Anti-Drug War Demo in Argentina & Narco-Economics

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:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/5/10/231035/920

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:

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/5/10/215352/497

From somewhere in a country called América,

Dan Feder
Managing Editor
The Narco News Bulletin
http://www.narconews.com

Narco News is supported by:

The Fund for Authentic Journalism
P.O. Box 241
Natick, MA 01760
http://www.authenticjournalism.org

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