Europe: Scottish Heroin Crackdown Sparks Violent Crime Increase
Police in Scotland engineered a crackdown on heroin in Dundee, only to find they had created a crime wave.
Policing
Latin America: Mexico's PRD May Call for Legalization
Faced with rising levels of violence as Mexican drug traffickers, police, and soldiers engage in a multi-sided struggle for supremacy, Mexico's left-leaning Democratic Revolution Party may be about to call for legalization of the drug trade -- in both the US and Mexico.
Southeast Asia: DEA Bringing Drug War Tactics to Vietnam
DEA trainers are in Vietnam this month to show Vietnamese how to have a drug war American-style, but the UN's man on the scene doesn't find that particularly helpful.
Latin America: Argentine President Calls for Decriminalization of Drug Possession, Inclusion of Harm Reduction in National Drug Strategy
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.
Latin America: In Bid to Reduce US Influence, Bolivia to Fund Own Anti-Drug Unit
The Bolivian government announced late last week that it would fund its own anti-drug units in a bid to reduce foreign (read: US) influence over its coca and cocaine policies.
Europe: Britain's Drug War Not Working, Think-Tank Finds
A leading independent British commission has examined the UK's war on drugs and found it ineffective and misguided.
Feature: Vested Interests of Prohibition I: The Police
Who profits from drug prohibition? With this article we begin our occasional series on Vested Interests of Prohibition, and we begin with a law enforcement establishment grown fat off drug war bounty.
Latin America: US House Approves Mexico Anti-Drug Aid Bill, But Mexico Balks at Senate Human Rights Conditions
The Merida Initiative anti-drug assistance package for Mexico and Central America passed the House this week, but Mexico is balking at human rights and other conditions in the Senate version of the bill. Will the Senate sacrifice human rights on the altar of the drug war?
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.
Southwest Asia: Iranian Police Kill 24 Drug Smugglers in "Shoot-Out"
In the latest battle in a decades-long struggle between Iranian police and border-crossing drug runners, Iran claims to have killed 24 smugglers coming from the direction of Afghanistan.