From the AP (via Yahoo News): The world’s most comprehensive legalized heroin program became permanent Sunday with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters who simultaneously rejected the decriminalization of marijuana. The heroin program, started in 1994, is offered in 23 centers across Switzerland. It has helped eliminate scenes of large groups of drug users shooting up openly in [...]

A report by the Brookings Institution has found that the US led War on drugs has failed. From the LA Times: The United States’ war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired [...]

Mexico President Felipe Calderon is continuing to promise that he will clean up his own government after several high profile officials were found to have been taking money from drug cartels. From the AP (via Google News): Calderon’s sweeping crackdown on powerful drug cartels has in recent weeks been shaken by a nationwide corruption scandal. The government revealed [...]

The former Drug Czar in Mexico was arrested on suspicion that he accepted $450,000 a month from drug smugglers. From CNN: Mexican authorities have detained the country’s former drug czar on suspicion that he may have accepted $450,000 a month in bribes from drug traffickers, Mexico’s attorney general said Friday. Noe Ramirez Mandujano was in charge from 2006 [...]

Users of cocaine are destroying the rainforest, according to law enforcement officials. From the Guardian: Four square metres of rainforest are destroyed for every gram of cocaine snorted in the UK, a conference of senior police officers as told yesterday. Francisco Santos Calderón, the vice-president of Colombia, appealed to British users of the class A drug to consider [...]

Mexico’s Liaison to Interpol was placed under house arrest for his ties to drug cartels. From the AP (via Google News): A top police official who worked as Mexico’s main liaison with Interpol was placed under house arrest as part of an investigation into leaks of information to drug cartels, prosecutors said Tuesday. The arrest of Ricardo Gutierrez [...]

The impact of the drug war in Mexico is being felt across the United States. From the Los Angeles Times: The drug violence that has left about 4,000 people dead this year in Mexico is spreading deep into the United States, leaving a trail of slayings, kidnappings and other crimes in at least 195 cities as far [...]

The elite in Mexico are spending more on private bodyguards as the drug war and kidnapping spread throughout the country. From the New York Times: With drug-related violence spinning out of control and kidnappings a proven money-maker for criminal gangs, members of Mexico’s upper class find themselves juggling the spoils of their status with the fear of [...]

The US Treaury Deparment has placed 26 people and 17 companies from Myanmar on its frozen asset lists. From the AFP (via Google News): The US authorities said Thursday it had frozen the assets of 26 individuals and 17 firms tied to drug trafficking in Myanmar and prohibited US citizens from dealing with them. Targeted were those linked [...]

Author Carlos Fuentes commented that the violence in Mexico due to its ongoing drug war is worse than fiction. From the AFP (via Google News): “We want to be writers but they turn us into prophets,” said Mexican author Carlos Fuentes, one of the Spanish-speaking world’s best-known living novelists, whose latest book explores Mexico’s growing violence. One character [...]