Human Rights

Drug possession has been legal in Colombia since 1994. But now, a teetotaling President Uribe wants to go back to the bad old days.

The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) met in Vienna this week to draft a political declaration and plan of action to guide international drug policy for the next decade. While the prohibitionists prevailed in the end, the voices of dissent are growing ever louder and more powerful.

California has been addicted to mass incarceration for the past quarter-century. Now, it looks like some federal judges are going to make the state go cold turkey. Tens of thousands of prisoners could be set free because California can't or won't pay to treat them as the Constitution requires.

The US general who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan wants to give NATO troops the authority to treat any drug traffickers as military targets. NATO is saying no, thanks.

Campus drug reform activists from around the country -- and beyond -- gathered last weekend in College Park, Maryland, for SSDP's 10th annual international conference. They lobbied, they listened, they learned, and now they're heading back home well-energized to apply the lessons they learned.

Five years ago, the Thai government waged a "war on drugs" that left nearly 3,000 people dead in less than three months. Now, it has declared a new drug war, and human rights groups are issuing warnings.

Washington and Bogotá have both been talking up improvements in Colombia's human rights situation. But there is still plenty to be deeply concerned about, Amnesty International said in a report this week.

Brazilian police are killers, both on and off the job, according to a new report from the UN's Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary, and arbitrary executions.

Argentina's president last week called for the decriminalization of drug possession, lending her support to a bill introduced last year by her justice minister and giving an implicit nod to a series of recent Argentine court decisions that have rejected punishing drug users.

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.