence."

As of May 8, nearly 28,300 patients and nearly 1,670 caregivers participated in the state's program, which allows them to use or grow medical marijuana for certain conditions. If PTSD alone is added as a qualifying condition, Humble expects to add 15,000 to 20,000 new patients.

Arizona would become the only state in the nation to allow medical marijuana for anxiety and depression. New Mexico is the only state that actively allows medical marijuana for PTSD.

Kent Eller, a doctor with experience in treating seriously mentally ill patients, said the state should not add depression to the program. He said there is no scientific proof that the drug effectively treats depression and recurrence of depression.

"My fear is that if we would allow marijuana, the patient could go get their card and then they would be on their own," Eller said. "And during that time, we would not have the opportunity to see an emergence of a more serious (condition). It could potentially cause a further problem for patients."

Other opponents said medical marijuana poses dangers for the larger community.

"It's the safety on the road when you're driving, safety with equipment, safety with the family, safety when you're handling a gun," said Leland Fairbanks, a longtime physician and member of an anti-drug advocacy group. "I do not believe that we (should be adding) conditions. Some that are on the list are dubious and are being abused now."

Charise Voss said medical marijuana changed her life. She once suffered from debilitating migraines, which she tried to control through prescription drugs that caused other medical conditions. She tried marijuana, and it worked.

"I have no side effects, and for the first time in my life, I am pain-free," said Voss, 47.

"I never thought I'd be here today to be an advocate for marijuana," she said. "But what we need is a choice."

Shortly before the 5 p.m. Friday deadline, the state health department had received more than 400 applications for medical-marijuana dispensaries.

State law allows 126 dispensaries. Health officials plan to award dispensary certificates on Aug. 7.

More on those sham medical marijuana hearings

"[Will Humble] conceded, though, it could be years until that kind of research is done, giving him the information he needs to grant one or more of the requests to expand the use of marijuana."

Bingo!!!!!

“The challenge with marijuana is it’s difficult to get the studies done because it’s a Schedule 1 drug according to the FDA,” Humble said, meaning the government has determined there is no legitimate medical use for it. That becomes a Catch 22, throwing roadblocks in the way of the kind of clinical trials that produce hard evidence of whether a drug is safe and effective."

And of course since the drug war tyrants at the DEA and FDA say that there is no medical use for marijuana Will Humble will almost certainly not approve any new uses for medical marijuana.

Source

Marijuana users want Arizona to expand drug's medical use

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Posted: Friday, May 25, 2012 5:56 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

A parade of Arizonans hoping to expand the use of medical marijuana told state health officials Friday how much better their lives are since they have been using the drug, legally or otherwise.

“Within minutes, I could function as a mom to my daughter, able to make her meals, function to take care of her and, most important, tolerate the sound of her voice,” said Stacey Theis, a migraine sufferer since age 9. She explained that while her child’s voice was normally “music to my ears, with a migraine it’s the most annoying thing to have to listen to.”

Daryl Williams, who said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, said marijuana helps because it allows people “to slow our brains down enough to forget about what happened and properly move forward within our lives.”

And Cory Tyszela said her husband’s use of the drug has enabled him to recover from his experiences as a combat veteran. She said the alternatives that were prescribed left him “a zombie.”

But Health Director Will Humble said while the stories are compelling, they are not enough by themselves to allow him to heed their pleas to expand the number of conditions that a doctor can cite in deciding to recommend marijuana.

He wants scientific evidence of not only the efficacy of marijuana — evidence that Humble conceded is currently in short supply. Humble also wants to be sure that in allowing a doctor to recommend marijuana, he does not cause greater harm because the patient will not get other necessary treatment.

The hearings are an outgrowth of the 2010 voter-approved law which allows doctors to recommend marijuana for patients suffering from a list of medical conditions. That list includes glaucoma and AIDS as well as any chronic or debilitating condition that leads to severe and chronic pain.

With that recommendation, patients can get a card from the state allowing them to obtain up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

That 2010 law, though, requires state health officials to consider petitions to expand the list. This first-ever effort includes not just migraines and PTSD but also depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

Leland Fairbanks, a doctor who has been active in anti-smoking efforts, urged Humble not to make such a move absent approval of the Food and Drug Administration to add marijuana to the list of drugs considered safe and effective. In fact, Fairbanks said he does not believe marijuana should ever have been allowed for many of the conditions already permitted.

But Charise Voss said that ignores her own personal experience with migraines and how using the drug got her off of far more dangerous prescription medications. And, turning to address Fairbanks, Voss said, “I hope you do more research and find out there’s medical uses for this.”

Anyway, Voss said, marijuana is the best of all possible medical alternatives.

“It’s a safe thing to do,” she said. “It’s not going to kill me.”

With formal published research still in short supply, Humble acknowledged that last factor may have to fit into the decision he expects to make by the middle of July.

“The challenge with marijuana is it’s difficult to get the studies done because it’s a Schedule 1 drug according to the FDA,” Humble said, meaning the government has determined there is no legitimate medical use for it. That becomes a Catch 22, throwing roadblocks in the way of the kind of clinical trials that produce hard evidence of whether a drug is safe and effective.

Humble said research may be on the way with more than a dozen states already permitting medical marijuana. He said these can be the “laboratories” where doctors who run dispensaries can design and do studies on patients who are already being allowed to use the drug.

He conceded, though, it could be years until that kind of research is done, giving him the information he needs to grant one or more of the requests to expand the use of marijuana.

Still, Humble said his medical staff is reviewing not only reports submitted by proponents of expanding the medical marijuana program but is actually doing outreach: The state has a contract with the University of Arizona College of Public Health to scour publications for any available research.

But Humble told Capitol Media Services after the hearing that still leaves the possibility of allowing doctors to recommend the drug even if much of the evidence is anecdotal — and if, as Voss said, it won’t do any harm.

The most likely prospect deals with migraines.

He said everything he has seen suggests that those who end up using marijuana have tried a full array of over-the-counter and prescription medications, ending up with marijuana because nothing else worked. More to the point, Humble said the condition being treated is, in fact, the symptom.

By contrast, he worried that approving marijuana for PTSD might result in some people treating only the symptoms and not getting the necessary medical or psychological help to deal with the underlying problems.

That concern was echoed by Kent Eller, a doctor who is chief medical officer for the Southwest Medical Network which provides treatment for people with behavioral health problems.

Eller said he has seen evidence that marijuana makes sense for patients with cancer and the chronic wasting of AIDS. But he said the drug makes no sense in treating depression, saying all it does is provide “instant symptom control.”

“Depression can be a fatal illness,” he said. Eller also said that what is often considered depression turns out to be a more serious mental condition that needs a different kind of treatment.

How do you spell revenue??? DUI checkpoints!!!!

Source

Holiday DUI checkpoints at Grand Canyon

May. 26, 2012 07:24 AM

Associated Press

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK -- Travelers heading to the Grand Canyon during the holiday weekend should expect to go through safety stops.

Rangers in Grand Canyon National Park will be setting up sobriety checkpoints ahead of the Memorial Day weekend to for all park visitors and residents.

Park authorities say the dates and locations will be randomly selected.

More than 600 people were arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol statewide during Memorial Day weekend last year.

More on President Obama's pot smoking days

Source

The Choom Gang: President Obama’s pot-smoking high school days detailed in Maraniss book

Posted by Natalie Jennings at 03:20 PM ET, 05/25/2012

Political blogs went to pot on Friday.

The Internet is buzzing after the Washingtonian published a review of Washington Post associate editor David Maraniss’s forthcoming book “Barack Obama: The Story,” including an excerpt about President Obama’s high school clique and their favorite pastime.

Let’s just say jobs weren’t the president’s first green initiative. The group of friends smoked marijuana frequently enough to nickname themselves the “Choom Gang.”

But enough of my bad weed puns. Here’s what other blogs are writing about the excerpts.

Yahoo: Bill Clinton he was not. (article)

BuzzFeed has a handy “User’s Guide To Smoking Pot With Barack Obama” compiled from excerpts in Maraniss’s book. (article)

Time’s post is titled the “Audacity of Dope.” (article)

And NPR has “Inhale to the chief” (article)

ABC’s Jonathan Karl reminds us Obama has previously written about his drug use:

In his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father,” Obama writes about smoking pot almost like Dr. Seuss wrote about eating green eggs and ham. As a high school kid, Obama wrote, he would smoke “in a white classmate’s sparkling new van,” he would smoke “in the dorm room of some brother” and he would smoke “on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids.”

He would smoke it here and there. He would smoke it anywhere.

Hot Air writes, “Apparently, we elected Pauly Shore.” And Reason’s headline is Obama Still Bogarting Nation’s Joints, Man.”

Since you stuck around this long, here are a few of the high-interest excerpts from Maraniss’s book:

Maraniss notes that Obama spent a lot of time at the Punahou School in Hawaii with a “self-selected group of boys who loved basketball and good times and called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning “to smoke marijuana.”

“As a member of the Choom Gang,” Maraniss writes, “Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends.”

One of those was: “Total Absorption” or “TA”.

“TA was the opposite of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled,” explains Maraniss. If you exhaled prematurely when you were with the Choom Gang, “you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around.”

One of Obama’s old friends at the school, Tom Topolinski, told Maraniss: “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated.”

Obama helped popularized the concept of “roof hits,” as well, writes Maraniss.

“When they were chooming in a car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.”

Maraniss also says Obama was known for his “Interceptions”: “When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted ‘Intercepted!,’ and took an extra hit.”

Maraniss notes that Obama, looking back later in life on those days, made it sound as though he was hanging out with a group of misbegotten n’er-do-wells, what he called “the club of disaffection.”

“In fact,” Maraniss writes, “most members of the Choom Gang were decent students and athletes who went on to successful and productive lawyers, writers and businessmen,” Maraniss writes. One notable exception was Ray, the group’s pot dealer who, known for his ability “to score quality bud,” would years later be killed by a scorned gay lover armed with a ball-peen hammer.

Maraniss notes that Obama, in a high school yearbook, acknowledged the hippie drug dealer, Ray, who sold the Choom Gang pot, but didn’t acknowledge his own mother.

“Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray,” Obama wrote, “for all the good times.”

Will Humble would make aspirin illegal if he could!!!!

Source

Marijuana users want Arizona to expand drug's medical use

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Posted: Friday, May 25, 2012 5:56 pm

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

A parade of Arizonans hoping to expand the use of medical marijuana told state health officials Friday how much better their lives are since they have been using the drug, legally or otherwise.

“Within minutes, I could function as a mom to my daughter, able to make her meals, function to take care of her and, most important, tolerate the sound of her voice,” said Stacey Theis, a migraine sufferer since age 9. She explained that while her child’s voice was normally “music to my ears, with a migraine it’s the most annoying thing to have to listen to.”

Daryl Williams, who said he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, said marijuana helps because it allows people “to slow our brains down enough to forget about what happened and properly move forward within our lives.”

And Cory Tyszela said her husband’s use of the drug has enabled him to recover from his experiences as a combat veteran. She said the alternatives that were prescribed left him “a zombie.”

But Health Director Will Humble said while the stories are compelling, they are not enough by themselves to allow him to heed their pleas to expand the number of conditions that a doctor can cite in deciding to recommend marijuana.

He wants scientific evidence of not only the efficacy of marijuana — evidence that Humble conceded is currently in short supply. Humble also wants to be sure that in allowing a doctor to recommend marijuana, he does not cause greater harm because the patient will not get other necessary treatment.

The hearings are an outgrowth of the 2010 voter-approved law which allows doctors to recommend marijuana for patients suffering from a list of medical conditions. That list includes glaucoma and AIDS as well as any chronic or debilitating condition that leads to severe and chronic pain.

With that recommendation, patients can get a card from the state allowing them to obtain up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

That 2010 law, though, requires state health officials to consider petitions to expand the list. This first-ever effort includes not just migraines and PTSD but also depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

Leland Fairbanks, a doctor who has been active in anti-smoking efforts, urged Humble not to make such a move absent approval of the Food and Drug Administration to add marijuana to the list of drugs considered safe and effective. In fact, Fairbanks said he does not believe marijuana should ever have been allowed for many of the conditions already permitted.

But Charise Voss said that ignores her own personal experience with migraines and how using the drug got her off of far more dangerous prescription medications. And, turning to address Fairbanks, Voss said, “I hope you do more research and find out there’s medical uses for this.”

Anyway, Voss said, marijuana is the best of all possible medical alternatives.

“It’s a safe thing to do,” she said. “It’s not going to kill me.”

With formal published research still in short supply, Humble acknowledged that last factor may have to fit into the decision he expects to make by the middle of July.

“The challenge with marijuana is it’s difficult to get the studies done because it’s a Schedule 1 drug according to the FDA,” Humble said, meaning the government has determined there is no legitimate medical use for it. That becomes a Catch 22, throwing roadblocks in the way of the kind of clinical trials that produce hard evidence of whether a drug is safe and effective.

Humble said research may be on the way with more than a dozen states already permitting medical marijuana. He said these can be the “laboratories” where doctors who run dispensaries can design and do studies on patients who are already being allowed to use the drug.

He conceded, though, it could be years until that kind of research is done, giving him the information he needs to grant one or more of the requests to expand the use of marijuana.

Still, Humble said his medical staff is reviewing not only reports submitted by proponents of expanding the medical marijuana program but is actually doing outreach: The state has a contract with the University of Arizona College of Public Health to scour publications for any available research.

But Humble told Capitol Media Services after the hearing that still leaves the possibility of allowing doctors to recommend the drug even if much of the evidence is anecdotal — and if, as Voss said, it won’t do any harm.

The most likely prospect deals with migraines.

He said everything he has seen suggests that those who end up using marijuana have tried a full array of over-the-counter and prescription medications, ending up with marijuana because nothing else worked. More to the point, Humble said the condition being treated is, in fact, the symptom.

By contrast, he worried that approving marijuana for PTSD might result in some people treating only the symptoms and not getting the necessary medical or psychological help to deal with the underlying problems.

That concern was echoed by Kent Eller, a doctor who is chief medical officer for the Southwest Medical Network which provides treatment for people with behavioral health problems.

Eller said he has seen evidence that marijuana makes sense for patients with cancer and the chronic wasting of AIDS. But he said the drug makes no sense in treating depression, saying all it does is provide “instant symptom control.”

“Depression can be a fatal illness,” he said. Eller also said that what is often considered depression turns out to be a more serious mental condition that needs a different kind of treatment.

Carolyn Short long on hype and short on facts in medical marijuana editorial

Letter: Writer falls short on facts on medical marijuana

Posted: Sunday, May 27, 2012 1:01 pm

Letter to the Editor

Regarding Carolyn Short’s commentary on Medical Marijuana (May 23): The writer states that the vote on this issue was a scam to legalize pot and has since “been proved right.” She provides no evidence for this.

She goes on to discuss the legalities of the issue, citing letters and actions taken by a collection of politicians.

She makes no mention of the many doctors, psychologists, scientists and patients who are for the program, nor of the 50 percent of the voters who approved it.

It should be understood that those patients seeking relief through the program for serious, painful, debilitating and even maddening conditions do not call for a politician, lawyer or journalist when they are out of options or do not choose to accept the chemicals offered by big pharma.

Ms. Short seems to prefer that these people be incarcerated for their misfortunes regardless of cost to taxpayers. This is tantamount to torture as it can only increase the pain and suffering while piling on legal costs and humiliation from abuse at the hands of the criminal “justice” system.

Jim Johnson

Mesa

500 applications for medical marijuana stores

500 pot dispensary applications received for 126 Arizona spots

Posted: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 10:01 am

By Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

Nearly 500 applications have been submitted by those hoping to operate one or more of the 126 legal marijuana dispensaries that will be allowed to open later this year.

And some areas of the state appear to be far more popular with would-be sellers than others.

State Health Director Will Humble said Monday there was a last-minute rush to submit applications by Friday’s 5 p.m. deadline.

“There were people walking in the door at three minutes to 5,” he told Capitol Media Services. And with a couple of hundred requests turned in during the last two days, Humble said the final tally was far more than he had expected.

Most of the applicants will not get their wish.

Under the terms of the 2010 voter-approved law, the state is entitled to have one dispensary for every 10 pharmacies in the state. As it turned out, that worked out to 126 — which just happened to be the same as the number of Community Health Analysis Areas.

So applications were accepted for each area, even though they are not of equal population.

But not all areas proved equally desirable.

The Estrella area southwest of Phoenix garnered the most applications with 16. But a host of other areas generated double-digit requests.

That includes the Catalina area in Pima County and the areas of north Tempe and west Mesa. So did Payson and the east side of Flagstaff.

There were no applications for any of the reservations, as the law requires proof of acceptable zoning and the tribes have been loath to go along. But some other areas of the state apparently were of little interest to prospective marijuana dealers, like the northwest side of Yuma and the land stretching from Tucson’s west side.

Humble said there isn’t necessarily a rhyme or reason for that.

On one hand, the health director said he can understand the crush in Tempe, close to Arizona State University. That happens to be a place where, according to the latest statistics, 645 of the state’s nearly 29,000 registered marijuana users live.

But how do you explain the 10 applications for the Catalina area, given there are only 68 patients there?

Humble said some of it may be where there are areas with suitable zoning. But he also said it may be a “nuance to their business model.”

He pointed out that the dispensaries are allowed to grow their own marijuana, not only for their own retail customers but also to sell to other shops that don’t want to get into the growing business.

For example, he pointed to the fact that nine applications were submitted to open a dispensary in Show Low.

“There may be some facilities up there that allow people to have a large cultivation facility,” Humble opined. And the weather may be more suitable to growing the plants.

“There may not be a lot of revenue in terms of retail sales,” he continued. “But the wholesale market might be desirable.”

The applications which were submitted must include specific addresses, along with certification that the site has the proper zoning. But don’t even bother trying to find out exactly where anyone wants to put one in.

While Humble is allowed to say how many applications he has for each area, the voter-approved law precludes him from disclosing the specific address. In fact, the law is written in a way that keeps those addresses secret even after the approvals are granted — and even after the sites open their doors.

The only people legally entitled to that information are those who hold cards allowing them to obtain up to 2 1/2 ounces of marijuana every two weeks.

Still, that information is bound to get out.

One way is that, aside from proper zoning, many communities are requiring dispensary operators to obtain a special use permit. And those requests, filed at the local level, are not shielded from public view.

And then there’s the fact that, even though each area of the state will have no more than one dispensary, there is likely to be competition for customers within the urban areas.

“I think most of them will be doing either social market advertising or actual advertising,” Humble said, with the experience in California suggesting that is likely to benefit the alternative newspapers. And Humble said the more traditional papers are going to have to make some decisions on whether they will accept ads for dispensaries that, while legal under Arizona law, still violate federal drug statutes.

Humble said the goal is to award permits on Aug. 7.

He and his staff will begin reviewing applications next month, first to be sure they have all the required information and, later, in greater detail to review everything from security plans to having a qualified medical director who must be on site or on call.

But, with few exceptions, everyone who has applied gets an equal shot: The system requires a lottery when multiple applicants want to be in the same area.

One of those exceptions, Humble noted, is a provision in the rules to have $150,000 in the bank, something designed to ensure that the applicants have the financial wherewithal to properly operate the facility. Humble said those with that proof will get preference over those without it.

Humble said, though, that if some organization without the cash is the lone applicant for an area, it gets awarded the dispensary permit.

The original rules had also required that applicants have been Arizona residents for at least three years. But Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Richard Gama ruled earlier this year Humble had no authority under the voter-approved law to include such a hurdle.

Gama also threw out rules which would have given preference to applicants who had never filed for bankruptcy or those who are current on child support, are paying their student loans on time and are not delinquent on taxes.

It's time to let the cops hunt down real criminals!!!

Letter: Cops love going after marijuana users

Posted: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 2:14 pm

Letter to the Editor

The “drug war” is just a jobs program for overpaid and under-worked cops.

It’s takes lots of work to hunt down and arrest real criminals like burglars, robbers, rapists and murders. That’s why cops love the “drug war!”

It’s much easier and safer to arrest harmless people for victimless drug war crimes then it is to hunt down real criminals.

All the cops have to do is illegally stop and search 100 people and they can usually arrest one or two of them for victimless “drug war” crimes.

And at the end of the day the cops will brag they are making the streets safer by arresting these harmless people who’s only crime is laughing too loud or eating too much after smoking a doobie.

Of course the police say that drugs cause crime. That is a lie. It’s the laws against drugs that cause crimes.

Because marijuana is illegal an ounce of weed is going to cost anywhere from $50 to $300. And of course sometimes people do steal because they can’t afford the high black-market prices of drugs.

If marijuana was legalized you could buy a kilo of weed for no more then a head of lettuce costs. And of course that would pretty much put an end to people stealing because of the high cost of black-market drugs.

It’s time to legalize drugs and make the cops hunt down real criminals.

Mike Ross
Tempe

Keywords Homeland Security looks for when they read your email

Remember the jackbooted thugs at the Department of Homeland Security are reading every word you type in an email letter, search for using Google, post onto a web page, or use on Facebook or other websites.

And of course if you get this in an email from me, remember the police state thugs at Homeland Security will probably read the email before you see it.

Source

Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you (and they include 'pork', 'cloud' and 'Mexico')

By Daniel Miller

PUBLISHED: 04:32 EST, 26 May 2012 | UPDATED: 12:46 EST, 26 May 2012

The Department of Homeland Security has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor social networking sites and online media for signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.

The intriguing the list includes obvious choices such as 'attack', 'Al Qaeda', 'terrorism' and 'dirty bomb' alongside dozens of seemingly innocent words like 'pork', 'cloud', 'team' and 'Mexico'.

Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats.

The words are included in the department's 2011 'Analyst's Desktop Binder' used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify 'media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities'.

Department chiefs were forced to release the manual following a House hearing over documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit which revealed how analysts monitor social networks and media organisations for comments that 'reflect adversely' on the government.

However they insisted the practice was aimed not at policing the internet for disparaging remarks about the government and signs of general dissent, but to provide awareness of any potential threats.

As well as terrorism, analysts are instructed to search for evidence of unfolding natural disasters, public health threats and serious crimes such as mall/school shootings, major drug busts, illegal immigrant busts.

The list has been posted online by the Electronic Privacy Information Center - a privacy watchdog group who filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act before suing to obtain the release of the documents.

In a letter to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence, the centre described the choice of words as 'broad, vague and ambiguous'.

Threat detection: Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats

Threat detection: Released under a freedom of information request, the information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats

They point out that it includes 'vast amounts of First Amendment protected speech that is entirely unrelated to the Department of Homeland Security mission to protect the public against terrorism and disasters.'

A senior Homeland Security official told the Huffington Post that the manual 'is a starting point, not the endgame' in maintaining situational awareness of natural and man-made threats and denied that the government was monitoring signs of dissent.

However the agency admitted that the language used was vague and in need of updating.

Spokesman Matthew Chandler told website: 'To ensure clarity, as part of ... routine compliance review, DHS will review the language contained in all materials to clearly and accurately convey the parameters and intention of the program.'

This URL contains a list of the words that the Homeland Security looks for when they read our email:

tinyurl.com/7swpoqk

scribd.com/doc/82701103/Analyst-Desktop-Binder-REDACTED

The document is called the "The Analysts Desktop Binder" and the keywords are on pages 20 thru 23.

If I get the full list of words I will put them here:

homelandsecuritykeywords.html

Column: Domestic use of drones? Bad idea

Source

Column: Domestic use of drones? Bad idea

By Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

Today: Domestic use of drones.

Bob:President Obama and Congress recently signaled their willingness to allow wider use of drones — the pilotless aircraft used in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia against Islamic terrorists — for domestic purposes. This is Big Brother at its worst. The ACLU and privacy groups have demanded that the Federal Aviation Administration address the "unique threat" posed by drones, as well they should.

Cal: Hold onto your ACLU card, Bob. I'm with you and civil liberties organizations that are deeply worried about government seizing this kind of intrusive and invasive power for itself.

Bob: Now there's a first, Cal agreeing with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Cal: Not really. I've sided with them on various issues, including the freedom of expression and even some religious matters. But back to the drones. While these planes have performed well in killing terrorists overseas, they are the last thing we need flying over America. The technology is so good that they can operate undetected and low enough to identify people attending your backyard barbecue.

Bob: I'm surprised how little we've heard from Congress, besides a letter of concern to the FAA from Reps. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Cal: Maybe that's because there's a congressional "drone caucus," which has 58 members. Many of them have received generous campaign contributions from defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin (a major manufacturer of drones and missiles that can be attached to them) and Raytheon.

Bob: Once again, money wins out over an important principle: the right to privacy. The news media tend to report actions by drones when they bomb terrorists, but the planes have several other significant capabilities. They can also see and capture pictures in the smallest detail from thousands of feet in the sky. They can detect cellphone conversations and other means of communications.

Cal: Bad things are often ushered in with good intentions. As constitutional attorney John Whitehead commented, "Certainly these unmanned vehicles could be used for legitimate purposes, such as search-and-rescue missions, etc., but living as we do already in a semi-surveillance state with our constitutional rights in peril at every turn, these drones, which can be armed with surveillance devices, as well as weapons, are yet another building block in a total control society."

Bob: Whitehead is right. Already we have millions of surveillance cameras watching us when we're in public places, not to mention the Patriot Act, which gives the FBI unprecedented powers to enter homes without notice, look at our library cards and much more. These drones are usually operated by the CIA against terrorists abroad. The law expressly forbids the CIA to operate within U.S. borders.

Cal: Here's something else to consider: In 2009, insurgents in Iraq hijacked Predator drones with a software program that cost $26. They gained access to footage shot by the spy planes. Another potential danger, which even the FAA acknowledges, is whether drones would add to the air traffic congestion already experienced at major airports. Commercial airline pilots, who also rely on visual flight rules, are concerned about safety hazards from unmanned drones.

Bob: Good point. Let's hope that the FAA listens to the suggestions for privacy and safety rules from privacy groups — and let's hope, too, that members of Congress put our constitutional rights above special interest money and speak up. President Obama should do so as well.

Cal: We are already further along with drones than the public may know. The FAA reform act requires the FAA to create a comprehensive program to safely integrate drone technology into the national air space by 2015. The FAA predicts there could be 30,000 drones crisscrossing American skies by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth $12 billion a year. Dwight Eisenhower was right to warn us against the "military-industrial complex." Drones are just the latest example of the industry's intrusions into our liberties.

Bob: That's right. In this case, the section of the FAA reform act that permits drones in our domestic airspace was written by a lobbyist for the contractors who build drones. I will guarantee you that the members of Congress who inserted that provision in the FAA act have all received political contributions from the makers of drones.

Cal: Granted, there can be legitimate uses of drone technology. They can cut costs for police departments and are more effective than helicopters in locating and apprehending armed and dangerous suspects. Since 2005, drones have been used along our lengthy border with Mexico to deter immigrants from entering our country illegally. But permitting the domestic use of drones for these purposes allows the camel's nose under the tent. Do we want our government collecting a constant stream of information on our whereabouts? Drones equipped with Tasers and beanbag guns could fly over political demonstrations, sporting events and concert arenas. The ability of these machines to collect information is almost unlimited — and if we allow it to happen, we will have accepted the Orwellian vision of Big Brother. Trying to recover liberties after losing them is like trying to regain your lost virginity.

Bob: In fact, drones have already been deployed to assist local police departments, which on its face may seem like a good idea. But local police don't control the drones; that's done by trained drone pilots in the U.S. military. So police departments may request assistance on a local crime issue, but who knows what other information is being collected by the U.S. government while the drone is flying over a particular area? On the subject of using drones for domestic purposes, Cal, we have found complete common ground.

Cal: A few groups, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are pushing back. They are filing lawsuits against the FAA, demanding records of the drone certificates that the FAA has issued to various government agencies and research groups. But, says constitutional attorney Whitehead, "It is unlikely that the implementation of this technology can be stopped. Based upon the government's positions on wiretapping, GPS tracking devices, and Internet tracking technologies, it is also unlikely that our elected officials will do anything to protect the American people from the prying eye of the American government."

Bob: The potential for abuse from government and law enforcement domestic surveillance by drones is terrifying. And if we're worried about congested air space, just wait until the commercial industry gets into the act. Already drone manufacturers are envisioning use by private companies where the technology might be used for journalistic purposes or disaster relief. But do we really want this technology in the hands of private companies?

Cal: And drones aren't the only threat. As The New York Times reported recently, while Google was roaming the world's streets with special cameras attached to car roofs for their Street View project, they were also collecting data such as e-mails, chat and instant messages, postings on websites and social networks — all sorts of private Internet communications. The company says the data collection was a mistake. But combine that technology with domestic drones, and the possibilities for Big Brother intrusion seem limitless. That's what scares me.

46% of Californians want to legalize marijuana

Source

Most California voters don't support legalizing pot, poll finds

By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times

May 31, 2012

In California, cradle of the marijuana movement, a new poll has found a majority of voters do not support legalization, even as they overwhelmingly back medicinal use for "patients with terminal and debilitating conditions."

Eighty percent of voters support doctor-recommended use for severe illness, a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found. But only 46% of respondents said they support legalization of "general or recreational use by adults," while 50% oppose it. Those against using pot were more adamant in their position, with 42% saying they felt "strongly" about it, compared with 33% for proponents.

The survey found opinions have not measurably changed since voters defeated the legalization initiative Prop. 19 in 2010 by similar margins. And oddly, given the state's long role as the leader of marijuana decriminalization and cultivation, support for sanctioning its general use here appears to lag behind the sentiment in the rest of the country.

A Gallup poll in October showed support nationwide for legalizing pot at 50% for the first time since the pollster began asking the question in 1969, when only 12% of Americans supported it. A Rasmussen Reports survey this month found 56% of voters favored authorizing and regulating cannabis sales like alcohol and tobacco sales. With this uptick in popularity, marijuana advocates succeeded in getting initiatives qualified for the upcoming November ballot in Colorado and Washington, while they failed in California.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said the California numbers suggest voters are concerned about the way the Compassionate Use Act, passed in 1996 to permit medical marijuana, has been carried out.

"They like the idea of providing marijuana for medical use, but they're worried that the law is being abused," he said.

Cities and counties have been struggling with how to rein in the proliferation of pot shops. Some law enforcement agencies have targeted them, while some have been more lenient. Some cities have tried to ban them, and courts have issued conflicting opinions up and down the state as to whether, where and how they can operate.

The federal government, which does not recognize medical marijuana as legal, has been shutting down dispensaries and growers, while threatening landlords who rent to them and cities that give them official sanction by granting permits.

Dale Gieringer, coordinator of the state chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that the state needs to regulate its medical marijuana distribution better before the public will go for wider use.

His organization and Americans for Safe Access, among other marijuana groups, are backing an Assembly bill that would create a new state board to enact and enforce statewide regulations on growing, transporting and selling marijuana. It would require all dispensaries to register with the state, and allow cities and counties to tax sales.

"Voters are hesitant to liberalize the marijuana laws any further until the chaos of the current system is worked out," he said.

The new poll of about 1,000 registered voters taken May 17-21 statewide showed many more voters used marijuana "recreationally" than the 3% who said they used it as medicine. Just less than 38% said they had indulged in pot for pleasure at least once in their lives — and 9% had in the last year. The questioners did not ask whether those who used the drug recreationally acquired it on the street or with a doctor's recommendation from a dispensary. The poll margin of error is 3.5 percentage points.

The Bay Area was the only region of the state where a majority — 55% — favors legalization, compared with 41% in Southern California and 49% of voters in Los Angeles County. There was a pronounced drop-off with age, with 58% support among those in their late teens and twenties, slowly slipping to 51% for those between 50 and 64, and plummeting to 28% of voters older than 64.

As for political affiliation, only 28% of Republicans and 50% of Democrats liked the idea of legalization. Independents were the ones to give it a boost, with 60% favoring it.

"It's the decline-to-state voters, those kind of independent ones that don't align with either party, who are the ones really pushing this," said Dave Kanevsky, research director for American Viewpoint, a Republican polling firm, which conducted the poll jointly with the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.

One of those independents surveyed was Daniel, a 41-year-old who works in business development in the Inland Empire and did not want to give his last name.

"It's no worse than alcohol or tobacco that are currently legalized," he said. "People should absolutely not be persecuted for it."

He said he "partied" with marijuana in his youth and grew out of it as an adult. While he feels that it has legitimate medical benefits for some, he suspects that other users are gaming the medical marijuana laws but is not particularly bothered by that.

"I don't feel it's a gateway drug," he said. "I feel the biggest gateway drug we have is alcohol because it lowers your inhibitions more than anything else."

Jim Feller, a 55-year-old Republican in Shasta County, said the exploitation of medical marijuana laws in his area, where his neighbor is growing 25 plants, has strengthened his antipathy toward pot and legalization.

"I just feel it's not working," he said. "There is so much crime related to drugs up here."

Pat Wray, 65, a registered Republican in Temecula, said she believes that the terminally ill should have access to marijuana.

"My goodness gracious, who wouldn't want them to have something to ease the pain?" she said.

She noted that she grew up in the 1960s and doesn't demonize pot smokers. "Look, I drink my glass of wine and occasionally have a margarita." But she said she feared marijuana did lead to harder drugs, and was wary about legalizing it.

"You just don't want to open Pandora's Box."

joe.mozingo@latimes.com

Guatemalan President thinks the drug war is a dismal failure!!!

Source

Stop Following a Failed Policy

Otto Pérez Molina

May 30, 2012

In 1961 the international community signed a United Nations treaty that reflected an inter-governmental consensus on how to fight drugs all over the world. Basically, the consensus was the following: drug consumption is very damaging for human beings, and the best way for preventing this type of consumption is to prohibit the production, trafficking and use of drugs.

Today, 51 years after reaching this consensus, something is pretty clear: drugs are prohibited but drugs continue to be consumed in quantities so large that the global market is calculated in hundreds of billions of dollars. In other words, the global consensus is far from being successful. Actually, I prefer to call it what it really is: a failure.

We need to rigorously evaluate the impact of what we are doing, and analyze other policy options we can implement, including drug regulation.

Unfortunately, the global consensus failure is not just expressed in the existence of a huge and incredibly profitable drug market. Big money has also brought greater violence. So the drug market has both increased in its supply of dollars, as well as in its demand for blood.

My home country, Guatemala, as well as other countries in Central America and the Caribbean are suffering this bloodshed, the same bloodshed that is present in many poor urban neighborhoods in the United States, which affects disproportionately young black and Latino Americans.

My government has called for an open dialogue on global drug policy based on a simple assumption: we cannot continue to expect different results if we continue to do the same things. Something is wrong with our global strategy, and in order to know better what is wrong we need an evidence-based approach to drug policy and not an ideological one. This means that we need to evaluate rigorously what is the impact of what we are doing, and analyze carefully what other policy options we can implement.

Moving beyond ideology may involve discussing different policy alternatives. Some people (not my government) may call for full-fledged liberalization of the drug market, as opposed to the current full-fledged prohibition scheme. I believe in a third way: drug regulation, which is a discrete and more nuanced approach that may allow for legal access to drugs currently prohibited, but using institutional and market-based regulatory frameworks. This third way may work best, but let us all be clear that only an evidence-based analysis will lead us to better policies.

Half a century is enough time for assessing the success or failure of a policy. Our children are demanding us to be responsible and to search for the best possible ways to protect them from drug abuse. Let us not waste our time anymore in doing what has proven to be wrong. While we deliver endless speeches on our commitment to a failed approach, more young people are becoming drug addicts who won´t be treated by our health system, but by our criminal justice institutions.

It is a sad story, but I am convinced it doesn´t need to be this way. We can certainly do better than this. And, by all means, we have to.

Full speed ahead with the insane drug war in Honduras

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Despite Deaths in Honduran Raid, U.S. to Press Ahead With New Antidrug Policy

By DAMIEN CAVE, CHARLIE SAVAGE and THOM SHANKER

Published: May 31, 2012

WASHINGTON — After several villagers were killed on a Honduran river this month during a raid on drug smugglers by Honduran and American agents, a local backlash raised concerns that the United States’ expanding counternarcotics efforts in Central America might be going too far. But United States officials in charge of that policy see it differently.

Throughout 2011, counternarcotics officials watched their radar screens almost helplessly as more than 100 small planes flew from South America to isolated landing strips in Honduras. But this month — after establishing a new strategy emphasizing more cooperation across various United States departments and agencies — two smugglers’ flights were intercepted within a single week, a development that explains why American officials say they are determined to press forward with the approach.

“In the first four months of this year, I’d say we actually have gotten it together across the military, law enforcement and developmental communities,” said William R. Brownfield, the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. “My guess is narcotics traffickers are hitting the pause button. For the first time in a decade, air shipments are being intercepted immediately upon landing.”

With Washington’s attention swinging from Iraq and Afghanistan — and with budget dollars similarly flowing in new directions — the United States is expanding and unifying its antidrug efforts in Central America, where violence has skyrocketed as enforcement efforts in the Caribbean, Colombia and Mexico have pushed cocaine traffic to smaller countries with weaker security forces.

As part of those efforts, the United States is pressing governments across Central America to work together against their shared threat — sharing intelligence and even allowing security forces from one nation to operate on the sovereign soil of another — an approach that was on display in the disputed raid. But reviews from Central America include uncertainty and skepticism.

Government leaders in Honduras — who came to power in a controversial election a few months after a 2009 coup — have strongly supported assistance from the United States, but skeptics contend that enthusiasm is in part because the partnership bolsters their fragile hold on power.

More broadly, there is discontent in Latin America with United States efforts that some leaders and independent experts see as too focused on dramatic seizures of shipments bound for North America rather than local drug-related murders, corruption and chaos.

“Violence has grown a lot; crimes connected to trafficking keep increasing — that’s Central America’s big complaint,” President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala said in an interview. He added that the drug cartels are better organized than they were 20 years ago and that “if there are no innovations, if we don’t see something truly different than what we have been doing, then this war is on the road to defeat.”

Mr. Pérez Molina, a former general, has been criticized by American officials for proposing a form of drug legalization, but he argues that his goal is to create discussion of new ideas — like compensating Central American countries for the drugs they confiscate, or creating a regional court for organized crime.

In the area of Honduras called the Mosquito Coast, where the two recent operations occurred, residents have simpler demands. “If you’re going to come to the Mosquito Coast, come to invest,” said Terry Martinez, the director of development programs for the Gracias a Dios area. “Help us get our legitimate goods to market. That will help secure the area.”

American officials say they know that interdiction alone is not enough. The number of United States officials assigned to programs that are designed to strengthen Central America’s weak criminal justice systems has quadrupled, to about 80 over the past five years.

And the United States Agency for International Development has, since 2009, helped open more than 70 outreach centers for young people, offering job training and places to go after school, officials report.

“If your drug policy is an exclusively ‘hard side’ negative policy, it will not succeed,” said Mr. Brownfield, a former ambassador to Colombia. “There has to be a positive side: providing alternative economic livelihoods, clinics, roads — the sorts of things that actually give poor communities a stake in their future so they do not participate in narcotics trafficking.”

Despite the shift that officials described, federal budgets and performance measures outlined in government documents show that the priorities of the drug war have not significantly changed. Even as cocaine consumption in the United States has fallen, the government’s antidrug efforts abroad continue to be heavily weighted toward seizing cocaine.

Most financing for the Central American Regional Security Initiative has gone to security and interdiction work, according to a recent Congressional report.

“The problem is that the budget doesn’t match the rhetoric,” said John Carnevale, who served as the director of planning, budget and research for the Office of National Drug Control Policy from 1989 to 2000. “The budget that is currently being funded for drug control is still very much like the one we’ve had for 10 or 12 years, or really over the past couple of decades.”

American officials counter that interdiction efforts include programs to increase the professionalism of local police units. And increasingly, Central American governments are helping to train one another’s forces, using common equipment, and sharing counternarcotics intelligence. United States agencies are also combining their efforts in new ways. Officials say the May 11 raid near the town of Ahuas — and another one earlier in May in Honduras, during which there was also a firefight but no one is believed to have been killed — illustrated that joint effort.

The May 11 raid started with Colombian intelligence passing along a tip about the plane to a joint intelligence task force under the American military’s Southern Command, which has its headquarters in Miami.

An American Navy surveillance aircraft then tracked the plane as it landed, leading to a raid that was carried out by four State Department helicopters. They flew out of one of three new forward operating bases built this year by the American military’s Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras.

Guatemalan pilots flew the aircraft — after overcoming some resistance from Honduran officials — because Honduras lacks qualified pilots. The helicopters carried a strike force of Honduran police officers who had been specially vetted and trained by United States Drug Enforcement Administration agents, several of whom are part of a special commando-style squad that was on board as advisers.

The helicopters struck about 2 a.m., after about 30 men had unloaded 17 bales of cocaine from the plane into a pickup truck, which had carried it to a boat in the nearby Patuca River. Men working on the boat scattered as the helicopters swooped down, and a ground force moved in to secure the cargo.

What happened next remains under investigation in Honduras. Officials say a second boat approached and opened fire on the agents on the ground. They and a door gunner aboard the helicopter returned fire in a quick burst.

But rather than hitting drug traffickers, villagers contend, the government forces instead hit another boat that was returning from a long trip upriver — killing four unarmed people, including two pregnant women. While the D.E.A.’s rules of engagement allowed agents to fire back to protect themselves and their counterparts, both United States and Honduran government officials insist that no Americans fired.

Nonetheless, broader questions remain. Even if the air route to Honduras is shut down, as long as the United States — and, increasingly, Africa and Europe — remains a lucrative market for cocaine, traffickers will continue to seek a way to move their product.

United States officials say they are already bolstering efforts in the Caribbean, anticipating another shift in direction for drugs.

Tucson's 4th Ave. 'Weed Man' dies in house fire

Tucson's 4th Ave. 'Weed Man' dies in house fire

Veronica M. Cruz Arizona Daily Star

A beloved staple at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair for decades, Rodriguez would head out on his bicycle to share information about, and encourage support of, legalizing medical marijuana. He was known on Fourth and around town as "Pot Man," "Weed Man" and "Marijuana Man."

The 64-year-old died Sunday morning from burns suffered when a fire broke out early Saturday afternoon in the small guesthouse in the 200 block of North Palomas Avenue where he lived. The cause of the blaze is undetermined.

Before firefighters arrived, a neighbor tried to help cool Rodriguez's seared skin with water from a garden hose. He was taken to University of Arizona Medical Center to be treated for burns that covered 90 percent of his body, a relative said.

Rodriguez took up the crusade to help legalize medical marijuana 45 years ago after he was involved in a motorcycle crash that left him in chronic pain, said his niece, Larene Martinez.

"He just felt like he wanted to take herbal pain medication instead of filling his body with other pain medicine and prescriptions," Martinez said.

Every year he'd put on his marijuana-leaf lei and head out to the street fair or the St. Patrick's Day celebration at Armory Park to give out fake medical marijuana prescriptions and stickers. He'd also give away hand-painted cascarones or little booklets of "My Cannabis Prayer," which included Bible Scriptures, Martinez said.

"It literally wasn't a street fair until I saw him blazing the trail," said Craig Wilson, owner of the Fourth Avenue shop Creative Ventures, who remembers seeing Rodriguez at each fair for at least 30 years.

"One of my things was just sitting and waiting for him to come by and say, 'OK, it's truly a fair now,' " Wilson said. "He was just so well-liked, people would surround him; people would holler at him."

When he wasn't out raising awareness about medical marijuana, Rodriguez worked at the St. Mary's Auxiliary Thrift Store. He rode his bicycle up "A" Mountain each day.

Rodriguez devoted his free time to collecting toys to give to children of the Menlo Park neighborhood at Christmas. He won many of the toys with his superior skills working the claw on game machines. "He would collect toys every year. ... It was something he never missed, and he would dress like Santa," Martinez said. "He even had a sled."

It will be strange not to have Rodriguez's presence at the next street fair, Wilson said. "It was something that we expected and look forward to. And when you've been doing this for so long, … you just like things to stay the same," he said.

"And one of the things that always remained the same was seeing Frank supporting his cause in a real quiet way."

Contact reporter Veronica Cruz at vcruz@azstarnet.com or 573-4224.

Pot should also be open for recreational use

Source

Letter: Pot should also be open for recreational use

Posted: Friday, June 1, 2012 6:31 am | Updated: 1:22 pm, Thu May 31, 2012.

Letter to the Editor

Regarding Carolyn Short’s May 23 op-ed, not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but adult recreational use should be regulated. Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don’t ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences.

Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn’t fight crime, it fuels crime.

Taxing and regulating marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, is a cost-effective alternative to never-ending drug war.

Robert Sharpe, MPA

Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Arlington, Va.

Setting record straight on medical pot

Source

Letter: Setting record straight on medical pot

Posted: Thursday, May 31, 2012 1:15 pm | Updated: 4:21 pm, Thu May 31, 2012.

Letter to the Editor

Carolyn Short’s recent op-ed (May 23) contains numerous unfounded statements. Let’s set the record straight.

The Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA), is hardly “the most lax marijuana law in the nation” as Ms. Short claims.

It is instead one of the most stringent programs in the U.S. The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) mandates significant security requirements for dispensaries and grow facilities that ensure employee, patient and community safety.

Ms. Short’s claim that the AMMA is unconstitutional and that our political leaders must scuttle it conveniently ignores the Constitution’s Tenth Amendment — states have rights. The founding fathers understood that to preserve liberty, federal power must be limited so as not to usurp those governments nearest to the people.

Short also claims that ADHS employees are at risk of arrest and prosecution. Really? Can any reasonable person imagine a scenario in which federal agents handcuff and jail civil servants implementing a voter-approved law? This has not occurred in any other state and is highly unlikely to happen in Arizona, given the long, proud history of fully exercising our 10th Amendment rights.

The hysteria of opponents is simply playing to people’s fears in order to undo something they refuse to understand – that there is a responsible, medical context for the regulated sale and use of marijuana.

Doug Banfelder

Phoenix

Drug war key issue in Mexico elections

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Drug war key issue in Mexico elections

by Daniel Gonzalez - May. 31, 2012 11:19 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

As Mexicans prepare to choose a new president one month from today, the election has turned into a referendum of sorts on President Felipe Calderon's war on the drug cartels, an effort that some Mexicans applaud as long overdue and others blame for escalating violence in the country.

The primary question for the three leading candidates seeking to succeed Calderon is whether they would continue to use the military to confront the cartels, as Calderon has since he launched a U.S.-backed crackdown on the drug-trafficking networks in 2006, or pursue a different strategy, experts say.

The candidates have yet to offer concrete proposals about how they would reduce cartel-related violence, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 50,000 people and emerged as the issue of overwhelming concern for Mexicans living on both sides of the border.

"Public safety is the big issue. It's what everyone is talking about," said Jaime Aguila, a history professor at Arizona State University who studies Mexican politics. "But while the candidates promise they will improve public safety, they are vague on the details."

Many in the United States -- particularly in border states such as Arizona -- are paying close attention to the race because the outcome could affect relations between the countries.

Besides sharing a 2,000-mile border, Mexico and the United States are also intertwined economically and socially. Mexico is the second-largest market for U.S. exports and the third-largest source of imports. What's more, nearly 12 million Mexicans live in the United States, and the U.S. has more than 30 million people of Mexican descent.

How the next president, who is limited to one six-year term, will deal with the violence is especially important in border states like Arizona, where large numbers of Mexicans travel regularly to visit relatives in Mexico and where law-enforcement officials are concerned about drug violence spreading into this country. The U.S. has given Mexico hundreds of millions of dollars to fight the cartels.

Most of the violence has been concentrated in eight states considered key drug-trafficking areas, among them Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Tamaulipas, but it has spread to other states, including Nuevo Leon, where 49 headless or mutilated bodies were recently found outside the city of Monterrey.

Two weeks ago, the police chief of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, across the border from San Luis, Ariz., was shot and killed as he drove away from his home in a city that was about to be lauded as one of the state's safest.

"This is really Mexico's 9/11. It has really stunned Mexicans, and this is a country that is used to a certain level of violence," said Erik Lee, associate director of ASU's North American Center for Transborder Studies. The top issue

The economy, job creation and privatization of the national oil industry are all major issues in the race. But they have been overshadowed by drug violence, said Christopher Wilson, an associate with the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

"Certainly, there is a lot of concern in border states about the amount of drugs crossing through, and there are family ties that people have to a lot of border communities on the Mexican side of the border, so there is a natural concern for security on that side of the border as well," Wilson said.

All three candidates have promised to reduce drug violence, but they differ on how they would go about it, Wilson said. The candidates are scheduled to participate in their second debate on June 10.

Enrique Peña Nieto, the front-runner, doesn't want to continue using the military to battle the cartels but has been unclear about how soon he would make such a change, Wilson said.

"He sort of stands in the middle on that," Wilson said. "There is not a clear message of getting the military out, but I have heard him make reference to that. But he is not talking about getting the military out too soon."

Peña Nieto favors beefing up the federal police force to focus on crimes that have a "high social impact," such as murders, kidnappings and extortion, Wilson said. His critics, however, fear Peña Nieto would go back to the old days of the government cutting deals with the cartels instead of taking them on.

He is a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI in Mexico, which ruled the country for 71 years until 2000, when Vicente Fox of the National Action Party was elected.

Josefina Vazquez Mota, a member of the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, represents the status quo, although she has tried to distinguish herself from Calderon, Wilson said. She favors a continued military presence until the national police force is equipped to gradually replace it, Wilson said.

"She says she would like to see the military not be part of the fight but that is not going to be able to happen until there is a strong national police force to relieve them," Wilson said.

The third candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, is focused on getting the military out of the battle with the cartels.

Instead, he wants to try to rid the government and justice system of corruption. "He sees it as one of the key ways of dealing with the security issue, cleaning up the police force, cleaning up politics," Wilson said.

Instead of battling the cartels, Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost to Calderon six years ago, also wants to devote government resources to social programs.

"He says (the government) needs to tackle this problem by the roots, which are jobs and economic development and opportunities for people, because he sees people as choosing to go into the illicit drug or crime business out of a lack of other opportunities," Wilson said.

Voter apathy

There are 524,000 Mexicans in Arizona, which has the fourth-largest Mexican population of any U.S. state. Of those, 482,000 are of voting age, which is 18 in Mexico, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a research center in Washington, D.C.

Just 2,324 Mexicans in Arizona have registered to vote by mail, according to Mexico's federal election agency. Six years ago, 1,121 Mexicans from Arizona cast mail-in ballots.

For many Mexicans living in Arizona, drug violence in Mexico is the most important issue in the race. But many see voting as a waste of time, despite efforts by the Mexican government to encourage more Mexicans living outside the country to participate in the election.

"They are all the same," said Phoenix resident Jose Chacon, 44, echoing a common attitude among Mexicans in the U.S. toward Mexican politicians.

Chacon said he has no plans to vote. The restaurant cook is from the state of Michoacan, where drug-cartel violence is rampant.

He said he agrees with Calderon's crackdown on the cartels but sees no end to the bloodshed.

Alejandro Lenero, 37, of Phoenix, is also concerned about security in Mexico but is equally pessimistic.

Lenero said he usually supports PAN candidates, but he doesn't have confidence that any of the presidential candidates have a solution to the drug-violence problem in Mexico.

"My personal opinion is this goes beyond the political parties," he said. "I don't think any of them can solve the problem. The problem is so many people without employment going for the easy money with the drug cartels. First, they have to fix the employment."

Lenero, a component-design engineer, is originally from Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city. He used to travel to Guadalajara once a year with his family to visit relatives, but now, he worries about safety during the 24-hour drive.

This summer, his family will drive to Hermosillo and then fly to Guadalajara, instead.

"It's a bit scary driving to our own country," he said. "You hear the news. You can get kidnapped or robbed, or they can assault you."

U.S. officials weigh in

State and federal law-enforcement officials in Arizona also have been keeping an eye on the Mexican presidential elections.

During a congressional-field hearing on controlling international drug trafficking held earlier this month in Phoenix, several top law-enforcement officials said cooperation with Mexican law enforcement increased under the Calderon administration. They hope that cooperation will continue under his successor.

With the cooperation of Mexican authorities, the U.S. has indicted "hundreds of high-level narcotics traffickers from Mexico," said Doug Coleman, special agent in charge of the Arizona office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"Anything that would change that level of cooperation would be extremely damaging," Coleman said.

Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and hosted the field hearing, said he is concerned that the next president of Mexico will back off the Calderon administration's current battle with the cartels.

"Will there be a situation where the next president just turns a blind eye to the cartels ceding Mexico to the cartels, or will they be a willing partner with the United States to combat them? I hope it's the latter," Quayle said.

In March, after meeting with the three leading candidates, Vice President Joe Biden said he believes Mexico will continue to cooperate closely with the United States in battling the cartels.

At the same time, Biden rejected growing calls from leaders in Mexico and other Latin American countries for the legalization of drugs as a way of reducing drug violence.

Arizona Republic still supports the insane and unconstitutional drug war.

Source

Medicine farce obscures debate

May. 29, 2012 05:45 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Some sick people may benefit from marijuana. A hot toddy can help a cold, too. And a nice cup of chamomile tea does wonders for indigestion -- just ask Peter Rabbit's mother.

But whiskey and herb tea are not medicine. Neither is marijuana -- regardless of the Trojan horse the voters dragged into the public square.

Medical marijuana is a backdoor attempt at legalization, a diversionary strategy to create an air of legitimacy around a street drug.

Consider that the law voters approved in 2010 requires state officials to periodically look at expanding the list of ailments for which pot can legally be used. The first round of petitions is being considered now.

"This will go on and on," says Will Humble, director of the Department of Health Services. He is reviewing scientific evidence, but he's likely to be sued no matter what he decides. What's more, once on the list, there is no mechanism under the law to remove an ailment, he says.

Now under consideration are PTSD, depression, anxiety and migraines.

Adding these serious conditions to the already broad list of pot-treatable ailments could give impression that marijuana is on par with proven medical or psychiatric treatment. Depression can lead to suicide, so a faux "treatment" could be lethal.

Any guise of legitimacy is fast falling from medical-marijuana arguments as pot aficionados push the boundaries. Humble deserves credit for designing rules meant to avoid recreational diversion, but he can only do so much.

Arizona voters made a mistake with this law. Judgment was clouded by natural sympathy for sick people who might -- just maybe -- be helped by marijuana.

Rather than entertain this "marijuana as medicine" farce, it would have been far more honest to have a discussion of potential medical uses in the context of a debate on the larger public-policy questions about decriminalizing marijuana. This incremental push toward widespread acceptance is risky and mendacious.

Vets love medical marijuana!!! The doctors at the VA hate it.

Source

Veterans say marijuana eases PTSD

They're lobbying to expand Ariz. medical-marijuana law

by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - Jun. 4, 2012 11:25 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Emanuel Herrera returned from war addicted to painkillers and barely able to tolerate his children's voices.

The former staff sergeant from Glendale had enlisted in the Arizona National Guard after 9/11, wanting to help his country. In 2006, while providing security for a convoy near Camp Anaconda in Iraq, his truck hit an improvised bomb. The blast turned the night into day, nearly destroyed his neck, damaged the discs in his back and left him with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.

Last year, despite warnings from medical staff at the local veterans hospital, he began to smoke pot legally under the state's new medical-marijuana program to cope with the physical and mental pains of combat.

"My doctors shunned me and didn't approve of me doing it," said Herrera, a Purple Heart recipient. "One doctor said I could get some repercussions for doing it. But I did it legally. And I know for a fact -- I'm a walking testimonial -- that it works."

No one collects data on the number of veterans participating in medical-marijuana programs in Arizona or the other 16 states where it is legal. But veterans and program advocates say those who have served are turning to cannabis more and more to deal with the disabling symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries and chronic physical pain.

In Arizona, veterans are leading the push for health officials to add PTSD as a qualifying condition for the medical-marijuana program. Currently, only individuals with diagnoses such as chronic pain, cancer and other debilitating conditions qualify. Two other states include PTSD as a qualifying condition.

Dozens of veterans have written letters and testified at a public hearing at the Arizona Department of Health Services late last month about the benefits of cannabis, saying prescription pain drugs are inadequate.

But the federal government has sent mixed messages about its stance on the issue, with law enforcement opposing states' programs and VA medical staff allowing participation. Medical experts disagree on whether the drug helps or hurts veterans.

Veterans Affairs' policy

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010 formally began to allow patients treated at its medical facilities to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal. But because the drug remains illegal under federal law, VA doctors themselves cannot recommend it.

The directive put to rest concerns among some veterans and their families that they could lose benefits if they tested positive for marijuana.

But distrust of the government still prevents some veterans from signing up with state medical-marijuana programs, instead opting to buy the drug -- and ingest it -- illegally.

As chief of staff at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, Dr. Darren Deering is in charge of 200 doctors who see 85,000 veterans a year, 9 percent of whom are diagnosed with PTSD. He said physicians are at the forefront of the trend and often grapple with balancing traditional therapy and medicine with marijuana.

"There's a lot of gray area here," Deering said. "I would like to think our physicians aren't making moral judgments, because that's not what our mandate is.

"We can't deny patients care, and our physicians know that. But there might be times where we have to kind of tailor their treatment plans" to take into account the marijuana use.

The VA asks patients to tell physicians if they are using marijuana because it almost always affects their care. Typically, Deering said, physicians will alter patients' care until it is clear how the marijuana interacts with narcotics. He said marijuana is shown to help with certain medical conditions, but there is not a lot of scientific research on how it interacts with prescription drugs.

Paula Pedene, a spokeswoman with the VA hospital, said medical staffers urge patients to first try intense therapy to treat PTSD instead of self-medicating with marijuana, herbal remedies and other methods.

"They live in a place that has passed this law, and it's their choice to use it," Pedene said. "The question is: How can we co-manage their care?"

She said the VA does not keep track of the number of patients who say they participate in the medical-marijuana program, nor do they report them to federal agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Justice or the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Both agencies oppose medicinal use of pot.

Caught in a bind

Iraq veteran Cory Woodstock believes the VA abandoned him after he began smoking marijuana illegally. He suffers from a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, depression and physical pain.

While serving in the military, the security convoys he rode in were involved in three bomb attacks within 38 hours.

By the time the Purple Heart recipient returned home to Apache Junction, he was on 23 prescriptions, taking 57 pills a day. In 2009, he smoked marijuana for a short time after veteran friends told him it would help stop the voices in his head and the pain radiating through his body.

But once the pot showed up in his urine tests, he said, his VA doctor cut him off all prescriptions, which he still needed to manage his pain. He stopped ingesting marijuana, afraid federal officials would strip him of his benefits because they still consider pot to be illegal. He sought treatment outside the VA system but said it hasn't helped as much as the marijuana did.

"It was an experiment, and it worked," he said. "I was able to sleep. I wasn't so conscious about not being able to speak (well). I told the doctors I tried it and it helped. They said it voided my contract with the VA."

Woodstock wants to use pot again, but he will not sign up for the state's program unless federal law enforcement changes its stance.

"I'm leery of the federal government. I'm not going to take the chance," he said. Doctors weigh in

Doctors disagree on how effective medical marijuana is to treat symptoms such as PTSD.

Dr. Sue Sisley, a Scottsdale internist in private practice and assistant professor of psychiatry and internal medicine at the University of Arizona, said marijuana is extremely effective for veterans. She said she sees many veterans who turn to marijuana only after conventional medicine doesn't help.

"It's really uncharted territory for veterans and the VA," she said. "The VA has taken a position where they're not going to terminate patients if they have a card, but the truth is that a lot of doctors have a strong bias against it -- they believe they are just drug addicts."

Dr. Edward Gogek, a Prescott addiction psychiatrist in private practice, believes people are pretending to use marijuana for treatment -- including veterans. He said most veterans are substance abusers and should not be allowed to ingest marijuana.

"You're talking about giving an addictive drug to people with substance- abuse disorders," Gogek said. He said there are non-addictive approaches to treating sleep disorders, PTSD and other conditions.

Ultimately, ADHS Director Will Humble will decide whether to expand the state's medical-marijuana program to include PTSD as a qualifying condition. Under the 2010 voter-approved law, state health officials must periodically consider adding conditions.

He expects to decide by mid-July. If approved, Arizona would become the third state to allow doctors to recommend medical marijuana to treat PTSD.

"(Veterans) sort of hold a special status in our culture, and every time you hear a veteran's story, it's compelling," Humble said. "But I will make a decision based on what the medical weight shows."

Across the nation, some veterans are urging the White House and Congress to legalize marijuana for veterans at the federal level. Michael Krawitz, executive director of Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access in Virginia, said veterans are "mercilessly being denied treatment" because they cannot access medical marijuana in all 50 states.

"Veterans found cannabis long before states started passing these laws," he said "By a long shot, it's better than the drugs they get at the VA."

For veterans like Herrera, marijuana helped him get his life back.

He typically buys marijuana once a month from a registered caregiver and uses certain strains of the drug to target the pain. He medicates anywhere from once to several times a day, he said one recent morning while toking on a small pipe.

"My family would tell you that, before this, sometimes I was like a madman," he said. "I kicked in my daughter's door and almost threw a bar stool out of the window. Not only has it helped my with anger and irritability issues, it's also helped keep my spirits up."

As of May 8, nearly 28,300 patients and 1,670 caregivers participate in the state's medical-marijuana program, which allows them to use or grow medical marijuana for certain conditions. If post-traumatic stress disorder is added as a qualifying condition, health officials expect to add 15,000 to 20,000 new patients.

Medical marijuana is an oxymoron????

Source

Medical marijuana is an oxymoron

Marijuana. It’s not just for getting high, anymore.

So say the advocates of widening the approved uses of medical marijuana in Arizona.

Vets say it helps with PTSD – http://www.azcentral.com/ar...

But one doc quoted in the story says it’s an illusion.

Dr. Edward Gogek, a Prescott addiction psychiatrist in private practice, believes people are pretending to use marijuana for treatment -- including veterans. . . .

"You're talking about giving an addictive drug to people with substance- abuse disorders," Gogek said. He said there are non-addictive approaches to treating sleep disorders, PTSD and other conditions.

Meanwhile, a pot-smoking mother recently left her baby on the roof of the car and drove off -- http://www.azcentral.com/co...

Wonder drug? Or just another mind-altering excuse for bad behavior?

I think pot should be legalized and regulated like alcohol.

Maybe then we can convince 19-year-old “mothers” that smoking and driving with your kid is just not cool.

As for the vets? My dad came back from World War II an alcoholic. It helped him cope. One addictive substance is pretty much the same as another, isn’t it?

Will Humble is trying to gut Prop 203???

Is Will Humble trying to gut Arizona's medical marijuana law???

The wording of Prop 203 says doctors can write medical marijuana prescriptions or recommendations as the law calls it for any "”DEBILITATING MEDICAL CONDITION” [which causes] SEVERE AND CHRONIC PAIN;"

Under that definition migraine headaches which most people consider to be severely painful headaches clearly qualifies as a condition which a doctor can write a patient a prescription for medical marijuana.

I suspect that I am right on that because I have met several people who have migraine headaches and have gotten prescriptions for medical marijuana to treat their migraine headaches.

I find it rather odd, that Will Humble and his drug war tyrants at the Department of Health Services are currently debating on if migraine headaches are a legitimate medical illness that can be added to the list of illnesses that can be legally treated with medial marijuana, when in fact migraine headaches currently are an illness that is allowed to be treated with medical marijuana by Prop 203.

I suspect that Will Humble wants to use this as a lame excuse to stop doctors from writing medical marijuana prescriptions for migraine headaches.

If I worked for the Arizona DHS, I would say we are not even going to discuss this issue because by the definition of illnesses in Prop 203 migraine headaches are already illnesses that are allowed to be treated with medial marijuana. I also would demand that DHS stop the discussion now because it is a waste of time and money since migraine headaches are already an illness that is treatable by medical marijuana.

Of course I suspect that the reason Will Humble is allowing the migraine headaches issue to be discussed is because he wants to use this as a lame excuse to BAN doctors from prescribing medical marijuana for migraine headaches.

In July, Will Humble will announce his decision on whether to allow any of the new illnesses currently being discussed to be added to the list of illnesses that doctors are currently allowed to prescribe or recommend medical marijuana for.

I suspect Will Humble will not allow ANY new uses for medical marijuana. He has already said he will not approve any new uses unless there are scientific tests that prove marijuana is good at treating these illnesses.

And of course because the DEA has effectively made it illegal to do medical research on marijuana there will NEVER be any scientific evidence that says marijuana is effective at treating ANY illness. So Will Humble has created a Catch 22 which will allow him to ban any and all new uses for medical marijuana.

Next I suspect Will Humble will use his decision that migraine headaches are not allowed to be treated with medical marijuana as a lame excuse to stop doctors from writing new patients prescriptions for medical marijuana and perhaps revoke the prescriptions of existing patients who have prescriptions written for migraine headaches.

Since DHS gets to see all the prescriptions that doctors write for medical marijuana I suspect that they will start sending jackbooted police thugs to the offices of all doctors that write prescriptions for migraine headaches telling the doctors that they will face criminal prosecution if they continue to write prescriptions for people that have migraine headaches.

DHS will tell the doctors that that in July of 2012 [next month as I am writing this] Will Humble ruled that migraine headaches are not allowed to be treatable with medical marijuana, and therefore the doctors are violating the law by writing prescriptions for migraine headaches. Of course the DHS will conveniently ignore the fact the Prop 203 as written clearly allows medical marijuana prescriptions for migraine headaches.

I suspect that DHS will also revoke the prescriptions for all the people that have been written for migraine headaches.

Again the DHS will tell the patients that in July 2012 [next month as I am writing this] Will Humble ruled that migraine headaches are not a condition that is allowed to be treated with medical marijuana and therefore the DHS is revoking their prescription.

Again the DHS will conveniently ignore the fact the Prop 203 as written clearly allows medical marijuana prescriptions for migraine headaches.

I suspect many doctors will simply stop writing medical marijuana prescriptions for migraine headaches, rather then spending tens and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting the issue.

And of course people who have migraine headaches and received medical marijuana prescriptions will be even worse off.

Most of these people can barely afford the $150 in doctors fees and the $150 fee for the Arizona medical marijuana card, which is a total of about $300.

These people certainly won't be able to afford to hire a lawyer and fight Will Humble's ruling that medical marijuana can't be used for migraine headaches when they can barely afford the $300 needed to get a medical marijuana prescription or recommendation.

I would start complaining now to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, Arizona DHS director Will Humble, and the media the currently migraine headaches ARE a valid reason for doctors to write medical marijuana prescriptions or recommendations as they are called by Prop 203.

Of course drug war tyrants Jan Brewer and Will Humble will ignore all our complaints, but I suspect the media won't and if we complain loud enough the media will help expose Will Humble and Jan Brewer as the drug war tyrants that they are.

Here is a link of one of the articles ran in the Arizona Republic which says that Will Humble and the folks at the Arizona Department of Health Services are considering adding migraine headaches to the list of illnesses that are allowed to be treated by medical marijuana.

I wrote the previous blurb on Tuesday, June 6, 2012. From what the media has said Will Humble will announce his decision on what new illnesses to allow medical marijuana to be prescribed for sometime in July of 2012. The webmaster isn't a psychic, but it isn't hard to predict that drug war tyrant Will Humble will reject any and all new uses for medical marijuana in Arizona.

Drugs don't cause crime, the laws making drugs illegal cause crime!!!

Source

Medical-pot dispensaries don't boost crime, study says

Jun. 6, 2012 11:34 AM

Robert Preidt, HealthDay

Neighborhoods with medical marijuana dispensaries do not have higher crime rates than other neighborhoods, according to researchers who examined 95 different areas of Sacramento, Calif., in 2009.

As more U.S. states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons, some people have expressed concern that outlets that dispense the drug and their clients will become targets for crime.

But that's not the case, according to the study in the July issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

The researchers found no evidence that neighborhoods with a higher density of medical marijuana dispensaries had higher rates of violent crime or property crime than other neighborhoods.

The study authors added, however, that further research is needed because they looked at neighborhoods at only one point in time. A neighborhood's crime patterns could change over time as more medical marijuana dispensaries open.

"This study is a good first step," study leader Nancy Kepple, of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a journal news release. "But it was not designed to address the bigger picture of how these dispensaries might be affecting neighborhoods."

She also noted that the findings are based on one city, and research in other cities may yield different results. Currently, 17 states and Washington, D.C., permit medical marijuana use.

"The more research that's done, the more complete a picture we'll have," Kepple said.

Medical marijuana was legalized for use in patients whose doctors recommend it for relief during treatment for cancer, AIDS, chronic pain and other conditions, according to the California Department of Public Health.

San Jose to pay $225,000 over public drunkenness arrests

Source

San Jose to pay $225,000 over public drunkenness arrests

By John Woolfolk

jwoolfolk@mercurynews.com

Posted: 06/08/2012 10:21:35 AM PDT

For a fraction of the money initially sought, San Jose will settle two civil rights lawsuits that put a spotlight on the city's downtown policing practices and helped spur a host of changes.

San Jose will pay a total of $225,000 to settle civil rights lawsuits by four men, including a Southern California sports journalist, who claimed officers arrested them on groundless public drunkenness charges motivated more by racial bias.

An investigation by this newspaper after the initial lawsuit found the city under former police Chief Rob Davis made more public drunkenness arrests and prosecutions than other California cities and that those arrests disproportionately involved Latinos. The suits and reports prompted San Jose officials to revise arrest policies.

While the city admits no wrongdoing on behalf of its officers in the settlement, the Police Department has made changes to address the complaints.

Police Chief Chris Moore said officers now offer those arrested on public drunkenness charges an alcohol screening test to provide a record of intoxication levels supporting the charge. Supervisors must sign off on those arrests. Officers are trained to avoid jailing nonviolent drunks, to seek alternatives to ensure those stopped get home safely and to document cases involving forcible arrests. The department now tracks public drunkenness arrests to monitor trends.

"The key is to make sure we use best practices and explore all the alternatives, that we document arrests and make sure they're signed off on," Moore said.

The settlement also includes a provision for the city to reach an additional agreement with the men on police policies, training, and monitoring regarding public drunkenness charges.

The settlements in the pair of federal lawsuits filed in 2008 and 2009 would pay the men far less than the $40 million they had sought in damages.

Under terms of the proposed agreement, which the City Council is expected to approve Tuesday, San Jose would pay the four men a total of $75,000 to be divided among them, and their attorney Anthony Boskovich $150,000.

"It's not as much money as we would have liked, but certainly the resolution is fair," Boskovich said. "The city and the department have forthrightly acknowledged what the issues are and taken steps to remedy the problem."

Charges against all four men were dropped.

City Attorney Rick Doyle said in a memorandum to the council that the proposed settlement "is reasonable to avoid the risks of litigation."

Paul Cicala, a Palm Springs television anchorman, filed suit in August 2008 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California along with Enrico Sagullo, of San Mateo, and Erick Sanchez, of San Jose, alleging police violated their civil rights with wrongful public drunkenness arrests for which prosecutors declined to file charges. They sought $20 million in damages.

Cicala was downtown for the city's Grand Prix auto race in July 2007 when he was troubled by what he thought was a heavy-handed arrest and approached to record the event with his mobile phone. He claimed in the suit that the officer ordered him to stop, accused him of acting like "a lawyer" and then told a fellow officer to arrest him.

Sagullo said he was leaving a downtown nightclub in November 2006 and was arrested after approaching an officer to question the handling of an arrest. Sanchez said he was heading home from the club district and was arrested after making an obscene gesture toward a phalanx of officers herding them away from downtown.

Cicala and Sagullo claimed that police refused their requests to test them for intoxication so they could not prove their innocence.

Ronald Heiman, of San Jose, filed a separate lawsuit in June 2009 also in U.S. District Court seeking $20 million. His complaint alleged that in June 2007 he was in bed at his Hester Avenue apartment when police banged on the door and ordered him out. When he opened the door, they arrested him for alleged public drunkenness. It turned out police were responding to a weapons disturbance report and had gone to the wrong house. Prosecutors declined to file charges.

Contact John Woolfolk at 408-975-9346.

Medical pot card holder arrested

Source

Eloy medical pot card holder arrested for having 6 times legal limit

Posted: Jun 13, 2012 1:50 PM Updated: Jun 13, 2012 4:07 PM

By Molly McKone - email

ELOY, AZ (CBS5) -

An Eloy man, carrying a valid Arizona medical marijuana card, was arrested Tuesday for having more than six times the legal amount of medical pot, as well as more than $10,000 in cash.

Kirk Hutchins, 23, was pulled over by police for tailgating on Interstate 10, according to Pinal County Sheriff's Office spokesman Elias Johnson.

Hutchins was pulled over and the deputy smelled marijuana in his car, Johnson said.

When the deputy asked him about the smell, Hutchins showed the deputy two grams of pot that he had, deputies said.

The deputy ask for Hutchins license and learned it had been suspended.

When the deputy asked why the pot smell in his vehicle was still so strong, Hutchins said, "Man, that's only half of it. You should have smelled it before my buddy took the other half," according to the police report.

Hutchins told the deputy there wasn't any more marijuana in the car and refused to let him search the vehicle.

Hutchins was arrested and a search of his pockets turned up more than $700 in cash. A search of the car turned up a duffle bag with approximately two pounds of additional marijuana as well as several stacks of cash, totaling more than $10,000, according to Johnson.

"This case demonstrates the underlying concern facing law enforcement as it relates to the medical marijuana law. Mr. Hutchins may have had the legal means to obtain approved medicinal marijuana, but he's clearly abusing the system," Sheriff Paul Babeu said. "We don't want to become like other states where individuals take advantage of the law for their own personal gain, instead of the intended medical purposes."

Hutchins was booked in the Pinal Adult Detention Center on charges of possession, transportation and sale of marijuana, and driving on a suspended license.

Source

Ariz. medical marijuana card holder arrested on drug charges

by Jennifer Thomas

Posted on June 13, 2012 at 2:00 PM

ELOY, Ariz. -- An Eloy man has been arrested for having more than six times the legal amount of medicinal pot in his possession, as well as more than $10,000 in cash.

Kirk Hutchins, 23, was booked into the Pinal County Adult Detention Center on charges of possession, transportation and sale of marijuana and driving on a suspended license following a traffic stop Tuesday night.

A Pinal County sheriff's deputy stopped Hutchins' vehicle on westbound Interstate 10 after seeing him following another vehicle too closely.

PCSO spokesman Elias Johnson said the deputy asked about the strong odor of marijuana that was coming from the vehicle and Hutchins presented a container with approximately 2 grams of marijuana. He also showed the deputy a valid medical marijuana card.

A check of Hutchins' license status showed it was suspended.

According to Johnson, the deputy asked why the odor was so strong and Hutchins said, "Man, that's only the half of it. You should have smelled it before my buddy took the other half." [Again did the cop make that statement up to justify an illegal search???]

Hutchins was placed under arrest and a search of the vehicle turned up a duffel bag with approximately 2 pounds of additional packaged, vacuumed-sealed hydroponics, as well as several more stacks of cash totaling more than $10,000. Several other drug paraphernalia items were also seized from the vehicle.

"This case demonstrates the underlying concern facing law enforcement as it relates to the medical marijuana law," Sheriff Paul Babeu said. "Mr. Hutchins may have had the legal means to obtain approved medicinal marijuana, but he's clearly abusing the system.

"We don't want to become like other states where individuals take advantage of the law for their own personal gain, instead of the intended medical purposes," Babeu continued.

Drug war is a jobs program for cops

Source

Emanuel backs decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana

By Kristen Mack Tribune reporter

8:14 a.m. CDT, June 15, 2012

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is throwing his support behind a plan to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

Under the proposed ordinance, police officers will have the discretion to issue tickets with fines ranging from $100 to $500 for people carrying 15 grams or less of pot.

Last fall, Ald. Danny Solis, 25th, introduced a similar plan, selling the idea as a way to raise revenue for the city and free up police to chase more serious criminals. Emanuel is backing a modified version of Solis' ordinance.

“When the ordinance was first introduced, I asked the Chicago Police Department to do a thorough analysis to determine if this reform balanced public safety and common-sense rules that save taxpayer dollars to reinvest in putting more officers on the street,” Emanuel said in a statement. “The result is an ordinance that allows us to observe the law, while reducing the processing time for minor possession of marijuana — ultimately freeing up police officers for the street.”

Currently people caught in possession face a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,500 fine.

Chicago Police Department statistics indicate that last year there were 18,298 arrests for possession of less than 10 grams of cannabis, according to the mayor's office. Each case involves approximately four officers — two arresting and two transporting officers — and places an additional burden on the Cook County court and jail system.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy estimates that the new ordinance will free up more than 20,000 hours of police time, which he estimates is the equivalent of about $1 million in savings.

“I am pleased that Mayor Emanuel has taken this step to address this important issue," Solis said in a statement. "One of the most significant results of this ordinance is that it will allow our police officers to spend more time out policing our neighborhoods and less time processing minor offenses and filling out paperwork. Passing this ordinance will be a major victory in promoting safe neighborhoods and reducing crime."

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has previously expressed support for such a plan, saying that the Cook County Jail and courts are jammed with petty marijuana offenders. She has said: "Taxpayers deserve our resources to be spent more productively — on long-term infrastructure projects and on alternative diversion programs for our youth population who circulate through the criminal justice system."

kmack@tribune.com

White House drug control policy chief in Phoenix

Source

White House drug control policy chief in Phoenix

Meets with local leaders about Obama administration's approach

by Emily Gersema - Jun. 15, 2012 10:12 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

White House officials were on the road in Arizona and other Southwestern states this week promoting a new drug-control policy that emphasizes putting drug users into treatment centers instead of prisons.

The administration's renewed emphasis on drug treatment represents a political shift toward treating drug use as a public-health problem instead of casting it as a criminal issue.

"It's a much more holistic approach," said R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, during a visit Friday with U.S. Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Phoenix, at the Valle del Sol drug-treatment center near Central Avenue and Yuma Street in south Phoenix.

The downtown Phoenix clinic has been treating drug users and alcoholics since the 1970s. Clinics such as this are a critical new part of the Obama administration's efforts to control drug trafficking and drug use in Arizona and other Southwestern states, Kerlikowske said.

Kurt Sheppard, CEO of Valledel Sol, said the clinic treats around 5,000 people every year.

He said treatment is an important way to deal with drug users because it has a far-reaching impact -- improving life for families and friends of the user.

"Really, you have to take a multiplier -- and it probably impacts about 20,000 people," Sheppard said.

Kerlikowske said investing more in prevention and treatment can save the federal government and state governments millions in prison costs.

Drug offenders are serving more time, which leads to greater expenses. On average, drug offenders released from prison in 2009 had spent 2.2 years in prison, up from 1.6 years in 1990, according to a report released this month by researchers with the Pew Center on the States. Prison costs for the drug offenders released in 2009 reached $2.3 billion, mostly due to the increase in time served, researchers wrote.

The administration's strategy also involves traditional drug-investigation and -enforcement by agencies including U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Those agencies now have the added responsibility of educating community groups to help end the cycle of recidivism among drug users, prevent drug use among teens and divert drug users into treatment instead of prison.

Every two years, the White House releases a new drug-control strategy for Arizona and its fellow border states, such as California and New Mexico.

In the most recent strategy for 2011, the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced that national objectives for drug control would include "developing strong and resilient communities that resist criminal activity and promote healthy lifestyles."

Since 2010, the drug-control policy office has spent an estimated $5.7million nationwide to increase coordination between the law-enforcement agencies and the community organizations focused on drug-use prevention in the nation's 28 "high-intensity drug-trafficking areas," including much of Arizona.

Some of the federal initiatives for boosting prevention and treatment included a February 2011 training session by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to educate community groups about drug trafficking and the impact on drug use and border security.

It also held several workshops with parents as part of the federal PACT 360 (Police and Communities Together) program, an education effort that prepares parents to talk to their children about drugs, according to the National Drug Control Strategy announced by the Obama administration in April.

America's liquor laws, our traditional socialism

Column: America's liquor laws, our traditional socialism

By Jonathan Turley

If current political rhetoric is to be believed, we are on the brink of either a Communist or Socialist takeover. Republican leaders and pundits have repeatedly denounced Obama administration programs from health care to bailouts as part of a creeping "socialist agenda," which appears to mean any centralized control of a market.

What is fascinating is that the warnings over state monopolies omit one of the longest-standing institutions of central planning and control in the U.S.: state liquor boards.

Seventeen states continue to exercise control over liquor as absurd relics from the 1930s. Ironically, there is no better example of the failures of central planning than the "ABC stores" around the country from Alabama to Pennsylvania. Indeed, if Karl Marx were alive and trying to buy Schnapps today, he might reconsider aspects of Das Kapital after dealing with our central alcohol planners.

This month, many people were enthralled with a controversy in Idaho where the State Liquor Division had barred the sale of Five Wives Vodka. The division refused to allow Idahoans to buy the popular vodka because it might be offensive to the Mormon population in the state.

I represented the distiller of the vodka, Ogden's Own Distillery of Utah, in raising a host of constitutional objections to the enforcement of such religious mores. The state recently agreed to rescind its bar on sales, but the controversy should not pass without some discussion of continued existence of these state monopolies on alcohol sales.

Out with prohibition

Almost 80 years ago, the country repealed the prohibition of alcohol with the 21st Amendment. Many states emerged from prohibition with strict state control boards, but the majority dispensed with this inefficient system years ago. However, millions of Americans continue to live in states that control where and what they can buy in terms of liquor. Beer sales are generally not subject to such controls.

Indeed, the Idaho Division blocked Five Wives Vodka despite the fact that bars in the state serve Polygamy Porter. However, when it comes to liquor, these states stand between the consumer and companies with an army of bureaucrats who add costs and delays for the public.

In the case of Idaho, the division's director, Jeff Anderson, noted that his staff tasted the vodka and preferred the pricing and quality of other products. Imagine those enlightened folks you meet at the post office and think of them passing judgment on the relative value of different types of alcohol — literally of thousands of products sought by citizens. These alcohol apparatchiks in states such as Idaho sit around and debate whether citizens should be allowed to buy a particular liquor of their choice.

Anderson said they concluded that this vodka was not "something we want to have on our shelf, sitting next to Absolut vodka." Putting aside the perceived need to protect this Swedish vodka from being seen near Utah vodka, there remains a question of the function and power of these bureaucrats. Like Anderson's vodka of choice, the bureaucrats consider their power over consumers as absolute.

Most states have gotten rid of these boards and fared well in relying on the market and conventional regulations to protect consumers. Just last month, Washington state embraced the free market and got rid of its state control. Thirty-three states rely on what Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" of the market where consumers choose among products — and the law of supply and demand handles the rest. However, eleven of the seventeen control states — Alabama, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Utah — exercise direct control over the retail sale and price of liquor, sometimes even owning the ABC stores where it is sold.

Out with the boards

Because I live in Virginia, I have to drive to an ABC store to buy liquor — a store that is insulated from competition, and it shows. Like many government-run enterprises, the place is run with all of the care and concern of your local DMV.

States differ on the rationale for these boards. The Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, for example, uses its authority "not to promote the sale of liquor" but to "promote moderation and to enforce existing liquor laws." The heavily Mormon state is famous for imposing arbitrary limits on the sale of alcohol from formerly banning of bars (in favor of "clubs") to the required use of "Zion curtains" to prevent bartenders from being seen pouring alcohol.

These and other laws seem based on the belief that "for the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him." The man who said that was Marx, a great believer in central control. These states have allowed a fixed bureaucracy to take hold of a market — a self-perpetuating and inefficient middleman in the market.

Unlike Marx's vision, free enterprise is the touchstone of our society. With such free enterprise comes free choice — not simply the freedom to choose between the options approved by the government. Smith in The Wealth of Nations stressed that "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Smith could just as well have added that it should also not be from the benevolence of the bureaucrat any more than the brewer — at least in deciding our drink of choice.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

Big Brother Uncle Sam is tracking your cold medicine purchases

Source

Computers to help limit sale of meth ingredients

by Alex Stuckey - Jun. 19, 2012 11:33 PM

The Republic | azcentral.com

Law-enforcement officials have long known small-time manufacturers of methamphetamine can acquire their raw materials in the aisles of a typical pharmacy.

As a result, their fight against the drug's spread has included limiting large or repeated purchases of over-the-counter cold and flu medicines containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, drugs like Sudafed, Zyrtec-D and Claritin-D.

The paper logs that Arizona pharmacies have been required to maintain on such sales, however, have made the purchase limits difficult for pharmacists to track and easy for meth makers to skirt, experts say.

That's set to change because Arizona lawmakers recently passed a bill requiring the roughly 1,300 pharmacies in the state to use a national database to track such purchases. By January, pharmacists will be able to swipe customers' IDs and see if they have exceeded limits on purchasing such drugs in Arizona or elsewhere.

Pharmacists say it will be a vast improvement over the current system, which they say was only as effective as the employee's memory.

"Pharmacists have to remember the name and face because everything's on paper," said Hal Wand, executive director of the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy.

Law-enforcement officials say the new tracking system will give them one more tool in combating the drug.

But one lawmaker criticizes it for asking pharmacies "to be the police department." Tracking 'smurfs'

Law-enforcement officials call them "smurfs," individuals who travel from store to store buying products that contain ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to use in making meth, a drug that causes brain damage, organ failure, stroke, open sores, rotting teeth and mania.

To combat the practice, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 ordered stores to lock the products behind the counter and placed a limit on the amount a person can purchase: 3.6 grams per day or 9 grams per month. Stores were required to keep records of the purchases for at least two years.

When a customer wants to buy a box of Sudafed, for example, the pharmacist must record the customer's name, address and Social Security number in a log.

But pharmacists say there are problems with this system.

Without sifting through every name in the log, the pharmacist or staff members have only their memory to help identify a suspicious sale.

"No one really goes through the logs when a customer comes in," said Dennis Meyers, a pharmacist at Camelback Village Pharmacy in Phoenix.

And even if a pharmacist could remember every customer, the current system makes it impossible to track meth makers who travel from one city to another, let alone from state to state, to buy the drugs, said state Rep. Heather Carter, R-Cave Creek, who sponsored House Bill 2263, which calls for implementation of the electronic tracking.

"Someone could go from Scottsdale to north Phoenix, within 3 miles, and there's no mechanism in place to track the person across municipalities," Carter said.

With electronic tracking, not only will pharmacists know if the customer has exceeded the limits, law-enforcement officials will also have access to data on purchases in all states that have implemented the National Precursor Log Exchange, or NPLEx, system, said Charlie Cichon, executive director of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, administrator of the system.

Including Arizona, legislation to implement NPLEx has passed in 24 states, said Jim Acquisto, vice president of government affairs for Appriss, the system's creator. In addition, some national retail chains with pharmacies, such as CVS, Rite Aid and Target, use the system in their stores in states that don't require it, he said.

The system blocked sales for about 4,375 pounds of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products last year, according to Acquisto.

Any pharmacy that violates this new law could be charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by fine only, according to the bill.

Kentucky was one of the first states to implement the system, in 2008, and Daviess County Sheriff Keith Cain said the program works well.

"It's a valuable tool. ... We used to just chase the smurfs across state lines, and they would buy more (pseudoephedrine) there," Cain said. "But now, the states can talk to each other, and that won't happen anymore." Not foolproof

Although NPLEx addresses weaknesses in the current system, it doesn't prevent meth makers from buying the ingredients.

For example, NPLEx cannot stop "smurfs" who send multiple people to purchase the drug -- something Teresa Stickler, a pharmacist at Melrose Pharmacy in Phoenix, has experienced several times.

"There have been some sprees where people are suspicious and come in back to back. ... Then, they all climb back into the same car and leave," Stickler said.

Law-enforcement officials statewide will be able to receive e-mail alerts when the system blocks a sale.

But Sgt. Trent Crump, a Phoenix police spokesman, is unsure if Phoenix will utilize the e-mail notifications.

"If our guys responded every time someone gets locked out in the computer, they wouldn't get anything else done," he said.

In Arizona, law-enforcement agencies seized 1,600 pounds of methamphetamine last year, said Elizabeth Kempshall, executive director of the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal program that coordinates drug-control efforts among local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies.

Eight manufacturers of products containing meth ingredients fund the program, said Carlos Guiterrez, director of state-government affairs for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents the over-the-counter drug companies.

Guiterrez said the companies do not have access to any personal information in the system and can't use it for marketing.

However, they can access aggregate numbers, such as how many sales were blocked.

"The only thing we do is pay the bill," Guiterrez said.

The National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators will forward transaction records to the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy, according to the Governor's Office. But the board won't do anything with the information, according to Wand of the Pharmacy Board.

State Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction, said the funding blurs the line between government and private business.

"The government is telling private business (they) should do the government's job," he said. It amounts to "asking the retailer to be the police department, to restrict the sale."

But Carter said NPLEx is one way to prevent over-the-counter drugs of this kind from becoming prescription-only medications, as is the case in Oregon and Mississippi.

"We want to put as many checks and balances on for people who legitimately need to still use this while trying to make it less convenient for bad actors to use it to make meth," Carter said. "We don't want to take this medication to prescription, and this bill is a way around that."

Drugs & Porn, easy tools to destroy the lives our your enemies

Source

Parents Accused of Planting Drugs on School Volunteer

6:34 a.m. PDT, June 20, 2012

IRVINE, Calif. (KTLA) -- A husband and wife have been arrested for allegedly planting drugs in the car of a volunteer at the school their son attends and calling police.

Kent Wycliffe Easter and Jill Bjorkholm Easter, both attorneys, are charged with conspiracy to procure the false arrest of the elementary-school parent volunteer, false imprisonment and conspiracy to falsely report a crime. If convicted, they could each face up to three years in state prison.

Prosecutors say it all started in in 2010 when Jill Easter became convinced that school volunteer Kelli Peters was not properly supervising the boy.

In retaliation, the Easters allegedly hatched a plot to have Peters arrested.

Prosecutors says Kent Easter drove to Peters' home on Feb. 16, 2011, and left a bag of prescription pain medication and marijuana in plain sight in her unlocked car.

He then allegedly called police from a public phone and told the dispatcher that he was a concerned parent who had witnessed an erratic driver park her car at the elementary school, according to prosecutors.

He also identified Peters by name and claimed to have witnessed her hide a bag of drugs behind her driver's seat, prosecutors said.

"They tried to make me look like the worst person you could be when you're involved with a school," Peters told KTLA.

"I wouldn't have seen my daughter again, I think. Those are the nightmares that I had."

Peters was detained by police for two hours until the investigating officers determined that she was in a classroom at the time the caller claimed to have seen her hiding the drugs in the car.

Authorities later turned their attention to the Easters.

Prosecutors said Kent Easter was caught on hotel's security cameras making the call to police, and that he and his wife called and texted one another on their mobile phones during that time.

The couple, who are free on $20,000 bail each, are scheduled to be arraigned next month in Orange County Superior Court.

Johnson & Johnson shampoo can cause you to flunk your drug test!!!

But the real question is why are these hospitals testing babies for marijuana use???

I have said this before and it sure sounds like the drug war is being used to create jobs for people in the medical industry in this case.

Source

Baby soaps and shampoos trigger positive marijuana tests

By Maia Szalavitz | Time.com – Tue, Jun 19, 2012

Commonly used baby soaps and shampoos, including products from Johnson & Johnson, Aveeno and CVS, can trigger a positive result on newborns' marijuana screening tests, according to a recent study. A minute amount of the cleansing products in a urine sample — just 0.1 milliliters or less — was found to cause a positive result.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, began studying the issue after an unusually high number of newborns in their nursery began testing positive for marijuana exposure. Newborn screening for marijuana at hospitals, particularly among babies of women who are considered at high risk of drug use, is not uncommon: at U.N.C. Chapel Hill, 10% to 40% of newborns are tested.

Positive results can precipitate an investigation by child welfare authorities. "We really did this to help protect families from being falsely accused," study co-author Dr. Carl Seashore, a pediatrician in the U.N.C. Chapel Hill newborn nursery, told My Health News Daily.

Soaps that were specifically associated with false-positive marijuana test results include Johnson & Johnson’s Bedtime Bath, CVS Night-Time Baby Bath, Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash and Aveeno Baby Wash & Shampoo.

Other products, such as Johnson’s Head-to-Toe Baby Wash, CVS Baby Wash, Baby Magic and even standard hospital gel hand soap, also indicated the presence of marijuana metabolites when tested, but not at sufficient levels to qualify as a positive result according to the hospital lab's standards.

The problem is almost certainly not limited to these products, however. Researchers also tested ingredients used widely in soaps and shampoos, including polyquaternium-11 and cocamidopropyl betaine, which both elicited positive marijuana test results. So far, there is no explanation as to why the chemicals interfere with the test's function, but importantly, they aren't intoxicating; they don't cause symptoms of marijuana exposure in children. The researchers think minute amounts of the substances were simply washing off the babies' skin into their urine samples and confounding the screens.

While more sophisticated and expensive testing can easily distinguish between true and false positive results, most hospitals don't use such tests because of the time and costs involved. And positive tests found at the hospital aren't typically sent to outside labs for confirmation, which makes false positive results — and possible investigations afterward — all the more troubling.

Indeed, why hospitals test infants for marijuana exposure in the first place is not entirely clear. Twelve U.S. states designate prenatal exposure to any illegal drug as child abuse; however, there is no scientific evidence that connects marijuana-smoking by a parent with abuse.

The question is not whether it's acceptable for expectant mothers to use illegal drugs. No child-health expert would characterize recreational drug use during pregnancy as a good idea. But it's not at all clear that the benefits, if any, of newborn marijuana screening — particularly given how selectively the tests are administered — justify the potential harm it can cause to families.

“If the issue is that the mother broke the law and therefore the child should be removed, we might want to consider going after mothers who exceed the speed limit while driving," says Carl Hart, an associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and author of a leading text on drug effects. "Of course, this is ridiculous.” (Full disclosure: Hart and I are currently collaborating on a book project.)

To remove children from their home at birth because of a positive marijuana test is immediately and inexorably harmful, says Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. "Even when the test is accurate, there is no evidence that smoking pot endangers children," he says, adding, "There is overwhelming evidence that needless foster care endangers children.”

Wexler explains that the odds of abuse and neglect are higher in foster care than they would be at home for the babies. “These infants are being taken from homes where there is no evidence of abuse, and placed in a situation where the odds of abuse are at least 1 in 4,” he says. "The odds of this kind of separation doing emotional damage are nearly 100%. Children risk enormous emotional trauma when they are torn from their mothers during a crucial period for infant-parent bonding.”

One study of infants who were exposed to cocaine in the womb found that their physical growth and development increased when they remained with their biological mothers, compared with being removed from the home because of maternal drug use. “For the foster children, being taken from their mothers was more toxic than the cocaine,” Wexler says.

The effects of prenatal drug exposure can vary widely. Maternal cocaine use during pregnancy has been linked with subtle developmental problems in children. But despite the popularized notion of permanently disabled "crack babies," the research shows that the harms of cocaine use in pregnancy are on par with those associated with smoking cigarettes. Both can increase the risk of preterm birth and stillbirth. Neither is as dangerous as alcohol, which can cause irreversible intellectual disability.

The evidence on marijuana is inconclusive: Some studies link marijuana use in pregnancy with reduced fetal growth and behavioral problems, but other research has found no effect. Again, the science shows no damage that approaches the harm linked with alcohol or cigarettes.

Although marijuana exposure has not been associated definitively with child harm, testing for it and placing children in foster care unnecessarily has been. Worse, the risks of custody loss are not applied equally to all women.

Determining whether a mother is considered at high risk for drug use — and warrants newborn testing — is ostensibly based on objective factors like whether she failed to obtain prenatal care or has acknowledged being a drug user. But in reality, characteristics like race often dictate which women are singled out for testing: a 2007 study found that babies born to black mothers were 50% more likely to be tested than white infants, even though rates of drug use and odds of positive results didn't vary by race.

If you now consider the additional risks of false-positive results due to bath soaps, it’s hard to make the case for continued newborn marijuana testing — especially if the ultimate goal is to help children thrive.

Meet Marijuana's Semi-Famous Superdonors

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Meet Marijuana's Semi-Famous Superdonors

By Chris Good | ABC OTUS News – 5 hrs ago

As political causes go, legalizing pot isn't as glitzy as re-electing Barack Obama. Sarah Jessica Parker and George Clooney are not on marijuana's A-list.

But with marijuana initiatives on state ballots in Colorado and Washington in 2012, after Prop. 19's failure in California in 2010, pot enjoys the financial backing of a small cadre of semi-famous people. Here they are:

Peter Lewis, chairman, Progressive Insurance. Lewis' company carries a small hint of lefty flavor, from its name to its casual corporate dress code, and Lewis himself is marijuana's biggest financial backer. After supporting California's Prop. 19 legalization campaign in 2010, Lewis has given far more than any other individual donor to the campaigns in Colorado and Washington - $875,650 and $650,000 respectively.

David Bronner, CEO, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. Those earthy-looking hemp soaps, sold at Whole Foods, could be more profitable if the company didn't have to import its hemp from Canada, and David Bronner, son of the original Dr. Bronner, is an avid hemp activist, most recently getting arrested outside the White House after firefighters had to cut him out of a metal cage in which he locked himself in protest. Bronner has pledged $50,000 to the Colorado legalization campaign, according to an official, although his donation hasn't yet been made official.

Rick Steves, author and TV host, Rick Steves' Europe. He might be the best known American expert on European travel, with dozens of books on travel destinations and a travel series on public television. He also wants pot to be legal. While Steves himself hasn't contributed to either legalization initiative in 2012, the committee to promote Washington's ballot initiative has reported taking in $150,000 from his company, Rick Steves' Europe, since last year.

George Zimmer, founder and CEO, Men's Wearhouse. You're gonna like the way your state looks with legalized marijuana: George Zimmer guarantees it. The Men's Wearhouse CEO has not donated to either of this year's state campaigns, but he backed Prop. 19 in California in 2010 to the tune of $50,000, and he's known as a major supporter of pot legalization

Uruguay says it may sell marijuana to combat cocaine

Uruguay says it may sell marijuana to combat cocaine

June 21, 2012 | 12:15 pm

To fight cocaine, Uruguay may start selling marijuana.

The unusual idea, announced Wednesday by Uruguayan officials, would be one of the boldest steps yet among Latin American leaders to alter a war on drugs driven solely by prohibition, which increasingly is resisted in the Americas as a failed strategy.

Under a plan proposed by President Jose Mujica, marijuana would be sold by the government to adults and the taxes funneled toward drug rehabilitation, according to Uruguayan media. Drug users would be tracked in a government database to quash the resale of marijuana on the black market.

Marijuana laws are already liberal in Uruguay, where possessing marijuana for personal issue is not a crime and there are no laws against using it. However, “the idea isn’t to make it totally free,” Mujica cautioned El Observador. “We’re going to control it through a state network of distribution.”

Selling marijuana is part of a package of measures meant to combat the abuse of cocaine and pasta basica, a drug akin to crack, diverting Uruguayan drug users toward marijuana instead. The measures come after a recent rash of gang and drug crime in the ordinarily peaceful nation. If Uruguayan lawmakers agree, theirs would be the first country where the government has not only legalized or regulated marijuana but taken over the market, experts say. Backers of drug legalization and regulation praised the idea as an intriguing step forward.

“Mothers wanting to protect their children should realize that a strictly regulated market is much safer than an illegal market,” said Amanda Fielding, founder of the Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform based in Britain. "We need to let governments experiment -- cautiously -- with policies that might minimize harm."

That argument was disputed by drug opponents, who contend that getting government into the marijuana business won't curb the black market or stop users from moving on to harder drugs.

"Why would people pay taxes and higher prices and put themselves out there to be known by the government?" asked Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation based in Florida. Since the government will only sell to adults, "kids will become the target of the black market."

Uruguay has put forward its plan as Latin American leaders express growing frustration with the traditional war on drugs, arguing it has failed to kill off the drug trade or ease violence. Earlier this year, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina suggested decriminalizing drugs. The president of Colombia and other leaders raised the idea at an April summit in Cartagena, spurring a new study of alternative strategies; Brazil and Argentina are already weighing drug decriminalization laws.

Unswayed, President Obama has brushed off the idea of legalizing drugs, saying it isn’t the answer. The United States also has resisted carving out exceptions in the drug war, opposing a Bolivian attempt to exempt the traditional practice of chewing coca leaves from a U.N. convention on narcotics. The Uruguayan idea is expected to face the same fears of creating a slippery slope.

“It’s very clear that the U.S. and U.N. drug control system don’t look kindly on this kind of opening in the debate,” said John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America. “The United States is looking to put this genie back in the bottle. But that’s not going to happen.

US to use drones in Caribbean "drug war"

Source

U.S. plans more drone flights over Caribbean

By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau

June 23, 2012, 5:00 a.m.

WASHINGTON — After quietly testing Predator drones over the Bahamas for more than 18 months, the Department of Homeland Security plans to expand the unmanned surveillance flights into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico to fight drug smuggling, according to U.S. officials.

The move would dramatically increase U.S. drone flights in the Western Hemisphere, more than doubling the number of square miles now covered by the department's fleet of nine surveillance drones, which are used primarily on the northern and southwestern U.S. borders.

But the high-tech aircraft have had limited success spotting drug runners in the open ocean. The drones have largely failed to impress veteran military, Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement Agency officers charged with finding and boarding speedboats, fishing vessels and makeshift submarines ferrying tons of cocaine and marijuana to America's coasts.

"The question is: Will they be effective? We have no systematic evidence on how effective they are," said Bruce Bagley, who studies U.S. counter-narcotics efforts at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Fla.

Despite that, a new control station will arrive this month in Corpus Christi, Texas, allowing Predators based there to cover more of the Gulf of Mexico. An additional drone will be delivered this year to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's base in Cocoa Beach, Fla., for operations in the Caribbean.

The Federal Aviation Administration has already approved a flight path for the drones to fly more than 1,000 miles to the Mona Passage, the strait between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

"There is a lot more going on in the deep Caribbean, and we would like to know more," said a law enforcement official familiar with the program who was not authorized to speak publicly. The official said drones may be based temporarily at airfields in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

The Predator B is best known as the drone used by the CIA to find and kill Al Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and Yemen. An unarmed version patrols the U.S. borders searching known overland smuggling routes.

On the ocean, however, there are no rutted trails or roads to follow. And the Predator cannot cover as much open water as larger, higher-flying surveillance aircraft, such as the Global Hawk.

"I'm not sure just because it's a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] that it will solve and fit in our problem set," the top military officer for the region, Air Force Gen. Douglas M. Fraser, said recently.

Fraser's command contributes ships and manned surveillance airplanes to the Joint Interagency Task Force South. Last year, the task force worked with U.S. agencies and other countries to seize 119 metric tons of cocaine, valued at $2.35 billion.

For the recent counter-narcotics flights over the Bahamas, border agents deployed a maritime variant of the Predator B called a Guardian with a SeaVue radar system that can scan large sections of open ocean. Drug agents can check a ship's unique radio pulse in databases to identify the boat and owner.

The planned drone flights are partly a response to demands from leaders in the western Caribbean to shift more drug agents, surveillance aircraft and ships into the area, as cartels have switched from the closely watched U.S.-Mexico border to seaborne routes. In the last four years, drug seizures in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico have increased 36%, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

"As we tighten the land borders, it squishes out to the seas," said the law enforcement official.

Over the last several years, however, drug-war personnel have been diverted from the Caribbean to the southwestern U.S. border. In Puerto Rico, for example, 1 out of 8 DEA positions is vacant.

The increase in drug traffic has contributed to an unprecedented rise in homicides in Puerto Rico, a major transit point for cocaine moving from Central America to northeastern U.S. cities. In 2011, the homicide rate hit a historic high of 1,136, with 8 out of 10 killings related to drug trafficking.

"We need help fighting this battle along the Caribbean border to protect U.S. citizens there being buffeted by violence," Puerto Rico's Gov. Luis Fortuno told a congressional panel this week.

Despite budget cuts in other areas, Customs and Border Protection has requested $5.8 million to push its drone operations farther into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

But test flights for the Guardian showed disappointing results in the Bahamas, according to two law enforcement officials familiar with the program who were not authorized to speak publicly.

During more than 1,260 hours in the air off the southeastern coast of Florida, the Guardian assisted in only a handful of large-scale busts, the officials said.

One of the most recent occurred early Dec. 22, when a Guardian trained its infrared eye on a sailboat heading toward the south shoreline of New Providence island in the Bahamas. Photographs of the sloop and grid coordinates were relayed by the U.S. embassy in Nassau. The Royal Bahamas Defense Forces found no drugs, but arrested 23 men, five women and a boy. The passengers were believed to be migrants from Haiti.

The head of an interagency drug task force based in the Bahamas called the mission a "great case" in an internal email obtained by The Times. The mission proved "what we all suspect to be the case with a piece of equipment that has such promising capabilities and potential," wroteU.S. Coast GuardCmdr. Louie C. Parks Jr.

But federal officials who received the laudatory message said it only underscored that such success stories have been extremely rare.

brian.bennett@latimes.com

Why are American cops in Honduras conducting drug raids???

Source

Video Adds to Honduran Drug Raid Mystery

By THOM SHANKER and CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: June 22, 2012

WASHINGTON — Aerial surveillance video of a fatal shootout during a counternarcotics mission in Honduras last month shows a long, dugout-style boat ramming a smaller canoe carrying Honduran and American agents — and a seized cocaine shipment — followed by a brief but furious round of gunfire.

The video answers some questions while raising new ones about a mission that put a spotlight on intensifying American involvement in counternarcotics operations in Central America.

The incident unfolded on a river near the town of Ahuas after a drug smuggling plane being tracked from Venezuela landed at an airstrip and its cargo was unloaded and taken to a boat. American helicopters carrying Honduran police officers and a commando-style squad of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration swooped in and seized the cocaine.

Shortly thereafter, a firefight erupted in which four Hondurans in another boat were killed. Officials in both countries have insisted that no American agent fired a weapon in the exchange, but there have been differing accounts about whether the casualties were bystanders or were part of the smuggling operation.

It has not previously been reported that the matter began with one boat ramming a second one. Still, the video does not resolve the identities or motive of those aboard the boat that collided with the vessel carrying the agents, and who may have fired upon them. Nor does it explain the otherwise contradictory statements of some survivors of the shooting that they were innocent villagers attacked without cause.

But the video appears to have satisfied Congressional staff members that the American agents on the raid did not fire their weapons.

“There was no issue that made us think that D.E.A. had done something that was questionable,” said a senior aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who watched the video.

The video was taken from a United States Customs and Border Protection P-3 surveillance aircraft, and has been circulating among government agencies — and shown in briefings to Congressional aides — for the past several weeks. The New York Times was allowed to view the video by a person who was not officially authorized to release it because it remains evidence in a sensitive law enforcement inquiry.

It shows that within minutes after the cargo was loaded onto the canoe-style boat on the river at a communal dock, four helicopters appeared above the village, kicking up clouds of dust. They dropped flares, and Honduran and American drug agents dropped by rope to the ground.

The smugglers scattered, abandoning the boat, which began to drift. Three figures, identified by officials as two Honduran policemen and one D.E.A. agent, boarded the boat. One, identified as the American agent, moved to one end of the craft and began working to get the motor started.

As the surveillance aircraft and the helicopters circled, a similar but larger river craft approached and was the only other vessel that can be seen along that swath of river. Several people were standing in the front and back. There was a shadowy place in the middle, which could have been a tarp covering people or cargo, a bench or an empty space.

The second boat, clearly under power, cut a zigzag course along the river toward the boat carrying the Honduran and American agents, ramming one end.

In the seconds before contact, there were some flashes in the video, which American officials said were indications that the occupants of the larger boat had fired. After the ramming, a brief but ferocious flurry of shots from the boat carrying the agents was clearly visible.

As the larger boat slid alongside and then moved away, there also appeared to be a spray of bullets across its middle, said by officials to be a volley of machine-gun fire from the Honduran door gunner aboard one of the helicopters.

Later that day, Honduran security officials announced the raid, saying that two drug traffickers had been killed in a shootout and that three other men had escaped by leaping into the water from a canoe carrying cocaine. They apparently omitted any mention that Americans were involved.

But that account soon came under question when the mayor of Ahuas told Honduran reporters, and later repeated to The Times, that helicopters carrying Honduran and American drug agents had been pursuing a boat with smugglers when the government forces mistakenly opened fire on another boat carrying villagers who were fishing, killing four, including two pregnant women.

Disputing the mayor’s version, American and Honduran officials briefed on the matter said that after a joint team had landed and taken control of a boatload of drugs, a second boat approached and fired upon them. The Honduran police and a helicopter door gunner returned fire and the second boat withdrew, they said.

Another account was provided to a Times reporter who visited Ahuas and was shown a long blue boat with about half a dozen bullet holes. The reporter talked with three witnesses, including a woman in the local hospital with bullet wounds in both legs, Hilda Lezama, who identified herself as the owner of the boat.

Ms. Lezama said she and her husband were running a river taxi service, bringing 11 passengers on a six-hour boat ride from a larger town on the coast upriver and traveling at night because it was not as hot. Just before 3 a.m., they went ashore and had begun to climb onto land when four helicopters appeared overhead and they came under gunfire, she said.

Damien Cave contributed reporting from Vero Beach, Fla.

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