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In Mexico's Drug Heartland, A Debate on Alternatives to the Drug War Takes Place

Culiacán, Sinaloa, is the home of one of Mexico's most feared drug trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel. This week, it was also home to a groundbreaking conference on alternatives to the drug war. As that conference ended Wednesday evening, cops, soldiers, and narcos went at it on the streets of Culiacán, leaving two cops and two narcos dead, and providing poignant punctuation to the conference.

In Mexico, Opposition to Plan Merida Emerges

High US officials hit the road for Latin America this week in a series of trips to lobby for passage of Plan Mérida, the $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package for Mexico. But at a forum on drug policy in Culiacán, Sinaloa, there was little but objections to the plan, especially its emphasis on using the Mexican military in the drug war.

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

New Haven's former top narc heads to prison, a Louisiana DARE officer goes down, a South Carolina jail guard gets caught shooting cocaine, and an Idaho deputy gets caught ripping off cash and drugs.

Canada: Supreme Court Nixes Random Use of Drug Dogs

In contrast with the US Supreme Court, which held that a drug dog sniff did not constitute a search, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled last week that it does, and that random drug dog searches are unconstitutional.

Sentencing: Federal Crack Sentence Reductions Begin to Take Hold

The US Sentencing Commission announced that changes in the crack cocaine sentencing guidelines would be retroactive, allowing current prisoners a chance at a sentence cut. In the month since prisoners began to be able to apply for cuts, some 3,000 have received them.

British Prime Minister Claims Marijuana Can Kill You

As British PM Gordon Browne prepares to ignore the recommendation of his own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and increase penalties for marijuana, he reveals once again how little he actually knows about the subject:
"I don't think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people -- this is not acceptable," Brown said. [Reuters]
Any way you look at it, this is just a total lie. The word "lethal" as defined by dictionary.com means the following:
–adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; fatal: a lethal weapon; a lethal dose.
2. made to cause death: a lethal chamber; a lethal attack.
3. causing great harm or destruction: The disclosures were lethal to his candidacy.

Even the 3rd definition, which may be the one Browne intends, is essentially figurative and is only used to describe non-living things, in this case a political campaign. The word is derived from the latin letalis, meaning death. It's just an incredibly poor adjective to describe a substance that has never killed anyone in human history. He says he wants to "send out a message to young people," but his message is just a big lie.

Thus, Browne is now expected to move forward with a plan to upgrade the criminal status of marijuana based on his own ignorant and wrong understanding of what the drug does, while disregarding the contrary advice of a whole council of experts who might actually know something about this.

This, my friends, is precisely how bad public policy gets made.

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