Venezuela, US Governments Spar Over Drug Fighting
On September 19, 2008 in Drug War, Government, World
The tense relations between the Bush administration and Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez grew even more strained this week as Washington and Caracas traded charges and counter-charges over Venezuela’s fight against cocaine trafficking. While it seems indisputable that cocaine trafficking through Venezuela has increased in recent years, the two governments are trading barbs over the extent of official Venezuelan complicity in the trade, whether Venezuela is doing enough to combat trafficking, and whether it needs to comply with US demands in order to effectively fight the drug trade.
Venezuela does not grow coca or process cocaine, but like other countries in Latin America, it has been used as a conduit, especially by traffickers from neighboring Colombia, the region’s largest coca and cocaine producer. The rise of the European cocaine market in recent years has undoubtedly made the country an attractive way station for cocaine headed east. Read the rest of this entry »
On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine
On September 12, 2008 in Book Reviews, Miscellaneous, Research
Almost everybody knows about methamphetamine, that demon drug, that pharmacological equivalent of plutonium, stereotypically favored by toothless, uneducated white guys tweaking in trailer parks out in the sticks. Many fewer people are aware of Desoxyn, which is widely prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). And even fewer are aware that Desoxyn is nothing other than pharmaceutical grade methamphetamine legally prescribed by doctors across the land.
How can the same substance be both demon drug and miracle cure? Science historian Nicolas Rasmussen of the University of New South Wales in Sydney provides some answers to that question - and much more - in “On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine.” Read the rest of this entry »
Louisiana Lawmen Play Fast And Loose with the Constitution
On August 29, 2008 in Civil Rights, Drug War, In The News, Law Enforcement
In its 2000 decision in Indianapolis v. Edmond, the US Supreme Court held that efforts to attack the drug trade by holding a checkpoint to look for drugs was a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the right to be free from unwarranted searches and seizures. In the years since then, a handful of departments across the county, usually in the South, have brazenly trumpeted their resort to drug checkpoints. Read the rest of this entry »
Mexican Political Party Considers Legalization
On August 29, 2008 in Drug War, Government, Legalization, World
According to Mexican press reports this week, Mexico’s Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD - Democratic Revolution Party) is preparing to consider legalization of the drug trade as a response to the wave of narco-violence that has swept the country in the last year and a half. Around 5,000 people have been killed in prohibition-related violence since President Felipe Calderón escalated Mexico’s long-running drug war by enlisting the military in the fight in December 2006. Read the rest of this entry »
Hawaii’s Big Island to Vote on Lowest Law Enforcement Priority Initiative
On August 29, 2008 in Government, In The News, Legalization, Medical Marijuana
Petitioners for an initiative making adult marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority on Hawaii’s pot-friendly Big Island failed to gather enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, but it is going there anyway. After reviewing the signature count, the county council voted 5-4 to put the measure on the ballot. Read the rest of this entry »
