Latin America: Latin America On Its Way To Legalizing Drugs, Experts Say

BUENOS AIRES – Latin America is headed towards the decriminalization of drug possession for personal consumption, according to experts and officials who took part in a regional conference in Buenos Aires.
Those attending the 1st Latin American Conference on Drug Policy, which ended Friday, also said that legislative reforms are [...]

US says Afghan poppy eradication ‘failure’

The United States admits that its efforts in eradicating opium poppy production in Afghanistan have proven to be of no avail.
Washington’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke said on Sunday that the current measures taken against poppy growers had been “a failure”.
“The Western policies against the opium crop, the [...]

Canada’s ‘Prince of Pot’ Vows to Defeat U.S. War on Drugs

VANCOUVER, British Columbia  —  Psychedelic rock booms through The Toker’s Bowl. Young and some not-so-young people smoke pot through a variety of devices in the store’s Vapour Lounge. And owner Marc Scott Emery stands in the middle of it all, proclaiming his goal of defeating the U.S. war on drugs.
Known [...]

Comment: Get real, drug czars

ELEVEN years ago, the United Nations pledged to win the war on drugs within a decade. It has failed.
At this year’s meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, held in Vienna in March, there was a two-day session to evaluate the progress since 1998. In his opening remarks, the head [...]

Newly declassified documents reveal More than $97 million from USAID to separatist projects in Bolivia

The declassified documents in original format and with Spanish translation are available here
Recently declassified documents obtained by investigators Jeremy Bigwood and Eva Golinger reveal that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has invested more than $97 million in “decentralization” and “regional autonomy” projects and opposition political parties [...]

Drug-Friendly Netherlans to close prisons for lack of criminals

For years prohibitionists, including our own Drug Enforcement Administration, have claimed — falsely — that the tolerant marijuana policies of the Netherlands have made that nation a nest of crime and drug abuse. They may have trouble wrapping their little brains around this:
The Dutch government is getting ready to close [...]

Mexican NGOs, Brigadier General, Unite in Letter Against Plan Mexico

May 7, 2009
Yesterday, 72 Mexican civil society organizations and a Brigadier General of the Mexican Army sent the following letter to US Congress demanding that all military aid to Mexico be immediately halted. The letter comes as the US House of Representative is considering more than doubling 2009 funding for the war [...]

Former Mexican President Calls for Legalization

British agent loses top secrets

A British agent has left top secret information about covert operations on a transit coach at El Dorado airport in Bogota, Colombia.
The incident occurred after the drugs liaison officer left her handbag on the bus. In the handbag there was a computer memory stick containing the names, code names, addresses [...]

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?

Pop quiz: Which European country has the most liberal drug laws? (Hint: It’s not the Netherlands.)
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled “coffee shops,” Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don’t enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer [...]

Mexican Drug War: Soldiers vs. Soldiers

The most offensive casualties the Mexican Army has suffered in the war on drug trafficking aren’t the result of confrontations with hitmen.  Rather, they’re executions carried out by ex-brothers-in-arms, trained by the Mexican National Defense Ministry, who have joined the ranks of organized crime, or by cells protected by high-ranking [...]

Arrests of U.S. border agents on the rise

WASHINGTON — A rising number of U.S. border enforcement officers are being arrested on corruption charges as Mexican drug cartels look to bribes as a way to get around tougher enforcement, border officials say.
Investigators arrested 21 U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers on corruption charges in the fiscal year that [...]

Obama in Mexico

US President Obama today set foot in Mexico City today, and Narco News
publisher Al Giordano is there, reporting and following his steps:
“We will no doubt hear more of the same over-the-top statements of
support for President Calderon from his US counterpart, who recently
went so far as to compare Mexico’s illegitimate [...]

Child Casualties in Mexico Drug War

Mexico, Apr 13 (Prensa Latina) A total of 610 children have died as a result of the war waged by Mexican drug cartels, reports a study of the national Defense Secretary (SEDENA).
This institution together with the Navy and different police institutions has participated for almost two and a half years [...]

CIA Updates Digital Archive, Restricts Access

The Central Intelligence Agency maintains a regularly updated electronic archive of declassified historical records that have been publicly disclosed, but it has effectively squandered the utility of digitizing these records by refusing to make them available online.
The CIA to its credit has done more than any other agency to scan [...]

Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower

More Than $1 billion In Private-Sector Weapons Exports Approved For Mexico Since 2004
Mainstream media and Beltway pundits and politicians in recent months have unleashed a wave of panic in the nation linking the escalading violence in Mexico, and its projected spread into the U.S., to illegal weapons smuggling.
The smokescreen being [...]

Why Secretly Funded DEA Surveillance Planes Aren’t Flying

WASHINGTON — The first sign of trouble with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s new surveillance planes surfaced almost immediately.  On the way from the manufacturer to the agency’s aviation headquarters, one of them veered off a runway during a fuel stop.
The malfunction last spring was only the beginning.  A month later, the [...]

The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal

In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs, a distinction which continues through to the present.  Last year, working with the Cato Institute, I went to that country in order to research the effects of the decriminalization law (which applies to all substances, including cocaine and heroin) and to [...]

Bolivia’s Morales Calls for Recognition of Legal Coca Use in N.Y. Times Editorial

WASHINGTON – Bolivian President Evo Morales said in an editorial published by The New York Times that the international community should remove coca from its list of banned substances.
“The millions of us who maintain the traditional practice of chewing coca have been, according to the (1961 United Nations Single Convention [...]

Colombian VP calls for end to US anti-drug program

BOGOTA (AFP) — Colombia’s vice president said Sunday the United States should end a multi-billion-dollar anti-drug program which has long been the main plank in Washington’s fight against drugs in Latin America.
In an interview with local daily El Tiempo, Francisco Santos said Washington’s military-focused Plan Colombia should end because [...]

US Prepares to Do to Mexico What it Has Done to Pakistan

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen briefed President Barack Obama over the weekend on the so-called drug war in Mexico and the prospect of increased US military involvement in the conflict south of the border.
Mullen had just returned from a six-day tour of Latin America, which took him [...]

Economist Cover Story: Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution

A HUNDRED years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert [...]

DEA’s Operation Xcellerator is Another Justice Department Dog and Pony Show

Despite the  “Largest and Hardest Hitting Operation to Ever Target” the Sinaloa Cartel, the DEA is Merely Treading Water in the War on Drugs
On February 25, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) held a press conference celebrating the culmination of Operation Xcellerator, which it says resulted in the arrests [...]

Wikileaks cracks NATO’s Master Narrative for Afghanistan

Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the “story” NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists.
The encrypted document, which is dated October 6, and believed to be current, can [...]

International Narcotics Control Board Releases 2008 Report

Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2008
The International Narcotics Control Board has released the latest Report on international drug controls. The report begins with an overview of international drug control conventions, including history, achievements, challenges, and recommendations. It then explains the operation of the international drug control [...]

Ecuador says expelled diplomat was ‘CIA chief’

The US diplomat Ecuador expelled from the country earlier this week was a CIA station chief, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday.
“Last week we expelled the US embassy’s (Mark) Sullivan from the country. He was, let’s be clear, the director of the CIA in Ecuador,” Correa told his weekly radio [...]

Anti-Drug War Marchers block Mexico-US border

Hundreds of people in Mexico have blocked key crossings into the US in protests against the deployment of the army to fight drug traffickers.
Traffic was brought to a halt on a number of bridges in several border towns in northern Mexico.
The protesters accused the army of abuse against civilians. Government officials [...]

Announcing Two Scholarships in Journalism and Organizing

Applications Due March 15 to Be Eligible for Free Attendance at the April 24-26 Workshop at the Rowe Conference Center in Massachusetts
The Narco News School of Authentic Journalism, together with the Rowe Conference Center, announces the availability of two scholarships to attend the weekend workshop, The Organizing of [...]

At least our Mexican neighbors are still standing up for their freedom (and ours)

February 16, 2009:  The government has 45,000 troops and 5,000 police battling several thousand cartel gunmen in 18 states. But most of the action is in a few states along the U.S. border. Two years of violence have left over 8,000 dead. The drug cartels are not strong enough to defeat [...]

Last of 36 DEA agents leave Bolivia

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The last U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents left Bolivia on Thursday, ordered out by President Evo Morales even as Bolivian police reported that coca cultivation and cocaine processing are on the rise.
Morales demanded the DEA’s exit in November as part of a dispute between U.S. [...]

U. N. Crime Chief Says Drug Money Used To Keep Banks Afloat

VIENNA: The United Nations‘ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian [...]

Five Essential Things We Must Do to Stop America’s Idiotic War on Drugs

The United States has spent hundreds of billions of dollars waging its 40-year “war on drugs,” responsible for the imprisonment of 500,000 of our fellow American citizens. Despite this enormous waste of money and lives, drugs are as easily available and cheap as ever. The drug-warmongers say it is all for [...]