Not even Santa Claus is safe from the violence caused by drug prohibition:

Drug traffickers in a Rio slum opened fire on a helicopter carrying a Santa to a children's party, apparently mistaking it for a police helicopter, police said on Tuesday.

"They thought it was a police operation and started shooting. Luckily, nobody was hurt," a police official said. [Yahoo]

Yeah, those drug traffickers are just lucky Santa Claus didn't go all Chuck Norris on them. You never know what kind of firepower he keeps on hand to protect his monopoly.

All I want for Christmas is a world free of drug war violence and disorder; a world in which men in big red suits can fly helicopters over Rio without being used for target practice by machinegun-toting thugs with free reign over the slums; a world where a man can frolic with carpenter elves and flying reindeer without getting his mistletoe confiscated by the government; a world in which a pungent piney aroma emanating from the den no longer gives police probable cause to search our cozy Christmas cabin.

So happy holidays to you all, whether hippie or hypocrite, activist or antagonist. May the New Year bring hope to the hopeless and clues to the clueless.