Skip to main content

Militarization

Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto (cddiputados.gob.mx)
Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto (cddiputados.gob.mx)

Mexico President-Elect Wants Drug Legalization Talks

Mexico's next president has joined the ever growing chorus of Latin American leaders calling for a serious discussion of drug legalization, even as he announced he would continue to fight the drug war in Mexico.
Mexico's likely next president, Enrique Peña Nieto  (wikimedia.org)
Mexico's likely next president, Enrique Peña Nieto (wikimedia.org)

Mexico's Drug War Version 2.0 [FEATURE]

Mexico's president-elect is going to rejigger the way the country prosecutes its war on the drug cartels, but no radical changes are apparent.
caravan launch at Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, Plaza Juárez, Mexico City (@CaravanaUSA @MxLaPazMx)
caravan launch at Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, Plaza Juárez, Mexico City (@CaravanaUSA @MxLaPazMx)

US/Mexico Drug War "Caravan of Peace" Gearing Up [FEATURE]

A Caravan of Peace calling for an end to failed prohibitionist drug policies in the US and Mexico will leave San Diego in August and arrive in Washington, DC, in September. It's hoping to educate some people along the way and have a lasting impact.
group photo at 2009 Summit of the Americas (whitehouse.gov)
group photo at 2009 Summit of the Americas (whitehouse.gov)

Historic Challenge to Drug War Looms at Cartagena Summit [FEATURE]

History is about to be made at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena this weekend. Hemispheric heads of state will discuss alternatives to the drug war and challenge the US prohibitionist model. This could be the beginning of the end.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (wikimedia.org)
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (wikimedia.org)

Mexico Presidential Candidate Vows to End Drug War

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, presidential pre-candidate for Mexico's left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party, says he will end the drug war if elected. Meanwhile, the rightist PAN's nominee takes a drug test.
Cash and guns Mexico_22.jpg
Cash and guns Mexico_22.jpg

Mexico Drug War Update

2011 is wrapping up as slightly less bloody than 2010 in Mexico's plague of prohibition-related violence, but the death toll this year is still well above 10,000.
Javier Sicilia addressing conference, with translator Ana Paula Hernandez (photo courtesy HCLU, drogriporter.hu/en)
Javier Sicilia addressing conference, with translator Ana Paula Hernandez (photo courtesy HCLU, drogriporter.hu/en)

Mexico's Symbol of Drug War Resistance Says It's Our Fight, Too [FEATURE]

A panel at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference last week called on Americans to take action to help end the drug war in Mexico, even as Human Rights Watch releases as a damning report on government killings, tortures, and disappearances in the drug war.
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would rather go to war with the narcos then legalize drugs. (Image: World Economic Forum)
Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would rather go to war with the narcos then legalize drugs. (Image: World Economic Forum)

Guatemala President Wants "NATO-Style" Force to Battle Narcos

Weak Central American states are hard-pressed to go up against the Mexican cartels, and now, Guatemala's president wants to build a NATO-style regional military force to go up against them. And for the US to pay for it.
el-diario-juarez.jpg
el-diario-juarez.jpg

Mexico Drug War Update

This year's death toll has surpassed 8,000, and a Ciudad Juarez newspaper asks the cartels to tell them what they can safely print.