Posts by: suzanna.reiss

Nov 10, 2011
suzanna.reiss
A month ago the Drug Enforcement Administration seemingly managed to reassert its relevance by demonstrating the role it can play in the name of the endless U.S. War on Terror. After last week's bust of international arms dealer Viktor Bout, despite shoving legality and morality to the wayside, the DEA likely thinks it has found its groove.
Oct 14, 2011
suzanna.reiss
In the 1980s Ronald Reagan’s administration illegally defied Congress. What came to be called the “Iran-Contra Scandal,” a nexus of drugs, terror, Latin American proxy conflict, and covert operations involving the United States and Iran, seems this week to have been sampled and remixed for the twenty-first century.
Oct 6, 2011
suzanna.reiss
Bolivian President Evo Morales has argued that the United States uses the drug war to advance its own political interests and discredit political opponents. But does the Bolivian Government do the same?
Sep 22, 2011
suzanna.reiss
The United States government’s recent “National Drug Threat Assessment 2011” targets international trafficking organizations even while it identifies domestic prescription pharmaceuticals as having the most destructive health consequences.
Sep 15, 2011
suzanna.reiss
It is not surprising to hear that representatives of the U.S. State Department stationed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras believed since at least March 2004 that the wealthiest man in Honduras, and U.S. government ally, was involved in the cocaine trade.
Sep 8, 2011
suzanna.reiss
In the 1940s U.S. Public Health medical researchers conducted appalling experiments on vulnerable populations in Guatemala. After last week's convening of President Obama's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the revelations are back in the news.
Aug 25, 2011
suzanna.reiss
I wrote last week about the pharmaceutical industry’s aggressive promotion of Intellectual Property Rights as part of U.S. government negotiated "free trade" agreements. This blog is an update.
Aug 18, 2011
suzanna.reiss
As the U.S. government and pharmaceutical companies continue to aggressively protect and enhance the power and profits accruing to major players in the international drug industry, a genuine critical assessment of the sources of market distortion and criminality which endanger people’s health is more important than ever.
Aug 4, 2011
suzanna.reiss
Over the past two weeks, U.S. media airways have been dominated by the sad spectacle of elected representatives’ refusal to govern, their repudiation of even the pretense of trying to seek agreement on issues of grave importance to people living in the country and many more affected by their actions around the world. However, despite unprecedented levels of acrimony, open hostility, and free-flowing expressions of contempt, one issue seems to continue to galvanize widespread support: the drug war.
Jul 28, 2011
suzanna.reiss
President Reagan’s justification for siphoning money out of the collective effort and into the pockets of the wealthy remains in vogue today. If the government pursues tax cuts and subsidies for the rich, so the pitch goes, everyone will benefit.  The wealth at the top will eventually “trickle-down.” It is unclear how the new government of Peru will respond.  
Jul 14, 2011
suzanna.reiss
The struggle over the reach of international drug control continues. Having failed in an earlier attempt to amend the primary international drug control treaty to protect traditional uses of the coca leaf by indigenous communities in the Andes, Bolivia has declared it will withdraw from the treaty so that it can rejoin to it with reservations. This attempt to expand the circle of people who can legitimately make use of coca leaves—and the hostile reaction to it—provides insight into the economic and political interests that dictate the terms of drug control.
Jun 30, 2011
suzanna.reiss
Dr. Gordon Rohlehr explains that any meaningful definition of community must take into account those whose struggles and humanity often fall below the collective radar, people who live ‘beneath the underdog’. The lesson he offers should be kept in mind when this Friday prisoners caged in California's supermax prison at Pelican Bay launch a hunger strike to protest the inhumane policies that prevail in the U.S. prison system.
Jun 22, 2011
suzanna.reiss
Over the last decade the Caribbean has become one of the major trafficking routes for drugs leaving South America destined for the United States and other consumer markets. The twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago (T & T), a place I am currently visiting for the first time, presents a sobering case study on the failures of the punitive approach to drug control advocated and funded by the United States.  
Jun 16, 2011
suzanna.reiss
The ads that appeared in Drug Trade News, a pharmaceutical industry publication that existed from the 1920s through the 1970s, are striking today for their tone, tenor, racism, or maybe what could be described as devastating privilege. They reflect a U.S. drug industry that confidently presumed its dominant role in the global capitalist market in the 1960s, even as the world was rocked by popular rebellions.
Jun 8, 2011
suzanna.reiss
Jun 2, 2011
suzanna.reiss
May 26, 2011
suzanna.reiss
May 11, 2011
suzanna.reiss