Business Insider: U.S. law enforcement strike deal with Sinoa drug cartel

Aninvestigation by El Universalfound that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies80% of the drugsentering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.There have long been allegations that Guzman,consideredto be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,"coordinateswith American authorities.But theEl Universal investigation is the first to publishcourt documentsthat include corroborating testimony froma DEA agent and a Justice Department official.The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of SinaloaleaderIsmael "El Mayo" Zambada and allegedly theSinaloa cartel’s "logistics coordinator."Here's whatDEA agent Manuel Castanon told the Chicago court:"On March 17, 2009, I met for approximately 30 minutes in a hotel room in Mexico City with Vincente Zambada-Niebla and two other individuals — DEA agent David Herrod and a cooperating source [Sinaloa lawyer Loya Castro] with whom I had worked since 2005. ...I did all of the talking on behalf of [the] DEA."A few hours later, Mexican Marines arrested Zambada-Niebla (a.k.a. "El Vicentillo")on charges oftrafficking more than a billion dollars in cocaine and heroin. Castanon and three other agents then visited Zambada-Niebla in prison, where the Sinaloa officer"reiterated his desire to cooperate," according toCastanon.El Universal, citing court documents, reports that DEA agents met with high-level Sinaloa officials more than 50 times since 2000.Then-Justice Department prosecutor Patrick Hearntold the Chicago courtthat, according to DEA special agentSteve Fraga, Castro "provided information leading to a 23-ton cocaineseizure, other seizures related to" various drug trafficking organizations, and that"El Mayo" Zambadawanted hisson to cooperate with the U.S.El UniversalA screenshot from the documents published by El Universal."The DEA agents met with members of the cartel in Mexico to obtain information about their rivals and simultaneously built a network of informants who sign drug cooperation agreements, subject to results, to enable them to obtain future benefits, including cancellation of charges in the U.S.,"reports El Universal, whichalsointerviewed more than one hundred active and retired police officers as wellas prisoners and experts.Zambada-Niebla's lawyer claimed to the court that in the late 1990s, Castro struck a deal with U.S. agents in which Sinaloa would provide information about rival drug trafficking organizations while the U.S. would dismiss its case against theSinaloa lawyerand refrain from interfering withSinaloa drug trafficking activities or actively prosecuting Sinaloa leadership."The agents stated that this arrangement had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors,"Zambada-Nieblalawyer wrote.After being extradited to Chicago in February 2010, Zambada-Nieblaarguedthat he was also"immune from arrest or prosecution" because he actively provided information to U.S. federal agents.Zambada-Niebla alsoallegedthatOperation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartelin exchange for information used to take down its rivals. (If true, thatre-raises the issueregarding what Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the gun-running arrangements.)A Mexican foreign service officertold Stratforin April 2010 that the U.S. seemed to have sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.El Universal reported that the coordination between the U.S. and Sinaloa, as well as other cartels, peakedbetween 2006 and 2012, which is when drug traffickersconsolidated their gripon Mexico. The paper concluded by saying that it is unclear whether the arrangements continue.The DEA and other U.S. agencies declined to comment to El Universal.

Syria becomes major producer of Meth

By Stephen Kalin
Reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria has become a major amphetamines exporter and consumer as the trauma of the country's brutal civil war fuels demand and the breakdown in order creates opportunity for producers.

Drugs experts, traders and local activists say Syrian production of the most popular of the stimulants, known by its former brand name Captagon, accelerated in 2013, outpacing production in other countries in the region such as Lebanon.

Reports of seizures and interviews with people connected to the trade suggest it generates hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues in Syria, potentially providing funding for weapons, while the drug itself helps combatants dig in for long, grueling battles.

Most other economic activity in Syria has ground to a halt in the past two years due to the violence, shortages and international sanctions.

Consumption of Captagon outside the Middle East is negligible, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), but it is a significant drug in the Arab Gulf, and nascent markets were detected in North Africa last year.

Sitting at a crossroads in the Middle East, Syria has long been a transit point for drugs coming from Europe, Turkey and Lebanon and destined for Jordan, Iraq and the Gulf.

The breakdown of state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed groups during the nearly three-year battle for control of Syria has transformed the country from a stopover into a major production site.

Even before the conflict, Saudi Arabia received about seven metric tons of Captagon in 2010, a third of world supply, according to UNODC figures.

A member of a prominent drug trading family in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where much of that country's drug production and smuggling takes place, told Reuters that demand from the Gulf kingdom had increased since then, and Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates were also big consumers.

The trader said production in Lebanon fell 90 percent in 2013 from two years earlier, and wholly attributed the drop to a shift in production to Syria. He said some production might also have moved to Syria from Turkey during the past year.

Khabib Ammar, a Damascus-based media activist, said Syrian fighters involved with the drugs trade were buying weapons with the money they made, though Reuters could not independently verify claims that Captagon profits were being used to fund either side of the conflict.

Syrian government forces and rebel groups each say the other uses Captagon to endure protracted engagements without sleep, while clinicians say ordinary Syrians are increasingly experimenting with the pills, which sell for between $5 and $20.

REGULAR SEIZURES

The drug was first produced in the West in the 1960s to treat hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression, but by the 1980s was banned in most countries because of its addictive properties and no longer has a legitimate medical use. Its active ingredient, fenethylline, is metabolized by the body into the stimulants amphetamine and theophylline.

Lebanese psychiatrist Ramzi Haddad said the drug had the typical effects of a stimulant. "It gives you a kind of euphoria. You're talkative, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you're energetic," he said.

Production is cheap and simple, requiring "only basic knowledge of chemistry and a few scales", he added. Syrian and Lebanese authorities regularly seize homemade laboratories used to make the pills.

National drug control offices in the region also report Syria's increasing role in the trade.

Colonel Ghassan Chamseddine, head of Lebanon's drug enforcement unit, told Reuters the pills are hidden in trucks passing from Syria to Lebanese ports where they are then shipped to the Gulf.

"It comes from Syria. Most of the Captagon production is there, according to our information," he said.

Official figures show Lebanon seized more than 12.3 million Captagon pills in 2013. Chamseddine said most of that came from a few large busts in the Bekaa Valley, which borders Syria. One seizure of 5.3 million pills implicated a Syrian family that he said has been smuggling drugs for 10 years.

The Lebanese trader said the main players in Lebanon's Captagon trade are established families in the Bekaa who started off smuggling hashish and cocaine decades ago. They either produce the pills themselves or provide the materials and equipment to partners inside Syria and then help smuggle the pills out of the country, he said.

Turkish authorities have also identified a rise in Captagon production in Syria. In May, they seized 7 million pills en route to Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi media. The head of Turkey's anti-drug-trafficking directorate said the pills were made in Syria with materials from Lebanon, but he couldn't confirm a connection to rebels there.

Dubai police also reported making a seizure of a record 4.6 million Captagon pills in December.

MUTUAL DENIALS

Syrian state media regularly mention Captagon pills as one of the items government forces seize alongside weapons when they capture rebel fighters or raid their bases.

A drug control officer in the central city of Homs told Reuters he had observed the effects of Captagon on protesters and fighters held for questioning.

"We would beat them, and they wouldn't feel the pain. Many of them would laugh while we were dealing them heavy blows," he said. "We would leave the prisoners for about 48 hours without questioning them while the effects of Captagon wore off, and then interrogation would become easier."

The opposition retorts that the government is aiming to sully its reputation and say it is the pro-government 'shabiha' gunmen that run the Captagon trade.

Opposition activist Ammar said consumption was limited to government supporters and fighters who use the cover of the revolution to pursue lucrative criminal activities.

"These days, the criminals and addicts do whatever they want," he said. "They've increased because of hunger, poverty and lack of work."

A psychiatrist named George said he treated Captagon users at his clinic in the government stronghold of Latakia.

"The use of Captagon and other pills increased after the revolution even among civilians because of psychological and economic pressures," he said.

He said the government exaggerated the drug's prevalence among opponents, but added that it was likely both the shabiha and rebel Free Syrian Army were users, "especially when they are assigned night duty or other long missions".

A resident of the central city of Homs said the use of Captagon and hashish had become widespread and open in the past year in his neighborhood, an area populated mostly by Alawites, the same Muslim sect that President Bashar al-Assad belongs to.

"It's young people in general, and most of them are in the National Defence Force and shabiha organizations," he said.

(Additional reporting by a reporter in Syria whose name is withheld for security reasons; Editing by Will Waterman)

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBREA0B04H20140112?irpc=932

What do you know, they legalize weed and no one went crazy.......Time's veiw on Co. Legalization.

The center of the movement to legalize pot is in a red sandstone building a few blocks from Colorado’s state capitol in Denver. The activists who work there call it the marijuana mansion. Sprawling and a little shabby, with stained glass and dormer windows, it houses some of the country’s top cannabis lawyers, as well as a policy group that advocates for the reform of pot laws and the industry’s growing trade association. On the first Friday in January—Day 3 of Colorado’s grand experiment with retail pot sales —Christian Sederberg, an attorney who helped implement the law, was lounging in a room off the mansion’s foyer, exulting in the success of its debut.

“The rollout’s gone amazingly well, and we knew it would,” he said, leaning back against a brown leather sofa as sunlight streamed through the windows. ”We’re on the right side of history.”

It may be too soon to say that, but Colorado has certainly made history. On Jan. 1, it became the only state in the world to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana to anyone over 21. At 8 a.m. on New Year’s Day, as most of the country slept off their hangovers, smokers were lined up in a light snow for the grand opening of Denver’s retail pot shops. Customers were happy to wait for hours and pay high prices for their chance to legally purchase taxed, tested and locally grown strains like Bubba Kush and Sour Diesel. Businesses say they banked $1 million on the first day, even though only a few dozen stores were ready to open their doors. And despite warnings that it would unleash reefer madness, the opening days went off almost without a hitch.

The early success of pot’s pilot program was ushered in by a phenomenon almost as rare: a government working as it should. Colorado’s Amendment 64 passed in Nov. 2012 with 55% of the vote—a mandate that belied a lack of institutional support. The healthy margin was driven by a grassroots campaign that cast marijuana as less harmful than alcohol, tapping into the electorate’s libertarian streak and attracting young and new voters to the polls in a presidential swing state. But only two state legislators endorsed the constitutional amendment. Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper opposed it, as did Denver’s mayor, and newspaper editorial boards shied away. “Don’t break out the Cheetos and Goldfish too quickly,” Hickenlooper snarked after the vote, noting that marijuana remained illegal under federal law.

But then something strange happened. At a time when Washington is crippled by partisan squabbling and state governments are more polarized than ever, stakeholders in Colorado set aside the divisions of the campaign and set to carrying out the public’s will. “Regardless of what their viewpoint was, everyone wanted to make this work in the best way possible,” says Barbara Brohl, Colorado’s top marijuana regulator, who won’t say whether she supported the law. “We kind of took politics out of it.”

Despite his reservations about the idea, Hickenlooper set up a task force to make it work, chaired by Brohl and Jack Finlaw, the governor’s top lawyer. “The governor came along quite reluctantly,” says Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver and member of the implementation task force. But once the amendment passed, Kamin adds, Hickenlooper “did nothing to stand in the way. The governor said we’re not going to relitigate this.”

The task force held meetings all over the Front Range, seeking input on issues ranging from advertising restrictions to child safety. The Democratic-controlled legislature, working with the support of law enforcement officials, passed measures to heavily tax sales and earmark the first $40 million in revenue toward school construction. A passel of legal and policy experts hustled through the process of building a regulatory framework, borrowing heavily from a 2010 measure that regulated the state’s existing medical marijuana market. And marijuana activists made pragmatic concessions—from product caps to packaging restrictions to perks for existing medical-marijuana businesses—that helped smooth divisions. “They were able to persuade their brethren in the medical marijuana industry to come on board with those reforms rather than to be oppositional,” says Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

As it scrambled to iron out the kinks ahead of a Jan. 1 rollout, known here as “Green Wednesday,” Colorado officials had the heady task of anticipating the potential pitfalls of an untried experiment. If it succeeds, it could mark the beginning of the end of the era of pot prohibition; if it flops, Colorado could become a cautionary tale. “This was uncharted territory. We were definitely the first in the world,” Brohl says. And activists and regulators were conscious of how their perch as pot pioneers carried responsibilities. ”We are in a fishbowl,” Brohl says. “We know that everybody is watching and we take that responsibility very seriously.”

The Centennial State isn’t the only one that is experimenting with looser drug laws. After decades of failed drug policy, and with nationwide support for legalization rising to 58% in one recent poll, 20 U.S. states, plus the District of Columbia, now allow medical marijuana sales. Some municipalities have decriminalized possession. Washington State is preparing to roll out its own retail cannabis shops, likely sometime this summer, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is reportedly preparing to announce later this week an executive order to allow limited use of medical marijuana in the Empire State. Measures to legalize pot sales will be on the ballot in several more states in 2014 and 2016, including possibly California. Representatives from Uruguay, Britain, Chile and Brazil have all consulted Colorado experts how to assemble a regulatory framework. Sederberg was among several Colorado marijuana experts who traveled last fall to Montevideo for days of meetings with Uruguay’s cabinet before its legal cannabis market debuts.

It seems inevitable that some problems will materialize. Supporters of Colorado’s marijuana industry fret about heavy taxes and high prices, the potential of dwindling supply, overregulation, and the specter of intervention from the federal government. A car accident involving a stoned driver, use by minors or pot tourists carrying their product across state lines could all tarnish the rollout. Then there is the biggest concern: a lack of access to banking services that has forced legal pot businesses to operate mostly in cash, both a legal and safety hazard. “We’re not going to get it 100% right the first time,” Kamin cautions.

But a few days into Colorado’s big experiment, there are few, if any, major failures to point to. And so, as darkness descended on Jan. 3, a few dozen industry insiders gathered at a Mexican restaurant in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood for a marijuana fundraiser. Business owners and lobbyists sipped margaritas, hobnobbed with state legislators and swapped tales from a wild opening week.

“This isn’t primarily a political movement anymore,” explains Taylor West, the incoming deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association. “It’s becoming a thriving industry.”

http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/06/why-legal-weed-is-working-in-colorado/