The War On Unapproved Voluntary Exchange

Latest Update: July 25, 2017

Sessions suggests Trump lied when he advocated marijuana legalization be left to the states
The DEA says ‘marijuana is not medicine’ — reality says otherwise
The states are revolting; marijuana legalization not just happening at the ballot box 

Trump doubles down on failed drug war; wants more prisons less freedom

Kratom could be a cure for the Opioid Epidemic, yet the DEA wants to ban it

On 4/20, it’s a mixed bag for backers of pot legalization

The deadly war on drugs, waged by your local SWAT team

The war on drugs is a war on people

What The War On Smoking Tells Us About The Drug War

by Danielle Allen.   It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. In January 1964, the Beatles first broke onto the Billboard chart with “I Want to Hold Your Hand”; by June, Ringo Starr had collapsed from tonsillitis and pharyngitis. In January , the surgeon general announced that scientists had found conclusive evidence linking smoking to  ... MORE

Heroin And Prohibition Are A Lethal Combination

by Jacob Sullum.     After the esteemed actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died in February 2014, press coverage of the "heroin epidemic" exploded. Mentions of that phrase in the newspaper and wire service articles cataloged by Nexis rose from 681 in 2013 to 3,222 in 2014, an increase of almost 400 percent. Yet Hoffman—who by his own account used ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Prohibition Kills

Government bans make drugs more dangerous.  Remember the guy who bought 80-proof vodka that turned out to be 190-proof Everclear and died from alcohol poisoning? Probably not, because that sort of thing almost never happens in a legal drug market, where merchants or manufacturers who made such a substitution, whether           ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 5 Popular Drugs Scares Vs. Reality -- The Disconnect Between Drug Use And Public Alarm About It

Dangerous drug use is on the decline.       Last year I noted the disconnect between rising public alarm about methamphetamine and falling rates of use. By 2005, when Newsweek identified "The Meth Epidemic" as "America's New Drug Crisis" in a sensational cover story, illicit methamphetamine use had been declining for years. A new     ... MORE

Claire Bernish: What Happened When Gloucester, Mass. Stopped Arresting Drug Addicts, And Offered Help Instead

Government as public servants, what a novel idea.  Situated on the coast of Massachusetts, Gloucester’s claims to fame include its status as “America’s original seaport,” as well as being the real-life location on which events in the movie The Perfect Storm (2000) were based. Now, the small town has a new reason to be the center of attention:  ... MORE

The Likely Cause Of Addiction Has Been Discovered

by Johann Hari.    And, it is not what you think. It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned -- and all through this long century of waging war on drugs, we have been told a story about addiction by our teachers and by our governments. This story is so deeply ingrained in our minds that we take it for granted. It seems obvious. It seems     ... MORE

Chris Ingraham: Portugal Decriminalized Drugs 14 years Ago – And Now Hardly Anyone Dies From Overdosing

The result of ending the drug war are in. Portugal decriminalised the use of all drugs in 2001. Weed, cocaine, heroin, you name it — Portugal decided to treat possession and use of small quantities of these drugs as a public health issue, not a criminal one. The drugs were still illegal, of course. But now getting caught with them meant a small fine    ... MORE

VIDEO: 5 Drug PSAs That Tried To Scare The Sh*t Out Of Us

 (But Didn't)

VIDEO: John Stossel - The Game Of Risk

The Beginning Of The End Of The War On Drugs

by Ryan Cooper.    50 years of failure is enough. One of the many depressing aspects of the 2004 election was the crushing defeat of pro-gay marriage forces. Republican operatives, cynically stoking turnout with outright lies, put gay marriage bans on the ballot in 11 states, every one one of which was passed overwhelmingly. So it's jarring that gay  ... MORE

Limited Access To Hydrocodone Pushes Abusers To Heroin

Unintended consequences of DEA dictating health care.  After the DEA ruled to make hydrocodone a schedule two drug, some health officials became concerned abusers would find more dangerous ways to feed their addiction. Now that hydrocodone isn't easily accessible, those who abused it aren't able to meet their addiction needs,    ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: The 5 Best Drug Scares of 2014

Drunks, e-cigs, pot and more.        The history of drug control in America is a series of panic-propelled policies, most of which have not turned out very well. Those of us who support a calmer, more tolerant approach to psychoactive substances therefore spend much of our time defusing scares aimed at justifying or expanding the         ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Chuck Schumer's Bogus Heroin Cure

Throwing good money after bad.         Last month Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked for "an emergency $100 million surge" in federal funding "to quickly combat the fact that New York City has become the hotbed for the East Coast heroin trade." Schumer declared that "heroin trafficking and usage are at epidemic levels," adding that    ... MORE

Radley Balko: Yes, The Drug War Is Pretty Awful

Myth-busting prohibition propaganda.       Last month, I wrote a response to Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson in which I laid out many (but by no means all) of the harms caused by the modern-era war on drugs. Now Charles Lane, a columnist and editorial writer here at the Post, has responded to my post. You can read Lane’s response      ... MORE

Russian Drugs Boss Rules Out Marijuana Legalization

Still going through the "gateway-drug" phase.      The head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service has called marijuana a dangerous gateway drug and said the authorities did not plan to legalize it, or to allow methadone treatment for heroin addicts. “Marijuana users have a 50 or 60 times higher risk of switching to heroin. There is one step    ... MORE

Brian Doherty: Rand Paul/Ron Paul Disconnect On Drugs

Rand takes the incremental approach.          One of Ron Paul's defining moments on the national stage--vivid proof that this is a very different kind of character we are dealing with here, in a great way--was when, at the first 2012 cycle Republican presidential candidate debate in May 2011, he mocked the notion that legalizing heroin was a      ... MORE