Wire Politics

Jonah Goldberg argues that conservatives should have embraced "The Wire" more than we did. This is a Democratic city, run almost uniformly by liberals. While many of the problems most prominently on display can certainly be traced back to racism, racism itself is not a central issue in The Wire (nor is racism an inherently or historically conservative phenomena). These drug ...

Swiss Approve Free Heroin, Keep Marijuana Illegal

Only in America.

Bob Barr Wins LP Presidential Nomination

Former Representative Bob Barr has won the Libertarian Party nomination for President, narrowly defeating longtime Party activist Mary Ruwart. This is a rather welcome change for the LP, who have taken to nominating more radical, but relatively unknown candidates in past election cycles. As I've said before, Barr is their best candidate since Paul in 1988, and is ...

Coca’s Continual Comeback: This Time, Peru

Via the LAT: Peru sees cocaine making a comebackPeru's cocaine industry, the world's largest and most violent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is again on the upswing. Plots of coca bushes, whose leaves yield cocaine, have increased by about one-third since 1999, to about 127,000 acres, according to Peruvian and United Nations estimates. And this time, the traffickers ...

How Much Reefer Did Barack Obama Toke?

I'm not sure what to make of the NYT feature "Friends Say Drugs Played Only Bit Part for Obama." In more than three dozen interviews, friends, classmates and mentors from his high school and Occidental recalled Mr. Obama as being grounded, motivated and poised, someone who did not appear to be grappling with any drug problems and seemed ...

The Incongruity of Needle Exchanges

Megan McCardle has an excellent little post defending needle exchanges. Along the way, though, she does point out an interesting little incongruity in the policy:Okay, a conservative or libertarian might argue, but drug users bring this trouble on themselves; why should I a) pay for clean syringes and b) implicitly sanction their irresponsible and self-destructive behavior? Well, okay, leave ...

Kathryn Johnston: One Year Later

Radley Balko has an update and look back on the Kathryn Johnston case. To briefly recap, a number of Atlanta PD Narcotics officers arrested an ex-con on trumped up charges, the paid informant that bought drugs from Johnston's house never existed, the cops tried to coerce one of their past informants into posing as the made up informant, the ...

Medical Marijuana Advocate Kills Herself

A 50-year-old woman committed suicide after 25 years of living with the pain of an autoimmune disease. Robin Prosser, a Missoula woman who struggled for a quarter century to live with the pain of an immunosuppressive disorder, tried years ago to kill herself. Last week, she tried again. This time, she succeeded. After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even ...

Libertarians Burning their Carry-Cards

A Pajamas Media essay by VodkaPundit's Stephen Green explaining why he's no longer a card-carrying Libertarian has generated substantial discussion, including congratulations from Glenn Reynolds, Bill Quick, and Roger L. Simon, all of whom still think of themselves as small-l libertarians. They all agree that a doctrinaire individualism and anti-government mindset is unserious in a grown up world infested ...

Still Losing the War on Drugs

Misha Glenny has an excellent article regarding the ongoing failed policy of drug prohibition, especially in how it relates to the War in Afghanistan.Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our Forward Operating Base," he told ...