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West African International Summer School for Young Astronomers Completes Another Successful School – Space in Africa

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

On October 28, undergraduate and graduate students from across Africa gathered for one week at the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in Abuja, Nigeria. The course immediately followed a week-long workshop for instructors.

The goals of the program are to contribute to building a critical mass of astronomers, to build a community of future scientific leaders in West Africa, and to exchange ideas about teaching and learning across continents.

Students in the undergraduate stream learned scientific thinking via innovative teaching methods, derived from principles of education research especially inquiry. This included a project in which students designed and conducted a scientific investigation about the distance to an astronomical object. Students also participated in interactive lessons about stars, exoplanets, galaxies, radio astronomy and cosmology, and in discussions about career paths in STEM. Another highlight was the group teaching project, where student teams designed an astronomy outreach activity to bring back to their home communities.

Students in the graduate stream learned the basics of UNIX and Python, allowing them to inspect, process and visualize astronomical data. They were also introduced to the practical implementation of both Frequentist and Bayesian modelling for astronomy. In addition, they learned to schedule optical observations on the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network. They were able to obtain time-series data on variable stars, process it using Python and then determine the type of variable stars they observed.

Additional highlights from this year included a Women in Science lunch, a project on how to communicate astronomy ideas to the public, night-sky observing, and discussion of the future of astronomy in Africa with Director of the Office of Astronomy for Development, Kevin Govender.

The time Ive spent at WAISSYA 2019 has been one of the best moments of my life words cannot express how I feel, says Iheanacho Prince James (from Imo State University in Owerri, Nigeria.) Personally Ive gotten a better understanding of teamwork and brainstorming, academically Ive learnt a lot about cosmology, stars, galaxies, the solar system etc., opportunity-wise Im [now] aware of the various job opportunities available for students in science (most especially Physics) departments. Ive never experienced this kind of learning before.

Many students have also shared that WAISSYA helped them to appreciate that they themselves can think as scientists: they can ask their own scientific questions, break those down into smaller questions, and figure out the answers to these questions by using their own ideas.

Instructors came from Africa, North America, and Europe to collaborate on designing interactive teaching activities for students. The instructor team held discussions about what makes effective teaching and what teaching challenges and strengths they face in their different contexts. Each teaching activity at WAISSYA is co-taught by two or more instructors, to facilitate the exchange of teaching strategies, and build a community around teaching. Research in other contexts, including work by WAISSYA Co-Director, Dr Linda Strubbe, has shown that co-teaching can support newer instructors in learning and incorporating interactive teaching methods into their future courses. The Instructor Workshop week included a visit to the University of Abuja for an astronomy symposium and a morning of astronomy outreach to three schools in the area.

Instructors were pleased with the results of this years school. Seeing our students develop their scientific thinking over the course of the week has been so inspiring, says Co-Director Linda Strubbe, a Postdoctoral Research Associate from Kansas State University. Im so grateful to be here working with our students, and am sure that their futures as scientists are bright! WAISSYA Instructor Esaenwi Sudum, a Research Scientist at the Centre for Basic Space Science in Nsukka, Nigeria, adds, The students energy and drive, their willingness to learn and their dedication, inspired us as instructors to bring our best.

WAISSYA is sponsored by the Dunlap Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, NASRDA Center for Basic Space Science Nsukka Nigeria, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), the Development in Africa with Radio Astronomy (DARA) Project, Open Astronomy Schools initiative of the International Astronomical Union, International Centre for Theoretical Physics, European Research Council, and personal donations from Dr. Duy Nguyen.

New to WAISSYA 2019 is an educational partnership with Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO). As a Global Sky Partner to the LCO, WAISSYA postgraduate students were able to use the LCO global telescope network to obtain data on variable stars for scientific analysis.

For more information, please contact:

Primary contact:

Dr. Linda StrubbeWAISSYA Co-Director; Postdoctoral Research Associate, Kansas State University and American Association of Physics Teachers+1 647 783 4096lstrubbe@phys.ksu.edu

Additional contacts:

Dr Bonaventure OkereWAISSYA Co-Director; Director of Centre for Basic Space Science, Nsukka, Nigeria+234 806 466 2538bona.okere@gmail.com

Dr Jielai ZhangWAISSYA Co-Director; Schmidt Science Fellows in Partnership with the Rhodes Trust; OzGrav Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Swinburne University of Technology+44 7835296079 (via Whatsapp)jzhang@schmidtsciencefellows.org

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West African International Summer School for Young Astronomers Completes Another Successful School - Space in Africa

A galactic train wreck with three supermassive black holes – Astronomy Now Online

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

NGC 6240 is an ongoing collision between three galaxies. Hard X-rays from two sources near the center of the merging galaxies indicated the presence of two supermassive black holes. Astronomers have now found a third. Image: P Weilbacher (AIP), NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University) Image: P Weilbacher (AIP), NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, and A Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University)

NGC 6240 is an irregular, chaotic-looking triple galaxy system 300 million light years from Earth where three galaxies are in the process of merging. Extensive observations indicated the presence of two supermassive black holes and now, researchers have found a third.

Through our observations with extremely high spatial resolution we were able to show that the interacting galaxy system NGC 6240 hosts not two, as previously assumed, but three supermassive black holes in its centre, said Wolfram Kollatschny of the University of Gttingen.

Each of the black holes has a mass of more than 90 million times that of the Sun, and all three are located within a region spanning just 3,000 light years.

Up until now, such a concentration of three supermassive black holes had never been discovered in the universe, said Peter Weilbacher of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam. The present case provides evidence of a simultaneous merging process of three galaxies along with their central black holes.

The discovery of such a triple system sheds light on how galaxies grow over time and how massive galaxies seen in the present-day universe managed to evolve as rapidly as they did in the 14 billion years since the Big Bang.

If simultaneous merging processes of several galaxies took place, then the largest galaxies with their central supermassive black holes were able to evolve much faster, said Weilbacher. Our observations provide the first indication of this scenario.

To identify the third supermassive black hole, researchers used the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope, the 3D MUSE spectrograph and adaptive optics to collect high-resolution spectra.

All three supermassive black holes likely will merge in a few million years, generating powerful gravitational waves. Similar signatures may be detected in the more foreseeable future by Earth- or space-based gravity wave detectors.

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A galactic train wreck with three supermassive black holes - Astronomy Now Online

The Latest Failure in the War on Drugs – The New York Times

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

In September 2018, the rapper Mac Miller died of a drug overdose a toxic combination of fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol. Three men were charged with distributing the drugs that allegedly led to his death. In July, Tyler Skaggs, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels, died from asphyxia. Fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol were found in his system, and federal authorities are working to determine who provided the drugs that killed him.

Mac Miller (whose real name was Malcolm James McCormick) and Mr. Skaggs are among the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have lost their lives to drug overdoses. One way the authorities have responded to this crisis is by promoting the use of naloxone a medication used to revive people who have overdosed on opioids and expanding access to medications for opioid use disorder.

But despite the recognition of drug use as a public health issue, some states have also introduced drug-induced homicide laws that put the responsibility of an overdose at the feet of the drug suppliers. In Rhode Island, for example, under Kristens Law a person who supplies drugs to someone who overdoses can be punished with a life sentence.

These laws have been enacted in at least 25 states, while a few more are considering adopting them. They represent a return to the outdated war on drugs approach, which decades of research has shown to be unsuccessful. It instead increases risks for those who use drugs, particularly minority populations and people of color.

Some may see no problem with these laws. Partly because of rhetoric from the Trump administration, people tend to think that the drug supply is controlled by shady cartel figures and ruthless dealers who are stationed on American street corners.

The reality is far more complex. People who supply drugs are often friends or family members of those who overdose and often use drugs themselves. In a national survey, more than two in five people who reported having sold drugs also said they meet the criteria for a substance use disorder. Another analysis of drug-induced homicide news stories, conducted by the Health in Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University, found that 50 percent of people who were charged under drug-induced homicide laws were either friends, caretakers, partners or family members. Drug transactions are not as simple as buyer and seller.

All of this nuance is not captured in existing legislation. In Rhode Island, if someone were to give drugs to a friend in exchange for food or a place to stay for the night, that person could be charged if their friend fatally overdosed. The law criminalizes the exchange of anything of value for drugs, regardless of whether someone is a full-time dealer or merely passing drugs on. In other states, multiple people have been charged in the deaths of people they merely shared drugs with.

Proponents say that because these laws have good Samaritan provisions which protect from criminal consequence those who seek emergency medical assistance at the scene of a suspected drug overdose they will not discourage people from calling 911 to report an overdose. However, while studies have shown that knowledge of good Samaritan protections is associated with a willingness to call 911 in the event of an overdose, people are still afraid to call because of fear they will be charged. In Vermont, the state health department found in 2018 that fewer than 40 percent of people who requested a refill of naloxone reported calling 911. In the likely event that drug-induced homicide laws escalate such fears and prevent bystanders from calling 911, these laws will actually increase the rates of fatal overdose among those they are trying to protect.

A 2018 study of drug users in Baltimore found that those who sold drugs were 69 percent more likely to have witnessed an overdose in the past six months. Given that those who sell drugs are more likely to witness and therefore be in a position to intervene in the event of an overdose, these laws might be especially damaging and counterproductive. Adding a good Samaritan provision to a bill that is aimed to criminalize is hardly reassuring.

Whats more, putting drug users in jail will only worsen the overdose crisis. People who have recently been released from prison are at much greater risk of overdosing than the public up to 40 times greater in some cases. Most jails and prisons across the country do not have medications to treat opioid addiction, which means that when people are released they are especially vulnerable to fatal overdoses.

The war on drugs has hit communities of color the hardest, with Black and Latinx people much more likely to be arrested for simple possession and to receive harsher sentences than whites, despite rates of drug use being similar across all communities. Even with promises from the authorities to pursue a public health approach, racial disparities in drug-related arrests persist. A study conducted in Washington State found that among people who had received treatment for substance abuse disorder, black clients were more likely to have been arrested on substance-related charges compared to white clients. The rate of fentanyl-related overdose deaths has risen most sharply for black and Latinx people, so we can only expect that drug-induced homicide legislation will disproportionately and negatively affect them.

There has been progress: The Massachusetts Supreme Court recently struck down a drug-induced homicide conviction. The court argued that the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence that Jesse Carrillo knew that the heroin he gave to a fellow student, Eric Sinacori, would cause a deadly overdose. Similar arguments can be made for other cases. Fentanyl has so contaminated the drug supply that it is hard to determine how much control individual sellers have on quality and content. Promoting the use of tools like fentanyl test strips, which can allow people to check their drugs before selling or using drugs, should be promoted. Indeed, when we recently collaborated with other researchers on a study of Rhode Islanders at risk of fentanyl overdose, we found that those with a history of drug dealing were among the most likely to use fentanyl test strips.

Punitive measures threaten the progress we have made on the overdose crisis. They push people into the shadows, increase overdose risk and contribute to racial disparities. If the authorities are serious about treating drug use as a public health issue, then they have to let go of this longstanding fixation on punishment.

Brandon D.L. Marshall is an associate professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, where Abdullah Shihipar is a masters degree candidate.

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The Latest Failure in the War on Drugs - The New York Times

The War On Drugs again to host concerts to raise money for Philly’s public schools – PhillyVoice.com

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

Philadelphians have at least two things to be thankful for heading into the holidays.

Local indie rockers The War On Drugs announced a pair of holiday shows this week, benefitting the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia.

The second annual "Drugcember to Remember" will take place Sunday, Dec. 29, and Monday, Dec. 30, with the venues to be announced the week before the concerts. It's an opportunity for the group to play in their hometown, celebrate a local cause around the holiday season, and perform in more intimate venues than a band of their stature can usually commit to.

Check out the announcement from the band here.

The 2018 "Drugcember to Remember" raised more than $35,000 for Philadelphia's public schools.The War on Drugs played three sold outshows across Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda's, Union Transfer, and the Tower Theater along with Hop Along frontwoman Frances Quinaln.

The full announcement from the band also offered a glimpse that "more ideas are definitely brewing," followed by an Instagram post sharing a new collaboration with Harrisburgs Little Amps Coffee Roastersand artist and fellow Philadelphia-native Steve "ESPO" Powers.

The specialty Colombia/Nicaragua coffee blend of DrugCember Beans offers tasting notes of milk chocolate, citrus, and caramel apple, with artwork on the packaging by Powers.Its available for pre-order on The War On Drugs webstore and it will on sale at both holiday shows.

All proceeds from the coffee also go directly to the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia.

Fans hoping to attend either show will have to enter a lottery for the chance to buy tickets. Ticket requests (four tickets maximum per person) can be made through the bands website and the lottery will remain open until late Tuesday, Nov. 26. Note that you won't be charged if you aren't selected for the lottery, but a service fee still applies.

More ticketing information is available here.

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The War On Drugs again to host concerts to raise money for Philly's public schools - PhillyVoice.com

Want to win War on Drugs? Consider legalizing them | Opinion – Florida Today

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

Marshall Frank, Your turn Published 2:47 p.m. ET Nov. 22, 2019

Marshall Frank is a retired police captain from Miami-Dade County, author and frequent contributor to Florida Today, part of USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida, which includes The News-Press.(Photo: File)

On Nov. 8, just 70 miles south of the U.S. border into Mexico, drug cartel savages opened fire on three American adults and six children, burning and killing them all. Murder is commonplace. Its not so unusual in Mexico to see bodies hanging from bridges.

Why? Its all about messages.

Its no mystery. Cartels have been killing for years. No matter how many authorities claim they are fighting the drug war, too many here and abroad are beholden to warlords, in fear for their lives and the lives of loved ones, so the carnage continues all for money and drugs.

Mexicos president was criticized recently after he declared a policy of hugs not guns in fighting the drug war. Hes too smart to be that stupid.

Arresting drug chieftain El Chapo was good news, though it accomplished nothing. No more than believing that radical Islamic Jihad is stunted because Bin Laden was killed. Great news, perhaps. Nothing changed. Drugs continue to flow. People die.

There are some who have suggested that domestic wars would be over if drugs were legalized. Hmm. Interesting thought. In fact, there is an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) in which present and former police officers have banded together to further that idea. Crushing black markets via legalizing puts a new face on the situation. It might be worth thinking about this. LEAP is an organization of criminal justice communities who oppose the "War on Drugs" to be replaced with a system of legalized regulation as more efficient in dealing with drug use, abuse and addiction.

According to the Drug Policy Allowance,the U.S. spends $47 billion a year fighting the lost drug war. In 2018, that translated to 1.6 million drug arrests. Thats a lot of court dockets and prison cells. Over 200 thousand people have been killed in Mexicos drug wars since 2006.

Whatever happened to the old adage about doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results? Why dont we have leaders who think outside the proverbial box?

Black markets drive crime rates, in many modes, not just drug wars.

Does anyone really think that keeping prostitution illegal is going to stop prostitution? The black market has been driving prostitution for centuries. The worlds oldest profession is doing just fine under the radar, where police do their share of expanding criminal records and jail terms. If a hooker gets lucky she can opt to become an informant for other crimes. Las Vegas has the right idea. Legalize, license, tax, zone and medically control. It works fine in Nevada. Why put people in jail? What good does that do, America?

If former presidential candidate Beto ORourke had his way with criminalizing the sale and ownership of firearms, he would have created the mother of all black markets. He should be the poster boy for naivety. Americans may tolerate some form of firearm regulations, but they would never cede to erase Amendment 2.

What happened when Uncle Sam restricted the consumption of alcohol during Prohibition from1920 to 1933? The black market thrived while people drank themselves silly. Organized crime was in seventh heaven, thank you Congress. It was another failure in trying to control what cannot be controlled in a free society.

If we made all abortions illegal, wed spark another black market where novices and butchers conduct the procedures in animal vets and backroom parlors. Thats the way it was prior to Roe v.Wade. I know. I was there.

Some behaviors simply cannot be legalized. Like it or not, deterrents are necessary in order to control and prevent dastardly activities such as child pornography, sex trafficking or slavery. But if we didnt need to deploy 800,000 cops in the U.S. to fight unwinnable crime wars, wed have far less than 2.2 million people wasting away in prisons, therefore creating a windfall of savings to the taxpayer.

Perhaps if we diverted the gigantic cost savings from eliminating drug wars into programs that aid and treat drug addicts and the mentally ill, tax money would be better spent. We might actually safe lives.

Marshall Frank is a retired police captain from Miami-Dade County, author and frequent contributor. Visit marshallfrank.com.

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Want to win War on Drugs? Consider legalizing them | Opinion - Florida Today

A way to right a drug war wrong – The Boston Globe

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

Rarely do we get the chance to right the wrongs of the past. But Rhode Island has an unprecedented opportunity to do exactly that in legalizing marijuana. Marijuana criminalization has been the tip of the spear in the disastrous War on Drugs. A drug whose criminalization ravages communities and overstuffs prisons is now set to make a few wealthy business owners even richer. Will Rhode Islanders demand that our state right a grave wrong, or will we simply let a few cash in on decades of injustice?

Right now, there are still tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders with marijuana charges on their record; convictions have disproportionately impacted people of color. The ACLU notes that black Rhode Islanders were 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white neighbors, despite similar marijuana usage rates. These convictions prevent people from accessing jobs, housing, education, and other pillars of stability. In 2017 alone, nearly 600,000 people across the country were arrested for marijuana possession, and nearly half of those arrested were people of color. While some Rhode Island elected officials have championed this issue for years state Representatives Scott Slater, Anastasia Williams, and Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, Senator Joshua Miller, and many others our state has been too silent for too long on the need for equity and the need to repair the damage so wantonly perpetrated.

In 2018, the state passed an important law to fast-track record expungement of criminal records, but the process remains expensive, cumbersome, and complicated. In short, people with fewer resources will have less access to this remedy. Instead, the state must do the equitable thing: administratively expunge records from the back end so people can build lives for themselves after surviving a harm in which we were all complicit.

As the new economy develops, state leaders must ensure that impacted communities have meaningful access. The financial capital and connections necessary to open a dispensary often present insurmountable hurdles for many people who might want to plant their feet in the lucrative industry. Responsively, the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission instituted a Social Equity Program, intended to give people wronged by the drug war access to the new economy

Although not quite a silver bullet, this program begins the process of acknowledging the duplicity of allowing well-connected entrepreneurs to capitalize on decades of destruction. While the revenue generated from legalization is slated to go primarily to the General Fund, it is imperative that the state reinvest those dollars in the communities torn apart by criminalization.

Within our lifetimes, we may not again have the opportunity to meaningfully repair historical harm. Lets ensure that we do just that: Clear the records, support access, and reinvest where it matters most.

Jordan Seaberry is director of Public Policy and Advocacy at the Nonviolence Institute. Annajane Yolken is executive director of Protect Families First.

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A way to right a drug war wrong - The Boston Globe

Opinion: Changing the Rules on Drug Laws – Josh Kurtz

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

The Justice Policy Institute has released a report, Rethinking Approaches to Over Incarceration of Black Young Adults in Maryland. In the report, the institute found that 70% of Marylands prison population in 2018 consisted of young black men. That number is significantly high considering that African-Americans only make up 31% of the states population.

Data gathered from Marylands 2016 Justice Reinvestment Act showed that 58% of all prison admissions were for nonviolent convictions, with the most common offense being possession with the intent to distribute narcotics.

Last summer, the Court of Appeals opened up in the drug case ruling of Michael Pacheco v. State of Maryland, with a line from Bob Dylans song the times they are a-changing. The decision in that case came a little more than six months after Baltimore City States Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that her office would no longer be prosecuting marijuana possession cases.

This trend is not just happening in Maryland but across the United States, as we start to rethink how we view drugs laws and consider what the road ahead looks like in order to reverse the negative impacts that have plagued so many communities. So, as our views on drug laws continue to change, shouldnt the classification of our drug-related crimes?

The negative image of drugs was largely shaped by President Nixon during an address that he gave in 1971 when he declared drug abuse as public enemy No. 1. Now, over 40 years later, statistics show that the laws that were enacted to deter the sale and usage of illegal drugs have not worked.

This year, in President Trumps 2020 budget, the country is slated to spend approximately $1.8 billion on the investigation, enforcement, prosecution and supervision of individuals charged and convicted with drug-related crimes. The toll of Americas drug budget and laws on this countrys human capital is unsurmountable. The Drug Policy Alliance organization suggest that an estimated 1.6 million arrest are made nationally each year for drug-related offenses.

In 22 states, the possession of marijuana has either been legalized or decriminalized to a civil penalty, as marijuana dispensaries are popping up in communities that were once staunch proponents of tough-on-drug laws.

Recently, citizens and legislators in Alaska, California, Connecticut, Oklahoma and Utah successfully used the legislative process or voter referendums to reclassify drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor crime.

Now, as we continue to rethink how we view drug laws, it is important for us to understand how the two dominant schools of thought around crime and punishment play into the penalties associated with crimes.

The utilitarian thought is that punishment should be used as a means of deterring wrongdoing, while the retributive belief is that offenders should be punished because they deserve to be. In many states, when you look at existing drug laws the punishment isnt scalable to the offense committed.

For example, in Maryland wearing or transporting an illegal handgun on your person or in your vehicle is a misdemeanor, while the distribution of narcotics carries the same penalties as violent crimes such as burglary, robbery and aggravated assault.

Many will disagree with the thought of reducing the criminal classification for the distribution of drugs, but why should the penalties for a nonviolent crime be so detrimental to a persons life?

During my years as a police officer with the Baltimore Police Department, I participated in hundreds of drug arrests. Others like myself, bought into the war on drugs agenda under the guise that enforcing these laws was critical to ensure public safety, but looking back on it we were all just prisoners of the moment.

We never thought about the collateral damage being done to the individuals or communities that these laws were enforced in, or how a felony charge or conviction could be a death sentence for someones future. And while most states have ban the box laws and other temporary protections in place to shield a persons criminal history, when it comes to employment, housing and certain financial information, the reality is that theres still a stigma attached to being a felon in this country.

So, as our elected officials plan to make their way to Annapolis in less than two months to participate in the 441st meeting of the Maryland General Assembly, we need to encourage them to not only continue the conversation on decriminalization, legalization and reducing the penalties for marijuana and other drug possession charges; we must also start to rethink the outcomes for those charged with drug distribution.

Yes, this will be an uncomfortable conversation for some, but when you start to understand the plight of many communities where African-Americans and Hispanics are fighting for survival, then youll realize that a bad decision in your youth shouldnt be a conviction on your life.

SAMUEL JOHNSON JR.

The writer is a former Baltimore City police officer and Maryland courts judicial officer with more than 14 years of experience in local and state government.

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Opinion: Changing the Rules on Drug Laws - Josh Kurtz

TV tonight: a heartbreaking look at Rodrigo Dutertes bloody war on drugs – The Guardian

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

The Nightcrawlers 10pm, National Geographic

After Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines in 2016, he swiftly began his war on drugs. In the years since, some 25,000 people have been killed, labelled as drug runners or dealers. With many of these killings occurring on the street and by masked gunmen, this documentary follows a group of photojournalists seeking to expose the true cost of this violence. It is a gripping real-life neo-noir on the heartbreaking human consequences of political bluster. Ammar Kalia

This film tells the shocking story of the 1979 raid on the Islamic holy site of Mecca by radical preacher Juhayman al-Otaybi, who held almost 100,000 pilgrims hostage and killed hundreds in the ensuing battle. With archive footage, it is an eye-opening account of a somewhat forgotten history. AK

You wouldnt trust any of these numpties to walk your dog, let alone run your business. And even if there is an entrepreneurial whiz hiding, how could we tell from Lord Sugars tangential tasks? This week, it is full steam ahead for a corporate awayday onboard the Belmond British Pullman train. Ellen E Jones

Tragedy struck in October 2018 when a Boeing 737 crashed into the Java Sea and all 189 onboard were killed. This March, an Ethiopian Boeing 737 also crashed, killing 157 people. This doc investigates what went horribly wrong in both cases and examines the future of the company. AK

Prof Alice Roberts is a powerhouse of enthusiasm as she heads west to dig out precious artefacts at a secret Cotswolds location. There are archaeological puzzles on Salisbury Plain and on the Welsh coast, where medieval bones are found. The scenery is beautiful and the discoveries are fascinating. Hannah Verdier

This new two-parter compiles UK-focused stories about extreme calls to emergency services. Talking heads and news footage help contextualise each incident including the Finsbury Park van attack in 2017 but it is the composure of the 999 call-handlers that stands out amid the chaos. Graeme Virtue

The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006) 11.30pm, ITV4With Martin Scorseses The Irishman on release, here is an earlier slice of his mobster mayhem. Jack Nicholson makes his debut for the master with a showboating performance as the Boston gangster Frank Costello; Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon also star in this brutal remake of Infernal Affairs. Paul Howlett

International Tennis: Great Britain v Netherlands 10am, Eurosport 1. Group E Davis Cup finals match at the Caja Mgica in Madrid.

Tennis: Croatia v Spain 5pm, Eurosport 1. Group B Davis Cup tie in Madrid.

International Cricket: New Zealand v England 9pm, Sky Sport Main Event. First day of the Test series at Bay Oval in Tauranga.

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TV tonight: a heartbreaking look at Rodrigo Dutertes bloody war on drugs - The Guardian

The War On Drugs To Return For Annual ‘Drugcember To Remember’ Philadelphia Benefit Concerts – Live for Live Music

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

The War On Drugswill return next month for the rock bands first public performances in a year when they regroup to host their third annual DRUGCEMBER TO REMEMBER benefit concerts at the end of December.

Related: The War On Drugs Wins Over The Hollywood Bowl [Videos]

The two nights of music will take place in Philadelphia, PA on December 29th and 30th, although details of the exact locations werent included with the bands announcement on Wednesday.Proceeds from both concerts will go to benefit The Fund for the School District of Philadelphia. The band noted with the announcement that they successfully raised $35,000 for the same cause at last years performances.

The War On Drugs have taken all of 2019 off from performing, as the band spent much of 2018 on the road in continued promotion behind 2017s A Deeper Understanding. The 2017 studio album marked another successful release from primary songwriter/singer/guitarist Adam Granduciel, as it reached the top 10 onBillboard200 Chart in the United States, a notable rise from 2014s Lost in the Dream, which peaked at No. 26.

As of Wednesday, the band has no performances scheduled for 2020, but fans should stay on the lookout for possible announcements coming closer to the end of the year.

Tickets for the two DRUGCEMBER TO REMEMBER shows will be available only via anexclusive ticket request confirmation process, which is now open for submission here.

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The War On Drugs To Return For Annual 'Drugcember To Remember' Philadelphia Benefit Concerts - Live for Live Music

Violence in Mexico peaks as cartels fight over drugs and avocados – Los Angeles Times

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

The cartel members showed up in this verdant stretch of western Mexico armed with automatic weapons and chainsaws.

Soon they were cutting timber day and night, the crash of falling trees echoing throughout the virgin forest. When locals protested, explaining that the area was protected from logging, they were held at gunpoint and ordered to keep quiet.

Stealing wood was just a prelude to a more ambitious plan.

The newcomers, members of a criminal group called the Viagras, were almost certainly clearing the forest to set up a grow operation. They wouldnt be planting marijuana or other crops long favored by Mexican cartels, but something potentially even more profitable: avocados.

Mexicos multibillion-dollar avocado industry, headquartered in Michoacan state, has become a prime target for cartels, which have been seizing farms and clearing protected woodlands to plant their own groves of what locals call green gold.

Avocado groves carved into the hillside outside the city of Uruapan, where cartels have evolved beyond drug trafficking and now prey on the avocado trade.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan, preying on wealthy orchard owners, the laborers who pick the fruit and the drivers who truck it north to the United States.

The threat is constant and from all sides, said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.

After seizing control of the forest in March, the Viagras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging $250 a hectare in protection fees.

But they had competition. Rivals from the Jalisco New Generation cartel wanted to control the same stretch of land and residents were about to get caught in the middle of a vicious fight.

In May, a convoy of pickup trucks loaded with Jalisco fighters raced into the woods and an hourlong gun battle broke out.

Juan Madrigal Miranda, a 72-year-old professor who runs a small nature center in the area, cowered on the floor of his small cabin as bullets flew overhead.

His fear eventually gave way to anger at the growing power of the criminals, 10 of whom died in the forest that day.

Around the country, the cartels want land, forest and water, Madrigal said. Now they are fighting for the keys to life.

Juan Madrigal Miranda lives in a forest outside Uruapan that is contested by two Mexican cartels.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Homicides are at an all-time high in Mexico, which has long been home to the worlds most powerful and violent narcotics traffickers. Yet much of the killing today has little to do with drugs.

Organized crime has diversified.

In Guanajuato state, the homicide rate has nearly tripled over the last three years as criminals battle for access to gasoline pipelines, which they tap to steal and sell fuel.

In parts of Guerrero state, cartels control access to gold mines and even the price of goods in supermarkets. In one city, Altamirano, the local Coca-Cola bottler closed its distribution center last year after more than a dozen groups tried to extort money from it. The Pepsi bottler left a few months later.

In Mexico City, bar owners in upscale neighborhoods must pay taxes to a local gang, while on the nations highways, cargo robberies have risen more than 75% since 2016.

Compared with drug trafficking, a complex venture that requires managing contacts across the hemisphere, these new criminal enterprises are more like local businesses. The bar to entry is far lower.

This new approach to organized crime was pioneered by the notorious Zetas cartel and spread in response to the governments 2006 declaration of war on drug traffickers.

Mexican forces, with strong U.S. support, focused on capturing or killing cartel leaders. But that strategy backfired as the big cartels fractured into smaller and nimbler organizations that sought criminal opportunity wherever they could find it.

For many of those smaller groups, its far easier to just prey on local populations, said Falko Ernst, a Mexico-based analyst with the International Crisis Group, which promotes nonviolent solutions to conflicts. Its a myth that its only about drugs.

The entrance to Tancitaro, an avocado-growing hub in Mexico that created its own vigilante police force protect the local avocado trade.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

In Michoacan, where there have been dozens of cartel splits over the last dozen years, organized crimes invasion of the avocado industry is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere in the country and a potent illustration of how the government has unintentionally fueled more violence.

Many people here now long for the early 1990s, when just one family trafficked drugs through the region and the state was largely at peace.

The Valencia family was known as a benevolent force.

It built churches, gave money to the sick and averted violence by paying local authorities to ensure easy shipment of marijuana, heroin and cocaine to the United States.

But by 2000, trafficking groups from other parts of the country had grown envious of the Valencias, in particular their control of the Lazaro Cardenas seaport on Michoacans Pacific coast.

The Gulf cartel, based in the eastern state of Tamaulipas, went to battle with the family, sending in its paramilitary force, the Zetas.

Formed in the late 1990s by deserters of an elite Mexican army unit, the Zetas embraced a new philosophy when it came to the drug trade. Instead of simply controlling strategic points along drug transport routes, they sought to minimize risk by also commandeering businesses along the routes.

In Tamaulipas, that meant taking over the sale of stolen gasoline and the smuggling of migrants. In Michoacan, the Zetas partnered with locals to put the Valencias out of business and then began extorting money from cattle ranchers and lime farmers.

The local partners eventually rebelled, denouncing the Zetas as thieving outsiders while also adopting their predatory tactics.

Uruapan was in many ways ground zero for the Mexican drug war. Now cartels are evolving beyond drug trafficking.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

In 2006, members of a group that called itself La Familia Michoacana burst into a crowded nightclub in Uruapan and rolled five severed heads onto the dance floor a message to the Zetas and a turning point for a nation not yet accustomed to such barbarity.

The groups methods helped it win control of the state, but they also provoked President Felipe Calderon to send in several thousand troops, the opening salvo in his national fight against cartels.

The government strategy failed to end crime and violence in Michoacan, and in some ways only made things worse.

The Viagras, for example, probably wouldnt exist today if not for the states interventions.

Originally part of La Familia and later the Knights Templar cartel, which emerged in 2011 after the government crackdown, the Viagras later joined a government-run rural police force designed to topple the cartels.

When that force was disbanded, the Viagras lost their paychecks. But they still had their weapons and military-style training, so they returned to crime.

At the same time, another important change was transforming the state: Americans were falling in love with avocados.

Between 2001 and 2018, average annual U.S. consumption increased from 2 pounds per person to nearly 7.5 pounds.

Workers sort avocados at a factory in Tancitaro, Mexico.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Michoacan, whose plentiful rain, sunshine and rich volcanic soil make it an ideal place to grow the fruit, was uniquely positioned to capitalize on its rising popularity. It is the only state in the country allowed to sell to the United States, which banned avocados from Mexico until 1997 over concerns about pests.

As exports of Michoacan avocados boomed on their way to $2.4 billion last year luxury housing developments and car dealerships sprang up in Uruapan and elsewhere as huge swaths of forest were cleared to grow more.

And the increasing number of criminal groups all wanted a piece of the action.

On a recent chilly morning at a large farm a few hours outside Uruapan, dozens of avocado pickers sipped coffee around a crackling fire, preparing for a grueling day.

Scaling trees and clipping avocados pays much better than many jobs in Mexico $60 a day compared with the $5 minimum wage but it increasingly comes with serious risks.

Mayco Ceja, a slight 28-year-old who spent his childhood in California, said the dozen-man team of pickers that he leads was recently summoned to a farm that turned out to be run by gang members.

They came at us with pistols, he said. They forced us to pick for seven hours and didnt pay us.

Pickers harvest avocados outside Tancitaro, Mexico.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Avocado picking is well-paid by Mexican standards, but it is an increasingly dangerous job.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

On other occasions, gangs have barred his team from working in order to create a scarcity in supply, which raises the profits for cartel-controlled groves.

Before the Valencia family trafficked drugs, it grew avocados, and it is an open secret here that for decades criminals have used avocado farms to launder money. But never have the lower rungs of the industry been so vulnerable, with multiple gangs extorting cash from small-time growers and state officials recording an average of four truckloads of avocados hijacked each day.

One driver, who was heaving 45-pound crates of avocados into a tractor-trailer, said that in the last six months he has been held up twice by armed men who forced him to drive to a safe house and unload there.

He was too afraid to give his name. Theyll come to your house and shoot up your whole family, he said. Kids included.

Last year, 1,338 people were killed in Michoacan, more than any year on record. This year has been even deadlier, with 1,309 homicides through October, putting the death toll on track to top 1,500.

Security has become so tenuous that in June a group of avocado producers bought ads in several national newspapers warning of an irreparable impact to the industry unless officials address the problem.

In August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily suspended its avocado inspection program in a town near Uruapan after threats to some of its employees. Local media reported that one inspector had been carjacked and another group of employees subjected to intimidation after they canceled a farms certification.

Michoacan exports $2.4 billion in avocados each year.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Eduardo Moncada, a political scientist at Barnard College who is writing a book in part about extortion in Michoacan, said the avocado trades relationship with organized crime varies dramatically across the region, which makes it difficult for authorities and citizens to navigate.

When you dont know who controls what, it becomes much harder to live your daily life, he said.

Many here had high hopes for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who took office a year ago and declared that Mexico was no longer at war with cartels. But besides vowing to fight poverty and shift security duties from the military to a newly created civilian National Guard, he has yet to articulate a new plan to curb violence.

There is an abject absence of law enforcement strategy, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. If youre going to say what does not work, you have to say what will work.

In the meantime, avocado producers in Michoacan are taking their own drastic measures.

After gangsters burned down two major packing plants and kidnapped the 16-year-old son of another prominent packer several years ago, producers in the municipality of Tancitaro, a major avocado hub an hour and a half from Uruapan, rose up.

Working with the local avocado trade association, the producers armed their own civilian police force, built guard towers at the entrances to every town and orchestrated a takeover of the municipal government by ensuring that only one mayoral candidate theirs was on the ballot.

A tower used for protection and defense against organized crime in Tancitaro, Mexico.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Members of an armed police force patrol in Tancitaro, Mexico.

(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

The strategy has been criticized as a dangerous experiment in frontier justice. Yet the government has not intervened, and for now, the efforts appear to be working.

Its safe here now, said Diana Flores Murillo, the sister of the 16-year-old who was kidnapped.

Now the director of finance at her fathers profitable company, she arrives safely to work each day in a shiny red Jeep and new Gucci sneakers.

Madrigal, the ecologist, was so angry after war broke out in the woods in May that he went to state authorities to complain about a cartel takeover of the forest.

Instead of helping, he said, state police officers broke into his home when he was not there, overturning furniture, stealing gardening tools and leaving him a warning note to stay silent. State police officers did not respond to requests for comment.

He fought back by filing a complaint with the states human rights commission and taking the story to local journalists.

The worst-case scenario is that they decide Im making too much noise and they kill me, he said.

In the forest, the felling of trees continues. So does the cartel war.

One morning in August, residents in Uruapan awoke to a grisly scene.

Be a patriot, read a banner draped from a highway overpass and signed by the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Kill a Viagra!

Dumped nearby were 10 corpses, some of which had been dismembered. Nine more bodies hung from the bridge seven men and two women strung up for the whole town to see.

Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

See more here:

Violence in Mexico peaks as cartels fight over drugs and avocados - Los Angeles Times

Mushrooms, meetups and mainstreaming the movement to decriminalize drugs – Crosscut

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

Corazon, the recovery coach,says the Cascadia Psychedelic Community, which she founded, is one in a network of more than 100 local psychedelic societies stretching from San Francisco to Norway, Britain, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Hungary, the Czech Republicand even Nashville. At an international conference last year, representatives of those societies traded notes on decriminalization, legalizationand intracommunity challenges, including efforts to guard against sexual abusers operating as therapists.

Closer to home, the Port Townsend Psychedelic Society, which seeks to decriminalize all entheogenic plants and fungi throughout Jefferson County, has already made its case to the local health board, city council, mayor, police chiefand county commission. "So far, everyone has been curious, open-mindedand helpful," says Erin Reading, a member of the campaign.

All in all, says Corazon, were happy to be getting a second or third or 11th chance, whichever it is, to realize the full medical and social potential of psychedelics.

The first chance came serendipitously, in 1943, when a Swiss chemist named Albert Hoffmann accidentally absorbed a bit of lysergic acid diethylamide, a prospective respiratory stimulant he had developed, and experienced apsychedelic trip. Hoffmann went on to synthesize psilocin, psilocybinand other hallucinogens and to hail LSD, his original "problem child," as a valuable aid to meditation and psychotherapy.

In the 1950s and early 60s, psychotherapists reported bracing, even miraculous results using LSD to treat alcoholism, depressionand anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Even Bill Wilson (Bill W.), the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, tried it and hailed its potential; Cary Grant announced his 60 sessions with LSD had made him a happy man. Henry Luce, the publisher of Time and Life magazines, and his wife, the conservative icon Clare Booth Luce, were enthusiastic psychedelic samplers and boosters. One of Luces headline writers coined the term magic mushrooms.

Then, what Licata calls bad marketing in the form of countercultural excess and the messianic antics of the psychedelic researcher-turned-showmanTimothy Leary got in the way.

Fantastic, sometimes fabricated tales of LSD-induced suicides and other horrors became media staples. President Richard Nixon, fearing (rightly) that chemically assisted mind expansion might encourage dissent and war resistance, declared the first War on Drugs. Drugs proved handy scapegoats and political cudgels just as they would in the 1980s, when the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations rekindled the war. In the 1972 campaign, Nixons supporters falsely but successfully tarred Democrat George McGovern as the candidate of acid, amnesty [for draft resisters] and abortion.

And so psychedelics joined heroin and marijuana on the federal Schedule I list of drugs with "no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse." Funding dried up and research died for nearly three decades. Studies restarted, quietly, in the late 90s and have accelerated since. Better-controlled formal trials and extensive, if covert, treatment experience have supported the earlier findings.

The new John Hopkins center will explore psilocybins effectiveness at treating opioid addiction, Alzheimer's disease, PTSD, chronic Lyme disease, anorexia, and alcohol use in people with major depression. MDMA (Ecstasy), an amphetamine derivative with effects resembling the classic psychedelics, has proven so effective at treating PTSD in early trials that FDA approval for general use is widely anticipated by 2021.

Contrary to what their Schedule I listing presumes, LSD and psilocybin have in seven decades shown virtually no addictive or fatal overdose potential (though they can trigger severe psychological effects in vulnerable individuals, especially in casual, unguided use). Now these drugs are getting another chance in the courts of politics and public opinion.

But is decriminalization even needed in the relatively liberal, tolerant venues like Seattle where its most likely to succeed?

The rest is here:

Mushrooms, meetups and mainstreaming the movement to decriminalize drugs - Crosscut

The House Wants to Legalize Marijuana, but the MORE Act Has a Fatal Flaw – The Motley Fool

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

Marijuana's momentum has been undeniable in recent years. Last year, we saw Canada become the first industrialized country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis in the modern era. Now, Mexico looks to be just months away from becoming the third country worldwide to OK the sale and consumption of adult-use weed.

We've also seen33 states since 1996 wave the green flag on medical marijuana in the United States. A third of these medical weed states have also passed legislation allowing the consumption and/or sale of recreational pot.

Image source: Getty Images.

And yet, despite two-thirds of the American public favoring some sort of national legalization program, the U.S. federal government continues to classify cannabis as a Schedule I substance. That means it's entirely illegal, is deemed to be prone to abuse by users, and is considered to have no recognized medical benefits. In fact, cocaine has a less stringent scheduling than marijuana, according to the Controlled Substance Act. But the illegality of marijuana is just the start.

Even though the federal government has taken a hands-off approach to state-level regulation, this isn't exactly making life easy for companies in the cannabis space. For one, U.S. pot businesses have limited or no access to basic banking services. Since banks are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the FDIC is a federally created agency, they fear potential financial and/or criminal repercussions if caught aiding cannabis companies. This means limited or no access to everything from loans and lines of credit, to something as simple as a checking account.

In addition, marijuana businesses in the U.S. can be subjected to Section 280E of the tax code. Implemented in the early 1980s to curb cocaine smugglers from writing off their business expenses on their federal income taxes, 280E disallows businesses from taking normal corporate income tax deductions if selling Schedule I and II drugs, save for cost of goods sold. For pot companies and retailers, cost of goods sold tends to be a relatively small percentage of sales, which can lead to exceptionally high effective tax rates for profitable cannabis companies.

However, the House of Representatives wants to change this. All of it.

Image source: Getty Images.

Four months ago, on July 23, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) introduced the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or MORE Act, in Congress. The MORE Act is on track to be the first comprehensive marijuana reform legislation set to be voted on in Congress after the House Judiciary Committee voted 24-10 in favor of the bill on Wednesday, Nov. 20. The MORE Act now moves to the next stage of the process, which would be a vote in the Democratic-dominated House. (Note that Democrats have a considerably more positive view on legalizing cannabis than Republicans do.)

If the bill were approved in its current form, here's a brief summary of its key points:

Essentially, the MORE Act ensures that states would have the right to regulate their own industries, but it would allow the federal government to collect their piece of the pie with a 5% tax on legal product. It would also help to right the perceived wrongs of the War on Drugs by helping those most impacted by the federal government's efforts to stamp out drugs use, including cannabis.

The MORE Act already has more than 50 co-sponsors, and it looks to have a very good chance of passage in the House.

Image source: Getty Images.

If the MORE Act were to pass the House, it would then move on to the Senate, where things get considerably cloudier. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is certainly no fan of cannabis and has blocked riders specifically targeting marijuana reform in the past. With McConnell at the helm, cannabis reform continues to look unlikely.

What's more, Republicans have a more adverse view of cannabis than Democrats or Independents. The latest Gallup poll shows that 76% of self-identified Democrats and 68% of self-identified independents support legalizing pot in the U.S., with only 51% of self-identified Republicans on board with legalizing weed. There would need to be strong bipartisan support in the Senate for the MORE Act to pass, and that doesn't seem likely to happen, at least in the way the bill is currently written.

But, interestingly, neither Mitch McConnell nor the more adverse beliefs of the GOP toward cannabis are the biggest concern of the MORE Act. The bill's fatal flaw is actually the establishment of a 5% federal tax on cannabis.

Arguably the biggest hurdle in recreationally legalized states right now is black market marijuana. Illicit producers don't have to wait for cultivation, processing, distribution, or sales licenses to be approved, they don't pay state or federal income tax, and they avoid state, local, excise, and wholesale taxation (depending on the state). If the federal government adds yet another layer of taxation atop legal marijuana, it's only going to make the price disparity between legal and illicit pot even wider.

Image source: Getty Images.

For example, California, the biggest marijuana market in the world by annual sales, applies a state and local tax, a 15% excise tax, and a wholesale tax on leaves or dried cannabis flower, to every pot sale. Mind you, this doesn't include other expenses, such as laboratory testing, that you can count on being added into the final cost of a product by retailers. Now imagine tacking on an additional 5% tax from the federal government. Based on a variety of estimates I've seen, we could be talking about an aggregate tax on legal Californian cannabis of between 50% and 80%, which would make it virtually impossible for legal producers to complete against the black market.

And if you think this worry is all for naught, think again. On Jan. 1, 2018, California opened its doors to recreational weed sales, but only managed $2.5 billion in total cannabis sales last year (that's recreational plus medical). This represents a decline of $500 million from the previous year, when only medical marijuana was legal. Consumers are clearly showing their displeasure with high tax rates, and its players like MedMen Enterprises (OTC:MMNFF) that have suffered the consequences.

Multistate operator and dispensary operator MedMen has been expanding in California rapidly, with the company now sporting more than a dozen locations in the Golden State. The passage of Prop 64 and the opening of retail doors in Jan. 2018 should have allowed MedMen to recognize rapid sales growth and potentially push toward profitability. Instead, MedMen's losses have been astronomical, and the company's sequential quarterly sales growth at its California locations has chimed in at a meager 5% and 10% in the fiscal third and fourth quarters, respectively.

California has shown us what happens when you overtax marijuana, and the MORE Act appears to have ignored that lesson entirely.

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The House Wants to Legalize Marijuana, but the MORE Act Has a Fatal Flaw - The Motley Fool

Inside the bloody cartel war for Mexico’s avocado industry – SecurityInfoWatch

Posted on November 25, 2019 by Danzig

URUAPAN, Mexico The cartel members showed up in this verdant stretch of western Mexico armed with automatic weapons and chainsaws.

Stealing wood was just a prelude to a more ambitious plan.

The threat is constant and from all sides, said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.

After seizing control of the forest in March, the Viagras announced a tax on residents who owned avocado trees, charging $250 a hectare in protection fees.

But they had competition. Rivals from the Jalisco New Generation cartel wanted to control the same stretch of land and residents were about to get caught in the middle of a vicious fight.

In May, a convoy of pickup trucks loaded with Jalisco fighters raced into the woods and an hourlong gunbattle broke out.