Free Republic

Since President Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971 the United States has jailed tens of million of its' citizens. In 2008 alone 1.5 million American were arrested and 500,000 were imprisoned. At a cost of $45,000 per prisoner per year over 22 billion dollars were spent in prison costs alone for just those busted in 2008. I would imagine the costs to the courts, parole officers and police departments are equally large. And then there is the unmeasurable societal cost of a lost income to a community and the breakup of families effected should it be a mom or...

FITCHBURG -- It was a horror movie come to life. Judy Sanchez woke Thursday to the sound of heavy footsteps in her stairwell, followed by a loud motor. She got to her kitchen in time to see the blade of a chain saw rip through her front door. "It was so crazy," Judy Sanchez said. "I was terrified." Jan. 26 was the day of Operation Red Wolf, a multiagency sweep during which 16 people in Fitchburg were arrested on charges related to gang activity, drug trafficking and illegal gun sales after a two-year investigation by federal, state and local law-enforcement...

The Federal Criminal Appeals blog reports on a decision from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding when the government can use drug possession as an excuse to deny weapons-possession rights. In short, it can't just assert that there is a good reason to bar drug users from guns: it has to try to prove it. But the Court also seems to think such proof won't be too hard. Let's take a walk through the decision to see what happened and why the Fourth Circuit decided as it did: Following a police search that uncovered marijuana and firearms in Benjamin...

Mexico allowed US agents to launder drug money Mexico's government allowed a group of undercover U.S. anti-drug agents and their Colombian informant to launder millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday. The Mexican magazine Emeequis published portions of documents that describe how Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a Colombian trafficker-turned-informant and Mexican federal police officers in 2007 infiltrated the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia's Valle del Norte cartel in Mexico. The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to...

Man 'visited N. Korea to buy bogus U.S. bills' The Yomiuri Shimbun An 80-year-old Sapporo man released by North Korea after his arrest last year said he went there with two other Japanese men to obtain counterfeit U.S. currency, according to Hokkaido police. The two other men remain in custody in north Korea. The three were arrested last March for allegedly dealing in drugs. According to the man, the three received extremely realistic-looking counterfeit U.S. bills in North korea. Police believe the bills were "supernotes" in 100 dollars denominations. The police are trying to corroborate the man's story. The man...

The Mexican president in the Dock? Well, not yet, but charges of “crimes against humanity” were filed last Friday in the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands against President Felipe Calderón, the Secretaries of Mexico’s Army, Navy, and Public Safety, and notorious drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. The International Criminal Court (denhaag.nl)The charges were filed by human rights lawyer Netzaí Sandoval, supported by 23,000 citizen signatures, and allege, among other things, that the Mexican state bears direct responsibility for crimes committed by federal agents in the context of the war against organized crime. The charges detail 470 cases of...

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly handling a teenager he had handcuffed the boy, a smuggling suspect. Prosecutors claimed agent Jesus “Chito” Diaz was responsible for the bruises sustained by a 15-year-old boy during an October 2008 arrest near the Ro Grande in Texas. Diaz, 31, was charged with depriving the teenager of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force when he lifted the boy improperly by his arms, and put his knee in his back. Diaz’s attorneys said that no injuries were sustained from a...

At the end of World War II, the U.S. defense and national security apparatus faced a variety of challenges left over by the conflict. One of the most important was the formulation of a process to collect, collate, evaluate, analyze, produce and disseminate strategic intelligence to guide decision-makers in the formulation of national policy. Implicit in this search was the need for a professional cadre of analysts able to carry on this process with impartiality and with full awareness of their own psychological limits, able to forge strategic intelligence products with minimal institutional bias – thus the Central Intelligence Agency...

Five severed HEADS found in sack outside Mexican primary school in latest sickening threat from drugs cartelsBy Laurie Whitwell Last updated at 12:17 PM on 29th September 2011 Mexican police have found five severed heads stuffed in a sack outside a primary school in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. The gruesome discovery comes after drugs gangs threatened to attack elementary school teachers if they did not pay half their wages to the drugs cartels. The extortion demands forced around 130 schools in the city to close earlier this month, after administrators and parents decided it was not safe enough...

Safer Than It’s Ever Been! Really!By Mark Krikorian September 29, 2011 9:46 AM Both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal agree that, since illegal crossings are down at the Mexican border, it’s time to proceed to amnesty and huge increases in immigration (9 percent unemployment? Who cares!). The border is safer than it’s ever been, in the words of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. The only thing left to do is dig a moat and fill it with alligators, joked President Obama.Well, someone didn’t tell the two retired generals who’ve just released “Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment�: During the...

(CNN) -- Two bodies dangling from a pedestrian bridge in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, created an image as gruesome as any in the four years of the country's offensive against the drug cartels. A man and a woman, both in their early 20s, were left hanging like cuts of meat. The woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. She was then hung from the bridge by her feet and hands, topless. The bloodied man was suspended next to her by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply you...

Out of sight is out of mind. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano can give the impression she’s doing her job and keeping Americans safe when Americans are unaware of the dangers lurking next door. Napolitano can’t stop natural oppressors like tropical storms, hurricanes or earthquakes but she can impede the drug cartel violence on the U.S.-Mexico border. Nevertheless, Napolitano refuses to publicly acknowledge the extent of border violence from drug cartels. She also refrains from pressuring the media to cover the preventable destruction and bloodshed on the border as much as it covers natural disasters. Between 35,000 and 40,000...

Brazilian indigenous protection officers to make emergency visit to isolated community facing threat from heavily armed gangsThe head of Brazil's indigenous protection service is to make an emergency visit to a remote jungle outpost, amid fears that members of an isolated Amazon tribe may have been "massacred" by drug traffickers. Fears for the tribe's wellbeing have been escalating since late July when a group of heavily armed Peruvian traffickers reportedly invaded its land, triggering a crisis in the remote border region between Brazil and Peru. On 5 August Brazilian federal police launched an operation in the region, arresting Joaquim...

Long Island Lawmaker Saladino Wants Parents To Drug Test Teens AnnuallyAssemblyman's Proposal States If You Don't Comply You Can't Go To School August 2, 2011 10:30 PM NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – With drug abuse on the rise, should parents be required by law to test their children? One Long Island lawmaker says yes. Assemblyman Joseph Saladino (R-Massapequa) has introduced a bill that would require parents of high school students to give their children annual drug tests. “If they dont do it, the student would not be allowed into school,” Saladino told CBS 2′s Jennifer McLogan. The proposal would mandate that...

Washington - Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Deputy Commissioner David Aguilar told CNSNews.com that Mexican drug cartels control “several areas along our border with Mexico.” In Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Aguilar, “Do you think Mexican drug cartels have taken control of the human trafficking that takes place from Mexico to the U.S.?” Aguilar said, “There are several areas along our border with Mexico where in fact we believe that the drug cartels not only have taken control, but control the areas by which the illegal crossings occur.”

On Sunday a Kern County, California, sheriff's deputy shot and killed David Lee "Deacon" Turner, a 56-year-old former running back for the Cincinnati Bengals, outside a convenience store in Bakersfield. Police questioned Turner, who was coming out of the store with his 19-year-old son, while investigating reports of teenagers asking adults to buy them alcohol and cigarettes. The Kern County Sheriff's Office says Deputy Wesley Kraft fired twice at Turner after the former football player hit Deputy Aaron Nadal over the head with a bag containing two 24-ounce cans of beer. Turner's son offered a strikingly different account: Turner's son was too shaken...

Another Mexico Drug Cartel Lead Has Been Arrested And He Says The Cartel’s Guns Have Been Supplied Directly By The U.S Government, And The CIA Has Infiltrated (AKA RuA leader of another Mexico Drug Cartel has been arrested and says U.S government supplied gunsnning) The Columbia Drug Cartels. As previously reported, a hacker data release revealed the arrested leader of the La Familia drug cartel in Mexico was in fact the feds point man for the U.S government drug smuggling operation to Mexico drug cartels. As Obama supplies the cartels with guns he uses the cartel’s violence as a justification...

GALLIPOLIS FERRY, W. Va. (WSAZ) -- A beloved father and a man friends call a known drug dealer is dead--shot to death at his own home. Now, police are on the hunt for a killer. Police say Rene Gonzalez was shot twice in the doorway of his home. While he's been convicted on drug charges--pleading guilty to a drug possession a couple of years ago, everyone we spoke to told us you couldn't find a nicer man or a better father to his little girl. Click here to find out more! “It wasn't true, I said no, no, it's not...

The Danish pharmaceutical firm H. Lundbeck A/S has announced it will no longer provide U.S. prisons with a drug used in lethal injection executions. “Lundbeck adamantly opposes the distressing misuse of our product in capital punishment,” said Lundbeck CEO Ulf Wiinberg according to a company statement. The drug in question is the barbiturate pentobarbital, know by its brand-name Nembutol, which was developed as a treatment for controlling epilepsy and is sold for that purpose. But this past spring, European exporters stopped the sale of sodium thiopental, which had been the drug of choice at U.S. prisons in 14 states where...

Wachovia apparently funneled enormous amounts of drug money form Mexico. Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

Ten years ago this month, Portugal rejected the conventional approach to drug policy–more laws, stiffer prison sentences, more police–and went the other way by decriminalizing all drugs, even cocaine and heroin. The drug warriors predicted a disaster. They said drug use would spike and there would be a public health crisis. That did not happen. As Glenn Greenwald showed in a 2009 Cato report, Portugal is doing better than before and in many respects is doing better than other countries in the European Union

The U.S. Medicaid program is likely paying far more than necessary for medications and not offering patients the most effective ones available, by ignoring international evidence-based lists of safe and effective medications, according to a new study by researchers at University of California, San Francisco. The study, which compared the Medicaid program's Preferred Drug Lists in 40 states nationwide against the World Health Organization's 2009 Essential Medicines List, found that the medications that are automatically paid for by the state-run Medicaid programs vary widely from state to state, with few consistent protocols or rationales for their selection, including cost, safety...

 1" thick armor... gun turrets... built-in battering rams (!) What to do when RPG's, AR-15s, and land-mines can't kill your rivals fast enough? When the mass-graves and gory piles of severed heads don't spook 'em like they used to? How about some narco tanks, vato...? In a multi-lateral conflict that keeps getting worse as Mexican drug cartels war over control of lucrative smuggling routes, government forces have captured two jerry-rigged "tanks" in separate incidences: built on American truck chassis and protected by heavy, sloping armor and bulletproof glass, the media in Mexico has been quick to dub them the "Monsters". Although they more...

Federal authorities have seized bottles and drums of elderberry juice concentrate from a Kansas winery, contending that the company's claims of its benefits for treating various diseases make the product a drug. (snip) The government contends the juice concentrate is an unapproved and misbranded drug because the winery claims it is used to treat diseases such as the flu, cancer and AIDS. "Products with unapproved disease claims are dangerous because they may cause consumers to delay or avoid legitimate treatments, Dara Corrigan, the FDA's associate commissioner for regulatory affairs, said in a news release. "The FDA is committed to protecting...

I've followed with great interest the debate raging in Florida over the new law signed by Governor Rick Scott that mandates drug testing for welfare recipients. The ACLU is, of course, challenging this law because according to the ACLU welfare babies should get anything and everything they want without strings attached! They also make several strawman arguments in opposition to the law: * "Welfare recipients are no more likely to use drugs than the rest of the population." This isn't the point. If even ONE person is receiving public aid and using that aid to purchase drugs, it's one person...

HHS this month sent a letter to 83-year-old Forest Labs CEO Howard Solomon, announcing it would henceforth refuse to do business with him. What earned Mr. Solomon the blackball? Well, nothing that he did—as admitted even by HHS. In any case, the federal complaint contained no suggestion that Mr. Solomon was involved with, or even aware of, misconduct. And the question of his continued leadership was never part of the plea deal. Only after a federal court ratified the deal in March did HHS drop its intent-to-ban bomb. Mrs. Sebelius unearthed a dusty provision in the Social Security Act that...

N. Korea detains 2 Japanese for suspected drug smuggling BEIJING, April 20, Kyodo North Korean authorities are currently detaining two Japanese men, apparently on suspicion of drug smuggling, it was learned Wednesday. A total of three Japanese men were initially taken into detention in mid-March, but one of them has since been released and returned to Japan, sources familiar with the case said. Japanese officials have knowledge about the matter and are prudently examining the situation, the sources said.

The other day it was announced that a well known, mega-company discovered a new way to destroy antibiotic resistant bacteria, such as MRSA. Using nanoparticle technology – which is 50,000 times smaller than a hair’s width – the company’s researchers were able to target an electrical charge on the bacteria’s surface, bursting the membrane open to bring about its demise. According to the Wall Street Journal, “if successful, [the discovery] would offer a fresh strategy against a worrisome public-health problem of possibly deadly bacteria evolving to become impervious to antibiotics.” Nearly 19,000 people in the U.S. each year die from...

Legalization of drugs in Mexico would not only lead to lowered violence and drug consumption but also boost its economy, former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday during a speech to a convention of newspaper editors from the United States and Latin America. “Things are going very badly for Mexico with the issues of organized crime and violence,” Fox said in Spanish. “We’re losing large volumes of tourists, if not in the interior, then at the border. We’re losing a great number of investments.” Fox — a member of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN — made history in...

On the eve of his execution, a Texas death row is saying that he does not want to be the state’s guinea pig for the use of a new drug for lethal injection. Cleve Foster, who is accused of murdering Sudanese refugee Nyaneur Pal in 2002, is set to be executed on Tuesday, but he doesn’t want to be the first Texan to be executed with the new drug pentobarbital.

Bills would require welfare applicants to take, pay for drug testsTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune Updated: 03/24/2011 12:05 pm TALLAHASSEE - Bills are advancing in both houses of the Florida Legislature requiring applicants for welfare benefits to take and pay for drug tests, despite Democratic and even some Republican opposition. In House committee hearing Wednesday, the bill's sponsor revised it to make it tougher, applying to all applicants, not just those with criminal records for drug offenses. That brings it in line with the Senate version of the bill, which already applied to all applicants,...

CHANDLER, Ariz. — Authorities have determined a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment was killed for stealing drugs from a Mexican cartel, in a gruesome example of drug cartel violence spilling over the border. The cartel found out Cota-Monroy had actually stolen the drugs and hired men to kidnap and kill him in Nogales, Mexico. But Cota-Monroy was able to talk his way out of being killed, saying he'd pay back the money and use his house for collateral, the report says. But the house wasn't Cota-Monroy's and he fled to the Phoenix area, leading...

PhRMA’s quiescence on Obamacare badly hurt the industry — and all those who depend on medical innovation. With the release of the president’s budget, it is now beyond dispute — Beltway spin notwithstanding — that the decision by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) to support the health-care bill was one of the worst self-inflicted wounds in the history of lobbying. For biotech and pharmaceutical companies, the president’s budget repudiates one of the most important benefits of their “deal” with the White House: the ability to market biotech drugs without generic competition for twelve years. The president would...

While it is common knowledge that the health care industry is not happy with the rules and regulations of the health care law, the National Review brings up this question: Will the implementation of ObamaCare stifle the creation of new drugs and treatments? To answer this question, the National Review observes that Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) made a deal with the Obama Administration that they would be able to market their drugs without generic competition for 12 years. The administration reneged on that deal and reduced the 12 years to 7 years. And there are many more...

A drug derived from the curry spice turmeric may be able to help the body repair some of the damage caused in the immediate aftermath of a stroke. Researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are preparing to embark on human trials after promising results in rabbits. Their drug reached brain cells and reduced muscle and movement problems. The Stroke Association said it was the "first significant research" suggesting that the compound could aid stroke patients. "This is the first significant research to show that turmeric could be beneficial to stroke patients by encouraging new cells to grow and...

Any constitutional issues here? While Johnson's car was parked in the casino parking lot, Defendant John Hurla—then a K-9 officer in the Pottawotomie1 Tribal Police Department (PTPD)—deployed a drug dog to Johnson's vehicle and the dog indicated the presence of illegal narcotics. Based on the probable cause arising from the drug dog's deployment, Johnson was stopped, his vehicle was searched, and he was arrested... Johnson was charged under tribal law for possession of narcotics, but in February 2008, Kansas dismissed the charges. In March 2008, the United States unsealed an indictment against Johnson, charging him with violating 21 U.S.C. §...

Admittedly, the Egyptian uprising, the nullification of Obamacare and the ongoing ramifications of "Snowpocolypse 2011" could render the controversy about an MTV original program insignificant by comparison. After all, MTV is only out to destroy an entire generation. No big deal. Every adult - not just parents - should take the time to learn about the MTV show "Skins," a new "teen drama" that the Parents Television Council (PTC) has deemed "the most dangerous show on TV." Be careful when you go hunting for information about "Skins" lest your spouse conclude you've developed an interest in child pornography. The publicity...

Surveillance video appears to show drug smugglers using a catapult to transport narcotics over the border between Mexico and Arizona near Naco. (Video courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

Executions of Florida death-row inmates could be on hold for months in the wake of a decision last week by an Illinois drug company to stop producing an anesthetic used in lethal injections here. Though no new executions are scheduled, the halt in production of the drug effectively means that the state will have to come up with a new procedure to kill inmates. And any new drug "cocktail" developed likely will result in legal challenges down the line. The drug in question is sodium thiopental, one of three used by Florida and many other states in the lethal-injection sequence....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio says it's switching its lethal injection drug to an anesthetic commonly used to euthanize pets as a shortage of the drug normally used for executions has worsened.

What an odd turn of events: A drug company decides to stop producing an anesthetic — and the death penalty system in the U.S. is potentially thrown into turmoil. We say “potentially,” because it hasn’t happened yet. But on Friday, the WSJ’s Nathan Koppel broke the news that Hospira Inc., based in Lake Forest, Ill., has decided to permanently halt production of thiopental sodium, a key drug widely used by states in lethal injections. Hospira’s decision puts a wrench in the nation’s capital-punishment system. States can attempt to use another anesthetic in place of thiopental, but such a switch likely...

The Burns family in Brooks County, Texas, are packing up and leaving their 38,000 acre ranch because the area has become a war zone, thanks to the Mexican drug cartels and illegal aliens crossing on or near their property on a daily basis. The Burns’ family home has been broken into, their land littered with garbage and the distinct sounds of gunfire can be heard from their front porch. The ranch, which is located 60 miles from the Mexican border runs alongside Farm Road 755, which law enforcement calls a “main smuggling corridor” for the cartels. Thanks to our federal...

A Hartford Superior Court jury believed a drug dealer's claim that he shot and killed one man and wounded another in self defense after they forced their way into his Gillett Street apartment and robbed him at gunpoint of drugs and $8,000 in cash. The jury took about two hours to acquit Tivon Mendes, 25, of the most serious charges against him, first-degree manslaughter with a firearm and first-degree assault with a firearm. He was found guilty of two count of sale of drugs, possession of drugs and tampering with evidence. He will be sentenced Feb. 15. [Get Your Local...

(CNSNews.com) - Cartel-related murders in Mexico’s drug war have surpassed 10,000 so far this year, according to a tally kept by the Mexican newspaper Reforma. As of November 19, the newspaper’s Ejecutómetro (execution-meter) stood at 10,514 for 2010. With an estimated 230 killings a week in the last two months, the cartel-related murders for 2010 could reach 12,000 by the end of the year. That figure is about twice the overall number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, which currently stand at about 5,700 for 2010, as reported by CNSNews.com. The Reforma newspaper shows that since Felipe...

The state of Oklahoma is planning to execute death row inmates with drugs intended for use on animals. Lawmakers want to switch away from the only brand of anaesthetic that has been used in the US for lethal injections because there is not enough to go around. The replacement is likely to attract controversy because it is currently used by vets to anesthetise animals for operations. Other states are watching closely and may well follow suit, but such a move is likely to face a challenge from human rights groups to ensure that it is safe to use.

Mexican authorities confirmed that Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas Guillen—one of the two leaders of the Gulf Cartel and a pivotal figure in recent border drug wars—was killed in a shootout in Matamoros Friday. Violence across the city throughout the day left at least 47 others dead, including a reporter for a Matamoros newspaper, sources with knowledge of the situation said. Three of Cardenas Guillen’s aides, or bodyguards, also were killed, according to Alejandro Poire, spokesman for the Mexican government. He gave no other information other than confirming the death of Cardenas Guillen and his aides. Two Mexican soldiers also were...

The state of Arizona executed a convicted murderer on Tuesday night despite objections from attorneys that the state would use a non-approved drug from overseas for the lethal injection. Just hours before Jeffrey Landrigan's death, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to lift a stay issued by a federal judge to halt the execution. "There is no evidence in the record to suggest that the drug obtained from a foreign source is unsafe," the Supreme Court said Due to a U.S. shortage, the state turned to a non-FDA approved drug. It was later revealed that the source was the U.K., although...

Well armed and trained assassins are loose in the United States. Can you guess who they are? If you are thinking al-Quida, Hezbullah, or perhaps home grown terrorists – try again. Would you be that surprised to find out that they are drug smuggling Mexicans cartel members! A few weeks ago I wrote an article detailing the growing threat of Mexican drug cartels. After showing the evidence of the gangs’ escalating aggressiveness and violence leaving a body count now totally to over 27,000 dead since 2006 I posed the question “do Mexican drug cartels pose a greater threat” to the...

Sinaloa cartel exploiting Tijuana corridor "unimpeded"The Examiner reported that Mexico's largest-ever seizure of marijuana packaged for sale is even bigger than the original estimate of 105 tons and probably belonged to the country's most powerful drug-trafficking cartel, authorities said Tuesday. The Sinaloa cartel run by Mexico's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, now is moving drugs through the Tijuana corridor "unimpeded," said a U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico, a possible reason why violence has dropped in the city across the border from San Diego, California, since a bloody peak in 2008... Mexican soldiers and police grabbed the U.S.-bound...

Mexican drug cartels are like a malignant cancer that keeps on spreading. Mexico has spent billions of dollars on its drug war to combat the power and influence of the cartels, but when you look at the statistics it seems as if little progress has been made. Considering the dramatic impact cartels have on the United Sates, America should consider if securing our border is as important to our national security as is the war we are fighting in Afghanistan. Mexico’s war on drugs has been ongoing since 2006, but the problem keeps getting bigger each year. So does the...