Wednesday, January 20, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Protesters
clash with
occupiers
at refuge
BURNS (AP) — The
armed activists occupy-
ing a national wildlife ref-
uge in southeastern Oregon
clashed with environmental-
ists Saturday as a standoff
stretched into a 15th day.
A shouting match erupted
as members of the Center
for Biological Diversity, a
national nonprofit conserva-
tion group, tried to speak at a
news briefing, The Oregonian
reported. As the center’s
Executive Director Kieran
Suckling began speaking, the
armed activists screamed and
booed him.
“We’re here to speak up for
public land, which belongs to
the public,” Suckling said over
the yelling. “These people are
trying to take the land away.”
The armed group took over
the Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge to protest federal land
use policies. Authorities have
not tried to remove the group.
The shouting match hap-
pened just after occupiers
arrived for the briefing car-
rying a basket of security
cameras they said they had
removed at the request of resi-
dents, the newspaper reported.
“This in my opinion is
unreasonable search,” said
LaVoyce Sinicum, referencing
the Fourth Amendment. He
invited the FBI to pick up the
cameras, which he claimed it
had installed.
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Losing the war
Sean Penn’s foray into
Mexico to interview Joaquin
“El Chapo” Guzman has
stirred up some dormant
thoughts about the drug war,
and our involvement in it. I
have no idea what Penn was
trying to accomplish, but if
it led to Shorty getting the
bracelets (again), I’m glad
Penn was enough of a stooge
to pursue the interview. And
Mr. Penn might want to
think about that for a while
— that is, which side of the
drug war actually used him.
The world of narcotics
trafficking and enforcement
exists firmly in the darker
shades of gray.
I have kicked a lot of
doors. I have run dozens
of informants, either paid
mercenaries or stupid ama-
teurs working off a case.
I have held a dying drug
dealer, shot four times in
the chest, in my arms when
he gurgled his last breath. I
have followed loads of dope
by helicopter and airplane,
planted trackers on cars in
the middle of the night, and
I’ve stood in a tweaker’s
kitchen watching an infant
crawl across the floor, climb
up my leg, and hand me a
bag full of meth. I have been
the canary lowered into the
mine.
I offer that only as a way
to ensure you of my bona
fides, and perhaps earn your
ear when I tell you that we
are losing the war on drugs.
It isn’t a matter of tactics,
but an absence of long-
term strategy. It is a grossly
expensive war, returning
little on the investment,
and so we must change up
as adeptly as the cartels —
who control distribution
from Chiapas to Redmond
and beyond, and who have
an endless supply of mopes
willing to risk it all to sell to
your kids, your brother, or
your mom.
I don’t claim to have all
of the answers. I can only tell
you what I have experienced
deep inside the mine, and
hope that somehow we can
arrive at a better strategy. It
must begin with education.
We must educate, inform,
and win the minds of those
who would be users. And we
better be good at it, because
I have slapped the cuffs on
too many DARE graduates.
I am not calling for the
collective legalization of
meth, heroin, cocaine, or
any of the designer drugs.
The destruction they have
caused, like a giant cyanide
spill, demands meaningful
laws and their enforcement.
The only way to beat
Shorty is by killing his
market.
The proponents of mari-
juana are often disingenuous
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in one respect: they seem to
believe they are above the
discussion. That’s obtuse at
best, and chooses to ignore
the larger realities surround-
ing the trafficking of pot on
the grand scale.
If it’s smuggled Mexican
weed, they have no idea
how many heads have been
rolled across a dance floor in
a Culiacan disco in order to
get that weed into their pipe.
If it’s domestic or Canadian
weed, they don’t have any
idea who the grower might
be paying taxes to — think
outlaw motorcycle gangs,
or the Mexican Mafia — or
how many acres of National
Forest have been polluted
into a superfund site.
Farm to bong would be
fantastic if only it wasn’t
largely a rationalization. The
weed trade isn’t magically
free of the dangerous and
unsavory.
Still, we should legalize it
at the federal level, pushing
it firmly into the world of
regulation and heavy taxa-
tion. Use the windfall to pay
teachers something more
than pennies, fill potholes,
or fund field trips for kids to
the High Desert Museum.
I went into the job as a
true believer in smashing
the dope trade, and anyone
involved in it. I came out
of that long, dark tunnel
covered with physical and
emotional scars and believ-
ing firmly that there must a
better strategy. I have spent
millions of your dollars on
lengthy investigations, put
a lot of dope on the table,
arrested dozens of people,
only to see all of it replaced
in minutes, and to watch as
cartel lawyers fought every
aspect of the case — not
because they cared about the
mopes who got arrested —
but because they cared about
what they would learn in
the discovery process. And
nothing, at the street level,
changed.
The price for a pound of
meth or a piece of heroin
today is less than it was five
years ago, and that should
tell you something.
In the world of narcot-
ics, nothing is what it seems
— except the permanent
damage done to the people
who choose to use them, to
their families and friends,
and to their communities by
the people who sell them.
There is no mirage in that
respect; it’s exactly what it
looks like. Dig deep enough
into murders, child abuse,
kidnapping, extortion, and
almost every petty street
crime, and you are likely to
find a nexus to dope.
It’s the most selfish world
imaginable, and it reminds
me again of that dealer who
died in my arms, full of bul-
lets and choking on his own
blood in an empty parking
lot, and years later, in court,
when his mother approached
me, crying and holding his
portrait against her chest.
“Did he ask for me when
he died?” she said. And all I
could do was reach out, hug
her tightly, and quietly tell
her the truth: “No ma’am,
I’m sorry, he didn’t.”
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