Government Corruption

Drug War Chronicle reviews historian Paul Gootenberg's "Andean Cocaine," and finds its methods and its results most useful.

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.

Tenaha, Texas, lies between Houston and the casinos of Shreveport across the Louisiana line. The town thought it hit the jackpot with a sleazy policing scheme, but now it may be coming up snake eyes.

The three Atlanta narcs whose phony drug raid ended with the death of a 92-year-old woman were sentenced to prison Tuesday. Has the Atlanta Police Department learned its lesson? The sentencing judge certainly hopes so.

President-elect Obama met with Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Monday. Mexico's drug wars were high on the agenda, but it seems unlikely, given Obama's list of pressing issues, that Mexico will get any higher priority than it has in recent years.

In recent years, South American cocaine traffickers aiming at lucrative European markets have made West Africa a favorite stop-over. Now, the narcs are following them.

Mexico's high levels of prohibition-related violence are taking their toll on public confidence south of the border. But they are also making Mexicans more amenable to thinking about legalization, according to a new poll.

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.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón called out the army to put the hurt on drug trafficking organizations. But with a rising prohibition-related death toll, as well as public impatience with common crime, his policies may be putting a bigger hurt on himself.

Washington and Caracas traded barbs over Venezuelan cooperation (or the lack thereof) with US drug fighters this week.