For many Costa Ricans, marijuana legalization conjures images of dreadlocked hippies lying in hammocks getting baked. This perception is precisely what CannaCosta 2015, Central America's first annual conference about the medicinal and industrial uses of cannabis and hemp, tried to change.
The turning point for Enrique Ceciliano, former delegation chief in the Southern Zone canton of Pérez Zeledón, came after one drug operation left a pregnant mother and her children without a home.
The U.S. drug economy rests on a highly exploitative labor regime. If pot were an iPhone and the supply chain based in China, investigative journalists would be blasting the labor practices that delivered it.
EL BLUFF, Nicaragua – It’s Saturday morning, and the beach by this southeast Nicaraguan village is full of seaweed and plastic waste. The waves of the Caribbean Sea are choppy because the rainy season has just begun. Conditions are perfect for a day of beachcombing, says 62-year-old Javier Duncan. But he’s not talking about normal sea trash.
NEW YORK – The United States has indicted the son of former Honduran President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo (2010-2014) on drug trafficking charges, U.S. federal prosecutors announced Friday. He faces possible life in prison if convicted.
MEXICO CITY – At least 37 people were killed Friday in a gunfight with federal police in a western Mexico region hit by cartel violence, in one of the bloodiest clashes in the country's drug war.
In an experiment, neuroscientist and professor Carl Hart found that, contrary to the notion of the craven drug fiend who will do literally anything for one more hit, half of cocaine and meth users opted to receive $5 instead of a hit of their drug of choice.
"The time has come for our country to ... take this step, void of prejudice and strictly abiding by reality and good practices," Costa Rica's major Spanish-language daily, La Nación, writes in a Wednesday editorial supporting the legalization of medical marijuana.
MONTERREY, Mexico — The attack that burned 52 people to death at a casino in an upscale neighborhood was bad. But what really scared Idalia Villafana's customers away were the body parts once strewn across the plaza near her restaurant.
After the World Health Organization warned in March that glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic," President Santos's cabinet called into question whether to continue the air war on coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine.
