http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/opinion/l20blow.html
Drug Prosecutions
To the Editor:
Op-Ed Columnist: Cocaine and White Teens (January 10, 2009)
In “Cocaine and White Teens” (column, Jan. 10), Charles M. Blow writes that white teenagers use more cocaine than black teenagers, and cites a ratio of 10 to 1 of white versus black teenagers entering drug treatment for crack and cocaine use.
A significant but missing statistic is white versus black teenagers entering the criminal justice system.
F.B.I. statistics for many years have shown more whites than blacks arrested for drugs, while more blacks than whites are incarcerated. We should not lose sight that our war on drugs has been a war on people of a certain color. Howard Josepher
New York, Jan. 16, 2009
The writer is president of Exponents, which helps people affected by drug addiction.
Here’s the original article.
Tags: Amnesty-International, civil rights, Drug War, freedom, human rights, liberty, Merida Initiative, obama, Plan Mexico, senator kerry, war on drugs, yes we can
Drug War Articles, Merida Initiative Articles | admin 01/21/2009 | 
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How Clean Is Mexico’s Operation Clean-Up?
Frontera NorteSur, News Report, Ricardo Ravelo, Posted: Jan 13, 2009
When Mexican President Felipe Calderon and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama met Jan. 12, one of the topics high on the agenda was Mexico´s drug war — and President Calderon’s Operation Clean-Up, the Mexican government’s declared campaign to cleanse federal law enforcement of corruption by organized crime.
The latest name to be associated with the probe is that of the late Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who served as head of the federal attorney general´s elite anti-organized crime squad, SIEDO, during the Fox administration. By most accounts, Santiago Vasconcelos was also the Bush administration´s man in Mexico. From the vantage point of the Potomac, he was viewed as an uncorruptable ally in a common war against drugs and vice.
But according to an account published in the Mexican press, Santiago Vasconcelos presided over a $35 million payment to SIEDO from the Beltran Leyva drug cartel in 2006 and 2007. The accusation was made in a legal declaration to the Office of the Federal Attorney General (PGR) by a protected witness called “Emiliano.” Read more »
January 12, 2009
Obama urged to speak up for murdered journalist in meeting with Mexican President Calderon
and to reject as an “impractical continuation of a failed policy” Bush’s Merida Initiative
(Washington, D.C.) Friends of Brad Will urged their members to contact President Elect Obama’s Transition Team today to urge the President Elect to bring up the case of murdered U.S. journalist Brad Will in his meeting with Mexican President Calderon in D.C. Monday afternoon.
The organization, which was established two and a half years ago when the journalist was killed by Mexican paramilitaries while covering a teachers’ strike, has called on Congress and the Bush State Department to aid in obtaining justice for their murdered friend. They described the Obama-Calderon meeting as “an important opportunity to move forward not only on Brad’s case but also on many Mexican political prisoners’ cases.”
They asked callers to Obama’s transition team to urge Obama to ask explicitly about Brad’s case and those of other innocent people arrested, raped or killed (in Atenco, Juarez, Chiapas, Oaxaca and elsewhere). Read more »
