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Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1061 -- 4/11/19
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1061

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. THE WAR ON COCAINE ONLY STRENGTHENS DRUG CARTELS, STUDY FINDS [FEATURE]
It's not ineffective interdiction that helps drug trafficking
organizations expand, but interdiction itself. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/10/war_cocaine_only_strengthens

2. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
Florida battle brews over limiting THC in smokable marijuana, Michigan's unlicensed dispensaries get at least a temporary reprieve, Oregon
growers get a heads up from regulators, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/10/medical_marijuana_update

3. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A North Carolina deputy tries to set up his ex-grlfriend's new
boyfriend, a former Texas cop heads to federal prison for helping a "rip
crew" steal loads of dope, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/10/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

4. CHRONICLE AM: CA CITIES SUE STATE OVER POT DELIVERIES, FED BILL
TARGETS CHINESE FENTANYL, MORE... (4/8/19)
A Hawaii decriminalization bill nears passage, some California cities
are suing the state over being forced to allow marijuana deliveries, the
3rd Circuit clarifies the law on intent to distribute, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/08/chronicle_am_ca_cities_sue_state

5. CHRONICLE AM: CO DRUG DEFELONIZATION BILL ADVANCES, CT LEGALIZATION
BILLS ADVANCE, MORE... (4/9/19)
A drug defelonization bill advances in Colorado, marijuana legalization
bills advance in Connecticut, Oregon medical marijuana growers are put
on notice, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/09/chronicle_am_co_drug

6. CHRONICLE AM: TRUMP AG OPEN TO STATES SETTING POT POLICY, FEDERAL
REENTRY BILL FILED, MORE... (4/10/19)
Trump's attorney general is down with letting states decide their own
pot policies, New York City bans most pre-employment drug testing for marijuana, a federal bill to increase educational opportunities for
prisoners gets filed, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/10/chronicle_am_trump_ag_open

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1. THE WAR ON COCAINE ONLY STRENGTHENS DRUG CARTELS, STUDY FINDS [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/apr/10/war_cocaine_only_strengthens

If you've spent nearly a half-century and $250 billion trying to stop
the flow of cocaine into the US and the white powder is now cheaper and
more plentiful than ever, maybe it's time to rethink. That's the
implicit lesson lurking behind a new study (https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/03/26/1812459116) on the impact
of drug interdiction efforts on drug trafficking organizations.

Interdiction is the supply side approach to reducing drug use. Rather
than reducing demand through education, prevention, and treatment,
interdiction seeks to reduce the supply of drugs available domestically
by blocking them en route to the US or at the border.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and
conducted by scientists from a half-dozen American universities, the
study relied on a computer model called NarcoLogic that shows how drug traffickers respond to interdiction strategies and tactics. More
sophisticated than previous attempts to simulate the drug trade,
NarcoLogic models local- and network-level trafficking dynamics at the
same time.

"Our team consists of researchers who worked in different parts of
Central America during the 2000s and witnessed a massive surge of drugs
into the region that coincided with a reinvigoration of the war on
drugs," David Wrathall of Oregon State University's College of Earth,
Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences said in a press release (https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/osu-cm040219.php)
announcing the research results. "We asked ourselves: did drug
interdiction push drug traffickers into these places?"

The short answer is yes, and that has implications that go far beyond
drug policy. The Central American migrants who are at the center of the
current "border crisis" are fleeing not only poverty but also high
levels of violence generated by the movement of Mexican drug trafficking
groups into the region a decade ago as they faced increasing
interdiction efforts at home and from US authorities.

In fact, although it is not addressed in this new research, it was
earlier interdiction efforts aimed at Colombian cocaine trafficking
groups in the 1980s that led directly to the transformation of formerly small-scale Mexican cross-border smuggling organizations into the Frankenstein's monster of drug prohibition that the cartels are today.
With the Colombians under intense pressure, Mexican traffickers rose to
the occasion and have been making billions of dollars a year ever since.

This despite five decades of US interdiction efforts with an average
annual expenditure of $5 billion. Instead of curbing the flow of cocaine
into the United States, all that has been accomplished is making the
drug trafficking operations more widespread and harder to eradicate.
Putting pressure on one route or location simply leads traffickers to
scatter and regroup. This is the "balloon effect," where suppressing
traffic or production in one area prompts it to pop up elsewhere, and
the "cockroach effect," where traffickers simply decentralize their
operations.

"Between 1996 and 2017, the Western Hemisphere transit zone grew from 2
million to 7 million square miles, making it more difficult and costly
for law enforcement to track and disrupt trafficking networks," Wrathall
said. "But as trafficking spread, it triggered a host of
smuggling-related collateral damages: violence, corruption,
proliferation of weapons, and extensive and rapid environmental
destruction."

And for all that effort, the impact on cocaine price and availability
has been negligible -- or even perverse.

"Wholesale cocaine prices in the United States have actually dropped significantly since 1980, deaths from cocaine overdose are rising, and counterdrug forces intercept cocaine shipments at a low rate. More
cocaine entered the United States in 2015 than in any other year,"
Wrathall said. "And one thing people who support interdiction and those
who don't can agree on is that change is needed. This model can help
determine what that change should look like."

The main takeaway from the study is not that drug trafficking became
more widespread and resilient because of ineffective interdiction
efforts, but because of interdiction itself. The policy aimed at
suppressing the drug trade has only made it stronger and wealthier.

"The study is a victory for observation and theory. This model
successfully recreates the dynamic our team had observed," Wrathall
said. "It tells us that increased interdiction will continue to push traffickers into new areas, spreading networks, and allowing them to
continue to move drugs north."

Maybe it is time to try something different.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter (https://independentmediainstitute.org/drug-reporter/), a project of the Independent Media Institute.
================ ...
___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
Truth:the Anti-drugwar
<http://www.briancbennett.com>

Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

bliss -- Cacao Powered... (-SF4ever at DSLExtreme dot com)

--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacao that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

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