• Is the war on drugs nearing an end?

    The Huffington Post (US)
    Monday, April 8, 2013

    For four decades, libertarians, civil rights activists and drug treatment experts have stood outside of the political mainstream in arguing that the war on drugs was sending too many people to prison, wasting too much money, wrenching apart too many families -- and all for little or no public benefit. They were always in the minority. But a sign of a new reality emerged: for the first time in four decades of polling, the Pew Research Center found that more than half of Americans support legalizing marijuana.

  • Drugs in Brazil: Cracking up

    The world’s biggest crack market seeks a better way to deal with addicts
    The Economist (UK)
    Saturday, April 6, 2013

    São Paulo’s Cracolândia was Brazil’s first and is still its biggest. It is home to 2,000 addicts. But most Brazilian cities now have similar districts. Recent studies put the country’s crack-using population at 1m-1.2m, the world’s largest. Some city governments have used strong-arm tactics against the crack epidemic—with little effect other than to fill prisons, which have more than twice as many inmates as a decade ago.

  • Majority of Americans support legalization of marijuana

    Time Magazine (US)
    Friday, April 5, 2013

    Public support for legalizing marijuana has never been higher, but the latest studies show recreational use is linked with prescription drug misuse. In the latest nationwide survey of 1,501 people polled in mid-March about legalizing marijuana, 52% of those surveyed favored making weed legal, and 72% said that efforts to enforce anti-marijuana laws bring more cost than benefit.

  • Dutch city of Eindhoven wants to grow their own marijuana

    Agence France-Presse
    Thursday, April 4, 2013

    The Dutch city of Eindhoven has come up with a proposal it believes will curb the illegal supply of cannabis to the city’s cannabis coffee shops: they suggest growing it themselves. “The Eindhoven municipality has come out in favor of a pilot project regarding the controlled cultivation of cannabis,” Eindhoven’s mayor Rob van Gijzel said in a letter, a copy of which was handed to local media. “This suggestion is aimed at using controlled cultivation to curb the ‘back-door’ problems associated with illegal supply to coffee shops.” (See also: Friesland councillors support move to legalise cannabis production)

  • Injection room saves 30 lives

    Deputy mayor wants more drug-taking facilities across the city but opposition party Konservative is still against legal injection rooms
    The Copenhagen Post (Denmark)
    Thursday, April 4, 2013

    Staff at Copenhagen’s first legal drug injection room have saved 30 lives since it opened last autumn, according to metroXpress newspaper.The deputy mayor for social affairs, Mikkel Warming (Enhedslisten), contends that the success of the injection room should be expanded across the city. The deputy mayor, however, is not likely to get the Konservative party to support the move. Konservative's legal spokesperson, Tom Behnke would rather introduce prescription heroin and increase efforts to rehabilitate addicts.

  • 'They stole our dreams': blogger reveals cost of reporting Mexico's drug wars

    Anonymous author of celebrated Blog del Narco speaks for first time about the risks – and reveals she is a woman
    The Guardian (UK)
    Wednesday, April 3, 2013

    blog-del-narcoFor three years it has chronicled Mexico's drug war with graphic images and shocking stories that few others dare show, drawing millions of readers, acclaim, denunciations – and speculation about its author's identity. Blog del Narco, an internet sensation dubbed a "front-row seat" to Mexico's agony over drugs, has become a must-read for authorities, drug gangs and ordinary people because it lays bare, day after day, the horrific violence censored by the mainstream media.

  • 'Cannabis clubs are the solution, not the problem'

    The Local (France)
    Tuesday, April 2, 2013

    dominique-broc-trial2'Cannabis clubs' all over France have taken the high-risk move of registering with authorities as non-profit organizations. Farid Ghehioueche, a leading activist tells The Local why the clubs should be seen as part of solution to the drug problem. Last week’s registration of clubs as non-profit groups forms part of a strategy to push those in power to come up with an alternative, experimental framework for cannabis use in France.

  • Marijuana to fight drug addiction

    Could marijuana solve Colombia's crack cocaine problem?
    The Huffington Post (US web)
    Tuesday, April 2, 2013

    BBC Mundo reports that Bogotá is planning a system of "controlled consumption centers," where addicts could be weaned off more hard-core drugs, such as heroin or crack (bazuco), and slowly introduced to pot. Because of its continued prevalence, as well as its toxicity, bazuco will be one of the drugs targeted by Mayor Gustavo Petro's planned treatment centers. The treatment centers are part of a larger movement in Colombia to classify drug addiction as an issue of public health rather than crime.

  • HSBC gives Argentina prosecutors chance to correct US blunder

    InSight Crime
    April 1, 2013

    The accusations from Argentina's tax authority that London-based HSBC laundered over $100 million may pale in comparison to that of the bank's US - Mexico case, but they raise the specter that someone from HSBC could finally go to jail. The charges, announced by the head of Argentina's tax collection agency, Ricardo Echegaray, on March 19 include tax evasion and money laundering totalling up to $120 million.

  • Brad Pitt: America's war on drugs is a charade, and a failure

    The actor and executive producer of the documentary The House I Live In says US drugs policy needs a radical rethink
    Brad Pitt
    The Observer (UK)
    Sunday, March 31, 2013

    "Since declaring a war on drugs 40 years ago, the United States has spent more than a trillion dollars, arrested more than 45 million people, and racked up the highest incarceration rate in the world. Yet it remains laughably easy to obtain illegal drugs. So why do we continue down this same path? Why do we talk about the drug war as if it's a success? It's a charade." (See: The house I live in)

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