• Guatemalan president leads drug legalization debate

    CNN (US)
    Friday, March 23, 2012

    otto-perez2On the campaign trail, Otto Perez Molina vowed to rule his country with an iron fist. The retired general said he would send troops into the streets to fight drug violence. Analysts summed up his political platform with three words: law and order. Now – just two months after taking office – the Guatemalan president is pushing a controversial proposal that has come under fire from U.S. officials and earned praise from people who were once his critics. Last year's law-and-order candidate said he wanted to legalize drugs.

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  • De Nederwietoorlog

    Politie dikt exportcijfers nederwiet aan
    KRO Reporter International
    Friday, March 2, 2012

    De exportcijfers van nederwiet die de Taskforce Aanpak Georganiseerde Hennepteelt veelvuldig in de media bracht, zijn sterk overdreven. Dit blijkt uit een vertrouwelijk rapport van het Korps Landelijke Politie Diensten dat openbaar wordt gemaakt door KRO Reporter International. Het rapport maakt duidelijk dat de export van nederwiet een “bescheiden omvang” heeft. “Het grootste deel van de productie is bedoeld voor de binnenlandse markt”, aldus het KLPD. Donderdag debatteert de Tweede Kamer over het drugsbeleid.

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  • Jakhalzen - Hashverbod

    De wereld draait door (DWDD)
    Tursday, March 1, 2012

    Het softdrugsbeleid mag wel wat aangescherpt, vindt de VVD. Regeringspartners PVV en CDA zijn het daarmee eens. Voorstel is een bijvoorbeeld een verbod op hash. Vandaag debatteerde de Tweede Kamer over het gedoogbeleid in Nederland. Jakhals Erik vraagt zich af of dit het begin van het einde is van de coffeeshop.

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  • South American prison deaths tied to overcrowding, official says

    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Tuesday, February 7, 2012

    Violence at prisons in South America, where at least eight inmates were killed in recent weeks, remains tied to alarmingly shoddy conditions and rampant overcrowding, a United Nations official said Thursday. "The implementation of harsh drug laws has fueled rising incarceration rates and has contributed to severe prison overcrowding," the Washington Office on Latin America and the Transnational Institute wrote in a study two years ago.

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  • Colombia Takes Step Towards Drug Decriminalization

    Elyssa Pachico
    In Sight
    Thursday, August 25, 2011

    Colombia's Supreme Court ruled against harsh punishments for small-time drug offenders, in a move towards easing up Colombia's zero-tolerance drug laws, which have achieved little in the fight against organized crime.

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  • La Bolivia sotto Inquisizione

    Il Manifesto / Fuoriluogo
    Mercoledi, 20 luglio 2011

    fuoriluogo-itMartin Jelsma (Transnational Institute, Amsterdam) racconta per la rubrica di Fuoriluogo sul Manifesto del 20 luglio 2011 la crociata contro la Bolivia avviata dall'INCB dell'ONU. L’articolo in versione integrale su www.fuoriluogo.it.

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  • Bolivia and the international drug control regime

    A conversation with Martin Jelsma of the Transnational Institute
    Adam Isacson
    WOLA's "Latin America Today"
    Thursday, July 14, 2011

    wola-podcast Bolivia has denounced the International Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which bans the traditional practice of chewing coca leaf. Adam talks with Martin Jelsma, who coordinates the Drugs and Democracy Program at the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute.

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  • Drug club: Spain’s alternative cannabis economy

    Red Pepper (UK)
    June 2011

    While public opinion seems to be shifting towards support for legalisation; there is surprisingly little discussion in the drugs counter-culture of what a socially just model of cannabis consumption might look like. Nick Buxton examines the experience of cannabis social clubs in Spain.

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  • Beneath the underdog

    Drugs and Incarceration in the Americas
    Suzanna Reiss
    NACLA North American Congress on Latin America
    July/August 2011

    The United States has exported a counter-productive and destructive model to Latin America through the drug war. This is made clear in Systems Overload, a report released in May by the Transnational Institute and the Washington Office on Latin America.

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  • Drug Control Policy: What the United States Can Learn from Latin America

    Coletta Youngers
    LASA Forum
    Spring 2011

    Since the 1912 signing of the Hague Opium Convention—the agreement that formally established narcotics control within international law—the United States has established itself as the dominant actor in determining drug control policies around the world. A chief architect of the international drug control regime, Washington has done its best to ensure that all subsequent international conventions obligate countries to adapt their domestic legislation to criminalize virtually all acts related to the illicit market in controlled substances, with the important exception of drug consumption. The predominant focus on prohibition and criminalization has been exported to Latin America, where the vast majority of the cocaine and heroin consumed in the United States originates.

    application-pdfDownload the article (PDF)

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