Thoughts on the Open Letter by El Diario of Juárez to Narco-Traffickers

Not being a narco-trafficker, the recent open letter from the Diario de Juárez wasn’t addressed to me. Still, as a colleague in journalism who has long reported on the drug war, I would like to offer some thoughts, both for the editors that wrote it, and the rest of our colleagues in the media professions and especially for the general public.

Narco News today translates El Diario’s open letter, titled, “What Do You Want from Us?” which is addressed “To the leaders of the different organizations that are fighting for control of Ciudad Juarez.” It comes from a newspaper that has already lost two reporters to assassination and that lives under daily and nightly fear. The first human reactions to such a situation are sympathy and empathy. But in this case, as with most tragedies, caring is not enough.

narcosphere.narconews.com

Over the past four decades, Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin has created more than 200 psychedelic drug compounds, many involving MDMA—better known by its street name, ecstasy. The Northern California–bred scientist is the subject of a new documentary, Dirty Pictures—so named for the sketches of chemical compounds on the vials in Shulgin’s lab—though he is hardly a hedonist. Although the gray-bearded, tremulous-voiced Shulgin looks every bit the wizardly counter-cultural alchemist, the film depicts him as a serious researcher intent on expanding the frontiers of the mind; to him, psychoactive drugs are a gateway to true self-understanding and a potential salve for depression.

psychointegrator.com

There are any number of wives who believe that fishing and mental illness go hand in hand, and now it turns out that, in a manner of speaking, they are right. Howard Loeb, senior aquatic biologist at the New York State Conservation Department Fish Laboratory in Livingston Manor, is feeding fish LSD-25 and other hallucinogenic drugs ordinarily used in treatment of the mentally disturbed, and if the experiments work out successfully—which they show promise of doing—their application will have a wholly revolutionary effect not only on angling but on commercial fishing as well.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com

The bird said ‘Run, run or the cat will get you’ when it spotted police officers, tipping off the gang who fled their Barranquilla warehouse containing £100,000 of cocaine.

metro.co.uk

Drug lords have forced a Mexican newspaper to pull back from its hard-hitting coverage of the country's vicious gang warfare after apparently killing one of its journalists.

Luis Carlos Santiago, 21, was shot dead last week while sitting in a parked car (above) in Ciudad Juarez. He had been working as a trainee photographer for El Diario, a newspaper that has built a reputation for its in-depth reporting of the drug-related violence that has claimed the lives of more than 2,000 people in Juarez so far this year.

thefirstpost.co.uk

Es ist ein Triumph der Gewalt und eine Niederlage des Rechtsstaats: Eine mexikanische Tageszeitung hat die Drogenkartelle um klare Anweisungen gebeten, was veröffentlicht werden soll und was nicht. Zuvor waren Journalisten erschossen worden.

Ciudad Juárez - Die führende Tageszeitung in Mexikos Drogenhochburg Ciudad Juárez hat an die rivalisierenden Rauschgiftkartelle appelliert, ihre Gewalttaten gegen Journalisten des Blattes einzustellen. "Wir wollen, dass Sie uns erklären, was Sie von uns wollen - was wir veröffentlichen sollen und was wir nicht mehr veröffentlichen sollen", wandte sich das "Diario de Juárez" in einem am Sonntag veröffentlichten Leitartikel auf seiner Titelseite direkt an die Drogenbosse.

spiegel.de

bild.de

Showtime has ordered a seventh season of its hit series Weeds and a second season of its recently-launched series The Big C, both of which will air in 2011.

Weeds stars Emmy Award winner Mary-Louise Parker as a suburban widow who becomes a marijuana dealer to support her family. The series also stars stage veterans Justin Kirk and Hunter Parrish.

theatermania.com