The guidelines affect New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas.

The Justice Department made the argument before a judge after a coalition of gun store owners protested the two-month old rule. Federal lawyers argued before a judge that the restrictions curb the in-flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

From the AP:

It requires sellers in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to give the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives information about purchasers who buy two or more semi-automatic rifles greater than .22 caliber within five days.

Justice Department attorney Daniel Reiss said having a database of multiple purchasers gives ATF agents the power to trace gun sales within minutes, rather than a multi-day effort to trace the weapons back through the manufacturer, to the seller and eventually the buyer. He said two investigations have already been opened in the short time that the new reporting has been required.

“Without these reports it’s very difficult to identify these straw purchasers” who are buying the guns to pass on to the drug cartels, he said.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer questioned whether monitoring lawful gun sales is an appropriate way to stop the flow of guns to Mexican gangs. The requirement was imposed amid controversy over ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious which tried to track guns suspected of being bought by straw purchasers back to gun-smuggling ringleaders, who have long eluded law enforcement. But ATF agents lost track of 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns identified by Fast and Furious as possibly straw purchases.

This is the second time in recent weeks federal government pressed on New Mexico gun regulations.

Earlier, The New Mexico Independent reported on a letter sent to gun store owners by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The owners were instructed to withhold the sale of arms or munitions to anyone suspected of having an interaction or addiction to prescription drugs, including marijuana.

A “reliable source” told the agency that the woman, who has no criminal record in New Mexico, was concealing up to an ounce of heroin. The woman, who was not named since she was not arrested or charged with a crime, is asking Doña Ana County to pay the bill.

Texas Rep. Doug Miller (R-New Braunfels) introduced a bill early this month that would amend the state’s penal and family codes, making it a state felony offense for a woman to ingest a controlled substance while pregnant, as well as a state felony offense for another person to introduce a controlled substance into the pregnant woman’s body.

Under Texas’ criminal code, state jail felonies are punishable by 180 days to two years in a state jail facility and a maximum fine of $10,000.

Additionally, those who violate the law could be subject to a lawsuit that would affect the “parent-child relationship,” and could result in the removal of the baby from the parent.

“I am interested in providing additional safety and protection for our next generation, and it must happen now,” said Miller in an e-mail to The American Independent. “The Texas Legislature can no longer sit idly by while its next generation is born addicted to illegal drugs, born with physical and mental abnormalities, set up for educational hardship, and destined to be on Social Security benefits.  Parents must be responsible for their actions.”

Miller declined to answer further questions about the bill.

It’s hard to argue with the general belief that women should not be consuming harmful, illegal substances during their pregnancies, but some reproductive rights groups argue that imprisoning women caught with drugs in their system is the wrong way to address the problem.

“If the purpose is to try to improve maternal health and infant health, this is not the way to do it,” said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate for the Guttmacher Institute. “When you criminalize these behaviors, you’re ostracizing women further from health care, and they are less likely to seek treatment because they become more mistrustful.”

Nash said these laws have been introduced for years but never made it into law; she noted that Miller’s legislation is not new for Texas, just a new approach.

In other states, bills have been introduced this year to establish protocols to drug-screen pregnant women and to establish a standardized drug-treatment plan.

A bill was introduced in Indiana early this year to develop a study of unlawful ingestion of controlled substances by pregnant women.

And in New York, a bill has been introduced in the State Assembly that “Amends definition of maltreated or neglected child to include children of alcohol or drug abusers who are unable to provide minimal care to the child or where such parent used alcohol or drugs during pregnancy resulting in the drug dependency of the child at birth.”

In light of proposed legislation from this year and years past, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women on Tuesday released a compilation of public health statements on the prosecution and punishment of pregnant women (PDF).

From 2011 report from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

Seeking obstetric-gynecologic care should not expose a woman to criminal or civil penalties, such as incarceration, involuntary commitment, loss of custody of her children, or loss of housing. These approaches treat addiction as a moral failing. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing biological and behavioral disorder with genetic components. The disease of substance addiction is subject to medical and behavioral management in the same fashion as hypertension and diabetes.

From a 1990 report by the American Medical Association:

Pregnant women will be likely to avoid seeking prenatal or open medical care for fear that their physician’s knowledge of substance abuse or other potentially harmful behavior could result in a jail sentence rather than proper medical treatment.

From the National Perinatal Association (2010 statement)

The NPA opposes criminal prosecution of women solely because they are pregnant when they used alcohol or drugs . . . No evidence exists to show that [prosecution] either prevents prenatal drug or alcohol exposure or improves the infant’s health . . . It undermines the relationship between the health care providers and their patients and may keep women from giving accurate and essential information vital to their care.

According to the Guttmacher Institute (PDF), 15 states (including Texas) consider substance abuse during pregnancy to be child abuse under civil child-welfare statues, and three consider it grounds for civil commitment. Fourteen states require health care professionals to report suspected prenatal drug abuse. The institute notes that 19 states have either created or funded drug treatment programs specifically targeted toward pregnant women, and nine (including Texas) provide pregnant women with priority access to state-funded drug treatment programs. Four states prohibit publicly-funded drug treatment programs from discriminating against pregnant women: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

“If the idea is we want to help women be able to be part of society and to be able to have healthy babies and have access to medical care; when you put someone in jail, none of that happens,” Nash said. “It doesn’t help the baby’s health.”

Clinton’s comparison signaled to some that the U.S. wants to step up its involvement in Mexico, fighting the country’s drug cartels like it did in Colombia. But Mexican politicians aren’t so sure the comparison between the two fights is accurate, The Christian Science Monitor reported today:

Mexico’s security spokesman Alejandro Poire acknowledged that there are “some similarities” to Colombia. But Mr. Poire also said “there’s a big difference between what Colombia faced back then and what we are facing right now,” Euronews reported. He added that America’s demand for illegal drugs is the root cause of Mexico’s problems. He also pointed to US guns trafficked to Mexican drug cartels as a serious concern. [...]

Among Mexican officials, there are serious concerns that Clinton’s remarks may be trying to lay the foundation for a US intervention in Mexico not unlike Plan Colombia. Under that anti-drug program, the US sent military forces to work with the Colombian army to break up drug cartels. The program has cost the US $7 billion and is widely controversial in Latin America.

“Whoever thinks Colombia is a cure-all, and if the United States thinks it is necessary to apply the same model to us they applied to  Colombia, they are mistaken,” Mexican Senator Ricardo Monreal was quoted saying in the Guardian. He added that US assistance to Colombia had not brought an end to the drug trade there.

The Mexican politicians are right: Colombia still has a problem with the drug trade. But experts argue Colombia can be used as a guide for how to combat the drug trade by stemming the flow of money to drug lords.

In an interview last month, Bob Killebrew, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, called Colombia’s fight against the drug trade “the only success story in the Western Hemisphere right now.” He says the Colombian model, though imperfect, should be exported to other countries to show how to stop drug cartels by cutting off their resources and taking out leaders.

Video after the jump:

“There’s a difference between being an intelligence asset and somebody who cooperates,” said Rogers, a former FBI agent. “‘Asset is an overstatement … He is a public official who cooperates … He cooperates when he’s talked to — that’s different than an asset.”

Thanks to The American Prospect’s Adam Serwer for pointing me to Jeff’s piece.

Jim Risen has a story in The New York Times today about a Senate report about a military hit list of insurgents with ties to the drug trade. Buried within it is this bit about whose operations opium actually fund:

In a surprise, the Senate report reveals that the United States intelligence community believes that the Taliban has been getting less money from the drug trade than previous public studies have suggested. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency both estimate that the Taliban obtains about $70 million a year from drugs.

The Senate report found that American officials did not believe that Afghan drug money was fueling Al Qaeda, which instead relies on contributions from wealthy individuals and charities in Persian Gulf countries, as well as aid organizations working inside Afghanistan.

So the Taliban doesn’t get as much money from opium as previously believed — last year a U.N. official estimated the Taliban could clear half a billion dollars annually from drugs — and in any case, the opium revenue isn’t going to al-Qaeda, which is the whole reason we care about the Taliban in the first place. How much sense does it make to focus so many resources on an indirect target?

Recent congressional hearings have called attention to a growing culture of violence among Mexican drug cartels that has spilled into American cities near the border, like Phoenix, Ariz. and El Paso, Texas, while spreading fear as cartels increasingly reach into cities across the United States. U.S. lawmakers say much of the violence is in response to Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s serious attempt to reduce corruption and crack down on the cartels’ operations in Mexico.

That’s put real pressure on the United States, however, and the governors of Texas and Arizona have both asked the federal government to send National Guard troops to help secure the border. That, in turn, has raised fears among some immigrants’ rights groups that the National Guard would be used to crack down not on drugs or violence, but on illegal immigration.

The plan the White House will set forth today includes investing $700 million to collaborate with Mexican law enforcement, increasing the number of federal law enforcement agents along the border, and pledges to increase funds for drug treatment and alternative sentencing to reduce the demand for illegal drugs in the United States.

Notably, however, it does not include sending in the National Guard.

Update:  At a White House press briefing this morning, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, in response to questions about the Texas governor’s request to send National Guard troops, said she is still considering it, but needs more information about where and how they would be used.

As Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noted, “Mexican drug cartels aren’t just a threat in border states. They are now present in at least 230 U.S. cities, up from about 50 cities in 2006.”  In addition to corrupt law enforcement and an ineffective criminal justice system in Mexico, Durbin and others noted that the United States is, as Mexico’s President Calderón said last week, “the biggest consumer of drugs and the largest supplier of weapons in the world.”

According to the testimony of Terry Goddard, attorney general of Arizona, over 2.4 million pounds of marijuana is smuggled into the United States each year from Mexico; about 80 percent of the methamphetamine in the United States is produced in Mexico; and more than 90 percent of the cocaine in the United States comes through Mexico. Profits from those drug sales in the United States generate $15 – $25 billion per year, which gets smuggled back into Mexico in the form of cash or weapons.

While lawmakers intensively questioned witnesses about law enforcement tactics used by the various federal agencies involved — the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms — there was virtually no discussion whatsoever about how to reduce the demand for drugs in the United States, the possibility of legalizing some drugs like marijuana to reduce the money and violence associated with its trafficking, or whether stricter gun control laws in the United States would reduce the number and caliber of firearms purchased in the country and smuggled into Mexico.