I owe Kyle Vogt an apology. A former military policeman, he's now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, a group of former cops, prosecutors and judges that supports ending the war on drugs. When I interviewed Vogt for a column earlier this year, everything he said about the high cost and low results of the war on drugs made perfect sense. But he made one claim that, though I smiled politely, I didn't believe and didn't use in my column: that dozens and dozens of drug cops have contacted LEAP to express their support. [continues 530 words]
I owe Kyle Vogt an apology. A former military policeman, he's now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, or LEAP, a group of former cops, prosecutors and judges that supports ending the war on drugs. When I interviewed Vogt for a column earlier this year, everything he said about the high cost and low results of the war on drugs made perfect sense. But he made one claim which, though I smiled politely, I didn't believe and didn't use in my column: that dozens and dozens of drug cops have contacted LEAP to express their support. [continues 530 words]
The veteran sitting across the table from me looked weary after delivering yet another speech against a war that has neither a point nor, apparently, an end. It was started years ago by a Republican president, long since discredited, the veteran noted. Yet the Democrats who until a few weeks ago controlled both the White House and Congress didn't raise a finger to stop it. "I don't understand how much more money has to be wasted or how many more lives have to be ruined before we admit it's been a huge mistake," Kyle Vogt told me. "We can end this thing with the stroke of a pen." [continues 740 words]
Want the straight dope on meth? It's not an epidemic, usage is not increasing, and anybody who tells you otherwise is a liar. Sadly, that includes the PBS documentary series Frontline, which tonight airs an episode titled The Meth Epidemic that seems to have been pasted together from old Reefer Madness outtakes. Meth, or methamphetamine, is the latest drug-scare story from the same people who brought you LSD-crazed hippies going blind from staring at the sun, crackhead baby sitters roasting babies in the microwave and Jimmy the 9-year-old heroin addict. [continues 466 words]
Tragedy, Farce, And Fake Brass Cojones South Of The Border Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, by Mark Bowden, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 295 pages, $25 Shooting the Moon: The True Story of an American Manhunt Unlike Any Other, Ever, by David Harris, Boston: Little, Brown, 394 pages, $26.95 Stay away from drugs, kids. They'll suck every filament of moral fiber from your soul and set your brain afire with insane delusions. In the end you'll be murdering, kidnapping, and torturing, and you'll be rationalizing it all for the sake of the drugs. Don't believe me? Just look at what drugs have done to the U.S. government. [continues 2235 words]
KILLING PABLO, by Mark Bowden; Atlantic Monthly Press, 296 pp., $25. "Killing Pablo," the tale of how the U.S. government used a death squad to hunt down and murder Colombian drug traffickers, is probably just a footnote in the story of official counternarcotics mayhem generated by the United States. But what a footnote! In brisk prose and compelling detail, Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Mark Bowden documents the murderous impulse that lies at the heart of U.S. counternarcotics programs in Latin America. [continues 356 words]
Group Of Missionaries Were Mistaken For Drug Smugglers MIAMI -- An American woman and her 7-month-old daughter were killed Friday when a Peruvian air force plane mistook a small aircraft full of U.S. missionaries for a narco-trafficker flight and shot it up, U.S. officials in Lima said. Peru's air force issued a statement early Saturday confirming that the missionary plane was shot down Friday morning by "an air space surveillance and control system" operated jointly with the United States for counternarcotics efforts. [continues 292 words]
Government Leaders, Guerrillas Meeting For Talks In Costa Rica SAN JOSE, Costa Rica -- Colombian humanitarian groups ripped a U.S. plan to send $1.3 billion in military aid to their country as guerrillas and the government sat down here Monday for informal talks on the status of Colombia's 36-year civil war. ``Plan Colombia has endangered the whole peace process,'' said Ana Teresa Bernal, an official from the coalition of humanitarian and human rights groups sponsoring the three days of talks here. ``No good will come of this.'' [continues 390 words]
(MANAGUA) -- When officials here announced last week that they hope to sign a treaty within the next few months giving U.S. military ships the right to pursue suspected narcotics traffickers into Nicaraguan coastal waters, the surprise was the reaction: Instead of the usual cries of American intervention, there was dead quiet. "Things have changed," said Oliver Garza, U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, who made a maritime treaty on narcotics enforcement a top priority when he arrived here last September. "People have recognized that an international counternarcotics effort is not only not bad, it's actually good politics." [continues 956 words]
PANAMA -- If Panamanian voters on Sunday reject a constitutional change that would allow President Ernesto Perez Balladares to run for reelection, as some pollsters predict, they may kill more than his hopes to remain in power. They may also destroy the last faint chance for a continued U.S. military presence in Panama beyond 2000. The proposal to keep 2,000 U.S. troops here after the Panama Canal comes under local control on the last day of 1999 is already nearly dead. But, officials in both Washington and Panama City say, defeat of the constitutional amendment would probably yank out the final life-support tubes. [continues 831 words]
