MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay – A total of 22 companies have submitted bids to supply marijuana under a law making Uruguay the first country to legalize production, sale and distribution of the drug, the government said Thursday.
U.S. states that allow medical marijuana have 25 percent fewer prescription drug overdose deaths, a team of researchers reports in a newly released academic paper, suggesting that expanded access to marijuana, often used for its purported pain-alleviating qualities, could have unintended benefits.
LIMA, Peru – Peruvian police on Wednesday seized a record six tons of cocaine from a Mexican drug cartel operating in the country, in what authorities hailed as a major blow to organized crime.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. President Barack Obama has ordered a review of federal programs that supplied nearly half a billion dollars in military equipment to municipal police departments last year, amid criticism of the heavily armed response by local law enforcement agencies to protests in Ferguson, Missouri.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia – President Juan Manuel Santos signaled his support Thursday for a bill that would allow the medical use of marijuana in Colombia. The ruling Liberal Party proposed the measure for a vote in the current session of the Colombian Congress, which opened July 20.
The president has previously expressed his desire to see the marijuana -- the most commonly used illegal drug in Costa Rica -- further decriminalized and has expressed frustrations with the war on drugs and its impact on Central America.
Citizen Action Party lawmaker Marvin Atencio wants to make Costa Rica the first country in Central America to legalize medical marijuana and generate millions of dollars for public institutions along the way.
Last month, a Costa Rican public security unit took part in regional “War Games” in Tolemaida, Colombia, where they competed in grueling challenges testing physical fitness, weapons marksmanship, aquatic skills and tactical capabilities. The event, dubbed “Fuerzas Comando,” is a United States Southern Command initiative aimed at fostering cooperation, trust, readiness and interoperability between international special forces and other military and police units.
Several large seizures recently have shed light on a trend of young fishermen without criminal records who are risking their freedom for quick cash by ferrying cocaine or assisting traffickers to move drugs north to the United States along the country’s Pacific coastline.
Imagine working for the police in Honduras, the country with the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. In a place that doesn't have an outright war raging, a violent death still takes place every 74 minutes. Photographer Sean Sutton spent almost three weeks in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, traveling with a police investigative unit and watching officers tackle violent crime in one of the most dangerous regions of the world. Here are his photographs.
