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What Long-Term Recovery Looks Like From Prison
Two decades into my sentence and one decade clean, I'm embarking on a drug program with 130 other men who are close to release. No one wants to come back here. But the route to recovery is harder behind bars.
Seth FerrantiThe Fix (US)
Sunday, June 16, 2013
I am near the end of a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. I’m currently spending my 20th consecutive summer away from my loving wife and family. -
Words Behind Walls
Cameron DouglasThe Huffington Post (US)
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Well, let me start by saying that I appreciate the opportunity to share some of my thoughts and feelings with you. I hope maybe in some way, this gives you a little window into my reality and more importantly, into my heart. So, here I sit at my little table in the belly of the beast, writing to you. I have spent close to two of my four years of incarceration in solitary confinement. -
Latin American Nations Debate Legalizing Pot
Josh HarkinsonMother Jones (US)
Monday, June 10, 2013
At last week's annual summit of the Organization of American States, Latin American leaders distanced themselves from the United States' drug policies and agreed to consider the widespread legalization of marijuana. -
What is Different in the Drug Policy Debate in the Americas?
Juan Carlos Garzón VergaraProject Syndicate (US)
Sunday, June 9, 2013
After four decades of the monologue of the “war on drugs”, the Americas open the door for the debate, breaking the taboo to discuss new approaches to dealing with this problem. This does not mean that there is a consensus regarding the alternatives and even less that the legalization or decriminalization are just around the corner. This means that governments around the continent are willing to have an open debate ... -
Paris drugs shooting gallery given the go-ahead
France 24 (France)
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Drug users in Paris will be able to inject themselves in a secure and monitored environment after a site near the city’s busy Gare du Nord was agreed by the city authorities. The drug consumption room would be open “by the autumn” and, once functioning, will provide free needles to drug users in a sterile environment monitored by healthcare professionals. The project is aimed at reducing the number of people taking drugs in the street, in common areas of apartment buildings and other areas such as car parks. -
The most embarrassing graph in American drug policy
WonkblogThe Washington Post (US)
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Law enforcement strategies have utterly failed to even maintain street prices of the key illicit substances. This figure shows that street drug prices fell by roughly a factor of five between in 1980 and 2008. Meanwhile the number of drug offenders locked up in our jails and prisons went from fewer than 42,000 in 1980 to a peak of 562,000 in 2007. We have remarkably little evidence that the billions of dollars spent on supply-side interdiction have much impact.
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Colorado marijuana regulations signed into law
The Denver Post (US)
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
A set of laws to govern how recreational marijuana should be grown, sold and taxed was signed into law Tuesday in Colorado, where Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper called the measures the state's best attempt to navigate the uncharted territory of legalized recreational pot. The laws cover how the drug should be raised and packaged, with purchasing limits for out-of-state visitors and a new marijuana driving limit as an analogy to blood alcohol levels. (See also: Highlights of Colorado's new marijuana laws) -
More than 280 'legal highs' now on European drug experts' radar
EU drug agency report says falling use of cannabis and cocaine in Europe is being offset by relentless supply of new substances
The Guardian (UK)
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
"Legal highs" and other new psychoactive synthetic drugs represent a fundamental shift in the market in illicit drug, according to the 2013 annual survey in drug trends by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). The EU's drug agency says 73 have become available across Europe, and adds that there is now a firmly established thriving legal highs business with low risks and high profits operating through more than 690 online sites and specialised head shops. -
OAS chief calls for “long-awaited” debate on drug policy
A one-size-fits-all response won’t work for complex problems that affect different countries in various ways
IPS
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Following the release of a major draft report on drug policy in the Americas, the secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS) called for the beginning of debate aimed at reforming those policies throughout the region. Many of the region’s leaders have expressed frustration with the limits and exorbitant costs of current policies and their desire for a more creative debate. But according to John Walsh, who participated in writing the OAS report, there is a lot of scepticism over whether the OAS will be up to the task, especially given U.S. domination of the issue. -
Drug-law reform: Inching forward
Restless politicians are changing the debate about narcotics liberalisation
The Economist (UK)
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Seven of the world’s eight most violent countries lie on the bloody trafficking route from the cocaine fields of the Andes to the nostrils of North America. So it is unsurprising that Latin American leaders are fed up with the way drugs are policed. The international rules on prohibition were laid down by the United Nations more than 50 years ago, making drug policy difficult for individual countries to reform. But diplomats and do-gooders are finding ever more chinks in prohibition’s legal armour.
