DEA no longer allowed to run Mexico

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Pete

Via Radley Balko: Mexico Lawmakers Reclaim Sovereignty From DEA

On December 15, Mexico lawmakers passed a law reining in the asymmetrical, imperialist influence of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration within the country. Supporters hailed the move as a reclamation of national sovereignty. […]

This limits their activities in the country to information-gathering, eliminates their legal immunity and assigns them reporting obligations. Agents will no longer be able to unilaterally execute arrests and raids, and will have to seek authorization from the Mexican federal government for their weapons. Permission from a newly formed security panel is also now required of any Mexican state or municipal official meeting with them.

This is good news, and way overdue.

While it hasn’t been talked about as much in recent times as the emphasis has been on marijuana legalization, the DEA, which has often acted as if it operates outside the law, certainly hasn’t been stopped. They may be less able to focus on marijuana, but they’ve still been pushing the drug war.

Drug warriors invested in the global dominance of the DEA have denounced the legislation. A few days before the Senate passed the law, US Attorney William Barr stated he was “troubled” by the legislation…

Yeah.

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7 Responses to DEA no longer allowed to run Mexico

  1. strayan says:
    December 22, 2020 at 4:23 pm

    I note Vanda Felbab-Brown is delusional as ever:

    The law “is also a blow to the brave, honest Mexican LE officials who, committed to the credo of upholding rule of law, have been cooperating with U.S. LE officials. They are now at the mercy of their corrupt colleagues” https://twitter.com/vfelbabbrown/status/1340291090889527296?s=21

  2. Great Harry's Ghost! says:
    December 22, 2020 at 6:24 pm

    So long Plan Mexico…

    I’m down in the Sonoran desert again and now happily not a legal issue here w/ my cannabis consumption.

    I’m living in one of those “snow bird” RV Parks (until mid-spring) and have started sharing how to make edibles with some of my elderly neighbors. My little sis has had problems sleeping for years but now she eats a tiny (THC) brownie every night before bed and is sleeping great.

    2020 has been quite the year. Truthfully it’s a year that can just get eliminated from our calendars… crikey.

  3. Servetus says:
    December 28, 2020 at 9:05 pm

    Police choke holds are not safe according to neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital:

    28-DEC-2020 — Some police departments in the United States continue to teach officers that neck restraints are a safe method for controlling agitated or aggressive people, but that’s a dangerous myth, according to a Viewpoint written by three neurologists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in JAMA Neurology. […]

    Along with coauthors Jillian M. Berkman, MD, and Joseph A. Rosenthal, MD, PhD, Saadi was disturbed by the use of neck restraints by police departments in the United States. […]

    In their viewpoint, Saadi and her colleagues describe how carotid compression–which can occur with as few as 6 kilograms (13 pounds) of force, or about the weight of a typical house cat–can result in stroke, seizure and death. They call for the creation of a system for reporting on law enforcement’s use of neck restraints, including how often the technique is used and if it results in death or disability.

    “It’s in the public’s best interest to have this data,” says Saadi. She believes that increasing awareness about the impact of neck restraints could help curb their use. Ultimately, says Saadi, there is no medical justification for neck restraints in policing. […]

    AAAS Public Research News Release: Neurologists say there is no medical justification for police use of neck restraints: In a perspective piece, they note that some police departments justify these tactics with misleading language.

    Related Journal Article: Carotid Physiology and Neck Restraints in Law Enforcement: Why Neurologists Need to Make Their Voices Heard

  4. Servetus says:
    December 28, 2020 at 10:05 pm

    Psychedelics can be used to treat trauma induced by racism:

    28-DEC-2020 — A single positive experience on a psychedelic drug may help reduce stress, depression and anxiety symptoms in Black, Indigenous and people of color whose encounters with racism have had lasting harm, a new study suggests.

    The participants in the retrospective study reported that their trauma-related symptoms linked to racist acts were lowered in the 30 days after an experience with either psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms), LSD or MDMA (Ecstasy).

    “Their experience with psychedelic drugs was so powerful that they could recall and report on changes in symptoms from racial trauma that they had experienced in their lives, and they remembered it having a significant reduction in their mental health problems afterward,” said Alan Davis, co-lead author of the study and an assistant professor of social work at The Ohio State University. […]

    A growing body of research has suggested psychedelics have a place in therapy, especially when administered in a controlled setting. What previous mental health research has generally lacked, Davis noted, is a focus on people of color and on treatment that could specifically address the trauma of chronic exposure to racism.

    Davis partnered with co-lead author Monnica Williams, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa, to conduct the research.

    “Currently, there are no empirically supported treatments specifically for racial trauma. This study shows that psychedelics can be an important avenue for healing,” Williams said. […]

    “Not everybody experiences every form of racial trauma, but certainly people of color are experiencing a lot of these different types of discrimination on a regular basis,” said Davis, who also is an adjunct faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. “So in addition to depression and anxiety, we were asking whether participants had symptoms of race-based PTSD.” […]

    All participants recalled their anxiety, depression and stress symptoms after the memorable psychedelic experience were lower than they had been before the drug use. The magnitude of the positive effects of the psychedelics influenced their reduction in symptoms.

    “What this analysis showed is that a more intense mystical experience and insightful experience, and a less intense challenging experience, is what was related to mental health benefits,” Davis said. […]

    Ohio State News: One psychedelic experience may lessen trauma of racial injustice: Lower stress, depression recalled after using drug, study finds

    Related Journal Article: People of color in North America report improvements in racial trauma and mental health symptoms following psychedelic experiences, Authors: Monnica T. Williams, Alan K. Davis, Yitong Xin, Nathan D. Sepeda, Pamela Colón Grigas, & Angela M. Haeny

  5. darkcycle says:
    December 30, 2020 at 12:23 pm

    Interesting. Psychedelics were not very helpful to me with my PTSD. Only cannabis has actually made a dent in my hyper vigilance and traumatic memories. With cannabis I no longer endlessly relive those moments, and can think about them without coming completely undone. They stay in the old memory vault where they don’t ruin my life. I don’t have the experience of working with trauma using all of the new therapies, not being in practice anymore. Could be something there, but for my money and emotional stability, it is Cannabis all day.
    Oh yeah, happy holidays, couchmates.

  6. Servetus says:
    January 17, 2021 at 12:20 pm

    Addiction to methamphetamine differs between male and female rats, suggesting a role for estrogen in the human addiction sequence:

    “The brain changes when you’ve been addicted to methamphetamine,” said Antonieta Lavin, … But we have limited information on how our sex hormones affect that addiction.”

    In a paper published January 10, 2019 in eNeuro, MUSC researchers suggest that the brain of a female rat responds differently to drugs like methamphetamine and that these differences may be due to the presence of estrogen and its effect on addiction.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, methamphetamine alone is responsible for 11,000 deaths in the United States each year, and with more than 70,000 total drug-related deaths in 2017, researchers like Lavin and Reichel are working to improve treatment for those with substance use disorder. […]

    When MUSC researchers examined the prefrontal cortices of both male and female rats addicted and not addicted to methamphetamine, they found that the synaptic response in this area was different between males and females as well as between the addicted and non-addicted animals. For example, Lavin and Reichel found that female rats showed lower resting activity than male rats but then experienced a faster rise in their brain’s synaptic activity after taking the drug. This stronger response was then followed by a faster fall once the drug wore off. […]

    AAAS Public Research News Release: New study examines the way estrogen affects methamphetamine addiction: Research identifies one possible explanation for why male and female rats react differently to methamphetamine

    Related Journal Article: Methamphetamine Self-Administration Elicits Sex-Related Changes in Postsynaptic Glutamate Transmission in the Prefrontal Cortex

  7. Servetus says:
    January 28, 2021 at 1:36 pm

    Cannabis treatment for PTSD has a new genetic foundation, one that may help genetically explain the useful effectiveness of cannabinoids for those who self-medicate for the disease:

    28-JAN-2021 — After analyzing the genomes of more than one-quarter of a million military veterans, a team of scientists, led by researchers at University of California San Diego, Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS), Yale University and West Haven VA, have identified 18 specific, fixed positions on chromosomes (known as loci) that appear associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). […]

    PTSD is a serious mental disorder that can occur after exposure to extreme, life-threatening stress. It’s estimated that half to more than three-quarters of Americans experience traumatic events over a lifetime, but most do not develop PTSD. Lifetime prevalence for PTSD is approximately 7 percent (but much higher among veterans), which suggests people have varying degrees of resilience to stress and vulnerability to the disorder.

    Susceptibility to PTSD has long been known to be heritable. Like other mental disorders, it is an extremely complex phenotype, or set of observable characteristics, that is influenced by multiple genes. Indeed, current diagnostic guidelines permit up to 163,120 unique conformations of symptoms for the disorder.

    The study directly compared the heritability of diagnostic PTSD cases with continuous, symptom-based phenotypes of PTSD. Though symptoms of PTSD are extremely diverse, their genetic overlap is high — an important insight into the disorder’s underlying biology. […]

    AAAS Public Research News Release: Genomic studies implicate specific genes in post-traumatic stress disorder

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