Technology Key To New Drug War Strategy

(CBS/AP)  Obama administration officials said Friday they will devote more resources to fighting Mexican drug cartels and use new technology to thwart them while trying to quell the U.S. demand for drugs that fuels the violent gangs.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced a 2009 counternarcotics strategy at a press conference with White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske. Holder called it "an effective way forward that will crack down on cartels and make our country safer."

The strategy calls for a number of steps along the U.S.-Mexico border to combat and detect smugglers, including:

Building visual shields near border-crossing points so drug cartel spotters can't alert approaching motorists about inspections.

Improving non-lethal weapons technology to help officers incapacitate suspects and disable motor vehicles and boats used by traffickers.

Revive an interagency working group to coordinate intelligence.

Use more intelligence analysts to ferret out drug-dealing networks.

"This strategy is tough, it's strong and it's balanced," Holder said.

The plan is outlined in a document to be sent to Congress.

More than 10,800 people have been killed in Mexico by drug violence since December 2006. Mexico has deployed more than 45,000 soldiers across the country to fight the heavily armed cartels.

Holder and Napolitano praised efforts by Mexican President Felipe Calderon and said the United States must contribute to the fight.

"International cooperation is very, very key," Napolitano said. "We have an unprecedented opportunity to work on drug trafficking on both sides of the border. We should not let this opportunity go by."

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the strategy is missing a key piece:

"I am disappointed that it does not call on departments of Homeland Security and Justice to resolve their long-standing turf battles over drug investigations," the Mississippi Democrat said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants more of its agents to have the authority to do drug investigations. But this can only happen if the Drug Enforcement Administration agrees. No such agreement has been reached.

Napolitano conceded the plan outlined Friday doesn't address that issue but said Homeland Security and Justice officials have been working on it and will announce a solution "very, very shortly."

Dozens of state and federal law enforcement officials, state elected leaders, emergency management officials and state and federal prosecutors crowded a University of New Mexico ballroom for the announcement.

The drug strategy's long-range goals include developing new technology to process biometric information from documents used by Mexicans crossing the border. That would allow Customs and Border Patrol officers to run fingerprint checks on Mexicans who have border crossing cards to enter the U.S.

The Obama administration has pledged to provide more help in the effort, sending additional federal agents, officers, and equipment to the border and to Mexico to fight the Mexican cartels.

Napolitano said the U.S. strategy would also focus on reducing demand from drug users. The plan includes improved ways for federal agencies to share information with state and local law enforcement agencies.

"We can't just fight drugs at the border. We can't just fight drugs by fighting traffickers. We must fight drugs in the United States," Napolitano said.

The Marijuana Policy Project, which supports regulating the drug like alcohol, criticized the plan.

"This new effort will keep a lot of cops and bureaucrats employed but will accomplish very little otherwise, because it ignores the central problem, which is that marijuana prohibition has handed the Mexican cartels a massive market that keeps them fat and happy," said the group's spokesman, Bruce Mirken.

In April, CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan wrote in the World Watch blog that Mexico essentially has two separate economies - the legal one and the illegal one, fueled by the narcotics trade and governed by the cartels. The problem, reported Logan, is that the cartels enjoy more wealth and more power than the country's legitimate leadership.

[globalcoolin]

Be wary of any US politician who hints that maybe he or she will legalize pot. These are pit smokers they make these promiscuouse points to for your stupid , pothead VOTE--so, once you give them that and HATE the politician they tell you to, why would they legalize it?
It would wreck their whole pot-vote gimmick!
Befor you think about this, give up pot for a week or two, to clear your head up!
Just like the elderly are notoriouse for being easy for phone scams of all kinds,The American PotHead is a sucker for other kinds of manipulation by politicians who can get the Rollingstone stamp of aproval--with simple words.

[king-diamond]

the Biggest Drug Pusher is the FDA.
if you want to deal drugs in this turf you need to spend billion on lobbying.

[Dgunner]

Armyof twelve have you ever actually been in a fire fight or barraged all day from the hair? Some people smoke some drink. Some smoke drink and do drugs.This is illegal. So is couchcows deadbeat fathers , people steaeling your tax dollared welfare benefits for money to buy pot. Whiskey runners in southern sates selling it to the yankees who just can't get the recipe right. Crack dealers snithching for law eforcement and allowed to continue doing business as long as they snitch out thier competition.If you are a soldier of this country this what you are fighting for don't forget it and don't forget to keep your head down.

[formrusmcsgt]

In the early 1900s, the western states developed significant tensions regarding the influx of Mexican-Americans. The revolution in Mexico in 1910 spilled over the border, with General Pershing's army clashing with bandit Pancho Villa. Later in that decade, bad feelings developed between the small farmer and the large farms that used cheaper Mexican labor. Then, the depression came and increased tensions, as jobs and welfare resources became scarce.

One of the "differences" seized upon during this time was the fact that many Mexicans smoked marijuana and had brought the plant with them, and it was through this that California apparently passed the first state marijuana law, outlawing "preparations of hemp, or loco weed."

However, one of the first state laws outlawing marijuana may have been influenced, not just by Mexicans using the drug, but, oddly enough, because of Mormons using it. Mormons who traveled to Mexico in 1910 came back to Salt Lake City with marijuana. The church's reaction to this may have contributed to the state's marijuana law. (Note: the source for this speculation is from articles by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law at USC Law School in a paper for the Virginia Law Review, and a speech to the California Judges Association (sourced below). Mormon blogger Ardis Parshall disputes this.)

Other states quickly followed suit with marijuana prohibition laws, including Wyoming (1915), Texas (1919), Iowa (1923), Nevada (1923), Oregon (1923), Washington (1923), Arkansas (1923), and Nebraska (1927). These laws tended to be specifically targeted against the Mexican-American population.

When Montana outlawed marijuana in 1927, the Butte Montana Standard reported a legislator's comment: "When some beet field peon takes a few traces of this stuff... he thinks he has just been elected president of Mexico, so he starts out to execute all his political enemies." In Texas, a senator said on the floor of the Senate: "All Mexicans are crazy, and this stuff [marijuana] is what makes them crazy."

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

[DoubleHappiness88]

Tobacco killed 435,000 people last year, yet it is legal. Not one death can be attributed to marijuana*. Our drug laws are IRRATIONAL and do more harm to those they are designed to *protect* than the substances they outlaw.

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." -Abraham Lincoln

Drug Prohibition has failed for the same reason Alcohol Prohibition failed. Prohibition does not work. Prohibition is UN-AMERICAN!

END THE FAILED, FOOLISH WAR ON DRUGS!

* Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241.

[DoubleHappiness88]

Armyoftwelve is proof that marijuana causes hysterical paranoia in people
who do NOT use it.

Does anyone believe that neighbors of armyoftwelve could have been arrested 10 times , over 25 years, for cultivation without still being in prison?

America would be safer if folks like armyoftwelve were taken off the streets.

[american_11-2009]

Our Politicians keep telling us our Immigration laws are broken and we need an comprehensive solution, which are code words for Amnesty, our Immigration Laws are not broken, they just have not been enforced, what is broken is our Political system when we elect Corrupt/Pandering politicians that puts their desires ahead of the Constitution of USA and the Rule of Law!

Our government fails the most basic and primary task & duty of government, to protect this Nation and its Citizens from invasion and enforce its laws.

They refuse to abide by our Constitution, refuse to enforce our Immigration Laws and refuse to honor their Oath of Office!

Our Government, past & present, Republican & Democrat, have allowed the invasion of 20 to 30 million criminals and uneducated peons which is the largest invasion of any Nation, at any time, by any means & in direct violation of Article IV, Section IV of our Constitution.

This refusal to abide by our Constitution or enforce our Immigration Laws should be classified as Treason of the most foul kind, & as grounds for impeachment & trials for Treason!

Not only have they allowed the invasion, they force American tax payers to pay Billions on Billions of dollars to provide Welfare, Prison cells, Educate the invaders numerous children, and free medical care, at the same time the invading horde break numerous laws and massive document fraud, & are destroying our schools, hospitals, communities, culture and standard of living while Robbing, Raping, Killing & Assaulting American Citizens at an rate the terrorist can only dream about.

Recent statements in Mexico from both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary something needs to be done. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers, and civilians," she said.

But no mention, concern or care that their refusal to stop the Massive Invasion of Illegal Aliens pouring across our borders or enforce our immigration laws that causes an estimated 25 Americans deaths per day and 10,s of thousands victims of Assault, Robberies, Rapes, Identify thief, and other assorted crimes committed by the invading horde of Illegal Aliens from Mexico on American citizens each year!

It is a telling indictment & shows their Empathy & Compassion of our Politicians & their priorities when they express 100,s of time more concern over three Terrorist being water broader than the havoc & crimes of Illegal Aliens against American Citizens!

Most of our Politicians in Wash. DC are wading knee deep in innocent American blood and suffering because they put Self Interest ahead of the interest of American Citizens & the future of this Nation!

The Welfare vote for the Democrats to further their Socialist Agenda and the Slave Labor for their Pay Masters in the Chamber of Commerce & Business for the Republicans is more important to our Corrupt power mad Politicians than the lives and safety of Americans citizens!

The Citizens of this Nation have not sacrificed with blood, sweat & tears for over 200 years & obeyed the Laws of the land, paid the taxes, and fought the wars & built this Nation to see Corrupt politicians turn this Nation into the United States of Mexico without a shot being fired, to serve their demented, nefarious goals and lust for power!

[armyoftwelve]

love how people want to make it next to impossible to smoke a cigarette and then want to legalize pot. There is a couple living down the street from me who have been busted for GROWING pot about ten times over the past 25 years. Know why they stopped growing pot?? They both got emphysema from smoking all those unfiltered joints and have to carry around oxygen tanks in order to breathe. The husband also got throat cancer and had a tracheotamy.

Worst of all, they're both getting disability payments from social security....

pot bad : (

[armyoftwelve]

We need to fight this war on drugs and the first thing we should do is go after users! If you want a drivers license, you should have to pass a drug-screening test.

Why do people need to use drugs?? What right does anyone have to be so narcissistic in today's world? Bottom line, there is no reason at all. GROW UP ALL YOU DOPEHEADS!

[hologram5]

DefendLiberty, I could not agree with you more, great post. This is just like a war on an ideaology, terror. Terror is not a tangible "thing". You cannot touch it, you cannot smell it, you can hear it to a point but it is not a real thing per se.