The governors of the states of Nuevo Leon and Sinaloa [both on the border with the U.S. and centers of much drug traffic related violence] spoke out for analyzing the anti-drug strategy, which has cost thousands of lives in Mexico and produced high levels of violence, while in the United States approval for regulating the consumption of marijuana has increased.
Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz, governor of Nuevo Leon, was in favor of examining the combating of drug trafficking and possible regulation, legalization or developing a registry of cannabis consumers.
"We have to carry out a serious reflection of the strategy to combat drugs, because so far no one has been able to say that with this strategy we will eradicate drugs," said Medina to CNNMéxico. Read more »
Marijuana users and activists celebrated the drug's legalisation in Colorado and Washington as landmark victories on Wednesday but uncertainty over the federal government's response tempered jubilation.
Voters in both states on Tuesday approved amendments legalising the recreational use of marijuana, historic decisions that reflect growing disenchantment across the US with the decades-old "war on drugs".
A coalition of pot shop dispensaries, civil rights advocates and former law enforcers argued that legalisation would hit drug cartels' profits, boost state tax revenues and reduce the mass incarceration of African Americans and Latinos.
For all the hype, says Const. David Bratzer, the life of a downtown cop is about wordplay more often than gunplay. As the scores of drug offenders who’ve served jail time at his insistence will attest, his main weapon isn’t his service revolver, it’s polite, persistent persuasion. As he unrolls his six-foot frame from a floatplane in Vancouver harbour on a humid summer morning, that’s a weapon he plans to level once again at the very drug laws he’s charged with enforcing. “It’s tough for a cop to admit,” he says, heading down the wharf while buttoning his charcoal jacket, “but our laws just don’t make sense.”
A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.
The report by the UK Drug Policy Commission (UKDPC), an independent advisory body, says possession of small amounts of controlled drugs should no longer be a criminal offence and concludes the move will not lead to a significant increase in use.
The experts say the criminal sanctions imposed on the 42,000 people sentenced each year for possession of all drugs – and the 160,000 given cannabis warnings – should be replaced with simple civil penalties such as a fine, attendance at a drug awareness session or a referral to a drug treatment programme.
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has never been soft on crime. The 30-year military veteran rose to power last year on the wings of his law-and-order platform, crystalized in his campaign slogan: “Iron fist, head, and heart.” And he recently approved the creation of two military bases, outfitted with 2,500 soldiers, to guard against the growing presence of drug cartels that have turned Guatemala into a trafficking corridor and fueled some of the world’s highest murder rates.
American drugs policy is a “war on black people” and results in the jailing of too many African Americans, billionaire entrepreneur and drugs law campaigner Sir Richard Branson said Wednesday.
Branson, who is a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a body of leading figures and politicians campaigning for more effective drugs laws, said the U.S. approach to drugs was “racist.”
Branson made the remarks during a Reuters interview while acting as guest editor for Metro newspaper.
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The governors of the states of Nuevo Leon and Sinaloa [both on the border with the U.S. and centers of much drug traffic related violence] spoke out for analyzing the anti-drug strategy, which has cost thousands of lives in Mexico and produced high levels of violence, while in the United States approval for regulating the consumption of marijuana has increased.
Marijuana users and activists celebrated the drug's legalisation in Colorado and Washington as landmark victories on Wednesday but uncertainty over the federal government's response tempered jubilation.
For all the hype, says Const. David Bratzer, the life of a downtown cop is about wordplay more often than gunplay. As the scores of drug offenders who’ve served jail time at his insistence will attest, his main weapon isn’t his service revolver, it’s polite, persistent persuasion. As he unrolls his six-foot frame from a floatplane in Vancouver harbour on a humid summer morning, that’s a weapon he plans to level once again at the very drug laws he’s charged with enforcing. “It’s tough for a cop to admit,” he says, heading down the wharf while buttoning his charcoal jacket, “but our laws just don’t make sense.”
A six-year study of Britain's drug laws by leading scientists, police officers, academics and experts has concluded it is time to introduce decriminalisation.
Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has never been soft on crime. The 30-year military veteran rose to power last year on the wings of his law-and-order platform, crystalized in his campaign slogan: “Iron fist, head, and heart.” And he recently approved the creation of two military bases, outfitted with 2,500 soldiers, to guard against the growing presence of drug cartels that have turned Guatemala into a trafficking corridor and fueled some of the world’s highest murder rates.
American drugs policy is a “war on black people” and results in the jailing of too many African Americans, billionaire entrepreneur and drugs law campaigner Sir Richard Branson said Wednesday.
