Crime & Violence

As the US Congress begins to move toward passing a massive anti-drug aid package aimed mainly at the Mexican military, abuses by soldiers in the drug war there have prompted a serious legal challenge.

Culiacán, Sinaloa, is the home of one of Mexico's most feared drug trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel. This week, it was also home to a groundbreaking conference on alternatives to the drug war. As that conference ended Wednesday evening, cops, soldiers, and narcos went at it on the streets of Culiacán, leaving two cops and two narcos dead, and providing poignant punctuation to the conference.

High US officials hit the road for Latin America this week in a series of trips to lobby for passage of Plan Mérida, the $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package for Mexico. But at a forum on drug policy in Culiacán, Sinaloa, there was little but objections to the plan, especially its emphasis on using the Mexican military in the drug war.

The head of the Dutch police union says it's time to just legalize cannabis, and a Dutch mayor wants to start regulating growing.

In the latest battle in a decades-long struggle between Iranian police and border-crossing drug runners, Iran claims to have killed 24 smugglers coming from the direction of Afghanistan.

The endemic drug prohibition-related violence plaguing Rio de Janeiro turned even bloodier last week as police conducting drug raids killed 14 people.

Mexico's drug prohibition-related violence took no respite over the Easter holiday. At least 59 people were killed across the country, including cops, soldiers, drug dealers, used car salesman, an informant, and a US citizen.

How many more lives will be ruined by the drug laws before our leaders are willing to talk sense about them? Too many, here and everywhere.

A judge in Cali has found a Colombian army colonel and 14 of his troops guilty of murder for killing 10 elite Colombian anti-drug police and their informant at the request of drug traffickers.

Mexican soldiers poured into Reynosa and other border towns in the state of Tamaulipas last month in response to a wave of drug prohibition-related violence. They haven't stopped the violence, but they have put the screws to some sectors of the local economy and committed some human rights violations. Few observers there or across the river think the answer lies in Washington's proposed massive anti-drug aid package.