While surfing the web today, I chanced across an old story from Westword Magazine. It was about a young woman that I not only had worked with, but whose case I testified at a few years ago.
Since then, I have also had a few problems with State Farm Insurance of my own. I can’t help but wonder if my testimony isn’t related to those, and a few other things that have happened.
In any case, read, and enjoy…
The Drug Enforcement Administration is in an optimistic mood. A new DEA report insists that the antidrug campaigns Washington has undertaken with Colombia and Mexico in recent years have dramatically slowed the flow of cocaine into the United States. The DEA’s principal piece of evidence is that average street prices for the drug have soared over the past twenty-one months from $96.61 per gram to $182.73, which suggests “that we are placing significant stress on the drug delivery system.” There’s just one problem with the DEA’s proclamation of success. We’ve heard it all before. Many, many times before.
For example, in November 2005, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asserted that a 19 percent increase in cocaine prices since February indicated a growing retail shortage, thus validating Washington’s multibillion dollar Plan Colombia, designed to stanch the torrent of drugs coming from the Andean region of South America. “These numbers confirm that the levels of interdiction, the levels of eradication, have reduced the availability of cocaine in the United States,” White House drug czar John P. Walters boasted. “The policy is working.”
And what was the sky-high street price of cocaine that justified such optimism? $170 per gram. Adjusted for inflation, that price was actually higher than the latest price spike to just under $183. Yet clearly that earlier alleged supply-side victory in the drug war was short lived. According to the DEA’s own statistics in the December 2008 report, cocaine prices had declined to a mere $96 per gram by January 2007.
The reality is that street prices for illegal drugs act like the famous observation about prices in the stock market: they will vary. Over the past fifteen years, the retail price of cocaine has moved in a range between roughly $90 and $200 per gram. The latest spike is nothing abnormal, just as the plunge in prices from November 2005 to January 2007 was not unusual. Indeed, if one examines price trends over a longer period, any cause for optimism evaporates. During the early 1980s cocaine sometimes sold for more than $500 per gram. Obviously, that did not herald a lasting victory in the drug war.
Moreover, if the DEA had issued its 2008 report just three months earlier, there would have been even less evidence of supposed progress. For the previous five quarters, the street price had hovered around $120. The agency is simply grasping at straws to “prove” that the nearly four-decades-old effort to shut off the supply of illegal drugs is finally working.
This article simply points out what I have been saying for years; If you are for the drug war, you are for making thugs into wealthy men.
Thieves at the public trough again.
SALIDA, Colo. – A Michigan man was fined $15,000 after being convicted of three charges related to killing a Colorado mountain goat without a license.
Burt Vincent, 60, of Jackson, Mich., also faces a potential lifetime suspension of his hunting and fishing privileges in Colorado, Michigan and 28 other states.
Vincent pleaded “no contest” in Chaffee County Court on Dec. 10 to illegal possession of a mountain goat, illegally killing a trophy animal in Colorado and hunting a mountain goat without a license.
Two others, Jack and Susan Derr of Florissant, Colo., also pleaded guilty to multiple misdemeanor charges related to Vincent’s case and other wildlife crimes discovered during the investigation. The Derrs were ordered to pay $10,000 to the Colorado Operation Game Thief Fund.
The convictions marked an end to a two-year investigation into multiple poaching incidents.
“This case demonstrates how effectively law enforcement professionals from multiple agencies work together,” said Shaun Deeney, an area manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) in Colorado Springs
Investigators in Colorado and Michigan began working on the case in 2006 after an informant said that Vincent was in possession of a mountain goat from Colorado. However, there was no record in Colorado showing that Vincent was ever issued a mountain goat hunting license.
Based on the original tip, an undercover officer contacted Vincent at his place of work in Michigan. Vincent told the undercover agent that he had killed a mountain goat, adding that he had also killed a bighorn ram and a bighorn ewe in Colorado over the past several years.
The undercover officer had hoped Vincent would talk about the mountain goat, but didn’t expect to hear about the two bighorn sheep.
“Bighorn sheep and mountain goats are majestic symbols of Colorado’s high country,” said Deeney. “Sheep and goat tags are among the most highly prized hunting licenses in Colorado. Every year, thousands of applicants vie for a just a handful of tags. Vincent and his codefendants literally cheated law-abiding hunters out of a chance for the hunt of a lifetime.”
MOUNTING EVIDENCE
Wildlife investigators followed a trail that led them Vincent’s hunting partner Jack Derr. DOW records showed that Derr bought a mountain goat license in 2006. The DOW license database also showed that Jack’s wife, Susan Derr, bought bighorn sheep licenses in 2000 and 2003. This matched Vincent’s claim that he killed a bighorn ram and ewe.
Armed with several key pieces of information, two DOW officers interviewed the Derrs at their home in Florissant, Colo., and executed a search warrant on the residence. Meanwhile, Vincent was questioned by Conservation Officers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and special investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Michigan.
In tape-recorded interviews, Susan Derr admitted that she let Vincent use her bighorn ram license in 2003 and her bighorn ewe license in 2000. She stated that she did not kill those animals but that Vincent did. Jack Derr also admitted that he gave Vincent his 2006 license to tag a mountain goat that Vincent killed.
During the investigation, Vincent admitted that his rifle was used to kill the mountain goat, but claimed Jack Derr did the shooting. He further claimed that Derr gave him the mountain goat to take back to Michigan because Derr didn’t want it.
“The officers who conducted this investigation should be complimented on their thoroughness,” said Deeney. “All of the officers involved acted professionally and courteously throughout the entire investigation despite accusations of impropriety by the defendants.”
In addition to the mountain goat violation, investigators also discovered a case involving an illegal elk killed by Vincent in 2005 in Archuleta County. Vincent was found guilty in that case last August. He was fined $2,800 for that crime.
Deeney expressed his gratitude to the investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and prosecutors from the district attorneys’ offices in Chaffee, Fremont, Teller, Archuleta, and Larimer counties for their help getting the convictions.
Colorado and Michigan are members of an Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, which includes 30 states that offer some of the very best hunting and fishing hunting and fishing opportunities in the country. The compact includes provisions that establish reciprocal license privilege suspension by member states. Anyone who loses hunting and fishing privileges in one state is also suspended in the others. Colorado was a charter state in 1991 along with Nevada and Oregon.
Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact Member States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
For more information about Division of Wildlife go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us.
HINSDALE COUNTY, Colo. – Small-scale electric solar power is providing the Colorado Division of Wildlife a unique tool for a variety of wildlife management tasks.
In southwest Colorado, two water aeration systems powered by photovoltaic panels are helping to keep trout alive at a reservoir. At other isolated locations, solar facilities are being used to operate well pumps to provide water for species of concern. By using photovoltaic solar panels the DOW can deliver power to remote areas where electricity is unavailable or very expensive.
At Road Canyon Reservoir in eastern Hinsdale County, two aeration systems powered by photovoltaic panels were installed in mid-November. The reservoir is quite shallow and can become stagnant after water stops flowing into the impoundment in the fall. When oxygen runs low, the fish in the reservoir die.
Since the 1960s the DOW has used an aeration machine powered from an electric line to stir up the water in the reservoir that’s located off U.S. Forest Service Road 520. But recently electricity costs spiked to $8,000 per year, so the DOW cast about for a less expensive solution.
Mineral County officials wanted to keep the aerator running because the reservoir is a popular spot for tourists. At the encouragement of the DOW, county officials applied for a “Fishing is Fun” grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The DOW contacted a North Dakota company, SolarBee International, which builds specialized solar pump equipment.
The equipment and installation cost $80,800. The grant from the federal government totaled $57,000, and Mineral County matched it with $23,800.
The two floating solar-powered machines can move 10,000 gallons of water per minute, explained Brent Woodward, district wildlife manager in the Creede area.
“Theses pumps do a much better job of aeration than the old pump and they don’t need power from the electric grid,” Woodward said.
The floating pumps, each powered by three photovoltaic panels, pull low-oxygen water from the bottom of the reservoir to mix with water at the surface that is high in oxygen. Each pump impacts an area of about 35 surface acres on the 160-acre reservoir. Because the water is pulled from the bottom there is no surface disturbance. The machines also are equipped with batteries that enable operations to continue for 72 hours without sunshine.
During winter, ice could form near the machines but it will be thin. Ice fishers are warned to stay well away from the floats. During the summer, boaters also are asked to stay at least 50 yards from the machines.
In three other remote areas in southwest Colorado where electricity is unavailable, solar-powered water pumps are pulling water from wells and helping with the effort to bolster the populations of Gunnison Sage-grouse. DOW biologists in Gunnison, San Miguel and Dolores counties developed these small well projects where natural sources of surface water are lacking. By putting water on the ground in sage grouse habitat, small wet meadows are formed.
For the hardy sage grouse, a little water goes a long way. While grouse spend much of their time in sagebrush, they need access to moist meadows that provide rich sources of fresh vegetation and insects. These meadows, even those small in size, are especially important to young birds because they must start eating within 18 hours of hatching.
The wet meadows also are utilized by a wide variety of other wildlife species, from big game to song birds to amphibians.
On Bureau of Land Management property in western San Miguel County, the DOW is working in cooperation with a local rancher to provide water to desert bighorn sheep. After a windmill pump fell into disrepair, the DOW shared costs with the rancher to install a solar-powered pump at the location.
“These photovoltaic systems are very helpful and low cost,” said Jim Garner, a wildlife conservation biologist from Montrose. “There’s no way we could afford to get regular sources of electricity to these sites.”
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NOTE TO EDITORS: Photographs of the solar installations can be downloaded from these links. Cutline information is below each link.
This floating, solar-power aerator is located at Road Canyon Reservoir in Hinsdale County. The photovoltaic panels provide electricity to the aerators which stir up the water, keeping it oxygenated for fish. These types of solar-power panels allow electricity to be delivered to remote locations. The Division of Wildlife uses solar power at remote locations throughout the state to provide water to wildlife. This photo was taken in December 2008.
http://wildlife.state.co.us/apps/ImageDB/ImageDownload.aspx?ImageId=24373&ImageSize=Print&ImageType=jpg
This photovoltaic solar panel is located at the Dry Creek Basin State Wildlife Area in western Colorado. The panel supplies electricity to a well pump that enables Colorado Division of Wildlife to provide water in this remote area to help sustain the Gunnison Sage-grouse. This photo was taken in December 2008.
For more information about Division of Wildlife go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us.
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