News Feature

On Thursday, Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling and galvanizing "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" sat down with poet/activist Asha Bandele of the Drug Policy Alliance to discuss the book's impact and where we go from here. It's a discussion worth reading.

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) issued its annual report on the global drug situation today, and it is very "concerned" about marijuana legalization. But its chorus of critics is growing larger and louder.

The arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, legendary head of the Sinaloa Cartel is big news, but will it have any impact?

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 death of Phillip Seymour Hoffman has focused a media spotlight on heroin overdoses. There are better ways to deal with heroin than the current one, if there is the will.

The DC city council has voted to approve marijuana decriminalization. There's still one more vote to go, and some bad amendments, but marijuana reform is coming to the nation's capital.

An amendment to the food bill that would allow universities and state agriculture departments to do research on hemp has been approved by conference committee negotiators and is set to become law.

While the DC city council is moving on decriminalization, local activists aren't waiting to take the next step: a marijuana legalization initiative.

Last year is receding in the rear view mirror, but before looking forward to the battles of 2014, we take a moment to savor what was, overall, a pretty big year for drug reform on the domestic front.

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).