Sleepless in Midland

Ghastly murders in Mexico -- reminder, they've got very tough gun control laws

As if we didn't need a reminder of how ruthless the Mexican cartels are and how useless Mexico's gun laws are, there's this: 9 Family Members, All U.S. Citizens, Die In Highway Attack In Mexico.

Three women and six children were killed in an attack on members of a fundamentalist Mormon family as they traveled in Mexico on Monday, Mexican officials say. All of those killed were U.S. citizens, and authorities say they might have been ambushed by gang members.

Horrific! The U.S. has a narco state just across the border where just last week a cartel out gunned police who tried to arrest a drug kingpin family member.

Memo to the anti-gun movement in the U.S. -- Mexico has very tough gun control laws. Fat lot of good they do for the law abiding citizens. It's trite but true, outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.

The really sad part about this is that the appetite for drugs in the U.S. gives power to the cartels.

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3:16 PM 11/5/2019

Texas prosecutors decline to enforce marijuana possession laws after hemp legalized

They didn't see this coming. This year, Texas passed a law legalizing hemp. It also has prosecutors dropping hundreds of marijuana cases. Simply put, if a defendant claims it's legal hemp, prosecutors don't currently have the means to disprove that claim.

More here: After New Hemp Law, Texas Prosecutors Differ On When To Charge Those Arrested For Marijuana.

Because of a new state law, prosecutors across Texas have dropped hundreds of low-level marijuana charges and have indicated they won’t pursue new ones without further testing. ...

“The distinction between marijuana and hemp requires proof of the THC concentration of a specific product or contraband, and for now, that evidence can come only from a laboratory capable of determining that type of potency — a category which apparently excludes most, if not all, of the crime labs in Texas right now,” stated an advisory released by the Texas District and County Attorneys Association last month.

But wait a sec. Governor Abbott says prosecute anyway if the possessor doesn't have a hemp shipping certificate. See Abbott Orders Texas Prosecutors to Enforce Marijuana Laws. Excerpt:

“If a person is transporting hemp but has no certificate, you may now prosecute that person for the offense of failing to have a hemp certificate,” the memo reads … before going on to state that such certification does not yet exist: “If they have a certificate, which the Department has yet to promulgate, then it’s a fake – which is a felony.”

Alrighty then.

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2:48 PM 9/11/2019

government crackdown on opioid use is causing a lot of pain for people who need the drugs

"We're here from the government, and we're going to cause you a lot of pain." That's the consequence, surely unintended, for the crackdown on opioid pain medicine for the other problem, addiction to the pain meds.

It's mostly anecdotal, but the evidence is piling up that people are suffering. See, for example, Chronic pain patients report struggles under tighter opioid regulations and Chronic pain patients say opioid crackdown is hurting them.

Take a look at 2017 CDC Survey results for the flavor of comments pain patients have about the new rules. Here are a few chart captures:

Doctors who have run afoul of the rules have to jump through several hoops in order to practice again. In that regard, note the difficulty some people say they have finding a doctor who will prescribe pain meds

Right here in Midland, Texas, patients of Dr. D'Agastino were left in a lurch when his practice was shut down due to inadequate patient monitoring and prescribing to patients whose urinalyses returned positive for marijuana. He entered into an agreed order which you can find by searching for his name at the Texas Medical Board website. He agreed to attend classes, pay a fine, and allow another physician to monitor his practice for a period of time. Hopefully, he will be back in practice soon, and his patients can get some relief from their pain.

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2:38 PM 5/11/2019

Witnesses in El Chapo trial tell how they smuggled drugs

People in the U.S. made El Chapo very wealthy with their appetite for the contraband drugs. Testimony in the trial has revealed how his people smuggled the drugs into the U.S.

Planes, trains, automobiles, trucks, boats, submarines and tunnels are some of the means they used to smuggle drugs. By far the most interesting method was putting cocaine in jalapeño cans weighted to feel as if they actually contained jalapeños. Very clever. And it serves as a reminder that someone determined enough can thwart those whose job it is to detect smugglers -- deception is always one step ahead of detection, by definition.

Democrats focus on the trial testimony of witnesses who confirmed the belief that a majority of the smuggled drugs would not have been stopped by a wall. But that's a dodge used to demonstrate how much smarter they are than Donald Trump. However, the purpose of border barricades is to stop illegal immigration. Stopping drug smuggling would be a side effect.

Sources: ‘El Chapo’ tried to smuggle cocaine in jalapeño cans, was involved in numerous killings, prosecutors say;
Frozen sharks, fake carrots, and catapults: The bizarre ways smugglers like 'El Chapo' Guzmán get drugs across borders;
Traffickers at the El Chapo trial say drugs aren't smuggled through open parts of the border;
El Chapo Cartel Members Say Drugs Aren’t Smuggled Through Gaps In The Border Wall;
Hundreds of migrants cross Arizona border after 'several busloads' dropped off in Mexico.

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1:58 PM 1/30/2019

Cartels smuggle illegal aliens and keep border patrol busy while they sneak in drugs

While most of the Democrat media enterprise concentrates on any aspect of illegal immigration that could damage Trump's popularity, the cartel millionaires smile all the way to the banque.

Ben Domenech penned an eye opener titled The Migrant Crisis Is About More Than Just Kids. Mr. Domenech tells us how the cartels use murder to control the political process South of the border. Then there's this:

The Mexican cartels had to find a new funding source with the legalization of marijuana in the United States. The market for their poor quality pot dried up, and so they turned to human trafficking as an alternative source of funding. They locked down the Rio Grande, to the point that you must pay them to be ferried across or you risk being shot. The cartels use these migrants to flood the zone and clog up Border Patrol resources, functioning as human pawns to distract from their efforts to smuggle opioids and other drugs across.

It's only a matter of time before the open border crowd starts calling the detention centers "refugee camps."

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2:43 PM 6/22/2018

Cato and Reason -- Take out drug kingpins and markets become more competitive and deadly

The nation building challenge for any country trying to do it is that when the dictator is removed the void is filled by others who may be more violent.

That same theory seems to apply to the removal of drug kingpins. Alexis Garcia at Reason.com asks this question: Will El Chapo’s Arrest Make the Drug Trade More Deadly? Excerpt:

The U.S. and Mexican governments have declared Guzmán's capture a major win in the drug war. Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron thinks his story better demonstrates the folly of prohibition.

"When we interfere on the supply side with the drug trade by taking out kingpins and other ways, we tend to lower the prices partially because we're making the market more competitive," says Miron, who's also the head of economic studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. "Where there's demand, there's going to be supply."

The capture of kingpins doesn't just tend to make cartels more competitive in the marketplace. It can also increase violence as rival factions battle to fill the power vacuum.

A 2015 research brief conducted by Miron and his Cato colleagues Jason Lindo and Maria Padilla-Romo shows that capturing a leading drug trafficker "in a municipality increases its homicide rate by 80 percent" over a 12-month period. In neighboring municipalities, the homicide rate rises 30 percent in the six-month period after a kingpin's capture.

Here's a link to the Cato report: Kingpin Approaches to Fighting Crime and Community Violence: Evidence from Mexico’s Drug War.

Prohibition didn't work in the war on alcohol and doesn't seem to yield an ideal outcome in the war on drugs.

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1:06 PM 4/21/2018

Do you believe a dog could smell meth sealed in containers concealed in a pickup truck gas tank?

It's possible, if the meth containers weren't sealed and cleaned and the gas tank was otherwise empty.

See the story at Border agents find $4M worth of liquid meth in car's gas tank and CBP stops methamphetamine load.

The story invites the reader to imagine the containers submerged in gasoline in a gas tank. In that case, a dog couldn't have smelled it. Odor is actually cells of a substance that enter the olfactory system. So there would have to be cells of the substance floating around in the air before a dog could smell it.

It's conceivable that agents had been tipped off about the meth haul either by a tipster or some form of surveillance, and the dog story was concocted as a way to avoid identifying the source.

It's also conceivable that the meth was hidden in an empty auxiliary tank and the smugglers did a sloppy job of eradicating the smell.

But if the meth canisters were sealed and submerged in gasoline then the dog sniffing dog couldn't smell it.

Here's an experiment for anyone wanting to conduct a test. Buy nine cans of peas and one can of dog food. Peel off the labels and thoroughly clean the cans. Then try to get the dog to pick the one with the dog food. Odds of picking the dog food can are one in ten.

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3:29 PM 3/13/2018

One has to wonder how many people could get roped up under charges of lying to the FBI

Scooter Libby was convicted to lying to the prosecution team during the hunt for the Valarie Plame leaker some years ago. He was the only perp they could find, and his "crime" had nothing to do with the alleged purpose of the investigation. G.W. Bush ultimately commuted Libby's sentence, but the conviction still mars his record.

Martha Stewart had that problem. And now we learn that George Papadopoulos had the same problem: Ex-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to FBI about Russian contacts.

Brings to mind my own experience. Years ago a work acquaintance applied for a government job that required an FBI investigation of the applicant. He used me as a reference, and a neatly trimmed FBI agent payed me a visit. He was cordial, in a businesslike manner. And he explained that lying to him was a crime punishable with a prison sentence.

He proceeded to ask about use of illegal drugs by the job applicant. I answered truthfully. My friend had never talked about drug use to me, and I had never witnessed any drug use by him. During the course of the interview the agent asked the drug question several times. And he repeated the warning about lying several times. What the hell was going on? Was my friend a junkie? A drug dealer? What?

Anyway, I called my friend after the interview and told him about all the drug talk. My friend laughed and then joked about his use of marijuana in the past. Jeez, man! Don't tell me that! No wonder the FBI guy was so focused on that -- others had told them a different story than mine.

I was very much out of the loop on that personal issue. And either the FBI guy figured that out, or I was too small a fry to go after.

In any event, whenever I hear of someone being prosecuted -- or accepting a plea bargain -- for lying to the FBI I'm reminded of how easy it would be to get snared in that trap.

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1:37 PM 10/30/2017

Free markets work -- generic Epipen now available 2 for $100

Who can forget the screaming from the media when Mylan Labs raised the price of a two pack EpiPen to around $600? The anguish was enough to tempt a person to invest in funeral homes.

But the free market actually does work. And while the heavily regulated pharmaceutical industry isn't really a symbol of free markets, in this case a generic version of the EpiPen had already been approved. It took the big Mylan price hike to unleash it. According to USAToday, CVS targets EpiPen with cheaper, generic version:

CVS Health Thursday that it would start selling the generic version of a competitor to pharmaceutical giant Mylan's EpiPen, an injection for people having severe allergy reactions. The move comes amid public consternation over multiple price increases that left the brand-name allergic-reaction treatment EpiPen with a list price of more than $600, up from about $100 in 2009.

CVS says the generic based off Impax Laboratories’ Adrenaclick treatment will sell for $109.99 per two-pack before potential discounts, or about one-third the initial $300 list price of the generic version of the EpiPen that Mylan announced after criticism about pricing.

If you bought stock in funeral homes, hold on, there will be other scares. There always are.

Seismograph technology has made tremendous advances in the last few decades -- why can't they find smuggler tunnels?

It was the Mexican police that found the 1/3 mile long smuggler's tunnel connecting a building in Tijuana to a location in San Diego. The find was due to an anonymous tip, according to Daily Mail with the derisive headline Can't build a wall against this! Mexican police find massive tunnel leading from Tijuana to San Diego that is equipped with rails so drugs can be smuggled into the US by the CARTLOAD.

No, a wall on the surface wouldn't be do it. But why isn't there technology available to find abnormal conditions underground? Well, there is, it's just not perfect.

There's seismograph works sometimes. But geological anomalies can make the walls of the tunnel hard to spot.

Then there's ground-penetrating radar which looks like the better of the two.

In any event, every time we hear of a tunnel like this being located we have to wonder how someone could dig a tunnel 1/3 mile without detection. Then again, the article said there was an anonymous time, so someone one noticed.  And there's probably no better source of information than a witness who isn't afraid to talk.

The fruits of prohibition -- bathtub gin and synthetic marijuana

The first episode of season 2 of The Making of the Mob was on the other night, and looks like it will be about the Chicago mob -- season 1 was about the NY mob.  Anyway, that episode contained some interesting tidbits about Al Capone. But it ended as Capone and his mentor bought a brewery after alcohol prohibition commenced.

Most of us know some or all of the story already, and one unfortunate part of the history of prohibition repeated itself the other day. Seems that several people collapsed around the same time after consuming some synthetic marijuana. See 33 people suspected of overdosing on synthetic marijuana over 11-hour period in Brooklyn.

Did that remind anyone of bathtub gin? According to the legend, entrepreneurs attempted making alcohol at home. The name suggests it was gin made in the bathtub. At any rate, according to the legend, it not only tasted bad, it sometimes caused blindness or death.

The small lesson should be that people shouldn't experiment with stuff like that. But the bigger lesson is that if you prohibit something people want, many will seek a way around it in spite of the risk to their health.

Price of marijuana goes down after legalization -- is anyone surprised?

"Unexpectedly," is the word popularized on blogs to categorize an item that surprises no one but the msm. Perhaps it applies here.

The article is in the WaPo titled So, something interesting happens to weed after it’s legal.

I hate to give away the ending, but the "interesting" thing is that the price goes down. But to be fair, the author makes it sound as though he is not the one who is surprised, leading one to believe it was the headline writer with the mouth agape and wide open eyes.

Excerpt:

After a transitory rise in the first few months, which Davenport attributes to supply shortages as the system came on line, both retail prices and wholesale prices have plummeted. Davenport said that prices “are now steadily falling at about 2 percent per month. If that trend holds, prices may fall 25 percent each year going forward.”

Extrapolations like that are seldom precise prediction tools, but the point remains: Remove prohibition and the price goes down.

I hope El Chapo doesn't have Sean Penn and the soap actress whacked for their botched effort to make him look like a Mexican Robin Hood

Those cartel bosses may be sometimes remembered for an occasional free dinner, but more often than not their reputations were formed by brutality -- retribution, especially.

Let's hope El Chapo isn't so mad about being recaptured that he tries to take it out on Sean Penn and/or Kate del Castillo since their clumsy attempts to get him in the pictures got him picked up by the federalies.

Say, you know what? Now that Sean and Kate are part of the story they are probably more exited about a movie than ever.

 

First the good news -- Sinaloa farmers' profits on marijuana off by 70% due to marijuana legalization in U.S. ...

The bad news is that Americans' appetite for heroin and meth is growing. And the cartels are more than happy to satisfy that need for smack and speed.

One of the anticipated benefits of marijuana legalization was the blow against the Mexican drug cartels since a legal product would certainly hurt a business that depended on tunnels, mules, hidden compartments, high speed boats, lots of workers willing to risk capture, and a complicated detection avoidance system. Also, the quality of the domestic pot is reportedly better than Mexican weed.

It was also easy to anticipate an increased emphasis by the cartels on drugs that were still illegal. LATimes.com: "High demand for heroin in the U.S. has been driving up prices, and there is little chance it will be legal any time soon."

"High demand for heroin" is never a good trend, and reducing that demand would be a good thing for everyone. Ah, but that's the problem, isn't it? Some people need a way to escape their own minds. But for those people there's no escape from the problems created by some of the choices they make.

El Chapo, the Narco-statesman

Whenever someone flies the Mexican flag in the U.S. I always wonder what it is about the Mexican government that is so good that they want to bring it to the United States. It's difficult to think of an example. I would make an exception for fiestas and siestas, but the government can't lay claim to those.

Nationalism is a a strong force. And people take pride in their countries of origin even if their government leaves a lot to be desired.

So when we hear that the narcotics kingpin, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, through his son, has jumped on the anti-Trump band wagon, then maybe Senor Guzman is expressing his pride in his country.

He should. He's gotten away with murder, mayhem, and elaborate escape under that regime. Maybe pride isn't the right word for it, but he certainly owes his country something.

New use for the peace pipe -- Indian tribes mulling marijuana sales

Marijuana sold on Indian reservations somehow seems like a natural fit. Indian reservations are supposed to have the status of sovereign nations, so they can do a lot of things that Americans are prohibited from doing. They've scored big with casinos, and the sale of tax free cigarettes has been a long time profit maker.

Now some tribes are contemplating the sale of marijuana. See Indian Country looks to marijuana as new moneymaker about a tribal pow-wow at the Tulalip Resort Casino in the state of Washington.

Several states have already legalized recreational marijuana, Washington included, but the tribes could easily compete on price if they don't have to collect the state tax.

The real payoff would be the extent that the new competition hurts the drug cartels.

As for new businesses for tribes, I've long thought they would do well to establish webmail services and toss National Security Letters in the trash. Now there's a selling point.

Angela Hawken on C-Span re marijuana legalization

She's an Associate Professor at Pepperdine University and is one of the co-authors of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know. A C-Span interview with her is available for online viewing.

Some of the highlights of the interview:

- Alcohol is much more harmful than marijuana yet the law is much more relaxed about alcohol.

- A majority of American support legalizing marijuana.

- The big players in California are looking for that state to legalize marijuana in 2016. The effort failed there in 2010 by a thin margin. She expects a other few states to do it in 2014, so California will be a laggard.

- Globally marijuana users comprise 3 to 4% of the population, however among Americans it's around 12%. About a third of those would be called "experimenters." For about 20% of users it's a way of life, smoking every day or every other day. About a third of that latter group meet the clinical criteria for abuse or dependency. That compares with an 88% rate for cocaine users. The typical heavy user of marijuana is not dependent on marijuana. They typical heavy user of cocaine is dependent on cocaine.

- People fitting the clinical description for dependency and abuse of marijuana are unproductive, unable to get things done, and can't quit. Although it affects a small percentage of users, for those people it's a serious issue.

- Marijuana legalization advocacy groups were touting massive tax benefits from legalization. She thought the initial estimates were too high. However, the tax results so far in Colorado were much higher they even the advocacy groups had expected. Keep in mind that there was an influx of tourists seeking marijuana. Demand exceeded supply and the prices skyrocketed. Therefore, the initial tax receipts were quite high but will ultimately fall as the market levels off.

- Marijuana and alcohol have about the same rates of abuse or dependency.

- Alcohol and marijuana have a complicated relationship. Driving while stoned on marijuana is probably not as bad as driving drunk. However, driving after using alcohol and marijuana is worse than driving under the influence of either one alone.

- If the federal government wanted to take on the states that legalized marijuana now is the time. Soon it will be too late.

Ms Hawken is in favor of legalization. What would change her mind? If in the next few years marijuana legalization leads to an increase in drunk driving or if an increase in alcohol use is accompanied by an increase in marijuana use, "I will fundamentally change my mind on marijuana legalization." We'll know in the next few years.

If like me, you are fascinated with this huge social experiment but not enough to actually read the book, watch that interview.

Mexican pot growers are going bankrupt and that makes me happy

So is that racist? No apologies here. That's just the way it is.

We, as out of state observers, hoped with the experiment of legalizing marijuana in states like Colorado and Washington that one result would be that the other, more lethal, drug industry would suffer. The rationale is that the illegal drug dealers might peddle marijuana for recreational use with the hope that customers might be tempted to try something heavier. It was all illegal anyway, so why not try something new? Marijuana was the gateway drug only in that customer had to get involved with a dealer who had more expensive merchandise he would be happy to provide.

With the legalization of marijuana the illegal drug dealer got cut out of the loop along with his inventory of hard drugs. The hope is that the hard drug business all the way back to the Mexican cartels will suffer badly.

Now we learn from Gary North in Illegal Marijuana Market Goes to Pot that marijuana prices on the black market have dropped 75% and that "Pot growers in Mexico are going bankrupt." (Via Liberty Pen.)

That's good news. But that's just the first phase. When the cartels are going bankrupt that would be even better news. Here's the bad news:  The pot farmers have switched to heroin poppies. But if the theory holds, that business will not flourish.

It's a grand experiment, and let's hope it's a successful one.

Interesting correlation between medical marijuana and declining crime rates

WaPo has the article: See Emily Badger's No, legalizing medical marijuana doesn’t lead to crime, according to actual crime stats which cites a study from the Program in Criminology, University of Texas at Dallas, titled The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data, 1990-2006.

Those jurisdictions that implemented medical marijuana legalization, according to the researchers, experienced "no noticeable local uptick among a whole suite of crimes: homicide, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, larceny, and auto theft." (Quote from Emily Badger.)

But there was also a decline in assaults and murders. Why? Maybe this: "Given the relationship between alcohol and violent crime [31], it may turn out that substituting marijuana for alcohol leads to minor reductions in violent crimes that can be detected at the state level."

Now there's an unanticipated consequence.

Heroin usage on the rise in Massachusetts suburbs-- prescription opioids are the gateway drug

Kristina Lindborg was on Washington Journal the other day talking about her recent article at csmonitor.com titled Why heroin is spreading in America's suburbs. Excerpt:

Stronger heroin is only one reason behind the nation's growing addiction problem. The other – and more prevalent cause, say police and medical experts – is the nation's pill culture.

Ana's route to addiction is a familiar one, according to addicts: a progression from alcohol to marijuana to painkillers to heroin. There are variations on that theme: a sports injury and a prescription for opioids that goes on far longer than it should; a peek inside the family medicine cabinet to find a trove of prescription pills – such as Percocet, OxyContin, Vicodin, codeine – that can be used as recreational drugs.

Often the introduction comes through friends who want to share a high they have discovered. Or it happens at a college party where a variety of drugs are being offered.

Regardless of how it starts, it usually takes the same precipitous route. Once hooked, users look for doctors who will sell them prescription drugs and, failing that, turn desperately to the street, where the price can be as high as $80 for a single pill. When that becomes too expensive, users often resort to the drug that produces the same kind of high that painkillers do but is far cheaper: heroin.

The article is heavy on anecdotes, one of which tells the interesting story about how one group of young addicts looked down on "junkies" while convincing themselves they were using heroin merely to get them through the periods when they didn't have access to the prescription opioids.

The author makes a convincing argument. However, those needing statistics to be convinced should look elsewhere. For example, Ms. Lindborg says on the bottom of page 1 the following:

In Massachusetts, law enforcement authorities recently reported that 185 people have died of heroin overdoses in just the past four months – which didn't include numbers from the state's three largest cities. Nationwide, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), heroin use among persons age 12 and older nearly doubled between 2007 and 2012.

(Emphasis added by me.) But if you actually look at the SAMHSA study you find this:

The annual number of persons with substance dependence or abuse in 2012 (22.2 million) was similar to the number in each of the years from 2002 to 2010 (ranging from 21.6 million to 22.7 million), but it was higher than the number in 2011 (20.6 million). ... The number of persons with heroin dependence or abuse in 2012 (467,000) was approximately twice the number in 2002 (214,000).

Maybe she simply mistook 2002 for 2007.

In any event, a problem next door looks very large to those who see it, and this might be more of a suburban Massachusetts problem at the moment than a nationwide problem. Nevertheless, it would be wise to keep an eye on it should it spread.

From Breaking Bad to Breaking Worse -- Meth in rural Missouri

Interesting article about people in Jefferson County Missouri for whom meth is a big part of life. See I Embedded with a Community of Meth Users. Excerpt:

AR: How do people in Jefferson County get into meth?

JP: Many of the people I met began meth on the job—concrete work, roofing, trucking, factory work. It’s a way to make the job easier, to work longer hours and make more money. Meth increases dopamine levels in the brain, which can cause people to engage in repetitive (and often meaningless) actions—a behavioral effect that syncs up well with ‘work you gotta turn your mind off for,’ as one cook told me.

Others began at home, often because their parents, older siblings, or grandparents were making it. I talked to people in prison who began when they were in elementary school. Some users will administer it to their children—they’ll blow it into their mouths if they’re smoking it. They want to share it with their children; they want to experience it together, feel closer. If there’s no entertainment, no sports, nothing to do after school—you need money to pay for gas, to go to the movies—the main activities are drinking, smoking weed. The boundaries are blurry.

With meth, there aren’t big parties like there are with some other drugs. If there are large groups of people who take meth together regularly, it's a network of people who help each other acquire the ingredients to cook it.

More like Winter's Bone than Breaking Bad, neither of which appear to be very healthy endeavors.

Via thebrowser.com.

Marijuana has gone to the dogs in Seattle

It's medical marijuana for pets to treat arthritis. Breitbart.com has the news at Seattle Vet Offers Medical Pot For Pets.

Anti-inflammatory drugs have their drawbacks, but marijuana doesn't, say the vets trying to sell the product.

But there's a downside there, too. They stripped out the THC, so the animals don't get high. But that's probably for the best. A dog with the munchies could be a real nuisance.

Meanwhile, here on the home front, my own new dog seems to have a fondness for cardboard. She had rather chew up a cardboard box than eat dry dog food. I haven't tried it myself, but that certainly isn't a ringing endorsement for the dog food.

Via.

Drug smuggling truck

Maybe it's because I just watched the latest episode of Breaking Bad, but something compelled me to do an image search with the words: drug smuggling truck.

Take a look at this set up. This smuggler was almost too clever for his own good.

Found at 9gag.com. "Gag" in the URL might be a tip off.

Meanwhile, here is a link the search pulled up that has lots of innovative smuggling images. Oddarena.com.

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Note to DEA, FBI, NSA and all the other alphabet snoopers. This post is for entertainment purposes only. If you're on the taxpayers' dime, get back to work.

So that's how law enforcement knows which vehicle is smuggling drugs

We are told that Texas interstate highways are conduits for smuggling drugs from Mexico to points farther North. And from time to time we see headlines about some vehicle having been discovered to be hauling a sizable cache of contraband. Then there's an attempt to explain how that particular vehicle was singled out from the millions of other vehicles on the roadways.

The story goes something like this: A DPS officer noticed that a truck had an outdated inspection sticker and pulled it over. The driver acted nervous, so the vehicle was searched. Officers found a sealed container filled with drugs inside the vehicle's gas tank.

Now we know the real reason why the vehicle was pulled over. Edward Snowden revealed how the NSA was collecting meta data from certain phone calls, possibly all phone calls originating from or received in the U.S. And now Reuters is telling about a secret organization called Special Operations Division (SOD) which is a partnership among two dozen agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. SOD distributes information, allegedly legally obtained, to various law enforcement agencies. From Reuters:

A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.

Then, according to the Reuters article, in a process described as "parallel construction," a fake story would be concocted to explain why they had probable cause to stop and search that vehicle. Convictions are sure to be appealed because of the lack of the honesty on the part of the government.

It brings to mind that famous scene from "A Few Good Men" in which Colonel Jessup makes an angry attempt to justify his illegal behavior because his work is so important.

Meanwhile, back to Snowden's NSA leak, criminal defense attorneys are seeking the phone data NSA has been collecting to try to obtain evidence showing their clients were not at the crime scene. See Defense lawyers insist on clients’ right to use NSA records -- via Instapundit. If the NSA does indeed possess a database containing the meta data for all of our phone calls as alleged, then that data could basically recreate a trail establishing the location of anyone with a phone at any given time. If they are going to use it to prosecute someone, then it should be available to exculpate someone, too.

Nanny state update -- Coffee mug as drug paraphernalia

From Overlawyered.com we learn that 22 state attorneys general have signed a letter addressed to Urban Outfitters asking them to stop selling a coffee mug that has a fake prescription for coffee on it.

Wow!

Maggie Thurber gives them a good fisking at Watchdog.org. As she notes, that the likelihood that someone might be tempted to abuse prescription drugs because of a joke on a mug is ludicrous.

What about those mugs that say "best dad" and such? Isn't that false advertising without some empirical evidence? Attorneys General, check your kitchen cabinets.

[It was probably the physician on the script that brought the law down on them. Dr. Feelgood? Had to be a druggie. Robo-ed.]

Via Cato.

One possible reason for Chicago's high murder rate -- Mexican cartels

Chicago seems like a long way from Sinaloa, but that didn't prevent the Chicago Crime Commission from naming Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera as Public Enemy Number One.

According to CBSnews.com, Chicago is very important to the Sinaloa cartel. Excerpt:

Sinaloa and other Mexican cartels shipping drugs to Chicago are rarely directly linked to slayings in the city, but Riley said cartel-led drug trafficking is an underlying cause of territorial battles between street gangs that are blamed for rising homicide rates. Riley described Chicago as one of Sinaloa's most important cities, not only as an end destination for drugs but as a hub to distribute drugs across the U.S.

"This is where Guzman turns his drugs into money," he said.

And they send in their own people. More:

Because cartels accumulate houses full of cash, they run the constant risk associates will skim off the top. That points to the main reason cartels prefer their own people: Trust is hard to come by in their cutthroat world. There's also a fear factor. Cartels can exert more control on their operatives than on middlemen, often by threatening to torture or kill loved ones back home. ...

Riley's assessment is stark: He argues that the cartels should be seen as an underlying cause of Chicago's disturbingly high murder rate.

"They are the puppeteers," he said. "Maybe the shooter didn't know and maybe the victim didn't know that. But if you follow it down the line, the cartels are ultimately responsible."

Ironically, they are comparing El Chapo with Al Capone, the murderous bootlegger of the prohibition era. While they did eventually get Capone, the end of that gangster era ended when liquor prohibition ended. Prohibition didn't work with liquor, and it isn't working with drugs.

A winning strategy for Republicans in 2016 - free weed

A friend made a casual remark that may contain the seeds of a Republican presidential victory in 2016. The remark was that Gary Johnson got elected as Republican governor of New Mexico because he favored legalizing marijuana. He may be onto something.

Think about it. As long as an Obama like Democrat can make promises he won't keep and yet count on low information voters to sweep him into office like he did in 2012, then Republicans can't win. So Republicans have to beat Democrats at their own game. And a promise to legalize marijuana will capture the low information voters' attention like nothing else would. Add to that a promise to give a free marijuana joint to each voter, and the Republicans would be unstoppable.

The beauty of this is that legalizing marijuana could have a positive effect. It not only would be a revenue source, but it would hit the cartels harder than the war on drugs could ever do. Reduce the deficit and reduce crime. It's win win.

Assuming a 25 pack of legal marijuana cigarettes would cost $7, about the same as a pack of cigarettes, a single joint of marijuana would cost about 28 cents. Multiply .28 times the number of votes counted in the 2012 election, 130 million, and we get a cost of $36.4 million. Given that Romney/Ryan spent $483 million in their losing campaign, that's not an extraordinary expense.

Better get moving, Republicans. Once Democrats get wind of this idea they'll snap it up like a free Obama phone.

Rocky Mountain High -- new marijuana law in Colorado

Question: Why is an old pot head like President Obama so hard on pot smokers. Answer: Change!

Former Choom Gang member Barack Obama's dedication to the warrior side of the drug war seems somewhat inconsistent. But, sorting out Obama inconsistencies would be a time consuming endeavor. Nonetheless, there it is. See Feds Sentence Aaron Sandusky to 10 Years for Medical Marijuana about the federal government’s prosecution of an individual who was in full compliance with California law.

At the November election Colorado voters legalized personal marijuana possession and usage by adults and put marijuana in the same regulatory environment as alcohol.

We owe the voters of Colorado a debt of gratitude for providing us the opportunity to watch that laboratory experiment from a distance. The results should be educational, whether the experiment is a success or failure, if only the federal government will stay out of the way and honor the voters' wishes.

A couple of interesting things about the way the Colorado law came about. First, note that the law was a result of a voter initiative, not their elected lawmakers. Second, the Colorado Secretary of State determined that around half of the186,000 signatures on the petition were not valid. That's a good lesson for anyone attempting petition drives in other states. Unfortunately for Texans, their good elected representatives cannot see fit to allow voters the right to put initiatives on the ballot.

Anyway, best of luck to Coloradans with their experiment. We'll all be watching with great interest.

Uruguay -- a movement to nationalize the weed business

There's probably not enough broad based support for it to pass right away, but these things take time. CSMonitor.com has the story:

The Broad Front – the center-left coalition that holds power – is proposing a state monopoly over the production and distribution of marijuana, making Uruguay the first national government to sell cannabis directly to citizens. The government says the measure is necessary to combat rising drug-related crime, decrease health risks for users, and counter ineffective US policies on drugs. But within Uruguay, interest groups have labeled the legislation totalitarian, while some international bodies argue it breaches global conventions.

“We’re putting this forward as international policy,” says Sebastian Sabini, president of the parliamentary commission created to debate the bill. “The war on drugs has failed. There are more consumers and more violence.”

“Uruguay is opening up a new path,” he says.

Nationalizing a private industry is never a good thing, but nationalizing an illegal business is a new development. It's worth a shot. A lot could go wrong, but it's a grand experiment worth trying.

Pen Jillette on Obama's drug use

Saw Pen Jillette on Celebrity Apprentice recently and came away thinking he was smart, efficient, demanding, and sometimes difficult to work with. But viewers saw what the producers wanted us to see of him, so there's a built in error in any assessment made from those type shows.

One thing he is is entertaining. And sometimes he's inspiring. For example, here he is on a video podcast talking about the news of President Obama's marijuana use way back when.

Click to watch.

Interesting thought he raised -- what if Obama had been arrested and treated the way drug users are being treated under the Obama administration? His life story would have turned out much different.

Via.