Crime & Violence

It was just a meeting about reducing drug demand, but both the Mexican and the US governments felt compelled to speak out against drug legalization. First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you...

Mexican President Felipe Calderon caught serious flak this week from two different directions: Angry residents of Ciudad Juárez, tired of the killing and the soldiers, and the Mexican Catholic Church, which issued a report critical of human rights abuses in the military and crooked law enforcement.

Thirty people were killed Wednesday in Mexico's prohibition-related violence. That's not even close to the daily record.

In 1913, the El Paso city council became the first in the country to outlaw marijuana. Now, faced with the horrendous prohibition-related violence across the river in Ciudad Juarez, it has passed a resolution condemning current drug policies, but only after dropping language calling for marijuana regulation. It's got three years left until the century mark to get it completely right.

Nearly a thousand people were killed in Mexico's unrelenting plague of prohibition-related violence last month alone. At this rate, another 10,000 will die by year's end.

Prohibition-related violence takes no breaks in Mexico. Another 162 people were killed in that country's drug wars in the past week.

It was a relatively quiet week in Mexico's drug wars this week. Only about 15 people a day were killed.

Last weekend saw the single deadliest 24-hour-period ever in Mexico's drug war, with 69 people killed. And that's just for starters.

The cops lined up against it -- literally! -- but that didn't stop the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee from voting to approve a marijuana legalization bill. And so, history is made this week in Sacramento.

What a year! A lot happened in 2009 when it comes to drug policy, much of it good. Last issue we reviewed the international developments. This last week of the year, we take a look at what we see as the ten most important domestic drug policy stories the year brought us.