Civil Conflict

Superbowl-linked banners chiding the NFL on marijuana policy go up, drug testing of students, workers, and welfare recipients is in the news, a federal sentencing reform bill picks up support, Guatemalan peasants pick up rocks and sticks to chase off eradicators, and more.

As the legislative season gets underway, bills are being introduced all over the place -- good, bad, and ugly. And there's trouble in Mexico, there are peace talks in Colombia, and more.

They may be smoking more pot in Washington state than anyone thought, the Florida medical marijuana signature-gathering campaign is going down to the wire, opium production is up in the Golden Triangle, and aerial eradication is paused in Colombia (after planes get blown out of the sky). And more.

There will be no meaningful effort to eradicate Lebanese marijuana fields this year. The security situation is too tense, financial compensation for last year hasn't appeared, and the farmers are too angry. Hash heads from Cairo to Ankara to Berlin are smiling.

The Western Mexican state of Michoacan is becoming the latest hotspot in Mexico's drug wars, and now, a high-ranking Mexican Navy officer has been killed.

Colombia's FARC guerrillas have called on the Colombian government to consider legalizing coca cultivation for medicinal and therapeutic ends and for cultural reasons.

With marijuana legalization initiatives heading to the ballot, some with a good chance of passage, and with growing international support for a real debate on prohibition, people are talking about drug policy like they never have before. Our new book offers will help you be part of that conversation, while our new video offer will remind you why we should be angry too.

Is the world's longest-running insurgency coming to an end? The Colombian government and the leftist guerrillas of the FARC have announced their first peace talks in a decade, but that's just the first step.

With The Lebanese Connection, global drug trade scholar Jonathan Marshall has made an important contribution to the literature -- not only of the drug trade, but also of the Middle East, terrorism, covert operations, and failed states.