Author Archives: Pete

Link “State prisons have a 96% occupancy rate, while federal prisons are at almost 140% of capacity. And the prison population [is] growing at 5% annually. The market potential also remains huge, with only 8% of prisons privatized so far.” … Continue reading →

Link The newest member of the San Francisco Police Department drools a little when he gets excited.

Mark A.R. Kleiman has an excellent OpEd in The American Interest: Triage in the Drug War In particular, Kleiman’s analysis of the falsehoods and fallacies of the drug war really hits the mark. Certainly, he has a more optimistic view … Continue reading →

Link “It is time we were honest about the problems we face with the drug trade. Drugs are a source of criminal profit, and that has led to shootings and even murders. Just like we learned in the 1920s with … Continue reading →

Hope for the future Check out this outstanding OpEd by Brown University Junior Jared Moffat: U.S. drug policies are a crime against humanity Myanmar declares a war on opium Gee, I wonder why nobody thought of that before. A war … Continue reading →

The underlying justification for most prohibitionists (other than sadomoralists) is that prohibition somehow is responsible for massive reductions in the use of drugs (and therefore a host of imagined societal-destroying maladies caused by drug use). Although you’ll pretty much never … Continue reading →

In Vancouver: “If we are allowed to deal with our eternity and all that we believe in spiritually, and if we’re allowed to read any book that we want under freedom of speech, why is it we can’t put into … Continue reading →

When President Otto Perez of Guatemala proposed legalization of drugs, an interesting question was how and whether the U.S. would respond. Well, the U.S. is actually sending someone to talk with him about legalization! US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano … Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned the asset forfeiture case of the Motel Caswell before, but here is some good additional coverage. The issue is that the Motel Caswell, which Russ Caswell and his family have owned free and clear for two generations, is … Continue reading →

New voice in drug-war debate: businessmen who are feeling the pinch But it’s the private sector’s understanding of the hemispheric supply chain and demand, he says, that posits business leaders to lend their voice to the debate, says Zamora. “[I]t … Continue reading →