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There would be no drug trade in anything if:
a. Americans stop using the stuff
b. It's legalized, controlled, and taxed to provide medical treatment for druggies.
Read more of this sad story @ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/w...-heroin-demand-in-us.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Mary Lou Leary, deputy director of State, Local and Tribal Affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), spoke at the National League of Cities Conference in Washington, D.C. During a confence-workshop on heroin addiction and prevention, CNSNews.com asked Leary about the need to address border security and drug cartels to combat the opioid crisis. “I think there’s another issue I’m sure that the chief really appreciates and that is, ‘Where is this heroin coming from?’” Leary said, noting fellow panelist, Pittsburgh Chief of Police Cameron McLay, who spoke about law enforcement’s role battling heroin.
Heroin from Mexico seized in San Bernardino, Calif.
Leary continued, “Our streets are flooded with heroin. It’s not domestically grown or produced. Much of this is coming from Mexico.” “And so there’s another aspect to this, which is work that we do with ONDCP with our other federal partners, and that is working with federal law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction beyond the U.S. borders, and also working with the government of Mexico,” Leary said. “Our director Michael Botticelli was just in Mexico last week meeting with high officials; talking with them about the issues – what can we do together to stop this flow of heroin across the border?” she said. “So that’s a very important part of this problem,” Leary said. “Demand reduction is significant and so on, but this is coming from some place and we know through DEA’s efforts and through the State Department and so on that much of it’s coming from Mexico.” “So we’re really doubling down on those efforts, as well,” she said.
Police Chief McLay said that while getting treatment for those addicted to heroin is an important part of dealing with the issue, law enforcement has a vital role to play in prosecuting drug dealers. “We absolutely cannot throw the baby out with the bath water and go to a purely drug-treatment-based methodology,” McLay said.
Administration Official: ‘Our Streets Are Flooded With Heroin’ With Much of It ‘Coming From Mexico’
The special "20/20" episode will focus on several families, including one where each member of a couple reacts differently to rehab and another where a young mother and her newborn baby are dependent on the drug. New Hampshire has been one of the hardest-hit states for heroin and synthetic opiate abuse. The heroin problem has received significant attention lately: CBS' "60 Minutes" looked at drug use in Ohio last fall, HBO aired a documentary in December focused on Cape Cod, Mass.; and NBC and CNN have both done stories recently on New Hampshire.
ABC News is devoting an hour in prime time on Friday, March 11, 2016 to a program anchored by Muir on the alarming rise in heroin overdoses in New Hampshire.
Muir said the attention helps the families who are going through the problem. "It helps begin a conversation out there," he said, "and the more we can be part of the conversation, the better. I don't look at it from a competitive standpoint at all." The problem is so much a part of life now in northern New England that Muir said ABC News made certain to ask presidential candidates about heroin during debates before the New Hampshire primary. Being there for more than a year of reporting brought the statistics to life. ABC spent some time with an emergency patrol when they were called to the scene of a heroin user slumped over the wheel of his car in a busy intersection. The call to authorities came from a man at the scene who had lost his own son to heroin.
At a middle school in Manchester, paramedics teach 11- and 12-year-olds how to administer Narcan, the drug that can revive overdose victims. ABC News asked whether any of the kids had seen discarded needles or other evidence of heroin use, and Muir said virtually all of them had. "When you realize that nearly everyone you meet has been touched by the drug in some way, that's really eye-opening," he said. Through its web site, ABC News is working with its affiliates across the country to do local stories about what is going on in their communities.
ABC's Muir takes prime-time hour for heroin report
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked the attorney general, "Do you see a connection between the growing opioid crisis and illegal firearms trafficking?" Lynch agreed that opioid abuse is a "crisis" and an "epidemic" that affects every state in the nation. "When we look at not only the increase in firearms dealing and recent violence levels overall -- one of the things we did over the last calendar year was I directed U.S. attorneys to reach out to state and local counterparts...that had seen an increase in violence in general, not necessarily limited to firearms, but violent crime in general, to see if we could pinpoint the causes in these relevant jurisdictions. "And in many jurisdictions, while the causes did vary, drug abuse -- particularly heroin, opioid, and methamphetamine abuse -- were behind upticks in violence as well as violent crime using guns. So there is a connection there, as individuals turn to crime to support habits, so we do see that."
Later in the hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Lynch, "Do you believe that mental illness plays a role in some of the incidents of mass gun violence that we've experience in America in the last few years?" "Well, certainly I think with respect to specific cases where it's been adjudicated or a finding has been made, we can say that. Otherwise it would be speculation," Lynch replied. "But I will say that I think, Senator, mental illness is the issue that I find is cutting across so many law enforcement issues today, both from how we police to how we look at violent crime to how we manage our prisons. "And certainly, as it relates to how we manage firearms in this country -- you know, essentially making sure that we continue to have the right to have responsible firearms owners, and yet balancing that against those who are not allowed by law to have firearms because of an adjudication of mental illness of various types--" "I couldn't agree witih you more about the intersection of mental illness and law enforcement," Cornyn cut in.
The senator then plugged his legislation, The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act, suggesting it's somethinghe and Lynch might work on together.
AG Lynch: Opioid Drug Abuse 'Behind Upticks in Violence As Well As Violent Crime Using Guns'
Illicit opium production in the mountains of the state of Guerrero “tripled in the last eight years”, according to Carlos Zamudio, an investigator with the citizen’s group CUPIHD, which lobbies to reduce the risks and harm associated with drugs. Poppies, cultivated for heroin, have traditionally been grown in the states of Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa in northern Mexico but cultivation has expanded further south into Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Guerrero, he said. Mexico’s military discovered almost an acre of opium poppies growing in the township of Ensenada just 60 miles from the U.S. border earlier this month. The Associated Press reported that the crop was destroyed along with smaller marijuana plots found in the area.
Half of the heroin consumed in the U.S. originates in Mexico, an increase of 14 percent over 2009, Bloomberg News reported last year, citing the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. According to the U.N.’s 2014 World Drug Report, an upswing in heroin availability in the U.S. in 2012 was “likely due to high levels of heroin production in Mexico and Mexican traffickers expanding into ‘white heroin’ markets.” Yet heroin seizures actually declined in Mexico by 58 percent that same year – 2012 – the report said. The government, meanwhile, has no hard data on the extent of the opium cultivation in Mexico, according to Antonio Mazzitelli, U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) representative in Mexico.
An opium grower shows how he ‘milks’ a poppy flower bulb to obtain opium paste in Mexico’s Guerrero state
A three-year study undertaken by military and justice officials in agreement with the U.N. is due to wrap up this year and could produce the first statistics in a century on the amount of cultivation in Mexico, he said from his office in Mexico City. But the results may never be known if the government decides to keep them private, Mazzitelli added. Noting that authorities are unsure how much opium is being produced, Lisa Sanchez of the NGO Mexico Against Crime commented, “It’s kind of the biggest question mark we have in Mexico at the moment.” Cultivated by poor farmers, opium is snapped up by drug cartels who produce white heroin in mountainous territory of Guerrero largely inaccessible by roads. The same cartels show the farmers how to improve poppy yields and provide fertilizer, according to Sanchez.
Just three roads crisscross the mountainous state where 30 percent of all residents live in “extreme poverty,” according to 2010 government data. Farmers, Sanchez said, “want to grow something else but the alternatives are either too expensive or not available at all.” The government’s effort to attack the supply of opium by destroying crops “hasn’t been effective, she said. “It just moves somewhere else. It’s called the balloon effect. We need a different approach because if you really want to solve the drug issue, you need to have a more comprehensive strategy. The drug phenomenon has a lot of different dimensions – social, health, economic. It’s not just about security and fighting organized crime.”
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