|
|
| Ashcroft Renews War on Drug Trade |
|
Posted by FoM on March 20, 2002 at 07:26:50 PT By Jerry Seper, The Washington Times Source: Washington Times 
Attorney General John Ashcroft yesterday committed the Justice Department to a renewed war on drugs, saying federal prosecutors and investigators plan to specifically target international narcotics smugglers whose profits are used to finance terrorism. Top Stories In a speech to agents and employees at the Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters in Arlington, Mr. Ashcroft said the department's $19.2 billion drug-control strategy is aimed at reducing the flow of illegal drugs by 10 percent over the next two years and, eventually, by 25 percent in 2007. The attorney general said there is "an undeniable link" between acts of terrorism and illicit drugs, noting that narcotics trafficking — mainly cocaine — forms an important part of the financial infrastructure of terror networks. Mr. Ashcroft said that of the 28 terrorist groups identified last year by the State Department, a dozen use drug smuggling as their primary source of revenue. He said Americans spend about $64 billion annually on illegal drugs. One of those terrorist organizations surfaced this week as one of the first targets in Mr. Ashcroft's renewed war on drugs when a federal grand jury in Washington indicted leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia for conspiring to send tons of cocaine into the United States. The sealed indictment, handed up March 7 but unsealed Monday, was the first to name members of the Marxist rebel organization known by its Spanish initials FARC. The indictment charged three FARC leaders, Tomas Molina Caracas, Carlos Bolas and Oscar El Negro, and four others, including three Brazilian nationals, with drug smuggling and conspiracy. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has said FARC is among several terrorist organizations that annually receive illicit-drug profits to finance their activities. The agency said that the Colombia-based group gets about $300 million from drug sales annually, and that another Colombia organization, the United Self Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), relies on the illegal drug trade for up to 70 percent of its income. FARC and the AUC, along with the National Liberation Army, all are designated as terrorist groups by the State Department, which said in a recent report that they "control much of Colombia's narcotics production and distribution, reaping enormous profits." U.S. aid to Colombian President Andres Pastrana's anti-drug program, known as "Plan Colombia," has been limited to counterdrug measures. In recent months, however, the Bush administration has been considering a Colombian request to redirect some of its assistance to combat insurgency movements. According to the ONDCP, the now-ousted Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which provided safe haven to terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, used revenues from opium and heroin to stay in power. The agency said that in 2000, Afghanistan was responsible for more than 70 percent of the world's opium trade, resulting in significant income to the Taliban. The ONDCP recently reported that the growing link between terrorists and the drug trade had contributed to an increased threat to the United States. The agency said drug and terrorist organizations were taking advantage of the global economy to expand the scope, scale and reach of their activities and, as a result, their ability to harm American citizens and to damage U.S. interests was dramatically expanding. Newshawk: Nicholas Thimmesch II Related Articles: Does US War on Drugs Help or Hurt Terrorists? Anti-Drug Efforts Might Be Helping Terrorists Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
 |
|
Comment #11 posted by Jose Melendez on March 22, 2002 at 10:47:53 PT:
|
| Below is a perfect example of how money corrupts politics. Here we have a lawyer who advised cigarette company executives just prior to their Congressional perjury who spent 40 million prosecuting a sitting President for perjury over personal matters. This same lawyer is now fighting to make sure that cigarette, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies are allowed to continue to make the highest campaign contributions to lawmakers that look the other way while Americans are being MURDERED, and who instead write laws that favor those companies by criminalizing the natural, safer alternatives that their products would otherwise be forced to compete with. From:
[ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #10 posted by Rambler on March 21, 2002 at 05:38:16 PT |
| http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020321-16859342.htm [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #9 posted by Jose Melendez on March 20, 2002 at 18:36:24 PT |
| From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56807-2002Mar20.html Note: Robert W. Ray took over this particular investigation from one Kenneth Starr, who advised tobacco executives just prior to their subsequent Congressional perjury on the addiciveness of nicotine. Ken Starr is widely credited for spending approximately 40 million dollars to prosecute then U.S. President Bill Clinton for - you guessed it: PERJURY. Ken Starr's clients continue to manufacture defective drug delivery devices known as cigarettes, which indisputably kill over 4 million Americans each decade. The very highest campaign contributions to the very same politicians that pretend to be "tough on drugs" come from this particular multi-billion dollar industry. Similarly, groups like the Partnership for a Drug Free America are funded in large part by alcohol and pharmaceutical interests.
[ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #8 posted by monvor on March 20, 2002 at 18:27:14 PT |
| "...but my Internet connection is so poor it's hard for me to do more then I am." FoM, If you want a better Internet connection, just ask. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #7 posted by goneposthole on March 20, 2002 at 17:33:25 PT |
| Usually, it's wrong. It's still my opinion, if it needs to be corrected, so be it. An old man on the street asked me for a quarter one time. I didn't turn him down, but I didn't have much money, so I offered him a dime. It was what I had in my pocket, call me cheap, but I gave. Donald Trump probably wouldn't give a beggar in Bombay a penny. I flipped the dime towards him, it fell short and landed in the gutter. I said, "Let me get that for you." "No, no," he said. He picked it up from the green, slimey water it landed in, held it between his thumb and forefinger (the face of the dime shined in the mid-morning sun); He looked at me with a smile and said, "I wouldn't have done that to you, you know." He respected me more than I did him. The experience also taught me to respect all life. I felt plenty of guilt. Nearby bystanders maybe felt like assaulting me, but they didn't. Believe me, I was glad that they didn't. By me offering to retrieve the dime from the gutter, I probably saved my hide. In any event, I wasn't judged too harshly. What the antis have done is shoved the cannabis user's face into the gutter and have held it there. So, when this stuff is all over, good riddance. If it must be, to get in their faces to end this madness, so be it. Something's got to give. They may bend me severely, but I don't break. Their harsh judgments need not be returned in kind. If they should fall into a ring of fire, I would be morally bound to save them. Afterwards, the oppurtunity would be there to corner them. If you whip a horse, you break his spirit and may feel his kick. If you feed him oats, you can cinch the saddle. A horse doesn't want 'compassionate coercion', he wants and deserves respect, too. I'll digress. From a Native American perspective, if you draw a circle on the ground and stand inside of it, it's the universe. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That's the way that the world goes 'round, you're up one day and the next you're down. It's a half-an-inch of water and you think you're gonna drown. That's the way that the world goes 'round."- John Prine 2*pi*r equals C, r is 93 million miles. C equals 584 337 600 miles; one revolution around the sun. 3.5 to 4.5 billion times, the old earth has logged plenty of miles. It commands and deserves our respect. We're lucky to have it. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #6 posted by BGreen on March 20, 2002 at 16:17:47 PT |
| Asa will soon stop making these public appearances. He naively thought he could stand on his bully pulpit and espouse lies with no opposition. Soon we will see the status quo, no debate, lots of press releases and one sided press conferences, and more high profile busts. [ Post Comment ] |
|
Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on March 20, 2002 at 12:00:38 PT:
|
| One reason this charade has gone on for so long is very simple: we've let them get away with it. I don't like being put on the spot any more than anyone else. Believe it or not, I am a very reserved person, and tend to persist in talking when I should be ripping throats out. If I could lead a quiet life unencumbered by stupid, wasteful, vindictive and just plain mean-spirited laws, you'd never have heard from me. I've always held that the lowest bum in the gutter should be accorded the same amount of respect you give anyone else...until they prove they don't deserve it. But we are talking about people's lives, here. Asa and his ilk must be cornered, they must be made to face the people they've hurt, they must be confronted at every turn with their paymasters demanding an accounting of their actions. They must be made uncomfortable, they must be made to sweat. Because, with silence we aid and abet them. Gays know this sad fact of American political functioning all too well; if they hadn't created groups like ACT-UP, they'd still be 'legitimate' targets of police harassment. Now the cops know better than to 'bust fruits', as they used to derogatively refer to them. But only because the gays confronted their harassers. I for one would not let Asa slither away into the night. I'd do like I watched some Arabs do once when they cornered a scorpion: made a ring of fire around it. The scorpion, seeing no way out, killed itself by stinging it's own head. The equivalent move is to get the likes of Asa pinned down in a verbal crossfire and make him lose his cool by saying something so obviously dumb that sheeple everywhere stop scratching themselves momentarily and ask "What did he say?" That has already happened, but the media haven't picked up on the ball and ran with it. A major story is waiting to break, over an increasingly imperious Presidency's head, and all it would take to start the ball rolling is one sick person standing in Asa's way and demanding an answer...on live TV. Antis have known how much their ratings would fall if, instead of those thrilling pics of DrugWarriors bashing down front doors, the news included shots of scores of people, some in wheelchairs, asking why they should be penalized further than Nature already has by demanding to know why they are legitimate targets of police and Federal harassment. The wind would go out of anti sails overnight, and they'd be left with their hoary old 'legalizer' epithets to hurl at an increasingly hostile populace. This is why, at every turn, Asa will employ the 'Barry's Burst maneuver'...which requires pell-mell running down alleys to avoid sick people asking simple questions. And, so long as he's allowed to do it, this fraud will continue. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #4 posted by FoM on March 20, 2002 at 11:14:01 PT |
| I see you posted a press release from the Marijuana Policy Project and I thank you. I want to make sure all the press releases from the Marijuana Policy Project get posted but my Internet connection is so poor it's hard for me to do more then I am. It takes a long time just to get up the articles I do so would you make sure to post any you receive? I'd sure appreciate it and I know the Marijuana Policy Project would too. If you don't want to that's fine. If you do try to post them on as close to a related article as possible and then they will compliment each other. Thanks so much! [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #3 posted by goneposthole on March 20, 2002 at 08:43:37 PT |
| From first post: "Mr. Huthcinson rightly praised Ms. Mogil for her courage in discussing her addiction." He ducked out early and thereby proved, beyond a showdow of a doubt, his cowardice. As long as these jokers can hide behind their so-called power and their phony baloney jobs, all of their huffing and puffing, they do as they please. When their authority is challenged, they disappear into the woodwork. Good riddance, too. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by Dark Star on March 20, 2002 at 08:21:25 PT |
| I am greatly encouraged by the latter news release. If public officials espouse harsh legal penalties for behavior, and lie in public, there is no reason whatsoever that they should not be accosted and confronted with their behavior and its consequences. At a point when they dare not show their faces, perhaps a bit of self-reflection will occur and lead to changes. This assumes the presence of a conscience, however, which may be asking for too much after all. [ Post Comment ] |
|
Comment #1 posted by ekim on March 20, 2002 at 08:12:36 PT:
|
| From: Peter Webster
From: Marijuana Policy Project Medical Marijuana Patients Confront DEA Chief Cancer Patient Asks, "Should I Be Arrested?" --
Hutchinson Doesn't Answer CONTACT:
Bruce Mirken, MPP director of communications ....... 202-462-5747 x113 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND -- Medical marijuana patients, frustrated by the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's contradictory and sometimes
inaccurate statements regarding medical marijuana, confronted DEA
Administrator Asa Hutchinson during an appearance in Rockville,
Maryland, this evening. Hutchinson left the event early in an apparent
attempt to avoid further questioning. Hutchinson appeared at the Barnes and Noble bookstore in
Rockville's Montrose Crossing shopping center, in what was advertised
as a "community discussion" with Cindy Mogil, author of "Swallowing a
Bitter Pill: How Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drug Abuse is
Ruining Lives -- My Story". Lawrence Silberman, who found that marijuana was the only medicine
that allowed him to endure the harsh side effects of high-dose
chemotherapy for non-Hodgkins lymphoma -- a lethal and difficult-to-
treat form of cancer -- asked Hutchinson directly, "Do you think
people like myself should be arrested, sir?" Hutchinson responded vaguely, saying "the DEA is not in the habit
of going after individual users." He repeatedly failed to answer
directly, despite follow-ups from Bruce Mirken, director of
communications of the Marijuana Policy Project, and Fernando Mosquera,
a freshman at the University of Maryland, College Park. Mosquera
described how marijuana helped him cope with the debilitating symptoms
of Crohn's disease in a poignant column in the March 11 Baltimore Sun. Hutchinson repeated claims that "science has not yet come to
consensus" on the advantages of marijuana -- similar to claims he made
in justifying February DEA raids on medical marijuana providers in
California. He did not acknowledge the Institute of Medicine's 1999
report, commissioned by the White House drug czar's office, which
stated, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety ... all can be
mitigated by marijuana." The report pointed out that "there is no
clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that
might be relieved by smoking marijuana" -- and urged that marijuana be
made legally available to such patients on a case-by-case basis. Hutchinson then took advantage of the first pause in the
proceedings to leave early, heading for the stairs without good-byes
or acknowledgments of any kind. "Ms. Mogil eloquently discussed the dangers of drugs that doctors
legally prescribe every day -- drugs that are far more toxic and
addictive than marijuana, which has never produced a fatal overdose,"
said Mirken. "Mr. Hutchinson rightly praised Ms. Mogil for her courage in
discussing her addiction," Mirken added. "But it also took courage for
these two patients to look the DEA Administrator in the eye and say,
`I am a medical marijuana user. Do I deserve to be arrested?' They
have a right to know why they must risk arrest and jail for using a
medicine that eases their suffering, when much more dangerous
substances remain perfectly legal. They have a right to honest
answers. We will keep pressing Mr. Hutchinson until he gives us a
straight answer." The Marijuana Policy Project works to minimize the harm associated
with marijuana -- both the consumption of marijuana and the laws that
are intended to prohibit such use.
[ Post Comment ] |
| Post Comment |  |
 |  |