Tag: the war on (some) drugs

UK Cuts Intelligence Sharing With US Related To ‘Illegal’ Venezuela Action

Just as the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group entered Caribbean waters on Tuesday, it’s been revealed that the United Kingdom has made the unprecedented and provocative move of cutting off intelligence-sharing with the United States related to suspected drug trafficking vessels off Venezuela.

CNN reports Tuesday that Britain cited that it does not want to be complicit in ongoing US military strikes against alleged drug-trafficking boats, as it believes the action is illegal, amounting to extrajudicial killings, also after recent criticisms from United Nations officials. However, it is said to be a cut-off in only “some” intel-sharing.

This is of immense importance from one of America’s closest allies – and part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence sharing nations – which has time and again enthusiastically joined in Washington’s military adventurism abroad, from Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya and Syria.

The fresh report details the UK’s prior role in assisting US agencies in the Caribbean, where Britain has small overseas territories:

For years, the UK, which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized.

The intelligence was typically sent to Joint Interagency Task Force South, a task force stationed in Florida that includes representatives from a number of partner nations and works to reduce the illicit drug trade.

The report confirms that the intelligence has actually been paused for over a month, which would have been soon after the Pentagon began attacking small boats off Latin America in September.

There is an irony in London suddenly discovering the moral high ground on the issue of Venezuela, given that for years the government has frozen more than $1.8bn worth of Venezuelan gold stored at the Bank of England. The Maduro government has sued to get it back, denouncing the move as brazen theft.

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Colombian President Orders Halt to Intelligence Sharing With US Over Drug Boat Strikes

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Nov. 11 that his nation’s security forces will stop intelligence sharing with the United States in response to U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean.

Petro stated on X that he had instructed the Colombian public security forces at all levels to suspend cooperation with U.S. agencies until the U.S. military ceases its strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

“Such a measure will be maintained as long as the missile attack on boats in the Caribbean persists. The fight against drugs must be subordinated to the human rights of the Caribbean people,” he stated.

The White House has not publicly commented on Petro’s announcement. The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Since September, according to posts by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other media reports, the U.S. military has carried out at least 19 strikes against vessels alleged to be transporting illegal drugs to the United States, actions that have drawn condemnation from Venezuela and Colombia. At least 76 suspected drug traffickers have been killed in these strikes, according to reports.

Tensions rose between the United States and Colombia after U.S. President Donald Trump accused Petro of encouraging illegal drug production in Colombia, which Petro and the Colombian government have strongly denied.

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USS Gerald R. Ford and Strike Group Arrive to the Caribbean, as Venezuela’s Maduro Makes a Desperate Plea for Latin American Nations To ‘Unite for Peace’

The US military firepower concentrated off the coast of Venezuela, already massive, has increased dramatically.

Oh, how the times have humbled Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro!

When the US was struggling under feeble Joe Biden, an emboldened Maduro banged his war drums non-stop, credibly threatening to invade neighboring Guyana and seize its oil-rich Essequibo province.

But the first year of Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House and the subsequent siege of Venezuela with the largest military detachment since the Cold War led the ‘tyrant of Caracas’ to cynically become a self-professed ‘advocate for peace’.

So, Yesterday (10), Maduro was in Colombia for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), to make a desperate plea for unity of Latin American countries.

But today, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, USS Gerald R. Ford, and its entire strike group have arrived in the area of responsibility of the U.S. Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM).

Pressure is building.

Latin Times reported:

“Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro called on Latin American countries to ‘proclaim the unconditional defense of our America as a peace zone’ as the U.S. continues its military campaign in the region.

[…] ‘The union of America is not a rhetorical gesture, but the condition of our liberty and key to our dignity’, Maduro said during a passage of the lengthy letter.”

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Texas Officials Post Hemp Law ‘Checklist’ List To Help Businesses Comply With State Cannabis Rules

Even as Congress is taking steps to reinstitute a federal ban on hemp products containing THC, Texas officials are distributing a new hemp law “checklist” list to help businesses comply with recently enacted state cannabis rules—including age-gating to prevent the sale of intoxicating cannabinoid products to youth.

In addition to holding a license or registration with the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS), hemp businesses must follow a series of new regulatory policies if they sell or deliver consumable hemp products (CHPs), the flyer says.

For each sale or delivery, employees of licensed hemp businesses must inspect a customer’s ID to determine if they’re at least 21 years old and the identification is not expired.

“Failure to comply with these requirements is a violation of state law and regulations,” the notice says, adding that consumable hemp products include CBD and THC oils, gummies and infused food or drink edibles.

“A CHP is a product processed or manufactured for consumption that contains hemp, including food, a drug, a device and a cosmetic,” the department said. “It does not include any consumable hemp product containing a hemp seed, or hemp seed-derived ingredient used in a manner generally recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

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Dick Cheney’s ghost has a playbook for war in Venezuela

Former Vice President Richard Cheney, who died a few days ago at the age of 84, gave a speech to a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 2002 in which the most noteworthy line was, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”

The speech was essentially the kickoff of the intense campaign by the George W. Bush administration to sell a war in Iraq, which it would launch the following March. The campaign had to be intense, because it was selling a war of aggression — the first major offensive war that the United States would initiate in over a century. That war will forever be a major part of Cheney’s legacy.

The Donald Trump administration’s escalation of confrontation with Venezuela displays disturbing parallels with the run-up to the Iraq War. In some respects where the stories appear to differ, the circumstances involving Trump and Venezuela are even more alarming than was the case with Iraq.

One similarity involves corruption of the relationship between intelligence and policy. Instead of policymakers using intelligence as an input to their decisions, they have tried to use scraps of intelligence publicly to make a case for a predetermined policy. This part of the story of the Iraq War I have recounted in detail elsewhere.

Cheney’s speech to the VFW preceded and in effect pre-empted work by the intelligence community on a classified estimate, which would become notorious in its own right, about Iraqi weapons programs. When Bob Graham, who died last year and in 2002 was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, became one of the few members of Congress to bother to read that estimate, he was so taken aback by how far short the intelligence community’s judgments were from what the administration was saying publicly that he voted against the resolution authorizing the war.

The Trump administration is using the same tactic of preemptive messaging from the top, regardless of what the intelligence agencies may be saying about Venezuela, that the Bush administration used regarding Iraq. Trump’s declarations about the regime of Nicolás Maduro have a definitive tone similar to Cheney’s “no doubt” formulation about Iraqi weapons programs.

Besides weapons of mass destruction, the other big issue that the Bush administration attempted to pin on Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime — capitalizing on the American public’s furor over terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks — was a supposed “alliance” between the Iraqi regime and al-Qaeda. No such alliance existed, and the administration’s assertions on that subject were contrary to the intelligence community’s judgments.

The parallel with the current situation regarding Venezuela is especially clear, given the Trump administration’s assertions about the relationship between Maduro’s regime and certain gangs or drug cartels, which the administration equates with terrorist groups. Trump has declared that the gang most often mentioned, Tren de Aragua, is “operating under the control of” Maduro. This assertion is contradicted by the intelligence community’s judgments, as incorporated in a memorandum that is now available in redacted form.

The Bush administration not only disregarded intelligence judgments that did not support its case for war but also actively tried to discredit those judgments, and Cheney’s office was a part of this. For example, the policymakers tried to make life difficult for a former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, who, as a result of field research he performed for the intelligence community, was able to refute an administration assertion about Iraq buying uranium in Africa. The difficulties imposed on Wilson involved the career-ending outing of his wife, who was an intelligence officer under cover. Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was convicted and sentenced to prison for obstructing justice and lying under oath in connection with that affair.

Cheney unsuccessfully lobbied President Bush to pardon Libby. But in a further connection to the present, Trump pardoned Libby in 2018.

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A psychedelic tour of Earth’s ecosystems – from the desert to Siberia

Every mind-bending molecule in nature has an evolutionary origin; a defence against being eaten, a lure for pollinators, or perhaps a happy biochemical accident. Though they seem extraordinary, life has evolved psychedelic molecules that alter consciousness across almost every ecosystem.

Let’s take a tour of our surprisingly psychedelic planet.

The tropical rainforests hum with chemical diversity. Among the 10,000 tree species living in the Amazon are several which produce dimethyltryptamine (DMT), the molecule that makes psychedelic brew ayahuasca so powerful. DMT is a naturally occurring tryptamine molecule, which derives from the same chemical building block that gives us serotonin and melatonin, chemical messengers that change our mood and help us sleep.

One of these tree species, the Psychotria viridis, or chacruna, is a small understory tree from the plant family that also gives us coffee. Other DMT-producing species include yopo (Anadenanthera peregrina), a tree native to the Amazon that is also found in the Caribbean. Yopo is in the legume family, a close relative of beans, chickpeas and lentils. Scientists aren’t sure why some species in the same family develop psychedelic compounds while others don’t.

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America First? For DC swamp, it’s always ‘War First’

The Washington establishment’s long war against reality has led our country into one disastrous foreign intervention after another.

From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Syria, and now potentially Venezuela, the formula is always the same. They tell us that a country is a threat to America, or more broadly, a threat to American democratic principles. Thus, they say the mission to topple a foreign government is a noble quest to protect security at home while spreading freedom and prosperity to foreign lands. The warmongers will even insist it’s not a choice, but that it’s imperative to wage war.

These “War First” ideologues across Washington have recycled their experiments in regime change for decades, with only instability, chaos, suffering, and resentment to show for it. But no matter their recent failures, they promise that the next regime change will work, that the next country in the crosshairs will soon be a beacon of human freedom and aspiration. If anyone questions this narrative, they are warned of some hypothetical alternative that is always worse, but never real. It’s a geopolitical game of: Heads, they win. Tails, we lose.

We are assured that only drug smugglers are the target of U.S. operations in the Caribbean, but these assurances don’t reflect the growing reality in the region — that is, unless the U.S. plans to attack small drug boats with the overwhelming power of an aircraft carrier, which is perhaps akin to killing a housefly with a steamroller. But with over 10,000 U.S. troops, eight warships, a Virginia-class submarine, and a dozen F-35s already in the Caribbean, and now the USS Gerald Ford Strike Group surging toward the region, the stage is clearly being set for something larger.

It is the height of arrogance to think we can forcibly remove the dictatorship in Venezuela and expect anything different than history has already shown. Liberty cannot be imposed at the point of a foreign bayonet.

Overthrowing Maduro risks creating more instability, not less. The breakdown of state authority may create a power vacuum that even the drug cartels themselves may fill. A generation of purges within the ranks of the Venezuelan military makes them a wild card in the event of an actual war, and we cannot assume they will fold and happily serve a new government preferred by the United States. Think of the anarchy that followed our wars in the Middle East. Do we really want to risk creating similar conditions in our own backyard?

There are assumptions made that, if the U.S. does pursue regime change, it would be an overwhelming victory. But what if an airstrikes-only strategy doesn’t push Maduro out? What if the country is split or spirals into civil war? Will we have to escalate further and further until Maduro is toppled?

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The President’s Murder Spree Continues

The Trump administration murdered six more civilians in the Pacific:

The United States struck two alleged drug-carrying vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Sunday, killing six people on board, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday, as calls mounted for investigations into the strikes.

The U.S. military has murdered more than 70 people in the Caribbean and the Pacific over the last two months. The president and the Secretary of Defense have given illegal orders to kill civilians on these boats at least 18 times and every time the orders have been carried out. The president wants to use the military as his own assassins, and it appears that no one is willing to refuse that assignment.

The government has a secret list of 24 organizations that it considers “designated terrorist organizations.” At least one of the groups, the so-called Cartel de los Soles, doesn’t really exist. Others have little to do with the drug trade. The rest are drug cartels that have nothing to do with terrorism. One thing they all have in common is that they aren’t engaged in an armed conflict with the United States. The “conflict” is completely made-up because no one is attacking or threatening to attack the U.S. or American forces in the region. The administration’s justification for the murder spree is a lie built on top of a lie built on top of another lie.

The Intercept spoke to Brian Finucane about the administration’s secret list, and he said this:

“The administration has established a factual and legal alternate universe for the executive branch,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war. “This is the president, purely by fiat, saying that the U.S. is in conflict with these undisclosed groups without any congressional authorization. So this is not just a secret war, but a secret unauthorized war. Or, in reality, a make-believe war, because most of these groups we probably couldn’t even be in a war with.”

The administration’s own briefings have confirmed that they don’t know who the people on the boats are, and they aren’t interested in finding out. Thanks to news reporting, we are slowly getting a better picture of who the president’s murder victims are. The Associated Press investigated earlier U.S. boat attacks and mostly found poor men trying to make a living:

One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver.

The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs.

Many of these men may have been criminals, but they were at most small-time smugglers looking for ways to make a little more money for their families. They had done nothing that could possibly justify killing them, and they were no threat to the military that blew them up. To call these men “narco-terrorists” is a lie, and to murder them because of that lie is utterly despicable.

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There’s No Reason To Increase The Legal Age For Marijuana Use To 25, New Scientific Paper Concludes

The theory that marijuana use can negatively—and potentially permanently—rewire the brain up until a person reaches the age of 25 is based on misleading science that neglects to account for key factors in cognitive maturity, according to a new research paper.

The study, published on Monday in the American Journal on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, examined the scientific literature around neurodevelopment. While most U.S. states prevent people under 21 to access adult-use cannabis products, some public health advocates are pushing to the legal age limit to 25.

But the researchers, who are affiliated with the advocacy group Doctors for Drug Policy Reform, concluded that those proposals would not meaningfully prevent adverse mental health outcomes for consumers.

“Invoking age 25 as a bright line for brain maturity is not supported by neuroscience,” they wrote. “Cannabis policy should reflect evidence and fairness, not mythology.”

The paper states that there’s “no empirically defined neurodevelopmental endpoint at age 25,” as brain maturation “is a nonlinear process, region-specific, influenced by sex and specific physiological processes.”

“Importantly, existing evidence does not demonstrate greater long-term cognitive or neurophysiological harm attributable to cannabis use in individuals aged 18-25 years compared to those older than 25,” it says.

The researchers reviewed data on the macrostructural and microstructural development of the brain, which shows that such maturation is “mostly complete by the end of adolescence, around age 18.”

“Other, more subtle developmental changes continue throughout the third decade of life. The often-cited claim that brain development ‘ends’ at 25 is not clearly supported by primary neuroscientific literature,” it says.

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Florida GOP Lawmaker Files Bill To Ban Public Marijuana Smoking As Campaign Works To Put Legalization On 2026 Ballot

A pro-legalization Florida lawmaker has filed a bill to amend state law to codify that the public use of marijuana is prohibited.

Rep. Alex Andrade (R)—who has voiced support for removing cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and earned an “A” grade from NORML—introduced the public smoking and vaping legislation on Thursday.

Under the proposal, state statute on the use of tobacco in public would be revised to incorporate cannabis, making it unlawful to smoke or vape in any public space.

A public space would be defined as place “to which the public has access, including, but not limited to, streets; sidewalks; highways; public parks; public beaches; and the common areas, both inside and outside, of schools, hospitals, government buildings, apartment buildings, office buildings, lodging establishments, restaurants, transportation facilities, and retail shops.”

The legislation specifies that the prohibition on public smoking “does not apply to the smoking of unfiltered cigars.”

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