Mexicans dying every day by U.S Illegal guns.

In the absence of controls that has the U.S. government to curb the illegal traffic of arms that comes from that nation into Mexico, a PRI senator, Fernando Castro Trenti urged the Federal Executive to ask the U.S. authorities a vigorous fight against of this illegal activity.

Similarly, the Senate made a drive to the U.S. Congress and their state legislatures to legislate to combat the easy access in the existing legal procedures for the purchase and sale of firearms "through a point of agreement House of the Upper House, which urged the Mexican government to take in the matter, noted the PRI legislator.

Also the chairman of the Committee on Legislative Research, First in the Upper House, called on the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit, the Tax Administration Service, the Ministry of Public Administration and the Attorney General's Office to conduct all investigations needed to debug the customs of those elements infiltrated by organized crime, because not only is due to combat illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs but all those mechanisms that make it possible.

"It is undeniable that the use of firearms is an indispensable tool for organized crime and in particular for drug trafficking," with which "inflict fear and terror among our citizens, so it is imperative to focus its combat illegal trafficking Both arms and cartridges, to the serious situation of violence in Mexico today, "he said.

The chief of Mexico's war on drug gangs said Washington should concentrate on halting the flow of arms to Mexican drug cartels rather than haggle over how much aid to give Mexico's anti-smuggling operation.

Wow! So American politicians are worried about crime increasing along with Undocumented immigration from Mexico, and the Mexican government is concerned that loose U.S. gun laws are fueling violence and gun trafficking in their nation!

That is some sad irony, a tragic one to be sure.

The Reuters story continues:

Reacting to a vote by U.S. lawmakers to trim an aid package for the drug war, Mexico's deputy attorney general, Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said an alternative would be to keep the cash in the United States and use it to curb illegal arms trafficking across the border.

"Some of us were talking, remarking that, well, this (sum of money) is all very well, but why don't we tell the Americans they could spend it on their (border security forces) to stop the flow of arms to Mexico," Santiago Vasconcelos said in remarks on local radio distributed by his office on Saturday.

Indeed, Vasconcelos claims that 97 percent of the guns used by the drug gangs come illegaly from the U.S. That’s 97%!!!!!!!!!. Woooooow

One of the sad ironies we recall of going into Mexico (and Canada) as a tourist is the presence of signs that indicate that bringing firearms into those two nations is prohibited.

But obviously, the gun industry in the U.S. is "looking the other way" and making money off of the drug cartel battles in Mexico which also spill across the border into our nation. Mexico is pleading with us to stop guns from the U.S. from entering into their nation.

We support their call, and we double down by asking that Congress stop guns from so easily entering our own communities here in the United States.

Profit based on the shedding of blood is a profit worth living without.

The Mexican government understands that – and our elected officials should too.

This, As I explained, because more than half of illegal firearms that are in our country and the park or ammunition for use come from the U.S., not only are trafficked by gangs or organized crime, but by American citizens who also have large facilities to acquire them.

But no one seems interested on doing something about it. Many Mexican police officers and Innocent civilians has been killed everyday by powerful Illegals U.S. Guns.
Nationwide, more than 4,000 people have been killed last year, according to Mexican media reports, many of them law enforcement agents doing battle with powerful drug gangs.

Sinaloa, a fertile state on the Pacific coast, has long been at the center of Mexico's drug trade. It has become a hub of violence since President Felipe Calderon dispatched an army of soldiers and federal police to take on some of the biggest drug lords.

The alarming level of violence -- shootouts almost every day -- has sown panic and fear among a normally resilient citizenry.

Less than two months ending in 2008, violence reached a 99 policemen have been killed in Sinaloa.
The death toll has quadrupled with respect to 2007, when it counted in the archives journalistic killed 25 officers.

According to records of the debate, the corporation hardest hit by crime has been the Municipal Police, with 37 casualties, and leaving behind dozens of orphans and widows.

The fight against crime has also claimed the death of 24 ministerial elements, who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

Since the arrival of federal forces to the state, with the launching of joint operational Culiacan-Navolato last May, have also killed 14 Federal policemen .

Perversion Of Justice in America.

.

What can be said of a justice system that sentences a young mother of three to life in prison for a first-time and non-violent drug-related offense?

Seems like Obama needs a debate with Joe Biden by Proinmigrant

Sen. Joe Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's incoming chairman, and running know for Vice President wants to get tough with Mexico, calling it an "erstwhile democracy" with a "corrupt system" responsible for illegal immigration and drug problems in the U.S.

Biden, D-Del., was in Columbia months ago in his first post election trip to this first-in-the-South presidential primary state.
During a question-and-answer session before more than 230 Columbia Rotary Club members, Biden was asked about immigration problems.

Biden, who favors tightening the U.S.-Mexico border with fences, said immigration is driven by money in low-wage Mexico. On my opinion I will said driven by the unscrupulous NAFTA trade agreement who put Millions of Mexicans away from their Jobs, Their Lands, Their Families and their Country.

"Mexico is a country that is an erstwhile democracy where they have the greatest disparity of wealth," Biden said. "It is one of the wealthiest countries in the hemisphere and because of a corrupt system that exists in Mexico, there is the 1 percent of the population at the top, a very small middle class and the rest is abject poverty."

Unless the political dynamics change in Mexico and U.S. employers who hire illegal immigrants are punished, illegal immigration won't stop. "All the rest is window dressing," he said.

An even bigger problem are illegal drugs "coming up through corrupt Mexico," he said. "People are driving across that border with tons, tons — hear me — tons of everything from byproducts for methamphetamine, to cocaine, to heroine." I hear you clearly and loud Mr. Biden but seems to me like you listen to the dubious and Anti Immigrant Lou Dobbs at CNN where there is no other point of Entry of Drugs, of people; Shame on you Mr. Biden....There had been found many indoors marijuana plants farms within the States, many Labs producing methamphetamine and other drugs and for that source I shouldn't use Lou Dobbbs either CNN. You should check FBI website.

Covering a variety of topics, Biden kept most of the crowd in their seats for an hour — twice as long as scheduled.
"I warn all of you, all of you making more than a million bucks — I hope you all are — I'm taking away your tax cut," Biden said. "I'm not joking."
Sounds like Barack Obama will need to have a debate with Joe Biden, in addition to John McCain.

The Border Fence between Canada and U.S. A Painted line

By Keith B. Richburg Washington Post

DERBY LINE, Vt. -- The changes started coming slowly to this small town where the U.S. border with Canada runs across sleepy streets, through houses and families, and smack down the middle of the shared local library.

First was the white, painted lettering on the pavement on three little side streets -- "Canada" on one side, "U.S.A." on the other. Then came the white pylons denoting which side of the border was which. After that, signboards were erected on some streets, ordering drivers to turn back and use an officially designated entry point.
And along with the signposts came an influx of American Border Patrol agents, cruising through the town in their green-and-white sport-utility vehicles with sirens, chasing down cars and mopeds that ignored the posted warnings.

For longtime residents accustomed to a simpler life that flowed freely across a largely invisible border, the final shock -- and what made most people really take notice -- was a proposal by the border agents last year to erect fences on the small streets to officially barricade the United States from Canada, and neighbor from neighbor.

"They're stirring up a little hate and discontent with that deal," said Claire Currier, who grew up in this border area and works at Brown's Drug Store, which has operated on the same spot since 1884. "It's like putting up a barrier. We've all intermingled for years."

For the Department of Homeland Security, the changes are part of a gradual fortification of America's northern border that began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has accelerated in recent years.

The hardening of the northern frontier is unsettling to many in the small towns along the border. For as long as most of these people can remember, the line between the United States and Canada has been little more than a historic curiosity, rather than the hard and fast demarcation that is America's southern border.

Named the Secure Border Initiative, the project calls for more than tripling the number of agents along the northern border, adding boats and helicopters, and deploying sophisticated new technology including hundreds of millions of dollars in new communications equipment, radiation detectors and three different types of camera-mounted sensors in the uninhabited wooded areas.

"It was freer before, but we live in a different world now," said agent Mark Henry, the operations officer at the Border Patrol's Swanton Sector, headquartered in Swanton, Vt. The sector encompasses about 24,000 square miles, extending from the town of Champlain, in Upstate New York, on the east all the way across to the border with Maine. The sector now has 250 agents, up from 180 three years ago, and the number is scheduled to reach 300 next year.

In 2001, there were 340 agents along the entire border with Canada.

"We're more visible," Henry said. "We've gotten more aircraft, more vehicles, more boats, more ATVs -- pretty much everything, we've got more. And we've got more people to man them."

"9/11 changed everything," said Border Patrol agent Fernando Beltran, the operations chief for Swanton Sector's Newport station, which includes Derby Line. "This may have been Mayberry before, but it's not anymore."

Residents of this town of 776 understand the need for enhanced security. They also wistfully remember a time when neighbors easily crossed into another country to visit neighbors. People went to church and to school on either side of the line. Members of the same family lived on either side. Some streets, an old factory, the local library and opera house, and a few houses straddle the line.
I have one brother -- he's American. He was born on the U.S. side. I was born on the Canadian side," said Arthur Brewer, who is 76. "It was like there was no border -- people back and forth.

"Actually, we're like one people," he added, "like two brothers, one family."

Brewer lives in Canada but walks a few miles almost every day to Brown's Drug Store, saying: "I'm always over here, chatting with the girls. This is the best pharmacy in the world." Brewer said he doesn't have a passport but knows he will have to get one soon, because rule changes next year will require it to cross the border.
"We living in a different world now," Brewer added. "It's too bad."

Lifelong resident Karen Jenne, the Derby Line town clerk and treasurer, said: "I went to church on the other side. I taught Sunday school there. I live on one of those unguarded streets -- I used to cross the border all the time."

Jenne sits on a committee formed when the border agents proposed erecting fences on the three mostly residential streets where the United States and Canada touch. The committee has a dozen members -- five from here in Derby Line, five from Stanstead, the Canadian town on the other side, as well as Beltran, the Border Patrol agent in charge, and his Canadian counterpart
Townsfolk are concerned about practical issues with fences. The two sides share a water system, a sewer system and snow-removal services. For years, the fire departments of both sides have helped each other without regard to a border, and fences, they fear, might disrupt travel routes for emergency vehicles.

"It hasn't been an easy issue for either side to digest," Jenne said. "But we understand that Border Patrol and Homeland Security have a job to do. . . . The general public doesn't understand what's crossing that border, whether it's drugs or illegals."

The Border Patrol agents are sympathetic to the residents' concerns. "It's trying for the community," Beltran said.

"They understand that there's a change, but to them it's a way of life," Beltran said as he cruised through the town streets in an unmarked SUV. "They never considered themselves in danger. There's a sense of security here."

But for the border agents, Sept. 11 exposed the vulnerability of America's northern frontier and the ease with which anyone -- a terrorist with a portable nuclear device, for example -- could cross into the United States from Canada using one of the multitude of unguarded back roads or forest paths, or, in a border town such as Derby Line, simply by crossing the street.

Beltran said he instructs his agents to use discretion and "common sense." It goes like this: "If a kid [on the Canada side] throws a Frisbee over here, he can come and get it. But if he got the Frisbee and kept walking down to the Arby's to get a soda, we're going to stop you."

"We can't be wrong once," Beltran added. "If we're wrong once, that could be devastating to the whole country."

The new vigilance has led to more arrests of people crossing illegally and interdiction of contraband, mostly drugs. Border agents in this sector said that last year they arrested people from 117 different countries trying to enter the United States illegally. Among the drugs, agents say, they have confiscated large shipments of ecstasy pills being smuggled in, as well as shipments of extra-potent hydroponic marijuana.

The resources here are still a small fraction of what is deployed on the southern border with Mexico. But with the increased Border Patrol presence, the North is starting to look more like what border residents of Texas, California and Arizona have been seeing for years.

As the that presence has increased, so has the risk of violence. Agents in the Swanton sector recall three relatively recent incidents when agents fired their weapons -- most recently when an agent was being beaten by a man he stopped. The agent fell over a guardrail, lost his glasses and fired to chase the suspect away.

"There's a lot of violence on the southern border, so some of that's going to transfer up here," said Norman Lague, the patrol agent in charge of the Champlain station The northern border, some agents say, presents more complex problems. Besides the few border towns such as Derby Line and nearby Beebe Plain, much of the border consists of forests, woods, cornfields, lakes and rivers.

"You can see the challenges we're faced with patrolling," Lague said, as he steered his SUV through the trees down one of the now-barricaded forest roads. "To protect this area, it's enormous. It's huge. It's wide open. You've got to know what you're doing to be an agent up here."

Lague is a 13-year veteran agent, who spent most of his time patrolling the area around Derby Line, where he grew up, before spending five years on the border with Mexico. One difference, he said, is that "there's a delineated line with Mexico. . . . Here, if you were to walk around this town, you would probably walk into Canada and not even know it."

A large part of the job, Lague and the others said, is community outreach and educating border residents that the way of life they have known for generations has profoundly changed.

"We interact with the public," Lague said, "so they understand we're not doing this stuff because of them; we're doing it to protect them.

"The patrol work may vary from our southern border," Lague added, "but our strategy is the same throughout the nation."

Exposing the blind side of Lou Dobbs in the War on Drugs and Broken Borders.

I used to like CNN, in days gone by they actually reported news, now alas they have dropped all pretense of news and have become the mouthpiece of whoever pays most, and that seems to be whoever is in the White House!

The worst offender of this sleazy bunch has to be Lou Dobbs. Day after day we are introduced to new and inventive ways that the Undocumented are taking over the US, and undermining the very fabric of our society!

I used to think that Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck was an insufferable bore, but Lou has elevated this genre to a new level! If there was an Oscar for bigoted idiot reporting, I would cast my vote for Lou Dobbs


American authorities allege three of the accused travelled to New York from Canada to try to buy weapons, including missiles, launchers and AK-47s. The men are also charged with fundraising and money laundering through "front" charitable organizations and U.S. bank accounts.
Money to bribe a U.S. official - traced during an international anti-terrorism probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers - came from Montreal, the FBI said Thursday.

And two of the men arrested in the bribery case are former Montreal residents, adding more Canadian connections to a widening probe that has seen six other men from Canada arrested on charges of aiding a foreign terrorist organization, including money laundering, smuggling equipment and people, and trying to purchase anti-aircraft missiles, machine-guns and other military equipment.

Tens of thousands of dollars from Montreal were earmarked as a bribe for a U.S. federal agent who was posing as a corrupt immigration officer, pretending to allow Tamils to illegally enter the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleged in a sworn criminal complaint filed in a New York court.

The money's path was tracked as part of a large sting operation mounted by the FBI against alleged operatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly called the Tamil Tigers, an organization banned as a terrorist group on both sides of the border.

So far a total of 14 people have been taken into custody in the joint FBI-RCMP probe.

First, three Canadians of Tamil descent were accused in New York City on the weekend of trying to buy military hardware after driving across the Canada-U.S. border to meet with a man they believed was a black-market arms dealer, but who was a federal agent, and a Tamil man, who co-operated with U.S. authorities in their probe.

Three other Canadian residents were arrested this week by the RCMP in Ontario, including an engineering graduate from the University of Waterloo who is accused of arranging student couriers to smuggle equipment into Sri Lanka to further the Tamil Tiger's cause.

A third set of criminal complaints unsealed in a New York court, against three people arrested in Buffalo as part of the FBI's probe, now reveal further Canadian links.

Thileepan Patpanathan and his brother, Sujeepan Patpanathan, moved to Buffalo from Montreal about six months ago, said Rodney O. Personius, a Buffalo lawyer who represented one of the men in court.

They lived in Montreal for about three years, he said.

The Patpanathan brothers are charged along with Logeswaran Krishnamoorthy of knowingly conspiring to bribe a public official to illegally bring other people from Sri Lanka. They were caught in a sting operation using the same Tamil informant.

An agent was introduced to co-conspirators as an officer with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service who, for a fee, could help smuggle foreigners into the U.S. The man was, in fact, a federal agent and the meetings were recorded, the FBI said.

An offer of $6,000 US per person smuggled was offered, authorities alleged.

Exposing the blind side of Lou Dobbs in the War in Drugs, and Terror

Federal agents have closed down the first known smuggling tunnel under the U.S.-Canada border and arrested on drug charges the three Canadians who allegedly built it, law enforcement authorities said Thursday.
The DEA said the newly completed tunnel is the first discovered on the northern border. Several tunnels have been discovered along the Mexico border.
The 360-foot tunnel runs from under a Quonset hut on the Canadian side of the border to the living room of a house in Lynden, Washington, authorities said. The town is about 90 miles north of Seattle.
After they were tipped about the tunnel while it was under construction early this year, U.S. and Canadian agents jointly monitored the project until it was completed in early July.
Authorities said the tunnel -- reinforced by wooden beams and steel bars -- is between 3 feet (1 meter) and 10 feet deep and about 360 feet long.
Officials said one of the defendants owned the British Columbia land where the tunnel began, and all of the defendants had cared for the property on the U.S. side to make it appear occupied.
"The presence of a tunnel on our northern border threatens the security of countries, whether it is used to smuggle drugs, contraband or even terrorists," said U.S. Attorney John McKay.
The owner of the house on the U.S. side of the border has not been arrested, one official said.
The officials said they expected the three to be prosecuted in the United States rather than Canada because no illegal drugs were transported from the U.S. side of the border.

U.S. Ilegals guns killing thousands in Mexico.

High-powered automatic weapons and ammunition are flowing virtually unchecked from border states into Mexico, fueling a war among drug traffickers, the army and police that has left thousands dead, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

The munitions are hidden under trucks and stashed in the trunks of cars, or concealed under the clothing of people who brazenly walk across the international bridges. They are showing up in seizures and in the aftermath of shootouts between the cartels and police in Mexico.

"I don't have an analyst," he said. "I don't have an administrative assistant. I don't have an inspector. One major case can soak up my entire office. And we have major cases all the time."
Gun dealers also far outnumber agents. Here in tiny Sierra Vista, on a rise high enough to afford a view into Mexico, half a dozen dealers operate in stores along the town's main thoroughfare, and they also sell and trade arms out of their homes
Arizona is a wide-open state for gun lovers: A license lets you carry a gun openly on the street or concealed.

Saguaro Firearms is a small, crowded shop on East Fry Boulevard, a strip of fast-food restaurants and mini-malls. Across the street is Guns & Gear. Anyone with proper ID and a brief background check can leave with a firearm under his or her belt and reach Mexico in minutes.

The manager at Saguaro Firearms, who gave his name only as Greg, carries a "comfortable to shoot" silver Kahr P40 in a black holster on his right hip.

"I don't believe all the hype" about all the guns getting into Mexico, he said, knifing open new boxes of ammunition.

He said that toll bridges, a fence and more border cops would not stop immigrants from flowing north or guns from flowing south. "Build a tower with an armed guard every 100 yards," he suggested. "Maybe then."

Washington and Mexico City are pledging cooperation to halt the weapons flow, but each capital wants more from the other. Washington is urging Mexican officials to be more vigilant at the border, and to thoroughly inspect and arrest crossers who carry weapons from the United States. Warning signs have been posted at the border, but few people pay heed.

William Hoover, the ATF's assistant director for field operations, told Congress that his agency is working with Mexican law enforcement officials on an "eTrace" system to track guns found in Mexico. The process allows the United States to start criminal investigations against anyone in the country who has sent a weapon to Mexico.

Mexico wants the United States to tighten gun laws in border states. They also want more checks on "straw man" purchasers like Rodriguez.

Key arrests

Since weapons began heading south in bulk three to five years ago, U.S. agents have made some key arrests. Unfortunately, many of them came after the weapons had been used in cartel warfare in Mexico.

This spring the ATF arrested a dealer and two others from the X-Caliber Guns store in Phoenix, which allegedly dispatched hundreds of AK-47s and other long guns and pistols to Mexico. The shop has since shut down; the three have pleaded not guilty.

ATF intelligence has shown that some of the firearms sold from X-Caliber were used by cartel gunmen against Mexican police and the Mexican army.

Six guns were traced to alleged members of the Sinaloa Cartel, who were rounded up shortly after Mexican police captured alleged drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman in May. An assault rifle traced to X-Caliber also turned up in a cache found after eight federal policemen were killed and three others wounded in a gun battle in Culiacan, according to the ATF.

Gun shows have become particularly troublesome. There, traffickers have their pick of weapons: AK-47s, AR-15s and the FN 5.57-caliber pistol known as "asesino de policia," or "cop killer."

"You see the Sinaloan cowboys come in," said Mangan, who browses the shows. "You see them with their ammunition belts and their ammunition boots. You can see the dollies being rolled outside to their cars.

"Why do they need the high-powered guns? Because the Mexican military is armed too, and they need to pierce that armor."

Sometimes it's the ammunition that tips agents off. In November 2006, an agent in street clothes was talking to a dealer at Kirkpatrick's Guns & Ammo, less than a mile from the border in Laredo, Texas. He spotted two men repackaging more than 12,000 rounds of ammunition they had just purchased.

An investigation later led to the arrest of Carlos Alberto Osorio-Castrejon and Ramon Uresti-Careaga, both Mexican citizens Pleaded guilty to being in an ilegal possession of ammunition and was given 10 months in prison. Uresti was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 15 months in prison.

The ammunition, the judge told Uresti and the court, "was going to somebody in Mexico involved in some illegal activity -- drug trafficking, alien smuggling perhaps. Or something else."
Just up the road from Kirkpatrick's, past the taquerias and the Mexican insurance offices, there is yet another gun shop.

"Call me Rocky," said the man who runs Border Sporting Goods. He advertises "What We Don't Have, We Can Get." He sells guns and ammunition and reloading and hunting equipment. He personally owns more than 100 firearms.

He blamed Mexico for the gun trafficking. "It is not doing enough to stop it," he said. "They are a crooked country." He said U.S. gun laws were too easily broken. "A crook could care less how many laws you have."


He maintained that most gun dealers were honest and vigilant and report suspicious activity. And he called it unfair to make gun stores responsible for what their customers do: "That's like holding a car manufacturer liable for traffic accidents."

The dealers here in Sierra Vista said they reported any customer they did not feel comfortable about.

Mike Benton runs Guns & Gear, which is easy to find on East Fry Boulevard; a U.S. flag out front marks the spot. He said two men claiming to be American citizens recently purchased four or five long guns.

"They had the necessary documents, and an instant FBI check was approved," Benton said. Still, he thought it unusual and notified authorities. "I never heard back," he said.

Shop owners heard back when they called about Adan Rodriguez. At 335 pounds, Rodriguez was easy to remember after he started showing up at shops in Mesquite, Texas, outside Dallas.

Over a series of months, Rodriguez purchased 112 assault-class rifles, 9-mm Beretta pistols, revolvers and high- caliber rifles, court records show.

The dealers alerted the ATF's Dallas office, and Tom Crowley, a special agent there, said that an undercover officer and hidden video camera were planted.

Seduced by money

Arrested, Rodriguez complained that he was making just $1,400 a month laying carpet and had lost his job. He said that his mother was disabled and that he had hoped to marry soon.

Then a friend of a friend introduced him to "Kati" and "Cesar," and they convinced him to do a little side work for some Mexican clients.

Kati and Cesar provided Rodriguez with cash amounts of up to $12,000, often in thousand-dollar stacks. Sometimes they sent an older Latino man, "Jefe," ("Boss") to deliver the money for guns.

When he bought the weapons, he took them to safe houses in Dallas.

At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez told the agents, he was being pushed to buy hand grenades and a rocket launcher too.

One of the Berettas was used in a shootout in Reynosa, Mexico, that left a cartel member dead and injured two Mexican federal agents.

In a handwritten letter to The Times from his prison cell in Seagoville, Texas, Rodriguez described how he got in deeper and deeper with the cartels.

"It started out by selling one of my personal guns, and things went on [from] there," he said. "It was an easy way to make some money."

Rodriguez hesitated to write more: "I worry about my safety and my family's safety."

The cartels, as he knows, are well-armed.

War on Drugs. Marijuana potency increases in 2007 to a highest level.



Do you believe Lou Dobbs misguided you when he is talking about War on Drugs?

The White House office attributed the increases in marijuana potency to sophisticated growing techniques that drug traffickers are using at sites in the United States and Canada

Marijuana potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, posing greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless, according to a report released Thursday by the White House.

The latest analysis from the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project tracked the average amount of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, in samples seized by law enforcement agencies from 1975 through 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared with 8.75 percent the previous year.

The 9.6 percent level represents more than a doubling of marijuana potency since 1983, when it averaged just under 4 percent.

"Today's report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He cited baby boomer parents who might have misguided notions that the drug contains the weaker potency levels of the 1970s.

"Marijuana potency has grown steeply over the past decade, with serious implications in particular for young people," Walters said. He cited the risk of psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and the potential for users to become dependent on drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

While the drug's potency may be rising, marijuana users generally adjust to the level of potency and smoke it accordingly, said Dr. Mitch Earleywine, who teaches psychology at the State University of New York in Albany and serves as an adviser for marijuana advocacy groups. "Stronger cannabis leads to less inhaled smoke," he said.

A report from the office last month found that a teenager who has been depressed in the past year was more than twice as likely to have used marijuana than teenagers who have not reported being depressed _ 25 percent compared with 12 percent. The study said marijuana use increased the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent.

"The increases in marijuana potency are of concern since they increase the likelihood of acute toxicity, including mental impairment," said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which funded the University of Mississippi study.

"Particularly worrisome is the possibility that the more potent THC might be more effective at triggering the changes in the brain that can lead to addiction," Volkow said.

But there's no data showing that a higher potency in marijuana leads to more addiction, Earleywine said, and marijuana's withdrawal symptoms are mild at best. "Mild irritability, craving for marijuana and decreased appetite _ I mean those are laughable when you talk about withdrawal from a drug. Caffeine is worse."

The project analyzed data on 62,797 cannabis samples, 1,302 hashish samples, and 468 hash oil samples obtained primarily from seizures by law enforcement agencies in 48 states since 1975

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