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This paper explores some of the empirical dimensions of the way in which lawyers litigate drug crime cases in Mexican federal courts. In particular, the aim is to illustrate two aspects of the relationship between the legal profession practice and the crimes related to the trafficking, production, possession and transportation of illegal drugs in Mexico. The investigation focuses on whether the distinction between ‘narco-lawyers’ and ‘lawyers defending other crimes’ could be pertinent and useful for classifying particular forms of legal profession exercise. Moreover, analysis also extends to how narco-lawyers ‘work’ in practice, and what specific practices could distinguish them from their peers. Research findings suggest that lawyers who defend drug-criminals in Mexico (1) do offer a better explanation to their clients regarding the status of the judicial process, (2) present more evidence (witnesses, in particular) to support their client's innocence, and (3) obtain softer sentences (4) in less time than those lawyers who do not represent drug traffickers. Taken together, these findings suggest that drug trafficking may be contributing to a distinctive way of exercising the legal profession in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An enduring legacy of the war on drugs is a law enforcement emphasis on arresting low-level drug offenders. Policymakers assert that drug arrests reduce subsequent drug offending; yet, scant research assesses the specific deterrent effects of drug arrest. Likewise, little research examines the collateral consequences of drug arrest on measures of social bonding. NLSY97 data were used to examine the effect of drug arrest on drug offending (marijuana use, hard drug use, drug sales) and social bonding (highest grade, weeks employed, annual income). Results indicate that drug arrest did not reduce any measure of drug offending but had considerable negative consequences on blacks’ employment outcomes. These findings suggest that recent policy proposals to de-emphasize low-level drug arrests are unlikely to increase drug offending and may reduce the negative collateral consequences of drug arrest at least for blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Australia, eight of the nine legal jurisdictions have enacted 'deemed supply' provisions for illicit drug trafficking offences that presume 'intent to supply' based on the quantity of a drug an alleged offender is found with and attach criminal liability for the offence of supply. Such laws have been enacted for more than 35 years. In this article we critically examine: the rationale for the widespread adoption of Australian deemed supply laws; and the justifiability and necessity of such laws in current legal practice. A legal and historical analysis was undertaken. Data were sourced from legislation, Parliamentary records (Hansard), case law, published research on international drug law, research on drug user behaviour and our own experience in the prosecution of drug offenders. Analysis shows that Australian deemed supply laws were introduced to overcome perceived difficulties in the prosecution and sanction of drug traffickers. Yet such laws conflict with the dominant international practice that sanctions trafficking without the use of deemed supply provisions. They contribute towards harms to users and miscarriages of justice and increase pressure to use police and prosecutorial discretion in ways that may ultimately adversely affect community confidence in the administration of the criminal law. We conclude that the laws should be subject to legislative review and/or, preferably, abolition from Australian drug trafficking law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 1960s and 1970s, countercultural entrepreneurs in the United States sold paraphernalia for enhancing LSD trips or for smoking marijuana at small stores called head shops. These accessories of alternative lifestyles provided hippies with a totemic material culture they could call their own. Head shop owners hoped their countercultural wares and atmosphere would provide hippies with desperately needed public spaces where they could gather in peace without being harassed. More importantly, these entrepreneurs believed their products allowed people to alter their minds – and even their societies – through meaningful drug use. In addition, many head shops made vital contributions to the movement to undermine, reform, and eradicate America’s drug laws. While these businesses were not opposed to turning a profit, their communitarian idealism and political engagement contradict the common charge that so-called hip capitalists were little more than apolitical sell-outs and dupes. Both head shops and the marijuana legalization movement helped each other achieve remarkable levels of financial and political success in the middle of the 1970s. In contrast to their predecessors of the late 1960s, many head shops of the late 1970s embraced profit and financial growth and deemphasized radical politics and counterculture. By the end of the decade, head shops numbered an estimated 30,000 and organized their own trade groups and meetings. Eleven states even decriminalized minor personal possession of marijuana in the 1970s. Although head shops had always faced scrutiny from police and concerned private citizens, it was only at the end of the 1970s that parents’ groups and legislators began to coordinate a national campaign against the so-called “commercialized drug culture” they attributed to these countercultural entrepreneurs. Consequently, the crusade against head shops represented one of the first salvos in the cultural and legislative War on Drugs of the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the impact of foreign investment and narcotics business on native people in Honduras as of December 2013. It mentions three laws including the Public-Private Partnership Promotion Act, the Investment Promotion and Protection Act and the Model Cities law passed by Honduran President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo and the grant of formal ownership to Miskitu people for the region called La Mosquitia. It also mentions cocaine and other drug trafficking activities in the region.

Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry after the drug trade and arms dealing, and it is also one of the fastest growing international crimes. Its victims are exploited in sex trafficking in large urban areas, vacation and tourist spots, near military bases; in labour trafficking fuelled by the demand for unskilled labour, present in seasonal agriculture, tourism, construction, fisheries and domestic servitude. This modern-day slavery is an affront to the dignity of the human being and a violation of core human rights. It is also a crime against the state that undermines labour relations, health, safety and security of every country it touches as a source of victims, place of transit or final destination. Concerted efforts locally and globally are necessary to combat it. Through the lens of the New Haven School of Thought, also known as Policy-Oriented Jurisprudence, this article analyses the problem of trafficking in human beings, presents the decisions made to address it, and develops recommendations to improve solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors discuss the drug policy in the global community specifically in Russia. Lev Levinson notes that the war on drugs has not been lost and that expanding the lists of banned substances would be counterproductive. Yury Krupnov cites that anti-drugs policies to solve drug addiction are addressed like the modern international system to combat drug trafficking in Sweden in 1960s. Krupnov adds that criminalizing the use of drugs must be the basis for the Russian anti-narcotics strategy.

In this article the author offers view on a court case in Singapore wherein the defendant was sentenced to death after being convicted for trafficking 47.27 grams of diamorphine into the country. The author presents an argument that the unanimous judgement of the Court of Appeal of Singapore is an attempt to protect the Constitution from its colonial history. He notes that the defendant never argued that the right to life under the Constitution's art 9(1) forbids the capital punishment.

This article analyzes the court cases heard by the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal between 1999 and 2006 involving the Section 25A of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985. The authors aimed to consider the operation and impact of the law. They found that the analysis suggests that the practical operation of the section is such that it provides a mechanism whereby the state, through its agents, may lawfully engage in entrapment activity, or actions close to it, which, in turn, has a disproportionate impact on low-level street dealers/users. The authors concluded that the cases indicate the potential for a blurring of the fine line between routine police investigation, and inducing targets into further and/or larger episodes of drug supply.

Assesses how district and circuit of adjudication affect case-level lengths of sentences for federal drug-trafficking offenses in the U.S. Sources of extralegal sentence disparity; Effects of district-level factors on the length of criminal sentences; Overview of the development of federal courts.

The article examines the criminalization of the non-medical use of drugs in Great Britain and Europe. In the international arena, the 1961 United Nations (UN) Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and the 1988 Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, limits the use of drugs exclusively to medical and scientific purposes. In Europe, criminalization of drug use manifests in increased police activity and more arrests for cannabis offences. Meanwhile, various statutes govern drug use in Great Britain, such as the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.