Monthly Archives: July 2011

Director Gil Kerlikowske Today, I was pleased to join my colleagues from throughout the Administration to announce the first U.S. strategy on transnational organized crime (TOC) in fifteen years. The Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime provides a comprehensive plan … Continue reading →

I never really followed Amy Winehouse, or knew that much about her, other than peripheral awareness of the tabloid stuff about her drug problems. However, I knew that her death would dredge up a lot of anti-drug fervor and some … Continue reading →

Via Grits for Breakfast: After all, how many Steven Rodriguez’s could there be? The wrong Steven Rodriguez was arrested in front of his wife and four year old son for drug trafficking based on a warrant approved by a local … Continue reading →

Dying patient wrongly assumed to be junkie A very ill man, wrongly assumed to be a “junkie” craving strong drugs, died in agony hours after being discharged from a NSW hospital, a coroner has found. […] “If, as now seems … Continue reading →

I’ve just spent most of the past week as one of the judges of the Blue Whiskey Independent Film Festival in Palatine, Illinois. Awards were announced this afternoon and will probably be posted online soon. It was quite an amazing … Continue reading →

“Can’t sugarcoat this,” said Judge Robert Richter. “To take somebody and threaten their life in that fashion. . . Smoking marijuana doesn’t make you do that. Somebody in college studying criminal justice should know.” This was from an article about … Continue reading →

Drug Czar Kerlikowske has rather famously pronounced on numerous times that he ended the war on drugs (basically by disavowing the term). This is part of his effort to pretend that the current administration is more focused on treatment and … Continue reading →

A disturbing piece at Al Jazeera about the proliferation of drug mules in the Philippines as the trend is for poor women to be drawn into working as drug mules (sometimes without even knowing what they’re carrying), and ending up … Continue reading →

Via Radley Balko: Mom sues Lawrence County over seizure of newborn For the second time in a year, Lawrence County Children and Youth Services has been accused in a federal lawsuit of removing a child from a mother’s custody after … Continue reading →

Iran leads the world in drug seizures United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Yury Fedotov has said Iran ranks first in the world in illicit drug seizures, Mehr news agency reported. Iran seizes 80 percent of … Continue reading →