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Powerful Words for Newly Sober Mike Tyson after Only 6 Days of Recovery

Fox 11 Los Angeles: Ray Lozano Speaks to the Dangers of Marijuana Wax

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The Hill: White House: Obama Not Ready to Back Legalized Marijuana

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that President Obama does not "at this point advocate a change" in how marijuana is classified, despite believing that targeting individual pot smokers was "not the best allocation for federal law enforcement resources."

"The priority in terms of the dedication of law enforcement resources should be targeted toward our drug kingpins, drug traffickers and others who perpetrate violence in the conduct of the drug trade," Earnest told reporters.  The statement comes as Colorado and Washington await word on how the Justice Department will respond to passage of laws in each state that legalize the sale of marijuana. The practice is banned under the federal Controlled Substances Act.  

It also follows a column earlier this month from CNN medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, who apologized for dismissing the medicinal benefits of the drug. Gupta was widely reported as under consideration for nomination as surgeon general after President Obama's election in 2008, before ultimately removing his name from consideration.  “We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that,” Gupta wrote.

Earnest said he was not sure whether Obama would be willing to take administrative steps to make it easier to conduct medical tests of marijuana.  "I'm not exactly sure steps are required or what changes could be implemented into the law to have an impact on marijuana research," he said.  But the White House spokesman wryly acknowledged that the subject garnered lots of interest.  "For some reason I have the sneaking suspicion that this is going to draw me all kinds of traffic on Twitter," Earnest quipped.

Source:  www.thehill.com 

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Attorney General Eric Holder’s Speech at the American Bar Association on Reducing Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Non-Violent Drug Offenders Leaves Much to be Desired in Terms of Recovery

By Alexandra D. Datig

Reduction of mandatory minimum sentences for low level, non-violent, drug offenders is a novel concept.  In my opinion it is even a very good idea that will save the taxpayer money and might show a glimmer of promise that a drug offender can get the help and understanding he or she needs form a community.  But what exactly are we talking about?  Did Attorney General Eric Holder cover all the bases? 

The United States has around 330 million people.  Of those people many do not understand the difference between jail and prison.  Most also don’t understand the difference between state and federal prison or the private prison system.  Therefore, when Attorney General Eric Holder goes before the American Bar Association and says there are more than 50% of people in federal prison on drug charges, the general population has no concept of what he is talking about.  Most people are not aware that state prisons have, give or take, 1.4 million inmates and federal prisons have roughly 210,000 inmates  (Bureau of Prisons, 2011).  In 2007, 95,446 federal prisoners were drug offenders (Bureau of Prisons, 2007).  But what does that exactly mean?

The criminal justice system relies heavily on plea-bargaining, charge bargaining and sentence bargaining.  Without those tools the criminal justice system would implode.  Only 2% of all cases in the United States actually go to trial.  What this really means is that most cases have charges for a variety of crimes that are bargained down to a lesser sentence.  Therefore, the 95,446 federal prisoners who were drug offender in 2007, were in fact plea-bargained down to a lesser charge ending in a sentence for a drug offense.  Fact is we don’t really know what their crimes actually were.  Only less than 1% of those drug offenders were in federal prison for drug offenses only.  For state prison, in case you were curious, the percentage of drug offenders is 19%.

Attorney General Eric Holder also spoke about the racial disparity in the United States prison system.  This is a serious issue and one of the main reasons for it is the lack of a full-spectrum approach with a working addiction recovery program and a job program that has a direct linkage to a job in the community once a prisoner is released.  The simple truth is, communities are not willing to embrace prisoners back into the community as rehabilitated human beings because there is wide-spread evidence that rehabilitation programs are ineffective, especially in the under served communities.

In 2007, the racial breakdown in the overall prison system was 34.1 percent white, 38.2 percent black, 20.8 percent Hispanic, and 6.9 percent other minority.  Blacks represent 12.6% of the U.S. population where whites represent 72.4%.  Latinos represent 16.4% of the population.  The number of blacks in prison clearly shows a disparity of incarceration, yet at the same time blacks are also committing half of the murders in the Untied States. 

The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country in the world.  The U.S. also has 5% of the world’s population and consumes 66% of it’s drugs (Take Back America Campaign).  Therefore, we should be very careful to buy into the argument of allowing shorter prison terms without a solution for a working recovery program which solves the problem of addiction.  More than 70% of all recovery establishments use the 12-Step program which is a great program if taught correctly.  Unfortunately, only 3-7% of those who enter the 12-Step program at the community based level actually find solid recovery.  That means most people who enter the 12-Step program do not make it in his or her first year.  History has also shown that most addicts, who die, do so from relapse at a far more rapid rate when compared to first time use.

We would be well served by not treating every drug offender like a nail that is hit with the same hammer a drug trafficker is hit with.  However, we are still sending these offenders back into a community with problems they have not learned how to deal with on their own and are thereby overwhelmed because they are not able to find solutions. 

Over the years, the Department of Justice has reaffirmed again and again, that drug abuse and criminal behavior are strongly connected.  If we are going to deal with the staggering recidivism rate and the overcrowding of prisons by reducing mandatory minimum sentences, we must also be able to offer something to the non-violent drug offender that makes his or her life tolerable and does not end in going back to addiction and committing crime.

Associated Press: Eduardo Arellano Felix Tijuana Drug Cartel Leader Gets 15 Years

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The last of four brothers accused of creating an infamous Mexican drug cartel was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to helping send hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from the United States.

Eduardo Arellano Felix, 56, was sentenced under terms spelled out in a plea agreement struck with prosecutors in May. It marks one of the final milestones in an investigation that began two decades ago.

The Tijuana-based Arellano Felix family moved hundreds of tons of cocaine and marijuana from Mexico and Colombia and profited hundreds of millions of dollars, authorities say.

The family slowly lost its grip along California's border with Mexico over the past decade, while the Sinaloa cartel emerged as the most powerful group in the highly coveted corridor for bringing drugs to the United States.

Eduardo Arellano Felix was extradited from Mexico in August 2012 to face charges in San Diego. He was arrested in October 2008 in a shootout with Mexican authorities at his Tijuana home that was witnessed by his 11-year-old daughter.

Benjamin Arellano Felix, described by U.S. and Mexican authorities as the cartel's mastermind, was sentenced to 25 years in U.S. prison last year after being extradited from Mexico, where he was arrested in 2002. Ramon Arellano Felix, the cartel's top enforcer, was killed in a shootout with Mexican authorities in 2002.

Another brother, Francisco Javier, was sentenced in 2007 to life in prison after the U.S. Coast Guard captured him in a fishing boat in international waters off Mexico's Baja California coast.

U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy, who built her career on the Arellano Felix investigation, said the three living brothers terrorized the border for decades, ordering assassinations and corrupting countless public officials.

They are "now confined to maximum-security prison cells for a very long time," Duffy said. "I urge others who aspire to take their place to take note."

NNOAC Position on Attorney General Eric Holder's Smart on Crime Initiative

Some of the key assumptions baked into reform proposals are plainly inaccurate. State and federal prisons are NOT filled with low-level non-violent drug possession offenders. The administration and reformers fail to offer any hard numbers on convicts in prison who are there as a result of mandatory minimum sentences for low-level possession. Many of those who are serving prison sentences for drug crimes are there because of their continued recidivism and disregard for the laws, not just simple possession of controlled substances. 

The facts don't lie. Crime statistics indicate that violent crime and other categories of crime have fallen dramatically over the past 30 years. Since 1992 the violent crime rate is down almost 50% and the property crime rate is down more than 40%. In addition, drug use has declined between 15% and 50% for various drugs. Statistics show that less than 3% of state inmates and less than 1% of federal inmates are actually serving time for drug possession alone. The picture painted by reformers and by the Attorney General of a broken system and prisons stuffed with non-violent drug possessors is clearly not reality. 

[Note: See ONDCP report at www.prisonpolicy.org] 

Often forgotten in the policy debates is that drug trafficking itself is a crime of violence. Firearms and gang intimidation are tools of the drug trade, but even those who are involved in the less visible and less violent aspects of drug trafficking are responsible for the delivery of poison that results in abuse, addiction, and overdose deaths for more than 30,000 of our citizens each year. Drug traffickers do not discriminate - they sell their products to anyone who wants them, and by doing so they facilitate the ruin of American lives. 

There are ways to improve outcomes and reduce costs in the criminal justice system, and ways to reduce recidivism through effective reentry programs. Diversion programs and drug courts have been proven to be very effective. Access to effective treatment for incarcerated addicts is essential. Proven prevention programs should be spread widely. We support those efforts. It is also important to remember that all of those who enter diversion programs and drug courts and many who enter treatment programs end up there because of the efforts of law enforcement. If not for intervention by law enforcement, many of those people would not have access to treatment. 

It is essential to acknowledge that the totality of our crime and drug control policies – including sentencing policies – of the past 30 years have been successful in reducing crime and drug use. Reformers often talk about failed policies and a “broken system”, but the fact is that our policies have largely had 
their intended effect. 

Research shows that social disapproval of drug use, helped in large measure by the fact that drug use is illegal, leads to less demand for drugs and therefore less use. Research also shows that when cultural approval of drug use increases, drug demand and availability increases, followed by use. The costs to society of increased drug use and increased recidivism are massive. Statistics show the crime and drug use costs American society billions of dollars every year. 

As we work to improve criminal justice policies and reduce costs we must keep these facts in mind. If we step backward on drug and sentencing policies, we will likely see a reversal in progress on crime and drug use rates and an increase in financial costs to society. Parents, communities, and the nation at large cannot afford to backslide on crime and drug policy. 
The men and women on the front lines of law enforcement - including America's narcotic officers - have played a vital role in our nation's crime and drug use reductions over the last 30 years. The voices and real-world perspectives of those officers must be considered as policy makers address these issues. We look forward to working with policy makers to build on our historic accomplishments and continue improving criminal justice outcomes.

National Narcotics Officers Association Coalition Website:  www.www.natlnarc.org 

Five Years From Now's Alexandra D. Datig Appears on Arizona Politics & Culture with Seth Leibsohn & Tom Brown

Humor: Alcohol Test Gag

BBC: Mexico Gulf Cartel leader Mario Ramirez Trevino Captured

Mexican troops captured one of the country's most wanted drug-gang leaders in a raid on Saturday.  Mario Ramirez Trevino, known as X-20, is said to be the head of the cocaine and marijuana-smuggling Gulf Cartel. It is the second high-profile arrest since President Enrique Pena Nieto came to power last December.  The US government was offering a reward of $5m (£3.2m) for information leading to the capture of Mr Ramirez, while Mexico offered about $3m.

Ramirez Trevino is thought to have taken over as leader of the Gulf Cartel after the arrest of Jorge Eduardo Costilla, known as The Coss, last September.  Mexican media reported that the drug lord was arrested by a joint Army and Marines operation in Rio Bravo, in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

'As violent as Trevino Morales'

The interior ministry confirmed the arrest on Twitter.  "This morning, the Mexican Army has captured Mario Armando Ramirez Trevino," it said.  The Mexican authorities are expected to make a formal announcement of the arrest on Sunday and have so far not provided much detail on the arrest.

The leader of the Gulf Cartel was wanted by US authorities since 2006.  He is considered "at least as violent" the leader of the notoriously brutal Zetas cartel, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, who was also arrested last month.  Authorities believe he had enough influence to attempt unifying the Gulf and Zeta cartels, which used to be one organization until its leadership split up in 2010, Mexican media reports.

The Zetas began as the enforcement arm of the Gulf Cartel, another powerful criminal gang.  Trevino Morales was detained in July.  This is the second high-profile arrest since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office last December.  In July, authorities announced the arrest of Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the alleged leader of the brutal Zetas.

Mr. Pena Nieto promised to change the policy of the previous government by tackling cartels through law enforcement on a local level rather than the capture of big-name targets.  Ex-President Felipe Calderon had deployed the army across the country and pursued cartel leaders.  Although the policy eliminated many senior criminal figures, it also created power vacuums that helped fuel the violence.

Source:  www.bbc.co.uk.com

AP: Drug Lord's Release Painful for Victims' Relatives

DEA Agent, Enrique "Kiki" Camarena

By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press

Updated 10:49 am, Saturday, August 17, 2013

MEXICO CITY (AP) — On a sunny winter morning in 1984, two young American couples dressed in their Sunday best walked door to door in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, trying to spread their faith asJehovah's Witnesses. A few hours later they disappeared.

The next month an American journalist went out with a friend at the end of a yearlong sabbatical writing a mystery novel. The two men also vanished.

Within 10 days, Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was kidnapped too, then tortured and killed by Mexico's most powerful drug cartel, setting off one of the worst episodes of U.S.-Mexico tension in recent decades. As DEA agents hunted for Camarena's killers, some witnesses told them that the cartel had mistaken the other six Americans for undercover agents and killed them just like Camarena.

Cartel leader Rafael Caro Quintero walked free this month, 12 years early, after a local appeals court overturned his sentence for three of the murders. For the U.S. and Mexico, Caro Quintero's secretive, pre-dawn release has set off a frantic effort to get the drug lord back behind bars. For the families of the six Americans slain before Camarena, the decision has awakened bitter memories of the brutality that ushered in the modern era of Mexican drug trafficking.

"I just never imagined that this would happen, that Caro Quintero would be walking around free at the age of 60," said journalist John Clay Walker's widow, Eve, who lives in Atlanta. "There's probably not been a day in the last 30 years that I haven't missed my husband and wished that he was here to see the girls grow up.

"It was tough to do it alone but I kind of had the consolation of knowing that the responsible people were in prison and that they would stay there."

The systematic killing of seven Americans in three months stands out even in the long and bloody history of the U.S.-backed effort to quash Mexican drug trafficking. Tens of thousands of Mexicans have died, and dozens of Americans have been killed in cartel-related violence, often because of ties to people involved in drug trafficking. But assassinating U.S. law-enforcement agents remains a taboo for most Mexican organized crime, as does the deliberate targeting of Americans with no ties to the drug war.

Walker was 37 when, according to some witnesses, he and his friend Alberto Radelat, a dentist from Fort Worth, Texas, walked into "The Lobster," a high-end Guadalajara seafood restaurant where Caro Quintero and his companions were holding a private party. Others have said Walker and Radelat were kidnapped off the street by Caro Quintero's men as the cartel frantically hunted for the DEA agents behind an aggressive U.S. push against large marijuana-growing and smuggling operations.

Walker and Radelat's tortured bodies were found a little more than five months later in a park outside Guadalajara. Walker's wife Eve helped identify the bodies. Their daughters Keely and Lannie were in elementary school at home in Minneapolis.

Under intense U.S. pressure, Caro Quintero was arrested along with the two other heads of their Guadalajara-based drug organization, splitting the monolithic cartel into smaller groups, including the Sinaloa cartel that has come to dominate Mexican drug trafficking along the Pacific Coast and much of the rest of the country.

Caro Quintero was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murders of Camarena, Walker and Radelat, among other crimes.

On Aug. 7, however, a three-judge federal appeals court in the western state of Jalisco found that he should have been tried in state, not federal, court, and vacated his sentence. The U.S. has issued a new arrest warrant for Caro Quintero's arrest, and Mexico's federal court says it is trying to find him again. Both governments say they disagree with the court decision and some U.S. officials believe corruption is a likely explanation for the otherwise inexplicable ruling.

"It's salt in a wound," Keely Walker said of Caro Quintero's release. "I thought it was all over with, he's in prison."

Her father was a Marine who was twice wounded by land mines in Vietnam and then worked as a newspaper journalist before taking his family to Mexico so he could write his book in a place where his pension could stretch further. He and his wife were befriended by Radelat, a dentist looking at taking classes at the main university in Guadalajara.

A Catholic by birth, Benjamin Mascarenas became a Jehovah's Witness through conversion and met his wife Pat at a church function. They did janitorial work in Reno, Nev., before moving to Guadalajara, where they house-sat for a wealthy acquaintance. Dennis and Rose Carlson moved from Redding, Calif., to support a church effort to spread their faith in Mexico.

The bodies of the two couples were never found.

Two state police officials said that they helped kidnap and kill the couples on the order of Caro Quintero and fellow capo Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, according to agent Hector Berrellez, who ran the Los Angeles-based operation going after those involved in Camarena's murder. The Jehovah's Witnesses inadvertently knocked on Fonseca Carrillo's door as they proselytized on Dec. 2, 1984, Berrellez said. Believing they were undercover agents, the capos had their underlings capture and kill them, Berrellez said.

Some DEA veterans question that theory. James Kuykendall, the former agent in charge of the DEA office in Guadalajara, told The Associated Press that he has never seen any evidence to support it.

Many of the couples' relatives do believe a version of the cops' tale.

"I've got his picture right here," said Benjamin Mascarenas' mother Mercy, who is 86. "I'm looking at him and thinking of how wonderful it would be if they were alive. He was as sweet as pie and they just loved each other so much."

Dennis Carlson was "just an all-around good person" dedicated to spreading his faith, recalled his brother, Stanley, a 58-year-old semi-retired mortgage banker.

"They just knocked on the wrong door and that led to the four of them being abducted," Carlson said. "It makes me feel bad in general that this guy is running around if he is in fact responsible."

He said his family rarely talked about the murders, and relied on their faith to cope with the pain.

"We're not looking for any type of vindication or vindictiveness or anything of that nature because it's not our place," he said. "We feel that there's a better world that awaits people of faith."

___

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mweissenstein

Medical Marijuana: Where the Discussion Collides

By Alexandra D. Datig

I have often said there is a place for medical marijuana if a pharmaceutical approach can be found that is safe and effective.  I have also  never been against aiding the dying or those who suffer from debilitating illnesses and are desperate to find relief for his or her pain.  For some reason, however, when I speak in support of that argument, I feel like I am baited into a different discussion. 

My friend Roger Morgan, founder of the Take Back AmericaCampaign, explained in a correspondence earlier today, that in the late 1970’s the term "medical marijuana" was coined by Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, as a red herring to give marijuana a good name as a first step towards full legalization.

Although the FDA’s scheduling process list marijuana as a schedule one drug, seen as having no medicinal value, this may not necessarily be the case.  Over the past decade, we have learned that there are in fact medical properties in marijuana that do show promise in children that use CBD, also called cannabidiol, for a variety of central nervous system disorders.   CBDs are the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, meaning they do not cause the user to get high.  

According to my friend Roger Morgan who is a world-renowned drug prevention expert, marijuana is comprised of 483 chemicals that turn into 2,000 when smoked, and 61 cannabinoids.  Of the 61 cannabinoids, only one isolated cannabinoid, appears to have medicinal value.  The problem is with the other 60, and their chemicals, which are known to cause brain damage, mental illness, birth defects, addiction and myriad of health problems.  

GW Pharmaceuticals created a medical grade marijuana known as Sativex based on the science of CBD research, which was approved by the United Kingdom version of the FDA and is available in England by prescription.  Sativex, which is an oil-based, mint flavored oral spray, has yet to pass the scrutiny test with the FDA because marijuana’s efficacy is unreliable thus far and does not meet the standards of the FDA.  On the flip side, while Sativex is going through the FDA’s clinical trails, marijuana profiteers and unethical marijuana doctors are making millions off of crude, toxin exposed, highly potent and untested as well as unregulated so-called medical marijuana because it is seen by many as a free for all to get high.  Ironically, none of these snake oil salesmen can tell an inexperienced user which strain or which THC potency is the right one to use.  The question is, what will this experiment of public fraud eventually cost in terms of long-term health consequences and harms?

I think we’re far away from being able to find common ground on what is reasonable and most of all what is safe when evaluating the arguments about marijuana.  We also know that marijuana advocates aren’t wasting any time and have engineered a deliberately misleading clash in their dialogue by promoting recreational use through the guise of medicine.  One example of this was Montell Williams who was recently on Piers Morgan.  If the medical marijuana establishment has done one thing in terms of educating the public about marijuana, it has sent the message that medical marijuana is the back door for marijuana abuse through contrived non-medical purposes.  As for the research on CBDs, I agree with my friend Roger Morgan who says hopefully research should never stop trying to perfect it for whatever therapeutic value it may have.