drug legalization

The discussion starts here: "No policy has failed as badly in the past 30 years as drug policy."

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico's Governor Alejandro García Padilla has authorized the use of marijuana for medicinal use, in a surprise move after Puerto Rico's legislature failed to act on the issue.

In his article entitled “Big Tobacco’s future as Big Marijuana,” Leonid Bershidsky advises investors that, “Big Tobacco is poised to dominate” the legal cannabis market, and for that reason, “Big Tobacco may be one of the biggest opportunities of a lifetime.” But potential investors beware: As Warren Buffet has said, “never invest in a business you can’t understand.” And it appears that Mr. Bershidsky doesn’t understand the cannabis business.

Latin American countries have been slow to follow Uruguay's lead in legalizing pot. A 2014 survey in Costa Rica found that 53 percent of the population supported the use of medical marijuana.

More than 19 million people in the U.S. aged 12 and older reported using marijuana in 2012. If recreational marijuana is ever legalized beyond the four states where it's currently permitted, the tobacco companies will be perfectly positioned to capture this vast market.

Mexican traffickers are sending a flood of cheap heroin and methamphetamine across the U.S. border, the latest drug seizure statistics show, in a new sign that the United States' marijuana decriminalization trend is upending the North American narcotics trade.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It's been something of a breakthrough year for marijuana, the once shunned intoxicant that is steadily gaining ground as a legal high in parts of the world.

"Marley Natural" is being launched by Privateer Holdings, a cannabis industry investment firm, and products will reach the market in late 2015.

"More and more people are realizing that it makes sense to choose licensed, regulated, and taxed marijuana businesses over the drug cartels," said Mike Elliott, head of the Colorado-based Marijuana Industry Group.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A 2013 survey in the New England Journal of Medicine found that nearly 8-in-10 doctors approved the use of medical marijuana. Now, a wide-ranging survey in the U.S. state of California finds that medical marijuana patients agree: 92 percent said that medical marijuana alleviated symptoms of their serious medical conditions, including chronic pain, arthritis, migraine and cancer.