Perhaps the biggest joke is that the War on Drugs is fought to reduce drug use. No doubt many people involved in the domestic enforcement side of the Drug War actually believe this, but the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing. The narcotics trade is an enormous source of money for the criminal gangs that control it, and guess what? The US intelligence community is one of the biggest criminal drug gangs in the world, and the global drug trade is a great way for it to raise money to do morally repugnant stuff it can’t get openly funded by Congress.

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In questo modo, l’Fbi ha dimostrato una volta di più che la guerra alla droga non ha niente a che vedere con quello che sostengono i suoi propagandisti. Se la criminalizzazione della droga è un problema di pubblica sicurezza (lotta al crimine violento e alle bande di strada, eliminazione del rischio di overdose e intossicazione) la chiusura di Silk Road è uno degli atti più stupidi che i federali possano commettere. Silk Road rappresentava un mercato sicuro e anonimo in cui acquirenti e venditori potevano fare affari senza incorrere in quei rischi associati al commercio che avviene per strada. Il sistema che permetteva di valutare la reputazione del venditore significava che le droghe vendute su Silk Road erano molto più pulite e sicure delle loro controparti della strada.

Questo vale anche per tutti gli altri punti di vendita nel mirino della guerra alla droga. Hillary Clinton, con uno dei commenti forse più stupidi mai fatti da un essere umano, dice che la legalizzazione dei narcotici è una cattiva idea “perché ci sono troppi soldi in gioco”, riferendosi, immagino, al lucroso traffico di droga e ai cartelli che ci fanno sopra la guerra.

Ma se ci sono così tanti soldi, e i cartelli si fanno la guerra per controllare il traffico, è solo perché le droghe sono illegali. Questo è ciò che accade quando si criminalizza la roba che la gente vorrebbe acquistare: si dà vita ad un mercato nero con prezzi molto più alti, mercato per il cui controllo le bande si fanno la guerra. Il proibizionismo degli alcolici, ad esempio, è alla base della cultura dei gangster degli anni venti, cultura che è rimasta. Quando fu abolito, la criminalità organizzata semplicemente passò alla guerra per la conquista di altri mercati illegali. Più le attività consensuali e non violente vengono bandite, e più è grande la parte dell’economia che si trasforma in mercato nero per la conquista del quale le bande combattono.

Notizia interessante, si dice che i cartelli della droga messicani guadagnino meno da quando l’erba è stata legalizzata o decriminalizzata in alcuni stati degli Stati Uniti. Chissà perché.

La battuta più divertente è forse dire che questa guerra serve a ridurre l’uso delle droghe. Non dubito che molti di quelli che sono coinvolti nella guerra alla droga ci credano davvero, ma la mano sinistra non sa cosa fa la destra. Il traffico di droga è un’enorme fonte di ricchezza per le bande che lo controllano. Ma sono i servizi segreti americani ad essere una delle più grosse bande di narcotraffico al mondo. Per loro il traffico mondiale di droga rappresenta un modo egregio per raccogliere denaro, usato poi per fare quelle cose ripugnanti per le quali il Congresso non dà fondi. Sono passati vent’anni da quando il giornalista Gary Webb rivelò le collusioni dell’ufficio di gabinetto di Reagan con i cartelli della cocaina negli Stati Uniti, al fine di raccogliere fondi da destinare alle squadracce di destra, i Contras, in Nicaragua. Per queste rivelazioni, servizi segreti e stampa tradizionale esercitarono sul giornalista una violenza psicologica tale da portarlo al suicidio.

Ora dicono che gli Stati Uniti stanno “perdendo la guerra alla droga in Afganistan”. È ovvio: è una guerra pensata per essere persa. Nell’autunno del 2001 fu così facile rovesciare il regime talebano perché stava già cercando di eliminare la coltivazione dell’oppio, e con un certo successo. Questo non stava bene alla popolazione afgana, che tradizionalmente guadagna coltivando il papavero. C’era però l’Alleanza del Nord, trasformata dagli Stati Uniti nel governo nazionale afgano, che era molto favorevole alla coltivazione del papavero nei suoi territori. Quando il regime talebano fu rovesciato, la coltivazione del papavero e la produzione di eroina ripresero ai livelli di prima. Incaricare gli Stati Uniti della “guerra alla droga in Afganistan” è come chiedere ad Al Capone di applicare le leggi proibizioniste.

Se si vuole davvero “vincere” la guerra alla droga bisogna eliminarla. E chi tra le forze dell’ordine americane vuole eliminare questa fonte di miliardi sotto forma di aiuti federali ed equipaggiamenti militari, squadre Swat militarizzate, un sistema di sorveglianza senza precedenti e il potere di confiscare i beni degli accusati? Questa è una guerra pensata per durare all’infinito, come la cosiddetta guerra al terrorismo.

Lo stato incentiva sempre il panico morale e le “guerre” contro questo o quello per tenerci nella paura e costringerci a cedere il potere sulla nostra vita. Non credete a queste bugie.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Rumors, audios, and videos were widely shared though WhatsApp and Facebook while the executions happened, showing what was happening on the outskirts of Belem. There was an unofficial curfew in several places on the periphery, given the expectation that there would be a violent retaliation to the death of the policeman and that the death squads that was wreaking havoc (presumably made up of military policemen) did not intend to take any prisoners. This group supposedly was covered by the official Rotam operation and they intended to kill any suspects.

It is important to highlight here that the deaths did not occur due to gunfights or resisting arrest. They were outright murders. The state government itself recognizes in an official statement that they were homicides, even though it does not conclude that the Military Police took part in them. Luiz Fernandes, Secretary of Public Security of Para, also admits that investigators are working on the hypothesis that death squads were acting there.

However, the sequence of events cannot be understood unless we comprehend their context: The local drug war dynamics.

In Belem, 66% of the population live in irregular buildings, favelas (slums) or the like, which, first, sprouted up near the center of the city (such as neighborhoods Guama, Jurunas, and Terra Firme — the last one being the stage of the murders) and, more recently, in the suburbs. They are very dense areas, with very little space between houses, allowing for the settlement of a large number of migrants from the state’s countryside and from the neighboring state Maranhao.

These areas, however, not unlike many others in Brazil, are marked by precarious access to basic utilities, like sewage disposal, and poor protection of the dwellers’ property rights (despite expropriations and evictions being uncommon in Belem). Moreover, as a result of drug prohibition, they end up under the rule of violent dealers.

Some time ago, it became known that the drug warlords were financing the militias. According to a report from the beginning of the year about the actions of militias in Guama and Terra Firme, these groups were formed by criminals and policemen (generally who are no longer formally affiliated with the Police) for the protection of drug dealers against other dealers and the police. They also regularly extort the local population. According to a Terra Firme dweller, who was quoted on the above report:

They ask people for money and kill whoever gets in their way. It is criminals killing criminals, but there are several honest citizens who are victims as well. When they are bothered by someone, they create a situation for a crime to happen.

The group which acts in the Guama neighborhood, made up mainly by retired police officers, is supposedly involved in the murder of young people, those “who walk around the streets at the wrong time, thieves and drug users,” as a local put it. Out of fear, silence prevails.

The story also tells that the police usually work on the hypothesis that these are hired gunmen, who are paid to enforce debts or murder the borrowers, denying the existence of militias and death squads that are financed by stolen money from the local populations. The events of the 4th seem to have changed that perception, since the government itself has admitted that death squads have been involved.

The general fear after the death of Corporal Figueiredo illustrates how real police, militia, and drug violence is in these areas. This fear has, for the first time, reached the richer areas of Belem, areas unfamiliar with the day to day uneasiness that the poor suffer through. Like never before, the night of November 4th made people, from very different social backgrounds, share the same fear.

Therefore, the murders were not a simple “isolated case,” but a perennial reality for the poor people of Belem, many of whom know or are related to someone who was murdered, were evicted from their homes by drug dealers, or just generally avoid staying out late (always!), afraid of what might happen to them.

These people, who suffer in every imaginable way, are denied the most basic and elementary way to reduce violent crime in Brazil: the end of the war on drugs. There is no reason, at all, that Brazilian cities should top the rankings for “most murders” in the world besides the failure of prohibition. Many cities are even more dangerous than Belem, but the causes of violence are similar. Most murders in Belem and elsewhere are related to drug feuds.

One of the main libertarian causes is the end of this abhorrent policy that takes away individual rights, puts behind bars many thousands of peaceful people and kills more than any substance addiction.

People who live in poor areas (and in other places, naturally) are sold the idea that only more repression will be able to solve the problem of public security. The drug user is the scapegoat and their frequent summary executions by the police are often welcomed.

Due legal process seems to be a burden to the police in Brazil, and its very existence seems to provide them with an even broader license to kill. We lose sight of the deep connections between the police, drug dealers and militias. The poor are the ones most exposed to the resulting police state, and the naive faith in the police as a guardian of order can only worsen their condition.

Belem shows vividly the monstrosity that the war on drugs is and its consequences to the urban dynamics in poor areas, marked by violence everywhere.

The main cause of all these deaths is not the lack of police repression or more executions, but the state itself and its criminalizing impetus, that enriches warlords and makes peripheral communities ever more vulnerable.

Translated by Erick Vasconcelos.

In so doing the FBI demonstrated, once again, that the War on Drugs has nothing to do with anything its propagandists claim it’s about. If drug criminalization is a public safety issue — about fighting violent crime and gangs, or preventing overdoses and poisoning — shutting down Silk Road is one of the dumbest things the feds can do. Silk Road was a secure, anonymous marketplace in which buyers and sellers could do business without the risk of violence associated with street trade. And the seller reputational system meant that drugs sold on Silk Road were far purer and safer than their street counterparts.

This is true of all the other selling points for the Drug War. Hillary Clinton, in possibly one of the stupidest remarks ever uttered by a human being, says legalizing narcotics is a bad idea “because there’s too much money in it” — referring, presumably, to the lucrative drug trade and the cartels fighting over it.

But there’s so much money in it, and the cartels fight to control it, only because it’s illegal. That’s what happens when you criminalize stuff people want to buy: You create black markets with much higher prices, which organized crime gangs fight to control. Alcohol prohibition created the gangster culture of the 1920s. It’s been with us ever since. When Prohibition was repealed, organized crime just shifted to fighting over other illegal markets. The more consensual, non-violent activities are made illegal, the larger the portion of the economy that’s turned into black markets for gangs to fight over.

In related news, the Mexican drug cartels are reportedly making less money since the legalization or decriminalization of pot in several American states. I wonder why.

Perhaps the biggest joke is that the War on Drugs is fought to reduce drug use. No doubt many people involved in the domestic enforcement side of the Drug War actually believe this, but the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing. The narcotics trade is an enormous source of money for the criminal gangs that control it, and guess what? The US intelligence community is one of the biggest criminal drug gangs in the world, and the global drug trade is a great way for it to raise money to do morally repugnant stuff it can’t get openly funded by Congress. It’s been twenty years since journalist Gary Webb revealed the Reagan cabinet’s collusion with drug cartels in marketing cocaine inside the United States, to raise money for the right-wing Contra death squads in Nicaragua — a revelation he was gaslighted and driven to suicide for by the US intelligence community and mainstream press.

Now we hear that the US is “losing the drug war in Afghanistan.” Well, obviously — it’s a war that’s designed to be lost. The Taliban were so easy to overthrown in the fall of 2001 because they really did try to stamp out opium poppy cultivation, and with a fair degree of success. This didn’t sit well with the Afghan populace, which traditionally makes a lot of money growing poppies. But the Northern Alliance — which the United States turned into the national government of Afghanistan — was quite friendly to poppy cultivation in its territory. When the Taliban was overthrown, poppy and heroin cultivation resumed normal levels. Putting the US in charge of a “war on drugs in Afghanistan” is like putting Al Capone in charge of alcohol prohibition.

Besides, actually “winning” the drug war would mean ending it. And who in US domestic law enforcement wants to cut off the source of billions in federal aid and military equipment, militarized SWAT teams and unprecedented surveillance and civil forfeiture powers? This is a war meant to go on forever, just like the so-called War on Terror.

The state always encourages moral panic and “wars” on one thing or another in order to keep us afraid, so we’ll give it more power over our lives. Don’t believe its lies.

Translations of this article:

• Spanish, “Sorpresa: La guerra contra las drogas no tiene nada que ver con las drogas“
• Italian, Sorpresa: La Guerra alla Droga non Riguarda le Droghe.

During this harrowing tale, certainly one of the most compelling drug stories in modern memory, I could not help but wonder: What if the law had protected Maureen from this? I decided to re-imagine Maureen’s experience if she had been so lucky as to be watched over by the benevolent drug laws of our country.

As Maureen enters the dingy basement of a certainly armed individual she has had no previous contact with, she is filled with a thankful spirit that she could not perform her transaction in a more safe and open environment. If that were possible, she thinks to herself, people would most likely overdose daily in the streets from the toxic chemical she wishes to ingest. Fortunately for Maureen, the dealer she’s been sent to turns out to be an undercover cop assigned to bust craven drug users such as herself. “Get your hands in the air, perp,” Officer Friendly says graciously. Maureen complies fully with the officer’s commands and is dragged by her hair from the basement apartment into the back seat of the officer’s unmarked police vehicle.

Maureen expects to be given a slap on the wrist, but is pleasantly surprised when she’s questioned, berated and strip searched by Officer Friendly in a cold, bleak holding cell. After days of uncertainty locked inside the cage meant to protect us from criminal miscreants like her, she’s informed of the layout of her trial. “This judge has no tolerance for drug users, Maureen,” says the warm and inviting prosecutor. “Nor do I, for that matter.” Maureen is informed she has two options: Save the state time and money by foregoing her right to due process and get a light sentence of one year or go to trial and be at the mercy of a judge and jury’s decision. Maureen, still possessing some manner of dignity after this experience, takes the lenient bargain offered by the prosecutor.

As Maureen is transferred to her home for the next year, she wonders what manner of crime the woman placed next to her on the bus committed, as she is fondled and violated in a manner she could easily resist in any other environment. Suddenly it dawns on her that she deserves this. The next year of her life will be well-spent staring at the walls, the ceiling and the bars of her spacious 8×10 cell. She knows this was how it had to be, that in order to wipe out this killer disease in society, she ought to be subjected to total control and humiliation, her every day survival and eventual release being the only thing on her mind. She ponders the horror of a society which allows women like her to freely roam their hotel rooms in a slightly uncomfortable buzzed state. Officer Friendly has done her and all of a society a favor by kidnapping her, taking her away from her loved ones and dooming her to endless hours of violence and sexual assault. When she gets out, she says to herself, she can forget about this all with a stiff drink.

To understand the influence Shulgin had on the world completely, we must also dwell on the internal shifts he caused in others. With that said, allow me to indulge you in a drug story. Nearly 3 years ago, I was at a low emotional point in my life, perhaps the lowest. I was 22 and imagined that life had already dealt me the cards of introverted misery and resentment that I would carry until my grave. But, one night a young woman sent me a text asking if I would be interested in going to a small rave and experimenting with MDMA. At this point, I knew as much about Molly as your grandmother probably does. It was a goofy new speed which made people dance and hug each other. Hardly my scene, I thought. However, my friend was persistent, insisting that this would get me out of my rut of aggression and despair with the world around me. So I acquiesced.

What happened later that night will never lose its’ full and splendorous meaning to me. This fad party drug had somehow connected me to a room full of people I didn’t know at all or had little acquaintance with, but for perhaps the first moment of my life, I felt open. I felt unashamed. I felt loved. I felt free. If my subjective experience allowed for it, I might have wept for a decade wasted in depression and isolation, but no, I was not capable of regret. I was only capable of embracing this, of embracing my new found friends, who to me were no less than saviors in this moment. On that night, I came out as bisexual to a room full of people, something 5 years prior was literally unthinkable to me and had become more or less a part of me I didn’t feel was worth sharing. That night, it was worth sharing. I was worth sharing.

Alexander Shulgin made that experience, and many more like it, possible. His research liberated me. While the headlines today read that Shulgin as the godfather of “the party drug ecstasy”, Terrence McKenna first described him as the godfather of psychopharmocology. Rather than influencing party culture, which will inevitably take hold of powerful psychoactive chemicals, Shulgin was the first to synthesize MDMA as we know it today and to apply it as a therapeutic agent. Today, MDMA is openly used by psychiatrists in the treatment of PTSD, with often times miraculous results.

While most known for his MDMA research, Shulgin thrived within the realm of more traditionally psychedelic substances, especially phenylethylamines and tryptamines, gracing us with the presence of new powerful agents of self-discovery.

Throughout his research, Shulgin remained transparent and friendly with the government and law enforcement, even sharing his compounds with agents of the DEA and writing manuals for use in the classification of drugs.  However, like all researchers of illegal substances, Shulgin’s research was shut down by the DEA in 1994.  The federal government had had enough of Shulgin’s two sides, one side an obedient chemist and the other a writer of subversive, drug-promoting literature. The DEA declared his more personal writing to be nothing more than “cookbooks” for illegal substances.

Shulgin knew his research would remain mostly isolated for his lifetime. Despite the definitive proof that MDMA and other psychedelics contain within them the solution to many psychological ailments, the U.S government has done nothing to tighten its’ grip beyond allowing strict therapeutic and lab research. The only political victory he experienced was through his testimony to Spanish authorities which had it effectively rescheduled as a substance of minimal danger.

I will not allow this to be Shulgin’s final legacy. He has been nothing less than a personal liberator of thousands, perhaps millions of minds. The drug war and the iron fist of government generally is anathema to a world fully exposed to the influence of Shulgin’s life’s work. I am freer because of him and have made it my own life’s mission to liberate others, to free them from the psychological constraints the drug war keeps us all in. While remaining for much of his life an apparent friend of the State, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin used his position to ultimately undermine the drug war and started many down a path of self-discovery and mental freedom which will ultimately undermine the brutalizing, regressive nature of government power.

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