According to Winn’s letter, the Association will “continue to encourage all physicians to check the database prior to writing a prescription.”

As part of the state’s plan to curb the illicit distribution of prescription drugs, E-FORCSE allows state health care professionals to query the database for any indication that a patient is engaging in the practice of “doctor shopping” in order to accumulate prescription drugs. There is no requirement that doctors must query the database prior to writing a prescription.

“Sen. Fasano is extremely pleased at the proactive efforts made by the FOMA to educate the physicians who belong to the association,” says his chief legislative aide, Greg Giordano. Fasano says he hopes to work with the Association in the coming weeks in order to “help spread the word about the need to utilize the database.”

Though the drug monitoring database is meant as a way to thwart so-called “pill-mills” and doctor shoppers, some (including Fasano) are worried that pill mill operators might find a way around it. A recent surge in independent pharmacy applications could be indicative of just that.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration received 217 application for new pharmacies (not including chain pharmacies) from Jan. 1 to June 30, a big jump from 159 applications during the same time last year and a sign that pill mill operators who are no longer able to dispense could now be trying to apply as “independent pharmacies.” Fasano has pledged to file legislation, if needed, to correct any problems in Florida statute that may help address non-legitimate pharmacy applications.

According to new information released by the DEA, Florida has been the source of half of the entire nation’s new applications for small, independent pharmacy licenses in the past few months. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration received 217 application for new pharmacies (not including chain pharmacies) from Jan. 1 to June 30, a big jump from 159 applications during the same time last year. During the same period in 2009 the number was 127.

“Although population growth would account for some of the increase, it is hard to ignore the correlation between the rise in applications and the implementation (and impending implementation) of the doctor dispensing ban,” says Greg Giordano, chief legislative aide for state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, who championed the drug database long before its implementation.

Though he fully supports independent pharmacies, Fasano says he is concerned that pill mill operators who are no longer able to dispense may be the source of at least some of the new applications.

In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Florida’s former drug czar, Bruce Grant, remarked that pill mill operators aren’t likely to simply give up the lucrative pain pill business. “These folks are not just going to fold up their tents and go home,” he said. “They are going to figure out ways to continue to operate.”

Fasano will continue to monitor the trend into the upcoming legislative session and plans on filing legislation, if needed, to correct any problems in Florida statute that may help address non-legitimate pharmacy applications, says Giordano. The Department of Health has indicated that it is closely monitoring the applications and will provide guidance as needed.

Mexican commandos have discreetly traveled to the United States, assembled at designated areas and dispatched helicopter missions back across the border aimed at suspected drug traffickers. The Drug Enforcement Administration provides logistical support on the American side of the border, officials said, arranging staging areas and sharing intelligence that helps guide Mexico’s decisions about targets and tactics.

Officials said these so-called boomerang operations were intended to evade the surveillance — and corrupting influences — of the criminal organizations that closely monitor the movements of security forces inside Mexico. And they said the efforts were meant to provide settings with tight security for American and Mexican law enforcement officers to collaborate in their pursuit of criminals who operate on both sides of the border.

The article suggests that the operations are rare, and it’s not clear where along the border the operations took place. The U.S. has sent drones far into Mexican territory to gather intelligence on suspected drug traffickers.

The Michigan arrest seems to be a return to a tactic first used by the federal government shortly after California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use in 1996.

The news out of Washington, however, seems to be part of a larger trend of increasing legitimization of the medical marijuana industry even in the face of growing federal crackdowns. The bill is likely to pass the state Senate, which advanced a different version of it in March and, like the House, is Democrat-controlled. Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, however, has expressed reservations. “At this point, I have concerns about it,” she told the Seattle Times, though she didn’t clarify further.

The Times reports:

Police, municipal governments and patient advocates have pressed the Legislature to fix vague elements in the 1998 citizens initiative that legalized medical marijuana. In the absence of clarity, more than 100 dispensaries have opened statewide under questionable legal status, concerning police.

The resulting bill, SB 5073, is the biggest overhaul since 1998. During debate on the House floor Monday, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, recalled a relative whose end-of-life suffering was eased by medical marijuana. “We owe it to this state to be compassionate in these times,” she said.

Republicans in the legislature have lodged their opposition. However, the prospect of $100 million in annual tax revenue, as projected by the Washington Department of Revenue should dispensaries be responsible for sales tax at the same rate as other businesses, may be too good to pass up at a time when states across the country are suffering from severe budget shortfalls. Washington’s current deficit is projected to be around $5.1 billion.

The Times continues:

Medical-marijuana entrepreneurs, however, already are looking forward. The Department of Health has received 11 “letters of intent” from people interested in dispensary licenses, spokesman Donn Moyer said. The Department of Agriculture has received at least three letters inquiring about grower permits.

And medical-marijuana companies are rushing to incorporate with the secretary of state, seeking to beat the May 1 deadline by which future license-holders must be registered as an entity. At least two dozen nonprofit and for-profit groups have incorporated recently with “marijuana” or “cannabis” in their titles, including “Cannabis Oasis” and “Pappy’s Medical Marijuana LLC.”

“I’m nervously optimistic,” said Philip Dawdy, spokesman for the Washington Cannabis Association, a newly formed medical-marijuana trade group, which hired a lobbyist this year.

The official channels the new dispensaries are going through, along with language in the bill that gets very specific on issues like the ratio of residents in a community to the number of dispensaries allowed, point to the all-business approach that cannabis industry experts say is necessary for the future success of dispensaries. Yet as that corporatization of the cannabis industry has grown, so has the federal push against it. It’s now up to the federal government alone to resolve that tension.

The IRS is thought to have begun audits on at least 12 medical marijuana dispensaries in California under the determination that past business deductions are invalid because of a clause in the federal tax code prohibiting any business that traffics in Schedule I or II drugs from making business deductions on their tax returns. The move could bankrupt every dispensary that it targets. The first dispensary to receive a final audit decision from the IRS is the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana (MAMM) in Fairfax, Calif.

Lynette Shaw, founder and owner of MAMM, is hoping to strike back before the IRS can deliver any more “final determinations” to other dispensaries currently being audited. Shaw intends to file an appeal in U.S. Tax Court within the month. There is actually a precedent for just such a case, when in 2007, a San Francisco dispensary primarily catering to terminal AIDS patients got its payment cut down to just over 1 percent of what the IRS originally said it owed in back taxes.

Shaw, however, seems to almost hope that a tax judge rules against her. A successful appeal of such a ruling would guarantee that neither MAMM nor any other dispensary in California or any other state would have to worry about future IRS audits. The next step would be the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Shaw is prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Shaw says she hopes to do more than just override the tax code. She calls the IRS applying regulations meant for illicit drugs to something considered medication by state governments “an abrogation of states’ rights.” But she also intends to challenge the very classification of marijuana that has allowed the IRS to go after MAMM and other dispensaries.

“The Constitution says that all American laws shall be based upon a rational basis,” she says. “I’ve got a truckload of evidence to argue that this doesn’t pass the muster of rational basis.”

Marijuana joins heroin and ecstasy, among others, as a Schedule I drug on the Drug Enforcement Agency’s list of drug classifications. Cocaine, in contrast, is classified less harshly as a Schedule II drug. Shaw hopes that marijuana will be reclassified as Schedule III, next to ketamine and steroids, or even IV, like a slew of prescription drugs. The tax deduction disqualification applies only to Schedule I and II drugs.

Indeed, the federal criteria for Schedule I drugs seems not to describe marijuana on any count. The U.S. Code reads:

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.

(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.

(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

Drugs are supposed to meet all three criteria before being classified as Schedule I, and yet marijuana does have an accepted medical use in 15 states, plus Washington, D.C., and there is no evidence whatsoever that marijuana use, medical or otherwise, poses a safety risk, except for the threat of certain types of cancer that marijuana shares with tobacco.

Lynette Shaw hopes she can get a federal court to agree with that assessment; if a tax judge rules against her and no appellate court will see things her way, she and most everyone else in her situation will be out of business. It may prove quite a challenge, because drug scheduling affects more than just tax allowances; the potential impact of rescheduling on mandatory minimum sentences alone might keep judges from wanting to open that can of worms. But Shaw insists that she’s not asking for a lot. “This is a very conservative action,” she says. “We’re not trying to end the drug war. We just want reclassification.”

The Obama administration has been trying to determine how to follow up on the Bush-era Merida Initiative, a three-year program started in 2008 to provide $1.6 billion in equipment and training to governments in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

While drug cartel violence continues to rise, the Mexican government at times fails to act on intelligence from the U.S. — sometimes due to corruption, the Chicago Tribune reported. U.S. officials trust Mexican President Felipe Calderon, but are less sure of others in the Mexican government, Alonzo R. Pena, deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Tribune.

Still, Clinton’s statements affirmed the administration’s commitment to aiding Mexico in its fight against the drug cartels — the question is how. Clinton argued the U.S. should work with Mexico and Central American countries on a program like the one that helped Colombia’s government regain control from militants.

It’s a tricky balance to determine the right way forward, because the nationalistic Mexican government is wary of more active support from the U.S., experts told the Tribune:

Eric Olson, of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Center, said he senses from conversations with administration officials that “the administration still seems handcuffed by the lack of reliable partners at the operational level.”

Olson said that while he was reluctant to be alarmist, “I don’t think anybody thinks this has gotten to the bottom.”

Among the U.S. population, concern about violence in Mexico has so far largely focused on fear of spillover violence in the U.S. But putting up border fences and increasing patrol will not solve the drug cartel problem in Mexico, experts have said, and the U.S. has some responsibility because its citizens purchase many of the drugs that allow cartels to thrive.

Immigrants rights groups in the U.S., at least, should attempt to lean on the Mexican government to prevent atrocities like the mass murder of 72 would-be migrants in August, Hector Tobar argued in the Los Angeles Times today.

At least 400 mass kidnappings are carried out in Mexico each year, Tobar wrote, and immigrants rights groups should be protesting at Mexican consulates and fighting for more humanitarian aid:

Simply put: It’s wrong that people have to undertake the journey to the U.S. in the first place. People shouldn’t have to leave the land of their ancestors, their extended families, their barrios and their farms.

They leave because the promise of democracy in Mexico and Central America remains unfulfilled.

The Tamaulipas murders are really just the most sickening expression of a vast system of inequality and corruption that still defines life for millions of people.

Yesterday, The Washington Post came out with a figure that shows the scope of the drug enforcement problem. U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities only seize about 1 percent of cash from drug trafficking, despite increased efforts by both countries:

Since the two countries pledged to bolster joint operations in March 2009 and began searching more vehicles heading south, customs agents have seized record amounts of cash – not only in vehicles but also hidden in children’s toys, loaves of bread and body cavities.

But authorities are barely making a dent in the cartel profits. U.S. agents captured $85 million in illicit cash along the southwest border last year, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Mexican inspectors have seized $31 million in suspicious cash at all ports of entry into the country over the past three years, according to figures provided by the Mexican customs agency. In two years of undercover operations targeting Mexican cartels in the United States, the DEA seized $216 million, although it is unclear how much of that would have been smuggled south.

Cash smuggling is difficult to catch, and customs agents often face threats and attempts at corruption by drug cartels, the Post reported. Mexico has stepped up its customs efforts by increasing salaries and subjecting inspectors to lie-detector tests and monitoring by surveillance cameras. But drug cartels continue to drive out inspectors: The Post reports 30 agents resigned in a Mexican customs office after several co-workers were killed.

Stemming the flow of cash is vital to efforts by the U.S. and Mexico to take down drug cartels, Bob Killebrew, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told TWI in a recent interview. Drug cartels depend on cash from wholesale drug sales to gangs in the U.S. Without it, they become more desperate and branch out into money-making measures with a less visible paper trail, such as kidnapping, he says.

“We need to reduce the money going to the cartels,” said Killebrew, the author of a CNAS report on national security and criminal drug networks that will be released in September. “As they strain to make more money, they’re more visible to law enforcement and can be knocked off.”

The troops in California will be stationed across San Diego County to deter criminal activity along the border, the Los Angeles Times reported. They will not make arrests of illegal immigrants, instead acting as “a visible deterrent … and additional eyes and ears in the field,” a spokeswoman for the National Guard told the LA Times.

The Obama administration has made a concerted effort to show its commitment to border security, a prerequisite for Republican cooperation on comprehensive immigration reform. Last week, Congress passed a $600 million border security bill,  aimed in part at moving the conversation on immigration reform beyond the border. But so far Republicans are still arguing more needs to be done at the border before comprehensive immigration reform can go forward.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday deployment should not be used as an alternative to immigration reform:

“We must find a permanent solution to our broken immigration system,” he said.

“We need the federal government to step up with even more manpower and funding, and I will continue to push President Obama and Congress for action.”‘

Beyond comprehensive immigration reform, national security experts argue Congress should push for more funding for the Drug Enforcement Administration and other efforts to fight Mexican drug cartels. As Bob Killebrew, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told TWI: “We can react to crises with pinpricks, like sending more National Guard troops, but the real solutions are more complicated,” he said.

Although so far the U.S. side of the border has not seen an increase in violence due to cartels, the situation in Mexico is getting worse: 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderón took office three years ago. This is primarily due to turf wars between drug cartels, who also engage in kidnapping and human trafficking.

So far, this violence has not spilled over the border, but residents of border states fear it will. “If we don’t get control of it, you’ll see vigilantes in these states,” Don Elder, the mayor of Katy, Texas, told TWI. “We’ll see fighting in the U.S. on the street.”

Along with its funding for additional Border Patrol agents and unmanned drones, the border security bill includes funds specifically aimed at maintaining safety in the border region, with $30 million for law enforcement activities targeted at reducing the threat of violence. Obama also recently deployed an additional 1,200 National Guard troops along the border.

These are positive developments, but long-term work is also needed to remove the threat of spillover violence from Mexico, Bob Killebrew, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told TWI. “We can react to crises with pinpricks, like sending more National Guard troops, but the real solutions are more complicated,” he said.

Killebrew is the author of a CNAS report on national security and criminal drug networks that will be released in September. He said the administration has made the right moves for border safety so far by adding patrols and refocusing drug enforcement on prevention and treatment. The next steps should be to expand the Drug Enforcement Agency’s efforts at curbing Mexico’s drug cartels both within Mexico and in the U.S., where they sell drugs wholesale to American gangs, and to work with the Mexican government to fight cartels. “The focus of our war against these guys isn’t a war against drugs, it’s a war against the cartels,” Killebrew said.

The Daily Caller reported today that two former law enforcement officials had a similar take on border security:

In an interview with The Daily Caller, former Drug Enforcement Agency Task Force and Arizona State Narcotics Strike Force member Bill Richardson said he doubts Washington understands the scope of the problem. [...]

Former El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) director Phil Jordan told The Daily Caller he thinks Washington needs to make a concerted, full-scale effort to attack drug cartels.

“Our focus should not change from organized crime to going after illegal bus boys and maids,” Jordan said. “Yes, they are illegal, but the priority should be going after organized crimes.”

In other words, increasing border security is not as simple as ending illegal immigration. Immigrants rights advocates have attempted to disentangle the two issues, but to little avail: Republicans continue to call for increased border security before they will consider comprehensive immigration reform.

Hemp advocates (yes, there are hemp advocates out there) argue that the change would benefit the economy at a time when it could certainly use the boost.

“Hemp is a versatile, environmentally-friendly crop that has not been grown here for over 50 years because of a politicized interpretation of the nation’s drug laws by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),” Eric Steenstra, president of Vermont-based Vote Hemp, said in a statement. “Jobs would be created overnight, as there are numerous U.S. companies that now have no choice but to import hemp materials valued at $360 million in annual retail sales and growing.”

Any number of domestic businesses — from soap makers to auto suppliers — use industrial hemp in their products, but the hemp must be farmed overseas and imported. (Nearly every other industrialized country in the world already produces the crop.) The Frank-Paul bill, Steenstra said, “will return us to more rational times when the government regulated marijuana, but allowed farmers to continue raising industrial hemp just as they always had.”

The Obama administration has already shown some signs that it plans to move the country’s drug policy away from the “war on drugs” mentality that’s marked the last few decades. Support for the Frank/Paul bill would be another signal that it’s serious.

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