Quick Hits (page 3)
Two Plead Not Guilty in Pot Case
By: Robert Gammon (Oakland Tribune)
OAKLAND -- Two of the five Bay Area residents arrested for growing more than 2,000 marijuana plants they claim were for medicinal use pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal drug charges that could keep them behind bars for the rest of their lives.
Jesse Nieblas, 31, of Alameda and Jacek Mroz, 26, of San Leandro were indicted on three drug charges each in connection with the June 30 marijuana bust in a West Oakland warehouse. Both face mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years to maximum sentences of life in federal prison.
Also arrested during the pot bust, believed to be the largest ever in Oakland, were Heleno Araujo, 32, of Concord and Celeste Angello, 28, of Santa Clara.
Authorities also arrested Mario Pacetti, 33, of Alameda for his alleged involvement in the case. A federal grand jury handed up an indictment of Mroz, Nieblas and Pacetti on July 23. Pacetti is also scheduled to appear in federal court.
The pot bust was made by the California Highway Patrol and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Araujo and Angello appeared, along with Nieblas and Mroz, in Oakland federal court in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Wayne D. Brazil, but they did not enter pleas. They have not been indicted. Their arraignment was postponed.
CHP officers said they discovered the marijuana operation following a routine traffic stop on a city street. But Mroz's Oakland-based attorney, Bill Panzer, alleged Thursday the CHP knew the growing operation involved medical marijuana, yet targeted the warehouse anyway as part of a larger campaign to ignore Proposition 215, the 1996 voter-approved state initiative that legalized pot for medical uses.
"The CHP decided on their own they did not like medical marijuana," Panzer said. "What we have is police who believe they're above the law."
The CHP has maintained there is no evidence the West Oakland plants were headed for sick patients, despite such assertions made by Oakland medical marijuana advocates.
In response to Panzer's claim that the CHP is purposely ignoring Proposition 215, Sacramento CHP spokesman Tom Marshall said: "We categorically deny that allegation. What else would you expect from defense lawyers?"
Although medical marijuana is legal under California law, the Bush administration and Attorney General John Ashcroft have continued to prosecute medical marijuana cases.
However, the prosecutors in this case could be undermined by a conflicting account of the pot bust provided by the DEA. Originally, Special Agent Adam Zirkelbach said in a sworn statement the bust occurred just after the CHP conducted a "canine training" outside the warehouse at 2638 Market St., according to court documents.
CHP officials immediately denied there was a canine training, saying there was a miscommunication with the DEA.
Zirkelbach then filed a new sworn affidavit with the court, with no mention of the training. Instead, he echoed the CHP's earlier version of events that it had received complaints about the warehouse from neighbors, and then, during a surveillance operation of the warehouse, pulled over a pickup leaving the building.
CHP said the pickup, driven by Nieblas, made an illegal lane change. A search of the pickup revealed more than 500 marijuana plants, leading the officers back to the warehouse where they found the growing operation, Zirkelbach said in the new statement.
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Growin' Our Own (page 3)
The War Rages on - the Casualty Count Multiplies
By: General Lee Doofy .... On the front line and in the trenches
I would like to report that we are scoring victories. That, however, is not the case. We are in fact sustaining casualties of a tragic nature. While proponents of medicinal marijuana are positioning themselves for ballot initiatives, the recreational and casual users are continuing to suffer an onslaught of self righteousness run amok.
The upcoming election and the war in the Middle East have divided the country along the lines of the Vietnam era. Having been a young activist during that era, to see it once again brings a seasoned veteran such as myself close to tears.
Are we ever to learn the lessons of understanding and compassion? Our friends, relatives, neighbors, and fellow Americans deserve to live with us in those circumstances.
Until we can convince ourselves and our countrymen of the folly of their and our actions we will continue to be a target to focus on instead of an ally. Who are we? We are those Americans that would dare to question the activities of our government and our churches. We do this as outsiders that are destined to always be outsiders. We watch the party people and the self-righteous ones without belonging to either side.
This is what we see. We see a country full of individuals that are too busy sniping at one another. The problem with this is that it opens us up for attack from a third party. We must begin to stand united. It is imperative that we get to know our neighbors. If we are to truly fight terror we must work together. To fail to do so is a horrendous mistake from either a strategic or tactical position.
To assault one another's patriotism is not the answer. The armed forces of this nation should be staffed with those of any and all beliefs. Including those of us that have strayed from the perceived norm in one manner or another. It has no bearing whatsoever on our patriotism and belief in freedom. It simply means that we have faced and responded to a different set of trials in our personal and spiritual lives than some others.
We, as soldiers in life, are disappointed with both forces in this battle. To the right wing: we are appalled at your hypocrisy and self- righteousness. To the left wing: we are appalled at the fear that induces you to turn your back on your own. We have certainly come of age when we continue to standby as our peers are persecuted for things that we,also, have done.
In this battle among ourselves, as Americans, none are spared nor are all justly tried. I can understand the taking of a man's property and his incarceration if he is a threat to his neighbors. I can even understand it under circumstances of provable potential threat. I cannot understand the ruin and incarceration of my neighbors, particularly if they are peaceably productive. Is not productivity the key to success? Are we not programmed from birth to produce consume and procreate? If we are accomplishing that, are we not entitled to privacy?
In my sector there are two individuals imprisoned based on an egregious invasion of their privacy by a ne'er-do-well stranger. This is not just another tale of jail house woe. This one has it all: SHAME - HORROR - MISERY - DESPAIR - SORROW - GREED - LUST and sadly HATRED. "Caused by marijuana." This is the story of Dallas and Rick Peuse, parents and mentors to five children, previously living in Columbus, Montana, Stillwater County.
Rick Peuse, fifty-eight years of age, sentenced to fifteen years at the Montana State correctional institution in Deerlodge, Montana; his wife Dallas Peuse, fifty-two years of age, sentenced to ten years in the women's correctional institution in Billings Montana.
Why is the Peuse case one that deserves attention? Aren't there many such cases? Yes and no. It is becoming evident, as demonstrated by the recent retirement of Keith Stroup from his position with NORML, that the marijuana generation is aging. As older Americans haven't they and we earned the right, or at the least the privilege, to have our story properly told and heard?
That has not occurred in the Peuse case. Why they were not afforded that opportunity is what I am left to wonder about. Or, was their story properly told but ignored in the name of vengeance, political gain, and or self- righteousness? None of those should be considered appropriate reasons.
If the Peuses are telling the truth, there is then no possible way that this is a just system. The irony is that if they were doing more than what they represented, which they weren't, it would remain an unusually cruel punishment. These two raised and educated five children to responsible adults. With the amount of production and consumption that accompanies that amount of procreation don't we owe them, at the least, a fair representation?
Why do we owe them our concern, compassion and understanding? Because we as Americans share some of the culpability. Freedom of speech, a right guaranteed to us by our constitution and fought for by all generations of Americans, has gone a long way toward furthering the problem. Turn on your television set (HBO), go to a movie, or go to a bookstore. The fact is that the representation of marijuana as a recreational drug has permeated society to a point where many are led to believe it to be more socially acceptable than what they find it to be.
So that everyone understands their culpability in this matter lets not forget to look at the various advocacy groups that exercise their right to free speech. NORML, High Times, Bud Life, the medicinal marijuana advocates and many more.
To put it bluntly, when all aspects of the Peuse case or the marijuana issue itself are viewed with an open mind it becomes obvious that we, as Americans, are facing a multifaceted fuck up. To unfuck the Peuse case is as good a place to start as any.
Next month I will relate to you the invasion of their privacy. The invasion that precipitated the chain of events leading to the SHAME-HORROR-MISERY- DESPAIR-SORROW-GREED-LUST and HATRED of this story of marijuana abuse. Do yourself a favor read the upcoming article in the October edition of Bud Life. You will be shocked and horrified at the abuse of basic rights that ensued. In further issues of Bud Life I will give you the opportunity to ask questions of Dallas.
Questions will take some coordination but it is worthwhile. For now I will share a couple of quotes. "I have surely found myself in a man made hell." Dallas Peuse. "I never thought that I would see my parents in jail. I still cannot believe it" Reva Peuse, college age daughter of Dallas and Rick Peuse.
In these days of chest thumping self-righteous flag waving it takes courage to speak out. Yes, it takes courage to put on a uniform and stand up for our country. It also takes courage to take up the colors and stand up in our country. To do any type of battle with our neighbors is always difficult. They are, after all, ourselves.
Smoke em if you dare .... General Lee Doofy aka .... Roger Bessler Billings, Montana
Freedom is a controlled substance.
MADMANMC.com your comments will be appreciated and responded to.
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Pipeline (page 3)
Mexican Army Soldiers Form Drug Cartel
By: AP
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- Members of an elite Mexican army unit have deserted and formed a drug gang, using their military training to launch a violent battle for control of this border city, Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The war for Nuevo Laredo is unlike other recent drug conflicts - it's a turf war involving most of Mexico's major cartels in broad alliances not seen in a decade. It has the Mexican army fighting an organized unit of former comrades, and it has cost American lives.
"They are extremely violent, and they are very much feared in the region because of the bloodshed they unleash," Jose Santiago Vasconcelos, Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor, told AP.
The battles, which have taken 87 lives since 2002, have involved unprecedented alliances among Mexico's drug cartels, according to Nuevo Laredo police commander Martin Landa Herrera.
"I don't think anything like this has happened before in Mexico," he said in an interview. "I have never heard of this many cartels fighting for one piece of territory."
Known as the "Zetas" or "Z"s, the new drug gang - which appears to have won control of the city - is led by former members of an elite paratroop and intelligence battalion that was posted to the border state of Tamaulipas in the 1990s to fight drug traffickers.
Vasconcelos said about 31 of the estimated 350 members of the Special Air Mobile Force Group, posted to the border state of Tamaulipas in the 1990s, had deserted and joined the drug turf war.
"They have high-powered weapons, training and intelligence capabilities," Landa Herrera said of the Zetas, whose name comes from the radio code word designating a police commander. "They have even tapped our radio communications. They listen in on us."
The Defense Department has refused to confirm any of its soldiers formed the Zetas. But the army recently began posting wanted posters across the country offering rewards for the deserters, some still pictured in army uniforms. That led to speculation the soldiers were behind the Zetas.
The skirmishing began in 2001 as a dispute among local drug gangs that operated with the permission of reputed Gulf drug cartel leader Osiel Cardenas. By early 2002, the battle had heated up enough that the Zetas appeared, working as hit men for Cardenas in a bid to restore order.
But Cardenas' arrest March 14 during a shootout in the nearby border city of Matamoros opened the floodgates for a wider conflict. With Cardenas in jail, cartels across Mexico - Michoacan, Ciudad Juarez, Sinaloa and possibly Tijuana - sensed weakness and tried to move in on the territory.
Escaped Sinaloa drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman reportedly allied himself with the Juarez cartel, sending in gunmen to take over Nuevo Laredo. At the same time, another local trafficker tried to form an alliance with the Valencia cartel, based in the western state of Michoacan. And police even arrested a midlevel operator for the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel in Nuevo Laredo.
Such alliances - and an all-out war between multiple cartels - haven't been seen since the wars between Mexican gangs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
"We're seeing these alliances, but this is just proof of the crisis these gangs are in," Vasconcelos said. "There is no one single group strong enough anymore to dominate the territory."
The Zetas do appear to have the upper hand and are still linked to Cardenas, city police say. While dozens of hired gunslingers from other cartels have died, Vasconcelos said only a few Zetas have been killed and only one or two have been captured.
The Zetas have killed dozens of rival traffickers, trading shots from passing sport utility vehicles on the streets of Nuevo Laredo. In one attack, they engaged in a shootout in broad daylight just yards from where the city's mayor was attending a flag-raising ceremony.
The Zetas sometimes leave their victims' bodies packed in car trunks. In one massacre, they wrote information about a rival gang on a wall above a pile of victims, encouraging police to dismantle the other group.
Nobody has to tell Houston resident Noe Villarreal how vicious the war has become. On Sept. 27, a commando of at least 30 masked men carrying assault rifles kidnapped his brother - Hayward, Calif., businessman Juan Villarreal Garcia - from his Mexico home in Sabinas Hidalgo, a town south of Nuevo Laredo.
The gunmen had fanned out across the town in search of a rival. They killed two policemen, kidnapped seven people, burst into Villarreal's home - in a possible case of mistaken identity - and dragged the 78-year-old tortilla-store owner away.
The other hostages were released soon afterward, but Villarreal remains missing and is presumed dead. The area is so violent that nobody is sure who kidnapped him or why.
"I don't know if it was the Zetas," said Noe Villarreal, "because the Zetas have never released anyone alive. That's not their style."
It wouldn't be the first time that Americans have died in the conflict.
A wild pre-dawn battle on Aug. 1 in Nuevo Laredo left at least three dead - one of them a man from Laredo, Texas - and six wounded. Police and army troops exchanged fire with cars believed to be carrying drug traffickers.
The three were killed when their SUV exploded after police bullets hit the vehicle's gas tank.
And in June 2001, a couple from Laredo, Texas, - Sylvia Solis and Juan Villagomez - were kidnapped by drug traffickers, although it is unclear why. She was raped and strangled. He was beaten and buried alive.
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