Interdiction

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Obama Releases 2012 National Drug Control Strategy

The new national drug strategy is out and it looks very much like the old national drug strategy, retaining the seemingly eternal 60:40 split between law enforcement and interdiction on one hand and treatment and prevention on the other.

Drug War Autopilot and Co-Autopilot: ONDCP Director Gil Kerlikowske with President Obama

Meet Obama's Proposed 2013 Federal Drug Budget [FEATURE]

The White House has released its proposed 2013 federal drug budget, and it looks pretty much like all the other federal drug budgets, only bigger.

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Review Essay: The Border and Mexico's Drug Wars

The literature of the Mexican drug war and the border continues to expand. Here, we look at four recent titles.

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Another Dumb Drug War Idea: Banning Hidden Compartments in Cars

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Frequent visitors to this site should know by now that there is no idea so absurd, no strategy so stupid, as to be rendered ineligible for introduction into the War on Drugs. There is nothing these people won't try, and by nothing I mean that literally, as in every bad idea that the human mind can possibly produce will eventually be attempted by amped-up narc-mongering nutjobs hellbent on bending our legal system to hell.

statues of coca leaves adorn a small town plaza in Peru (photo by author)

Peru Fires Reformist Drug Czar

Peru's drug czar has been fired for being insufficiently enthusiastic about eradicating coca crops.

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Fixing Our Drug Policy Will Require a Hatchet, Not a Scalpel

I have a new piece at Huffington Post discussing recent claims from the Drug Czar's office that the Obama Administration is working hard to "reform" our drug policy. We've reached an interesting moment in the debate when both sides are wrapping themselves in the flag of reform.

lime powder container (used traditionally in coca chewing), 1st-7th-century, Colombia (Quimbaya), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Going Through the Motions

[image:1 align:left caption:true]Bolivia's government has announced it plans to allow "excess

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The 2011 National Drug Control Strategy: Drug Policy on Autopilot [FEATURE]

The drug czar has released the 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, and there's little new there but a renewed attack on medical marijuana and legalization. Otherwise, it's pretty much business as usual.

LEAP members pass by the White House as they deliver their report to the drug czar's office.

Cops Say Forty Years of War on Drugs is Enough [FEATURE]

To mark the 40th anniversary of Nixon's declaration of the war on drugs, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition has released a scathing report calling for it to end.

Drug Submarines and the Futile Fight Against Colombian Smuggling

Yet another lessen in the futility of drug prohibition: Drug smugglers in Colombia have a low-cost way to transport cocaine -- narco-submarines. Authorities are struggling to keep up, and the technology keeps improving. Jay Bergman, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration's Andean division, said it's a whole new challenge. "Without question, it has us all going back to the textbooks and the drawing boards and figuring out what are we going to do about this." Bergman pointed out that so far, no drug submarines have been detected under the sea. But seizures of semi-submersibles have dropped dramatically in the past two years. That could mean that traffickers have already made the switch to submarines â and that they're eluding detection.

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