I worked hand-in-hand with SWAT and believe that its primary mission is to save lives, yet I also agree with Balko's demand for more transparency and accountability from law enforcement. It is this lack of transparency that contributes to the notion that law enforcement has run amok.
Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report about the rate of opioid and prescription drug overdose among women in the United States. It's bad, and getting worse. But not getting much attention.
David Humes lost his son Greg to a drug overdose in May 2012. While the loss of a child is devastating to any parent, Greg's death was especially hard...
Every time a well-intentioned lawmaker adds another collateral sanction or lifetime punishment for a drug violation, they advance the New Jim Crow, and further arm the drug war.
Adrian Grenier and his tech-savvy collaborators came to us with the idea of making a mobile application to capture the curiosity of movie goers and feed their appetite for updates and the latest news.
Waking up to gunfire in the middle of the night was commonplace. I remember getting down on the floor one night, along with my mother, when it sounded like bullets were right outside our window.
Americans are an extremely competitive lot, which has benefited our society immeasurably, yet when it comes to caging our fellow citizens for years on end, perhaps we should step back and let another nation take the lead for a while.
In 2012 I supported Amendment 64 in Colorado, a common sense step toward ending the archaic prohibition mindset that has resulted in the U.S. leading the world in the incarceration of our people -- a prison system packed with non-violent drug offenders.
The mark of a successful drug policy should not be the amount of drugs intercepted or the number of people in jail, but rather the security and stability of the state's institutions, and the health and wellbeing of its citizens.
Jurists elsewhere are baffled by America's curious infatuation with keeping so many nonthreatening people behind bars and in such awful conditions. Our system not only imprisons offenders who would not go to jail in other countries; it gives them long sentences.
The marijuana reform movement has broken through as a legitimate political and cultural force. We're at a tipping point where it's starting to feel like marijuana legalization is no longer a question of if -- but when. But what about the other drugs?
The biggest movie of the summer isn't Man of Steel, or The Lone Ranger, or Fast & Furious 6. It's a new documentary called How to Make Money Selling Drugs, and it exposes the hypocrisy, insanity, and destructiveness of America's drug war. Now, when I say "biggest," I'm not talking about budget size or box office receipts -- I'm talking impact and importance. Of course, the problem with saying a movie is "important" is that it can leave the impression that it isn't entertaining. That's certainly not the case with this film. But the reason the film truly feels like a blockbuster is that you can't leave the theater without being shocked and outraged by what you've seen. Even if you go in feeling like you're well-versed in the insanity of the drug war, you'll walk out stunned -- by the cowardice and hypocrisy of our elected leaders, and by the staggering consequences in lives and money.
You would think that Eric Holder, the first African American Attorney General, and Barack Obama, the first African American President, would be vigilant that there was no racial discrimination in the Justice Department of their Administration. You would think.
I grew up like most Bolivians with no notion of whether cocaine was good or bad. To me, it was a way to get out of poverty.
Drug war supporters think Americans might tear apart the fabric of society if we were legally allowed to consume whatever plants or chemicals we chose. This is not based in fact.
While marijuana use rates between blacks and whites are comparable, blacks are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.