Bernie Sanders has a better idea. The independent Vermont senator and 2016 Democratic presidential contender on Wednesday announced a petition calling on Congress to “end the failed war on drugs.” “The criminal justice system is not the answer to drug abuse. Addiction is a health problem and we should start treating it that way,” Sanders wrote. […]

Human rights organizations lauded the decision of the International Criminal Court to conduct a preliminary examination of the killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Human Rights Watch called the ICC’s action as a “rebuke” of the government’s efforts to deny the existence of extrajudicial killings in the country. […]

A recent report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) – a group of drug policy reformers including political and business personalities such as Kofi Annan, Richard Branson and Nick Clegg – challenged the stigma surrounding widely held preconceptions about problematic substance use. Many prejudiced views are embedded in the everyday language we use around drugs. […]

A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2014 found that the ten states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 saw significantly fewer opioid deaths compared to states that completely outlaw pot. And in a report published just this week by the RAND Corporation, the 2014 findings were confirmed — though the new study…

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have opened a preliminary examination into Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”, which has led to the deaths of thousands since it began in July 2016. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said on Thursday the examination was a review of whether crimes against humanity had been committed and whether the Hague-based court might have jurisdiction to…

We spend millions searching for and incarcerating people for growing and selling a bit of dope. Who are we to tell someone what they should or shouldn’t do with their lives, so long as they do not directly affect the lives of others? Why not spend all that money actually helping people if they have a drug problem? […]

The San Francisco Health Commission on Tuesday voted unanimously to support the opening of safe injection sites, which will offer intravenous drug users a clean spot to inject drugs, despite the fact that this drug use is against the law and could draw the ire of the Trump Administration. This vote comes after years of hard work from activists in the liberal city who…

In a continuing effort to stem the tide of male bovine excrement from its polluting effect on our stream of rational consciousness, let’s all understand that, regardless of what opposition politicians claim, neither bill legalises cannabis. They both merely add an exemption from prosecution. […]

There is no reason why New York, a global economic powerhouse, should not be able to provide its residents with the same opportunities that are being afforded to individuals in states that are generating millions of dollars in revenue from legalization. New York State has the potential to generate billions of dollars in all types of tax revenues from the…

Bullet-ridden corpses are found hours or even days later, often just a few minutes away, although police say there have been no illegal killings in their anti-drug campaign. Yet the frequent police operations and shadowy murders have hit the slum hard and those who live there say more blood has been spilled since Duterte was elected president on the promise to…