Suspected drug overdoses have swelled in the months since the mid-March outbreak of the coronavirus in the United States, according to a report.
State governments have enacted heavy-handed restrictions to slow the spread of the virus, but in many cases have contributed to increased social isolation and blocked people from services and escapes that have buoyed mental and emotional health.
The impact of the lockdowns and anxiety of the pandemic seems to be showing up in the number of overdoses, both fatal and nonfatal, across the country. Since March, each month has measured a significant increase in suspected overdoses over a year ago, and each month during which the crisis continues, the relative increase in overdoses grows larger, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/01/coronavirus-drug-overdose/">The Washington Post</a>.
“Suspected overdoses nationally — not all of them fatal — jumped <a href="http://www.odmap.org/Content/docs/news/2020/ODMAP-Report-May-2020.pdf">18 percent</a> in March compared with last year, 29 percent in April and 42 percent in May, according to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program, a federal initiative that collects data from ambulance teams, hospitals and police. In some jurisdictions, such as Milwaukee County, dispatch calls for overdoses have increased <a href="https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/05/07/ems-calls-show-54-spike-in-drug-overdoses-80-increase-in-suicide-attempts/">more than 50 percent</a>,” the Post reports.
The Post report cites increased social isolation, unemployment, and, curiously, disruption in normal supply lines of illegal drugs, which has allegedly forced many to seek new dealers or try unfamiliar substances.
Experts have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/researchers-estimate-75000-deaths-of-despair-from-pandemic-employment-central-to-combating-crisis">predicted</a> that the lockdowns, which shut down social institutions such as churches and forced tens of millions of Americans into unemployment, could result in thousands of additional deaths on top of those from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. In early May, just weeks into the pandemic in the U.S., the health group Well Being Trust estimated that 75,000 people would die from so-called “deaths of despair” from alcohol, drug use, suicide, and other factors.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-academy-of-pediatrics-get-students-back-to-school-in-the-fall">released</a> a statement on Monday calling for schools to reopen in the fall unless extreme scenarios prevent them from doing so. The group of childcare experts said that keeping children out of schools threatened their physical and mental well-being much more than the virus itself.
“The AAP strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. The importance of inperson learning is well-documented, and there is already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school closures in the spring of 2020,” the AAP said.
“Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation. This, in turn, places children and adolescents at considerable risk of morbidity and, in some cases, mortality,” the AAP added.
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Seattle Medic

Report Claims Suspected Overdoses Are Skyrocketing As Lockdowns Continue

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Drugs

lockdown

Oregon residents may be able to vote this November on whether to legalize psilocybin, the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms.
The Oregonian <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2020/06/legal-regulated-psychedelic-mushrooms-are-one-step-closer-to-being-on-the-ballot-in-oregon-in-november.html">reported</a> that a ballot initiative known as the Oregon Psilocybin Therapy Initiative, or Initiative Petition #34, has received enough signatures to appear on the November ballot, provided those signatures are valid. Sheri and Tom Eckert, two of the top petitioners behind the initiative, said during a Zoom press conference Monday that the initiative had obtained 164,782 signatures, the Oregonian reported.
More from the Oregonian:
<blockquote>Oregon would be the first state to legalize the substance, which is currently a Schedule I drug. Cities like <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/magic-mushrooms-psilocybin-shrooms-denver-legal-how-take-1445041">Oakland and Denver have already decriminalized psilocybin</a>.
“Pioneering research at institutions like Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCLA has shown the significant promise of psilocybin therapy,” said a press release put out by the campaign Monday, “especially for people whose depression or anxiety hasn’t responded to other available treatments.”
Its [sic] a cause <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2017/12/this_couple_wants_to_make_it_l.html">the Eckerts have championed for years</a> that now is closer than ever to appearing on the Oregon ballot in November.</blockquote>
Legalizing psilocybin, the outlet reported, won’t make it widely available like cannabis. Instead, the Oregonian reported, the initiative will “empower the Oregon Health Authority to set up all licensing, training, certification, and ongoing education requirements for psilocybin service centers and facilitators during a mandated two-year development process,” a press release for Initiative #34 said.
“Only license holders will be able to “provide psilocybin therapy, cultivate psilocybin, or own a psilocybin service center,” under the measure, and the measure would not allow people to take or grow psychedelic mushrooms in their homes, or leave a treatment facility while still under the influence of psilocybin,” the outlet reported. “The use of the substance will be highly structured, with therapy recipients going through a pre-screening, a supervised therapy session and a post-use evaluation.”
In their press release, Sheri Eckert, a therapist, explained that “Oregon has some of the highest rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction in the country,” and that “the options we have to help those people are just not enough.”
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/06/30/oregon-voters-push-to-legalize-psychedelic-mushrooms/">reported</a> that the Eckerts “hope to market a whole range of ‘Psilocybin Services’ to patients in the future” and received a $1 million donation from Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, an organic soap company based in San Diego, California.
Dr. Rachel Knox was present during the Eckerts’ press conference and said she supported Initiative #34 because she “believes that therapies should be backed by research and evidence-based, and psilocybin is a compound that has a demonstrated safety record.”
“We need better mental health treatment options now more than ever,” Knox added, “and this initiative has the right supervision and safeguards in place.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers with the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

Mushrooms

Oregon Getting Closer To Vote On Legalizing Psychedelic Shrooms – For Therapeutic Use, Of Course

Oregon

Mexico City&#8217;s police chief is lucky to be alive after a dramatic assassination attempt that left him wounded, two of his bodyguards dead, and his police vehicle riddled with bullets.
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-violence/mexico-city-police-chief-shot-in-assassination-attempt-blames-drug-cartel-idUSKBN23X1T8">Reuters reports</a> that the chief survived at least three bullet wounds and blamed the Jalisco New Generation Cartel  (CJNG) drug cartel for the &#8220;cowardly attack”  in one of Mexico City&#8217;s wealthiest neighborhoods in a Tweet from his hospital bed.
&#8220;We were attacked in a cowardly way by the CJNG,” the police chief said. &#8220;Our nation has to continue standing up to cowardly organized crime.&#8221;
Photos of the police chief&#8217;s vehicle, nearly unrecognizable from damage, appeared on social media. Local police say the attack killed at least one person in addition to the chief&#8217;s bodyguards &#8212; a 26-year-old woman who happened to be caught in the barrage of .50-caliber bullets.
&#8220;The shooting, which occurred in the prestigious neighborhood of Lomas de Chapultepec, was captured on security cameras at the scene,&#8221; German <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mexico-jalisco-cartel-blamed-for-attack-on-police-chief/a-53966168">news outlet DW</a> reported Saturday. &#8220;A dozen of the 28 gunmen reportedly involved in the attack were held for questioning by police. Later on Friday, police from the capital arrested an alleged head of the CJNG hitmen on suspicion of being the mastermind of the meticulously planned operation.&#8217;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Gunmen armed with .50 caliber rifles and grenades attacked Mexico City’s police chief this morning. He survived. <a href="https://t.co/X8oMioy75q">https://t.co/X8oMioy75q</a>
&mdash; Keegan Hamilton (@keegan_hamilton) <a href="https://twitter.com/keegan_hamilton/status/1276522897993895936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Cartel violence was already on the rise in Mexico earlier this year, but powerful drug gangs have moved into a vacuum created by Mexican officials who are now sheltering in place as the country endures one of the globe&#8217;s worst coronavirus outbreaks. Dozens have been targeted and killed, including at least one other police official and a federal judge.
Cartels are also jockeying for positions within Mexico&#8217;s drug hierarchy, trying to fill a position vacated after the arrest of &#8220;El Chapo,&#8221; who exerted extensive control over Mexico&#8217;s drug trade.
Friday&#8217;s attack, experts say, is meant to send a message to higher-level Mexican officials, including law enforcement officials, that &#8220;nobody is off-limits&#8221; as the drug cartels struggle to stake out territory.
&#8220;The assassination attempt served as a warning that &#8216;nobody is off-limits&#8217; and was reminiscent of previous attacks on officials during Mexico’s drug war, said Gladys McCormick, a security analyst at Syracuse University in New York,&#8221; per Reuters, who spoke to McCormick.
The <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-city-security-chief-wounded-in-assassination-attempt-11593192065">Wall Street Journal adds</a> that, until now, Mexico City has also been largely immune from the violence erupting across the rest of the country.
&#8220;Analysts said the ambush suggests the Jalisco cartel might be making a play for lucrative extortion rackets, as well as the retail drug trade in this metropolis of 20 million, which would likely lead to more violence in a city home to large companies and hundreds of thousands of foreigners,&#8221; the WSJ reported.
Mexican officials, who spoke to Reuters, indicated that the police chief is now out of surgery and &#8220;doing well.&#8221;

Cartel attack Mexico city

Mexico City Police Chief Targeted For Assassination As Drug Cartel Violence Spikes

Mexico

It sounds like a plot we’ve heard before: An unassuming high school teacher built a massive drug empire while eluding the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Except this isn’t the plot to “Breaking Bad.” It’s a real-life crime story out of Buffalo, New York.
Michael Masecchia was an English teacher at Grover Cleveland High School, a father of two, and a football, softball, and soccer coach. He worked in the public school system for more than 30 years. In August 2019, he was arrested – to the surprise of the community.
The Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-michael-masecchia-a-buffalo-high-school-teacher-with-mob-ties-allegedly-bribed-a-dea-agent">reported</a> that Masecchia was arrested “on federal drug charges—after authorities raided his two-story Williamsville home to find a large cache of guns, several homemade explosives, and drugs.” Masecchia, the Beast reported, “was accused of growing and selling marijuana for more than 20 years.”
U.S. Attorney James Kennedy, Jr. announced the charges during an August 29, 2019 press conference, saying, “When one is involved in drug trafficking and has a cache of weapons at their ready access including explosive devices—certainly if I’m a parent, I don’t want my kid to be taught by that person.” He then added that the charges against Masecchia were “part of a much larger and ongoing organized crime and public corruption investigation, so stay tuned.”
Flash forward to last week, when the Buffalo community Masecchia called home finally learned what Kennedy meant. Masecchia, the Beast reported, was allegedly working with the mafia and bribed a DEA agent to look the other way while he built his drug empire.
“In a twist worthy of The Sopranos, prosecutors allege former DEA Agent Joseph Bongiovanni blocked several investigations into Masecchia, provided him with information on drug investigations and cooperating sources—and even at times using and selling cocaine—after receiving at least $250,000 in bribes,” the Beast reported.
A <a href="https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&amp;jsonp=vglnk_159336318274213&amp;key=b106209c81edb797b7a7b374fa254731&amp;libId=kbz9fyzy0101k4gp000DA22787sht&amp;loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fhow-michael-masecchia-a-buffalo-high-school-teacher-with-mob-ties-allegedly-bribed-a-dea-agent&amp;v=1&amp;out=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.documentcloud.org%2Fdocuments%2F6953827%2FUSA-v-Bongiovanni-NEW-Indictment.pdf&amp;ref=https%3A%2F%2Ffeedly.com%2Fi%2Fentry%2FZOqkVHSLZOC9Lu12%2FFVYoJMvRzDe7zCYvJ91pXfSyMY%3D_172fab4a2a8%3A700cf6%3A893158ab&amp;title=How%20Michael%20Masecchia%2C%20a%20Buffalo%20High%20School%20Teacher%20With%20Mob%20Ties%2C%20Allegedly%20Bribed%20a%20DEA%20Agent&amp;txt=37-page%20indictment">37-page indictment</a> filed earlier this month explained that “Masecchia had been a target or subject of several DEA cases during&#8230; Bongiovanni’s venture as a DEA special agent,” but that the teacher was “never arrested or charged in any DEA cases or investigations.”
Bongiovanni was charged last November with accepting bribes to ignore organized crime activity. As the Beast reported, the filing earlier this month was the first he was linked to Masecchia.
The men were allegedly connected to La Cosa Nostra, a Sicilian Mafia that has operated in the U.S. for the past century.
Masecchia’s attorney, Terrence M. Connors, told the Beast that his client “is not now nor has he ever been, as the government alleges, a member of ‘Italian Organized Crime’ if, in fact, that designation even exists.”
Bongiovanni’s attorney <a href="https://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&amp;jsonp=vglnk_159336344152716&amp;key=b106209c81edb797b7a7b374fa254731&amp;libId=kbz9fyzy0101k4gp000DA22787sht&amp;loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fhow-michael-masecchia-a-buffalo-high-school-teacher-with-mob-ties-allegedly-bribed-a-dea-agent&amp;v=1&amp;out=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wkbw.com%2Fnews%2Flocal-news%2Findictment-links-alleged-drug-dealer-dea-agent-accused-of-taking-bribes&amp;ref=https%3A%2F%2Ffeedly.com%2Fi%2Fentry%2FZOqkVHSLZOC9Lu12%2FFVYoJMvRzDe7zCYvJ91pXfSyMY%3D_172fab4a2a8%3A700cf6%3A893158ab&amp;title=How%20Michael%20Masecchia%2C%20a%20Buffalo%20High%20School%20Teacher%20With%20Mob%20Ties%2C%20Allegedly%20Bribed%20a%20DEA%20Agent&amp;txt=told%20WHBW">told</a> WHBW that the latest indictment “doesn’t change much as far as we’re concerned,” and that his client “still professes his innocence and we look forward to defending him at trial.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.

Marijuana cultivation

High School Teacher Worked With Mafia, Bribed DEA For Decades In Drug Trafficking Scheme

Crime

Mafia

Marijuana

New York

The drug-dealing and feces inundating the streets of one neighborhood in San Francisco have become so ubiquitous that the University of California Hastings College of the Law, joined by local business owners and residents, is suing the city to clean the mess up.
The <a href="https://www.uchastings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/UC-Hastings-et-al.-v.-CCSF-Complaint-FINAL-FILED-05.04.21.pdf">lawsuit</a> states:
<blockquote>Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the de facto policy of the City and County of San Francisco to use the Tenderloin community as a containment zone had resulted in a dramatic decline in the livability and safety of the neighborhood. The deplorable conditions tolerated by the City in the Tenderloin are not permitted in other neighborhoods in San Francisco. This is a matter of fundamental fairness; what is a city-wide problem should not be allowed to weigh disproportionately on a low-income working- class neighborhood. San Francisco should be prohibited from abandoning a single neighborhood, in an apparent effort to spare other neighborhoods the burdens that confront the city at-large.
Open-air drug sales and other criminal activity, plus crowds of drug users and sidewalk-blocking tents, pervade and threaten the health and lives of all of the Tenderloin’s residents. What has long been suffered in the Tenderloin has become insufferable.</blockquote>
UC Hastings Chancellor David Faigman <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/05/09/sf-sued-over-nightmare-neighborhood-conditions.cnn">told CNN</a>, “We are suing because our neighborhood has become a pandemic containment zone. Tents are blocking streets, tents are blocking doorways, there are needles in the streets, there’s open-air drug dealing … We need the tents to be removed and we need the drug dealers to be stopped. Leaving them on the streets is no solution.”
“The number of tents and makeshift homeless shelters in the 50-block section that more than 20,000 permanent residents call home has more than doubled from 158 in early March to 391 as of May 1, according to a survey cited in the lawsuit,” <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/05/11/san-francisco-sued-amid-285-percent-jump-in-homeless-camps/?utm_source=maropost&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=nypevening&amp;utm_content=20200511&amp;tpcc=evening_update&amp;mpweb=755-8860539-719690448&amp;fbclid=IwAR3WcFl1i7nBTcIijE">The New York Post</a> reported.
Last week, San Francisco mayor London N. Breed <a href="https://sf.gov/news/san-francisco-releases-tenderloin-neighborhood-safety-assessment-and-plan-covid-19">released the Tenderloin Neighborhood Safety Assessment and Plan</a> for COVID-19, which stated:
<blockquote>The Plan has eight main goals:
<ol>
<li>Address encampments by offering safe sleeping alternatives to unsheltered individuals.</li>
<li>Facilitate social distancing compliance by closing streets and parking.</li>
<li>Ensure that housed residents in the Tenderloin have safe passage and access to their homes and businesses.</li>
<li>Improve access to hygiene station, restrooms and garbage disposal for unhoused individuals.</li>
<li>Address food and water insecurity for housed and unhoused residents alike.</li>
<li>Increase police presence in the neighborhood to focus on public safety concerns.</li>
<li>Increase health services in the neighborhood.</li>
<li>Increased education and outreach to residents and businesses through a ‘care ambassador’ program.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
Faigman said the plan was “entirely inadequate,” adding, “It essentially institutionalizes the status quo. It simply leaves everybody in place. It is a Band-Aid when a bandage is needed and is simply inadequate.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">member</a>.  
&nbsp;

Hastings Law School

San Francisco Sued By UC Law School Over Rampant Drug-Dealing, Feces-Filled Streets

homeless

San Francisco

Photos and audio have been released by Miami Beach authorities relating to a March 13 incident involving former Tallahassee Mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.
WPLG was one of the outlets that received <a href="https://www.local10.com/news/local/2020/04/22/police-release-photos-of-hotel-room-where-andrew-gillum-found-in-apparent-incoherent-state/">the evidence</a>, which included photos of prescription pill bottles around the room, stained pillows and bed sheets, and a blood pressure monitor on the floor. Some of the pill bottles were open with pills lying nearby. Police also found small, clear bags containing a substance believed to be crystal meth.
A police report obtained by WPLG documented the mid-March incident. Around 1 a.m. on March 13, Miami Beach Fire Rescue was called to the Mondrian South Beach Hotel after receiving a report that someone may have overdosed on drugs. Police found Gillum and two other men inside the hotel room, one of whom appears to have been nude when authorities arrived. One of the men, Aldo Mejias, 56, told police he gave the other man, Travis Dyson, 30, a credit card to rent the room for the night. The police report said Dyson rented the room at 4 p.m. the day before. Mejias told them that he arrived at the room later that night and found Dyson with Gillum inside, both under the influence of something. The police report said Dyson opened the door for Mejias but then walked over to the bed, collapsed, and began to have trouble breathing. He also vomited on the bed before collapsing again. Mejias began helping Dyson before he called 911.
Gillum, according to the police report, was too inebriated to speak to officers at first. Authorities took Dyson to Mount Sinai Medical Center and returned to the hotel room to speak with Gillum, who by that time had sobered up some. Gillum was able to leave the hotel room and return “to his residence without incident.”
When the incident was first reported, Gillum said he had been in town for a wedding celebration.
“I was in Miami last night for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends,” Gillum said <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/andrew-gillum-responds-to-report-that-he-was-involved-in-alleged-crystal-meth-incident">a statement</a> at the time. &#8220;While I had too much to drink, I want to be clear that I have never used methamphetamines. I apologize to the people of Florida for the distraction this has caused our movement.”
Politico <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/22/andrew-gillum-hotel-room-photos-911-audio-201624">reported</a>, however, that Gillum’s friends said he was supposed to officiate that wedding celebration but he never showed.
Within days of the incident, Gillum announced he was leaving politics and entering rehab, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/andrew-gillum-leaving-politics-entering-rehab-after-hotel-incident">reported</a>.
“This has been a wake-up call for me,” said Gillum in a written statement at the time, according to <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/03/15/gillum-withdraws-from-politics-after-link-to-suspected-drug-overdose-1267145">Politico</a>. “Since my race for governor ended, I fell into a depression that has led to alcohol abuse. I witnessed my father suffer from alcoholism and I know the damaging effects it can have when untreated. I also know that alcoholism is often a symptom of deeper struggles.”
“I will be stepping down from all public facing roles for the foreseeable future,” he added, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/ex-florida-gov-candidate-andrew-gillum-enter-rehab-alcohol-abuse-n1160161">NBC News</a>. “I want to apologize to my family, friends and the people of Florida who have supported me and put their faith in me over the years.”
The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe">subscriber</a>.

Andrew Gillum

Police Release Photos, Audio From Andrew Gillum Hotel Incident

President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the administration was launching an all out assault on Mexican drug cartels using the U.S. military.
&#8220;As governments and nations focus on the Coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists, and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain and we must not let that happen,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;We will never let that happen. Today the United States is launching enhanced counter narcotics operations in the western hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics.&#8221;
&#8220;We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, the U.S. Southern Command will increase surveillance, disruption, and seizures of drug shipments, and provide additional support for eradication efforts that are going on right now at a record pace.&#8221;
&#8220;We are deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft and helicopters, Coast Guard cutters and Air Force surveillance aircraft, doubling the capabilities in the region,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;Very importantly, our forces are fully equipped with personnel protective equipment, and we have taken additional safety measures to ensure that our troops remain healthy.&#8221;
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said, &#8220;Today at the president’s direction, the Department of Defense in close cooperation with our interagency partners began enhanced narcotics separations in eastern Pacific oceans and the Caribbean sea.&#8221;
&#8220;To conduct to the enhanced operations, the president has directed deployment of ships, aircraft and security forces to the United States Southern Command area of responsibility,&#8221; Esper continued. &#8220;Included in this force package are Navy destroyers and littoral combat ships, Coast Guard cutters, P8 control aircraft, and elements of an Army security force assistance brigade. These additional forces will nearly double our capacity to conduct counter narcotics operations in the region.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper: enhanced operations will keep pressure on the drug cartels during coronavirus pandemic <a href="https://t.co/llnEaB96rH">pic.twitter.com/llnEaB96rH</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1245474159846711298?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The DEA reported in its most recent threat assessment guide that Mexican drug cartels remained by far the greatest criminal threat to the U.S.
&#8220;Mexican TCOs remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other groups are currently positioned to challenge them,&#8221; the DEA <a href="https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/2019-NDTA-final-01-14-2020_Low_Web-DIR-007-20_2019.pdf">stated</a>. &#8220;The Sinaloa Cartel maintains the most expansive footprint in the United States, while the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cartel Jalisco Nueva 
Generación or CJNG) has become the second-most dominant domestic presence over the past few 
years.&#8221;
The DEA added, &#8220;Although drug-related murders in Mexico continue to reach epidemic proportions, U.S.-based Mexican TCO members still generally refrain from domestic inter-cartel conflicts, resulting in minimal spillover violence in the United States.&#8221;
The DEA noted that Colombian TCOs’ have a heavy but indirect influence on U.S. drug markets because they supply cocaine to the Mexican cartels, who then move it into the U.S.
Mexican cartels are responsible for the overwhelming majority of illicit drugs that are present in the U.S., including cocaine, meth, fentanyl, heroin, and marijuana.
The report added, &#8220;DEA reporting continues to indicate the Sinaloa and CJNG Cartels are likely the primary trafficking groups responsible for smuggling fentanyl into the United States from Mexico.&#8221;
This report has been updated to include additional information.

ISRAEL-DIPLOMACY-NAVY-EMERGENCY

Trump Launches Massive All Out Military Offensive On Drug Cartels

Donald Trump

Drug Cartels

Military

After news broke that a police report named him in an alleged crystal meth-involved drug overdose call, former Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate and current <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/01/29/andrew-gillum-joins-cnn-as-a-political-commentator/">CNN contributor</a> Andrew Gillum responded Friday morning to the allegations.
&#8220;I was in Miami last night for a wedding celebration when first responders were called to assist one of my friends,&#8221; the former Tallahassee mayor said, as <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsbySmiley/status/1238494979397468161">reported</a> by the Miami Herald&#8217;s David Smiley. &#8220;While I had too much to drink, I want to be clear that I have never used methamphetamines.&#8221;
The police report (below), first obtained and reported on by the <a href="https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/andrew-gillum-in-alleged-meth-incident-in-miami-beach-police-say-11594094">Miami New Times</a>, details an emergency call to a hotel room in Miami Beach that involved three men, two of whom first responders suspected of suffering extreme effects from drug use.
Gillum, the former mayor of Tallahassee who lost to Republican Ron DeSantis in the hotly contested 2018 gubernatorial race, was one of the two men the police report describes as appearing to be &#8220;under the influence of an unknown substance.&#8221;
&#8220;Inside of the hotel room, officers observed in plain sight three small clear plastic baggies containing suspected meth on both the bed and floor of the hotel room,&#8221; the report states. &#8220;The three small baggies of suspected narcotics were impounded at the Miami Beach police station property and evidence unit for destruction.&#8221;
The Miami New Times reports:
<blockquote>Per the documents, Miami Beach police responded to a cardiac-arrest distress call just before 1 a.m. at the luxe Mondrian South Beach hotel. When two MBPD officers arrived, they noted that Miami Beach Fire-Rescue was already on scene treating a man named Travis Dyson for a possible drug overdose, but he was in stable condition.
The officers stated that one of the men involved in the incident, Aldo Mejias, had lent Dyson his credit card information to rent a hotel room yesterday. The two men were supposed to meet later that day. Mejias told the officers that he arrived at the hotel room around 11 p.m. yesterday. Mejias said Dyson opened the door and then immediately collapsed on a bed and started vomiting. Mejias said he began giving Dyson CPR and called 911.
In the meantime, Mejias said Gillum was inside the hotel room &#8220;under the influence of an unknown substance.&#8221;</blockquote>
The police report states that upon arriving in the room, Meijas says he &#8220;observed Mr. Gillum inside the bathroom vomiting.&#8221; After the responding officers spoke with Mejias, the report states, they &#8220;attempted to speak to Mr. Gillum,&#8221; but &#8220;Mr. Gillum was unable to communicate with officers due to his inebriated state.&#8221;
Miami Beach Fire-Rescue responded a second time to the hotel later that night for a welfare check on Gillum and said that he was &#8220;in stable condition and his vitals were normal.&#8221;
&#8220;Gillum left the hotel room and returned to his residence without incident,&#8221; the report states.
Police say the incident is not being treated as a criminal matter, the New Times reports.
Full text of the <a href="https://images.miaminewtimes.com/media/pdf/oi_2020-21902_redcated_copy_2.pdf">incident report</a> narrative section below (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>ON 03/13/2020, OFFICERS GOMEZ (2033) AND MALDONADO (2030) RESPONDED IN EMERGENCY MODE TO 1100 WEST AVENUE ROOM #1107 IN REFERENCE TO A CARDIAC ARREST.
UPON ARRIVAL, MIAMI BEACH FIRE RESCUE (#11) WAS ON SCENE PROVIDING TREATMENT TO TRAVIS DYSON (PATIENT). MIAMI BEACH FIRE RESCUE ADVISED OFFICERS THAT MR. DYSON WAS BEING TREATED FOR A POSSIBLE DRUG OVERDOSE. HE WAS IN STABLE CONDITION BUT AS A PRECAUTION WAS GOING TO BE TRANSPORTED TO MOUNT SINAI FOR FURTHER MEDICAL TREATMENT (MBFR CASE #2020-4950).
OFFICERS THEN MADE CONTACT WITH TWO OTHER MALES WHO WERE INSIDE OF THE HOTEL ROOM: ALDO MEJIAS (COMPLAINANT) AND ANDREW GILLUM (INVOLVED OTHER). MR. MEJIAS STATED THE FOLLOWING TO OFFICERS:
MR. MEJIAS PROVIDED HIS CREDIT CARD INFORMATION TO TRAVIS DYSON TO RENT A HOTEL ROOM FOR THE NIGHT; MR. MEJIAS WAS TO MEET MR. DYSON LATER IN DAY. TRAVIS DYSON RENTED THE ROOM AT APPROXIMATELY 1600 HOURS ON 03/12/2020. MR. MEJIAS ARRIVED AT THE HOTEL AT APPROXIMATELY 2307 HOURS, WHERE HE DISCOVERED TRAVIS DYSON AND ANDREW GILLUM INSIDE THE ROOM UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF AN UNKNOWN SUBSTANCE. PER MR. MEJIAS, MR. DYSON OPENED THE HOTEL ROOM DOOR AND IMMEDIATELY WALKED OVER TO THE BED AND COLLAPSED IN A PRONE POSITION. MR. MEJIAS OBSERVED MR. GILLUM INSIDE OF THE BATHROOM VOMITING. MR. MEJIAS STATED THAT HE OBSERVED MR. DYSON HAVING DIFFICULTY BREATHING, PROMPTING HIM TO WAKE HIM UP. MR. DYSON THEN BEGAN VOMITING ON THE BED AND IMMEDIATELY COLLAPSED AGAIN. MR. MEJIAS BEGAN CONDUCTING CHEST COMPRESSIONS ON MR. DYSON AND PROCEEDED TO CONTACT POLICE AND FIRE RESCUE.
OFFICERS THEN ATTEMPTED TO SPEAK TO MR. GILLUM. MR. GILLUM WAS UNABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH OFFICERS DUE TO HIS INEBRIATED STATE.
MBFR (R1) RESPONDED A SECOND TIME TO THE HOTEL REFERENCE A WELFARE CHECK ON MR. GILLUM. FIRE RESCUE STATED THAT HE WAS IN STABLE CONDITION AND HIS VITALS WERE NORMAL (MBFR INCIDENT #2020-4952).
OFFICER PASCUAL (2049) RESPONDED TO MT. SINAI TO CHECK ON THE WELFARE OF MR. DYSON. THE REGISTERED NURSE AT MOUNT SINAI (JUDITH) STATED THAT MR. DYSON WAS CONSCIOUS AND IN STABLE CONDITION.
INSIDE OF THE HOTEL ROOM, OFFICERS OBSERVED IN PLAIN SIGHT THREE SMALL CLEAR PLASTIC BAGGIES CONTAINING SUSPECTED CRYSTAL METH ON BOTH THE BED AND FLOOR OF THE HOTEL ROOM.
THE THREE SMALL BAGGIES OF SUSPECTED NARCOTICS WERE IMPOUNDED AT THE MIAMI BEACH POLICE STATION PROPERTY AND EVIDENCE UNIT FOR DESTRUCTION.
GILLUM LEFT THE HOTEL ROOM AND RETURNED TO HIS RESIDENCE WITHOUT INCIDENT .</blockquote>

Andrew Gillum Responds To Report He Was Involved in Alleged Crystal Meth Incident

Florida

The Trump administration announced on Wednesday the results from a massive federal operation targeting the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), which is one of the most notorious drug cartels in Mexico.
The Justice Department (DOJ) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) revealed that over 600 arrests had been made as a result of Project Python, which started late last year.
“Project Python marks the most comprehensive action to date in the Department of Justice’s campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy CJNG,” Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Criminal Division said during a press conference. “When President Trump signed an Executive Order prioritizing the dismantlement of transnational criminal organizations, the Department of Justice answered the call and took direct aim at CJNG. We deemed CJNG one of the highest-priority transnational organized crime threats we face. And with Project Python, we are delivering results in the face of that threat for the American people.”
President Donald Trump&#8217;s Executive Order 13773 instructed federal officials to identify, interdict, disrupt, and dismantle drug cartels, which has been a top priority of Trump&#8217;s.
The statement added:
<blockquote>CJNG is one of the fastest growing transnational criminal organizations in Mexico, and among the most prolific methamphetamine producers in the world. It is responsible for a significant proportion of drugs entering the United States, and elevated levels of violence in Mexico. With methamphetamine abuse and overdose deaths on the rise, Project Python aims to disrupt CJNG’s ability to distribute methamphetamine and other drugs throughout the United States by attacking the group at all levels.
The efforts highlighted in the more than 600 arrests nationwide are illustrative of the significant reach the CJNG has in manufacturing, importing and distributing a wide array of illegal narcotics within the United States and the negative impact on the fabric of our local communities. The proceeds from the local distribution of these narcotics are repatriated back to Mexico and further fuel transnational organized criminal organizations such as the CJNG. The Department of Justice and its law enforcement partners will continue to vigorously fight this scourge against the United States.</blockquote>
The 2019 DEA National Drug Threat Assessment <a href="https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/2019-NDTA-final-01-14-2020_Low_Web-DIR-007-20_2019.pdf">reported</a> the following about CJNG:
<blockquote>CJNG, based in the city of Guadalajara in the Mexican State of Jalisco, is the most recently formed of the six TCOs. With drug distribution hubs in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta, it is one of the most powerful and fastest growing cartels in Mexico and the United States. CJNG smuggles illicit drugs into the United States by accessing various trafficking corridors along the SWB including Tijuana, Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo. CJNG’s rapid expansion of its drug trafficking activities is characterized by the willingness to engage in violent confrontations with Mexican Government security forces and rival cartels. Like most major Mexican TCOs, CJNG is a poly-drug trafficking group, manufacturing and/or distributing large amounts of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. CJNG reportedly has presence in at least 24 of 32 Mexican states.</blockquote>
“Project Python is the single largest strike by U.S. authorities against CJNG, and this is just the beginning,” Acting DEA Administrator Uttam Dhillon said during the press conference. “This strategic and coordinated project exemplifies DEA’s mission: to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy drug trafficking organizations around the world and bring their leaders to justice. Today, DEA has disrupted CJNG’s operations, and there is more to come as DEA continues its relentless attack on this remorseless criminal organization.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions And Mexican Counterpart Announce Enforcement Efforts Against Mexican Drug Cartel

‘Just The Beginning’: Trump Strikes Notorious Mexican Drug Cartel, 600+ Arrests Made

Cartels

On Monday, four indictments were handed down against high-priced trainers who gave some of the best racehorses in the world performance-enhancing drugs. Some performance-enhancing drugs, if given to horses, can result in horses overexerting, which can trigger heart issues or death, as <a href="https://apnews.com/dc374ced6ba7ebd0d4303119a9811107">The Associated Press</a> noted, adding, “According to the indictments, other drugs used to deaden a horse’s sensitivity to pain to improve the horse’s performance could also lead to leg fractures.”
William F. Sweeney Jr., the FBI&#8217;s assistant director in charge of the New York office, stated, “These substances stimulated endurance, deadened nerves, increased oxygen intake and reduced inflammation. What actually happened to these horses amounted to nothing less than abuse. They experienced cardiac issues, overexertion leading to leg fractures, increased risk of injury and in some cases death,” as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/horse-racing-trainers-veterinarians-charged-nationwide-doping-scandal-n1153126">NBC News</a> reported.
27 people were charged in the indictments; some of the charges included drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy. Jason Servis, whose stable includes the racehorse Maximum Security, which won the 2019 Kentucky Derby before being disqualified for interference but has won four of five high-profile races since, was charged, along with fellow trainer Jorge Navarro.
NBC News added, &#8220;One of Navarro&#8217;s most prized thoroughbreds, X Y Jet, died of an apparent heart attack this year after receiving a significant amount of PEDs, in one instance 50 injections, according to the indictment.&#8221;
Servis is charged with giving Maximum Security SGF-1000, recommending it to Navarro, and conspiring with a veterinarian so the drug would appear to be a false positive for another substance. AP noted, “Servis is alleged to have given performance-enhancing drugs to ‘virtually all the racehorses under his control.’ He entered horses in races approximately 1,082 times from 2018 through February 2020, according to authorities.”
According to authorities, races in Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and the United Arab Emirates were affected.
The indictments stated, “The charges in this indictment result from a widespread, corrupt scheme by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, PED (performance-enhancing drug) distributors and others to manufacture, distribute and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses under scheme participants’ control,”
More from the indictments on the issue; one <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1256646/download">stated:</a>
<blockquote>By evading PED prohibitions and deceiving regulators and horse racing authorities, among others, participants sought to improve race performance. Over the course of the scheme, participants manufactured, purchased, sold, shipped, delivered, received and administered, at least thousands of units of PEDs issued by pharmacies pursuant to invalid prescriptions provided by veterinarians participating in the scheme and customized PEDs created and manufactured by scheme participants intended for use on racehorses. Trainers who participated in the scheme stood to profit from the success of racehorses under their control by earning a share of their horse’s winnings, and by improving their horse’s racing records, thereby yielding higher training fees and increasing the number of racehorses under their control.</blockquote>
The indictments noted that between 2018 and February 2020, Servis entered horses in approximately 1,082 races, while Navarro entered horses in roughly 1,480 races.
Trainer Graham Motion, whose horses have won the Kentucky Derby, Dubai World Cup, and Breeders Cup, tweeted, “A sad day for racing but a long time coming. A good day for those who try to play by the rules, we will all be better for it.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A sad day for racing but a long time coming. A good day for those who try to play by the rules, we will all be better for it.
&mdash; GrahamMotion (@GrahamMotion) <a href="https://twitter.com/GrahamMotion/status/1237023860375126019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

X Y Jet wins the Dubai Golden Shaheen at Meydan Racecourse, UAE

Trainers Charged With Using Dangerous Performance-Enhancing Drugs On World’s Best Racehorses

horses

Amid the mass shootings, the substantial <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-a-thin-line-separates-suicide-from-violence-among-men-today">uptick in suicides</a>, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">addiction epidemic</a>, the constant refrain seems to be that America is suffering a mental health crisis. Certainly, the numbers bear out when we consider prescription drug use to treat anxiety and depression alone.
<a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/astounding-increase-in-antidepressant-use-by-americans-201110203624">Harvard University</a> reported that antidepressant use has increased by 400% since the 1990s:
<blockquote>According…to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the rate of antidepressant use in this country among teens and adults (people ages 12 and older) increased by almost 400% between 1988–1994 and 2005–2008.</blockquote>
Those statistics alone should be cause for some serious soul-searching for all of us. Such a staggering increase in antidepressant use certainly adds to the argument that America is quickly becoming a helpless, inoculated society of hopeless souls.
Even a popular <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UoMXF73j0c&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=722">TED Talk</a> diagnosed our current plight with exacting precision:
<blockquote>We are the most addicted, we are the most medicated, obese, and in-debt adult cohort in human history.</blockquote>
Worse, the actual effectiveness of antidepressants is not at all confirmed when factoring in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/npp2012153">placebo</a>. In fact, the claims made by psychiatry and by pharmaceutical companies on antidepressants remain quite dogmatic. In a piece entitled “The Psychiatric Drug Crisis” for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-psychiatric-drug-crisis">The New Yorker</a>, Gary Greenberg states the following:
<blockquote>Despite their continued failure to understand how psychiatric drugs work, doctors continue to tell patients that their troubles are the result of chemical imbalances in their brains. As Frank Ayd pointed out, this explanation helps reassure patients even as it encourages them to take their medicine, and it fits in perfectly with our expectation that doctors will seek out and destroy the chemical villains responsible for all of our suffering, both physical and mental. The theory may not work as science, but it is a devastatingly effective myth.</blockquote>
Sadly, simple physical exercise has been repeatedly proven to be more effective in treating mild to moderate depression. In 2014, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/for-depression-prescribing-exercise-before-medication/284587/">The Atlantic Monthly</a> reported:
<blockquote>A 2011 study…looked at 127 depressed people who hadn’t experienced relief from SSRIs, a common type of antidepressant, and found that exercise <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21658349">led 30 percent of them into remission</a>—a result that was as good as, or better than, drugs alone.</blockquote>
If simple physical exercise can remedy an exceedingly common mental health issue, the fundamental problem with so many in America is, ultimately, a moral one. Our volition, our sense of courage and forbearance, are all now at a premium. However, so many are now accosted by a very insidious and nihilistic question: “What’s the point?”
Resignation and defeat seem to pervade the American landscape. We can barely even register notions of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-men-must-learn-to-uphold-the-common-good-again">the common good</a>, never mind what is objectively good for ourselves.
The moral and ethical foundation that ought to buttress us in times of hardship and fatigue is cracked and crumbling, if not altogether broken. While the Left has certainly deconstructed our values into oblivion, we cannot disregard our collective <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-anxiety-and-faith-in-these-modern-times">spiritual and moral lassitude</a> in this crisis either.
At best, only frail and brittle platitudes inform our collective moral pedigree these days. There are no longer discernible footholds to guide us out of the various trials and tribulations that assail us. Instead, we are told to inoculate ourselves with all manner of pills and potions. Others simply turn to illicit drugs and alcohol to remedy the existential aches.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-faith-in-a-dark-time">A dull despair</a> seems the order of the day. We must do better. It’s imperative that we dust off and engage our moral compass once again for the betterment of each other, and for ourselves. And we must do so with courage, fortitude, and, most importantly, hope.

Man with pills

KHAN: Is America Suffering A Mental Health Crisis Or A Moral Crisis?

Mental health

Mental Illness

Morality

obesity

Prescription Drugs

Religion

A man using a synthetic drug known as Spice allegedly has sawed off his own leg.
The Daily Star <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/man-high-zombie-drug-spice-21547603">reported</a> Friday that the unnamed man reportedly took the “zombie drug” in Prokopyevsk, a city in western Russia, and then proceeded to cut his own leg off, leaving behind a bloody stump. (You can view the picture on the Star. Warning: graphic content.)
“Shocking pictures appear to show the man with a tourniquet wrapped around a bloody stump after he reportedly cut his left leg off above the knee,” the outlet reported. “Pictures shared shared [sic] on media show the man as he lies on a hospital gurney after doctors apparently battled to stem the blood and save his life. According to the reports, the man carried out the self-amputation after consuming Spice along with a cocktail of painkillers.”
The man somehow managed to get himself to the hospital. The Star reported that local Russian outlets said the man was taken to intensive care, but the images being shared on social media were from when he was being moved to a general ward.
The National Institutes of Health <a href="https://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug-facts/spice">describes</a> Spice as “a mix of herbs (shredded plant material) and laboratory-made chemicals with mind-altering effects. It is often called ‘synthetic marijuana’ or ‘fake weed’ because some of the chemicals in it are similar to ones in marijuana.”
The effects of the drug, however, can be vastly different. While Spice does yield some of the same results as marijuana – relaxation, elevated mood, altered perception, or feeling detached from reality – bad reactions can result in:
<ul>
<li>fast heart rate</li>
<li>throwing up</li>
<li>extreme anxiety or nervousness</li>
<li>hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there)</li>
<li>feeling confused</li>
<li>violent behavior</li>
<li>suicidal thoughts</li>
</ul>
“Because the chemicals used in Spice have a high potential for abuse and no medical benefit, the Drug Enforcement Administration has made many of the active chemicals found in Spice illegal. However, the people who make these products try to avoid these laws by using different chemicals in their mixtures,” the NIH stated. “Spice is most often labeled ‘not for human consumption’ and disguised as incense. Sellers of the drug try to lead people to believe it is ‘natural’ and therefore harmless, but it is neither. In fact, the actual effects of spice can be unpredictable and, in some cases, severe or cause death.”
NIH also said Spice works differently on the brain than the THC in marijuana.
“What is known is that the chemicals found in Spice attach to the same nerve cell receptors as THC, the main mind-altering ingredient in marijuana. Some of the chemicals in Spice, however, attach to those receptors more strongly than THC, which could lead to much stronger effects,” NIH reported. “The resulting health effects can be unpredictable and dangerous. Additionally, there are many chemicals that remain unidentified in products sold as Spice and it is therefore not clear how they may affect the user.”
Spice has been said to leave users in a “zombie-like” state, but so far it doesn’t appear others have done anything as drastic as cutting off their own legs. It can be suspected the man might have been on something other than just Spice. The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8029323/Russian-man-saws-leg-high-zombie-drug-spice.html">reported</a> that the man had taken Spice and “a cocktail of painkillers.”
Some commenters pointed out that the man would now qualify for disability benefits from the Russian government even though his wound was self-inflicted.

Synthetic Marijuana

Man Saws Off Own Leg While High On Drugs

Russia

Mexican cartels are using children to smuggle drugs and weapons across the border into the United States and vice versa, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said.
Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/mexican-cartels-arizona-children-drug-smuggling">reported</a> that American children as young as 12 have been recruited by the cartels – and the problem is getting worse. In fiscal year 2018, about 36 children were arrested for narcotics-related offenses at Arizona’s points of entry. The next year that number increased to 57. There have already been 17 arrests in fiscal year 2020.
“It’s a problem, we know it’s there,&#8221; Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent Alan Regalado told Fox. &#8220;We’re trying to mitigate that issue through education and prevention.”
Regalado started the Together Educating and Mentoring Kids (TEAM Kids) program to try and stop children from getting recruited. He told Fox that after starting the program he soon realized it needed to be implemented before high school &#8212; as early as elementary school.
“We went out to local high schools and I noticed that students were already recruited at that point,&#8221; Regalado told Fox.
“There’s kids now being recruited in Phoenix, Tucson, not only for northbound activity but also southbound, where they are taking weapons from the United States into Mexico,&#8221; he added. &#8220;So, it’s not just the narcotics coming from Mexico into the United States.”
Regalado told the outlet that “These teenagers are either smuggling in vehicles, they’re smuggling on their body and in their body so it’s very dangerous.”
Three children have so far been prosecuted by the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office, Fox reported.
“As the county attorney I have the option of charging juveniles as adults if they’re 14 years of age or older and they commit a class two felony,” Santa Cruz County Attorney George Silva told the outlet. &#8220;Normally when they are transporting drugs for sale it’s going to be a class two felony.”
He added: “At this school I had promised the kids that if you are caught with dangerous drugs I’m sending you to prison and that’s what ended up happening to this 17 year old &#8230; this student was an honor roll student, you know he was a very good student, he wanted to go [Northern Arizona University] and he wanted to study criminal justice, so he thought &#8216;I can’t afford to go to college so one way of being able to pay for my college is to run dope.&#8217;”
Silva explained to the outlet that children are used to throw off law enforcement, but once kids started getting caught, the cartels use the elderly and pregnant women before switching back to children.
“[Children] do it because they think it’s cool but they also do it because of the easy money… the minimum sentence is 3.5 years and obviously prosecuting them as adults means that they would be convicted felons for the rest of their lives,” Silva told Fox.
WZTV <a href="https://abcstlouis.com/news/nation-world/report-mexican-cartels-hiring-american-children-as-young-as-12-years-old-to-smuggle-drugs-02-19-2020">reported</a> that the TEAM Kids program started by Regalado lasts four weeks and “warns students that cartel recruitment may even happen through social media and video games.”

Kids As Young As 12 Recruited By Mexican Cartels To Smuggle Drugs Across Border, Report Says

Arizona

Recent protests in Los Angeles over attempts to end homeless encampments in public areas signal just how deranged many progressives have become over the pressing issue of addiction and homelessness in California and elsewhere. As the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-24/homeless-activists-protest-echo-park-lake">Los Angeles Times</a> reported:
<blockquote>Homeless people and scores of activists protested as city crews arrived Friday for a cleanup at Echo Park Lake, publicly calling on Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell to meet with them and work out a deal allowing them to remain at the park. &#8230; If the city ejects the encampment, “it’s like breaking up a family,” said Davon Brown, who said he has lived in the Echo Park encampment for four months. “This is not a cleanup. This is a homeless eviction.”</blockquote>
Never mind how contradictory the notion of a “homeless eviction” actually is, what so many of these entitled activists fail to recognize is how these derelict encampments impact the working poor. It’s the working poor who have to navigate in perilous proximity to the many fatiguing criminal elements that fuel these encampments.
The working poor are the ones who are forced to deal directly with all the refuse and risk from the addiction epidemic. They have to contend with the many strung-out, dangerous individuals on their daily commutes on buses, subways, and sidewalks alongside all the trash, human waste, and hazardous needles that now infest their world.
Addicts literally took over a subway station in San Francisco according to a local <a href="https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/04/25/drug-users-san-francisco-civic-center-bart/">CBS News affiliate</a>. Shannon Gafford, a local commuter, documented the crisis, and the video rivals any depiction from fictional zombie apocalypse:
<blockquote>[O]ver the course of a week, Gafford documented his trip to work. His videos show dozens of people slumped along a hallway, open IV drug use, unconscious men and women, and piles of vomit on either side of the hallways.</blockquote>
Not only is drug use hopelessly prevalent in these encampments, so are drug dealing and all the nefarious consequences associated with it, including violence and prostitution. According to LAPD Captain Brian Morrison, most of these encampments are built around heroin and meth. He stated as much in a recent investigative piece for <a href="https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/news/2019/11/04/police--drug-addiction-plagues-westside-homeless-camps">Spectrum News 1</a> that details just how drug use remains the driving force in these many encampments throughout California.
<blockquote>“That encampment, from our perspective, is predominately built around drug use,” said Captain Brian Morrison, the new head of Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division.</blockquote>
Worse, law enforcement has been hamstrung by insipid policies such as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">Prop 47</a>. Drug arrests are no longer tenable as there are no longer substantive consequences for such crimes. Crimes that were once met with arrests and potential jail time now receive, at best, citations and stern warnings. Captain Morrison confirms this in the same interview:
<blockquote>Police have made nearly a dozen arrests for selling drugs, and a half dozen for possession or drug-related warrants. However, Morrison said Proposition 47 basically decriminalized drug use, that weak sentences for possession are not enough to urge addicts into rehab.</blockquote>
It’s high time progressives in California put down their oat milk lattes and deal with the reality of the addiction epidemic. Their meaningless protests and myopic attempts at compassion completely disregard the working poor, never mind common sense. Their self-righteous indignation simply tramples upon those desperately trying to actually better themselves.

Skid Row.

KHAN: The Addiction Epidemic Cripples The Working Poor

Los Angeles

Progressivism

Democrat presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (HI) repeatedly refused to answer questions on whether she desired to legalize all drugs, including heroin, when she was asked about the issue by Fox News&#8217; Sean Hannity on Monday night.
When asked whether there was anything that she wishes she could work with President Donald Trump on, Gabbard answered, &#8220;There&#8217;s far more we want to do on criminal justice reform. I would love to be able to work with President Trump on ending this failed war on drugs.&#8221;
Hannity proceeded to ask Gabbard two times whether she wanted to legalize all drugs and six times whether she wanted to legalize heroin, but Gabbard refused to answer any of the questions.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
HANNITY: Do you want to legalize heroin?
DEMOCRAT TULSI GABBARD: Refuses to answer
H: Heroin?
G:—
H: Heroin?
G:—
H: Would you legalize heroin?
G:—
H: Would you legalize heroin? Don’t make me be a jerk
G:—
H: Heroin, would you legalize it? Would you legalize it?
G:— <a href="https://t.co/d9z9f91PWK">pic.twitter.com/d9z9f91PWK</a>
&mdash; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1227134360333082624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 11, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Gabbard is currently running a presidential campaign that is struggling to stay afloat. Real Clear Politics&#8217; average of national polls currently gives the congresswoman only <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html">2 percent</a> of the Democratic vote and she has failed to gain traction in early primary states.
Below is an excerpt of Daily Wire Editor at Large Josh Hammer&#8217;s profile piece about Gabbard highlighting her background and policy views:
<blockquote>Tulsi Gabbard has served since 2013 as the U.S. congresswoman for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District — a sprawling district that covers large swaths of Oahu/Honolulu County and the entire state outside Oahu. A member of the Democratic Party, Gabbard served as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016. Prior to her service in Congress, Gabbard served in the Hawaii state legislature and as a member of the Honolulu City Council. At the time of her initial successful run for the state legislature, Gabbard was only 21 years old.
Gabbard was born in American Samoa and is of mixed ethnic/religious background. Her Samoan father is a Catholic, and her Hoosier State native mother is a practicing Hindu; Gabbard herself is a practicing Hindu. Gabbard, who has a bachelor degree from Hawaii Pacific University, is a member of the Hawaii Army National Guard. She was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2005 as part of a medical field unit, and was subsequently deployed to Kuwait from 2008 to 2009.
Gabbard, a 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate, is known for being a full-spectrum, far-left progressive who embraces social leftism, far-left economic policies, and a staunchly non-interventionist foreign policy. Perhaps above all else, she is known for her longstanding and unusually collegial ties with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who is supported by the Iranian and Russian regimes.
Electoral History: Gabbard first sought elected office in 2002, when she won her first election to the Hawaii state legislature. Gabbard was only 21 years old at the time. She served in the Hawaii House of Representatives until 2004, and subsequently served as a member of the Honolulu City Council from 2011 to 2012. She spent part of her time between the two political stints deployed in the Middle East with the Hawaii Army National Guard. She attained the rank of major in the National Guard in 2015.
Gabbard first ran for Congress in November 2012, shortly after being featured as a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. She was elected in a landslide in Hawaii’s deep-blue 2nd Congressional District. The seat had been previously occupied by Mazie Hirono, who is now the state’s junior U.S. senator. Gabbard was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2014, 2016, and 2018.</blockquote>
Continue reading: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/where-does-tulsi-gabbard-stand-issues-heres-josh-hammer">Where Does Tulsi Gabbard Stand On The Issues? Here’s Everything You Need To Know.</a>

Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard Holds Town Hall In Portsmouth, NH

WATCH: Tulsi Gabbard Asked 6 Times If She Wants To Legalize Heroin

Tulsi Gabbard

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg confirmed to Fox News&#8217; Chris Wallace on Sunday that he supports the decriminalization of hardcore illicit drugs, including meth and heroin.
&#8220;Mayor, you not only want to decriminalize marijuana, you want to decriminalize all drug possession,&#8221; Chris Wallace said. &#8220;You say that the better answer is incarceration – I mean, it’s rather treatment, not incarceration –&#8221;
&#8220;That’s right,&#8221; Buttigieg interjected.
&#8220;But isn’t the fact that it’s illegal to have, to possess meth and heroin, doesn’t that, at least in some way, the fact that’s illegal, act as some deterrent to actually trying it in the first place?&#8221; Wallace pressed.
&#8220;Well, I think the main thing we need to focus on is where you have distribution and the kind of harm that’s done there,&#8221; Buttigieg responded. &#8220;[Where] yeah, of course it’s important that it remain illegal but –”
&#8220;But you would decriminalize it, so it wouldn’t be illegal,&#8221; Wallace responded.
&#8220;Possession should not be dealt with through incarceration,&#8221; Buttigieg responded.
&#8220;But you would say that possession of heroin is not illegal?&#8221; Wallace pressed.
&#8220;Is not going to be dealt with through incarceration,&#8221; Buttigieg responded.
&#8220;But your website says ‘decriminalize,’” Wallace pressed. &#8220;It will not be illegal.&#8221;
&#8220;Yes. Or it could be a misdemeanor,&#8221; Buttigieg said in an apparent attempt to deflect. &#8220;The point is, not the legal niceties. The point is that we have learned through 40 years of a failed war on drugs that criminalizing addiction doesn’t work.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is totally bonkers. 
Pete Buttigieg: decriminalize all drugs, including heroin and meth<a href="https://t.co/f2NiFOCmy7">pic.twitter.com/f2NiFOCmy7</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1226534275077623810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 9, 2020</a></blockquote>
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS SUNDAY ANCHOR: And joining us now, one of the co-winners of the Iowa caucuses, Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Welcome back to Fox News Sunday.
PETE BUTTIGIEG, 2020 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Good to be back.
WALLACE: So how much did your win, I’ll put it slightly in quotes, in Iowa transform the credibility of your campaign to show voters that you can actually beat this deal?
BUTTIGIEG: Well I think it was critically important. For the last year, presidential candidates have been saying that &#8212; claiming that we’re the ones who can put the campaign together that’s going to ultimately go on to defeat Donald Trump. And the process of proving that began in Iowa. I was especially pleased that we had a coalition of suburban and rural and urban voters &#8212; caucus goers. We had older and younger caucus goers supporting us. And did particularly well in some of those counties that had swung from President Obama to vote for Trump. But that’s one state and it’s one day.
New Hampshire is a state that thinks for itself with a very strong independent streak and we know that we’ve got to earn every vote here. And so I will continue to be on the ground doing events, taking questions, spending time with voters, making sure that they hear our vision and that I hear their concerns, and we think that’s how we’re going to succeed here too.
WALLACE: Now the flipside of that is &#8212; I don’t have to tell you, you’re more of a target, among others. Joe Biden has come out with a new ad specifically targeting you. Let’s take a look.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Joe Biden helped lead the passage of the affordable care act, giving healthcare to 20 million people. And when park goers called on Pete Buttigieg he installed decorative lights under bridges, giving citizens of South Bend color-free, illuminated rivers.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now you say that Biden is mocking people in small towns. He says the point he’s making is you just have too little experience on too small a scale. You like to say that the Democrats who win are the ones who push for generational change &#8211;John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama. He says &#8212; and this is his quote, he’s no Barack Obama. When you &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
BUTTIGIEG: &#8212; I’m not and neither is he. Neither is any of us.
WALLACE: And this isn’t 2008, this is 2020.
BUTTIGIEG: This is about how we’re going to turn the page and deliver a better future in the country. I’ll also say there’s so many communities &#8212; cities like mine in the industrial Midwest, rural areas, and even neighborhoods in our biggest cities that are tired of being treated as a punchline or not feeling that our voices are heard in Washington. And a big part of this campaign is about making sure that we carry those voices to the Capitol instead of thinking that the answers are somehow going to come from Washington as we know it. In order to win, but also in order to govern, we need to be ready to look to the future and that’s what my campaign is about.
WALLACE: Let’s talk about some of the issues that have come out recently. In the debate on Friday night, you were asked about the fact that African Americans in South Bend were four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than Whites were. Here was part of that exchange.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: How do you explain the increase in Black arrests in South Bend under your leadership for marijuana possessions?
BUTTIGIEG: And again the overall rate was never &#8212;
UNKNOWN: No. There was an increase. The year before you were in office it was lower.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: I’m less interested in the statistic than the fact it seemed to me that you weren’t straight. That you, at first, you ducked the question and then when she pressed it again, you seem to deny it. And, you know, you have a reputation as a straight talker. The fact is Blacks were four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana arrests in your town when you were mayor.
BUTTIGIEG: No, that disparity is there. It is there in our city and it’s there across the country. So one of the things I wanted to make sure got across was that that was only part of the story. That in my city Black residents were less likely to be arrested on drug charges than in the state or in the country. But still, the disparity is real. It’s a problem and it’s one of the reasons why I’m proposing that we legalize marijuana outright and when we do we have a process of expungements and looking backwards at the harm that drug policy has caused.
We have seen time and time again racial disparities in the enforcement not just in drug laws, but across the criminal legal system. And we need reform. No one mayor is going to be able to resolve it. This is a national process that I’m pleased to see there is more and more bipartisan energy around doing something about, but it’s got to happen now.
WALLACE: Mayor you not only want to decriminalize marijuana, you want to decriminalize all drug possession. You say that the better answer is incarceration – I mean, it’s rather treatment, not incarceration &#8212;
BUTTIGIEG: That’s right.
WALLACE: &#8212; but isn’t the fact that it’s illegal to have &#8212; to possess meth and heroin doesn’t that &#8212; at least in some way, the fact that’s illegal, act as a – some deterrent to actually trying it in the first place?
BUTTIGIEG: Well I think the main thing we need to focus on is where you have distribution and the kind of harm that’s done there. [Where], yes, of course it’s important that it remain illegal but &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: But you would decriminalize it so it would not be illegal.
BUTTIGIEG: Possession should not be deal with through incarceration and &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: But you would say that possession of heroin is not illegal?
BUTTIGIEG: Is not going to be dealt with through incarceration.
WALLACE: But your &#8212; your website says decriminalize. It will not be illegal.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes. Or it could be a misdemeanor. The point is, not the legal niceties. The point is that we have learned through 40 years of a failed war on drugs that criminalizing addiction doesn’t work. Not only that, the incarceration does more harm than the offense it’s intended to deal with. This is not saying that these substances are OK. It’s saying that when somebody develops that kind of addiction, throwing them in jail or being in a situation where jail is the closest thing they’ll ever get to inpatient treatment, shows a profound failure in our country’s mental health and addiction treatment system. And I don’t think that comes as a surprise. The American people know that we’ve got to do a better job. And, frankly, expecting the law enforcement system, first responders in jails, to be the frontlines of mental health is just no way to run the United States of America.
WALLACE: In our Town Hall in Des Moines two weeks ago, you had an interesting discussion with a Democrats for Life woman &#8212; a woman who was pro-life who said that all she wants is for the party &#8212; the Democratic Party to make an explicit statement that people like her are welcomed into the party. Here’s a bit of that exchange.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Do you want the support of pro-life Democrats &#8212; pro-life Democratic voters, there are about 21 million of us?
BUTTIGIEG: I respect where you’re coming from &#8212; and I hope to earn your vote, but I’m not going to try to earn your vote by tricking you.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: For someone who talks so much about inclusion, that struck a lot of people as sounding like you were trying to keep people out.
BUTTIGIEG: Well I was trying to show her the respect of being honest with her. Look, she is very welcome to join this effort. I hope that voters like her do, but I’m not going to turn around and support the criminalization of women and doctors as a way to get her vote because I don’t believe it’s right. I know that this is a tough and a sensitive issue. I’m from South Bend, Indiana. A lot of people I know &#8212; a lot of my own supporters don’t view this the way that I do. But at the end of the day, it is very important to me and, I think to most Americans, to respect a woman’s right to choose.
WALLACE: I think that you’re roughly saying that you would have to change your views, she was saying is the tent big enough in the Democratic Party that people like her who are against abortion &#8212; who are pro-life, are they welcomed into the party if they want to support them?
BUTTIGIEG: Here’s what I would say, to me being pro-life means also making sure that children can grow up and be healthy and succeed. It means making sure that there’s maternal care. It means making sure that there’s nutrition. And if we can agree on that much, than perhaps she can support me. And if not, I respect that.
WALLACE: You have made it clear you want some structural changes, not just specific issue changes. One of them is to end the Electoral College. But doesn’t that mean, in a general election, if it was just about the popular vote nobody would come to a state like New Hampshire because they’d be too busy going to population centers like New York and Los Angeles?
BUTTIGIEG: No, I don’t think that would be the effect and the reason is we run every other election in this country in the traditional fashion, in other words, you know, the person who gets the most votes gets to win the election. And when you’re running for governor of a state of any size, you go to the big cities and you go to the small towns. We don’t run Governors races with some Electoral College system where certain counties count more than certain other counties. And if you want to earn that office you campaign everywhere. I think the same is true for the country.
And at the end of the day it’s not clear to me why a rancher in Texas should not count because they are in a state that’s overwhelmingly Conservative. Or if somebody living in Brooklyn shouldn’t count because the community’s overwhelmingly Liberal. Or they’re my city, a midsize city in the industrial Midwest, doesn’t have much of a voice because I’m part of a state that’s not considered a swing state. It doesn’t even benefit small states. It just benefits some states. And at the end of the day I think it’s fair for everybody’s vote to count the exact same, like we do in every other election that we run in this country.
WALLACE: Finally, Bernie Sanders, who is going to be our next guest after the commercial, is going after you hard right now especially about the issue of some of your campaign donors. Take a look.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
BERNIE SANDERS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Unlike some of the folks up here I don’t have 40 billionaires, Pete, contributing to my campaign. Let me – from the pharmaceutical industry, coming from Wall Street and all the big money interests.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
WALLACE: You said, look to beat Donald Trump we need all the help, all the money, all the support we can get. No qualms about accepting contributions from what he calls big money interests?
BUTTIGIEG: We’ve gotten two million contributions in this campaign, I think the average is under 40 bucks. And we are building the movement that is going to defeat Donald Trump. I want everybody to help out. I want everybody who shares that vision to be at our side. I think Donald Trump is &#8212; and his allies raised 25 million bucks in one day. I’m building a campaign that’s not defined by who we reject. It’s defined by belonging. It’s defined by inclusion. It’s defined by pulling together the coalition to get the job done. And at the end of the day whether somebody goes to [website] and chips in the five bucks &#8212;
WALLACE: OK.
BUTTIGIEG: You know I got to say the website &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
BUTTIGIEG: But also this is how we built the campaign. Or whether somebody comes to an event and may be a surgeon who can contribute $2,000 or whatever being much skin off their back. I want all of them to be part of this effort.
WALLACE: Mayor Buttigieg thank you. Thanks for your time sir.
BUTTIGIEG: Thank you.
WALLACE: And we’ll be watching for your final push before Tuesday.
BUTTIGIEG: Sounds good.</blockquote>

Pete Buttigieg

Democrat Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg: Decriminalize All Drug Possession

2020 Election

Democratic Party

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents confiscated hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine that had been stashed in a teenager’s car.
The discovery was made on Christmas Eve at the Calexico West port of entry. A 16-year-old was driving through the port of entry in a 2012 Ford Focus. A K-9 team was working the port of entry and one of the dogs alerted officers to the vehicle.
When officers searched the vehicle, they discovered 220 pounds of meth hidden in the car’s “doors, back seat, quarter panels, rocker panels and spare tire,” WTHR <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/border-protection-officers-find-220-pounds-meth-stashed-inside-teens-car-christmas-eve">reported</a>. More from the outlet:
Officers removed 205 wrapped packages of methamphetamine weighing 220 pounds. The narcotics carry an estimated street value of $264,444.
The teen was arrested for the alleged narcotic smuggling attempt and turned over to the custody of Homeland Security Investigation agents for further processing.
The teen was transported to the Imperial County Juvenile Detention Center.
CBP seized the narcotics and vehicle.
The incident is the latest in a string of drug busts.
On November 18, a tractor-trailer driven by a 47-year-old Mexican citizen had a manifest claiming the vehicle was carrying “plastic garment hangers.” When the truck drove through the Otay Mesa Cargo port of entry, CBP officers performed an X-ray on the trailer and discovered an “anomaly.” They searched the vehicles with dogs and found <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/truck-supposed-to-be-carrying-plastic-garment-hangers-actually-hauled-10-tons-of-marijuana">10 tons of marijuana</a>, which carried an estimated street value of about $8.4 million.
“The ability of CBP officers to interdict contraband at the port of entry is a perfect example of CBP’s efforts to secure our border,” said Joseph Misenhelter, Officer in Charge at the Otay Mesa port of entry, at the time of the bust.  “CBP officers prevented over 10 tons of marijuana from entering our community.”
A week before the tractor-trailer incident, agents at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport found 24 bottles of shampoo inside a man’s suitcase that were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/truck-supposed-to-be-carrying-plastic-garment-hangers-actually-hauled-10-tons-of-marijuana">filled with liquid cocaine</a>, for a total of 35 pounds of the drug. The estimated street value was around $400,000.
As The Daily Wire previously reported:
<blockquote>In mid-June, federal law enforcement officials in Philadelphia seized 16.5 tons of cocaine, the largest drug bust in the history of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
In September, Virginia police arrested more than 30 people suspected of possessing a massive quantity of fentanyl, enough to kill 14 million people. It was the largest drug bust in Virginia in the past 15 years, with authorities seizing more than 30 kilograms each of fentanyl and heroine, another five kilograms of cocaine, and more than $700,000.
“This opioid crisis is not an issue that is happening someplace else, or to someone else. It’s happening right here in Norfolk,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, G. Zachary Terwilliger, said during a press conference at the time of the arrests.
“We’re not talking about $500 and $600 deals, we’re talking hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he added. “You know, $20,000 in the trunk of somebody’s car in a gym bag, you know, behind a local restaurant.”
In late October, police in North Carolina arrested four people in connection with a drug trafficking scheme, seizing 6,800 pounds of marijuana, 39 pounds of cocaine, and $200,000.</blockquote>

Meth

Border Patrol Finds 220 Pounds Of Meth Hidden In Teenager’s Car

methamphetamine

Mega-retailer Walmart has been forced to apologize after consumers complained about a set of ugly Christmas sweaters, sold on its website, with racy and obscene messages, including a shirt that seems to show Santa Claus snorting lines of cocaine.
The store&#8217;s Canadian website, Walmart.ca, featured a full line of offbeat holiday attire, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6267927/walmart-canada-christmas-sweaters-cocaine/?utm_source=Article&amp;utm_medium=MostPopular&amp;utm_campaign=2014">GlobalNews.ca reports</a>, but the outfit that attracted the most attention was a blue and white sweater with a snowman on it, dressed as Santa Claus, and presiding over a table with three lines of &#8220;snow&#8221; and a small pile of &#8220;snowballs&#8221; on top and the words &#8220;Let it Snow&#8221; printed in white letters. The shirt doesn&#8217;t explicitly say the Santa snowman is snorting illicit drugs, but it&#8217;s pretty well implied.
Social media users got the&#8230;err&#8230;drift.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Can we&#8230; talk about this? I just wanna know what in the hell this was meant to be if they didn’t realize it looks like a SNOWMAN DOING COCAINE <a href="https://t.co/vLLP2lB4oX">pic.twitter.com/vLLP2lB4oX</a>
&mdash; Gracie Cougar (@cougsge) <a href="https://twitter.com/cougsge/status/1204086857836965889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We all know how snow works. It’s white, powdery and the best snow comes straight from South America,” the product description read, at least before the shirt was pulled off Walmart.ca&#8217;s website. “That’s bad news for jolly old St. Nick, who lives far away in the North Pole.”
“That’s why Santa really likes to savour the moment when he gets his hands on some quality, grade A, Colombian snow. He packs it in perfect lines on his coffee table and then takes a big whiff to smell the high quality aroma of the snow,&#8221; it continued.
Walmart stores don&#8217;t actually sell any sweaters by the controversial retailer, FUN Wear, but FUN Wear uses Walmart&#8217;s &#8220;retailers&#8221; feature to hawk its ugly Christmas clothing on Walmart&#8217;s website as a third-party seller. The vast majority of FUN Wear&#8217;s offerings are non-controversial, and most feature licensed comic book characters, <a href="https://www.walmart.com/ip/Men-s-Joker-Santa-Sweater/196502200?selected=true">like the Joker.</a> But FUN Wear also sells some racier items, <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-walmart-canada-santa-coke-naughty-sweaters-20191208-4jz65q2zcrc5bdt3rifutyyntm-story.html">according to the New York Daily News</a>, and &#8220;cocaine Santa&#8221; was just one of a handful of sweaters pulled down off Walmart&#8217;s site.
&#8220;In addition to 70s-era drug addict Santa,&#8221; NY Daily News reports, &#8220;the sweaters included one showing Mrs. Claus and a de-pantsed Santa in a BDSM pose, captioned &#8216;Santa has been naughty.&#8217; Another had an alien holding an object while Santa lay with his behind exposed on a table.&#8221;
Walmart.ca, however, responded to consumer complaints, pulled the &#8220;cocaine Santa&#8221; sweater immediately, and issued a statement distancing itself from the product.
“These sweaters, sold by a third-party seller on <a href="http://walmart.ca/">Walmart.ca</a>, do not represent Walmart’s values and have no place on our website. We have removed these products from our marketplace. We apologize for any unintended offence this may have caused,” they told GlobalNews.ca.
A number of large, online retailers, like Walmart.com, Amazon.com, and Sears.com, open their platforms to third-party sellers, and the policy routinely backfires, though perhaps not as often as expected given the sheer number of available items.
The &#8220;cocaine Santa&#8221; sweater isn&#8217;t a first for Walmart which, in the past, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/walmart-apologizes-racial-slur-product-description-n783941">has had to pull hair nets</a>, manufactured and sold on its website by a third party, for a racial slur in the product&#8217;s description. Just last week, Amazon was forced to apologize after consumers <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-removes-holocaust-items_n_5de42cd2e4b00149f7313604">discovered a third party was selling an Auschwitz-themed Christmas ornament</a> on its site.

Black Friday Starts Early As Shoppers Hit The Stores On Thanksgiving Night

Walmart Apologizes For Ugly Christmas Sweater Featuring Santa Claus Snorting Cocaine

Christmas

Walmart

This week, Paul Krugman of The New York Times posited a theory: Red states cause depression and suicide. In a column titled &#8220;America&#8217;s Red State Death Trip,&#8221; Krugman wrote: &#8220;In 1990, today&#8217;s red and blue states had almost the same life expectancy. Since then, however, life expectancy in Clinton states has risen more or less in line with other advanced countries, compared with almost no gain in Trump country. At this point, blue-state residents can expect to live more than four years longer than their red-state counterparts.&#8221;
On this basis, Krugman blasts Attorney General William Barr, who suggested earlier this year that militant secularism lies behind rising mortality in the United States. Instead, Krugman suggested that &#8220;these evils are concentrated in states that voted for Trump, and have largely bypassed the more secular blue states.&#8221;
Krugman&#8217;s analysis here is deeply flawed. It is flawed because it is far too simplistic. First off, states are not good proxies for political viewpoint within states, which would be far more telling: Texas encompasses both Austin and Lubbock, for example. Secondly, Krugman links 2016 voting patterns to 1990 data, but some of the states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic shifted over that same time frame from blue to red (e.g., Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan), demonstrating that voting may have resulted from distress, not the other way around. But more importantly, Krugman assumes that conservatism presages lower life expectancy, rather than that those in lower-income rural areas are turning toward conservatism as a result of the social liberalism pushed forward by the left.
This analysis, as it turns out, is false. The reality is that broad trends over time point to the fact that low-income Americans have been disproportionately affected by the rise of social liberalism: the decline in religiosity, and the concomitant collapse of church and other social institutions have undermined precisely the same people who have been hit hard by the economy. Charles Murray pointed out this phenomenon in his book &#8220;Coming Apart&#8221; nearly a decade ago: America has bifurcated between more highly educated, higher-income Americans (Murray labels them residents of Belmont) and less educated, lower-income Americans (Murray labels them residents of Fishtown). This holds true regardless of race.
And contrary to popular opinion, those who are less educated and in the lower-income bracket, particularly in the white community — the base of support for President Donald Trump — have been disproportionately affected by the excesses of social liberalism. Between 1960 and 2010, the marital rate among Belmont whites ages 30 to 49 declined from 94% to 84%; the marital rate among Fishtown whites declined from 84% to 48%. Similarly, single motherhood increased from 1% of Belmont white college-educated women in 1970 to less than 6% in 2008; for Fishtown women, that number skyrocketed from 6% to 44%.
Most tellingly, secularism increased for both groups but far less among Fishtown residents (from about 29% in 1972-1976 surveys to 40% in 2006-2010 surveys) than Belmont residents (from 38% to 59%). In other words, the wages of social liberalism take a deeper toll on those who require more from social institutions, both economically and culturally. Denizens of The New York Times are far less likely to have children out of wedlock than the supposed religious fanatics they oppose — but they&#8217;re also likely to push both governmental and social policy designed to promote single motherhood, for example. They don&#8217;t pay the price of the policies they push.
Good decision-making and robust social institutions have a lot to do with life success. Promotion of bad decision-making and decay of key social institutions in the name of personal freedom may seem liberating to elitists like Krugman, but there are consequences for those who don&#8217;t draw six-figure paychecks from Manhattan newspapers. Disdaining those who live in red states as victims of their own conservative backwardness isn&#8217;t merely inaccurate; it&#8217;s doubling down on stupid.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-self-coupling-the-newest-frontier-on-the-culture-war">SHAPIRO: ‘Self-Coupling’: The Newest Frontier On The Culture War</a>

Suicide

SHAPIRO: The Disproportionate Trickle-Down Of Bad Social Politics

For much of the 19th century, the British government bombarded China with illicit shipments of opium. In what became known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars">Opium Wars</a>, this passive sort of chemical warfare led to a generation of addicts and put an effective stranglehold on China’s economy at the time.
Now it seems China is resorting to similar tactics here in the U.S. with the synthetic drug Fentanyl — a drug 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. In a piece entitled “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/china-poisoning-america-fentanyl">China is Poisoning America with Fentanyl</a>,” The Heritage Foundation reports that fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths here in the U.S. Overdoses claimed almost 100,000 lives in 2017 and 2018 and there seems to be no end in sight as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/khan-addiction-fuels-homelessness-crisis-not-lack-sharif-khan">the opioid epidemic</a> expands beyond measure. For comparison, those numbers rival the peak of the AIDS crisis in 1995 according to the <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10091.html">Rand Corporation</a>.
Incredibly cheap to manufacture, the cost ratio of Fentanyl is staggering. An investment of a few thousand dollars can easily yield millions of dollars. It’s no wonder the Mexican Cartels have turned to Fentanyl according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/11/07/what-are-mexican-drug-cartels-fighting-over-chance-sell-fentanyl-here/">The Washington Post</a>:
<blockquote>[M]uch of the current supply of fentanyl pushing the broader opioid crisis to unprecedented heights is being smuggled into the country by the Sinaloa cartel and its rivals in Mexico…Black-market fentanyl and other synthetic opioids smuggled in from Mexico and China have become the <a href="https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/DIR-032-18%202018%20NDTA%20final%20low%20resolution.pdf">fastest-growing and most lethal drug</a> in America, far surpassing heroin and the prescription narcotics that often serve as gateway drugs.</blockquote>
A key point though is that the majority of fentanyl being produced originates in China. Endless factories abound with little to no oversight from the Chinese government. As a result, the drug is allowed to proliferate with little to no resistance. The <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-opioid-epidemic">Council on Foreign Relations</a> reports that:
<blockquote>Most fentanyl coming to the United States is produced in China, U.S. officials say, and commonly <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-drug-war">transited through Mexico</a>. Chinese authorities “have struggled to adequately regulate thousands of chemical and pharmaceutical facilities operating legally and illegally in the country,” says a 2017 <a href="https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/USCC%20Staff%20Report_Fentanyl-China%E2%80%99s%20Deadly%20Export%20to%20the%20United%20States020117.pdf">report</a> [PDF] issued by a congressionally mandated commission.</blockquote>
Whether or not this utter lack of regulations and oversight on the part of the Chinese government is a calculated ploy needs to be seriously considered now. Considering the stranglehold the Chinese government has on its population, it’s hard to imagine that the authoritarian regime has a sudden, profound inability to control the production of such a nefarious substance like fentanyl.
Certainly, the impact the opioid epidemic has had on us here in the U.S. has reached crisis levels. Like the aforementioned Opium Wars of the 19th century, the opioid epidemic here in the U.S. has had a palpable effect on our economy as well. The Council on Foreign Relations also reports that:
<blockquote>Opioids have also begun to take a toll on the economy. Testifying before the U.S. Senate in 2017, Janet Yellen, then chair of the Federal Reserve, linked the opioid epidemic to <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/opioid-use-explains-20-of-drop-in-american-men-from-labor-force?ex_cid=SigDig">declining labor-force participation</a> among “prime-age workers.” Princeton University economist Alan Krueger wrote that it could account for 20 percent of the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2017/09/07/how-the-opioid-epidemic-has-affected-the-u-s-labor-force-county-by-county/">decline in participation</a> among men and 25 percent among women from 1999 to 2015.</blockquote>
Though our economy is hopelessly entangled with China for the foreseeable future, it’s high time we consider taking a meaningful stand against that regime’s marauding influence over us, especially as it pertains to illicit drugs like fentanyl. As a nation, we are increasingly at the mercy of the pernicious toll of addiction and it seems that the Chinese government is all too willing to contribute to this drug-fueled downward spiral.

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SHAPIRO: The Disproportionate Trickle-Down Of Bad Social Politics

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Menu

Drugs

Report Claims Suspected Overdoses Are Skyrocketing As Lockdowns Continue

Oregon Getting Closer To Vote On Legalizing Psychedelic Shrooms – For Therapeutic Use, Of Course

Mexico City Police Chief Targeted For Assassination As Drug Cartel Violence Spikes

High School Teacher Worked With Mafia, Bribed DEA For Decades In Drug Trafficking Scheme

San Francisco Sued By UC Law School Over Rampant Drug-Dealing, Feces-Filled Streets

Police Release Photos, Audio From Andrew Gillum Hotel Incident

Trump Launches Massive All Out Military Offensive On Drug Cartels

Andrew Gillum Responds To Report He Was Involved in Alleged Crystal Meth Incident

‘Just The Beginning’: Trump Strikes Notorious Mexican Drug Cartel, 600+ Arrests Made

Trainers Charged With Using Dangerous Performance-Enhancing Drugs On World’s Best Racehorses

KHAN: Is America Suffering A Mental Health Crisis Or A Moral Crisis?

Man Saws Off Own Leg While High On Drugs

Kids As Young As 12 Recruited By Mexican Cartels To Smuggle Drugs Across Border, Report Says

KHAN: The Addiction Epidemic Cripples The Working Poor

WATCH: Tulsi Gabbard Asked 6 Times If She Wants To Legalize Heroin

Democrat Presidential Candidate Pete Buttigieg: Decriminalize All Drug Possession

Border Patrol Finds 220 Pounds Of Meth Hidden In Teenager’s Car

Walmart Apologizes For Ugly Christmas Sweater Featuring Santa Claus Snorting Cocaine

SHAPIRO: The Disproportionate Trickle-Down Of Bad Social Politics

KHAN: China, Fentanyl, And The New Opium War

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