For years, people who used drugs were treated like criminals, often given long sentences. Now there's growing acceptance that addiction is a treatable disease, but shame and discrimination linger.
Researchers know how to curb the risks of overdose and disease among drug users, but policymakers are reluctant to allow public health measures that include needle exchanges and access to safer drugs.
President Nixon called for an "all-out offensive" against drugs and addiction. The U.S. is now rethinking policies that led to mass incarceration and shattered families while drug deaths kept rising.
A court found all three men guilty of murder and sentenced them each to 40 years in prison for the 2017 killing of a 17-year-old who police said they suspected was a drug runner.
The country's rising cocaine production has alarmed Washington, which has spent more than $10 billion over nearly two decades to attack the illegal drug trade in Colombia.
Leila de Lima, 57, was jailed in February on President Rodrigo Duterte's orders, after she launched a Senate investigation into Duterte's bloody war on drugs. It's not the first time they've tangled.
The state legalized marijuana at the start of 2014 for anyone 21 or older. An increasing rate of Latino and black youths were arrested for violating that age limit, even as the white arrest rate fell.
The cartels' business models are similar to those of big-box stores and franchises, says Tom Wainwright, former Mexico City bureau chief for The Economist. His new book is Narconomics.
Author D. Watkins says that crack destroyed his East Baltimore neighborhood, and he explains how the real day-to-day of selling drugs is nothing like the movies. His new book is The Beast Side.
All of those whose sentences were commuted would have gotten lighter prison terms under new sentencing guidelines. The White House says the they aren't hardened criminals and deserve a second chance.
One Nevada legislator this year tried to expand on the state's existing medical marijuana laws by making easier for patients to get the drug by striking down existing challenges like making it illegal to possess seeds. That bill failed but it leaves a bigger questions about the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana altogether. Some argue that if states legalize the drug they will eliminate the criminal rings that grow, traffic and sell it. But others argue that marijuana is only a small part of what big drug cartels do so making marijuana legal won't slow that criminal activity down.
So what are the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana? Would it help or hurt? What are the public health concerns? And is there a reasonable way to regulate the industry? We'll hear from an expert panel about the good and bad of legalizing marijuana.
