U.S. antes up to fight drugs in Mexico, as it cuts funding for programs here

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: SPI

Yet the ongoing U.S. efforts to help others eradicate illicit crops, destroy drug labs, dismantle cartels and halt drug shipments may also be masking a denial about the conditions of stateside drug-fighting programs.

Last week, during a congressional hearing about the Merida Initiative hosted by the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, Bush administration officials provided a list of programs they hope will be enhanced in order to play a greater supportive role in Mexico's drug-fighting efforts.

Subcommittee Chairman Eliot Engel wasn't too pleased to hear this and criticized the administration for the steady decline in support for domestic treatment and prevention programs since 2005, including a $73 million cut proposed in the 2009 budget.

But according to Robert Charles, who served as assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement between 2003 and 2005, an even more "egregious example of misunderstanding" of how grave the drug problem is in the United States is reflected in the administration's continued cuts in law enforcement funding. While he supports the foreign programs, Charles fears that by undermining U.S. efforts to battle organized crime and drug trafficking, the government appears to be treating symptoms far away for a "disease that is infecting us here."

Task forces that coordinate anti-drug efforts by local, state and federal agents may disappear altogether. In every budget request since 2005, Bush has eliminated all funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, which underwrites these task forces. While Congress managed to restore some of the funding every year, last-minute negotiations in fiscal 2008 reduced it to $170 million, one-third of the budget allocation in 2007.

In a Feb. 1 letter to Bush, Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and drugs, urged the president to restore funding for the Byrne grants and a community policing program known as COPS. Both programs were marked for no appropriations in Bush's 2009 budget request. In the 1990s, both programs received more than $2 billion per year and helped drive "crime rates down by 30 percent," wrote Biden.



Read more: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/351480_sanchez17.html

[acmavm]

1. Another lost war being fought by the US government. Well, at least its

a way for the CIA and the bush** admin to pick up some spare cash.

[EFerrari]

11. I don't believe we are fighting the "drug war" either in Mexico

or in Colombia. BushCo is bribing those governments.

[acmavm]

12. That's all the so-called 'drug war' has ever been. A great big cash cow

for supporters of whatever corporate sponsored regime we have or had at any given time.

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. Makes one wonder - Billions spent on prohibition of alcohol, but now it's legal.

.
.
.
Prohibition didn't work,

But that was before the USA was given the nomenclature of "SuperPower"

Now the USA thinks they can do whatever they want

Using terms like "War on Drugs" - "War on Terror" and so on to put their forces in other countries.

I listened to a tape tonight by George Carlin - some of you might know it, and George expounded on why the United States doesn't have a "War on homelessnesses"

His answer was, cuz there is no money in it (for the Korporate world)

Ah - I dunno

I hope to be able to just go off in the bush and spend the rest of my life gathering food and wood to survive - somewhere away from all this madness.

This global war thing I can do without.

Thanks George.

[defendandprotect]

5. This is another farce war --- just like VN and Iraq -- big payoffs for fascists ---

Anyone believe this phony War on Drugs?

[flashl]

7. Only U.S. citizens appears to not know or understand ...

At the climax of one of the biggest undercover money-laundering investigations in United States history, federal agents seized $1.8 million in 1998 from Citibank accounts in New York that were held by a mysterious Cayman Islands bank that had no corporate offices anywhere in the world.

But despite indications that the money had come from drug dealers in Mexico, Citibank continued to do business with the Caymans bank for almost two years, moving another $300 million through the accounts before they were finally closed by Citibank.

Citibank Criticized for Slow Response to Money Laundering Scheme

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has report that "the aggregate size of money laundering in the world could be somewhere between 2-5% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Using 1996 statistics, these percentages would indicate that money laundering ranged between U.S. $ 590 billion and U.S. $ 1.5 trillion ."10

American money laundering in the United States and internationally is a key issue. Ninety-one percent (91%) of the billions of U.S. dollars spent on cocaine in the United States stays in the United States. It is deposited in the US and Canadian banking system. The narcotics trade helps accumulate hard currency into the American and Canadian economies.11

The extent of money laundering in the United States can be grasped when it is realized that practically every American dollar in circulation in the United States contains "microscopic traces" of cocaine. This is no mere urban legend, but a verified fact supported by scientists, forensics experts and the FBI. Traces of cocaine on American paper money signifies the extensive use of cash as a means of payment in drug deals.

The War in Afghanistan: Drugs, Money Laundering and the Banking System

Stopping drug trafficking would bring the U.S. economy to a halt.

[defendandprotect]

17. I only know part of the Citibank story because of . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters who managed to get some of that info out at one of the hearings --- !!!

indicate that money laundering ranged between U.S. $ 590 billion and U.S. $ 1.5 trillion ."

The MINIMUM is 590 BILLION . . . !!!!

I would think that the Euro's impact might begin to make this a bit more difficult for them....????

[mac2]

10. In Canada they have those government run stores

who sell alcohol. Is that in every area of Canada?

[ConcernedCanuk]

15. It's actually private business, REGULATED by provincial governments

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I can't tell you about the whole country, but I can tell you about Ontario

"The Beer Store is owned by three Ontario brewers: Labatt, Molson and Sleeman. While the company is private, the nature of the industry means that laws and regulations impact our business. As a result, The Beer Store management maintains a close working relationship with the Government of Ontario through the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), and the Ministry of Government Services. Through these agencies, the Ontario Government regulates issues such as minimum age for purchase, hours of sale, selling price, labeling and product integrity, and approval of store locations.

[mac2]

20. Do you think this is a good or bad thing Canada?

[mac2]

3. You mean like when Bush sent Bin Laden $40M

to fight drugs in Afghanistan just prior to 911 (August I think it was)? He owed him money from a bad oil deal. We the tax payers paid for it.

"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than a small one" Adolf Hitler: 'Mein Kampf'

[Quantess]

4. How will attacking supply ever work, when there is a big demand?

It's futile.

[bamacrat]

6. Free the weed!!

I'm all for stopping the cocaine and heroin but if they legalized weed, took all the money used to enforced dumbass marijuana laws and used it for education we would dominate the academic world. So sad, our gov't would rather see us dumb and poor than smart, happy, prosperous and high.

:smoke:

[mac2]

8. Drugs are huge profits for the Bush gang

Like the Queen did to China with drugs, the Neo Cons are using it to destroy our citizens and cities so they can rule.

[mac2]

9. I did weed research and it is not good for you

especially in the impure form. You don't know what is in there. We tested the various samples and the impurities were numerous. Illegal alcohol had the same problems.

THC goes to the fat cells in your lungs and accumulates over time. It also does that in the brain. There is memory loss and lung problems long term. Even effects your ability to reproduce.

It increases your appetiate...which is good for medical use but not if you want to stay fit and healthy. I approve of pure forms being used medically.

Smoking anything into your body is just not a good thing period.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Well, Mac2, you may be right, but that is not the issue. The issue is social

regulation--regulation of a free people--and the corrupt, corrosive, hypocritical, criminal, useless, failed, horrendously expensive and extremely destructive "war on drugs" and its associated police state establishment and "prison-industrial complex," not to mention the official and criminal weapons trafficking that is fostered by massive U.S. military spending in countries like Mexico and Colombia, where the firepower is used as much on union organizers, poor peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers, journalists and peaceful protesters, as it is on drug traffickers.

Guatemala recently elected a progressive government on a platform of NOT militarizing the drug problem. That is the trend, as country after country sees what the "war on drugs" is all about--fascist repression that actually fosters more criminal activity, and furthermore creates militarized U.S. client states. Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador have officially bailed out of the "war on drugs." Indeed, ONLY the few remaining fascist/corporate countries want this "war"--because it means U.S. military funding, which means fascist power.

The citizens of the U.S. in the late 1920s had the good sense to call a halt to the madness of Prohibition. We now have huge chunks of our economy feeding like sucklings on the taxpayers' tit, in a "war" that CANNOT be won, but they will not admit it, because they are entrenched and dependent on it for their livelihoods, and in some cases, cushy livelihoods. And the "war on drugs" is very similar to the war on Iraq, in that respect. It is conducted by self-fueling war profiteers.

Let people alone! Advise them, yes. Provide voluntary treatment for addiction, yes. Provide good medical care to all, yes. Criminalize them for HABITS? Insanity! Therein lies the ruination of our economy, our society, our government and our country.

What we have done in criminalizing drug use is absolutely nuts. It will never, ever solve the problem. It only feeds the problem, and makes it worse.

[fascisthunter]

14. I Agree, Drug Addiction Should Be Treated as a Medical Issue

There is no logic to punishing addicts like criminals. It maintains a vicious cycle and harms society even more. It's about $$$$$$.

[mac2]

16. How else would the private prison system have slave

labor? They put them in jail for ridiculous periods of time so they can use the free labor source. We have more prisoners than China (and their population is a lot larger).

[defendandprotect]

18. EXACTLY --- !!! That's a BIG issue . . .

[mac2]

19. Why haven't the candidates talked about this problem of

privitization of our citizens for cheap labor?

[defendandprotect]

22. They don't want to stick their necks out and Wolfie isn't going to ask them --- !!!

PLUS, we're creating a huge problem down the road because many of these people do come out of
jail eventually --- and I don't image they're the same people!!!

[High Plains]

21. There is a huge law enforcement campaign going on...

...to restore that Byrne grant funding. This is the money that funds all those multijurisdictional anti-drug task forces. You know, the guys who brought us Tulia. That funding should NOT be restored.

This is the one issue on which I agree with the Bush administration: If the states wish to spend their precious tax dollars paying for cops to be anti-drug cowboys, let the states pay for it.

Fuck the drug war.

[mac2]

23. Only the poor go to jail

The political leaders like Bush who put border patrol guys in jail for killing drug dealers go free and profit the most.