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Interdiction

Cocaine Shortages Don't Prevent Violence, They Cause It

The best thing you can ever hope for in the drug war is a statistical anomaly. That's why this summer's temporary cocaine shortages have prompted multiple gleeful posts at ONDCP's blog. Courtesy of a commenter on Phil's recent post on this topic, here's a great example of how little the drug czar actually knows about the relationship between drugs and crime:
In the past, Walters said a shortage of drugs has led to a decrease in violence. "The vast majority of the violence is committed by the user under the influence of drugs," Walters said. "When there's a contraction in the market, there isn't as much violence. There's more likelihood that individuals who can't get the drug will seek detoxification, will seek treatment." [Indianapolis Star]
Ladies and gentleman, welcome to Planet Walters, a magical world where all your wishes come true. Oh wait, darn, we're on Earth:
Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson believes that the shortage in cocaine could be to blame for a spike in certain violent crimes close to home.

Jackson said that federal indictments that have yanked dozens of suspected dope dealers off the streets in recent months have increased competition - and violence - in the drug trade. [Cleveland Plain Dealer]

So in the short-term, violence goes up, not down. And in the long-term cocaine prices go down, not up. That is just Drug Enforcement 101, and it has been perfectly documented and understood for a very long time.

Let's play a game. Pretend you're the Mayor of Cleveland. Disruptions in the local drug market have produced a rash of brutal summer violence. Then you read the newspaper to find the Drug Czar declaring that disrupted drug markets lead to order and tranquility because everyone just gives up and goes to rehab. As the sirens blare outside your office, it must be just galling to watch the genius drug war experts in Washington, D.C. predicting an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity.

It gets tiresome trying to think of new ways to explain how odd it is that there's a whole White House office dedicated to making up fictitious criminal justice theories. You could fill a book with what they don’t know about drug enforcement and, in fact, many have.

They're Trying to Clone Drug-sniffing Dogs!

It's horrible because it's true:

SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean laboratory that produced the world's first cloned dogs is looking to get into the business of cloning canines, first by cloning drug-sniffing dogs, a lab official said on Tuesday.

The laboratory at Seoul National University, implicated in a scandal for fabricating data in embryonic stem cell studies, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Korea Customs Service to clone drug-sniffing dogs, said Kim Min-kyu, the researcher who heads the cloning project for the team. [Reuters]

You've gotta hand it to these guys. What better way to overcome the ethical dilemmas facing the cloning industry than by getting involved in the drug war, where ethics are all but unheard of.

There's something brilliantly Orwellian about armies of drug-sniffing dog clones chasing hippies and snarling at school children. It's just a matter of time until they build robots to do that, and when that happens I just don't know what I'm gonna do. The big-time crooks will have their own robots to commit crimes for them, so our prisons will be filled with poor suckers who couldn’t afford a Stash-Bot 6000 to take the rap.

For the time being, it's worth noting that cloning in the drug war is nothing new. Anonymous sources have informed me that the new ONDCP documentary Stoners in the Mist is actually cloned from the original Reefer Madness, and drug war mouthpiece Mark Souder is actually cloned from red-scare fear-monger Joseph McCarthy.

Airport Narcs Fired For Peeing on Luggage

Ok, they were dogs, but it's still funny…

Two of Thailand's top canine agents in the country's war against drugs have been fired for "unbecoming conduct" that included urinating on luggage and rubbing up against female airport passengers.

Despite having two of the highest seizure rates on record, the sniffer dogs working at an airport near the notorious "Golden Triangle" opium-producing region were fired after passengers complained about their behaviour. [CBC News]

So in Thailand, police dogs pee on luggage and get fired. Meanwhile, here in the U.S., an utterly incompetent human narc can terrorize innocent people and get off with a one-day suspension.

It's particularly galling considering that dogs are expected to pee on stuff, whereas police officers certainly aren’t expected to terrorize the innocent. Or are they? The way today's public officials react to gratuitous police violence, you could easily expect more concern from a pet owner who finds a mess on the rug.

Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the punishment for police peeing on someone's belongings during a wrong address drug raid were remarkably lenient. And unfortunately, at this pace, I'm sure we'll have a chance to find out what it is before long.

Q: Which is worse, an incontinent dog or an incompetent cop?

A: The cop. He'll shoot your dog, at which point it will inevitably release its bowels anyway.

Don't Tell Anyone About the Narc Ambulance

When we said drug abuse needs to be looked at from a medical perspective, this isn’t what we had in mind:
Local law enforcement narcotics agents now have a new tool in the fight against drugs.

Med Life Ambulance Service has donated a used ambulance to serve as an enforcement vehicle for narcotics agents.

The unit will be used by the Bastrop Police Department and Morehouse Parish Sheriff's Office during narcotics investigations and in the course of executing search warrants. [Daily Enterprise]

Ok, rule number one for conducting narcotics investigations from an ambulance: don't tell everyone about it beforehand. I can't think of anything less discrete than doing a stakeout in a gigantic ambulance. Especially now that the ambulance is famous.

Moreover, ambulances with always be better equipped to help people with drug problems than tactical narcotics vehicles.

With Friends Like These…

Outgoing U.S. Ambassador Hans Hertell says the Dominican Republic is our "most important ally" in the war on drugs. He might be right, but how pathetic is that?

Our biggest ally in the collosal U.S. drug war is a tiny island nation in the Caribbean? I guess it depends what he means by "important," because the Dominican Republic is hardly a glowing example of progress in the international drug war. The fact that it's becoming more important isn't a good thing.

According to the State Department, "in 2006, the DR saw a surge in air smuggling of cocaine out of Venezuela." Google news has several articles on increased drug trafficking activity there. And there might be even more news on drug activity in the Dominican Republic if drug traffickers weren't threatening to burn Dominican journalists alive.

But the Dominican government loves U.S. drug war money, and President Leonel Fernandez accused us of negligence just three weeks ago for not giving him more of it. It's almost like he has an incentive to maintain a baseline of drug activity, while claiming an entitlement to U.S. tax-dollars to combat the problem.

The U.S. and its drug war allies are the most drug-infested nations in the world. "We're almost there!" they exclaim, with self-congratulatory zeal, like lemmings on a glorious march to the clifftop.

Actual progress is possible once we start doing the opposite of most things we've been doing.

The Chronicle plans a trip to the Andes

Snowflakes are falling in the Dakotas today. With winter coming to the High Plains, it's a good time to be thinking about heading south, and that's just what I intend to do in a few weeks, probably in early January. Thanks to a targeted gift from an individual donor (the same guy who financed my Afghanistan trip last year), I will be heading to Bolivia and Peru to report on the status of the Andean drug war.

Barnett Rubin Lectures the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Afghan Opium

On Thursday, I crossed back into the US from British Columbia and spent the day listening to all the back and forth over Chavez's "devil" comments as I drove across Washington, Idaho, and Montana. About 4am, I checked into a motel in Broadus, Montana—which is about 150 miles from nowhere in any direction—flipped on the tube, and lo and behold, there was Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin giving the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a tutorial on the complications of US Afghan policy.

Don't Go to Indiana

From the Tribune-Star in Terre Haute, Indiana:
The Vigo County prosecutor’s office, the Terre Haute Police Department and Vigo County Sheriff’s Department will be conducting intermittent driver’s license checks at an undisclosed location in Vigo County.

When I hear that Indiana police are conducting “driver’s license checks”, my constitutional spidey-sense goes off. Afterall, these are the folks who brought us the drug checkpoint. And when that got overruled by the Supreme Court, they came out with the similar, but more sinister “fake drug checkpoint.”

The Border: Obama Seeks $600 Million in Emergency Funds for Heightened Security

As the rising conservative clamor to "secure the border" -- whatever that means -- grows louder, the Obama administration is moving fast to pay for more border guards, customs and immigration agents, DEA agents, FBI task forces, and even a couple of unmanned drones -- about $600 million total of "emergency appropriations."