On his first visit to Afghanistan since assuming duties as UNODC Executive Director in September, Mr. Yury Fedotov visited Jangalak Treatment Center, in Kabul, Afghanistan, last week. The center offers treatment and follow up care for recovering drug users. "Drug use is a health problem, not a crime", said Mr. Fedotov. "Drug users are affected by a disease - addiction - and instead of punishment, what they need is treatment, care and social integration. They should not be stigmatized, repressed or further marginalized. Like all people, they deserve to be treated humanely. I believe in placing a strong emphasis on safeguarding health, human rights and justice", he added.

A four-year army crackdown in Mexico's methamphetamine-producing heartland has provoked a dizzying increase in violence, fueling fears that the country is losing its battle against drug traffickers. Despite heavily armed patrols, hundreds of drug lab busts and thousands of arrests, locals say gangs in the president's home state wield huge power, ramping up drug output while using terror and bribes to control towns mired in poverty. "Crime has only gotten worse. Before, things were calm. Now you don't know what could happen...We are afraid here," said Miriam Ortiz, a 32-year-old teacher.

Drug prohibition continues to complicate the war in Afghanistan. Leaked US documents on paint President Hamid Karzai's controversial younger brother as a corrupt drugs baron, exposing deep US concerns about graft undermining the war against the Afghan Taliban.

The Star-Ledger editorial board opines that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie seems intent on wrecking the state's medical marijuana program with restrictive regulations. His Department of Health has drafted rules that would restrict marijuana use, availability and potency.

Patients, doctors and dispensaries seeking legal help navigating Arizona's new medical marijuana law could find themselves up the creek without a lawyer. The ethics counsel for the State Bar of Arizona said it is a violation of the rules laid out by the Arizona Supreme Court for attorneys to help clients break federal laws prohibiting selling or possessing marijuana.

Two attorneys say they'll take an Iowa case before the nation's highest court next week that could alter how federal judges sentence convicts after appeals. The issue is if judges can weigh a convict's efforts at rehabilitation while an appeal is pending.

America's most renowned bastion of illicit marijuana growing is threatened by cavernous, city-taxed cultivation warehouses soon to be licensed in Oakland. It is alarmed by cities from La Puente to Berkeley to Sacramento that approved taxes on dispensaries or endorsed medical marijuana cultivation, sanctioning a marijuana economy wider and more competitive than ever. Humboldt seeks to save itself by going legit -- the new Humboldt Growers Association is working for county approval to license and tax outdoor pot plantations of up to 40,000 square feet.

Virginia Delegate Harvey Morgan has proposed a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession in the upcoming General Assembly session. HB 1443 would replace criminal penalties for simple possession with a civil fine of $500. Morgan is a Republican and, more important, an assistant clinical professor of pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical school.

Drug prohibition violence has painted Monterrey with the look and feel of the gritty border 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the north. This wasn't supposed to happen in Mexico's modern northern city with gleaming glass towers that rise against the Sierra Madre, where students flock to world-class universities, including the country's equivalent of MIT. The deterioration happened nearly overnight, laying bare issues that plague the entire country and speak to the nature of drug prohibition.