Crime & Violence

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.

Will 2010 be the year the first state legalizes marijuana? If California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano and Washington Representative Roger Goodman have their way, two states will do so.

Honduras' top anti-drug official Monday held a press conference urging the public to join the fight against drug traffickers. A day later, he was dead--gunned down in an ambush by assailants who escaped.

The carnage continues. This week an American citizen is among the casualties, but it looks like she was the victim of a soldier's inadvertent discharge.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference took place in Albuquerque last weekend. It was quite a show. Here's a scene report.

At a conference last week, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda bluntly accused the Mexican military of murdering members of the so-called drug cartels to avenge its own losses in the country's bloody wave of prohibition-related violence.