Drugs & Crime

As states struggle, organized crime is rising to new prominence.

Threats, violence, and clampdowns have failed. Can decriminalization work?

Decriminalization measures have won across the United States.

Members of the criminal underworld have long turned to politics to avoid prosecution. Ousting one set of corrupt leaders in favor of another won’t end the country’s crisis.

A disturbing rise in crime figures highlights the dangers of endorsing militancy.

Entrepreneurship can help reintegrate former militants—and may be useful for U.S. criminal justice reform, too.

The United States should get serious about ending slavery once and for all.

Here’s how he’s delivering on his security promises.

The Central American country has become a transit zone for drug traffickers and the center of a biofuel boom. Dispossessed indigenous groups are paying the price.

The country is making the transition from net importer of ideas to net innovator, and as it does, it is finding that good patent laws matter.

Decriminalization saves lives. But Canada is only just accepting that reality—and the United States is even further behind.

The country’s substance use spike is undermining its focus on gross national happiness.

Legal marijuana abroad is playing into xenophobia at home.

With a stark decline in the price fetched by opium gum, Mexico’s government should take strides toward making crop substitution proposals a reality in Guerrero.

U.S. Republicans are weakening a U.N. anti-corruption investigation into President Jimmy Morales. What are they getting in exchange?

A voluntary coca crop substitution initiative in Colombia is failing. It is still the country’s best option to address its cocaine production problem.

Fentanyl is the PRC’s deadliest export—and new promises probably won’t stop it.

Proposals to legalize opium production could still beat the cartels—but only if poppy farmers are part of the process.

In a country where no one trusts the police, vigilante groups promising to stop gang violence were initially welcomed. Now, with extralegal justice on the rise, some citizens have had enough.