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May 2006
The Archives
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North America, People, War on Drugs
Detective’s career goes down the toilet
This story only seems to have been picked up so far by a few news outlets, but the Boston Globe has reported on the case of Detective Kevin Stanton, from the Melrose, Massachusetts, police department. He was suspended earlier this year for flushing drug evidence down the toilet, as well as taking some seized pills. While he is the subject of a criminal investigation no charges have been brought against him.Now it is a little unclear as yet how many criminal cases could be affected by his actions but, according to an internal investigative report by his superior that the Globe managed to secure, it is alleged that pills relating to a closed Superior Court were flushed. Problems started for him when the case was then re-opened and prosecutors wanted to see the evidence. Apparently Middlesex District prosecutors have warned defence lawyers with open criminal cases that they could be affected, a very handy situation for some defendants.
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North America, People, War on Drugs
“Welcome to Fortson Square’s Open-Air Drug Market”
Sick of drug deals taking place on their block, a group of local residents in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighbourhood has decided to videotape the relevant offenders and plan to forward the footage to the City Council. They would like more police to patrol the area, and for longer. Once police are called in the pushers and buyers scatter but then return later once police have gone. Residents of the Harbor Lofts, a block of artists’ lofts opened in 1998 and funded by the City’s Office of Housing as part of a renovation of the local area, have placed an advertisement in the The Stranger, a local paper, with a mock-welcome from the Mayor Greg Nickels and Gil Kerlikowske Police Chief to “Fortson Square’s Open-Air Drug Market”. This “welcome” message also greets passers-by in the form of a banner outside the Harbor Lofts building.
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North America, People
Kids in the drug mix
There have been a few stories of late in the media about kids being mixed up with drugs. Directly so with 13-year-old Frank Korondi who overdosed after snorting and smoking heroin, as well as indirectly with the story about a five-year-old child in Dundee, Scotland, finding speed in a school work tray and bringing it home but luckily not ingesting it.
And now there is the case of a six-year-old boy opening up his Scooby-Doo backpack in class in response to a teacher’s request for some files and instead a sandwich bag, full of smaller marijuana baggies, falling out. His father, 29-year-old Corey Randle, had put about 35 grams of pot in his son’s school bag but, because he had put both of them in a closet, figured it would be safe there. When he discovered that his son had foiled his foolproof plan by, improbably, taking his schoolbag to school, he ran after him. By the time he got to the school the pot had already been spilled. Unperturbed he angrily took his son and the bag home. Police contacted the boy’s mother who then took them to his home; father and son were found upstairs.
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People
The Iceman Cometh…
Being originally from the Philippines, it is best known there as Shabu, or as my mates and I would call it to avoid getting busted by our folks, “ubahs” (pronounced oo-bus) which was just Shabu pronounced backwards. And then the code word changed to “grapes” because “ubas” (also pronounced oo-bus) is the Filipino word for grapes. So it was always somewhere along the lines of “ubahs tayo!” or “let’s go get some grapes!” which was a one in the same meaning for “let’s go smoke and get high on Shabu!”
However the western world calls it Crystal Meth or Crack in the US and in Oz we call it Ice because in action it looks like melting ice! But as pure and white as the smoke (or vapour) that comes from the stuff when it’s rollin’ down a strip of foil or in a glass pipe it is probably right up there along with Speed as one of the most dirtiest, back yard lab drugs you can find, absolutely feral stuff! But did that stop me, I think not!
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Africa, The Media
“Kenya: The Drinking Country”
About a week ago I posted a story about the Kenyan singer Awilo and his big hit from a few years ago “Am not sober”, in which I mentioned the attempt to introduce the “Alcoblow” in Kenya. The introduction of the breathalyser by police last December proved very unpopular with some drivers, so much so that a group of them took their objection to the High Court. They argued, successfully, that since the breathalyser had no basis in legislation its use by police should be banned. -
Oceania, Smuggling
Biggest Drug Bust in NZ History
New Zealand papers are reporting the biggest drug bust in the small nation’s history.According to varsity.co.nz, Auckland police are claiming to have seized drugs worth US$85 million dollars.
The seizure includes a whopping 95 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine and 150 killograms of pseudoephedrine.
The drugs were hidden among bags of plaster in incoming shipping containers on two seperate shipments during the last few weeks and police are saying that the drugs were bound of New Zealand’s illicit drug market.
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Latin America, People, War on Drugs
Chavez Takes Advantage of US Aid Program to Bolivia
For quite a few years, the United States has been the major aid donar to the poor Latin American country of Bolivia.The aid money is in the vicinity of $150 million dollars a year.
Despite the amount being generous is absolute terms, critics have charged that much of the aid is tied to the War on Drugs, a situation that devalues the aid, targets cocoa farmers unfairly and allows the US to have a disproportionate hold over the Bolivian military forces.
Moreover, it puts the Bolvian president on the back foot when dealing with the US.
As such, while the aid itself is generous, the kudos the US gets from that aid seems to be minimal. War on Drugs diplomacy is simply not as good as traditional benevolence.
Enter Hugo Chavez, the leftist leader of Venezuela who was once referred to by Collin Powell as “a serious irritant.”
Chavez has been spending the last few years trying to gain himself a place as the pre-eminent South American statesman. His country is currently doing very well, due largely to high global oil prices (Venezuela is the world’s 5th largest producer of oil).
Yesterday’s news that Venezuela has signed a very generous deal with Bolivia giving the Bolivians generous credit, building resources and university scholarships in return for better access to Bolivia’s natural gas reserves was not a huge surprise.
The move will further put pressure on the US to ditch its adherance to the goals of the War on Drugs in favour of winning back Bolivia for the sake of energy security. Having Chavez in control of any more energy in Latin America is very far from what the US would want.
When national energy security needs conflict with the goals of the War on Drugs, the latter might take a battering - at least temporarily.
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North America, People, Smuggling, War on Drugs
An interview with two members of Los Zetas
The killing yesterday of Jesus Segovia Sanchez, a law enforcement officer in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo that borders the U.S. state of Texas, is another grim reminder of the blood being spilled in the Mexican drug wars. It was the 11th killing this year of a member of the town’s law enforcement organisation and the 116th murder in the town of 300,000. His partner, Sergio Omar Escobedo, was shot four times by the assault rifle-wielding assailants but was lucky enough to survive. -
North America, People
How to Fight Drugs… The Unconventional Way
Unimpressed by the way local police were handling the drug problem in his area, a Chicago man has taken things into his own hands.The man sent letters to local high schools with threats to kill several students and a teacher! But the catch was that he put the return address of the letters as houses in which he had observed drug trafficking.
Ingenious!
As a result, the schools went into crisis mode with all outdoor activity cancelled and a slew of other security measures to protect the students and teachers implemented.
While the man obviously had no intention of carrying out the threats, the authorities were still not too amused when they caught up with him.
He earned himself a 10 year stint (PDF) in the slammer.
Now, obviously this wasn’t the smartest way to go about fighting the drug trade. Putting other innocent people into danger or making them think they are in danger is a very flawed strategy.
But what can be taken away from this episode is the frustration that some people feel towards the way that the issue of drugs is being handled by the authorities. In the debate on drugs people often criticise the handling of the issue by government/s as being disingenuous and a manufactured struggle. That can arguably be rebutted by pointing out that many private citizens feel the issue is a serious one and that drug use is something to legitimately fight against.
Whether or not that is a result of the information war is another matter.
Via Drug Law Blog.
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North America
Drop dead good smack
We’ve all heard the term “Drop dead good”, (as in looking) but when it comes to heroin it has an all too literal meaning. The East coast of the United States has suffered in the last month or so a spate of overdose deaths due to a mix of Fentanyl and Heroin. In my area alone, Philadelphia and New Jersey, over twenty deaths have been attributed to this concoction. After a recent drug bust in Camden the effects seem to have quieted down. Some of what was confiscated was pure Fentanyl. Let me tell you junior, you won’t live to tell about what a great buzz it was if you snort or shoot that. The irony is that the junkies are falling all over themselves (no pun intended) to get a hold of this stuff. Never underestimate the addicted mind.
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