Trincheri: Anti-Drug War Demo in Argentina
Conroy: Border Narco-Economics
May 11, 2005
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Don't miss our two top current posts in the Narcosphere. First, Narco News School of Authentic Journalism 2004 graduate
and harm reduction activist Romina Trincheri reports from the "Festival Against Intolerance" in Rosario, Argentina. Last
weekend, thousands gathered in Rosario, as well as Buenos Aires and Cordoba, to oppose drug laws that victimize users
and addicts, treating drug abuse as a criminal rather than a health problem. Trincheri reports:
"It was the fourth Festival Against Intolerance held in the city of Rosario. Last year, it drew thousands of people to
demonstrate in favor of the decriminalization of drug position for personal use. Similar demonstrations take place in
185 cities in 37 countries around the world."
...
"Many representatives of the Argentine Network in Defense of Drug Users' Rights (RADDUD) were present. When they
expressed themselves, they found a great echo of their sentiments among the crowd, who kept applauding, adhering to the
general message of the event."
Read the full report:
Bill Conroy also contributes a fascinating report on the drug trade in the city of Nuevo Laredo, calling it a "a case
study in macro narco-economics." Conroy looks at the recent attention given to this border town by both the media and
the U.S. State Department, as an example of the supposed inherent violence in the Mexican drug business. Lookint at a
story in the Houston Chronicle, Conroy writes:
"The story does a service in pointing out that the narco-trafficking organizations are fighting over a major
transportation corridor into the most lucrative illegal drug market in the world: the United States. Nuevo Laredo just
happens to be one of the major Mexican ports of entry along that corridor.
"What the story fails to put into context, however, is that the violence that marks the turf war in Nuevo Lardeo is not
limited to that town, nor to the Mexican side of the border. This so-called turf war, in reality, is nothing more than
an extreme form of capitalism, in which contracts and land acquisition are enforced at the end of a gun.
"So to really assess the fall-out of this ongoing hostile take-over of a narco-trafficking node, we have to take into
account the treachery, murder and pay-offs occurring along the entire transportation corridor, from the border, north
through Texas and along the major stops of the drug-war economy – the small towns and big cities – throughout the United
States.
"Then, we might start to get a true glimpse of the cost of the war on drugs."
Read the full story, here:
From somewhere in a country called América,
Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
Narco News is supported by:
The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O. Box 241
Natick, MA 01760