Weinberg has written on the drug war in publications including the New York Times, The Nation and New York Newsday. He was also the news editor of High Times, a magazine covering subjects such as cannabis cultivation, legalization of marijuana and the worldwide impact of the drug war.
Weinberg drew attention to the timing of U.S. intervention in foreign countries in the name of "the war on drugs," which began just as intervention in the name of the war on Commnism was drawing to a close.
Because of the drug war, foreign aid from the U.S. government has fallen into the hands of illegal paramilitary units, who violate the human rights of many indigenous people, according to Weinberg.
"We as American citizens hold a tremendous amount of responsibility for human rights atrocities," said Weinberg.
He said that he believes that much of the U.S. anti-drug aid is used in an unnecessarily violent, martial manner to deal with the drug crisis.
Weinberg said that President Bill Clinton's $1.3 billion aid package lacked human rights standards, noting that the week after Congress agreed to the aid, Clinton struck the human rights provision, including international oversight, from the agreement, claiming that the human rights provision was slowing down the attempts to deal with the drug trafficking situation in Colombia.
He also discussed his work in the southern Mexican Zapatista movement, which has won him national acclaim and is the focus of his recent book, Homage to the Chiapas: New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico.
Weinberg began by defining the term "narco-imperialism" as an inversion of "narco-terrorism," pointing out that the current U.S. Drug Czar, Barry McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, was a former general in the U.S. army.
Rather than truly fighting a war on drugs, he points out that illegal paramilitary groups use U.S. financial aid to quash revolutionary political movements for the independence of indigenous people and to relocate indigenous people for the sake of oil.
"Unharmed indigenous communities are rounded up," said Weinberg. "It's about crushing revolutionary riots."
The attacks of these paramilitary groups on indigenous communities are outlawed, as are guerrilla groups that deal in drug trafficking. The government's official line is that it will crack down on both groups, but in reality it only focuses on the guerrillas, according to Weinberg.
Weinberg said that the U.S. press barely touched upon the massive relocation and massacre of indigenous groups in countries where the war on drugs is going on, while it was highly vocal about similar events in the Balkans.
"When it happens to white people in the Balkans, it's on the front page of the New York Times day after day, but when it happens in Guatemala, no one calls it genocide," said Weinberg.
Weinberg said that he believes that at the root of these unaided human rights violations is a conspiracy backed by U.S. financial institutions. He claimed that Occidental Petroleum and BP Amoco are main groups whose interests lie in the relocation of indigenous groups.
Weinberg's investigations have found that Occidental pays money to the Colombian government to send in military groups, who then illegally attack and relocate native peoples living on oil-rich land. These oil companies then lobby in Washington for America to take an active part in the war on drugs.
"Our taxes are funding this," said Weinberg.
This is especially important for the current elections, since Vice-President Al Gore is considered Occidental's biggest ally in Washington, Weinberg said. The Gore family has approximately $500,000 to $1 million in Occidental stock and Occidental paid Gore $20 million for mineral rights on his Tennessee property.
Weinberg said that he found it ironic that Gore, who is known as an environmentalist, would support a company that destroys the fragile ecosystem in Latin America.
Weinberg also accused Textron and United Technologies, large U.S. weapons manufacturing firms, of benefiting from the war on drugs.
Herbicide manufacturers such as Monsanto benefit from selling herbicides that kill drug plants, according to Weinberg. The negative side of these drug killers is that indigenous communities are often sprayed, destroying their food crops and compromising their health.
Weinberg said people near a site that was sprayed have been known to vomit for days.
The U.S. is currently planning to fund the use of mycoherbicides that will be spread over Colombia's coca-plant and opium-poppy fields, Weinberg said. Of particular note is a genetically-altered fungus which mutates quickly, making it likely to be disastrous to biodiversity, according to Weinberg.
Weinberg discussed the issues in the poor southern area of Chiapas, Mexico, where a World Bank program promoting the growth of the cattle industry relocated the indigenous people to less fertile lands and to tropical areas of the rainforest that had been previously closed. According to Weinberg, the atrocities of paramilitary violence and government relocation continue.