Border

The Mexican government scored a victory this week with the killing of Beltran Leyva cartel head Arturo Beltran Leyva, but will it turn out to be a pyrrhic victory? Knocking off cartel heads in the past has typically led to renewed infighting as rivals vie to replace them.

The war in Afghanistan, the rising tide of drug reform in Latin America, and battles over drug policies in European countries are among the dominant international drug policy stories of 2009. (Next issue we'll review the top domestic stories.)

Amnesty International accuses the Mexican military of human rights violations in the drug war -- a problem for US funding. Meanwhile, this year's south of the border prohibition-related death toll passed 7,000 this week.

Three years ago this month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon sicced the military on the so-called drug cartels. Three years later, the drugs keep flowing north, the cash and guns keep flowing south, and more than 16,000 people have been killed. Here's the latest.

The carnage continues. This week an American citizen is among the casualties, but it looks like she was the victim of a soldier's inadvertent discharge.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place in Albuquerque last weekend. It was quite a show. Here's a scene report.

At a conference last week, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda bluntly accused the Mexican military of murdering members of the so-called drug cartels to avenge its own losses in the country's bloody wave of prohibition-related violence.

The Mexico Drug War Update took a break last week, but the violence didn't. Here's the latest rundown and body count.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference got underway Thursday in Albuquerque, and it looks like the biggest yet. Here's an initial report from the conference opening. Look for much more next week, too.

For years, federal prosecutors on the US-Mexican border have been so swamped with smuggling cases that they refuse to prosecute busts under 500 pounds. Local prosecutors can't handle the overflow, either, so now, the US is sending busted Mexican pot smugglers back home to be prosecuted.