Duncan Kennedy writes in the BBC:
Seven policemen have been killed and four injured in Mexico’s latest incident of drug-related violence.
The officers were killed during a raid on a home in Culiacan, in north-west Mexico, police said.
Arriving at the house to search for weapons and drugs, police were fired upon and a grenade was thrown at them.
Despite obvious failure, the Mexican president has vowed to “stay the course” of drug prohibition. As if he were standing in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner, President Calderón says the murder of Police Commissioner Millán, is a sign of government success against the drug cartel. He’s full of shit.
James McKinley Jr. writes the story in the New York Times:
Top security officials who were once thought untouchable have been gunned down in Mexico City, four in the last month alone. Drug dealers killed another seven federal agents this year in retaliation for drug busts in border towns. Others have died in shootouts.
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Drug traffickers have killed at least 170 local police officers. … Some were believed to have been corrupt officers who had sold out to drug gangs and were killed by rival gangsters. … Others were killed for doing their jobs.
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All told, 4,125 people have been killed in drug violence since Mr. Calderón took office.
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Several terrified local police chiefs have resigned, the most recent being Guillermo Prieto, the chief in Ciudad Juárez, who stepped down last week after his second in command was killed a few days earlier.
As quoted in the Times, President Calderón says, “The question is, should we persevere and go forward or simply hide in our offices and duck our heads. No way is the Mexican government going to back down in such a fight.”
Really? Why does it never occur to stupid leaders of failed strategies that they’re wrong? Is it pride? Hubris? How bad do things have to get before you try a new strategy? Apparently, much, much worse.
Read the whole article.
In 2007, 235 Baltimore residents overdosed. The story in the Sunis here.
Interestingly (and surprisingly), 74 of those were from methadone. I don’t quite understand the point of methadone. If it’s addictive and you can die from it, why not just give junkies heroin?
You don’t see headlines like this much in America anymore. But we used to (google “Jake Leg” if you’re interested in a tragic little footnote in American history). Fewer people die when drugs are legal and regulated.
Prohibitionists in India wanted to protect poor people from themselves. So, in an entirely predictable bit of failed prohibitionist logic, they made liquor drunk by poor people illegal. The New York Times reports:
The hooch deaths, as they are called, are occurring a year after the government prohibited the sale of arrack, or country liquor, arguing that it was ruinous to the poor, but left other kinds of alcohol untouched. Since then, plastic sachets of illegal brew have turned up occasionally in Bangalore’s poorest neighborhoods.
It used to be like that here, from 1920 to 1933. Then we wised up. But not before a lot of people had died. Now we do it with other drugs. And a lot of people still die (33,541 American in 2005 alone). And then we have the gall to blame the poor and powerless for killing themselves rather than arrogant prohibitionists for passing bad laws that kill other people.
Mexican police chiefs are getting killed right and left, thanks to the war on drugs. Brendan McKanna of the Dallas Morning News reportsthat other chiefs are quitting their posts and three police chiefs have applied for political asylum in the United States out of fear for their lives.
When they stand down, who’s going to stand up?
You probably heard about the mass of San Diego State University students arrested for drug dealing. That college students take drugs shouldn’t be a big surprise for anybody who went to college. College students drink, too. Nor, if it weren’t for the guns involved, would I see it as a big problem.
The far more worrisome news comes from Mexico. On May 8, the acting chief of Mexico’s police force was assassinated by drug gangs. That’s huge. We don’t have an equivalent of that position here. This is the chief of all police for all of Mexico.
On May 10, The number two policeman in Ciudad Jauarez was killed. The sixth senior policeman killed in Mexico this week.
The war on the drugs is not being won.
Killing police chiefs is not a sign of desperation and defeat. It’s a high-stakes sign of domination and control. God bless any non-corrupt police officers in Mexico. Would I risk my life for paltry pay to fight the war on the drugs? No.
To me, 75 college students–idiot frat boys, mostly–getting arrested for drug dealing is funny.
Drug dealers defeating the police force of Mexico is not funny. It is entirely possible that drug cartels will take over the Mexican police and to some extent, the entire elected government.
Losing Mexico is a price way too high to pay for the privilege of continuing to fight the endless war on drugs. Especially when the solution–legal drug regulation and an end to drug prohibition–is so simple.
How nice to post something that will not mention… hmmm… shall we say, oh hell, let’s not say anything at all.
There’s a great short (16 minute) audio interview of me talking about crime and police and drug legalization.
I get a kick how the hook of the interview is the “liberal sociologist.” By police standards, sure. But by liberal sociologist standards, I’m probably a fascist.
These kind of headlines, this one from the BBC, always crack me up… and make me sad. Why? Do you feel safer? This guy’s death won’t mean shit. Some other drug lord will take his place. I nominate his second-in-command.
I mean, really… Does anybody think that killing some bad guy is going to win the global war on drugs?
We got rid of Noriega. Think of all those “cartels” we broke up in Colombia. We get drug lords all the time. We got millions in prison. We invadedAfghanistan! Keep up the fight! Another victory! But it doesn’t matter. This is so 1984. Why won’t we win? Because–as Chris Rock so eloquently puts it–people wanna get high.
Drug users don’t support terrorism. The War on Drugs supports terrorists. Shame on us.
I haven’t digested all this yet, but there’s an interesting little brouhaha about a recent study released by the NYCLU by Queens College Professor Harry Levine and Deborah Small. The paper is called, “Marijuana Arrest Crusade: Racial Bias and Police Policy in New York City, 1997-2007.” The report claims that 35,000 people a year are arrested in New York City for marijuana possession. This figure is somehow disputed by the NYPD. I’m not sure who’s right.
[Update: For the record, Prof Levine is absolutely right. See here for more stats and information.]
Buying drugs doesn’t need to involve criminals, violence, and neighborhood blight.
These are pictures I took a few years back of a friend buying drugs in an Amsterdam “coffee shop.” I show it to my classes at John Jay College of Criminal justice.
Amsterdam is a beautiful city of canals and old buildings. 
I love being on a boat.
In a nice (and expensive) part of town, there’s a seed store. They’re not selling tulip bulbs here.
It’s a very sleek and modern store to buy all you need to grow your own dope.
Around the corner, there’s the Hemp Hotel. I don’t think you have to smoke there, but I’m pretty sure they won’t kick you out of their bed if you do.
A block away, on the Reguliersgracht (of the Seven Bridges fame).
There’s a “coffee shop” selling marijuana and hash. Again, it’s nothing that will lower property values.
Even the police welcome you! 
The store is licensed and regulated. It can be shut down by the police for any reason and without cause. But there never is trouble in a “coffee shop.” Partly because, well, why should there be? And also because the owners don’t want to risk losing their license. They know they’re sitting on a cash cow. This coffee shop can be open from 7 to 1AM.
Inside the place looks nice! Nicer than the average “coffee shop.” Much nicer, need I mention, than the average drug corner in Baltimore.
I had to ask my students what this was. How do they know?
The guy working there was happy to show off the coffee and ice cream, but didn’t want me taking pictures of drugs.
So I went to another coffee shop, across the street from the seed store.
Here’s the menu. Standard cafe stuff except for the filters, screens, and rolling papers.
You have to be 18. The idea that consumption is “compulsory” cracks me up. But they’re not talking about drugs. You just have to buy something if you want to hang out in their store. Fair enough.
The drug menu is now behind a window that you have to press a button to see. I’m not certain why they made this rule. It’s not like people in a coffee shop don’t know they sell weed. But I’m always happy to see drug selling successfully regulated.
Here’s the money shot, as he weighs out some marijuana to sell.
Many tourists don’t even know there are canals in the city until after they arrive in Amsterdam.
They also sell pre-rolled joints, mixed with tobacco. In Holland, smoking marijuana straight is considered a bit gauche. Hell, in Holland, smoking marijuana at all is considered a bit gauche.
It’s that easy. So what’s the result? A nation of stoners? No. In fact, there are fewer marijuana smokers in Holland than there are in the United States. 37% of Americans have tried marijuana compared to 17% of people in the Netherlands. 5.4% of Americans admit to smoking in the past month compared to 3% of the Dutch (and I would imagine the Dutch would be more likely to admit it, since it’s not a crime). Heroin addiction is 1/3 in Holland. Incarceration rates are 1/7. The murder rate is 4 times higher in America. (the cites for these are in my book, Cop in the Hood, and also here.)
Fewer drug users. Fewer addicts. Fewer prisoners. Fewer overdoses. Less violence. Less money spent on drug-related problems. No money spent on a “war on drugs.”
Could it work here? I don’t know. But why aren’t we even considering it?