Politics Outside US

The new year has brought more drug war violence to the Mexican border, as drug gunmen battled cops and soldiers in a bloody confrontation in Rio Bravo, across the river from McAllen, Texas.

North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is at it again. The veteran critic of drug prohibition has stirred up a hornet's nest with his latest comments, including one that ecstasy is "safer than aspirin."

Iran rang in the new year by hanging three drug offenders, and Vietnam sentenced eight more to die.

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.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, the son of a man once imprisoned on drug charges in the US, has called for pardons for low-level drug mules serving long sentences in his country's prisons.

Even as the UN General Assembly condemned the death penalty this week, China condemned one man to death for methamphetamine trafficking and Malaysia condemned another to death for having less than two pounds of marijuana.

An opposition deputy has introduced a bill that would "decriminalize" marijuana possession in Mexico. Instead of jail time, users would face "informative or educational" sanctions.

After one patient successfully challenged an agency's stance that Finnish law absolutely forbids it, the Finnish government is moving to craft guidelines to allow for medical marijuana use.

Vietnamese courts have handed down death sentences to 35 drug traffickers in the past two weeks as the Southeast Asian nation makes a serious bid to be the world's leading executioner of drug offenders. Iran killed some too.

The Swiss parliament has rejected a popular initiative calling for the legalization of marijuana. But the Swiss Senate must still debate it, and it could go to a popular vote.