If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
The Blog
The present surge in homicides in Mexico and the region is yet another tale of America's maintaining our own expensive drug habits at the expense of our neighboring nations' fundamental well being. But the July 1 presidential election in Mexico may be a turning point.
The U.S. has expressed support for the Mexican government's war against the drug trade but taken few practical steps to address the issue. And as the problem there gets worse, you can bet that it will infect us too.
Some people might still think that marijuana prohibition is a fringe issue -- but if any of these people run for office, they'd better watch their back. The drug policy reform movement is on the verge of being not just respected -- but feared.
We in the U.S. must do our part to build a future of human rights and human dignity throughout the Americas, and call on Mexico to protect its indigenous communities and the advocates like Vidulfo Rosales who risk everything to defend them.
A clear majority of Americans now want to see marijuana legalized. What's more, the trend has been moving towards the pro-legalization position, and continues to do so.
The vast majority of Americans do not even know that the U.S. is at war just south of our borders and do not understand why our Southern neighbors are crying out for a change in this senseless policy. The media's failure in this regard is inexcusable.
Author and legal scholar, Michelle Alexander, has written a powerful and highly acclaimed, well-researched book titled, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."
As terrible as alcohol and other drugs are for some people, prohibition is not the answer. It didn't work in the United States in the 1920s and it is not working for the Sioux people today.
Daniel Chong, UC-San Diego student, said he was forced to drink his own urine after he was left in a Drug Enforcement Administration holding cell for nearly five days.
The continued decline in teen cigarette smoking is great news -- not just because it's the most deadly drug but also because it reveals that legal regulation and honest education are more effective than prohibition and criminalization.
While officials convened at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena earlier this month, the White House put the finishing touches on another free trade agreement. The deal has faced vocal resistance from labor and human rights groups in both countries.
At its core, the domestic cultivation of industrial hemp is a simple matter of agriculture and economics that has nothing to do with drug policy at all, and shouldn't even be tied to the otherwise raging debate about marijuana laws in America.
Last month Pat Robertson, televangelist and long-time icon of the religious right, announced that it's time to legalize marijuana. The firestorm of shock and indignation from all sides ... never materialized. Not a whimper.
To even suggest that Obama has to appear "tough on drugs" in order to deflect political attacks is preposterous. What political attacks? When have we ever heard him criticized for any such thing?
When the 2009 coup was allowed to conserve power and seal itself off from prosecution, it immediately undermined governance, rule of law, and the social compact. Honduras' constitutional crisis has now become a prolonged social and political crisis.
The world is fraught with too much violence, too much crime, too much addiction, too many overdose cases, too many prisons, too many bullet holes, too many AIDS cases, and too many bills related to prohibition. The war on drugs has proved to be public enemy number one.
