Politics Outside US

Things are getting very bloody in Afghanistan as thousands of US Marines pour into Helmand province, the country's opium capital, in a bid to drive out the Taliban.

Faced with a growing Taliban insurgency fueled by opium and heroin profits and inflamed by the destruction of farmers' fields, the US last weekend announced a dramatic shift in its Afghan anti-drug strategy. The US will abandon what has been a pillar of its anti-drug strategy worldwide: eradication.

Portugal has been getting good press over its decriminalization approach to drug use, including from unexpected places like the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Now, some Portuguese lawmakers are ready to take the next step. A bill to legalize the possession, cultivation, and sale of marijuana is being prepared.

Relations between Bolivia and the US just got a little rockier as the Obama administration declined to restore trade preferences, citing Bolivia's "encouragement" of coca cultivation, and Bolivian President Morales responded with hard words.

With US and NATO policies for dealing with the Afghan poppy group undergoing quite radical shifts -- giving up on eradication, treating traffickers as terrorists -- Gretchen Peters' exposé of the links between the traffic in prohibited drugs and the Taliban and Al Qaeda couldn't be more timely or more informative.

South Korean authorities and public opinion take a hard line toward marijuana, so when a leading actress speaks out for legalization, the outrage is palpable.

Coca and cocaine production are down slightly in South America, thanks largely to Colombia's continuing manual and aerial eradication campaigns, the UN reports. But despite the billions spent to suppress the trade, a gram of coke now costs about half of what it did 20 years ago.

It's summer in Afghanistan, and that means more fighting, more casualties, and this year, more drug war. Western militaries are now aiming directly at drug trafficking networks that fund the Taliban, and the Taliban isn't taking it lying down.

Explicitly acknowledging the medicinal use of the herb, the Croatian Supreme Court has thrown out marijuana possession charges against a war veteran who used it to treat PTSD.

The marijuana movement has a ways to go in Chile, according to a new poll. Only about 20% support legalization, and it's about the same for medical marijuana.