The debate should be over now. All you have to do is look south to learn that the drug war is worse than a failure; it causes massive violence, corruption, and death. From The New York Times:

"When the commander, Commissioner Édgar Millán Gómez, the acting chief of the federal police, died with eight bullets in his chest on May 8, it sent chills through a force that had increasingly found itself a target."

"Top security officials who were once thought untouchable have been gunned down in Mexico City, four in the last month alone."

"Drug dealers killed another seven federal agents this year in retaliation for drug busts in border towns."

"Drug traffickers have killed at least 170 local police officers as well, among them at least a score of municipal police commanders, since Mr. Calderón took office."

"The violence between drug cartels that Mr. Calderón has sought to end has only worsened over the past year and a half. The death toll has jumped 47 percent to 1,378 this year, prosecutors say. All told, 4,125 people have been killed in drug violence since Mr. Calderón took office."

"Several terrified local police chiefs have resigned, the most recent being Guillermo Prieto, the chief in Ciudad Juárez, who stepped down last week after his second in command was killed a few days earlier."

So what does Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who instigated the massive increase in drug war violence, have to say about all this?

The president has vowed to stay the course, portraying the violence among gangs and attacks on the police as a sign of success rather than failure.

Wow. Well, I guess you've got it all figured then, Mr. President. That's good to hear, because for a second there, it sounded like everything was going to hell.

If you've flown through Japan recently, you might wanna double check your bags for an extra souvenir:

TOKYO (AFP) — An unsuspecting passenger who flew to Tokyo is carrying one million yen's worth of cannabis compliments of customs authorities after a sniffer dog failed a test, officials said Monday.

An officer at Narita International Airport on Sunday stuffed 142 grams (five ounces) of the drug into the side pocket of a randomly selected black suitcase coming off an overseas flight so that the animal could detect it.

"The dog couldn't find it and the officer also forgot which bag he put it in," a customs office spokeswoman said.

"If by some chance passengers find it in their suitcase, we're asking them to return it," she said.

Seriously, if they wanted it returned, they should've refrained from announcing that it's worth a million yen.

This whole fiasco reflects terribly on Japanese drug enforcement, but also on Japanese marijuana, which was valued at nearly $2,000 an ounce, but apparently didn't smell very interesting.

Radley Balko reports:

He was formally charged with first degree murder and with the use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. So yeah. They really are going to go through with this.

The misdemeanor marijuana possession charge was nolle prossed. Which means the reason the police tried to ram their way into Frederick’s house in the first place is now pretty much moot. They didn’t even find enough marijuana to merit a charge. Now they’re trying to make him pay for the consequences of their mistake.

So to recap, police charged into Ryan Frederick's home looking for a marijuana grow that didn’t exist. Mistaking the intruders for thieves, Ryan opened fire, killing a police officer. He's now charged with knowingly and deliberately killing a cop, even though that's the least plausible explanation for his actions.