Browsing: prohibition

Activism

What is the true cost of marijuana prohibition? After four decades of the war on drugs, none of its stated goals have been achieved. Gangs are richer, more powerful, increasingly violent and the availability and use of marijuana has only gone up.

I have spent much of my legal career fighting crime, often in an admittedly futile effort to suppress the organized gang activity stemming from the cross-border marijuana trade in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest.

When President Obama arrives in Colombia for a hemispheric summit this weekend, he will hear Latin American leaders say that the U.S.-orchestrated war on drugs, which criminalizes drug use and employs military tactics to fight gangs, is failing and that sweeping changes need to be considered.

President Obama hosted the leaders of Mexico and Canada on Monday in a White House summit aimed at boosting the region's growing economic ties, but the scourge of drug violence in Mexico muddled the message and highlighted friction between the neighbors.
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