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War On Drugs

Sheinbaum Rebuffs Trump After He Threatens To Bomb Mexico, Colombia

US President Donald Trump lashed out Monday at Mexico and Colombia, threatening to bomb their territories as part of the US “fight” against drug trafficking. “Would I launch attacks against Mexico to stop drug trafficking? I have no problem with that,” he said during a press conference from the Oval Office of the White House. “Whatever it takes to stop drug trafficking,” he added in reference to the illegal US missile strikes, conducted under the auspices of an alleged “war on drugs,” that have killed 83 civilians from various countries in the region. During his statements, the US ruler reiterated his alleged willingness to conduct diplomatic talks with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Due Process And Trump-Ordered Murder

President Donald Trump’s use of the U.S. military to kill persons on speed boats in international waters, or in territorial waters claimed by other sovereign nations — all 1,500 miles from the U.S. — has posed grave issues of due process. The U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of due process requires it for every person, not just Americans. The operative language of the Fifth Amendment is that “No person … shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Trump administration has claimed that it can kill whomever it designates as an unlawful enemy combatant — it prefers the political phrase “narco-terrorist” — and the due process it provides is the intelligence gathered by American spies and the White House analysis of that intelligence.

Trump Announces New ‘Kinetic Strike’ Off Venezuela’s Coast

On Tuesday, US ruler Donald Trump claimed that US military forces deployed in the Caribbean Sea carried out a new attack on a small boat “off the coast of Venezuela,” without specifying a precise location, killing six people he alleged were carrying drugs. Since Sept. 2, Trump has allegedly ordered military strikes on at least five boats in the Caribbean Sea that his regime insists were carrying drugs to the US. This latest illegal action brings the number of extrajudicial killings committed by US military forces to 27 unidentified civilians. Through Truth Social, the White House tenant published that his secretary of war, Peter Hegseth, ordered a “lethal kinetic attack” against a small boat supposedly off the coast of Venezuela, based on information allegedly provided by US intelligence.

Venezuela At UNSC: ‘We Believe We Are Facing Imminent US Attack’

On Friday, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, alerted the UN Security Council that Venezuela strongly believes a US military attack is imminent. He characterized the situation as the latest aggression in decades-long attempts to oust first President Hugo Chávez and now President Nicolás Maduro. “The plan is clear,” he said during an emergency meeting. “It is once again about executing the operation that already failed: overthrowing the legitimate and constitutional President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro Moros, to install a puppet regime and turn our country into a colony.” When questioned by the press, Moncada elaborated on the sense of urgency.

Venezuela Condemns US Empire’s F-35 Flyover: A ‘Miscalculated Provocation’

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino has reported this Thursday, October 2, that at least five US F-35 fighter jets have flown over the Caribbean Sea near the Venezuelan border, an action described as a provocation and a threat to national security. Hours later, the Venezuelan Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs released a joint communiqué formally condemning the incursion, which it said occurred approximately 75 kilometers (about 47 miles) off the Venezuelan coast within the Maiquetía Flight Information Region (FIR). “We have detected within the Venezuelan Comprehensive Defense System […] more than five vectors with flight characteristics of 400 knots and flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet,” Padrino said during a briefing. “What does that indicate? They are combat aircraft that US imperialism has dared to bring close to Venezuelan shores.”

US Revisits ‘War On Drugs’ Routine With A New Target

Venezuela has once again been in the international media spotlight due to the US naval deployment in the waters of the southern Caribbean Sea. This military deployment was officially announced by the US on August 14, but had been reported days earlier by the New York Times. Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking and in parallel with the announcement of an increased reward for the capture of President Nicolás Maduro, the US regime has relaunched its “maximum pressure” campaign against Venezuela. The “bounty” on President Maduro has been doubled to US $50 million, and this time around, the US claims that the president of Venezuela is the head of the nonexistent Cartel of the Suns, the defunct Tren de Aragua criminal gang, and even Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel.

How The ‘War On Drugs’ Tears Families Apart

Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (also known as opioid addiction) is a valid pathway to recovery. In fact, it can be recovery itself, even if a patient requires staying on it for a set period of time or indefinitely. The viewpoint that MAT for chaotic opioid use is a form of recovery is one that people are slowly coming to accept, even if it comes into conflict with other, abstinence-based viewpoints of recovery. Unfortunately, there is a stigma associated with MAT, as expressed in the Narcotics Anonymous World Services Board of Trustees Bulletin #29, “Regarding Methadone and Other Drug Replacement Programs”: “We make a distinction between drugs used by drug replacement programs and other prescribed drugs because such drugs are prescribed specifically as addiction treatment.

Trial Of Honduran Ex-President Reveals Washington’s Protection Of ‘Narco-State’

“Juan Orlando effectively operated Honduras as a narco-state, acquiring political power through narcotics-fueled bribes and maintaining it by allowing the free flow of drugs through Honduras,” US government prosecutors alleged in a May 1 motion filed in the Southern District of New York. Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment targeting Hernández on April 21, 2022, the same day that Honduras extradited him to the US. He currently faces three drug and weapons smuggling charges in the Southern District of New York, including one count of conspiracy to import cocaine to the United States. His trial begins this week, on September 18.

Drug Decriminalization Saves Lives

The criminalization of drugs hasn’t kept them from becoming a public health hazard — and we can’t just pretend they don’t exist. More than 106,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021 in the United States, a number that has doubled since 2015. Three-quarters of the overdose deaths in 2021 were from opioid use, and nearly 3 million Americans struggle with opioid use disorder today. To help affected people, many are arguing for a policy of ​“harm reduction” to make drug use less risky. Sites provide clean syringes and alcohol wipes to prevent the spread of infectious diseases for IV drug users, for example and are prepared with oxygen masks and the anti-overdose drug naloxone to help manage bad reactions.

From Wounded Latin America, Demand To Put An End To The War On Drugs

Each year, in the last weeks of September, the world’s leaders gather in New York City to speak at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. The speeches can usually be forecasted well in advance, either tired articulations of values that do not get acted upon or belligerent voices that threaten war in an institution built to prevent war. However, every once in a while, a speech shines through, a voice emanates from the chamber and echoes around the world for its clarity and sincerity. This year, that voice belongs to Colombia’s recently inaugurated president, Gustavo Petro, whose brief remarks distilled with poetic precision the problems in our world and the cascading crises of social distress, the addiction to money and power, the climate catastrophe and environmental destruction.

At United Nations, Colombia Condemns ‘Addiction To Money And Oil’

Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro delivered a historic speech at the United Nations declaring, “The war on drugs has failed.” Petro emphasized that drug addiction is a social problem, and cannot be solved with violence and militarization. Rather, he argued, it is a mere symptom of a much deeper problem: the capitalist system itself, with its “addiction to money and oil.” The Colombian leader warned that the infinite greed of capitalism is destroying the planet, threatening life on Earth. “The cause of the climate disaster is capital – the logic of dedicating ourselves to consume more and more, to produce more and more, and so that a small few can earn more and more [money],” Petro proclaimed. The “logic of increasing accumulation of capital” is ravaging the environment, he warned. “The increasing accumulation of capital is the increasing accumulation of death.”

America’s Drug Wars

Fifty years ago, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon stood before the White House press corps, staffers at his side, to announce “a new, all-out offensive” against drug abuse, which he denounced as “America’s public enemy number one.” He called on Congress to contribute $350 million for a worldwide attack on “the sources of supply.” The first battle in this new drug war would be fought in South Vietnam where, Nixon said, “a number of young Americans have become addicts as they serve abroad.” While the president was declaring his war on drugs, I was stepping off a trans-Pacific flight into the searing tropical heat of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, to report on the sources of supply for the drug abuse that was indeed sweeping through the ranks of American soldiers fighting this country’s war in Vietnam.

Let’s Reject The Violent Vs. Nonviolent Crime Dichotomy

November’s election saw criminal legal system and drug policy reform win big at the polls. Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs, and voters overwhelmingly passed other reforms to drug laws, even in deeply red states like South Dakota. Policing took center stage in the national dialogue. And both the vice president and president-elect in their first addresses to the nation promised to “root out systemic racism” in the criminal legal system. The people have spoken, and we are on the precipice of a new moment for justice reform. But how we understand the scope of this collective call for change — and the challenge to which Biden and Harris will have to rise — stands to shape what our new world may look like for decades to come.

As The Global War On Drugs Fades Away, The Only People Who Benefited Were Drug Traffickers

America shows signs of emerging from the century-long shadow of drug prohibition, with marijuana leading the way and a psychedelic decriminalization movement rapidly gaining steam. It also seems as if the mass incarceration fever driven by the war on drugs has finally broken, although tens if not hundreds of thousands remain behind bars on drug charges.

Mexico: One Failed Drug War Does Not Justify Another

Donald Trump called upon “Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.  We merely await a call from your great new president!” Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador just as promptly rejected Trump’s proposal.  That’s not surprising. He ran for president on a platform that includes ending, not escalating, Mexico’s status as a battlefield in the decades-long US “war on drugs,” a war that created, and continues to empower, the cartels.
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