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This
Week
in
History
4/30/04
April 30, 1984: Assassination of the Colombian attorney general fuels the extradition controversy. Colombian Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who had crusaded against the Medellin cartel, is assassinated by a gang of motorcycle thugs. President Belisario Betancur, who had opposed extradiction, announces, "We will extradite Colombians." Carlos Lehder is the first to be put on the list. The crackdown forces the Ochoas, Escobar and Rodriguez Gacha to flee to Panama for several months. A few months later, Escobar is indicted for Lara Bonilla's murder and names the Ochoas and Rodriguez Gacha as material witnesses. May 1, 1972: Nobel Prize winner for economics Milton Friedman was quoted in Newsweek: "Legalizing drugs would simultaneously reduce the amount of crime and raise the quality of law enforcement. Can you conceive of any other measure that would accomplish so much to promote law and order?" May 2, 2001: The Louisiana Senate, voting 29-5, passes sweeping legislation to bring relief to an overflowing state prison system, ending mandatory prison time for possession of small quantities of drugs. May 5, 2001: The United States is voted off the United Nations Narcotics Control Board, the 13-member board that monitors compliance with UN drug conventions on substance abuse and illegal trafficking. May 6, 2001: Sydney, Australia opens its first legal heroin injection room in the Kings Cross Neighborhood -- it is operated by the Uniting Church. The effort was an attempt to stop drug overdoses and the use of infected syringes.
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