Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Decades of Global Drone War Made Trump’s Caribbean Killing Spree Possible

On September 2, 2025, a small fishing boat carrying 11 people was targeted by a U.S. Reaper drone off the coast of Venezuela. Hellfire missiles were fired. Two survivors clung to the wreckage. Their identities and motives were unknown. Their behavior showed no hostility. Moments later, the drone operator launched a second strike — the so-called “double tap” — killing the final survivors. This scene is shocking, but it should not be surprising to anyone who has followed the trajectory of the U.S.’s drone wars. This tactic is familiar from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and, most recently, Gaza, where the Israeli military has used much worse violence to conduct genocide.

The U.S.’s first drone strike in the Caribbean, and the footage of the incident, reignited a debate about a conflict that Washington refuses to call a war — because it isn’t one. Instead, the Trump administration is using sheer violence to terrorize non-white populations and, as usual, has normalized lethal force far from declared battlefields and without any legal mandate.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved at least 21 additional strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific since September, killing at least 87 people. He has aggressively defended the very first operation, insisting he would have authorized the second strike as well — despite claiming he did not see it. Hegseth even misinterpreted the visible smoke on the video as the “fog of war,” seemingly unaware that the term refers to uncertainty in conflict, not the physical aftermath of a missile strike.

The details matter because they reveal something essential: the senior leadership overseeing these operations does not appear interested in the law, accuracy, or the basic meaning of proportionality. Instead, it has embraced escalation and mass murder as official policy.

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Bill On Ohio Governor’s Desk Will Put Hemp Companies Out Of Business, Owners Say

Ohioans in the intoxicating hemp industry fear a bill heading to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) desk will put them out of business.

Ohio Senate Bill 56 is on its way to DeWine after Ohio Senate Republicans passed the bill Tuesday. The Ohio House passed the bill last month after it went to conference committee.

Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary. If DeWine signs the bill into law before the new year, the ban could take effect as soon as March.

“This bill is going to put businesses like me and families like me out of business,” said Ahmad Khalil, one of the owners of Hippie Hut Smoke Shop, with locations in Ohio and Washington.

“Overnight, we’re going to see tens of thousands of people directly impacted, which will ripple effect into 50,000 of families that are also dependent on this person.”

Khalil has been in the hemp industry for nine years.

“This was my American dream, so to see it get taken away from you, kind of hurts,” he said.

Jason Friedman, owner of Ohio CBD Guy in Cincinnati, said this is extremely frustrating.

“My tentative plan will involve eventually closing my East Walnut Hills location resulting in less hours and likely loss of jobs for some of my employees,” he said.

Instead of a ban, Friedman wants regulations for the hemp industry such as age-gating, packaging restrictions, and testing requirements.

“For the state to say that they are changing their stance to banning from regulating because of what the federal government has done in banning intoxicating hemp in the recent spending bill, makes no sense because marijuana has been illegal federally the whole time,” he said.

Mark Fashian, president of hemp product wholesaler Midwest Analytical Solutions in Delaware, Ohio, said this will put him, and hundreds of others out of business, if this becomes law.

He works with more than 500 stores around Ohio that sell intoxicating hemp products.

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The Case Against American Intervention in Venezuela

As the USS Gerald R. Ford—the largest aircraft carrier afloat—casts its shadow along the Venezuelan coast, the United States must confront an uncomfortable question: What national interest is being protected by threatening a country that poses no military, territorial, or existential danger to the American republic?

The answer, made clear by an array of respected American scholars, former officials, and ex-military insiders, has nothing to do with security. Instead, it arises from a familiar mixture of ideology, geopolitical control, and the old reflex of imperial overreach. This is not defense. This is theater—one part provocation, one part political opportunism, and no part necessity.

Among the clearest voices cutting through the rhetoric is professor John Mearsheimer, perhaps the most prominent American realist in international relations. He does not mince words: Venezuela is not a threat to the United States. Its military lacks both the capacity and the intention to project power beyond its borders. Suggesting otherwise is “laughable,” he notes, because the true irritant is ideological. Venezuela’s Bolivarian model—imperfect and embattled as it is—represents a deviation from Washington’s preferred political order, a deviation the US has repeatedly sought to crush in Latin America for decades. For Mearsheimer, even if one entertained the fantasy of using force to change the regime, the idea collapses immediately under logistical absurdity and moral bankruptcy. Invading a nation of 28 million people, and then attempting to occupy and “stabilize” it, would be catastrophic in cost, chaotic in outcome, and impossible to justify.

The national security pretext collapses further under the testimony of Sheriff David Hathaway, a former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory agent with firsthand experience in Latin America. He dismisses the drug-trafficking narrative not just as false, but as deliberately false. Cocaine originates in Colombia and Peru, not Venezuela, and the US fentanyl crisis has nothing to do with Caracas. There is no vast Maduro-led drug conspiracy, Hathaway explains, only a political fiction designed to mimic past excuses for intervention. He is blunt in stating that Washington has repeatedly used narcotics accusations as camouflage for intrusion, sabotage, and coercion. This is not about drugs. It is about dominance.

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Trump: Strikes on Venezuelan land could begin ‘pretty soon’

President Donald Trump indicated on Thursday that U.S. military strikes on Venezuelan soil could come “pretty soon,” following a recent seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker.

On Thursday, President Trump was asked by a reporter whether the military campaign against Venezuela is still about stopping drugs from entering the United States, or if the administration is motivated by the nation’s oil resources after the interdiction of a Venezuelan oil tanker.

“Well, it’s about a lot of things, but one of the things it’s about is the fact that they’ve allowed millions of people to come into our country from their prisons, from gangs, from drug dealers, and from mental institutions, probably proportionately more than anybody else,” Trump responded.

“We had 11,888 murderers come into our country, many of them are from Venezuela. We had thousands of Tren de Aragua – the gang – come in from [Venezuela], which they say is the most violent gang,” he continued. “So it has to do with a lot of things, they’ve treated us badly, and I guess now we’re not treating them so good. If you look at the drug traffic, drug traffic by sea is down 92%… anybody getting involved in that right now is not doing well.”

“… And we’ll start that on land too, it’s gonna be starting on land pretty soon,” Trump added without providing further detail.

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Legal Marijuana Access Reduces Suicide Rates For Older Adults, New Study Suggests

States that opened recreational marijuana dispensaries saw suicide rates decline among older adults, according to a new scientific analysis of more than two decades of nationwide data. Correlating state legalization to the decline, the researchers note a “modest yet statistically significant reduction” in states with legal access to cannabis.

The research, conducted by a team of public health economists, examined monthly suicide counts from U.S. states between 2000 and 2022. Their aim was to better understand whether easier access to marijuana, specifically through licensed retail stores, might have any measurable effect on mental health outcomes. Their working paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, shows that may be the case.

The study found that in states where recreational cannabis dispensaries began operating, suicide rates among adults ages 45 and older declined. The effect was strongest among men, who historically have had significantly higher suicide rates and are more likely to use cannabis to manage chronic pain, a health challenge that increases the risk of suicide.

“Given that older adults are more prone to chronic pain and various physical and mental health issues, it is not surprising that this demographic is increasingly turning to marijuana for its medicinal properties,” the paper noted.

The researchers found no similar pattern among younger adults or in states that legalized recreational cannabis but had not yet opened retail stores. That distinction, they say, suggests that actual access to marijuana, rather than legalization via state law changes alone, may be the more influential factor.

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The Global War You’ve Never Heard Of

American actions involving Venezuela have stirred up a flurry of theories and narratives around the United States’ strategic intentions.  Some theories highlight apparent contradictions between rhetoric and policy, such as President Trump’s pardons of major drug-traffickers despite his public anti-drug stance. Others frame potential U.S. military threats against Venezuela as being driven primarily by America’s dependence on oil.  Additional narratives have revived allegations of Venezuelan interference in U.S. elections, including claims from a former Maduro regime official about a “narco-terrorist war” against the United States.

In my effort to better understand the factors driving the building tensions around Venezuela, I decided to strip away all the explanations and start with what we know is happening.  The United States is striking small vessels, referred to as go-fast boats, reportedly carrying cocaine meant to be transferred onto ships bound for the Gulf of Guinea.  This sea route and the next step of the voyage have come to be known as Highway 10 because Venezuela is connected to the Gulf of Guinea via the 10th Parallel North on the globe.  The gulf includes several countries that tend to lack the resources necessary to patrol for and prevent the shipments.  From there, the payload can be passed on to the even poorer countries of the Sahel desert, where al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Russian mercenaries of the Africa Corps (not to be confused with the German unit of World War Two) have a certain level of autonomy and can move the cocaine to the Mediterranean Sea.  From there it enters the hands of Europe’s various iterations of the Mafia.  This drug route and the players involved has been laid out in a pretty detailed manner by the Argentine independent journalist Ignacio Montes de Oca under his X handle, @nachomdeo.

With this new information in mind, we can then apply events that we know have happened.  At the starting point of Highway 10, you have the United States destroying the go-fast boats before they can liaison with the ships bound for the Gulf of Guinea.  In the middle of the drug route you have the countries on the Gulf of Guinea, two of which have had coups in the last two months.  The first took place on November 26 in Guinea-Bissau, a key stopping point on Highway 10.  The second appears to be a failed coup that took place on December 7 in Benin, another country known to be on the Highway 10 route.

So at the starting point of the route, you have the U.S. striking go-fast boats.  In the middle, you have coups.  What’s happening at the finish point?  Well, in Italy, the Carabinieri are carrying out large-scale operations against the unpronounceable ’Ndrangheta.  The ’Ndrangheta happens to be one of the criminal organizations the independent journalist Montes de Oca cites as central to this route.  For his part, French president Emmanuel Macron has been leading the call to intensify the fight against organized crime in Europe.  France even sent a battleship to the Caribbean.

I have no idea if the strikes on boats, the coups along the Gulf of Guinea, and the crackdown on organized crime in Europe are all coordinated or even connected, but I do know that within a small time frame, a series of events have taken place that make it difficult to be involved in the drug trade at the beginning, middle, and end of Highway 10.

So how do you condense all of this into a concept we can discuss without getting lost in tropes about war for oil or American imperialism?  Well, the first thing to do is give it a name to make it more manageable.  The Highway Ten War feels succinct to me.

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Ohio Governor Says He’ll Sign Bill To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization And Restrict ‘Juiced-Up Hemp’ Products

Ohio’s Republican governor says he will sign a controversial bill to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of what he described as “juiced-up hemp” products that fall outside of a recently revised federal definition for the crop unless they’re sold at licensed cannabis dispensaries.

Just days after the legislature gave final approval to the marijuana legislation, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said on Thursday that he intends to enact it into law.

“To me, it’s a major, major victory, and it’s a long time coming. But it’s a major victory, I think, for kids in the state,” he said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “There’s going to be some regulation. They won’t be able to have juiced-up hemp gummies. They won’t be able to walk into a gas station and an 11-year-old buy this stuff.”

The governor did not respond to a question about whether the marijuana components of the legislation undermined the will of voters who approved adult-use legalization in 2023.

The bill on DeWine’s desk would recriminalize certain marijuana activity that was legalized under that ballot initiative, and it’d also remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

After the House revised the initial Senate-passed legislation, removing certain controversial provisions, the Senate quickly rejected those changes in October. That led to the appointment of a bicameral conference committee to resolve outstanding differences between the chambers. That panel then approved a negotiated form of the bill, which passed the House last month and has since cleared the Senate.

To advocates’ disappointment, the final version of the measure now heading to the governor’s desk would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

The legislation would also replace what had been a proposed regulatory framework for intoxicating hemp that the House had approved with a broad prohibition on sales outside marijuana dispensaries following a recent federal move to recriminalize such products.

Last month, Sen. Stephen Huffman (R), the primary sponsor, defended the upheaval of the state’s marijuana law, saying voters approved an initiative that amended the state’s revised code, not its Constitution, so they “knew that the General Assembly could come at any time” and “pass a bill to get rid of the entire thing.”

“But we’re not,” he said. “I think overall, for the average person that does recreational or medical marijuana, this bill will make it better… It’s going to be reasonable for most Ohioans.”

Under the bill, hemp items with more than 0.4 mg of total THC per container, or those containing synthetic cannabinoids, could no longer be sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary setting. That would align with a newly enacted federal hemp law included in an appropriations package signed by President Donald Trump last month.

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There They Go Again in Venezuela

Mark Twain allegedly quipped, “God created war so Americans would learn geography.” Whether or not he actually said that, it would be a good test – for the world’s mightiest military power to be prevented from waging war if a majority of Americans failed to find the alleged enemy on a world map.

This should not need to be said, but the United States has no legal authority to attack Venezuela (or Iran, Sudan, Somalia, or any other country). Nor does it have the legal right to engage in covert action to overthrow any government, including that of Venezuela. Should the United States do so, it will be opposed by everyone south of the Rio Grande, and it will rightly be seen as a racist resumption of the Monroe Doctrine. Whatever one thinks of the current government there, nearly 30 million people live in Venezuela, and they don’t deserve to be demonized or threatened for the policies of their president, since Venezuela poses no threat to the United States.

The American people get this. A recent CBS News poll shows widespread public skepticism and disapproval of any U.S. military attack against Venezuela, properly so, with 70 percent opposing the United States taking military action.

Moreover, the current U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean is an unnecessary and dangerous provocation. U.S. Navy warships and Marine deployments to the region should be reversed to ease tensions. The United States would not likely invade Venezuela with ground forces as even gung-ho-for-blood Secretary of War Pete Hegseth must know a quagmire would ensue, but the Trump administration may see political advantage to have this as a simmering, manufactured “crisis” to distract from the Epstein files, Trump’s sagging popularity, and his failed domestic and foreign policies. And Trump’s declaration closing Venezuelan air space has zero legitimacy, though it did scare many airlines into changing flight routes.

An obvious question: Is this really about oil, not drugs? Fentanyl is not coming into the United States via Venezuela, and the alleged drug ring run by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro does not exist. However, Venezuela does have the world’s largest known oil reserves.

I can’t imagine anyone wants a rerun of the Iraq wars. Let’s not test the adage that “history may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme” (which again, Mark Twain may or may not have said). We don’t want to have to dust off our “No War for Oil!” protest signs. And there is also already a metastasizing problem with violent competition for rare earth minerals in Venezuela. 

The brouhaha about the second attack on the alleged “drug boat” on September 2 possibly being a war crime misses the point, though Hegseth should be held to account. No evidence has been presented that it was a “drug boat” and even if it was, there was no legal authority to attack it, once or twice. All the attacks on the alleged “drug boats” are illegal, and unauthorized by Congress.

Speaking of which, Congress needs to not only investigate these shady “drug boat” attacks but assert its constitutional authority by passing a War Powers Resolution to stop the out-of-control Trump administration from further attacks or escalation. The U.S. Senate failed to pass such a measure last month, 51-49, with all Democrats voting in favor and all but two Republicans voting against upholding the Constitution. The “world’s greatest deliberative body” should try again. Perhaps Republicans can read the polls better now.

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‘Kill Them All’

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
— Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023)
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

As we learn more about the events on Sept. 2, 2025, in international waters 1,500 miles from the United States, the behavior of the United States military becomes more legally troubling than at first blush. We have learned from members of Congress and others who have seen the videos of the attacks on the speedboat that day that the first strike mainly — but not completely — destroyed the boat and killed 9 of the 11 persons aboard.

The two survivors clung to the wreckage for 45 minutes, during which they frantically waved at what they hoped were American aircraft, expecting to be rescued. This attack was the first of many since ordered by President Donald Trump, and it was done without warning. After the passage of 45 terrifying minutes, three more attacks obliterated the two survivors and their wreckage, for “self-defense,” the White House said.

When two courageous persons privy to all this revealed it two weeks ago to reporters for The Washington Post who corroborated the revelations with five others, the Post published the story. Then, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth denied he ordered the survivors killed; it was, he said, “the fog of war.” Then, the White House countermanded that denial. Then, the admiral in charge acknowledged that he ordered the kills pursuant to the secretary’s initial orders.

The military has a duty to rescue the injured and the shipwrecked. And the military has a duty to disregard unlawful orders — a position that Attorney General Pamela Bondi herself argued to the Supreme Court when she was in private practice, and Hegseth himself argued when he was a private citizen.

Not rescuing these survivors was criminal. But the entire killing process is criminal.

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Jaw-dropping moment US commandos storm Venezuelan ‘terror tanker’ in breathtaking airborne takedown as tensions rocket toward conflict

This is the dramatic moment when US commandos stormed a Venezuelan oil tanker in a breathtaking airborne takedown amid ratcheting tensions in the Caribbean. 

Footage released by the Trump administration on Wednesday showed American forces swooping on the tanker in helicopters and rappelling down ropes.

Troops with guns drawn darted up stairs to the bridge to take control of the vessel off the coast of Venezuela.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a statement on X: ‘Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.

‘For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.’

The release of the video comes hours after it was reported on Wednesday that the tanker had been seized, sparking fears of a potential blockade and spiking oil prices. No name was given for the ‘stateless’ vessel, nor was it confirmed precisely where off the coast of Venezuela the raid unfolded.

Trump called it ‘the largest one ever seized’ and warned that ‘other things are happening.’

The capture sent oil prices climbing sharply, with Brent crude rising 1.21 percent to $62.69 a barrel amid fears the escalation could disrupt global supply. 

Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to China, which has been the destination of between 55 percent and 90 percent of the country’s oil exports. 

A Bloomberg report called the move ‘a serious escalation’ after Trump demanded Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro step down. Caracas did not immediately respond.

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