The previous Mexican public safety minister — the man in command of Mexico’s drug struggle — heads to federal jail for taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, and extra.
Psychedelics
Massachusetts Psychedelic Legalization Initiative in Tight Race, Ballot Finds. A brand new ballot from UMass Amherst/WCBV TV has the Query 4 psychedelic legalization initiative as a toss-up, with 43 % of respondents in favor and 43 % opposed. That leaves 14 % undecided. If greater than half the undecided vote in favor of the measure, it might then have a successful margin.
However the ballot shouldn’t be excellent news for the marketing campaign. As a normal rule, initiative campaigns wish to go into the ultimate weeks earlier than an election with a ten % lead or better as a result of they worry they may lose some votes as opposition heats up and voters start to essentially focus on the poll.
“So this opens the door to a excessive chance of elevated bombardment by supporters of this alteration and opponents of this alteration within the remaining weeks,” mentioned Tatishe Nteta, director of the UMass Ballot.
Drug Coverage
Drug Overdose Deaths Drop by Report Quantity Over Previous 12 months, CDC Says. In line with provisional information launched by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) Wednesday, overdose deaths dropped by 15 % within the 12-month interval ending in Might 2024. That’s the greatest lower in overdose deaths ever recorded by the CDC.
Though overdose deaths are declining, the toll remains to be staggering. In line with the provisional information, 94,785 individuals died of drug overdoses in that 12-month interval, and the toll might rise to as excessive as 98,820 when the numbers are finalized. Even when that determine is reached, it might nonetheless mark a decline in overdoses of 12.7 %.
Pushed largely by the arrival of fentanyl in illicit drug markets within the US — but additionally by the prescription opioid epidemic within the 2000s and elevated cocaine and methamphetamine deaths — the annual overdose toll rose from about 5,000 a yr initially of the century to greater than 100,000 a yr lately.
Legislation Enforcement
Former Mexican Public Safety Minister Sentenced to 38 Years in US Jail for Taking Bribes from Sinaloa Cartel. Genaro Garcia Luna, the person who led Mexico’s descent into drug struggle violence as public safety minister below then-President Felipe Calderon, has been sentenced to greater than 38 years in federal jail after being convicted of accepting bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. Observers had lengthy famous that the Sinaloa Cartel appeared curiously unaffected by the Mexican authorities’s shift from turning a blind eye to the cartels to going after them with the armed forces. Now, one cause why is clear.
Garcia Luna was convicted of partaking in a legal drug enterprise, participating in varied conspiracies, and making false statements at his legal trial in February 2023. He has been behind bars within the US since 2019.
Prosecutors introduced compelling proof that he had taken tens of millions of {dollars} in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in trade for shielding its members from arrest and guaranteeing its cocaine shipments to the US had been unimpeded.
US District Court docket Decide Brian Cogan rejected prosecution requests for a life sentence, saying Garcia Luna ought to have “some mild on the finish of the tunnel,” however added that he lived “a double life” and that the hurt he had prompted outweighed the nice he had completed. He additionally denounced Garcia Luna’s character, saying, “Apart out of your very nice demeanor and your articulateness, you’ve gotten the identical sort of thuggishness as El Chapo, it simply manifests itself in a different way.”
Garcia Luna’s Sinaloa Cartel benefactor, El Chapo, is presently serving a life sentence in a US federal jail, whereas the cartel itself is violently splintering into factions linked to El Chapo and people linked to his erstwhile cartel co-leader and present US prisoner, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.
The entire legal exercise these males engaged in was made potential by the existence of the worldwide drug prohibition regime.
