Criminal Justice

Meeting in Vienna last week, representatives of more than 300 non-governmental organizations concerned with various aspects of drug policy crafted a consensus document calling for a fundamental shift in global drug control.

The Chinese National People's Congress is set to pass that country's first drug law, after subsuming drugs within the general criminal code for half a century. Designated addicts may actually get gentler treatment in the new framework than they receive now.

The 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place last weekend in New Orleans. Here is a taste of what is was like.

A stint in teen boot camp can prove infinitely more deadly than the original problems they purport to address.

While Republicans happily pursue their "tough on crime" politics of fear and Democrats can barely be bothered to vote to protect medical marijuana providers, the US Green Party is calling for radical reforms of the criminal justice system and "cancellation" of the drug war.

While President Bush has pardoned 12 Thanksgiving turkeys in an annual White House ceremony since taking office 6 1/2 years ago, he has commuted only four people's prison sentences, one of them Scooter Libby's. We want more!

The US Conference of Mayors last month adopted a resolution calling the war on drugs a failure and urging "a new bottom line" on drug policy.

As Britain's 10-year drug strategy comes up for renewal or replacement next year, the latest in a long line of reports assailing it has come out.

The war on drugs is one part of a web of international crime control regimes that have developed over centuries. But past definitions of crime and today's are not all the same.

The governor of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro has called for a debate over drug legalization both within Brazil and internationally. He argues that it would reduce crime in his violence-plagued city and state.