Drugs

It seems that Mexican drug cartels, vexed by inceased security at the American border, are sensibly moving production to be closer to their clients. Consequently, they’re growing marijuana on Indian Reservations inside the United States. As the Wall Street Journal reports: The math is tempting. Start-up expense for about dozen plots, with 10,000 plants each, is well under $500,000, U.S. officials estimate, including the cost of hiring 100 workers to plant marijuana and then several “tenders” to water them for three to four months until harvest. Incidental costs might include generators, PVC pipe and food supplies for the growers. Those plants could fetch about $120 million on the open market.

Sex, and plenty of it. That’s certainly what Bunny Munro — the titular protagonist of Nick Cave’s second novel — wants. And, in a roundabout way, he gets it. In the very first chapter, he’s cheating on his wife with a prostitute; in the second, it’s a hotel waitress; in the third, he’s given to fantasies about Kylie Minogue; in the fourth … well, you get the picture. Throw in the fact that Bunny is a travelling cosmetics salesman in Brighton, and it starts to sound like one of those dreadful Robin Askwith comedies from the 1970s — you know, Confessions of a Window Cleaner. But The Death of Bunny

The good news about the Drug War is that the police know it can’t be won. The bad news is that the politicians, judging by their public pronouncements at least, still seem to think it can. There are times when I think it’s important to question some of the assumptions made about policing; but when the police have the good sense to agree with me it’s only proper to acknowledge the excellent work they’re doing. So huzzahs for the UK Drug Policy Commission whose latest report the Times summarises thus: Police should switch their focus away from arresting drug dealers and concentrate on managing the harm they cause, according to

It is the very ordinariness of this case that makes it worth mentioning. From this week’s edition of our local paper, the Southern Reporter: Unhappy with conventional treatments, Jean Sherlow turned to cannabis in a bid to relieve her pain, Selkirk Sheriff Court heard on Tuesday. The 59-year-old decided to cultivate her own supply at her home, where police found eight plants with an estimated value of £150 each, along with 56gm of the illegal drug, worth £300… “It is not contested by the Crown that she suffers from glaucoma and Crohn’s disease, and it would appear that through her dissatisfaction with conventional treatments, she began to cultivate cannabis at

Although there are encouraging noises coming from Latin America, much of the western world remains deaf to common sense. Still, let’s hear it for the Economist which this week repeats its call for legalisation: Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is

Competition is pretty tough, but Fox’s Glenn Beck may actually be too dumb for cable news. And if Beck is a libertarian, I’m an Eskimo. [Hat-tip: Radley Balko]

Here’s a question for you: Imagine you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or a pill. Which is safest? So asks the New Scientist in its latest editorial. I think you know the answer, don’t you? You should give them ecstasy, of course. A much larger percentage of people suffer a fatal acute reaction to peanuts than to MDMA. Now it’s true that some research suggests there may be some ill-effects* associated with ecstasy use; but

So the government is going to reject advice that Ecstasy be reclassified as a Class B drug. No surprise there. Got to adopt a tough stance on these matters, you know. Not that the penalties for possession of a Class B drug are anything other than absurdly draconian themselves: you can still be locked away for five years or, for the crime of selling a drug to your friends, receive as many as 14 years imprisonment. This does not seem a lenient approach to me. Meanwhile, a government expert makes the obviously true point that more people are killed horse-riding each year than as a result of taking Ecstasy and