The Politics of Cocaine: How U.S. Foreign Policy Has Created a Thriving Drug Industry in Central and South America

William L. Marcy has written an extensive and cogent historical critique of the U.S. war against the cocaine trade originating in Latin America. As the title indicates, he shows how this counterproductive war has led to a thriving drug industry in the Americas. Marcy criticizes U.S. policy for conflating the drug war and the Cold [...]

How to End Mexico’s Deadly Drug War

Albert Einstein declared, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” He wasn’t describing the federal government’s nearly century-long war on drugs but he might as well have been. Despite ample lip-service for “hope” and “change,” the Obama administration’s cynical response to the escalating drug prohibition-related [...]

What The Drug Warriors Have Given Us

Does anyone still think the “war on drugs” is a good idea?

That may strike some people as an odd question under the circumstances, so let’s take it from another direction. Have you seen the news stories about the violence on the border being perpetrated by the Mexican whiskey and cigarette cartels?

No? That’s probably because there was no such violence and are no such cartels.

So why are there violent cartels in marijuana, cocaine, and heroin but not in whiskey and cigarettes?

All together now: prohibition.

Legalize All Drugs

Reading the New York Post‘s popular Page Six gossip page recently, I was surprised to find a picture of me, followed by the lines: “ABC’S John Stossel wants the government to stop interfering with your right to get high. The crowd went silent at his call to legalize hard drugs.” I had attended a Marijuana [...]

The New Drug War

Seeking to combine the failures of the War on Drugs and the War on Poverty, the U.S. government has now embarked on the War on (Expensive) Prescription Drugs. You see, grannies crossing the northern border in search of cheaper prescription drugs are causing fits at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). U.S. District Judge Claire [...]

Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It

Among regular readers of this publication, the notion that America’s drug war brings more harm than good is hardly a news flash. But while the message of Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It may not be unique, its messenger, Orange County (Calif.) Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, [...]

Bought and Sold: Drug Warriors and the Media

Americans pride themselves on their independent press. Yet some media outlets and networks are compromising their autonomy and objectivity by welcoming the federal government as a major paying advertiser. This alarming union is the latest outgrowth of the “war on drugs,” and the launch of a new $775 million White House campaign to promote its [...]