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5/22/2013
By Beau Kilmer / New York Times
Much of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. comes from Mexico. It’s impossible to know exactly, but my colleagues and I put the range at 40 to 67 percent for 2008. Our research also suggests that legalizing commercial marijuana production at the national level could drive out most of the marijuana imported from Mexico.
With marijuana legalization at the state level, imports from Mexico would depend on several factors, like how taxes influenced the market price, whether legally sold marijuana were illegally diverted to other states, and the severity of [...]
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Drug Cartels Running Command and Control Operations Out of North Texas
DEA says high-level cartel members now direct drug shipments from Dallas to cities all over the country
5/22/2013
By Scott Friedman / NBC 5
Trouble came rolling into town and landed squarely in one Seagoville neighborhood.
One neighbor told NBC 5 Investigates he saw federal agents surround a neighbor’s home and then, a short time later, carry out bags full of cash.
The men that lived at the home were not your average street-level drug dealers.
The current residents of the house showed NBC 5 Investigates a [...]
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5/20/2013
By Matt Canham / The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON – Somewhere in the remote wilderness of southern Utah on land controlled by the federal government, members of a Mexican cartel are putting marijuana plants in the earth in hopes of reaping a multi-million dollar harvest this fall.
And it eats at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Sue Thomas.
“They have taken over our public lands. They have no stake in Utah,’ she said. “They are here to use and abuse our public lands for their own profit,’ she said.
These illegal flash farms are a pervasive problem in [...]
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5/20/2013
By Robert L. DuPont / UT San Diego
The motives of the Tsarnaev brothers who are implicated in the Boston Marathon bombings remain elusive, especially for 19-year-old college sophomore Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was widely seen as a happy, well-adjusted student. He was his family’s hope for the future when he left home to attend college.
One of the most striking and consistent observations about Dzhokhar, or Jahar as he was commonly known to his friends, was that he was a normal college kid. Evidence of his normality was his heavy marijuana use as a party boy. One [...]
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5/20/2013
Fresno, CA – A drug bust after a 911 “butt-dial” has landed two careless crooks in prison.
Nathan Teklemariam and Carson Rinehart were recently arrested in Fresno. They were nabbed at a drug bust after a 911 butt-dial. Essentially, one of them accidentally called 911, and the pair were recorded as they talked about scoring drugs and breaking into a car.
The 911 operator tried to get their attention, but eventually just stopped and listened in, because let’s face it … these boys were too interesting to interrupt.
Looking to pass some time:
Suspect: “I just [...]
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Seattle Ranch Puts Weed in the Pigs’ Feed
5/16/2013
by Bryan Le / The Fix
The pigs at the BB Ranch in Seattle, Washington are getting high off a local marijuana dispensary’s supply—and they are also getting fat off it.
William von Schneidau, the ranch’s owner, is “puttin’ some weed to the feed, if you know what I mean,” he explains in a video (below).
“We’re actually feedin’ ‘em marijuana.”
These so-called “pot pigs” are following in the footsteps of their predecessors, “vodka pigs,” who have been fed with vodka grains from a local distillery for some [...]
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5/16/2013
by Victoria Kim / The Fix
The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) released a federal legislative guide today, titled An Exit Strategy for the Failed War on Drugs, calling for drastic reform.
It was released at a forum on Capitol Hill, cosponsored by Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—both of whom fought for local drug policy reform before becoming members of Congress.
“The US has approximately 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prison population, largely resulting from failed policy decisions connected to the war on drugs,” says Jeffries, in a [...]
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5/15/2013
by Angela Kocherga / KHOU 11 News
Mexican drug cartels fighting each other for smuggling routes face increasing competition in the U.S. where legalization in some states has increased the amount of marijuana available.
The drug war in Mexico may have helped U.S. growers gain a foothold in some regions.
“The majority of this weed is coming from California, a little bit of it is coming from Colorado,” said a narcotics officer with the El Paso Police Department who works undercover.
According to the DEA, the amount of marijuana from Mexico seized in the El Paso area [...]
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5/14/2013
Sixteen people face federal charges for conspiring to distribute cocaine in Arkansas from Mexico.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Little Rock held a press conference Tuesday afternoon to announce the charges, which totaled 25 indictments handed down by a federal grand jury.
The investigation centers around the Gulf Cartel, based out of Matamoros, Mexico. The cartel is alleged to have distributed “multiple hundreds of kilograms of cocaine in the United States,” according to a news release.
The indictment accuses the lead defendant, Idalia Ramos Rangel, 57, of keying a drug ring that delivered more than 100 kilograms [...]
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5/14/2013
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The former boss of the Mexican Gulf cartel was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for a drug smuggling and distribution conspiracy that prosecutors said shipped more than a half ton of marijuana into Texas each week.
A federal jury had taken just two hours in September to find Juan Roberto Rincon-Rincon guilty of a conspiracy to import and distribute marijuana and cocaine. A judge imposed the life sentence, the maximum under the charges.
Rincon-Rincon did not testify, and his lawyers did not call any witnesses in his defense.
The U.S. Border Patrol [...]
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