Ross Ulbricht, the mercurial founder of ‘Silk Road’, what was once the biggest internet trading site for illicit drugs was sentenced to life imprisonment last week. The 31 year old Texan physics graduate rose to notoriety on the back of a site on the hidden “dark web” that became a trading mart for drugs and…
Two highly regarded researchers in the study of drug trafficking and organized crime presented a radical analysis at last week’s conference of the International Society of the Study of Drug Policy in Ghent. Letizia Paoli (Univeristy of Leuven) and Victoria Greenfield (George Mason University) have a record of contributing to our understanding of drug markets…
Benny Palmeri-Bacchi, a former Venezuelan judge, has been sentenced to over six years in prison for his role in ‘a major cocaine trafficking case’ that helped move Colombian cocaine through Venezuela, and was reportedly linked to the government of former president Hugo Chávez. In November he pleaded guilty to charges of extortion, conspiracy to obstruct…
In July 2014, the UK became the last European country to ban Khat. With debates ongoing on whether illegal drugs should be decriminalised, this newly criminalised substance provides an opportunity to examine this debate from a new angle. Khat is a naturally occurring stimulant that has traditionally been cultivated in Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. Over…
The US led ‘war on drugs’ initiated in 1971, by then President Richard Nixon still informs the American approach to drug control. Given the global, widespread and complex nature of the problem, many other actors have come to realise that there are alternative ways of dealing with drugs in society, incorporating different strands including harm…
The Home Office in the UK has published a report on approaches to drug misuse and addiction in other countries. The report concludes an 18-month study of international comparators in drugs policy, announced by the government in March 2013. As part of the study ministers and officials visited nine countries to see how governments and…
On April 3 2014, Uruguay’s undersecretary for public health used a UN-hosted conference on women, drug policy, and incarceration on the Americas to propose a novel method of tackling drug addiction. ‘Jail is not a very suitable place for someone to safely overcome drug addiction’, said Leonel Briozzo, before suggesting that marijuana (legalised in Uruguay…
As the drugs policy debate gains momentum ahead of UNGASS 2016, many different perspectives are being put forward. This weekend the Guardian newspaper examined British attitudes to drugs in their ‘Drugs Uncovered’ series. The cornerstone of the series was the British Drugs Survey 2014. The survey revealed that the proportion of the population that have…
According to Justice Minister Mark Golding, Jamaica’s Cabinet is moving forward with a plan to decriminalise cannabis by the end of 2014. The possibility of decriminalisation first gained political traction in the late 1990s, with the formation of the Ganja Commission, headed by the late Barry Cheveannes. At the time US opposition led to the…
The Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report stating that drug control is out of hand, calling for a shift towards decriminalisation and regulation of most illegal drugs, while cracking down on violent drug gangs. Following a three-year investigation in New Brunswick, Canada, 28 people were arrested, disrupting a major organised crime and drug…
