Drugs & US Law Enforcement (2006-2017)

[gute]

I did not see the show so I am unable to comment specifically on the show, but I can say that in my 18 years with DEA I have spent my time on the sources of supply and not the street junkies. But, that's our mission. Well, the mission sometimes changes from administrator - administrator. MET teams, RET teams, gangs, follow the money, priority targets, OCDETF, assets, SWBI, interdiction - WTF! So, you do it all.

I would assume that when one supports leglization they are talking personal use amounts and not care givers or distribution centers for any and everything. Meth especially is so distructive at whatever amounts, but I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir on that one.

I did a foreign stint from 2000 -2002 in Pakistan - ran a Pakistani vetted unit of 50+ military officers and police officials - like herding cats. I'm sure someone in there was ISI. IMO big waste of money. What the U.S. is experiencing with akistan right now and the GWOT is no big suprise to me.

Things have changed over the years, no doubt about it. I use to take things personally - aphathetic public, knob supervisors, lazy prosecutors, but learned that I all I can do is continue to be a good public servant, earn my paycheck, make it a job and not a crusade, and control only what I can control. Maybe that's referred to as growing up.

War on Drugs? Maybe when I first came on. I'm looking forward to the day when I don't do this anymore - that gives ya a pretty good idea what I think about the War on Drugs.

I'm done whining.

[gute]

In my earlier post I did not address how we lost the war on drugs, well in my opinion it was changing stategies, political correctness, too many different federal agencies working dope, in fighting between federal agencies, and the fact we have a free society (freedom is good). There are many countries who deal with drug crimes much more harshly then we do and they do not have the problem we have.

Another thing I never quite understood is why the Drug Czar was not the DEA Administrator. Then again, I'm biased.

Not that I have all the answers, but if I ran the show and could get people on the same sheet of music (good luck) I would combine drug enforcement efforts at the federal level under the DEA. That would mean the ICE, ATF, FBI, etc working dope would work with the DEA everywhere. Again, I'm biased. Never happen. We tried in the 1990's with the Southwest Border Initiative - Customs, DEA, FBI, and USBP. DEA and Customs constantly argued over Title 21 authority and Bureau does not like to have their people answer to others.

At the local/state level I would deputize more officers so they can work across state borders and have the protections that I have as a federal agent. I have found over the years that state laws tend to be more restrictive when it comes to drug investigations i.e. use if search warrants, consenual recordings, use of tracking devices. One area the states seem to get it right is with wire taps - the title III law or maybe it's DOJ's policies need to change. Exhausting all avenues before getting a wire tap is time consuming and costly. Obviously so much can be gleaned from taps and the tap is quite effective at dismantling an organization. But, with the frequent use of the cell phone to C2 drug organizations it should be something that we do sooner then later. Of course the use of taps depends on federal district -federal district. It seems to be much easier to get one in New York then one in Oregon.

Going back to deputizing more locals - you have to have C2 or everyone is running around doin their own thing - kind of like now. Drug cops and their egos! Not that DEA is any better at then anyone else, but DEA should have oversight or C2. Remember I'm biased.

I've learned a lot over the years. I started off in Honolulu assigned to a plain clothes patrol unit patroling the China District because my DEA boss said I needed to learn from cops because they know how to talk to people. Well, I learned and had a blast. That's the perfect fit for a 23 year-old with a blue flame shooting out of his ass. I've seen it all until I go to work Monday.

If I'm coming off as an expert that was not my intention - I am far from it because if I were I would have solved this a long time ago. This is all my humble opinion.

Night gents.

[bourbon]

Op-Ed: Follow the Dirty Money, by Robert Mazur. The New York Times, 12 September 2010.

LAST month, a federal district judge approved a deal to allow Barclays, the British bank, to pay a $298 million fine for conducting transactions with Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Sudan in violation of United States trade sanctions. Barclays was discovered to have systematically disguised the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars through wire transfers that were stripped of the critical information required by law that would have enabled the world to know that for more than 10 years the bank was moving huge sums of money for enemy governments. Yet all federal prosecutors wanted to settle the problem was a small piece of the action.

When Judge Emmet Sullivan of federal district court in Washington, who ultimately approved the deal with Barclays, asked the obvious question, “Why isn’t the government getting rough with these banks?” the remarkable response was that the government had investigated but couldn’t find anyone responsible.

How preposterous. Banks can commit crimes only through the acts of their employees. Federal law enforcement agencies are simply failing to systematically gather the intelligence they need to effectively monitor the crime.

The author served 27 years with IRS, Customs, and DEA; and spent several years undercover in the largest money laundering case in US history.

[Bob's World]

Anyone else notice how similar our approach to Insurgency and/or terrorism is to our approach to drugs?

Step one: Declare a war on the problem.

Step two: The problem must be the supply, not the demand, so set out aggressively to defeat the supply.

Step three: Recognize that Demand is important, but still only put minor energy against that to avoid having to make any hard choices that affect yourself. Enforce 'rule of law' at home to criminalize and punish those who participate, but ignore why they participate and how changes in governance approaches could mitigate demand or change the destructive nature of the market that has been forced into illegal and often violent approaches through the denial of legal venues to operate.

Step four: Take the war against the Supply overseas and pick a couple of key states to focus your efforts in.

Step five: As problem continues to grow put more and more money, people and effort against eradicating supply in those key states.

Step six: Having "squeezed the balloon" adequately in key states, but not done anything to address demand, watch suppliers simply move to a different state and continue operations.

Step seven: Shift focus to new supply state and begin squeezing the balloon again.

Step eight: Repeat steps 1-7 as necessary, often returning to states where the problem was previously "defeated" until your national influence and economy begin to wane under the burden of direct and higher order effects.


One word: "Responsibility." Until governments are willing to take responsibility for the effects of poor governance, bad laws, and bad choices and instead are allowed to focus massive time, energy, blood and treasure attacking the naturally occurring effects of their causation, we are doomed to a downward spiraling do-loop on these issues.

Drug Dealers don't create the illegal drug problem, they exploit it for their economic gain.

Insurgents don't create insurgency, they exploit the condition of insurgency for their own purposes as well when and where governments fail to provide the type good governance that immunizes populaces against such movements.

Target Demand first (not to be confused with those who actually participate in the "market," but rather why the market exists); and mitigate the damaging effects of Supply while continuing to focus on Demand.

[Entropy]

BW,

Yes, so true. The GWoD's is mostly a failure considering the billions spent.

[slapout9]

One word: "Responsibility." Until governments are willing to take responsibility for the effects of poor governance, bad laws, and bad choices and instead are allowed to focus massive time, energy, blood and treasure attacking the naturally occurring effects of their causation, we are doomed to a downward spiraling do-loop on these issues.

You forgot step Zero, which is to make up some Bovine Excrement excuse to, go to step: one declare war, in the first place.

Classic John Boyd where you sew "menace,mistrust,and uncertainty" where there is none.

[Bob's World]

You forgot step Zero, which is to make up some Bovine Excrement excuse to, go to step: one declare war, in the first place.

Classic John Boyd where you sew "menace,mistrust,and uncertainty" where there is none.

Theory A: Slap is John Boyd

Theory B: John Boyd has photos of Slap in a very compromising position...

But you are totally right that we do get into some crazy stuff, and once everyone buys in, then its not crazy anymore. Then when someone comes along with a rational postion it is what ends up sounding crazy in comparison.

[slapout9]

But you are totally right that we do get into some crazy stuff, and once everyone buys in, then its not crazy anymore. Then when someone comes along with a rational postion it is what ends up sounding crazy in comparison.

Yep, and that is what is happening to our country now, we are being destroyed morally.

Examples:

Would God have bailed out Wall Street?

Would God kill people and put them in jail for smoking some weeds?

Would God say 20 million unemployed people is OK with me?

Would God foreclose on the largest number of houses in history so that they could sit empty.... and people are left without proper shelter?

Would God bomb Iran?

Our National leadership of all parties and all positions are Moral cowards

Time for a song.
"What If God were One Of Us?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5P5v...eature=related

[carl]

Anyone else notice how similar our approach to Insurgency and/or terrorism is to our approach to drugs?

I think your eight step program (plus Slap's step zero) very well describes our 100 year war on drugs. It is a strain though to apply it to our small wars abroad.

Those small wars involve motivations like political ideology, religious zealotry, megalomania and interference by mischief making, malicious nation states. Drugs are a matter of people wanting to get high or get rich. That makes a very great difference.

Commander Reyes in the SWJ blog Plan Mexico post makes some recommendations, such as lightnening up on marijuana in Mexico, that will not be popular with American drug warriors. Does anyone know how widespread that opinion is in Mexico especially amongst the police and military? If Mexico were to reduce or eliminate the criminal penalties associated with marijuana, boy would that stimulate the bidding at imperial headquarters.

[bourbon]

Those small wars involve motivations like political ideology, religious zealotry, megalomania and interference by mischief making, malicious nation states. Drugs are a matter of people wanting to get high or get rich. That makes a very great difference.

As it applies to BW’s comparison, I believe the demand for drugs is analogous to the population’s willingness to support or tolerate the insurgency/ terrorist group.

Greed and desire to do drugs are motives just like political ideology, religious zealotry, or megalomania.

So if this were the SAT’s: the supply of drugs (to include dealers) is to the demand for drugs as the insurgency/terrorist group is to the population’s willingness to support or tolerate the insurgency/ terrorist group.

[Bob's World]

My point is that insurgents don't cause insurgency, governments do.

The government creates the "demand", or what I call "conditions of insurgency" among the populace they govern when they fall short in a few critical, fundamental ways that Dr. Maslow identified long ago. When they cut the populace out of the loop in terms of granting them the right and authority to govern (become illegitimate in the eyes of the governed); when they apply the rule of law in a manner the populace perceives as unjust; when they formalize inequalities that treat certain segments of the populace worse than others as a matter of some status (race, religion, neighborhood, etc); and when they deny the populace trusted, legal, and certain means to make changes in government when necessary. This is DEMAND. it is Poor Governance. It is the Conditions of Insurgency.

Where there is Demand, there will be supply. Some leader will come along, and he will employ some ideology that speaks to the target audience, and he will create an insurgent organization to challenge the government. That is SUPPLY.

What does the Government do? It holds itself shameless and blameless, ignores the tremendous demand they are creating and the reasonably easy changes they could make that would quickly diminish demand; and instead they blame Supply, and they Attack Supply.

Now, supply must be dealt with, but only as a supporting effort to taking on Demand. Supply side economics do not work!

The U.S. Civil rights movement response (our nation's second greatest COIN effort) targeted Demand and passed and enforced the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

(For those wondering what number one is, no, not Iraq. Number one was coming together in the summer of 1787 to scrap the articles of confederation and produce the Constitution. That is one genius bit of COIN there.)

The recent success in Sri Lanka? Pure Supply-side. Demand is probably greater than ever, and a new supplier WILL step up. It is as inevitable as the turning of the tide.

We will never be good at COIN until we slap ourselves on the forehead and realize that Insurgents don't cause Insurgency, Governments do.

Similarly, Mr. Bin Laden is also in the Supply business. If one wants to find Demand they must go to U.S. Foreign Policy. If we want to defeat terrorism against the U.S. we must definitely manage the supply, but we must make that secondary to targeting Demand. Our current Supply side approach is quite arguably making Demand greater than ever, and that should scare people. What happens when AQ is defeated, but Demand is still there? The next group to come along may likely be way smarter and way more dangerous to our way of life than the current suppliers.

No, our war on Terror is way more like our war on Drugs than most realize.

[AdamG]

WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/wo...rugs.html?_r=1

[Sergeant T]

Interesting take on the problem.

Now, the United States, which has waged a 40-year, $1 trillion war on drugs, is looking for answers in tiny Portugal, which is reaping the benefits of what once looked like a dangerous gamble. White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited Portugal in September to learn about its drug reforms, and other countries — including Norway, Denmark, Australia and Peru — have taken interest, too.

"The disasters that were predicted by critics didn't happen," said University of Kent professor Alex Stevens, who has studied Portugal's program. "The answer was simple: Provide treatment."

[Sergeant T]

In what is fundamentally a good sign, Scott's is expressing interest in entering the marijuana production business.

[AdamG]

An interesting little small war going on right now...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MNKU1LC28O.DTL

[Bill Moore]

Interesting article in SWJ round up today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/us...=2&_r=1&ref=us

Police Officers Find That Dissent on Drug Laws May Come With a Price

If marijuana were legalized, Mr. Gonzalez acknowledges saying, the drug-related violence across the border in Mexico would cease. He then brought up an organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition that favors ending the war on drugs.

Those remarks, along with others expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants from Mexico, were passed along to the Border Patrol headquarters in Washington. After an investigation, a termination letter arrived that said Mr. Gonzalez held “personal views that were contrary to core characteristics of Border Patrol Agents, which are patriotism, dedication and esprit de corps.”

More than a little concerning that a view that doesn't support the failed war on drugs is viewed as non-patriotic. This is a way to guaruntee group think by prohibiting those on the front line to provide their insights on a policy that is not producing the desired results. I suspect the idiot who wrote this letter wasn't really interested in whether the drug war was working, but very interested in protecting their budget, and used patriotism as a Red Herring.

[bourbon]

Western banks 'reaping billions from Colombian cocaine trade', by Ed Vulliamy. The Guardian, 2 June 2012.

While cocaine production ravages countries in Central America, consumers in the US and Europe are helping developed economies grow rich from the profits, a study claims

The most far-reaching and detailed analysis to date of the drug economy in any country – in this case, Colombia – shows that 2.6% of the total street value of cocaine produced remains within the country, while a staggering 97.4% of profits are reaped by criminal syndicates, and laundered by banks, in first-world consuming countries.

"The story of who makes the money from Colombian cocaine is a metaphor for the disproportionate burden placed in every way on 'producing' nations like Colombia as a result of the prohibition of drugs," said one of the authors of the study, Alejandro Gaviria, launching its English edition last week.

[AdamG]

American travelers to Mexico should beware of possible violent retaliation for this week's arrest of alleged Zetas drug cartel associates and family members inside the U.S., the U.S. State Department has warned.

http://news.yahoo.com/travel-warning...nlwYWdl;_ylv=3

[davidbfpo]

Not strictly on topic, but fits here.

The World Drugs report for 2012 is out and it shows that 230 million people around the world - 1 in 20 of us - took illicit drugs in the last year. The report also says that problem drug users, mainly heroin - and cocaine-dependent people number about 27 million, roughly 0.6% of the world adult population. That's 1 in every 200 people. The report is published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and is full of fascinating stats - we've extracted some of the key ones for you in this visualisation, created by Andy Cotgreave of Tableau. Click on the map to see how drug use changes around the world.

Link:http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...-use-map-world

Not sure whether the UNODC has the best data.

[AdamG]

Narco u-boat update

After years of detecting these craft in the less trafficked Pacific Ocean, officials have seen a spike in their use in the Caribbean over the last year. American authorities have discovered at least three models of a new and sophisticated drug-trafficking submarine capable of traveling completely underwater from South America to the coast of the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/wo...pagewanted=all