Drug War

December 12, 2011
Yesterday morning Colombia and Latin America lost one of its most influential intellectuals and social scientists: Álvaro Camacho Guizado, a colleague, mentor, and, above all, a very dear friend. Camacho dedicated his life and energy to the study of narco-trafficking. He was also an early critical voice against U.S. anti-drug policy in Colombia.
November 28, 2011
Ray Downs

Just legalize it, already—that was the message heard at the Cato Institute's “Ending the War on Drugs” conference on November 15. From the heavy death toll in Mexico to the high financial cost to U.S. taxpayers, the only winners in the drug war have been the drug cartels and security companies. Yet the war goes on with no end in sight

November 7, 2011
A year and a half ago, the Mexican magazine Proceso reported on the presence of a U.S. Office of Bi-National Intelligence (OBI), occupying several suites of offices in a tall building on Mexico City’s upscale Paseo de la Reforma, just a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy. The OBI continues to house an alphabet soup of U.S. intelligence agencies, the DEA, DIA, CIA, FBI, ATF, and others.
November 1, 2011
On these first two days of November, known as All Saints Day and the Day of the Dead, many Mexicans bring offerings to their relatives, friends, and sympathetic public figures who have died within living memory. This year, groups around the country are using the occasion to remember the thousands who died violently over the past year at the hand of combatants in the country’s many-sided war on organized crime.
October 26, 2011
At an event at the Homeland Security Policy Institute called “The Hybrid Threat: Crime, Terrorism and Insurgency in Mexico,” Daniel Brito, of the Drug Policy Alliance, asked keynote speaker General Barry McCaffrey if there was complicity between the Mexican government and the drug trafficking Sinaloa Cartel. McCaffrey's answer offered a powerful glimpse into the drug war.
October 25, 2011
Just a few days after President Felipe Calderón excoriated the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party for wanting to dialogue with Mexico’s drug traffickers (a charge PRIistas vigorously deny), his position was undermined by a proposal of a prominent member of his own party and by comments made by U.S. officials.
October 6, 2011
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?
September 28, 2011
Politically powerful officials are saying the U.S. counternarcotic program towards Mexico has not worked, and are calling for a counterinsurgency strategy to replace it. The organized crime "raging along our southern border," they claim, is waging a "strategic-level" of war against the United States.
September 22, 2011
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.
September 12, 2011
Rossana Reguillo

Beto, a 16-year-old hit man for La Familia Michoacana, one of the most notoriously violent Mexican drug gangs, tells his story. This article was originally published in the May/June 2011 issue of the NACLA Report on the Americas.

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