Stories by Phillip Smith
Phillip Smith is an editor at DRCNet.
Drug law reform laws move forward in Brazil, as the global war on drugs continues its collapse.
Posted on Jan 24, 2002, Source: DRCNet
The Bush Administration is attempting to repeal a ruling which maintains the right not to consent to a suspicionless drug search on public transportation. Is it anti-terrorist or unconstitutional?
Posted on Jan 17, 2002, Source: DRCNet
As the Americans and their local allies in Bogota apply pressure on the Colombian cocaine and heroin business, the red flag of Maoist insurrection waves once more in Peru.
Posted on Jan 10, 2002, Source: DRCNet
American music listeners are familiar enough with the drug-laced lyrics and spaciness of stoner rock and the gritty drug war milieu of gangster rap, but most non-Spanish-speaking gringos remain totally oblivious to the narcocorrido, a musical genre drenched in the Mexico-US drug trade whose leading stars sell millions of albums on both sides of the border.
Posted on Dec 20, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Deaths and other human rights abuses by Bolivian security
forces have mounted in recent weeks as they confront angry
coca-growing peasants determined to protect their crops and
their economic well-being.
Posted on Dec 12, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The coca fields of Colombia are a long way from Philadelphia's gritty Kensington neighborhood, but a local anti-poverty group is making the connections with an innovative and interesting new tactic.
Posted on Dec 11, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The Taliban may be brutal, thuggish, backward-looking, fundamentalist fanatics, but when it comes to marijuana policy, they've got nothing on the US.
Posted on Dec 7, 2001, Source: DRCNet
A bill which would allow the D.C. Child and Family Services
Agency to test children at birth for signs of drug exposure
and take custody of those children is full of flaws and would
serve to target the poor, ignoring the underlying issues
of addiction.
Posted on Nov 29, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The "D.A.R.E. Generation" works to change drug policies on campuses. The Students for Sensible Drug Policy met this month to talk about ways to bring drug policy awareness to campuses across the country
and, according to DRCNet, they are not alone in their effort.
Posted on Nov 27, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Drug treatment is big business, and the drug treatment industry is turning to Madison Avenue techniques and grand coalitions to ensure that it gets even bigger.
Posted on Nov 21, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri has moved
away from a logical drug policy, creating stricter laws and
mandatory-minimum sentencing and implementing the
death penalty for drug producers and dealers.
Posted on Nov 14, 2001, Source: DRCNet
In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, law enforcement and industry sources reported drug seizures were down dramatically. Now it's back to business as usual for the black market.
Posted on Nov 7, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Even as Congress grows increasingly queasy about U.S. drug war investments in Central America -- slashing the Andean counter-drug budget by 22 percent last week -- Bush administration officials and congressional drug war diehards are turning up the "terrorist" rhetoric in an effort to strengthen their cause.
Posted on Nov 2, 2001, Source: DRCNet
As europe embraces harm reduction, acting U.S. drug czar Edward Jurith fumes against it. Why we need harm reduction now more than ever.
Posted on Oct 18, 2001, Source: DRCNet
In the latest move in a quixotic crusade against cannabis in any form, the DEA has published a ban on the consumption of food products containing hemp.
Posted on Oct 12, 2001, Source: DRCNet
No longer targeting only producers of illegal drugs, some politicians have moved on to implicitly blaming domestic drug consumers for the 9/11 attacks.
Posted on Oct 5, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Even before the dust had settled around the site of the World Trade Center, drug war hawks were trying to link the drug war to terrorism to further their own political goals.
Posted on Oct 3, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The United States government may be shunning the UN conference on racism but the U.S. drug reform movement will be present, condemning racism in the drug war.
Posted on Sep 4, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Colombian legislators recently introduced bills calling for an end to fumigation, the normalization of small drug crops and the outright legalization of the Colombian drug trade under a state monopoly.
Posted on Aug 29, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled it is unconstitutional for judges to add more years to drug traffickers' sentences based on post-conviction hearings. This may mean that mandatory minimum sentencing will be repealed.
Posted on Aug 21, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Marijuana production is a major money-maker for British Columbia. But U.S. drug warriors plan to bring their 100 year's war on drugs to Vancouver.
Posted on Jul 24, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Despite rising opposition to Plan Colombia, U.S. holds a hard line, pressuring President Pastrana to continue aerial spraying of coca fields -- or else.
Posted on Jul 3, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Governor and Attorney General urge Feds to bust patients, but Feds say no thanks.
Posted on Jun 13, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Governor expected to sign.
Posted on Jun 13, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The 53-year-old father of the medical marijuana movement died last weekend at his home in Sarasota, Florida.
Posted on Jun 13, 2001, Source: DRCNet
"Treatment Not Jail" campaign planned for Florida, Michigan, Ohio.
Posted on Jun 13, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Zero tolerance for drugs in schools does little more than create high school dropouts, a new report shows.
Posted on Jun 5, 2001, Source: AlterNet
With the nomination of Republican Congressman Asa Hutchinson to head the DEA, the Bush administration has a united front on drug policy.
Posted on May 14, 2001, Source: DRCNet
While talk show hosts make jokes and politicians make excuses, tens of thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousandss -- of American men, women and teens are raped in prison each year.
Posted on May 1, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Philip Smith speaks with Tom Cahil, founder of Stop Prisoner Rape, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to combating the rape of prisoners and providing assistance to the survivors of jailhouse rape.
Posted on May 1, 2001, Source: DRCNet
A recent Human Right Watch report on male rape in prisons could finally force policy-makers and the public to confront the epidemic.
Posted on May 1, 2001, Source: DRCNet
New pain treatment guidelines are at odds with a government
campaign against prescription drug abuse, leaving patients --
and doctors -- in the crossfire.
Posted on Apr 17, 2001, Source: DRCNet
A hugely disproportionate number of black men have been stopped and searched for drugs along route I-40 in Arizona. And when a racial profiling case was filed against the cops, crucial evidence started disappearing.
Posted on Apr 10, 2001, Source: DRCNet
The effort to strike the Higher Education Act's drug war provision -- which denies financial aid to students convicted of a drug offense -- is gaining ground in Congress.
Posted on Mar 13, 2001, Source: DRCNet
NBA veteran Charles Oakley re-ignited the basketball league's smoldering controversy over drug use among players last week when he told the New York Post that the league's drug testing policy was "a joke" and that more than half of league players are regular marijuana smokers.
Posted on Mar 6, 2001, Source: DRCNet
A growing number of head shops are being shut down or harassed under strict federal drug paraphernalia laws.
Posted on Feb 23, 2001, Source: DRCNet
Say "student activism" and most people think of the anti-globalization movement. But a new law that bars some students with drug convictions from obtaining federal financial aid, has revived a long dormant student reform movement aimed at changing US drug policy.
Posted on Dec 19, 2000, Source: DRCNet
Ballot initiatives around the country have enacted profound changes in some states' drug policies, and -- by historical accident -- drug war opponents became key swing voters in the presidential race.
Posted on Nov 10, 2000, Source: AlterNet
President Clinton formally waived the human rights conditions attached to the $1.3 billion military aid package destined to help the Colombian military wage war against drug traffickers and peasant-based leftist guerrillas. The move was an implicit admission that the Colombian military's hands are too dirty too pass muster.
Posted on Sep 18, 2000, Source: DRCNet
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