Cocaine

Cocaine Subtopics:

A Look Inside Brazil's Drug "Commands"

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.

Plan Colombia: Ten Years Later

Ten years ago this week, President Bill Clinton signed off on the first $1.3 billion installment of Plan Colombia. A decade later, how is that working out? We ask the experts.

Prohibition: Contaminated Drug Supply Threatening Cocaine Users in North America, Heroin Users in Europe

One of the side-effects of prohibition is contamination of unregulated illicit drug supplies, putting users at risk. Two now familiar, but disturbing, contaminants are in the news this week: anthrax in European heroin and levamisole in North American cocaine.

Latin America: Coca Colla Goes On Sale in Bolivia

Drink up -- it's Coca Colla time! Yes, it's a coca-based soft drink, but you'll have to go to Bolivia to try it. And this isn't some de-cocainized soft drink; it's the real thing.

Feds: National Drug Intelligence Center Predicts Continued Failure in Drug War

The illegal drug supply is increasing, and Mexican narcos are public enemy #1, according to the Justice Department's primary drug intelligence unit. There's no end in sight, the unit concludes.

Drug War Chronicle Book Review: "In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction," by Dr. Gabor MatÃ© (2010, North Atlantic Books, 468 pp., $17.95 PB)

Being a thoughtful, compassionate, and curious physician dealing with hard-core addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside makes Dr. Gabor MatÃ© especially well-placed to write an important book about addiction. He has done so. You should read it.

Feature: Senate Judiciary Committee Unanimously Passes Bill to Reduce Crack/Powder Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

The Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously approved a bill that would reduce -- but not eliminate -- the infamous sentencing disparity between federal crack and powder cocaine offenses. The House Judiciary Committee has already passed a similar measure that would completely eliminate the disparity. Now it is up to the House and Senate leadership to get those bills to a floor vote, and advocates say it is the House bill that should move.

Tainted Supply: Cocaine Laced With Levamisole Keeps Turning Up

Cocaine contaminated with a veterinary de-worming agent called levamisole made the news last fall when coke users started coming down with a nasty disease called agranulocytosis and a few of them died. While the clamor has quieted, the tainted dope hasn't gone away. In fact, there seems to be more of it than ever.

Drug War Chronicle Book Review: "Dorm Room Dealers: Drugs and the Privileges of Race and Class," by A. Rafik Mohamed and Erik D. Fritsvold (2010, Lynne Reinner Publishers, 197 pp., $49.95 HB)

A pair of sociologists get inside a San Diego area network of campus drug sellers and users to ask and answer the question of why privileged youth on the path to success would risk everything to peddle pot or pills. The short answer? They're not really very much at risk -- they're rich and white.

Latin America: Bolivia's Morales Says He Will Legalize Small Coca Holdings

Bolivian President Evo Morales wants to amend his country's drug law to legalize coca farmers' small holdings and to bring allowed national cultivation limits in line with Bolivian reality. This won't go over well in Washington or with the UN anti-drug bureaucrats.

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