Though his fortune, estimated at $1 billion, has come with a trail of blood, he does not consider himself a violent man. “Look, all I do is defend myself, nothing more,” he told Mr. Penn. “But do I start trouble? Never.”

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/americas/el-chapo-mexican-drug-lord-interview-with-sean-penn.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

 

See toon at top...

Journalists have slammed the ethics behind actor Sean Penn's Rolling Stone magazine article about his interview with Mexican drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The Oscar-winning actor conducted an extensive sit-down interview with Guzman at his Mexican hideout, a meeting that authorities said played a role in the drug kingpin's arrest.

In the article, the actor and director wrote that he met Guzman deep in the Mexican jungle in October for a "seven-hour sit down" because he was "drawn to explore what may be inconsistent" with media and government portrayals of Guzman.

In a stunning admission of criminal enterprise, Penn wrote that Guzman told him over sips of tequila: "I supply more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world."

"An understanding was brokered with the subject that this piece would be submitted for the subject's approval before publication. The subject did not ask for any changes," Rolling Stone cautioned.Chief among the concerns of many journalists was the fact the story had been read and approved by Guzman before publication, a move that was highly irregular within the field.

Andrew Seaman, ethics chair at the Society of Professional Journalists, wrote in a blog post that giving Guzman editorial control of the story was ethically irresponsible.

"Allowing any source control over a story's content is inexcusable," he wrote.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-11/sean-penn's-rolling-stone-interview-guzman-inexcusable/7080476

 

Either Penn is not a journalist which is true (as far as I know) or Penn was working for the CIA which could be true. See toon at top...

 

I don’t think he means to cause this much trouble, but we keep an eye on him. He’s the reason we were able to find Osama,”

McDonough said the FBI, CIA and several other agencies keep around the clock surveillance on Sean Penn, in an attempt to locate whichever dodgy friends he is meeting up with.

“This photo right here shows Sean Penn smoking marijuana out of a Gatorade bottle withOsama Bin Laden in the back-traps of West Pakistan, only a few weeks before we peppered the international war criminal’s body with bullets and dumped it in the ocean,”

“Forget Zero Dark Thirty… The key to catching Osama was Sean Penn,”

Read more: http://www.betootaadvocate.com/headlines/white-house-releases-photos-of-sean-penn-smoking-marijuana-with-osama-bin-laden/

 

The satirical newspaper in Betoota does it again.... Funny, even if there was not grain of truth... See toon at top.

 

While on the run, Guzman met secretly with Penn at a jungle hideout - a move the government says was "essential" to his capture.

Penn published an article in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday in which he quotes Guzman boasting about his drug shipments and laundering money through major Mexican and foreign companies.

"It's a lie, absurd speculation from Mr Penn," Juan Pablo Badillo, one of a team of Guzman lawyers, told Reuters newsagency in an interview on Wednesday.

"In a way, yes, it does complicate it (his defence). Mr Penn should be called to testify to respond about the stupidities he has said," Badillo added.

He said that based on years of working for Guzman, he was certain he would not make such a self-incriminating statement.

"He (Guzman) could not have made these claims ... Mr Guzman is a very serious man, very intelligent.

"Where's the proof? Where's the audio?"

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/sean-penn-lied-about-el-chapo-trafficking-claim-20160113-gm5ek7.html#ixzz3x9iPabJI 
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook

Sean Penn has spoken out for the first time about his infamous interview with drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, claiming he had “failed”.

The actor expressed regret that his exclusive Rolling Stone interview with Guzmán had not achieved its true purpose – to start a conversation about the war on drugs.

The conversation that ensued ended up being mostly about the wisdom of the decision to let Guzmán, the most powerful drug trafficker in the world with the blood of thousands on his hands, have final approval over the profile before it was published.

Penn had met with the drug cartel kingpin for a Rolling Stone interview last October, and, on the same day the article was printed earlier this month, Guzmán was swiftly arrested.

“Let me be clear. My article has failed,” he told Charlie Rose on US TV.

“I have a terrible regret,” Penn told Rose. “I have a regret that the entire discussion about this article ignores its purpose, which was to contribute to this conversation on the war on drugs.”

He added: “There is this myth about the visit my colleagues and I made to El Chapo, that it was – as the attorney general of Mexico is quoted [as saying] – ‘essential’ to his capture. We had met with him many weeks earlier … on 2 October, in a place nowhere near where he was captured.”

When Penn’s 10,000-word piece was published in Rolling Stone last weekend, news coverage focused on Guzmán’s brazen admission of supplying “more heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana than anybody else in the world”, and on the ethical and legal questions of Penn’s interview. According to Penn, the coverage missed the point.

“We’re going to put all our focus, all our energy, all our billions of dollars on the ‘bad guy’, and what happens?” he said. “You get another death the next day, the same way.”

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jan/15/sean-penn-on-el-chapo-interview-i-have-a-terrible-regret

Guess what Mr Penn... Your phone would have been tapped, located and all e-communications with El Chapo recorded... The war on drugs does not need (want) a discussion. Those waging the war on drugs want to capture some dudes to make them look good and justify their employ... though it's a war they cannot win. People will make their own, new drug lords will take over and the quarter trillion dollar business will go from strength to strength...

 

 

Sean Penn is fighting. But not with his fists — repeat, not with his fists.

Last September, the two-time Oscar-winning actor, humanitarian and occasional journalist filed a $10 million complaint in New York State Supreme Court against Lee Daniels, the movie director and co-creator of the television hit “Empire,” for defamation and “wanton and reckless disregard of the truth.” This was after Mr. Daniels suggested in passing to The Hollywood Reporter that Mr. Penn had been physically abusive of his first wife, Madonna.

Because such rumors have existed since their turbulent four-year-marriage in the 1980s, one could be forgiven for wondering: Why challenge them now?

Through his lawyer, Mathew S. Rosengart, Mr. Penn declined to be interviewed. But Douglas Brinkley, the historian and a friend, thinks Mr. Penn, 55, has become more conscious of his legacy, which includes a charity to assist survivors of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and a women’s health clinic there.

“You start thinking about your mortality when you turn 50,” Mr. Brinkley said, adding that Mr. Penn doesn’t “want to go down in history as the guy who beat up Madonna.”

And the making of history, as we all know, has changed in the 30-odd years since the couple was, as quaintly reported by the weekly, then-print-only version of People, nicknamed S&M. Hints and allegations that may have once faded to mere footnotes in a biography can now be instantly retrieved, mashed together and Ping-Ponged around the Internet with the tap of a finger.

“There is no question this has been one of the pernicious effects of the information revolution,” said Allan Mayer, who heads the strategic communications division at 42West and does not represent Mr. Penn. A news release isn’t what it used to be, in other words. “If you want to be taken seriously, you have to take some legal action,” Mr. Mayer said.

 

 

Source=story-heading&module=c-column-middle-span-region&region=c-column-middle-span-region&WT.nav=c-column-middle-span-region&_r=0

 

The infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who was recaptured in January and is being kept under tight watch in a prison cell, is reading a Spanish-language translation of Pastor Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, according to federal officials.

Guzman has read the classic Don Quijote since he was brought back to the Altiplano prison west of Mexico City on Jan. 9, and has now started reading The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for? an official and a colleague told The Associated Press.

The book, by Pastor Warren of California's Saddleback church, offers readers a 40-day personal spiritual journey. "This book helps readers understand God's incredible plan for their lives. Warren enables them to see the big picture of what life is all about and begin to live the life God created them to live," according to the book's website.

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/drug-lord-el-chapo-guzman-reading-rick...

 

El Chapo of course means God himself in druglorderydoo... and we all know that god's plan is incredible, meaning not credible...

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 has become America's longest war. According to historian, Professor Alfred McCoy, the United States is on the brink of defeat because of a beautiful , pink flower, the opium poppy.

After billions of dollars worth of aid and military technology, Afghanistan has been transformed into the world's most powerful narco state.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/america's-opium-war-in-afghanistan/7282352

The cartel was buying gold in pawn shops, sending it to Florida to be melted down and sold. The money was then sneaked it out to Mexico with fake invoices, Bloomberg reports, quoting court files.

Sinaloa, previously headed by the notorious serial prison escapee Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, managed to launder at least $98 million this way.

A Florida company, allegedly Natalie Jewelry, would keep one percent commission and send the rest of the money to companies in Mexico.

The criminals forged invoices so that they would look as if a Mexican company had sold the gold to the company in Florida, which sent the laundered money from gold sales back to Mexico.

Natalie Jewelry came under suspicion after the US authorities spotted a big flow of gold coming through Miami, in a state that produces practically no jewelry.

The jewelry company had already pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money for a different Mexican drug dealer. The company’s owner Jed Ladin was sentenced to three years in prison, while his partner Natalie Ladin was released on supervised parole. They haven’t been charged with money laundering for Sinaloa cartel yet.

“If I had a lot of money to launder, I would choose gold. There really isn’t anything else like it out there,” John Cassara, a former US Treasury special agent who wrote a book about money laundering told the media. Once melted, the gold is extremely difficult to trace.

 

read more: https://www.rt.com/business/342041-el-chapo-guzman-melting-gold/

 

see toon at top.

 

Australia hopes to become the world's largest exporter of medical marijuana by helping domestic growers expand their business and allowing them to sell the herb overseas.

Australia agreed to allow exports of medicinal cannabis starting from February and immediately set the bar for local growers by aiming to become the world's largest exporter.

"This is actually a very important step for our domestic patients and our domestic supply," Health Minister Greg Hunt said Thursday, ABC Australia reports. "By knowing they have an Australian market and an international market, that improves the likelihood of growing and production in Australia."

Read more:

 

https://www.rt.com/news/414956-australia-top-world-exporter-marijuana/

 

Read from top

 

As you read this, the world’s most notorious drug dealer, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, is sitting uncomfortably in a 136-square-foot jail cell in lower Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.

 

But he nearly escaped justice. And it’s all Sean Penn’s fault.

Chapo had run the infamous Sinaloa cartel since the 1980s and was responsible for much of the cocaine, marijuana, meth and heroin flowing into the United States. Both American and Mexican law enforcement had attempted to arrest him, but he proved almost supernaturally slippery. He escaped from Mexican lockups twice and was a fugitive for decades, rarely sleeping in the same place twice.

On Oct. 2, 2015, Mexican marines were finally closing in on the drug lord. They had tracked him to a rugged hilltop compound in La Tuna. Just as the order was about to be given to move in, two people inexplicably arrived: Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo, a Mexican soap opera actress who had praised Chapo online. The two were there ostensibly to speak to Guzman about making a film of his life, but Penn later published an infamously softball interview with the kingpin in Rolling Stone.

Fearing the actors would be caught in the crossfire, commanders ordered the marines to stand down. The military waited for the celebrities to leave and, instead of going in on foot, chose to attack by helicopter. They lost the element of surprise, and El Chapo escaped again.

 

Read more:

https://nypost.com/2019/02/06/dea-bigwig-who-hunted-el-chapo-sean-penn-s...

 

 

Read from top.

 

Now, after the arrest of El Chapo, cocaine, marijuana, meth and heroin have stopped flowing into the United States.... JUST KIDDING! As well, during the 1980s. the US army personnel and "intelligence agencies" did their own import...

 

See also:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explai...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking

https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/gary-webb-dark-alliance_n_596174...

 

What is ice?

Crystal methamphetamine (‘ice’) is a stimulant drug, which means it speeds up the messages travelling between the brain and the body. It’s stronger, more addictive and therefore has more harmful side effects than the powder form of methamphetamine known as speed.1

Ice usually comes as small chunky clear crystals that look like ice. It can also come as white or brownish crystal-like powder with a strong smell and bitter taste.1

Other names

Crystal meth, shabu, crystal, glass, shard, P.1,2

How is it used?

Ice is generally smoked (feel the effect almost immediately) or injected (15 to 30 seconds to feel the effects). It is sometimes swallowed (15 to 20 minutes to feel the effects) or snorted (3 to 5 minutes to feel the effects).3

Other types of commonly used stimulants

• Amphetamines
• Betel nut
• Caffeine
• Cocaine
• Khat
• Mephedrone
• Nicotine
• Synthetic cathinones

Effects of ice

There is no safe level of drug use. Use of any drug always carries some risk. It’s important to be careful when taking any type of drug.

The effects of ice can last for up to 12 hours,2 but it might be hard to sleep for a few days after using the drug.

Ice affects everyone differently, but effects may include:

• feelings of pleasure and confidence
• increased alertness and energy
• repeating simple things like itching and scratching
• enlarged pupils and dry mouth
• teeth grinding and excessive sweating
• fast heart rate and breathing
• reduced appetite
• increased sex drive.1,3,4,5

If injecting drugs there is an increased risk of:

• tetanus
• infection
• vein damage.

If sharing needles there is an increased risk of:

• Hepatitis B
• Hepatitis C
• HIV and AIDS.1

Snorting ice can damage the nasal passage and cause nose bleeds.

Overdose

If you take a large amount or have a strong batch, you could overdose. Call an ambulance straight away by dialling triple zero (000) if you have any of these symptoms (ambulance officers don’t need to involve the police):

• racing heartbeat and chest pain
• breathing problems
• fits or uncontrolled jerking
• extreme agitation, confusion, clumsiness
• sudden, severe headache
• unconsciousness
• stroke, heart attack or death.

Read more:
https://adf.org.au/drug-facts/ice/


Read from top.
Note:  It is sometimes swallowed (15 to 20 minutes to feel the effects). This delay can give a false idea about the effect of the drug and some people might take another pill or two before the effect of the first one takes effect. This will of course lead to OVERDOSE, possibly generating death within the hour...