A short clip, submitted for your consideration here: Christie isn’t really talking about legalization or decriminalization here, of course, and it took him awhile after he became Governor to get on board with New Jersey’s medical marijuana program. Nonetheless, he’s making a good point here. Since the Nixon Administration, the response to drug use has [...]

Obama’s Justice Department continues its crackdown on medical marijuana, despite campaign promises to the contrary.

Governor Schwarzenegger has signed a bill making pot possession (at certain levels) the equivalent of a traffic ticket.

Via the BBC:  Bodies hung from bridge in Cuernavaca, Mexico The four men had been decapitated and mutilated before being hung by their ankles from the bridge outside Cuernavaca, in the state of Morelos. This appears to be linked to a contest for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel. The piece has this map showing [...]

Via Reuters:  Kudzu extract may treat cocaine addiction: study. Goodness knows that there is plenty of it in the Southeast!

While it is true, as Jacob Sullum puts it, On Drug Policy, Mexico’s President Has a Bigger Vocabulary Than Ours, it is also true as the headline at Gancho puts it he has Problems with the Legalization Debate (specifically in terms of popular opinion in Mexico).

Despite assertions that the violence in Mexico is spilling over the border, we find a rather stark comparison of two key border cities.

NPR is starting a multi-part series on the drug war in Mexico.  Here’s the first part:  As Drug War Turns Into Quagmire, Fear Rules Mexico. And never forget, it is fundamentally about the money: In Mexico, more than 4 million people live in what the government terms "extreme poverty." For the cartels, this huge pool [...]

Congress has (after many years of debate) narrowed the gap between sentencing for crack cocaine and powder cocaine.

California has an initiative on the ballot this coming November to legalize marijuana. However, it’s not that easy.

Thanks to JaMarcus Russell, I have learned a new term.

Abigail Poe and Adam Isacson have gone through the UNODC’s 2009 coca data and produced a nice summary for those interested in such things.

Will we ever eliminate or sharply reduce drug supply and demand?

The UNODC has released the latest World Drug Report. Shockingly, there are a lot of drugs out there and a lot of money to made trafficking in them.

A few days ago I noted the increase in coca cultivation in Peru, which is a classic example of the balloon effect, i.e., as the US has put the squeeze on Colombia, drug cultivation and production has bulged out elsewhere.  Indeed, Colombia was where the balloon bulged in the 1990s when the squeeze was put [...]

In an earlier post, following on from a piece by Jeffery Miron, I wondered about the Tea Party and the war on drugs.  Via the GOP nominee for the US Senate in Nevada (Sharon Angle), we have one data point. And yes, two obvious disclaimers:  she is a Republican (as there is no real Tea [...]

Economist, libertarian, and outspoken critic of the war on drugs, Jeffery Miron, wonders about The Tea Party and the Drug War over at NRO. As the elections near, however, voters will want to know where the [Tea] party stands not just on the economy but on social issues. A perfect illustration is drug policy, where [...]

Here I am writing primarily about cocaine, although everything in this post can be applied to heroin as well.  It should be understood that both are plant-based drugs.  Cocaine’s most fundamental ingredient is the coca leaf, which grows almost exclusively in the Andean region of South America.  Heroin comes from the opium poppy, which grows [...]

Via the AP:  AP IMPACT: US drug war has met none of its goals. The entire piece is worth reading, but the intro paragraph sums up the situation: After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and [...]