- Mar 2025
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later sold to out-of-state investors who rented them to anyone, including those involved in the production of methamphetamine. The neighborhood became contaminated with folk-meth production, and the city was dubbed the meth capital of Indiana.
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"opioid savings cards" to encourage patients to stay on the drug longer, which led to increased sales and profits. Purdue's sales reps were rewarded with bonuses for generating more prescriptions, and the company's executives had no incentive to question excessive sales.
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Jin's operation was based in China, and he used encrypted communications and cryptocurrencies to conduct his business. The investigation involved a team of agents from various federal agencies, including the DEA, FBI, and IRS, who worked together to gather evidence and track down Jin's associates in the US. One of these associates, Bin Wang, was arrested in 2017 and later sentenced to six years in prison. The team discovered that Jin was using a company in Tonga to ship his packages, and that he was offering a wide range of synthetic opioids, including carfentanil and U-48800. As the investigation continued, the team found that Jin's operation was linked to numerous death cases across the US, and that he was using his websites to sell drugs to customers in the US. The team eventually identified Jin as Fujing Zheng, a 35-year-old man from Shanghai, and his father, Guanghua Zheng, who was 62. The Zhengs were found to be operating a sophisticated online drug trafficking operation, using encrypted communications and cryptocurrencies to conduct their business. Despite the evidence gathered, the Chinese government refused to extradite the Zhengs to the US, citing a lack of evidence. The US government eventually indicted the Zhengs and shut down their websites, but they remain at large in China. The investigation highlighted the challenges of combating online drug trafficking, particularly when it involves foreign nationals and jurisdictions.
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Leroy Steele, a local drug dealer, who had been purchasing fentanyl from a Chinese chemical company using the alias Gordon Jin. Detectives found emails and phone records showing Steele's communication with Jin, who was advertising fentanyl and other illegal drugs on the open internet. The detectives ordered fentanyl from Jin as part of their investigation, which was delivered to them in the mail.
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Bryan Stalnaker, had worked for Steele and Robinson, performing odd jobs in exchange for dope and serving as a "tester" for new batches of fentanyl.
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Steele's involvement in the drug trade, including protein powder, baby formula, and powdered sugar used to mix with fentanyl, as well as a tub containing Magic Bullet blenders used to mix the drug.
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Magic Bullet was often found alongside other blenders and coffee grinders. The ease of access to the Magic Bullet, which was widely available at stores like Target and Walmart for $29.95, made it an attractive tool for amateur mixers.
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amateur mixing of fentanyl, often using household blenders like the Magic Bullet, was leading to inconsistent and often deadly doses, highlighting the "failure of content uniformity" on a national scale.
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n 2006, a fentanyl outbreak in the US was linked to a Mexican company called Distribuidora Talios, which was raided and shut down, ending the outbreak. The mastermind behind the operation, Ricardo Valdez-Torres, also known as El Cerebro, was arrested and revealed to have a background in business and a history of cooking fentanyl.
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deal to distribute fentanyl in China, which marked the beginning of China's ability to produce fentanyl.
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Valdez-Torres began producing fentanyl instead, creating a batch of ten kilos. He warned the cartel that the fentanyl needed to be diluted 50:1 to avoid killing users, but this warning was not heeded by street dealers. The fentanyl was sold as heroin, leading to many overdoses and deaths. The case was investigated by Ryan Rapaszky, who later saw the connection between this incident and the rising opioid epidemic in the US.
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unknown author named Siegfried, which describes a method for making fentanyl. This method, known as the Siegfried method, was later used by underground chemists to produce the drug. Fentanyl had benefits in medicine, but it also had a darker side, as it could be produced in a laboratory and replaced heroin, generating significant profits with minimal risk. The story then shifts to Dr. Michael Rhodes, a pain doctor in Tennessee, who was prescribing large amounts of OxyContin, a narcotic painkiller made by Purdue Pharma.
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Janssen's work on fentanyl and its analogues has had a significant impact on the medical field, but also raises concerns about the potential for abuse and addiction.
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Janssen's most notable invention was fentanyl, a powerful painkiller that changed surgical anesthesia. He also synthesized fentanyl analogues, which were molecularly similar to fentanyl but tweaked to be considered separate drugs.
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As a result, meth lab seizures decreased, and the cooks and workers from Apatzingán returned to Mexico. The Mexican traffickers then shifted their focus to producing meth in Mexico, taking advantage of the country's access to world chemical markets and compromised authorities. This led to the creation of the modern Mexican meth trade, with traffickers controlling production from raw materials to finished product.
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mporting ephedrine from Mexico, setting up labs in California and teaching others how to cook meth.
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Methamphetamine was initially produced by biker gangs in the US, but a new recipe using ephedrine was rediscovered in the 1980s. This method was easier and allowed for mass production, democratizing methamphetamine. Donald Stenger, a middle-class, organized individual, played a significant role in popularizing this method. He was eventually caught and died in 1988, but his innovation led to San Diego becoming a major meth production hub.
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Mexico's first traffickers were peasant farmers who grew drugs to make a living, but they eventually abandoned their traditional crops to focus on drug trafficking.
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realized that this was why overdoses were exploding in Chicago and other cities.
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The traffickers invested in the lab, but when they realized the profit potential of fentanyl, they killed Montoya, seized the lab, and took control. This marked a shift in drug trafficking, with the Sinaloa cartel discovering fentanyl and wanting more of it. The lab had enough ingredients to produce sixty kilos of fentanyl, which could lead to millions of street doses.
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The project, known as "the Project," is led by a chemist known as "the Brain," who is producing fentanyl, a painkiller that is far more powerful than morphine. The fentanyl is being manufactured in a lab in Mexico and is being sold on the streets of Chicago, leading to a rash of overdoses and deaths. Rapaszky's investigation leads him to uncover the truth about the Project and the Sinaloan traffickers' involvement in the fentanyl trade.
not produced medically, produced by and for black market
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turning conscientious objectors . . . into heroes of the antimilitarism movement could unwittingly perpetuate exactly the sort of masculinized privilege that nurtures militarism”
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archetype of the hypermasculine wheelchair-bound veteran dissenter.
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The figure of the grieving mother is a collectivity, with women characterized as part of a population of mothers with a collective experience of loss. Their dissent is practiced through invocations of a dead or imperiled soldier child, who signifies the claim to associative military masculinity. In contrast, the perspective of the returning veteran is grounded in individual experience. The film depicts women as caregivers, with their dissenting subjecthood derived from their relationships with men.
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this narrative of personal growth and triumph is complicated by the fact that Tomas's newfound power and authority are rooted in traditional masculine ideals. The film ultimately suggests that the military peace movement is shaped by masculinized privilege, which can be both productive and limiting.
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Cathy and wife Brie, are affected by his injury and how they perform a disruptive reiteration of military masculinity through their care for him.
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ement simultaneously targets and reinforces military authority, with masculine privilege producing hierarchies within experiences, truth claims, and dissenting subjecthoods. The article suggests that women's dissenting subjecthood is produced out of relational invocations of military masculinity, which limits their dissenting capacity and reinforces gendered relations of power.
Tags
- How do anti-war/anti-militarist groups challenge the gendered, racialised and sexualised norms of war/militarism? In what ways do they rely on and (re)produce them?
- why is resisting war and militarism so hard?
- Is it possible to be anti-militarist without being feminist and anti-racist?
Annotators
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the challenge is for men to become personally and collectively reflective about masculine privilege without taking the lead in activism or intellectual discussions. The goal is to achieve a mutually understood analysis and a truly respectful partnership between women and men in peace movements, with a feminist analysis of violence and war being understood and accepted.
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White Ribbon Campaign, which originated in Canada and has a branch in England, is a group of men committed to discussing and ending male violence against women. However, there is a lack of groups of men in the anti-militarist and peace movements who analyze and resist the deformation of manhood by militarization. For war to end, men need to become self-aware and refuse the violence expected of them, and the association of masculinity with militarism. Some men, such as those in the Turkish conscientious objectors movement and South Korean anti-militarist men, are starting to listen to feminist ideas and take on board their perspectives.
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men's fear of being feminized and their investment in patriarchal privilege can inhibit anti-patriarchal thinking and profeminist activism, and that collective action and support are necessary for creating change.
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hat governments cannot militarize without making women complicit, that wars rely on specific forms of masculinity, and that grappling with the militarization of women and men must be done together.
Tags
- why is resisting war and militarism so hard?
- How do anti-war/anti-militarist groups challenge the gendered, racialised and sexualised norms of war/militarism? In what ways do they rely on and (re)produce them?
- Is it possible to be anti-militarist without being feminist and anti-racist?
Annotators
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The party used stereotypes of Muslim men as rapists and Hindu goddesses to mobilize women's support, while also enforcing control over female sexuality and personhood.
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Feminist anti-nuclear activism is distinct from women's anti-nuclear activism, as it explicitly challenges women's subordination to men
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No Pride in War (NPIW) challenged the involvement of BAE Systems and the Red Arrows in Pride marches, accusing them of "pinkwashing" and glossing over militarized violence by focusing on LGBT inclusion.
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Sisters, formed an all-women and non-binary anti-militarist group to highlight the gendered politics of the arms trade and build solidarity with Syrian women affected by conflict.
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British anti-militarism, feminist and queer politics are often marginalized or separated from anti-militarist concerns, with many activists failing to recognize the importance of challenging patriarchal and heterosexist norms within their own movements.
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opposing militarism requires resisting patriarchy, heterosexism, and racialized configurations of queer inclusion/exclusion.
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- Feb 2025
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ohnson & Johnson eventually succeeded in getting the DEA to exempt thebaine, a key ingredient in OxyContin, from the 80-20 rule. This change allowed for a significant increase in the importation of CPS-thebaine from Australia, which contributed to the expansion of the opioid supply and the subsequent crisis.
thebaine and morphine needed to make oxycontin
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Reagan-era budgets proved so crippling for the FDA that the need for new personnel grew urgent
FDA neoliberal deregulation (and privitisation) and less funding, neoliberal government didn't care enough about public health, FDA revolving door with pharmaceutical companies
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these changes tend to be less severe if the initial investigator who approved the drug enjoyed long tenure at the FDA.
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The FDA's revolving door policy, where officials move from the agency to industry jobs, has created conflicts of interest. A study found that 11 of 16 FDA medical examiners who worked on 28 drug approvals and then left the agency for new jobs are now employed by or consult for the companies they recently regulated.
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allowing the pharmaceutical industry to wield significant control over political decisions that affect them.
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The expansion of the opioid supply was facilitated by the privatization of poppy fields. The US relies on imports of narcotic raw material, mainly from Turkey and India, to produce legal opioids. Johnson & Johnson, one of the certified importers, sought to change the regulations to allow for more imports from Australia, which would give them a competitive advantage. In the 1990s, Johnson & Johnson lobbied to undermine the "80-20" rule, which stipulated that at least 80% of the narcotic raw material imported into the US had to come from Turkey and India.
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OxyContin prescriptions for non-cancer related pain increased from 670,000 in 1997 to 6.2 million in 2002. However, it is essential to note that other opioid drugs, such as Vicodin and Percocet, were also widely prescribed and contributed to the crisis.
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failure to require Purdue to demonstrate the efficacy of opioids in treating chronic pain. The agency presumed that the drug was safe and effective based on prior approvals of oxycodone formulations, and the only question was whether the slow-release technology presented a competitive advantage over other similar drugs. The FDA's decision to approve OxyContin has been criticized for its lack of rigor and its failure to consider the long-term risks of opioid use.
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The FDA approved the slow-release technology based on this lone citation, which then provided the basis for Purdue's marketing claim that OxyContin presented less of a risk of cultivating opioid dependence.
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n the 1950s, the FDA partnered with the pharmaceutical industry, and drug makers benefited from the agency's regime of pre-market approval, which enhanced the prestige of their products. However, the industry also began to criticize the FDA for impinging on individual prerogatives and for being overly bureaucratic. In the 1960s, the Kefauver-Harris Amendments required drug manufacturers to satisfy a more stringent criterion of drug efficacy, leading to complaints from corporate executives about onerous bureaucratic procedures. The deregulation of the FDA gained momentum in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, who pursued a systematic approach to deregulation, including editorializing against the agency's authority and depriving it of funds. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, supported by President George H.W. Bush and Senator Orrin Hatch, allowed the pharmaceutical industry to pay fees for new drug applications, which went towards hiring new medical examiners and expediting the review process. This act was presented as a way to supply the beleaguered agency with new funds, but it also raised concerns about the industry's influence over the FDA. Under President Bill Clinton, the FDA continued to regard the pharmaceutical industry as "partners, not adversaries," leading to concerns about overprescribing and oversupply. The User Fee Act was initially seen as a success, but it eventually led to the approval of dangerous drugs, highlighting the dangers of the FDA's close relationship with the industry.
FDA close relationship with the pharmaceutical industry
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Neoliberalism, a conservative philosophy of governance, promoted deregulation and privatization, which enabled the pharmaceutical industry to expand its reach and influence. The FDA and other government agencies failed to regulate the industry effectively, allowing companies like Purdue Pharma to push their products aggressively and ignoring reports of abuse.
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library.scholarcy.com library.scholarcy.com
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Arthur Sackler became a publisher, starting a biweekly newspaper, the Medical Tribune, which eventually reached six hundred thousand physicians. He scoffed at suggestions that there was a conflict of interest between his roles as the head of a pharmaceutical-advertising company and the publisher of a periodical for doctors
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A man named Jeff, who struggled with addiction, shared his story of how he became hooked on opioids, including OxyContin, and eventually turned to heroin. He believes that his impulsive decision to try opioids as a teenager set him on a path of destruction. Jeff's story highlights the devastating consequences of the opioid epidemic, which has affected many lives.
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2008, Johnny Sullivan, a construction worker who had appeared in a Purdue promotional video, died after becoming addicted to the drug.
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The reformulation of OxyContin has been linked to an increase in heroin overdoses, as users have turned to cheaper and more accessible alternatives. Purdue Pharma has acknowledged the opioid crisis, but maintains that it has taken steps to address it, including sponsoring prescription monitoring programs and underwriting drug-abuse education. However, critics argue that the company's actions are insufficient and that it has not done enough to prevent the addiction and overdose associated with OxyContin.
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rug, hiring Rudolph Giuliani and Bernard Kerik to preempt any government crackdown
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1999 study found that 13% of patients who used OxyContin for headaches became addicted
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The drug's success can be attributed partly to the fact that many doctors wanted to believe in the therapeutic benefits of opioids.
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doctors and learned that the "biggest negative" that might prevent widespread use of the drug was ingrained concern regarding the "abuse potential" of opioids. However, some physicians began arguing that American medicine should reexamine this bias,
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This led to a shift in the culture of prescribing, which has been linked to the opioid crisis. Experts, including Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative, attribute the lion's share of the blame for the crisis to Purdue's actions. The Sacklers' wealth has been built on the backs of millions of people who have become addicted to OxyContin, and their philanthropic efforts have not made up for the harm caused by their business practices.
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After their stay in Britain, Dikko and his entourage sailed to Jeddah to perform the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. This trip was facilitated by the British government, which arranged for visas and entry permits. The pilgrimage was a private spiritual undertaking for Dikko, separate from his British adventures.
maybe his original goal- Britain a stopping point, have his power validated by the big imperial powers of the time
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These trips were facilitated by British colonizers, who saw them as part of a broader project of exhibiting British metropolitan civilization to allegedly impressionable African colonial subjects. Dikko, a wealthy Muslim king and colonial intermediary, paid for the trips but received permission and extensive logistical support from British colonial and metropolitan authorities.
shown what they want him to see
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teracted as the exhibition’s audience, mainly white Britons, walked by or stopped to gaze voyeuristically at them
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British newspapers and publications reported on Dikko's itinerary, often featuring photos of him and his entourage. The Illustrated London News published a picture of the male members of the group, while The Leeds Mercury displayed a photo of the two women in the delegation. Dikko and his group visited the Wembley British Empire Exhibition, where they saw a replica of the famous clay walls of Kano city, a gate fashioned in Nigeria, and a Nigerian Pavilion designed to resemble an emir's palace compound. The pavilion housed seventy African men, women, and children living in mud and straw huts, cooking their own meals, and conducting daily affairs. Dikko's presence at the exhibition was meant to authenticate the display, but he and his party became part of the exhibition, with some colonial correspondents referring to them as a "naturalistic attraction." Despite the racial undertones of the exhibition, Dikko seemed to enjoy the experience, marveling at the accurate depiction of a Hausa village setting. Dikko's visit to Britain was part of a larger practice of imperial courtship and patronage, where colonial intermediaries were cultivated and feted with contrived hospitality. The trips to Britain represented attempts to dazzle Dikko and his entourage, giving them a glimpse into the might and modernity of the empire. For Dikko, the trips carried prestige and enhanced his mediatory repertoire, enabling him to carve out a position of exclusive local knowledge and expertise on British metropolitan society among his peers and subjects.
British publicity and dazzling colonial subjects, theatrical displays
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He frequently used the trope of "magic" to describe the technologies and practices he did not fully understand. This trope was common in West African encounters with European colonizers, who were often seen as possessing mysterious powers and magical properties. Throughout his journal, Dikko emphasizes the importance of personal observation and experience. He often states that certain things are "difficult to describe" or "very difficult to describe," implying that his readers would need to see these wonders for themselves to fully appreciate them. This narrative strategy allowed Dikko to maintain his authority as a traveler and observer, while also encouraging his readers to imagine and fantasize about the wonders of Britain.
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his peers and subjects in Northern Nigeria a textual reference for navigating colonial culture in relation to their own natal Islamo-Hausa cultural norms.
not exclusively
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reaffirming British authority and Dikko's place in it.
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Private militias have provided criminal groups with greater mobility and fighting power, enabling them to engage in large-scale violence and seek control of criminal markets and territories beyond their home towns. The Mexican case highlights the need for democratic elites to reform authoritarian judicial and security institutions and to punish state agents who protected organized crime, in order to prevent the intertwining of democratic politics and the criminal underworld.
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efectors from the state judicial police
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The spread of subnational party alternation in states with drug trafficking routes and the proliferation of private militias led to the outbreak of intercartel wars. The development of private militias allowed cartels to contest their rivals' control over drug trafficking territories, leading to largescale criminal violence.
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the state judicial police in Mexico became the main repressive force against political dissidents, and also gained the upper hand in providing informal protection to drug cartels.
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In Mexico, the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy did not introduce major security-sector reforms, making the expansion of OCGs and the outbreak of large-scale criminal violence more probable. Subnational political alternation, particularly the variation in party alternation across subnational regions, can also contribute to the outbreak of criminal wars. The structure of informal networks of government protection for criminals forged during the authoritarian period is crucial in understanding this link.
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political alternation and the rotation of parties in state gubernatorial power undermined the informal networks of protection that had facilitated the cartels' operations under one-party rule. Without protection, cartels created their own private militias to defend themselves from rival groups and incoming opposition authorities.
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The Peña Nieto administration in Mexico proposed a government commission to spend $9 billion to combat drug violence in the most violent municipalities. The plan included longer school days, drug-addiction treatment programs, and public-works projects. The administration also focused on disrupting street gangs and criminals hired by cartels, rather than targeting top drug traffickers. However, despite initial gains, violence in rural Mexico surged again by 2017 due to Mexican cartels' increased involvement in the heroin market and the boom in methamphetamine production.
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orrupt agents have been found to be in the pay of cartels, waving tons of drugs and unauthorized immigrants across the border in return for millions of dollars. By 2018, it was estimated that corrupt agents made up around 1 to 5 percent of the CBP's 60,000-strong workforce.
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The US government provided funding and training to the Mexican government to fight the cartels, but the efforts were criticized for being ineffective and corrupt. The Mérida Initiative, a $2.3 billion plan, was launched to help Mexico confront threats to its national security, but much of the money went to private US contractor corporations. Corruption was a significant problem, with cartel gunmen killing over 2,200 policemen, 200 soldiers, and scores of federal officials. The cartels also infiltrated the government, with many officials being bribed or working directly for the cartels. The drug trade was linked to Mexico's incomplete transition to democracy, and the cartels took over essential local and regional administrative functions in many regions.
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The power dynamics shifted when the Colombians began paying Mexican traffickers in product rather than cash, allowing the Mexicans to invest in their own drugs. This led to Mexican gangs controlling 90% of the cocaine entering the United States, worth an estimated $70 billion a year.
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naloa Cartel, in particular, was successful in cooperating with the authorities, using informants to snitch on their enemies and leaking information to the US and Mexican agents.
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The Mexican and US authorities employed a "divide and conquer" strategy in their drug war efforts, which involved exploiting existing divisions between trafficking groups and creating new ones. This tactic led to catastrophic consequences, including the deaths of many people who got in the way or were killed as suspected informants.
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The Zetas' business model was based on imposing protection fees on businesses, including illegal activities such as drug trafficking, and licit businesses such as farming and shopkeeping. Those who refused to pay were killed or threatened with violence. This led to a culture of fear and intimidation, where businesses were forced to pay protection fees to avoid violence. The violence in Mexico was further fueled by the struggle between powerful groups for control of drug protection rackets and the pursuit of aggressive counternarcotics policing. This led to a cycle of violence, where struggles between rival groups sparked aggressive policing, and aggressive policing generated increasing struggles between rival groups.
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The sale of drugs was no longer limited to tourist areas and border cities, but spread to small towns and rural areas. This led to an increase in violence as local drug gangs fought over control of drug-selling areas.
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In Mexico, drug traffickers began selling drugs in bulk to the domestic market, leading to an increase in drug use and addiction.
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The violence in Mexico escalated due to several factors, including changes in American narcotics demands, the gun market, and criminal practices in Mexico. The availability of guns increased after the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons was lifted in 2004, leading to a global boom in gun manufacture and sales.
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New organizations emerged, armed with high-caliber weapons and prepacked political creeds and religious messages. The Familia Michoacana, a Sinaloa-linked group, tossed the heads of five Zetas into a Michoacán bar, declaring that they did not kill for money, but for divine justice. The conflict continued to spread throughout Mexico, with cartels fighting each other, and soldiers and police often caught in the middle.
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extort small-time smugglers, torturing and killing those who refused to pay.
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In the mid-1990s, the Gulf Cartel recruited members of the Mexican army special forces, known as the Zetas, leading to an increase in violence connected to the drug trade.
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"narco-democracy" was characterized by a gradual and uneven takeover of the state by drug traffickers, with the taxed becoming the tax collectors.
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In return, they received protection, with local cops blocking roads to allow cocaine-packed planes to land, federal cops lifting roadblocks to allow smugglers' trucks to pass through, and generals giving traffickers warnings about imminent raids.
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Traffickers also paid off members of leading political families, including President Salinas's brother Raúl.
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This "state capture" involved massive bribes, with estimates suggesting that traffickers spent nearly $500 million on corrupting state authorities per year.
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nearly 80 years, the Mexican authorities had protected drug traffickers from prosecution, but this arrangement began to break down in the 1990s. The increased profits from drug trafficking and the decline of state power put the narcos in control, and they took over running the country's drug protection rackets.
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elationship between drug traffickers and the Mexican authorities changed, with the power dynamics shifting in favor of the narcos.
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US government also responded by developing the "kingpin strategy," which aimed to "decapitate" the cartels by targeting their leaders for execution or capture.
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The Medellín cartel, formed by Lehder, the Ochoa brothers, and others, dominated the cocaine trade in the 1980s.
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The city's elite was forced to acknowledge the poor as equals, and the government recognized the need to treat the comuneros (community leaders) with respect and give them responsibilities and opportunities.
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The city's traditional industries declined, leading to economic dislocation among the poor. Many rural migrants settled on precarious slopes, leading to a high level of illegal housing settlements. The distribution of income in Medellín became increasingly unequal, with the wealthy elite holding a disproportionate amount of power and wealth.
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Pablo Escobar, became cultural icons, and their extravagant lifestyles fascinated many.
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new era of violence, conspicuous consumption, and social change emerged.
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Beauty queens who might have expected to make a brilliant match with a businessman or politician instead became molls and mistresses of drug lords.
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Beggars disappeared from the streets, and petty thievery declined as unemployed youth found work in the drug syndicate.
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misconception of the trade being run by a few massive, price-fixing 'cartels'.
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- Jan 2025
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A single kill by drone, for example, involves anywhere from 100 to 200 people
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The US government classifies any male eligible for combat as a potential enemy combatant, producing an embodied target of drone warfare.
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This gaze is also productive of turning people into objects, classifying, categorizing, and making them knowable as potential targets.
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The development of drone warfare is linked to a masculine framework of thinking, where the fleshy body is seen as getting in the way of war. Drones are presented as more reliable, intelligent, and vigilant than humans, and are seen as surpassing all human limitations. This masculine framework is evident in the way drones are represented as "just warriors," more humane in their precision and rational calculations. The relationship between masculinity and vision is also explored, where vision is seen as a way to signify a leap out of the marked body and into the conquering gaze from nowhere.
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threat that drone warfare involves hypermasculine killing machines (Masters 2005; Manjikian 2014) or that it entrenches the distinction between “our” space and “their” space (Gregory 2011), either of which would make violence easier
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Narrative offers a way to access bodily experiences, such as those of killing with or dying by drones,6 that are otherwise “impossible to reproduce” by those who live them (Wibben 2011, 44)
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This can involve studying the experiences of bodies coded as women, gay, or of color in flying drones.
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The experience of killing with drones can be both hypermasculine and emasculating, as operators are both invulnerable to physical harm and removed from the traditional masculine ideals of combat.
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The technostrategic discourses of drone warfare also distance the use of lethal technology from its deadly consequences, using rational language, euphemism, and abstraction. The altered spatiotemporal experience of drone warfare makes killing easier, but it also raises questions about the masculinity of drone operators. They are often depicted as being in the domestic sphere, juxtaposing their combat experience with running errands for their spouses or coaching a kids' soccer team.
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Drones are "genderqueer bodies" that do not track onto male-female, human-machine binaries.
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The experience of killing with drones deviates from two main axes that orient killing in war: the home-combat and distance-intimacy binaries.
Tags
- What does Daggett mean when she says drones ‘queer’ the experience of killing? Do you agree with this assertion?
- What does it mean to take seriously an embodied account of drone warfare? How is this feminist?
- To what ways does drone warfare disrupt conventional understandings of gender in war and militarism?
Annotators
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This was happening at a time when factory jobs were disappearing, and crack dealing looked like a better option.
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However, crack was addictive, and its impact on black neighborhoods was devastating.
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The abundance of raw cocaine from Colombia and the establishment of a link between Colombian cartels and inner-city crack merchants led to a devastating crack boom.
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The crack trade was a fast-paced business that required a 24/7 operation to make big money.
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The crack business model was different from powder cocaine sales, with customers needing constant access to dealers to buy small quantities of crack to get high for short periods.
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Crack was a global business, with cocaine coming from South America and being distributed through international networks. However, it was disproportionately low-income African Americans who sold and used crack at the local level. The drug was cheap, accessible, and offered a quick escape from the hardships of daily life.
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In the 1960s, the use of LSD was seen as a dichotomy between "straights" who did not use illegal drugs and those who got "stoned." However, this dichotomy made it harder to understand why certain substances like tobacco and alcohol were legal, while others like marijuana and LSD were illegal.
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He argued that the criminalization of marijuana use taught people disrespect for the law and the courts.
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making everyone who was stoned a part of an "illegal nation." Government authorities and parents saw illegal drug use as a dangerous practice, and many antidrug advocates made little effort to differentiate between illegal drugs. The criminalization of LSD made its use both more dangerous and more a clear sign of cultural rebellion. Just by using LSD or marijuana, an individual was declaring themselves an opponent of the status quo willing to go to jail in pursuit of a favorite form of altered consciousness.
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Many committed residents of districts like Haight-Ashbury, Chicago's Old Town, and Manhattan's Lower East Side helped keep the experiment up and running by selling illegal drugs, which gave them the economic means to pursue their new way of life.
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As a result, underground chemists and dealers took over, and the quality of LSD became unreliable. The US government also began to crack down on LSD use, holding congressional hearings and eventually making it illegal in 1966.
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he Diggers, a group of "Life-Actors," used LSD as a tool to "deschool" themselves and challenge traditional norms. They organized events like free food giveaways and used spectacle and pageantry to create a sense of community and possibility.
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Stephen Gaskin, LSD was a way to experience a lived sense of collective harmony, where individuals could transcend their individuality and become one with the universe. Others, like Allen Cohen, saw LSD as a "rocket engine" that could speed up social and creative change by opening up new pathways to mystical and creative insights.
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hey believed that LSD could be a tool for creating a communal youth consciousness and achieving a group identity. For some, dropping acid pointed them toward political struggle and social change.
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The use of LSD, in particular, was a "resource" that enabled people to reinterpret and mobilize cultural schemata in new ways.
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The marijuana trade expanded with new entrepreneurs, including border smugglers and those in hippie tourist resorts. These groups capitalized on their existing networks and skills, such as bilingual abilities and connections with mountain growers.
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Mexico became a popular destination for tourists, who would travel to the country to experiment with drugs, including marijuan
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The demand for marijuana was fueled by the counterculture movement, with young Americans seeking to rebel against traditional values.
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The media played a significant role in shaping public perception by emphasizing the dangers of drugs, affecting both public and medical views on LSD and its users. Psychedelic experts, who also used the drug, faced a dilemma between their professional roles and political pressures. By the late 1960s, the credibility of psychedelic psychiatry was questioned, and therapists were seen as unqualified to address LSD abuse.
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In the 1960s, a moral panic emerged as politicized youth were seen as promoting immorality, creating tension between generations.
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The media's portrayal of LSD as a symbol of an emergent youth counterculture further exacerbated fears about the drug's impact on society. Medical experts, such as Osmond and Hoffer, criticized the media's sensationalism
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public panic about acid made establishing research laboratories for testing underground drugs politically unpalatable.
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between Leary's promotion of LSD and his criminal behavior forged a strong illustrative bond between the two activities.
changed to be associated with crime
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omplained that Leary's promotion of LSD as a recreational drug undermined its potential clinical use.
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cooperate with ‘the perpetrator’ empathetically
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aming wartime rape in this way thus promises change and emancipation along a sure teleological trajectory, which meets the urgency that our newly acquired awareness of rape as ‘planned and orchestrated as a tactic of war’
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ape (or allegations of rape) became increasingly entangled in survival strategies, and in which women were encouraged to represent themselves as survivors of rape in order to establish themselves as legitimate recipients of humanitarian aid
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desires for an Other in need of being saved by ‘the fitter Self ’
link to reproduction of colonialism and victim mentality
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he methodology of unease led the authors to consider their own politico-ethical accountability to those who have been raped and those who have raped.
link to discourse analysis
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"victim-appropriation" to access donor funding, which led to women representing themselves as rape survivors to receive aid.
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The researchers found that the soldiers' accounts of rape did not fit with the dominant "Rape as a Weapon of War" frame, and instead, they spoke about rationales for rape that did not coincide with strategic purposes.
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his discourse frames rape as a strategic and systematic tactic used to achieve military and political goals, rather than as a result of individual deviance or sexual desire.
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military is a key institution where boys and men learn to embody a particular form of masculinity that celebrates violence, order, and domination. This process involves the breaking down of the civilian identity and the building up of a macho soldier identity, which is associated with heterosexual masculinity. In contrast, women and femininity are stereotypically associated with peacefulness, life-giving, and a need for protection. This dichotomy renders women and girls vulnerable to rape in conflict and post-conflict settings. Rape is often used as a weapon of war to punish, humiliate, or torture women who are perceived as challenging traditional notions of femininity and masculinity. It is also used to destroy the fabric of society by targeting women who are seen as bearers of ethno-national identity. The rape of "enemy" women is a way to feminize and humiliate the enemy, and it is often used as a means to destroy the enemy's sense of masculinity and identity.
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sexual violence is framed in the global policy debate, with rape now understood as a strategy or tactic of war that can be prevented or limited.
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It also highlights the importance of linking research on MSV to broader conversations on rape culture and gender-based violence, as MSV has been largely left out of international discussions and academic work on sexual violence and rape culture.
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he analysis reveals that media coverage is dominated by five themes: military justice, institutional structure, culture, gender/gender integration, and change. Gender is a relatively minor focus throughout media coverage, with attention to court cases dominating the majority of the coverage.
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Institutional gaslighting includes political strategies to resist critiques of the institution or discredit evidence that undermines the authority or carefully crafted image of the institution.
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Military exceptionalism is shaped by ideals of "good militaries" and "good soldiers," which are constructed as necessarily white, masculine, exclusive, and reproduced through the regulation of sex and the exclusion of women and racialized groups.
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the book unite with a singular message of justified inaction, which helps answer the core question of how the public comes to normalize, accept, and diminish the problem of MSV.
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edia coverage of MSV is shaped by gender bias and "rape myths," which are prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists.
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United States, amphetamine consumption took off, with pharmaceutical companies manufacturing 3.5 billion tablets annually by the late 1950s.
new ways on ingesting the drugs through injection
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e US military continued to use amphetamines heavily, with the drug becoming standard issue during the Korean War.
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Germany did not experience the same post-war surge in stimulant use due to the dismantling of domestic production and tighter controls on Pervitin during the war.
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Pharmaceutical companies sold the drug, marketed as "wake-a-mine," to the public, leading to widespread use and addiction.
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The use of stimulants during World War II led to addiction problems among soldiers on all sides. In Japan, the problem was particularly severe, and the country experienced its first drug epidemic. Many soldiers and factory workers who had become hooked on the drug during the war continued to consume it into the postwar years.
left countries with high rates of addiction
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he Japanese imperial government also used methamphetamine to enhance the performance of its soldiers and pilots. The drug, known as Philopon, was distributed to pilots for long flights and to soldiers for combat.
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he British distributed 72 million standard-dose amphetamine tablets during the war, and the Americans used Benzedrine, a type of amphetamine, to help pilots stay awake during long flights.
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Even then, the drug continued to be dispensed on both the western and eastern fronts, with 10 million methamphetamine tablets sent to the eastern front in the first half of 1942 alone.
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use of Pervitin was instrumental in the success of the Blitzkrieg, allowing German troops to push ahead rapidly and catch their enemies off guard
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drug was often dispensed in the form of chocolate bars, known as Fliegerschokolade (flyer's chocolate) and Panzerschokolade (tanker's chocolate), and was taken by a large proportion of officers
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media portrayed Chinese and Korean individuals as suppliers of the drug, allowing the Japanese to cast themselves as victims of "pollution" by those they had wronged. This depiction implicitly absolved guilt for imperial opium operations on the Asian mainland. By 1954, 58.1% of suspects arrested for violating the Ban on Stimulant Drugs showed signs of hiropon addiction, and an estimated 1.5 million Japanese were stimulants users.
mass incarceration was lokey successful, Koreans specifically discriminated against
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and its production and consumption remained legal until the late 1940s.
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ver, Japan's defeat in 1945 led to the dismantling of its empire and the end of its drug economy.
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After Japan's defeat in World War II, the country experienced a methamphetamine epidemic, which was eventually resolved through public campaigns against stimulant drugs.
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participation in Pride marches blurs the lines between public and private spaces.
sexuality tied to gender-based categories so inclusion of sexuality feminises soldiers, challenges traditional liberal distinction between public and private. performance taken out context, homosocial institution- gay people can be disrupted
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patriarchal confusion to challenge and transform military cultures, and that looking for sites of patriarchal confusion can be a productive way to respond to the challenge of promoting diversity and inclusion in the military. The study suggests that patriarchal confusion can be exploited as a strategy for disrupting and challenging contemporary patriarchy, which has practical implications for feminist politics.
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intelligibility
being understood
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where gender fails, feminists can demonstrate the radically contingent nature of patriarchy and open up possibilities to exploit this failure and engender patriarchal confusion.
exploit the confusion it creates
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These arrests often involved Asian and African men selling to white girls, reflecting Britain's racial and colonial relationships. The interwar years saw a shift in drug use, from medical or iatrogenic addiction to hedonistic drug use.
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Aleister Crowley's network was the closest to the 1960s counterculture,
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During World War II, there was a significant increase in the number of Chinese sailors coming to Britain, many of whom were opium smokers. This led to concerns about the spread of opium smoking, and there were attempts to set up a clinic to treat Chinese sailors.
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concerned about the mixing of Chinese and native British populations, and the potential spread of opium smoking to the local population.
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The practice was tolerated by some London magistrates, who viewed it as a cultural tradition rather than a criminal activity.
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widespread practice among the Chinese population in Britain, particularly among seafarers.
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development of drug cultures, including bohemian groups that consumed cocaine and other drugs in nightclubs and private parties.
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The British System, which allowed doctors to prescribe heroin, morphine, and cocaine to addicts, was established in the 1920s, but it did not eliminate the drug trade.
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1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was adopted by consensus at a conference in Vienna in 1988. The Convention aimed to provide more effective weapons against the illicit drug trade, which had become a growing concern due to the influence of organized crime groups. The Convention is an instrument of international criminal law, designed to globally harmonize national criminal laws and enforcement actions to decrease illicit drug trafficking by criminalization and punishment.
response to violence of cartels, expanded to every stage of drugs market, legitimises the military to be used on drug traffickers.
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1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances expanded the scope of international drug control to include synthetic drugs
includes synthetics and natural psychedelics, recovering from the counter culture
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1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs marked a shift in the international community's approach to drug control, moving beyond simply regulating the production and trade of drugs to focus on individual drug users.
criminal groups of drug users and addicts in prison
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the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent transfer of the League's drug control bodies to the United States marked a shift in the balance of power, paving the way for the United States to play a crucial role in shaping the emerging post-war world order, including international drug control.
FBI leader pushing for better drug prohibition
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1990s and 2000s saw a shift towards a more nuanced approach to drug control, with a greater emphasis on harm reduction and public health.
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1980s, the international community continued to grapple with the issue of drug abuse and trafficking, leading to the formulation of the International Drug Abuse Control Strategy and the development of new treaties and soft law instruments.
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reflected the influence of Western manufacturing countries, which sought to protect their commercial interests. The 1972 Amending Protocol to the Single Convention strengthened the international drug control system, but maintained its prohibitive ethos and supply-side focus. The Protocol expanded provisions for treatment, rehabilitation, and prevention measures, but did not fundamentally change the Single Convention.
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focused on regulating the licit trade, which inevitably led to the development of an illegal market.
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1936 Trafficking Convention sought to strengthen the existing transnational legal framework, but its complexity and encroachment upon legal areas considered sovereign by many states meant it failed to win widespread acceptance.
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1931 Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs introduced a proscriptive manufacturing limitation system, where parties were required to provide estimates of national drug requirements to the Drug Supervisory Body (DSB).
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1925 International Opium Convention established a standardized import-export certification system to regulate drug movements between parties and included cannabis within a multilateral treaty for the first time.
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international drug control system began in 1909 with the Shanghai Opium Commission, which aimed to address the "opium problem." The commission's recommendations led to the first legally binding multilateral treaty in 1912, which restricted opium use to medical purposes.
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The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) focused on punishing users in the informal market, while largely ignoring the medical market. This led to a misreading of the situation, where authorities attributed the success of the medical market to the "good customers" rather than the more humane and effective policies. As a result, the medical market remained relatively invisible, and its lessons were not applied to future drug policy.
good customers not better policies recognised
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nhance the stigma of addiction and preserve his bureau's budget.
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rise of heroin use
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addiction as a moral failing rather than a disease. The law also led to the criminalization of drug use, with many people being arrested and imprisoned for drug-related offenses. The punitive approach to drug control was driven by a native-born Protestant desire to police and control non-white communities, and it was accompanied by public demonization of drug users and sellers.
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African Americans in the South,
racial prejudices
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new drug crises were already brewing in both licit and illicit markets by the 1950s.
because restriction didnt help that much
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divide was fueled by anxieties about race, class, and sexuality,
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esponse to the public health consequences of rising opioid and cocaine use in the late 19th century.
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The Act was intended to gather information
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Webb-Kenyon Act, which prohibited shipments of liquor to states that prohibited its sale. The prohibition movement gained strength, and in 1917, the House passed a Prohibition resolution, which eventually became part of the Constitution.
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The public and congressmen believed that narcotics, including opiates and cocaine, had no value except as medicine and were associated with foreigners or alien subgroups.
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n the early 20th century, the medical profession had a high rate of addiction, with around 2% of physicians being addicts.
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practical significance of the law was still debated among the groups affected, and there was no general agreement on what would be the desirable or actual enforcement of the law.
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