Politics Outside US

As Britain's Labor government prepares to announce a new long-term drug strategy in the spring, the battle is heating up. Now, the government's own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is calling for nurses and pharmacists to be able to prescribe heroin and cocaine, and chiding the government for making a joke of consultations around the new strategy.

One year after he took office, Mexican President Felipe Calderon says the war on drugs remains his highest priority. Some 24,000 troops are in the field, but the traffic and the violence appear to continue unabated.

The use of the death penalty against drug offenders continues apace in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Iran executes six, Vietnam upholds one death sentence, and Vietnamese prosecutors seek 11 more.

Facing strong opposition from the Afghan government, European allies, and even elements of the US government, the State Department announced Wednesday it had given up on an aerial spraying program designed to eradicate Afghan opium poppies -- at least for now.

A high police official in Edinburgh has broached the notion of not arresting small-time drug offenders in the city center, but the idea has attracted a lot of heat, and now the police are backpedaling.

Investigatory panels looking into 2,500 drug war killings in Thailand in the spring of 2003 have determined that more than half of those killed had nothing to do with drugs. Meanwhile, at least one Thai politician wants to return to the tough drug policies that led to those mass killings.

Four and a half years ago, then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra vowed to wipe out drug use in Thailand. Within three months, 2,500 people were dead. Now, a new government is about to release a series of reports on the killings.

With elections looming on Saturday and his party trailing, Australian Prime Minister has announced a "zero tolerance" plan to take control of welfare payments for drug offenders.

The Irish Labor Party debated whether to make cannabis legalization or decrim part of the party platform at its annual conference last Friday, but deferred a decision on whether to do so.

The Australian state of Queensland is effectively increasing penalties for a number of drugs by rescheduling them as more dangerous.