Andean Drug War

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.

Alaska appears poised to vote on marijuana legalization, New York's governor announces a half-step toward medical marijuana, the ACLU fights for our rights on a couple of fronts, and trouble could be coming to the coca fields of Peru. And more.

2013 saw a historic breakthrough on the international front, as well as evidence that powerful currents are shifting inexorably away from the prohibitionist consensus of the last half-century. But there was also continuity as the drug war, drug production, and the use and trafficking of drugs, all continued apace (although not without innovation).

A pair of state appeals courts slap down cops who take people's medicine and won't give it back, there are problems with Kansas' drug testing law, Peru is buying shining new toys to prosecute its drug war, 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.

Denver's city council calls off ban on "front porch" marijuana smoking, New Jersey's governor claims medical marijuana is a ploy, Vermont rolls out a naloxone pilot project, Colombia's FARC want decriminalization, and more.

The Venezuelan government is threatening to shoot suspected drug-running planes out of the sky. Brazil and Peru already do that.

Repress it in one place, it pops up in another. Peru has regained its place as the world's leading coca producer as a decade of eradication and fumigation takes its toll on the Colombian crop.

In its annual exercise in arrogance, the US government last Friday released its report on who is and isn't complying with our drug war demands. Bolivia and Venezuela were singled out, and they're not happy.

If you have an interest in American history and how we got to where we are with the war on drugs, you need to read Smuggler Nation. You'll be glad you did.