legalization

  • In our July 20 Facebook Live session, Senior Editor Mike LaSusa and Geoff Ramsey, a research and communications associate at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), discussed Uruguay‘s experience establishing a legal and regulated marijuana market, as well as the implications of this for organized crime and future discussions about drug policy… Read this

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  • A ruling by Mexico‘s Supreme Court will allow four individuals to grow and possess marijuana for personal consumption, setting a legal precedent for further challenges to the country’s laws banning production and distribution of the drug… Read this piece in its entirety at InSight Crime.

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  • Last month, the White House called out Bolivia for “failing demonstrably” to comply with international anti-drug agreements for the seventh year in a row. Out of the 22 nations labeled major players in the global drug trade, Bolivia, the only country that permits nationwide legal coca cultivation, was also the only one denied U.S. State

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  • I wrote a few months ago that legalizing marijuana in Uruguay could be a bad idea because gangs and drug traffickers might export cheap, price-controlled government pot for sale in foreign countries where it is illegal. Recently, Quartz had an interesting article that made me rethink the issue. Citing Paraguayan officials who say illegal pot from Paraguay will be

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  • Note: The following was adapted from an essay I wrote for a class on US-Latin American relations. The original text can be found here along with a bibliography (pdf). The roots of the current “drug war” can be found in the 1909 anti-opium conference held in Shanghai, which was marked by the first of many US efforts to

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