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The drug war has come down on women like a huge hammer in recent years. During the 1990s drug offenders accounted for the largest source of the total growth among female inmates (36 percent). As of 2004, almost one-third of all women prisoners were convicted of drug offenses; in federal prisons, this figure was 65%. In 1979 only ten percent of women in state prison were drug offenders.

Brazil, Latin America's largest and most populous nation gets surprisingly little press in the US. The mass media paid some attention back in May, when the country's "commands"--the criminal gangs formed in Brazil's prisons that control the drug trade and act as a de facto government in some of the favelas (ghettos) surrounding Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro--rose up in open rebellion against the Brazilian state. But since then, the silence in the US press has been deafening.

I wrote earlier with regards to Kinky Friedmans stance to the legalization of marijuana. Prison is not the place for people caught with marijauna. Many of these people fall prey to the more violent offenders. Many of these offenders(1/4 ounce and less) come from small Texas townships and receive more time than offenders convicted of child molestation, rape, murder, etc.

Guest blogger Jay Fleming of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition points out a painful unintended consequence for police officers who do undercover work: Undercover is being the best bad guy you can.