US

The hardline drug policies adopted during the 1980s in the “war on drugs”, including mandatory minimum sentences for some drug-related crimes, has led to extremely high levels of incarceration in the country. The US has more than 2 million people in its jails – the second highest rate of incarceration per capita in the world – about half of whom were convicted of drugs-related crimes.

In April 2016, the international community will convene for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS). This event, held two years early due to the urgency of the drug situation and intensity of drug-related violence, presents an opportunity to question the fundamentals of international drug policy. Despite overwhelming evidence that a century-long quest to control human behaviour and drug markets through international treaties and national legislation has failed, there is little expectation of change. The vested interests in retaining the status quo are significant, with sclerosis legitimised through the recurrent exhortation to improve international co-operation.

Most legal plantations of cannabis in Latin America is neither in Uruguay nor in Mexico nor Peru, but in a rural area of southern 

LIMA, Peru — Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos is expected to issue a decree legalizing the cultivation, commercialization and research of medical marijuana.

He said he will sign the new measure into law this week, marking a bold departure both for his center right administration and for Colombia, a staunch longtime ally of Washington in the war on drugs.

“It has already been scientifically proven that marijuana has many medicinal attributes,” Santos told the BBC.

More and more tourists are travelling to experience the freedom to try cannabis in tolerant countries

The whiff of weed is spreading across the globe as more countries decriminalise the possession of small quantities of cannabis. The Netherlands has always been the Mecca for those seeking a taste of something illicit but you can now travel further in order to indulge in a spliff or a hash cake.

Colorado, where cannabis was legalised three years ago, is already seeing a big growth in tourism. Tax revenues from the now legalised business are adding to the State’s coffers. Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and his Liberal party are in favour of legalising marijuana.

LIMA, Peru — “I live in a pacific way. I don’t harm anyone and they have tried to make me a criminal,” says Ernesto Paz as he exhales a thick cloud of smoke.

“They even cut off my dreadlocks by force in jail. When I asked them why, they told me, ‘Your human rights stay outside.’”

Paz, 29, is one of around 100 practicing Rastafarians in Peru. Smoking marijuana is a sacred ritual for him, his way of communing with Jah, as the religion of black liberation founded in Jamaica calls God.

He is taking a landmark case to Peru’s Supreme Court, one that could establish the right of Rastas and other cannabis users here to grow their own pot.