Category Archives: War On Drugs

In an interview with Killer Mike, TMZ reports that the rapper expressed his desire to see more action on the part of Biden and his administration, which recently commuted 75 sentences and pardoned three people. An unnamed TMZ reporter caught Killer Mike at an airport for a brief question about his thoughts on the subject while they walked.

I think we can always do better, Killer Mike said. I think as many as we are letting out, we probably should quadruple that. I think that beyond that, that should be a priority for non-violent drug offenders in terms of marijuana and things like that. They should have first bids at licensing.

The interviewer inquired about the need for justice, and Killer Mike presented what needs to be done. I think they should get first priority to get the state license and beyond. I think the feds owe them that. I think that thats the way you truly repent for a drug war gone terribly wrong.

I think the oligarchy in this country owes the people who this industrys been built on, thats going to bring billions to this country, he continued. All the people that were outlaws that paved the way.

On April 26, President Joe Biden announced that he would be commuting the sentences of 75 people, and issuing three pardons. Today, I am pardoning three people who have demonstrated their commitment to rehabilitation and are striving every day to give back and contribute to their communities. I am also commuting the sentences of 75 people who are serving long sentences for non-violent drug offenses, many of whom have been serving on home confinement during the COVID-pandemicand many of whom would have received a lower sentence if they were charged with the same offense today, thanks to the bipartisan First Step Act. Biden also stated that his administrations would continue to review clemency petitions and deliver reforms that advance equity and justice, provide second chances, and enhance the wellbeing and safety of all Americans.

While its a welcome decision, as people of the industry have eagerly awaited Biden and his administration to make a positive move for those who were wrongfully convicted of cannabis crimes, many believe its not enough.

Advocates such as Leo Bridgewater, who is an army war veteran, longstanding cannabis advocate, and National Director of Heart Community Capital and Minorities for Medical Marijuana, believes that Bidens move barely scratches the surface. Setting them free is not the end all be all. Allowing them to be the first to market business entrepreneurs in their communities would be proper restitution, he wrote on Instagram. Bridgewater was recently named one of the most influential people in the cannabis industry in the High Times 100.

Killer Mike has long been a vocal advocate of ending the War on Drugs. In 2016, he wrote an article in Rolling Stone explaining how the U.S. can right these wrongs. As marijuana reform begins to de-escalate the drug war, creating new opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship in the process, it is imperative that the people most in need of a second chance actually get one,Killer Mike wrote. The price they have already paid for our failed drug policy is steep enough.

In 2015, Killer Mike sat down to ask Bernie Sanders questions in a six-part video series that spanned topics such as economic freedom, social justice, free health care, and more. In part four, they discussed the War on Drugs and prison reform.

The rest is here:

Killer Mike Wants to See 'Quadruple' the Number of Pardons for People with Non-Violent Drug Convictions - High Times

An escalating rivalry between former FARC groups for control of cocaine production has ended a brief period of tranquillity in Colombia's southern department of Putumayo.

Acts of violence have been unceasing in recent weeks. On April 25, a former guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC) was reportedly killed in Puerto Guzmn, Putumayo. Three brothers were shot dead on April 18 in Puerto Leguzamo, a municipality from which hundreds have been displaced.

Yet the event that sparked most controversy came on March 28, when Colombia's Defense Minister announced on Twitter that public security forces had killed nine FARC dissidents and arrested four others, also in Puerto Leguzamo. The next day, President Ivn Duquestated the number of criminals reportedly killed had been raised to 11.

The operation, however, has come under severe scrutiny, with even the United Nations demanding a full inquiry.

According to Colombian military command, the operation was intended to target Carlos Emilio Loaiza Quiones, alias Bruno, the chief financial operative of Border Command (Comandos de la Frontera), an important criminal group which forms part of what has become known as the ex-FARC Mafia.

However, security forces did not capture Bruno, who is believed to have left the area a day early, nor did they seemingly manage to weaken the dissident group. In fact, a range of Colombian and international human rights organizations have questioned whether several of the dead were connected to the Border Command at all. The entire operation has come under severe scrutiny and has recalled some of the worst abuses committed by Colombian security forces.

This has also raised the question: Why did the Border Command warrant such a heavy-handed security response in the first place?

The 2016 demobilization of the FARC raised some hope that Putumayo, one of the epicenters of the global cocaine trade, would be calm at last. But in 2018, as several major FARC fronts returned to their criminal ways, the dissident 48th Front emerged in Putumayo. It was not alone in wanting to control the coca-rich fields and drug trafficking routes of the department. The dissident Carolina Ramrez Front, an ex-FARC Mafia group based in neighboring Caquet, also moved in. Violence between the two sides, both veterans of the FARC, raged for years.

SEE ALSO: Ex-FARC Mafia's 1st Front Close to Controlling Colombia's Putumayo

According to a 2020 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Putumayo has almost 20,000 hectares of coca and produces just over 10 percent of Colombia's total cocaine yield.

Additionally, Putumayo has enviable land corridors and river routes that allow cocaine to flow into Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.

After carrying recent field work in Putumayo, InSight Crime dives into the ongoing criminal fractures in the department.

The Border Command and the Carolina Ramrez Front are at each other's throats, with the latter making ever greater efforts to claim territory and control drug trafficking in Putumayo.

The Carolina Ramrez Front belongs to the leading faction of the ex-FARC Mafia, led by Miguel Botache Santillana, alias Gentil Duarte, and Nstor Gregorio Vera, alias Ivn Mordisco. It is made up of approximately 500 members, among them some former combatants in the departments of Caquet and Putumayo, according to public officials in these departments.

The group exerts influence along the banks of the Caquet River and moves drugs along it towards municipalities such as Puerto Leguzamo, a flashpoint for violence. This town sits at the narrowest gap between the Caquet River and the Putumayo River, and has easy connections to where Colombia, Peru and Ecuador meet.

But although the Carolina Ramrez Front outnumbers and outguns the Border Command, its rival is more entrenched in Putumayo, understanding the territory and having greater influence over residents. Additionally, one public official in the department, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, told InSight Crime the Border Command has a deeper level of support from within local government structures in Putumayo, allowing it to operate with ease.

The Border Command was created by members of two ex-FARC Mafia groups, the dissident 48th and 32nd Fronts, as well as La Constru, a splinter group from the United Self-Defense Forces ofColombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia - AUC). Under the command of Giovanny Andrs Rojas, alias "Araa, it has approximately 200 members, according to government estimates.

Two government sources in Putumayo, who also spoke anonymously, told InSight Crime that La Constru used to be dedicated to contract killings while the 48th Front negotiated cocaine deals, committed kidnappings and blew up oil pipelines. Since working together, the two sides have increased their dominance of wide swathes of Putumayo, especially in rural areas.

InSight Crime confirmed during field work in Putumayo that the Border Command has focused on controlling the almost 23 kilometers of the Puerto Vega-Tetey corridor, a strategic area for the production and trafficking of cocaine to Ecuador. Oil companies also have a presence there, and are forced to pay extortion to the criminal group in order to operate there.

The group has set up its center of operations in the municipality of San Miguel, just 21 kilometers from Ecuador, according to information collected in the field by InSight Crime. Area inhabitants also said that the group has military training centers for new recruits in Ecuador and its leaders are constantly moving from one country to another.

Seeking to stave off forays by the Carolina Ramrez Front, the Border Command has enhanced its social control within communities in Bajo Putumayo, specifically in the municipalities of Orito, Valle del Guamuez, Puerto Ass, Puerto Caicedo, San Miguel and Puerto Leguzamo.

InSight Crime learned that, in urban centers, residents become informants, forced to tell the Border Command who is entering and leaving the area.

In rural areas, the situation is even more tense. The groups use civilians as informants, who must report to the group on who enters and leaves the territories. They are kidnapping, threatening and tying up people who don't follow their rules. There has even been talk of murders where [the corpse] is left with one hand out of the earth so that it is clear that there is a dead person there, one resident told InSight Crime.

Additionally, local residents told InSight Crime that the Border Command is checking the IDs of residents and that it has taken over local community groups who must approve anyone seeking to enter the territory. Those coming in without being on the approved lists runs the risk of being killed. Additionally, a strict curfew is set for 6 p.m., with nobody allowed out after that time.

Although disappearances and recruitment of minors have also occurred, there are no official figures and few reports about such occurrences, due to fear of reprisals. Here, the way to handle things is fear, a public official from Puerto Ass told InSight Crime.

Faced with this scenario, security forces have focused on weakening dissident and drug trafficking structures. But results have been far from promising.

As evidenced by the most recent operation in Puerto Leguzamo, the military does not seem to be taking into account the extent to which these criminal groups dominate the daily lives of communities. Acting against these groups has increased the risks faced by the civilian population in Putumayo, who end up caught in shootouts between public forces and criminal factions.

SEE ALSO: The Perpetual Cocaine War of Colombia's Putumayo

What happened in Puerto Leguzamo is what is happening across Putumayo. Communities are increasingly being permeated by armed actors due to the absence of the State and they have no choice other than to submit to what the armed groups have to offer. Meanwhile, the State subdues the communities and manipulates the evidence, a human rights defender told InSight Crime.

And despite all these operations being framed as part of the fight against drug trafficking, coca cultivation in Putumayo has not dropped by much. The army continues with manual coca eradication campaigns but leaves no room for options, leading to potentially new clashes between rural farmers and the military.

Ultimately, the situation in Puerto Leguzamo will happen elsewhere in Putumayo as long as warring ex-FARC Mafia factions and security forces persist in their violent stalemate.

View post:

Peace Dissipates as the Cocaine War Intensifies in Putumayo - InSight Crime

Between Two Worlds: Unlicensed cannabis dispensaries now operate openly in New York, existing in a legal gray area before the state issues licenses.

Its never been difficult to buy weed in New York. Since the Empire State legalized cannabis last yearbut has yet to issue dispensary licensesa vibrant gray market has stepped out of the shadows and now dozens of unlicensed storefronts and mobile trucks have opened across the state, from Manhattan to Albany.

Technically speaking, New Yorks cannabis regulators consider any person or business selling, gifting or exchanging cannabis as unlicensed and illegal. The state is now actively trying to snuff out the gray market operators because they view it as a threat to the legal industry that should be up and running by the beginning of 2023.

There is also a lot at stake: New York is projected to become the nations second-largest legal cannabis market after California with an estimated $4.2 billion market within five years.

In early February, the New York State Office of Cannabis Management sent cease-and-desist letters to dozens of gray market operators across the state, threatening that if they dont shut down, they wont be eligible for a licenseand might be on the hook for criminal charges. These violators must stop their activity immediately, or face the consequences, Cannabis Control Board Chair Tremaine Wright said in a statement.

But most pot entrepreneurs havent heeded the warning and even more unlicensed shops have opened up. The cops arent conducting raids and the states prosecutors arent willing to go after these operators because there is enough of a gray area in the law to give the gray market legal cover. And now State Senator Diane Savino (D-Staten Island and Brooklyn) is setting out to take down the gray market with a new bill introduced last month that, if passed would explicitly make it illegal to sell, gift, transfer, or trade cannabis without a license.

They can dress themselves up and rent a storefront; it doesn't make them any different than the guy who delivers weed to your house.

Senate Bill 8511, which hasnt yet been put to a vote, would make operating an unlicensed dispensary a Class D felony. (In New York, penalties could range from probation to seven years jail time.) The bill would also ban entrepreneurs who sell or gift without a license from ever participating in the legal market. Savino says these kinds of shops are undermining the states efforts to launch a legal and regulated market, and that their inventive gifting and club models are not fooling anyone.

They can dress themselves up and rent a storefront; it doesn't make them any different than the guy who delivers weed to your house, Savino says. They should shut down and hope that they survive and are able to apply for a dispensary license.

Most of the unlicensed dispensaries in New York have not heeded warnings from regulators. Steve Zissou, a lawyer who represents the Elfand family, founders of the gray market dispensary Empire Cannabis Club with two locations in Manhattan, says his clients are abiding by the letter of the law because Empire Cannabis is a private club requiring membership fees to access cannabis products. When asked about Savinos bill, Zissou says he doesnt believe it will pass and adds that its proof his clients are operating legally.

I guess there are some legislators [who] want to continue the war on drugs, Zissou says. The Majority Leader of the United States Senate sponsored a law to remove marihuana from schedule 1 and legalize Cannabis. And New York State Senator Savino wants to declare war on marijuana?

State Senator Liz Kruger (D-Manhattan), who worked for seven years with Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes (D-Buffalo) to introduce the Marijuana Regulation and Tax Act, which became law on March 31, 2021, says the gray market needs to be stubbed out. But, shes not 100% in agreement with Savinos approach.

It is pretty important that we get our arms around it and stop this from happening because it opens the door to more of an illegal market continuing, says Kruger. We will not accept an illegal market.

But Kruger says she does not want to set up new criminal penalties to tackle the problem. Im not big on arresting people for using marijuana and I'm not big on arresting people, even for selling marijuana, she says. Kruger prefers pressure over penalties and believes that competition from legal operators will take out the gray market so long as the state doesnt get greedy and tax the legal industry too much. She has a message to anyone currently operating an unlicensed business: This isn't legal, we're shutting you down, she says. You can try to keep doing it, but have no illusions, youre not the one who's going to get a license when the licenses are available.

Rolling With It: The dispensary truck known as Uncle Budd operates in New York City without a licensefor now.

In Albany, District Attorney P. David Soares has supported decriminalization and regulation for years. Soares says legalization in New York is long overdue but he thinks the state missed the mark by allowing New Yorkers to grow six plants at home, which will continue to fuel the illicit market. Soares says three forces are propping up the gray market: confusion among citizens who believe weed is now legal to use, buy and sell; a lack of clarity in the ranks of law enforcement on whats legal and whats not; and a lack of resources and incentives for law enforcement and prosecutors to go after people and companies that either continued their illicit marijuana operations or opened unlicensed dispensaries.

It doesn't surprise me that we're at this point nowit does appear to be the wild, wild west, he says. Part of the blame should rest at the feet of our government.

But enforcement poses a catch-22. When the state passed MRTA, he says you could hear a cheer coming from his office. Pot prohibition in the Albany area mostly affected communities of color, he says, and the point of legalization is to stop prosecuting people and start regulating an industry. He thinks Savinos bill or other legislation aimed at the gray and illicit marijuana markets could be weaponized to launch this war on marijuana on [the same] communities that were targeted for decades. Soares doesnt have a solution, but he thinks the state cannot rationalize arresting operators of unlicensed marijuana businesses while the state supports the licensed industry.

I cannot imagine us engaging in an operation and shutting down [an illegal dispensary], having him in front of a judge and asking that judge to sentence this person while were also being invited to cut a ribbon for the new dispensary thats just a beautiful place, Soares says.

So while New York tries to figure out how to extinguish the blazing gray market, many entrepreneurs see what theyre doing as a necessity to compete against the billionaire- and millionaire-run companies operating in New Yorks medical market that will be the only businesses allowed in the states adult-use market to have vertically integrated operations. J, an entrepreneur who runs Sass, a gray-market gourmet cannabis-infused chocolate business in Brooklyn, says if he were to shut down and wait for a license, his company would be crushed.

Until legalization starts, we need to have our business in place because theres no catching upthe only option is to accelerate, says J. I dont like the idea of being illegal, and we are doing everything we can to enter the legal market.

Go here to see the original:

New York Lawmakers Take On The Cannabis Gray Market To Protect The State's $4.2 Billion Industry - Forbes

Photos and text by FALKO ERNST

In December 2006, Michoacn became ground zero for the latest round of the war on drugs in Mexico. The president at the time, Felipe Caldern, sent thousands of troops to this state in central Mexico, bordering the Pacific coast, and promised swift victory. But the offensive soon started to falter, inflaming a conflict that has only grown more intractable under each of Calderns successors. Fifteen years ago, one group dominated the landscape of illegal armed groups in the state. Today, at least fourteen illegal armed outfits have carved up power, political sway and territories among them, each one digging in too deep for its competitors to oust it completely. The result has been a state of perpetual low-intensity armed violence. A viable strategy to reduce this violence has yet to be found. Last year alone, more than 2,700 died in the bloodshed. And civilians increasingly find themselves the victims of volatile front lines, with thousands displaced in 2021.

Crisis Groups Mexico analyst Falko Ernst has been documenting the changing face of Michoacns conflict for the past decade. In November 2021, he returned to the region known as Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land, the heartland of organised crime in the state, to catch up with old acquaintances and spend time with new ones. Civilians, activists, police, government officials and members of three different illegal armed groups talked with him about their everyday lives and their expectations for the future.

Tight enough to provide security but sufficiently loose to preclude eavesdropping, a circle of twenty men has been set up around us. Plastic chairs and, uncharacteristically, camomile tea have been laid out for our conversation on this chilly, dimly lit village plaza in late November 2021.

War has changed, said Peln, the head of one of Michoacns illegal armed groups, whom I met that night. Barely 30 years old, he sported custom-made baseball caps and hoodies, in contrast with the more sober apparel of many of his counterparts. He pointed to his foot soldiers, dark silhouettes holding Kalashnikovs. The AKs, he said, are still standard issue. But recent years have seen a veritable arms race, he went on.

Technology has become central to all this, he said, describing how Google satellite imagery has strengthened his grasp of the terrain of battle and allowed him to know his troops location at every turn. But the real push for innovation, he said, had been forced upon him and his local allies from outside.

Their collective enemy is the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, a criminal conglomerate that has forged an aggressive multi-front campaign for national dominance by aiming to outspend and steamroll local opposition. At first it gained the upper hand over smaller rivals in Michoacn. No matter how many we killed, how many weapons we took, how many vehicles we destroyed, they always kept coming back with more and at first they were getting the better of us.

The Jalisco Cartel also took advantage of superior technology, including its so-called monsters, increasingly sophisticated homemade tanks built to resist high-calibre gunfire as well as C4 explosive-equipped drones. But, Plon said, getting their hands on both these machines and reverse-engineering them has enabled them to draw even. He said that each local group now had dedicated tank welders as well as drone builders and pilots on its payroll; like their enemy, they have learned to assemble makeshift land mines, the latest means of deterring hostile intruders. Were at the same level now, Peln said, joining together his right- and left-hand fingertips to make the point.

The gridlocked conflict has brought a war of attrition to Michoacn. Bearing the brunt have been villages situated on the shifting front lines. According to Gregorio Lpez, a Catholic activist who has been organising humanitarian aid for those staying put while also backing the claims of those seeking asylum in the United States, more than 30,000 fled their homes in 2021 alone (the Michoacn state governor has claimed the number is 90 per cent lower).

One of the main causes of displacement is the suspicion among armed groups that locals left behind could be passing information on to enemies. They came to my home, said one man whose village was seized by the Jalisco Cartel following weeks of shootouts, and demanded to check our phones.

When the gunmen spotted seemingly compromising messages on his daughters WhatsApp merely a statement of fact that the jaliscos had mounted barricades around the town they immediately issued an eviction order. They gave them [the daughter and her husband] two hours to pack up their things or else, he said in the matter-of-fact tone of someone long used to accepting the rules essential to survival in the Hot Land.

The man also abandoned his home soon after, loading what he could onto his pick-up truck to resettle in another village 10 kilometres away far enough to avoid the front line. What prompted him to leave, he said, was not so much the fear of being caught up in the clean-up operations of the armed group, including executions of those suspected of being loyal to the United Cartels, an alliance of Michoacn-based groups fighting the Jalisco Cartel. It was his livelihood being undercut by new borders being drawn in the sand.

As the opposing sides have demarcated the region into a jigsaw of rival fiefdoms, many locals have found the costs of navigating these zigzag borders unbearable. Roads are being carved up with rear excavators to prevent enemy incursions. And even where they are not, making a journey across one of these front lines for those looking to get their sick to a hospital, their produce to market, or sustain the flow of basic goods entails the risk of no return.

Peln claims these displacements have been a strategic blessing to him and his allies. The truth is, all this has done us a big favour, he said, explaining how sustained media coverage of the human costs of Michoacns conflict had forced the hand of the federal government. Since assuming office in late 2018, the government has asserted that Mexico is on track for better days. To protect this narrative, in late 2021 the government increased the number of troops deployed to Michoacn to 17,000. This followed a familiar pattern of state security responses being prompted by backlash in public opinion.

But for Peln this has meant reinforcements, rather than enemies. While visiting the state, I spoke to commanders and fighters from three different illegal armed groups. They differed about the degree to which soldiers and their non-state armed outfits from Michoacn had teamed up. Some spoke of full integration in battle. Others of merely coordinated efforts. But all agreed that a common front existed, with the shared goal of pushing back the Jalisco Cartel.

Armed hostilities between the two sides have lately been concentrated along a front line within Michoacn that runs parallel to the border with the neighbouring state of Jalisco to the north. Farther inland, however, the federal governments alleged strategic affinities with certain outfits which the government dismisses, having officially declared corruption and collusion a thing of the past have afforded many of Michoacns armed groups a calm not seen in years. They have been allowed to regroup and strengthen their grasp over their home territories.

They [the military] havent messed with us here for months, said one Knights Templar commander as he and his crew were enjoying drinks and pork stew at a religious celebration in a remote Hot Land village, live ranchera music blasting away in the background.

Locals tell this story about how fighting has evolved in the area: In 2013 and 2014, an alliance of federal forces and so-called self-defence forces, in part made up of criminal interests, shattered the dominance of the Knights Templar group in Michoacn. It left behind a shape-shifting mosaic of competing enclaves. In the years that followed, internecine fighting between these splinters ensured the state suffered continuing bloodshed. But for now, if only briefly, this internal war has been largely put on ice, with the shared outside threat posed by the Jalisco Cartel once again causing a coalition of local armed outfits to assemble.

But in my conversations with members of these groups, none expressed any illusion that the pact was born out of anything but necessity or harboured a shred of hope that it would survive were the Jalisco Cartels offensive to vanish. There are things that cant be forgiven or overcome, said the Knights Templar commander.

To illustrate his point, he explained how the new alliance meant he was now putting on a show of mutual respect with a former arch-enemy, the same person who had killed scores of his boys in ambushes and taken his family member hostage. Lingering grief, personal vendettas and the thirst for expansion could conceivably be kept in check by an authority able to impose rules and cement spheres of influence. Yet with power evenly distributed among too many groups, no such order currently seems feasible. Nor did anyone appear willing to return to centralised leadership.

Arlo, the second-in-command of an armed outfit aligned with neither the Jalisco Cartel nor the United Cartels, spoke of tentative attempts by the federal government to pacify Michoacn. A general came down from Mexico City to see me, he said as we munched on tacos in the communal kitchen of a village controlled by his group.

What the federal envoy brought with him was not so much a concrete plan but a query as to whether Arlo would be willing to sit down and talk peace with his opponents. Just as others would say when I asked the same question, his answer was that he would. All we demand, he said, is that our borders be respected and that we all stick to our own areas. However, he quickly added, a negotiated settlement along these lines for now appears impossible.

The armed groups subsistence hinges on their ability to extract rents from the Michoacn economys four principal cash cows, chiefly through protection rackets. The truth is, he said, that everybody wants in on the avocados, the lime, the port [of Lzaro Crdenas, key for importing illicit substances] and the [iron ore] mines. Those cut off will continue pushing. They just have to.

Make it quick, theyre shooting here.

Make it quick, theyre shooting here, Arlo shouted after me as I made my way from his car to talk to state police. Here, at the outer fringes of his groups territory, the dividing line between state and non-state forces appeared to have collapsed. To the observer, but for the uniforms, one was indistinguishable from the other, and police officers were in effect guarding Arlos territory against the incursions of a hostile armed outfit.

Despite his wry sense of humour, forged during three decades in the thick of conflict, it was clear on this occasion that he was not in jest: there were walls riddled with bullet holes. Three weeks prior to my visit, Arlos band had taken a bite out of an enemy groups territory. Right after the fighting stopped, they brought in construction workers to erect a fortn, a delta-shaped fortification with 6m-high walls promising protection against any backlash. It proved a sound investment. Two weeks later, contras, or enemy combatants, opened fire from amid the surrounding hills lush vegetation. In one of these attacks, theyll take down five of yours before you even figure out where its coming from, explained the ranking officer on site. That time, however, all they caused was damage to the installations.

Domestic and international media have extensively covered the violent spectacle along the relatively accessible, clear-cut front line dividing the Jalisco Cartel from the United Cartels along the Jalisco state border, 60 km away. But everyday hinterland skirmishes such as this one all but escape the limelight, even though they are intimations of the shape tit-for-tat hostilities among Michoacn-based groups are set to take once the outside threat of the Jalisco Cartel wanes and internecine fighting resumes. The fact that they remain largely invisible is at least in part by design, as armed groups may look to avoid the type of public scrutiny that can upend arrangements between state and non-state groups.

Divisions between state and non-state groups are often wafer-thin in Mexico. Striking understandings with police and military can, for the likes of Arlo, make the difference between survival and withering. Keeping this in mind, in the run-up to the next offensive against the same enemy group days later, Arlo had first made a stop at the local precinct, sitting down with the police to make the final polishes to the plan of attack. Together they agreed that those in uniform would enter hostile territory first; closely behind would follow Arlos men, ready to sweep the area. The National Guard, the federal governments militarised flagship security force with whose local commander Arlo said he had achieved amicable terms, would remain on alert but not get involved unless things went wrong.

An hour later, around 70 combatants, mostly youngsters in camouflage but with red ribbons tied around the tips of their semi-automatic weapons to avoid friendly fire in the pending battle, came together in a mango orchard 5km from the border with the enemy group. As they started to board a procession of pick-up trucks and armoured SUVs, he made clear that no video or photo was to be taken, let alone uploaded to social media. Like other armed groups, he preferred to avoid the type of public scrutiny that can upend delicate arrangements with state actors.

In 2013 and 2014, an alliance of federal forces and so-called self-defence forces, in part made up of criminal interests, shattered the dominance of the Knights Templar group in Michoacn.

That day, Arlos side carved another chunk out of their adversarys turf without suffering casualties (the same could not be said of the opposition). Death and injury due to violence is a commonplace in Michoacn, a state that in the past decade has seen a daily average of 5.1 persons killed. It is predominantly young men who provide the dead, as locals phrase it. Out of the 369,150 homicide victims in Mexico from 2007, the first full year of former President Calderns military campaign, through to June 2021, 193,302 or 52 per cent were no older than 34 years, according to Mexicos national statistical body INEGI.

I spoke to Cristin, one young sicario (gunman) trying to avoid becoming part of this statistic at a local rehabilitation centre armed group membership and methamphetamine consumption often go hand in hand. In a medical examination room that doubles as a conversation space, he talked about his path from life as a former self-described gangbanger in a major California city to Michoacns front lines, including a training and initiation regimen of appalling brutality. Those that fail to jump through these hoops, according to Peln, the young armed group leader, are easily replaced. Theres always human refill, he said.

Just like the others who told me their story that day, including a kid who started out as a sicario when he was twelve years old, tears welled up from underneath his steely faade as he recounted his story. Im so sorry, he said, but Ive never told all this to anyone.

He, alongside others in the rehabilitation centre, put their hope in programs that might eventually pave their way back to a peaceful existence, potentially by offering legal work in exchange for taking part in transitional justice initiatives designed for young offenders by local civil society. But an official in charge of public security in a major Hot Land town told me: None whatsoever currently exist. Changing that, I was left thinking as a few days later I sat on a bus leaving the region, would be a worthy way to begin interrupting the regions continuing bloodshed.

Continued here:

On the Front Lines of the Hot Land: Mexico's Incessant Conflict | THE FACES OF CONFLICT - facesofconflict.crisisgroup.org

Sigrid listened to ABBA, Sir Elton John and Taylor Swift while making her second album.

The Norwegian pop star has revealed 'How to Let Go' is a straight-up pop record compared to the more "synthy" 'Sucker Punch', and she took inspiration from some of pop music's greats.

The 'Don't Kill My Vibe' hitmaker traded synths for guitars after listening to the likes of rock band War On Drugs and Fleetwood Mac.

In an interview with The Sun newspaper, she said: "I had written 'It Gets Dark' and 'Mirror' in LA and both tracks really set the tone for the album.

'Sucker Punch' is quite synthy, whereas this one is more of an organic pop record with more guitars.

Im a very private person and so the funny thing about me writing these new vulnerable songs is I forgot that I have to talk to people about them.

Weve got bass, live drums and loads of harmonies. Weve been listening to Elton John, ABBA, War On Drugs, Taylor Swift, Freddie Mercury and Fleetwood Mac. Its a really fun album.

The LP - which arrives on May 6 - also includes the "very unexpected collab", 'Bad Life', with heavy rockers Bring Me The Horizon.

Sigrid said: Its a very unexpected collab, but thats the fun thing about it. People will be saying Sigrid and Bring Me what?

The 25-year-old star continued: Me and my band have listened to them a lot on our tour bus. I love their songs. Then I met (keyboard player) Jordan Fish at Reading and Leeds last year and he said they liked my music which was exciting. Wow! What the f***?

Theyre lovely boys and then they said that they had a demo of 'Bad Life' that they wanted to send me. Me and my band listened to it on the tour bus. We were all pretty drunk but when the song came on, we all went quiet. We LOVED the song.

Then a few weeks later me, (singer) Oli Sykes and Jordan went into a studio in London and rewrote the song a little bit. We finished and recorded it and we had 'Bad Life'.

Sigrid's vocals blend seamlessly with Oli's on the anthemic ballad.

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Sigrid teases 'organic pop' album inspired by ABBA and Elton John - Inside NoVA

Should marijuana be legal in the United States? Over the past 20 years, Americans have reversed their views on that question to a degree rarely seen in politics. In 2001, 34 percent of Americans said yes, according to Gallup. Today its 68 percent. A breadth of polling suggests a majority of Americans now favor either decriminalizing all drug use or significantly changing the punishment for it.

While there has been some bipartisan movement on the issue, politicians dont seem to be walking entirely in step with Americans. As Congress considers legislation that would decriminalize marijuana and end the sentencing disparity for crack and cocaine offenses, Galen Druke speaks with FiveThirtyEight contributor Lester Black about what Americans think should be done about drugs and how politicians are responding.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the play button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show byleaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for good polling vs. bad polling? Get in touch by email,on Twitteror in the comments.

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Politics Podcast: Americans Think The War On Drugs Failed. Do Politicians Agree? - FiveThirtyEight

A presentation discussing the war on drugs was sponsored by IUPs Title IX, Social Equity office and Office of Students Wellness and Engagement on Wednesday.

Dr. Mai Naito Mills was the speaker, an associate professor of criminology at the University of West Georgia in the department of civic engagement and public service.

Mills obtained her masters in criminology from IUP.

The presentation was unique in that it required good bit of audience involvement through technology.

She started by talking about what exactly a wrongful conviction is and what kind of circumstances can lead to an individuals conviction.

Mills also discussed the case of Curtis Flowers, an example of direct appeal.

There was a quadruple murder in Winona, MississippiCurtis Flowers was the one charged for this crime. He was actually put on trial six times for this crime.

This trial went on so many times due to racial discrimination and the ignorance of the prosecutor at this time. The Supreme Court found racial bias in the case, which eventually led to the charges being dismissed in 2020.

Getting a pathway for a wrongful conviction are very, very, very hard to overturn. The cause of a wrongful conviction can be official error, false accusation, false confession, false evidence, and mistake ID. False accusation are the most common types of error in wrongful convictions.

Mills next touched on the total number of drug arrests. In fact, over 64,000 federal inmates are currently behind bars for drug offenses for more than any other category of conviction, a problem that is highlighted. According to the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) there have only been 3,000 exonerations.

Mills talked about the amount of racial discrimination with drug cases and prosecutions, specifically discrimination against African Americans. The Harris County exoneration emphasized this. Despite Black people only making up 20% of the population, they made up 62% of drug related exonerations.

She eventually focused on three specific drug convictions in Pennsylvania. One had their charges dismissed when it was discovered that the officials involved were corrupt. Another had their convictions dropped due to an officer lying on the stand. The third had an inadequate defense official. In summary, there is a big problem with official corruption in this field.

Overturning these wrongful convictions has been getting more attention recently thanks to activism and social media. More people are noticing this problem and are demanding change and fighting for the rights and innocence of others.

Mills cited The Innocence Project as an organization to support in fighting wrongful drug convictions.

Those interested in learning more about Mills can check her out at https://www.westga.edu/profile.php?emp_id=90868.

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IUP hosts presentation on war on drugs, how students can be involved - Indiana University The Penn Online

The Days Associated Press article on fentanyl deaths, States seek solutions as fentanyl deaths keep rising, (April 4), once more shows the abysmal failure of Americas drug laws, which are heavily based on Nixons fraudulent War on Drugs (see Harpers, 4/2016). It is glaringly obvious that, as one police chief said, we cant arrest our way out of our drug problem. The only sensible solution is to decriminalize all drugs.

Interdiction stops only a tiny percentage of drugs from coming over our borders. Jailing offenders destroys individuals, families, and overcrowds our prisons. Untold billions trillions even squandered on enforcement and incarceration should be shifted to addiction treatment, both effective and far less expensive.

Legalizing drugs will eliminate todays violent drug trade which, like prohibition in the roaring twenties, is controlled by warring thugs. Better still, drug users will know the content and strength of legalized drugs. Overdoses will of course still happen, but they will be far fewer. Perhaps, too, a dose of lifesaving naloxone could be included in every legal drug sale.

Legalized drugs can be regulated, and taxed, like sales of alcohol and tobacco bo th addictive drugs as dangerous or more so than illegals. It is past time to get rational about drugs.

Sanford (Sandy) D'Esopo

Old Lyme

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The Day - All drugs should be decriminalized - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

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The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction

Following decades of advocacy efforts led by people who use drugs, the first sanctioned overdose prevention centers in the United States were opened in New York City at the end of 2021. Drawing on the expertise and ministry of people with experiences of substance use and overdose, OPCs provide sanctuary for people who use drugs, including social connection, access to compassionate social services and other health care, safer use supplies, and monitoring by people trained to respond to an overdose event or other medical emergency. The new sites, which are housed in existing syringe service programs in Manhattans East Harlem and Washington Heights neighborhoods, saved over 115 lives in their first six weeks of operation.

There was significant public opposition to these sites, even though accidental drug overdose now kills more Americans annually than gun violence and automobile accidents combined. The national response to the overdose crisis has been largely shaped by the criminalization and dehumanization of people who use drugs. In the enduring spirit of Nixons all-out offensive against public enemy number one, the war on people who use drugs has decimated families, incarcerated millions of people (most of whom are Black or Brown), enabled the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV, and failed to prevent problematic substance use or make evidence-based treatment for substance use disorder more widely accessible.

Maia Szalavitz makes the case that there is a better way, one that has been proven to save lives and that is positively transforming social narratives and policies on drugs and the people who use them. It is called harm reduction, and it finds its roots in the creativity and wisdom of people with lived experience of substance use.

The harm reduction model is a set of practices for minimizing drug-related harm, a person-centered philosophy for addressing substance use across the spectrum, and a movement for social justice which recognizes the multitude of social determinants that impact a persons relationship with substance use and their vulnerability to drug-related harm.

Szalavitz details the development of harm reduction as it has been created and led by people who use drugs and others living at the margins and as it grew from a grassroots public health effort to a global social justice movement. Rooted in her experience with injection drug use and recovery, she weaves an intimate account of her conversion to this new way of thinking about drugs and the people who use them, alongside the evolution of harm reduction in policy and practice as it took shape in the lives of its early practitioners and then began to express itself in the lives of people who use drugs in communities across the country.

Szalavitz centers humanity and human connection in her narration of the growth of this movement for healing and justice. Beginning with the height of the AIDS crisis and ending with the current overdose crisis, she charts the rise of an expansive way of understanding and responding to substance use and addiction.

The harm reduction model replaces judgment with empathy and punishment with love. It recognizes the conditions of substance use as indivisible from the social conditions people are subject to. It puts the power of defining recovery in the hands of people who use drugs. Harm reduction insists that we move beyond the old ways, beyond unjust laws and moralizing about drug use. It asks us to proclaim that people who use drugs are deserving of respect and dignityand that their lives have inherent value.

Szalavitz anchors her narrative of the harm reduction movement in protests against the political indifference to the loss of human life as the AIDS epidemic took hold. By the end of the 1980s, injection drug use was fueling the HIV epidemic in New York City. Due to limited access to sterile syringes, people who used drugs were forced to share injection equipment, and as a direct result HIV spread rapidly. This wound was deeply felt both by people who use drugs and by their loved ones.

Community members, people who use drugs, and health professionals began to form collectives, such as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power and the Association for Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment. They began taking safer use supplies to places where people were using drugs, such as shooting galleries and garbage-strewn lots on the citys Lower East Side. In addition to illegally distributing syringes, they distributed bleach and safer use education, including instructions on how to clean used syringes. They took help and healing to the people, meeting them where they were ata core tenet of harm reduction philosophy.

Undoing Drugs portrays the course of harm reduction as it grew from a fringe effort to the mainstream in the United States. The book recounts multiple drug panics (amphetamine, heroin, crack cocaine, prescription opioids), the development of antiretrovirals to treat HIV, the legalization of syringe access in an increasing number of communities, and the expansion of community-level naloxone distribution. In the context of increasing overdose fatalities across the country, Szalavitz reflects on the current state and future of harm reduction with a quote from Anthony Fauci. Looking back on his experience with the HIV crisis, Fauci said: Im flashing in my mind . . . [to] how difficult it is for society to accept harm reduction . . . and then when you accept it, you realize, why didnt I do this before?

With more than 841,000 lives lost to drug overdose in the United States since 1999, Undoing Drugs makes it undeniably clear that the time for a more robust uptake of harm reduction, led by people who use drugs, is upon us. The human toll of the war on people who use drugs would be even graver if not for the lifesaving and life-giving ministries of people who use drugs, and their persistence, resilience, and love in action despite innumerable odds. Szalavitz concludes with these words: Through harm reduction, we can undo the ideology that underpins damaging policies and make way for a future that is healthier, happier, and more humane for everyone.

A version of this article appears in the print edition under the title Embracing harm reduction.

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How harm reduction is winning the war against drug overdoses - The Christian Century

The environmental impacts of cocaine have long been known. Studies raised alarm bells in the 1990s over narco-driven deforestation, soil degradation and pollution in Latin America. Today, the impacts all along the illegal drug supply chain are even better understood and documented, but remain underrecognized and underreported.

Meanwhile, the titanic struggle continues between those determined to curb illegal drug use and the shadowy forces intent on producing, trafficking and consuming the quintessential party drug snorted by millions, as they propel biodiversity loss, adverse land-use change, waterway contamination with toxic chemicals, and adjacent criminal industries such as wildlife trafficking and gold mining even contributing to climate change.

From source nations to consumer countries, the infamous white powder known as coke, or blow, is leaving a trail of environmental destruction that is contributing to the destabilization of Earths safe operating space, vital to keeping our planet habitable.

In 2019, an estimated 234,200 hectares (578,720 acres) of coca were grown in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. That was down 5% from the year before, but still resulted in major environmental impacts. Back in 1985, Peru was the global hub of coca production, growing around 65% of the global total, with Bolivia at 25% and Colombia just 10%. Years of aggressive anti-trafficking efforts in Peru and Bolivia forced the cultivation shift to Colombia one of the worlds most megadiverse nations, hosting close to 10% of Earths biodiversity.

The latest figures released by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Colombian governments monitoring program show 143,000 hectares (353,400 acres) of coca in Colombia in 2020, a decline for the third year in a row. But despite less coca being grown there, 8% more cocaine was produced, totaling approximately 1,228 metric tons. More efficient crop management, along with mega labs that churn out vast quantities of coca paste and cocaine, are thought to be behind this increase.

Statistics from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy paint a different, more concerning picture, estimating 245,000 hectares (605,400 acres) of coca grown in the same year.

But coca and cocaine production are just one part of a complex web of problems placing Colombias biological riches at risk. Among the most severe is deforestation: In 2020, nearly 13,000 hectares (31,100 acres) of Colombias forests were felled to support coca cultivation. Thats 7.54% of the countrys total 171,685 hectares (424,243 acres) of tree loss from all activities, including cattle ranching and agricultural expansion.

The same study found that a further 22.4% of deforestation (38,449 hectares or 95,010 acres) occurred within 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) of coca plantations and was due to linked activities including the construction of clandestine airstrips, and to tangentially related activities, such as coca productions contribution to the agricultural frontiers advancement.

Parsing out the precise causes of all this additional deforestation is complicated, says Liliana Davalos at Stony Brook University, who has studied the links between coca and deforestation for 20 years. I wanted to discover whether it was happening in places where deforestation wouldnt happen otherwise, she says. The answer is, it depends.

The degree to which coca production directly causes deforestation is very locally specific, she explains. In the Andean region of Colombia, for instance, which weve studied closely, in places like San Lucas, we see that coca plays a disproportionate role where no other crops are grown, or [there are] no pastures, or a much lower level of pastures There are huge effects in the Andean upland region and great, great potential for damages to biodiversity based on the spatial database we have.

But at lower elevations in the Amazonian region, the picture is less clear. We find that once we take into account social factors of [human] migration, growth, [and] construction we really dont find an impact from cocoa cultivation in the Amazon, coca is more of a passenger than a driver of the process which is a process of frontier deforestation, incorporating vast tracts of land into the financial system.

Cocaine production does other harm. It releases toxic chemicals into the environment via processing labs. Chemicals commonly used by the mega labs include toluene, sulfuric acid, acetone and gasoline. It takes 284 liters of gasoline to make 1 kilogram of cocaine, or about 34 gallons a pound, and a significant portion of Colombias gasoline supply is likely diverted to produce coke. And it only takes one part of dumped petrol to contaminate 750,000 parts of groundwater.

In addition, estimates suggest up to 3.5 million metric tons of chemicals per hectare per year, or about 1.6 million tons per acre, are used in the processing of cocaine, resulting in soil degradation and more water pollution. A 2014 survey determined that 98.7% of coca farms also use insecticides or fungicides, 92.5% apply chemical fertilizers, and 95.5% use herbicides. Together with cocaine itself found in Amazon Basin waterways the potential toxic impact of production is likely vast, though poorly understood or monitored.

Combatting cocaine growers has also been environmentally detrimental. Aerial spraying with the controversial herbicide glyphosate, popularly known as Roundup, is argued by critics to have left a legacy of ecosystem and human harm.

Long encouraged and funded by U.S. drug enforcement, the practice that began in Colombia in 1994 was banned there in 2015 due to concerns over its role as a carcinogen. But the current government under President Ivn Duque is pushing to reintroduce spraying to tackle the drug problem. This March he even approved the use of low-flying drones for that purpose. While considered potentially effective in the short term at reducing coca crops in specific areas, such a reinstatement would not only pollute, but perpetuate other troubles.

Aerial spraying [sings] the siren song that it eliminates coca cultivation rapidly, explains Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. But it does so in ways that are problematic from [an] environmental and human public health perspective.

She compares the ballooning proliferation of coca cultivation in Colombia to the situation elsewhere. Weve got countries [like Peru and Bolivia] that havent applied that policy, and they have their wedges of coca that just stay put, she says. Then, We have a country [Colombia] that, by using this aerial fumigation technique seems to be associated with this giant explosion [of impacts] in every ecosystem.

Last year, the U.S. and Colombian governments announced a new counternarcotics strategy, which includes an environmental protection aim alongside drug supply reduction, rural security and development goals. The United States will assist the Colombian government in its efforts to monitor and counter these environmental crimes that sustain and fuel narco-trafficking groups that have a profoundly negative impact on Colombias environment, states a U.S. White House press release.

This focus on environmental crime has already manifested itself in Operation Artemis, a military operation in Colombia for reducing deforestation. In addition, a recently passed bill promises harsher drug production penalties, including jail time. However, concerns are that such actions will predominantly impact Colombias small-scale farmers.

Colombias national parks are impacted by coca growing, with an estimated 7,214 hectares (17,826 acres) in 12 federal preserves seeing illegal production in 2020, an increase of 6% over 2019. Catatumbo-Bar is the worst affected, suffering deforestation, lawlessness and a host of issues related to cocaine trafficking. Other parks and protected areas affected include Sierra de la Macarena, the Nukak Reserve and Paramillo Massif.

With coca in national parks, the production is not that big, explains Ana Maria Rueda, a senior investigator at Fundacin Ideas para la Paz, a Colombian think tank. But what theyre [seeing is] territorial control [by criminals], for example, related to traffic routes to take cocaine out of Colombia.

This expansion of coca growing and cocaine processing on protected lands presents a risk to biodiversity. An update to Colombias Red List Index in 2020 implicated coca cultivation and its contribution to forest loss and habitat fragmentation as increasing the extinction risk to bird species, including the yellow-knobbed curassow (Crax daubentoni), plumbeous forest falcon (Micrastur plumbeus), scarlet-breasted dacnis (Dacnis berlepschi), and plate-billed mountain toucan (Andigena laminirostris). Of the 13 species that saw their conservation status deteriorate, eight were affected by illicit cocoa expansion, the report notes.

Indigenous lands and peoples are also being gravely affected. Nearly 50% of Colombias coca is grown in special management zones, including Indigenous lands, traditional Afro-Caribbean communities, national parks, and other areas of environmental significance.

That criminal activity has made Colombia one of the most dangerous places on Earth to be an environmental rights defender, with 17 lethal attacks directed against activists supporting coca crop substitution programs in 2020. In the Peruvian Amazon, cocaine production and trafficking threatens the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples, including the beleaguered Shipibo-Conibo along the Ucayali River.

Weve really seen an expansion in recent years of threats and killings of community leaders in the Peruvian Amazon. I wont say that all of them are directly related to drug mafias, says Andrew Miller, of Amazon Watch, an NGO. But I think a number seem pretty obviously connected to this broader struggle for control over the territory.

According to the Peruvian government, the region of Valle de los Ros Apurmac, Ene y Mantaro (VRAEM) accounted for 43% of coca grown in the country in 2020, out of a total illegal crop of 61,777 hectares (152,654 acres). Other Peruvian regions have seen increases too. [W]ere working with communities, in Ucayali and Huanaco. The Indigenous groups there say were the new VRAEM where the coca production is exploding, says Miller. Mongabay Latam last year identified 16 Indigenous communities threatened by deforestation due to drug trafficking in Ucayali alone.

In the 1980s and early 90s, cocaine flowed from South America to the U.S. through the Caribbean. As interdiction efforts shut down trafficking routes there, the drug was routed through Central American countries in transit to Mexico. By 2011, an estimated 60% of cocaine moved via Central America by land, sea and air, taking an environmental toll its forests and protected areas.

A 2022 study found that the Maya Biosphere Reserve lost as much as 234,612 hectares (579,739 acres) of forest between 2000 and 2018. It is one of Guatemalas most important biodiversity hotspots. Forest loss was particularly severe on the reserves western side, says study author Jonathan Vidal Solrzano, which could have consequences for iconic endangered species such as the jaguar.

The ideal scenario would be to have large areas where these jaguars can live and also corridors so they can move from Guatemala to Mexico, he explains. But nowadays theres practically no forest cover or normal, old-growth forests [on the Guatemalan side of the border]. Theres not so much connectivity as there used to be.

It is worth noting that in Guatemala, 27 of the 86 [protected areas] lost over 30% of forest cover during the period analyzed, and eight lost over 50%, the study notes, with Laguna del Tigre National Park, for example, losing 93,858 hectares (231,928 acres). Something has to change, particularly how protected areaswith large deforestation ratesare managed, says Solrzano.

While researchers stress that tying drug transport directly to land cover change is complex, and that tracing both direct and indirect impacts is not always possible, studies are connecting those dots. Research in 2017, for example determined that 15-30% of deforestation in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala was linked to narco-trafficking. This figure rose to as much as 30-60% in protected areas. These included Guatemalas MayaBiosphereReserve and Hondurass Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve. Those statistics, says Kendra McSweeney, professor of geography at Ohio State University and part of the study team, are likely underestimates.

McSweeney and other scientists see two links between cocaine trafficking and land-use change, what they describe as narco-deforestation and narco-degradation. In the first instance, forests are cut to make way for clandestine airstrips. That land is subsequently converted to cattle pasture to launder money and permanently claim territory. An influx of destabilizing cash may then follow, creating a synergy for the appearance of other industries, both licit and illicit. This ramps up further degradation and development.

A study released last year found that large-scale sustained forest losses of 713,244 hectares (1.76 million acres) in Guatemala and 417,329 hectares (1.03 million acres) in Honduras correspond with areas undergoing shifts in control towards large landowners, often related to narco-trafficking.

I dont think that its an overstatement to say that drug trafficking is one of the environmental concerns for Central America, says Jennifer Devine, at Texas State University, who researches the environmental impacts of narco-trafficking in Central America. Not just because of narco-cattle ranching, but because drug trafficking undermines systems of governance throughout the region.

The weakening of local governance generates myriad criminal problems, includingland grabbingin protected areas, infill of wetland areas, forest fires [set by land grabbers], illegal logging, mangrove degradation, timber poaching, flora and fauna trafficking, gold mining, and roadbuilding, Devine and others wrote in a published paper in 2020 examining the widespread impacts of drug trafficking going beyond deforestation.

Whats really concerning is that drug trafficking environmental impacts are affecting protected areas, says Devine, with laundered narco-capital and illicit ranching infiltrating forests which should be protected as being ecologically and culturally vital.

But researchers Devine and McSweeney stress that decoupling the environmental and human impacts of the war on drugs is simply not possible. Whats driving land-use change, whats driving deforestation, is the cat-and-mouse game of interdiction, says Devine. Its really important to remember that the approach to military interdiction is in large part responsible for a lot of the environmental impacts we see, including glyphosate being used in Colombia, [with] impacts on waterways, all the way to narco-cattle ranching in Central America.

Today, Panama and Costa Rica are becoming important cocaine trafficking nodes, with the lucrative European market as the final destination. The two nations accounted for 80% of drug seizures in Central America in 2021.

This shift occurred over the past decade, says Nicholas Magliocca, assistant professor of geography at the University of Alabama. Traffickers are regularly using Costa Ricas Osa Peninsula, on the countrys southwestern coast, as a transit point a region known for its biodiverse Corcovado National Park. While most drugs are thought to be shipped via maritime routes, air transport is also being spotted. Were starting to see some more of these clandestine airstrips show up, Magliocca says.

Costa Ricas attraction to traffickers is partly based on its legal maritime network, which can be exploited to move product. Late last year, for example, 1.2 metric tons of cocaine shipped in a container of bananas was seized in the United Kingdom.

Narco-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions are massive, notes Magliocca. But for him, the issue is also one of equity, because it is Indigenous peoples and traditional communities that are predominantly impacted by the interdiction game played between traffickers and law enforcement.

A recent study led by Magliocca found that when interdiction efforts in Central America forced traffickers to shift from one route to another, Indigenous lands were often a first choice. Protected areas and Indigenous territories offer that kind of contested land governance, marginalized populations, and remoteness that facilitate these operations. So theyre always going to be very attractive.

Unless you address those equity issues, and empower these populations, then youre not going to tackle the environmental sustainability issues, argues Magliocca.

A similar scenario is seen in producer countries such as Peru, according to Miller, with seizure of Indigenous lands by narco-traffickers, ranchers and others often tied up in a wider fight for recognition of land rights and land titles. The more immediate arguments that [these rural peoples] have been making is that the [ancestral land] rights of local communities need to be respected, he says.

That lack of respect is also apparent in Colombian national parks, where drug enforcement often involves the removal of long-established rural inhabitants from protected areas; a practice that isnt working, Rueda says. She suggests that a window of opportunity now exists for the government to enter into agreements with communities located in, or around, parks, providing traditional people with alternative sustainable livelihoods linked to conservation.

Its all about moving towards the inclusion of the environmental approach within alternative development, Rueda says. This is a social issue and were [erroneously] dealing with it as a criminal issue.

In Mexico, drug-trafficking organizations have been traced to environmental crimes such as illegal logging. Likewise, theyve entered into legal businesses to invest and launder illicit profits including the lucrative avocado market, for example causing further forest loss and pressure on freshwater. Recent research by Felbab-Brown highlights growing connections between Mexican drug-trafficking organizations and wildlife trafficking to China.

Oftentimes, the linkages between the cartels and wildlife trafficking are exaggerated, she states. But based on field research, thats not the case in Mexico. Drug traffickers there, she found, are now mixed up in a variety of trading schemes, ranging from the legal commercial fisheries industry to the illegal trafficking of endangered totoaba, sea cucumbers and terrestrial species such as jaguars.

Narco penetration into fisheries is a well-known phenomenon, with fishing vessels often used to transit drug shipments. A 2020 report noted 292 cases of seizures on such vessels between 2010 and 2017 globally, with combined volume of 522.1 metric tons worth $16.5 billion. While this figure includes multiple illicit drugs such as marijuana and methamphetamine, cocaine made up roughly half of the seizures.

In addition, [B]ecause of the large volumes [of drugs] being traded the cartels are using barter in wildlife as a transfer of value between illegal economies, says Felbab-Brown. Wildlife products, she explains, are now traded by drug-trafficking organizations in exchange for the precursor chemicals used to make synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine. The problem of synthetic drugs continues to grow year-on-year in the region. The full findings will be released in a series of reports in the coming months.

This generates a great threat to biodiversity in Mexico, says Felbab-Brown, especially since it has done little to curb wildlife trafficking to China.

Back in producer countries, drug-trafficking organizations are also linked to illicit and licit trades, including wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, and gold mining. Drug traffickers may not engage in these activities directly, but the infrastructure, routes and transport methods they create are used to facilitate these other forms of crime, says Daan van Uhm, assistant professor in criminology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

On the Colombia-Panama border in the Darin region, groups involved in cocaine production, such as the Gulf Cartel, branched out into gold mining in recent years. Gold mining and smuggling has been dubbed one of the easiest and most lucrative money laundering tools in the history of drug trafficking in Colombia. It also puts pressure on forests and biodiversity, and contaminates water with chemicals such as mercury.

Last year, the Gulf Cartels leader was arrested and the Colombian government optimistically declared the end of the countrys largest illegal drug operation. But the majority of the networks there are operating as substructures, explains van Uhm, who carried out field research in the Darin region between 2017 and 2019. They are connected to each other, but they can operate independently. I cant imagine that [the arrest] has impacts on the organization of cocaine trafficking or on environmental-related crimes.

Cocaines environmental damage is less visible in consumer countries where no forests are felled to produce and transport coca but harm is still being done. Once coke is snorted, smoked, injected or otherwise ingested, the body metabolizes most of it. But some is excreted in urine, enters directly into waterways, or passes through wastewater treatment plants that dont necessarily remove all of it,

The study of cocaine and other illicit drugs in wastewater isnt new. For years, this esoteric branch of science, known as wastewater epidemiology, has been used to investigate drug trends in cities and countries around the world.

The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has been running such tests across the EU since 2011, tracing cocaines main metabolite, benzoylecgonine. The latest findings from 2020 showed some of the highest consumption in urban areas including Antwerp, Belgium; Amsterdam in the Netherlands; and Zurich, Switzerland. Similar methods have tracked drug use at public events such as music festivals and even college basketball games in the U.S.

Though the detection of drug-use trends via wastewater data is well established, what this outflow of coke means for the environment is poorly understood. But a growing number of studies have begun to shed light on this question, with troubling findings.

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List. Anna Capaldo, a professor at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy, and her colleagues have been studying cocaines effect on the species. The damages induced by cocaine suggest that this drug affects the physiology of the eels, and potentially of all the aquatic species exposed to it, she states.

Though this research was conducted in labs, it utilized levels of exposure that can be found in natural aquatic ecosystems, showing the potential harm. For example, when the gills are damaged [by cocaine exposure], the eels ability to oxygenate blood worsens. In the same way, a damaged skeletal muscle could not support the swimming of eels during their reproductive migration to the [Atlantic Oceans] Sargasso Sea.

Capaldo and her team are currently studying cocaine impacts on eel reproduction and brain function. Other studies have shown that mussels, sea urchins and zebrafish species are impacted.

An estimated 20 million people used cocaine in 2019 about 0.4% of the worlds adult population. In North America, 6.9 million people and in Europe 5 million are thought to use coke annually. Though consumption is highest in these two regions, studies are finding traces of cocaine in wastewater globally from Barbados to Brazil. The latter treats about 43% of its wastewater, though this plummets to 5% in rural areas. Cocaine and benzoylecgonine are among the pollutants regularly emitted into the Amazon River.

Cocaine is extremely damaging, but it does degrade relatively quickly in the environment, explains Dan Aberg at the Wolfson Carbon Capture Lab at Bangor University in Wales. However, that quick degradation may be offset by the steady flow of cocaine residues into the environment via wastewater.

Last year, Aberg and his team investigated the presence of cocaine and other pollutants released into waterways at the Glastonbury Festival, one of the U.K.s largest music events. Levels of cocaine released during the festivals surge were high enough to be potentially damaging to the European eel, says Aberg. In this case, exposure was mostly due to open-field urination and a lack of wastewater treatment.

Cocaine is far from the only pollutant entering waterways, estuaries and oceans. Its part of a toxic cocktail of pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, pesticides, microplastics and much more, that makes up wastewater and sewage. Recently, the Stockholm Resilience Centre, an international consortium of scientists, declared that the planetary boundary for novel entities chemical contaminants introduced by humanity has been transgressed, putting Earths operating systems and human civilization at risk. Cocaine excreted via urine, along with the toxic precursors used in its production, are among the many tens of thousands of novel entities of emerging concern.

A 2020 study led by Pavel Hork at the Czech University of Life Sciences grabbed headlines. His research showed that exposure to methamphetamine another illicit drug identified in wastewater samples altered behavior patterns and elicited signs of addiction in brown trout (Salmo trutta). To date, no one knows how drug mixtures, such as meth and cocaine, might combine with other pollutants to impact aquatic species.

I totally agree with the Stockholm Resilience Centre that chemical pollution is one of the greatest threats for life in general, [as we pass] the novel entities boundary, says Hork. There are a lot of contaminants of emerging concern, not only illicit drugs, but also standard prescription medicines like antidepressants and many others that are overused by human society. Their risks may vary along with their additive, synergistic or antagonistic effects.

Despite the fact that our knowledge is increasing, we are still at the beginning, he warns.

There are ways of guarding against this form of environmental harm. Removing cocaine residues from wastewater is possible, though treatment facilities vary in effectiveness. Other nature-based solutions, such as constructed wetlands, offer cleanup alternatives.

In Horks mind, there is an easier and cheaper solution: The best pollutant is the one that is not released in the environment, he states. Everybody should think about it and use medicines, drugs and other chemicals responsibly [and for] real need.

Banner image: Coca plantation on a hillside near Caranavi, western Bolivia. Image by Neil Palmer/CIAT via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

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All coked up: The global environmental impacts of cocaine - Mongabay.com