Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrested two men on suspicion of running a marijuana growing operation in the San Gabriel Valley.

Deputies from the Department’s “Asian Gang Team” seized some 440 plants and 150 pounds of dried cannabis – along with weapons and hydroponic equipment – from a condo in San Gabriel and a commercial building in Alhambra.

The operation was being run by a man named Joseph Hsu, a suspected member of a Chinese gang known as Wah Ching. Of course, without marijuana prohibition, this operation doesn’t exist, and a violent Chinese street gang wouldn’t be reaping the profits.

Prohibition causes a restriction in supply, raising prices, making it more profitable for gangs to enter the market. And these gangs will often use any means necessary to protect those profits. Without the massive profits to draw them in, these gangs aren’t going to bother with marijuana growing.

True, they will move onto to other drugs and illicit products; that’s why prohibition never works, no matter what it is you ban. Banning something just makes sure that violent criminals can make a lot of money off of it.

But at least the Sheriff’s Department gets some publicity for making a slight dent in the cannabis black market; a dent that is already filled by someone else who was drawn in by prohibition profits. The police create their own job security.

Iran has hanged in prison 3 men convicted of drug smuggling in the northwestern city of Miyandoab, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

Iran has hanged in prison 3 men convicted of drug smuggling in the northwestern city of Miyandoab, the official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

No details were provided on the case.

Possession of more than 30 grams (just over an ounce) of narcotics is punishable by death in Iran, as are murder, rape, armed robbery and adultery.

The latest hangings bring to 113 the number of executions reported in Iran so far in 2011, according to an AFP count based on media and official reports.

Iranian media reported 179 hangings last year. But international human rights groups say the actual number was much higher, making the Islamic republic second only to China in the number of people it put to death.

Iran says the death penalty is essential to maintain law and order, and that it is applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings.

Europe's illicit drug market almost as large as U.S.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a U.N. anti-drug fund using assets seized from smugglers as interior ministers of major powers discussed international cocaine trafficking.

France said delegates at the talks in Paris supported the idea, but it was unclear how much of their drug seizure spoils governments might be asked to hand over.

"Combatting traffickers is not just about locking people up or seizing drugs. It's about attacking the primary cause of the traffic, and that's money," Sarkozy told ministers from Group of Eight countries as he launched the talks late on Monday.

"This fund would have a sole use, to support the capabilities of the most fragile states and the ones most affected by drug traffic," he said.

Delegates from 22 nations, including key drug producers like Colombia and Mexico and consumer nations such as the United States, Britain and Spain, discussed the growth of the drug trade in Europe and its push into West Africa.

Mexico and Central America are struggling to contain powerful drugs gangs which supply U.S. and European consumers with cocaine and other narcotics. Turf wars have killed 38,000 people in Mexico alone since late 2006.

The G8 said it would encourage the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to examine Sarkozy's proposal, noting the idea would be for countries to sign up to the fund on a voluntary basis.

The plan assumes rich nations would be willing to turn over the proceeds of drugs trafficking seizures to help pay for the fight against smuggling around the world, particularly in smaller countries with weak drug-fighting infrastructure.

Mabel Feliz Baez, head of Dominican Republic's National Drug Council, told Reuters TV she hoped the idea would be adopted.

"There needs to be political willpower and we need to follow that up," she said. "Otherwise it's just blah, blah, blah."

The drugs trade in Western Europe is now worth around $33 billion annually, close to the size of the $37 billion U.S. market, said Yuri Fedotov, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Especially worrying is the growth of West Africa as a transit point for European markets, Fedotov told the G8 meeting.

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant told the talks the costs to political stability were tangible and could get worse.

"The costs to the population are just as worrying as the traffickers give local accomplices a part of their merchandise and in doing so, they create a secondary market," he said.

Fedotov said Africa also risks becoming a larger consumer of cocaine for the same reason.

Despite increased drug seizures in South America, cocaine prices in Europe have not risen, suggesting traffickers have found new smuggling methods, according to the United Nations.

 

Iran threatened Saturday to allow the transit of illegal drugs through its territory to Europe

Iran threatened Saturday to allow the transit of illegal drugs through its territory to Europe if the West continues to criticize the Islamic nation for its practice of executing drug traffickers.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, said Iran was sacrificing blood in fighting drug trafficking and suggested it is unfair that it is then condemned by the West for executing smugglers.
"Westerners have to either be Iran's partner in the fight against drug traffickers or we must think otherwise and, for instance, allow the transit" of drugs across Iranian territory, Larijani said in a comment posted on the judiciary's website Saturday.
He said such a move would reduce the number of overall executions in Iran by 74 per cent, "but the way will be paved for the smuggling of narcotics to Europe."
U.N. officials have in the past warned that a "heroin tsunami" could hit Europe if the drug interdiction by Iran is weakened.
Iran says it has lost more than 3,700 troops in the fight against drug traffickers and 11,000 more have been injured to date since 1979, when the Islamic Revolution brought hard-line clerics to power.
"Unfortunately, Western countries not only provide no assistance to Iran in the fight against drug trafficking, they condemn us every year for punishing drug smugglers," Larijani said.
Iran has also called on Europe to offer financial support to its fight against trafficking.
Iran lies along a major drug route between Afghanistan — which accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium and heroin production — and Europe.
Iranian authorities have taken several steps to stop trafficking, including the building of dikes and trenches along large portions of its roughly 560-mile (900-kilometre) border with Afghanistan. Officials also seize more than three tons of narcotics each day, according to official statistics.

DRUG smuggler who attempted to bring £135,000 worth of cocaine through Gatwick Airport in bottles of liqueur

DRUG smuggler who attempted to bring £135,000 worth of cocaine through Gatwick Airport in bottles of liqueur has been jailed for more than six years.

Patrick Alexander, 47, from Brixton, was arrested by UK Border Agency officers at Gatwick Airport's South Terminal on February 23 after he arrived on a flight from St Lucia.

Inside his suitcase officers found two bottles of cream liqueurs. When the liquid inside the bottles was tested it was found to contain cocaine. Further tests revealed that there was approximately one kilo of cocaine dissolved in the liquid. The cocaine was 100 per cent pure, and had an estimated street value of £135,000.

Alexander admitted attempting to import a controlled drug during a hearing at Croydon Crown Court on Thursday, May 5, and was jailed for six-and-a-half years.


He was also given a two-year travel restriction order, which will prevent him from leaving the country.

UK Border Agency assistant director Peter Avery said: "The drugs discovered here were of an extremely high purity, and I have no doubt that had Alexander not been stopped they would've ended up being sold on the streets of London.