Quick Hits (page 5)
Profit Margin: Mexico's Growers Dump Coffee and Pot for Heroin
By: Mark Stevenson (Associated Press)
Marijuana has long been the main illegal crop on Mexico's Pacific coast, but now growers are switching to a more deadly and profitable product: high-grade opium poppies used to make heroin.
Mexican growers are using super-productive hybrid poppies from Colombia, and traffickers have also adopted some of the Colombians' more violent tactics - like shooting down police fumigation aircraft.
The rise in opium production, refining and smuggling is not only proving deadly for Mexican police; it also threatens to bring purer, more dangerous heroin to the United States.
In recent weeks, suspected drug growers shot down two government fumigation helicopters in southern Guerrero state, killing all five crewmen aboard. While routine in Colombia, those were the first such deaths in Mexico.
Suspected drug gunmen also killed a forestry inspector who was looking into reports of illegal timber cutting in Guerrero's mountains, where drug growers have hacked thousands of small plots into federal forests.
In the cash-strapped rural communities of the mountains inland from Acapulco, farmers often look to illicit plants when prices drop for traditional crops like coffee, corn and coconuts.
Residents of Tlapa, a largely Indian town about 20 miles east of where the helicopters were shot down, said recruiters show up with opium seeds and offer local farmers large payments to grow the crops.
"Marijuana was always around, but prices for it are pretty low, so now opium is the new thing," said Miguel Guadalupe Guadalupe, a rural political activist.
In the town square, people said a farmer can get $1,300 for 2.2 pounds of raw opium gum, hundreds of times what they can earn for marijuana.
Local officials did not respond to requests for comment on the reports about opium growing.
Juan Navarro Solano, a schoolteacher and the son of a coffee farmer, said coffee isn't worth the effort anymore. "People basically have two choices: Either they leave - they emigrate - or they turn to illicit crops," he said.
Mexican drugs gangs have long produced a poorly refined 'black tar' heroin that is normally injected by addicts. It has traditionally accounted for about 30 percent of the heroin sold in the United States.
In the 1990s, Mexico also became a transit point for a pure, potent white Colombian heroin that can be sniffed. That type accounts for roughly 60 percent of the U.S. heroin supply, and it is the type Mexican gangs are beginning to produce.
A Drug Enforcement Administration report warned last year that "the increasing purity of Mexican heroin, as well as ready supplies of high-purity white heroin, may result in geographic 'pockets of overdoses' in the United States."
The stakes are high. The number of heroin addicts in the United States rose from 630,000 in 1992 to an estimated 977,000 in 2002, the DEA says. That increase was largely fueled by Colombian growers, who began elbowing Asian producers out of the U.S. market in the late 1980s.
Now the Mexican traffickers are looking to move in. In late March, soldiers patrolling in Guerrero found two heroin processing labs that held 265 pounds of opium gum, enough for about 120,000 street doses. And Mexican 'mules' - low-level smugglers - are increasingly replacing Colombians in the heroin trade.
In 2001, the last year for which estimates are available, Mexico produced an estimated 7.8 tons of heroin, well above its average yearly output of 6.8 tons over the preceding five years.
The hybrid poppies coming from Colombia have many more bulbs per plant and can boost yields up to 50 percent.
Estuardo Bermudez, the former head of Mexico's federal anti-narcotics agency, said the government is now destroying almost as many acres of opium poppies as marijuana. "There is still more marijuana, but the gap is closing," he said.
Bermudez notes that opium thrives on high coastal mountainsides - the same kind of land where coffee once flourished.
Finding and eradicating those crops is a daunting job. Former U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey once described Mexico's poppy fields as "some of the best concealed in the world," hidden under jungle canopy, on steep mountainsides and in narrow gorges.
Bermudez painted a daunting picture of the gauntlet of snipers and steel cables traffickers string over fields to protect poppy crops.
"They (fumigation pilots) have to fly very low, about five meters (yards) above the treetops, and very slow, usually into a head wind," Bermudez said. "So they are flying almost stationary in high mountain gorges, where a gunman can be on a hillside, almost level with the aircraft, where he can get a head shot on the pilot."
On March 13, a federal police helicopter crashed after its rotors became entangled in high-tension wires, killing the pilot. The accident came three days after the two helicopters were shot down.
"These men are the bravest we have," Bermudez said.
Growin' Our Own (page 5)
Off the Beaten Path, Part 1
By: Robert W.
One of the great places to live back in the late 60's and early 70's is a town named Santa Cruz, California. It had everything one could ask for. Beautiful beaches, beautiful mountains, stunning ladies and great weed. Even better, nobody seemed to hassle you, as long as you didn't hassle anyone else.
Back then life was great. Lay out on a beach - pick one - there were plenty. Get stoned, nobody cared. You might even get laid. As I said, life was great.
There was a beach, to this day I have no idea what the name was, a couple of miles north of the coastal town of Davenport on Highway 1, the coast road. I used to go there all the time. Take a canteen of water, some mighty fine home grown and my pipe and just sit on the beach watching the waves crash, the tide change and, finally, the sun set. All the while toking on my pipe and thinking of the sheer beauty of this deserted beach. It didn't matter what time I got there there was virtually no one else on this stretch of majesty. Just me.
One of the really cool things about this area is that I could drive just a few miles on the coast road from 'my' beach and turn onto a road named Ice Cream Grade. This road was narrow and twisty and would take the driver up into the Santa Cruz mountains and back down the other side to Highway 9 which followed the San Lorenzo river to the sea.
What made this road cool was, if you knew the where and when, you would find, quite literally, roadside stands. These stands, run by inhabitants of communes sold firewood, barbecue, water, beer and, if you asked, weed. At a few you could also rent a woman or man, your choice. It was not like these places were secret. Not at all. They had business hours and the summer was the right time for business. Though they did not advertise, word of mouth is the best form of advertisement there is. And these folks did quite a brisk business.
I never have attempted to grow my own weed. I'm not in anyway a gardener. I could kill cactus okay? But, on the other hand, I do so love weed and it loves me.
Now I've tried various kinds of weed, Columbian, Acapulco, Thai, Mex reg and others. I didn't have the cash at the time to purchase some Panama Red, though a close friend had two joints of Red and I got a single toke off of the one she had going and it was like no other weed I'd ever had. Be that as it may, with the exception of Panama Red, the various flavors of Santa Cruz home grown were damned hard to beat. Further, the price was right. To buy a three finger bag of Thai, you had better have your credit card available with a high credit limit. To buy a three finger bag of SC would set you back anywhere from $15.00 - $35.00. Much more affordable. Wasn't too harsh and it got you stoned.
People nowadays ask how and why the weed was so cheap back then. Well, I'll tell you. First of all weed wasn't illegal until Nixon started the push on the war on drugs in 1973. Secondly, while $35.00 today may seem like a drop in the bucket, back in 1968, it was real money. So, in a way, it was kind of relative. Lastly, and I believe this to be the most important thing, was the culture. The 60's and early 70's were the days of innocence. People were not into making a bazillion dollars. There was no 'I'm more important than you are'. It was live and let live. If you needed something, it was taken care of. Just remember to return the favor. What goes around comes around was a favorite expression. That is how it was.
During the winter and early spring you could still find good SC weed. Yeah, the price might go up and then again, it might not. There was no telling. But a good bet at the time was to drive up Highway 9 to a little bitty town named Boulder Creek which is nestled alongside the San Lorenzo river and, at the same time, hidden by redwood trees. There was a small night club called "B.Y.O.B." That's right. You had to bring your own booze. They marked your name on it, charged you a couple of bucks and you were in.
At B.Y.O.B., one could always find people listening to good live music and selling weed. All you had to do was ask. You would be pointed in the right direction. Normally, there would be more than one person selling herb. If there was, hey, you could get stoned just by taste testing. Try three or four different flavors of SC weed and you are basically toasted. The amount of weed you bought was up to you. A dime bag. Two fingers. Three fingers. The sky was the limit. Or, should I say, your pocket book was the limiting factor.
There were lots of other places as well. The Cooper House was a fine place to purchase good weed. Not only SC home grown but other varieties as well. This place was right in downtown Santa Cruz, on Front Street, as I remember. I believe it was right next door to the old Sheriffs Department. Everybody knew what was going on, yet nobody seemed to care. It was casual. It's gone now. A victim of the 1989 earthquake. What a bummer. The old, not to be confused with the new, Catalyst was also located on Front Street about a block north of the Cooper House. The Catalyst was a night club that featured good rock 'n' roll seven nights a week. It also featured people selling loads of heavy duty weed. Like both B.Y.O.B. and Cooper House, there were always a variety of weed vendors peddling pot of different flavors and from different lands.
Of course there is the University of California, Santa Cruz. I never even attempted to buy any weed from the folks at the sprawling campus. The price was too high for the rag weed they were selling and the people doing the selling at the time were in it for the money only. They had no sense of the culture behind the pot. I left them alone.
The drive that changed everything
Going east or west on Ice Cream Grade you would find all kinds of logging roads. Most, if not all, of the logging was being shut down. Yet some of these dirt roads were in pretty darn good condition.
August 21st, 1970 - a day that changed my entire life - I decided to drive up Highway 9 and take Ice Cream Grade over to Highway 1 and on to my beach. About 2 or 3 miles up the grade I noticed a logging road that appeared to be in good condition and, at the spur of the moment, I decided to turn on to it and see where it led. I wasn't worried about the dirt road, I was driving my purple VW powered dune buggy. With that thing I could go anywhere I had any business going and some places where I didn't. Great vehicle. Wish I still had it. After a mile or so of twisty windy road I came to a closed gate with a "No trespassing" sign on it. Ok, good enough I thought. So I'm in the process of trying to swing the buggy around and head out when I hear and subsequently see another vehicle approaching the gate. It stopped and the driver got out and asked me very politely what I was doing. I told him and at the same time I knew that I had seen that vehicle before. It was a Willys Overland. Something I had always wanted. The man then asked me if I had ever been to B.Y.O.B. I told him yes and then I dawned on me. I had bought some SC from him, right off the tailgate of his Overland. His name was Lou. I guess he figured that I was alright as he then asked me if I would care to come on in and stay awhile. I said sure, why not. He unlocked the gate and we were off.
We drove another half a mile or so and there we were. Sitting amongst the redwoods were three small homes. I don't mean shacks either. These were not castles by any means, but they were nice little places. As I would find out later in the day, this was the homestead of a small commune. There were 11 people, counting me. No kids. All adults in their late 20's to early 40's.
In the August issue of Bud Life I'll tell you all about the commune.
Pipeline (page 5)
Infrared Camera Ruled an Invasion of Privacy
By: Bob Aaron (Toronto Star)
In 1967, Pierre Trudeau announced "the State has no business in the bedrooms of the nation." Recently, Ontario courts have been considering whether the State has any business in other rooms of the house.
The issue of just how much privacy individuals have a right to expect in their homes arose in the context of a marijuana growing operation in Walter Tessling's house in Windsor, back in 1999.
The RCMP received a tip that Tessling was involved in the production and trafficking of marijuana. They contacted Ontario Hydro and verified that electricity consumption at the property was normal. Visual surveillance revealed nothing suspicious.
Ultimately, police flew over the house in an RCMP aircraft and used a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera to conduct a "structure profile" of the property.
The FLIR camera takes an image of the thermal energy or heat radiating from the outside of a building. It can detect heat sources within a home depending on the location of the source and how well the house is insulated, but it cannot identify the exact nature of the source or see inside the building.
Essentially, the camera is a device that photographs heat instead of light.
The use of FLIR technology assumes that while heat usually emanates evenly from a building, the halide lights used in marijuana grow operations give off an unusual amount of heat.
In this case, the camera indicated heat output patterns that could indicate a marijuana growing operation. This information was used to obtain a warrant to search Tessling's home, where police found a quantity of marijuana, scales and freezer bags.
When the trafficking and other charges got to trial, Tessling brought an application to exclude from evidence all items found in the house on the basis that the FLIR search was unlawful and violated his Charter privacy rights.
Section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states, "Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure."
At trial, Mr. Justice Gordon Thomson stated, "It is well recognized that the home should be granted the highest degree of protection from unwanted state intrusions."
Nevertheless, he found that the FLIR technology, if properly used in a valid search warrant, "does not constitute an unwarranted transgression or intrusion into the reasonably expected privacy of an occupant of a residence."
Tessling was convicted and appealed on the basis that the search was illegal. In the Ontario Court of Appeal, Madame Justice Rosalie Abella tossed out the search warrant and the convictions, stating that the FLIR technology constituted an unreasonable intrusion into Tessling's privacy for two reasons.
First, she said, the camera revealed information about activities that are carried on in the privacy of the home. Second, she ruled that the FLIR technology discloses more information about what goes on inside a house than is detectable by normal observation or surveillance.
According to the Ontario Court of Appeal, most members of the public have a reasonable expectation of privacy that would prohibit the government from using infrared aerial cameras to measure the heat coming from activities inside private homes as a way of trying to figure out what is going on inside.
In the United States, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution provides citizens the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures."
In 1991, U.S. federal agents used infrared technology to scan the house of Danny Kyllo in Florence, Oregon. Based partly on the thermal images, the agents obtained a search warrant and soon found a marijuana growing operation with more than 100 plants.
Ten years later, the case finally wound up in the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-4 decision, the court found that the use of FLIR technology without a search warrant was an unreasonable search without a warrant. It struck out the evidence obtained by the thermal images and the subsequent search warrant.
As many as 500 Canadian cases now before the courts could be affected by the Tessling decision. The federal Crown attorney is seeking leave to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. Personally, I hope the Ottawa Supremes will reach the same conclusion as their counterparts in Washington and in the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Dakota Joseph Arts
American Indian Art
P.O. Box 981
Auberry, California 93602
KeNa Productions. For all your website needs. Emphasizing fast load times, usability, browser compatibility, standards compliance and high quality graphics.
The Whipping Post. Not for the politically correct. Riveting commentary to engage, enrage, enlighten and inflame.