Crime & Violence

A pair of bills, one local and one national, were introduced in Mexico City last week. They address marijuana retail sales, medical marijuana, and more drug decriminalization. Change is in the wind.

The hemp amendment gets included in the farm bill, Colorado's Supreme Court will review medical marijuana patients' employment rights, we have a couple of drug war horror stories, Mexico's security apparatus is joining forces with anti-cartel vigilantes, and Saudi Arabia's premarital drug testing program isn't working, and more.

Florida's medical marijuana initiative will go to the voters in November, the DEA administrator is being both jeered and cheered for her criticism of President Obama's remarks on marijuana, the Supreme Court makes it harder to punish drug dealers for deaths related to their wares, and much more.

Marijuana legalization is one step closer in the nation's capital, even Georgia Republican legislators are getting on the medical marijuana bandwagon, Syria's civil war is being fueled by speed, and more.

Another poll shows solid majority support for marijuana legalization, Florida's medical marijuana initiative appears to be within reach of qualifying for the ballot (if the state Supreme Court doesn't block it), Sweden's justice minister falls for a pot deaths hoax, and a UN official has a grim warning on Afghanistan. And more.

Marijuana continues to suck all the air out of the room when it comes to drug policy, with news on the legalization, medical, and international fronts. The only non-marijuana-related item we have today is the murder of a confidential informant.

2013 saw a historic breakthrough on the international front, as well as evidence that powerful currents are shifting inexorably away from the prohibitionist consensus of the last half-century. But there was also continuity as the drug war, drug production, and the use and trafficking of drugs, all continued apace (although not without innovation).

Uruguayan President Mujica has signed that country's groundbreaking marijuana legalization bill into law. The government now has 120 days to craft rules, and then Uruguay's era of legal marijuana commerce will commence.

Uruguay's president defends marijuana legalization there and finds an ally, marijuana bills are popping up in some surprising countries, the Justice Department says we have a federal prison crisis, and much more.