Drug Use

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.

If you're interested in the border or Mexico's drug war or drug culture or drug economy, or in drug law enforcement, we've got a book you need to read. University of Texas-El Paso sociologist and anthropologist Howard Campbell provides a vivid, rich, and nuanced portrayal of drugs and the drug war in El Paso-Juarez that couldn't be more timely.

In an address to an international health conference in Vietnam, the UN's top health rights official slammed forced "rehab camps" and called for decriminalizing drug use. As many as half million people could be locked up in punitive, old-school mass detoxification camps.

Drug users are organizing in Asia. After two years of meetings, the Asian Network of People who Use Drugs (ANPUD) has been created in the vein of "nothing about us without us."

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has issued a dire new report warning that the Afghan opium trade is spreading addiction, disease, and insurgency. Too bad it doesn't address the role of global drug prohibition in exacerbating all these problems.

Does taking a hit off a joint merit a death sentence? A Hawaii insurance carrier thinks so, and it's not alone.

More than a quarter of American adults polled in a recent survey don't think simple drug possessors need to go to jail. That's a start.

Drug possession has been legal in Colombia since 1994. But now, a teetotaling President Uribe wants to go back to the bad old days.

With the nomination of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, both major party tickets now include acknowledged former drug users. But there is little sign either party is going to do anything groundbreaking on drug policy reform.

The annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health is out. While some drugs are less popular than last year, others are more popular, and overall use levels remain largely unchanged.