Ten years ago this week, President Bill Clinton signed off on the first $1.3 billion installment of Plan Colombia. A decade later, how is that working out? We ask the experts.
The demise of Jamaican drug lord Christopher "Dudus" Coke, following weeks of fighting that claimed dozens of lives, is just the latest predictable stage in a self-defeating global cycle of failing drug prohibition.
This week's outbreak of violence between supporters of a drug gang leader and Jamaican police and soldiers in the Kingston slum neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens reveals not only the weakness of the Jamaican state, but also some usually obscure links between politicians and the underworld.
It's summer in Afghanistan, and that means more fighting, more casualties, and this year, more drug war. Western militaries are now aiming directly at drug trafficking networks that fund the Taliban, and the Taliban isn't taking it lying down.
Pusher Street may be history, but the residents of Copenhagen's Christiania are still fighting for their right to remain. They lost a court battle this week, but the end is not here yet for the countercultural enclave.
The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) met in Vienna this week to draft a political declaration and plan of action to guide international drug policy for the next decade. While the prohibitionists prevailed in the end, the voices of dissent are growing ever louder and more powerful.
The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued a report Wednesday calling for harm reduction, treating drug use as a public health issue, and decriminalizing marijuana. The report was an intervention aimed as much at Washington as at Vienna, where the UN meets next month to plot global drug strategy.
Did Afghan opium production drop 6% this year or 31%? The US and the UN disagree, but it may be a moot point with the Taliban sitting on a huge stash that can be easily converted into a war chest.
Washington and Bogotá have both been talking up improvements in Colombia's human rights situation. But there is still plenty to be deeply concerned about, Amnesty International said in a report this week.
UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa trotted out some tired old arguments last week in Mexico City as he warned of "drug crime," but ignored the role of prohibition in facilitating it.