While President Obama is ignoring our calls to end adult marijuana prohibition and Google/YouTube is deeming our pleas “inappropriate” and unworthy of serious discussion like tennis, parties, and the president’s dancing ability, police in Mexico are forced to put themselves in protective custody because of the threat of assassination at the hands of the drug cartels.  For reasons that escape me, our president and congress seem to prefer that the lucrative marijuana trade is controlled by and benefits these murderous criminals.

(Los Angeles Daily News) CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Every one of the 2,500 police officers in this Mexican border city has been ordered to leave home and stay in a hotel after the killing of five officers by a local drug cartel.

The gang threatened a week ago to kill one policeman a day unless Police Chief Julian Leyzaola resigns.

Police spokesman Adrian Sanchez said officers were ordered to stay away from their houses after Monday’s shootout between assailants and policemen. That assault and previous attacks happened as officers were going to or from home.

The city’s government said it has secured 26 million pesos ($2 million) to house officers in hotels but did not specify how long that would last.

At least 10 banners bearing threats to Juarez’s police chief appeared around the city last week. The messages were signed by the New Juarez Cartel, an offshoot of the La Linea or Juarez Cartel, a major target of law enforcement actions in recent months.

Juárez City had 766 more murders last year than the entire state of California.

The popular style of video games called “first person shooters” place the player in a virtual reality, armed with powerful automatic weapons and explosives, blowing away the enemy to achieve the goal.  Usually game makers pick fantasy locales, like the space marines fighting on exotic planets in the Halo series.  Some return to battlefields of the past, like the simulation games Call of Duty in World War II and Vietnam: FPS in Southeast Asia.  Even modern conflicts like Iraq get video game treatments like Six Days in Fallujah.

So is it any surprise to learn of the new first person shooter video game, Call of Juárez: The Cartel, set in the bloodbath that is the murder capital of the world?

(Brownsville Herald) The video game company Ubisoft announced this week the summer release of a game called “Call of Juarez: The Cartel.” Details were not available, but the company describes the game as being set in the present day and bringing elements of the Wild West into a modern setting.

While not familiar with the game, top law enforcement officials in the area reacted with disapproval merely to the idea that a video game would reflect cartel violence.

“Unfortunately there are companies that are looking to capitalize on the violent situation in Mexico which has had a very negative impact on the country,” said Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia. “There have been spillover cases in certain areas of our country with cases of kidnappings and murders. This is a serious topic and this is just another violent video game.”

The knee-jerk reaction from many will be to pull the game from shelves and condemn it as being inappropriate.  I disagree.  I think the game is a completely appropriate example of art imitating life.  If the people condemning the game had as much outrage over what it’s imitating and the tragically idiotic reason we allow it to continue there would be no reason to set a violent video game in Juárez.

(El Paso Times) EL PASO — Mexican federal police said Saturday that they arrested a second man in connection with the recent birthday party massacre in Juárez in which gunmen killed 16 people, including 11 teenagers.

Federal officials said the team of shooters were tipped off that people at the birthday party were members of a rival gang known as Artistas Asesinos (Artists Assassins), who reportedly work for the Joaquín “Chapo” Guzmán drug cartel from Sinaloa.

The shooters were informed that the party would be at 10:30 p.m. Around that time, 16 gunmen arrived, some armed with AK-47s and AR-15 assault rifles, to shoot the partygoers, and sealed off the 1300 block of Villas del Portal.

Officials said some of the victims were gang members, but most were identified as students and athletes.

The attackers initially did not mean to kill some women and children. Arzate Meléndez said at a news conference Saturday that Ramírez said “que dispararan a todos parejo,” which roughly translates to “shoot everyone.”

In total, 16 died and 12 were wounded. The youngest killed was a 13-year-old girl; the oldest was 42.

Stop and think about this.  This massacre occurred just over the border from El Paso, Texas.  Imagine chaperoning your teenage son’s or daughter’s birthday party.  Picture gunmen with assault rifles bursting in, spraying your home with gunfire.  Try to comprehend the horror of trying to escape, trying to help your child, and finding every escape route blocked by more gunmen.

28% of young people will use marijuana this year; 11% will use twice a week or more.

You may think that Juárez is far away and that you and your children have nothing to do with rival drug gang warfare, so this doesn’t affect you.  But so long as there exists a War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, there is the chance you can get caught up in the crossfire.  These Mexican gangs are controlling marijuana trafficking in 230 American cities.  28% of all young people aged 18-25 will use marijuana this year; 11% will use more than twice a week.  Those young people are going to get their marijuana from someone.  Will it be a dealer for a Mexican gang from Sinaloa or Juárez?  Could there be a misunderstanding that leads to gunmen attacking your college-aged child’s party in Peoria, Pocatello, or Portland?

Plus you must remember that both sides fighting the War on Marijuana are well armed and that sometimes, police make mistakes, too.  Mistakes on search warrants for drug raids killed 64-year-old John Adams of Lebanon, Tennessee; 46-year-old Willie Heard of Osawatomie, Kansas; 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston of Atlanta, Georgia; 45-year-old Israel Mena of Denver, Colorado; 44-year-old Cheryl Noel of Dunkalk, Maryland; 65-year-old Mario Paz of Compton, California; and 11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda of Modesto, California were all shot by police who were serving warrants on locations that either turned out to be wrong addresses or turned out to find no drugs whatsoever.

The only sensible way to protect our children from the horrors of prohibition-related drug trafficking violence is to take the market away from the criminals and give it to responsible law-abiding businesspeople.  After all, when is the last time you hear of teenagers getting caught in the crossfire of Al Capone’s gang warring over moonshine distribution?

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Hemp Headlines

1. Denver dispensaries having trouble finding banks to take their business
2. Gunmen in Juarez Mexico massacre teens at a party in apparent “mistaken address” situation
3. Starbucks controversy continues in the cannabis community

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(AP) EL PASO, Texas — The eight bullets that leveled Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana outside his home just doors from the city’s police chief were fired at close range and left little doubt about their message.

Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel lieutenant shot on his quiet El Paso cul-de-sac this spring, was working for U.S. officials as a confidential informant, sources told The Associated Press, and experts suspect his slaying may be the first time assassins from one of Mexico’s violent drug gangs have killed a ranking cartel member on American soil.

Cartel-affiliated hit men have violently, and fatally, disciplined low-level, American-based drug dealers in the U.S. But El Paso police said Gonzalez was a lieutenant in the Juarez cartel, which traffics in marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The cartel was once among the most dangerous in Mexico, but has recently lost some standing because of arrests, deaths and infighting.

El Paso police don’t yet have an official motive in Gonzalez’s slaying, but chief Allen said detectives are working on the assumption that a cartel colleague discovered he was discussing their illegal activities with federal agents.

How many gangland-style executions will have to take place on American streets before we get serious about legalizing these murderers right out of business?  I hear a few people complain about taxing and regulating marijuana as a legal substance because then the big bad ol’ government will have its hands on it, but last I checked the IRS doesn’t send hit men out to quiet residential neighborhoods to deliver a “message” about delinquent tax payments.

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1. Mendocino county adopts “voluntary” $25 / plant zip-tie fee
2. THC shown to help patients with schizophrenia
3. El Paso Times: Juárez cartels beating 10,000 Mexican feds
4. What happens to NORML when we finally re-legalize marijuana?

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• Part II with Ryan Grim from Huffington Post on “This is Your Country on Drugs”

Pat begins by making a bold prediction:

Prediction: After all U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea have come home, there will be a U.S. army on the Mexican border. For this is where the fate of our republic will be decided, as the fate of Europe will be decided by the millions streaming north from the Maghreb and Middle East, sub-Sahara and South Asia.

So narco-traffickers are the same to him as Muslims “invading” Europe and destroying it’s culture. He then goes to the numbers: 6,000 drug related killings, 6,000 troops and police moved to the border. Recounting the story of Chief Roberto Oduna of Juarez and the killing of a retired army general sent to create an elite anti-crime unit in Cancun leads him to the conclusion that the Mexican government is corrupt.

Far be it for Pat Buchanan to be pollyanna-ish, he put his finger on the demand side of both the equation and the border. It is the US demand for drugs that is fueling this violence. Pat then boils down the responses to this crisis into the best description I have yet seen by a conservative.

There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton’s way and Mao’s way. Mao Zedong’s communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman’s way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.

So, begrudgingly he chooses Milton’s Way, because we as a society cannot take the pain of our own government killing 30+ Million of it’s own citizens (by comparison the US lost 1/2 Million in all of World War 2).

Which is the greater evil? Legalized narcotics for America’s young or a failed state of 110,000 million on our southern border? Some choice. Some country we’ve become.

This isn’t a resounding call for the principals that Milton laid out, but a decision based on the fear of a Mexican narco state. So the conservative Republican “War on Drugs” dies a whimpering death in the mind of Pat Buchanan.

MEXICO CITY — As drug violence spirals out of control in Mexico, a commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin American societies to the breaking point.

“The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war,” said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. “We have to move from this approach to another one.”

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy “taboo” and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana.

This Wall Street Journal article also cites work by the Brookings Institution that confirms that there is as much supply and demand for drugs as ever, despite declaring all-out war on drugs.  Naturally, the prohibition addicts who got us in this mess say that the decapitated dead bodies in the streets of Tijuana and Juarez are just signs that total victory over drugs is just around the corner:

John Walters, former director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said, “It’s not true that we’ve lost or can’t do anything about the drug problem,” and cited security improvements in Colombia.

Mr. Walters said increased violence in border areas of Mexico was partly a result of criminal organizations compensating for reduced income from the supply of drugs by turning to other activities, such as people-smuggling, and continuing to fight over turf.

U.S. law-enforcement officials — as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico — say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing.

“If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence,” a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence “because these guys are flailing. We’re taking these guys out. The worst thing you could do is stop now.”

Yes, I see.  It’s just a few dead-enders.  We’re in the last throes of the narcotrafficante insurgency, if you will.  The surge is working.  We just have to have patience.  We’re turning a corner in the Drug War.  All we’re missing is a “Mission Accomplished” banner on a boat in the Rio Grande.

Mr. former Drug Czar Walters, how many dead innocent Mexicans do there have to be before we’re sure we’ve finally won?

JUAREZ — The newly-formed vigilante group “El Comando Ciudadano Por Juarez” proclaimed its manifesto Tuesday in a news release to Juarez media. It vowed to take over the streets in a matter of months if city, state and federal leaders fail to restore order.

In the manifesto, the group identified Commandante Abraham as its leader and Subcommandante Gabriel “Durito (Hard One)” as second-in-command.

Chihuahua’s Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez-Rodriguez denied the existence of the vigilante group Monday, stating the group was merely a fabrication by drug cartels to instill fear into Juarenses and generate more violence to de-stabilize the city.

In 2008, more than 1,600 people were killed in Juarez. City officials attributed the majority of the violent deaths to an ongoing war between rival drug cartels fighting for drug routes into the U.S.

Making matters worse, the city plunged into an economic abyss which gave rise to a rash of violent crime. Kidnappings for ransom and extortions became the norm and some of the city’s wealthiest families fled to El Paso.

The vigilante group stated its mission was to kill one criminal a day and declared war on burglars, kidnappers, and extortionists that constantly violate the rights of citizens. The group told city leaders they have until July 5, 2009 to re-establish order.

A failure to meet that goal by the deadline will result in the group taking the streets with its “army of men and women” who will battle criminals with whatever tool is available.

The manifesto describes the group as an organization consisting of university students, professors, commercial businessmen, unemployed workers and field workers who are willing to give their lives for their city. The group even revealed it is funded by businessmen who have fled their city due to the escalating violence and is willing to work side-by-side with the Mexican Army.

via KVIA.com El Paso, Las Cruces – Weather, News, Sports – Juarez Vigilante group proclaims manifesto, issues warning.

People here have a hard time understanding that there were more kidnappings, terrorism, and beheadings in Mexico last year than Iraq.  This is a serious shooting war going on and 70% of it is funded by the marijuana we are not allowed to grow domestically.  With more than 1,600 deaths in a city of 1.4 million, Juarez beat the 2008 murder totals of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington DC combined, cities that equal 15.5 million people, or more than ten times larger than Juarez.

Now the people are so terrified they are turning to vigilantism, a sure sign of the beginnings of a failed state.  The politicians are continuing more of the same in-the-box thinking that got them in this situation – more military force through US funding of the Meridia initiative.  Nobody in power can accept the fact that marijuana is here to stay, some people will always want to smoke it, there will always be a marijuana market, and it will be controlled by either the murderous criminals or by We The People.