Hundreds of thousands of non-violent drug offenders are "wasting their lives away in prison at our expense," and more than 60,000 people have been killed in Mexico over the last six years.
It's not often Otisville and Grammy-award winning musicians cross paths, but a medical marijuana facility in the usually quiet community is at the crossroads of rural living and national fame.
CANNABIS CULTURE - "As if we needed another reason to love Jennifer Lawrence," said Michael Hogan of The Huffington Post after photos of Lawrence apparently puffing pot on a balcony in Hawaii appeared days after she picked up the Best Actress Academy Award for Silver Linings Playbook.
While filming the upcoming documentary Toxic Profits over the last six months, I have been speaking with people about extremely hazardous pesticides that are used in agriculture across the world. These discussions about pesticide use on food for animal and human consumption prompted my discovery of a very under-reported and interesting phenomenon: the use of large amounts of unregulated pesticides to grow cannabis.
The violent deaths of all but one member of a musical band in northern Mexico have thrown a spotlight on the murky world of musicians who play for the country's drug gangs, says the BBC's Will Grant in Mexico City.