Drugs, Law and Conflict

A wall separating two slums in Rio de Janeiro, occupied by police after eight young people were kidnapped. Photo courtesy of Douglas Engle/Australfoto, via The Guardian.

The Guardian recently highlighted “Dancing With the Devil,” a documentary about violence in Rio de Janeiro’s slums. Professor Silvia Ramos of Brazil’s Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania writes,

Rio de Janeiro is no stranger to the sound of gunfire or to images of out-of-breath policemen sprinting into the favelas. Each week the newspapers are filled with pictures of bulletproof vehicles and automatic weapons, of gun-battles and drug busts, of people being arrested and people being killed.

But Dancing With The Devil shows us something we have never before seen on the big screen: the faces of Rio’s drug traffickers and policemen, who tell their stories staring straight into the camera, without disguises or masks.

See a clip of the film here.

**The Nogales port of entry at night. Photo by Simon Norfolk for the NYTimes, via (Notes on) Politics, Theory and Photography.

The US and Mexican governments have reached an agreement to refer some Mexicans caught in the US for drug smuggling, on a case-by-case basis, to the Mexican criminal justice system for prosecution.

The New York Times reports that the agreement is being tested in Nogales, on the Arizona-Sonora border, and will be implemented all along the border if deemed successful. Authorities chose Nogales because it is a relatively “controlled setting,” which allows for simpler prosecutions. The Times explains how the new plan works, based on its first test case:

The first referral, last weekend, involved Eleazar González-Sánchez, 27, of Sonora, Mexico. He was detained, Customs and Border Protection officers said, after they found the marijuana hidden in a compartment in the trunk of the car he was driving.

Mr. González-Sánchez was turned over to immigration agents, who, after consulting with federal prosecutors in the United States, informed Mexico’s attorney general’s office.

Mexican prosecutors reviewed the evidence, including sworn affidavits from United States law enforcement officials, and agreed to accept the case, taking custody of Mr. González-Sánchez and a sample of the marijuana for use in the prosecution.

What’s particularly interesting about this development is that the cases most likely to be referred to Mexico are those which US federal prosecutors often reject as too insignificant, and which state and local prosecutors fail to take up based on insufficient resources. Where previously (and still, along the rest of the border) this situation will lead to simple deportation proceedings, these individuals will now be brought into the criminal justice system, with all that entails. How this will turn out for Mexico remains to be seen…

Testimony from last week’s hearing in the California Assembly of A.B. 390 (the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act) is available here. This bill is moving through the state legislature at the same time that reformers are working on three separate legalization ballot initiatives. For more on this, see the NYTimes coverage here.

Photo courtesy of Boston.com Bringas

It seems that the 2009 UN World Drug Report, available here, has inspired The Boston Globe to come up with a compelling photo essay chronicling the War on Drugs and its effects throughout the world – definitely worth a look.

**A wall pierced by bullet holes in a botched drug raid in Sinaloa, Mexico, via TIME.

Thanks to WOLA for alerting us to Rep. Eliot Engel’s bill H.R. 2134, which would create a commission to evaluate US drug policy in the Western Hemisphere. I’m pleased to see the commission plans to focus not just on (much-needed) assessment of Plan Colombia and Merida Initiative aid, but also explicitly on demand in the US, including existing prevention and treatment programs. Also quite welcome is an exploration of current cooperation mechanisms with foreign governments, NGOs and regional bodies.

See the full text of the legislation here, and testimony from WOLA’s John Walsh before the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere here.

Update 10/23: See testimony from Crisis Group’s Mark Schneider before the subcommittee here.

**Opium sap drying during processing in Afghanistan.

TIME has a great photoessay on heroin, drug trafficking, and drug use available on its website.

Full results here.

**Photo courtesy of TIME.

New federal guidelines coming out of the DoJ this morning. According to early reports, “prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.” For more information, see the Huffington Post or WaPo.

Update 10/20: Check out the text of the DoJ memo here, and differing views of the new policy over at the NYTimes.

There are two new bills out, one in the Senate, the other in the Massachusetts House, that show interesting drug policy developments. The Senate Bill (S.1789) would eliminate sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine (see this WaPo article on the subject).

The MA bill (No. 2929) would create a taxation and regulation scheme for marijuana. See the bill here. As you may recall, in November 2008, Massachusetts decriminalized personal possession of marijuana.

Cocaine capsules are prepared for human smugglers who will ingest them and transport them to Europe. Photo courtesy Marco Vernaschi.

Hat tip to my friend Alexis for finding this haunting photoessay of the damage caused by drugs and violence in Guinea Bissau, courtesy of über-talented photographer Marco Vernaschi. The full set of photos is available here, and is very much worth seeing, even if hard to stomach.

The UNODC reported on West Africa’s increasing importance in the global drug trade last month in a 102-page report entitled “Transnational Trafficking and the Rule of Law in West Africa: A Threat Assessment.” The pdf is available here.