President Richard Nixon declared illegal drugs to be public enemy number one in 1971. Almost 50 years later, fifty years of failure, waste, and criminal justice mistakes in the name of the war on drugs, is the end of this disaster finally in sight?
Read MoreThe law makes heroin, cocaine, and meth illegal according to their defined chemical structures. But what about drugs made from synthetic compounds, which can be changed with a tiny tweak in a clandestine lab? Can the law just say "close enough?"
Read MoreSupervised injection sites provide a venue where addicts can safely use intravenous drugs under medical supervision. The practice saves lives, but in the midst of a deadly opioid epidemic the Justice Department is going after injection sites using laws designed to shut down crack houses.
Read MoreDave explains how prosecutors use "drug delivery resulting in death" charges in opioid overdose deaths on WESA's The Confluence.
Read MoreTo celebrate the launch of our Patreon, we're sharing the first in a series of presidential candidate profiles: a look at frontrunner Joe Biden's amazing transformation from a tough-on-crime conservative Democrat during the '80s and '90s into a decarcerationist and would-be reformer on the 2020 campaign trail.
Read MoreWe often hear about new methods police try to achieve better results against crime. But do the police have any reason to believe that their new approaches will work? Are their new initiatives based on hope, or on actual evidence that they will really help?
Read MoreDeputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has put cities on notice: don’t try to establish facilities where addicts can inject intravenous drugs safely. What is Rosenstein's justification for this policy? And does the evidence bear it out?
Read MoreU.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared war on legal marijuana in January. How's that working out?
Read MoreWe know there are real criminals out there, people who need to go to prison. But what happens when a criminal admits his crimes, but goes to prison for something he swears he did not do -- a notorious double homicide? This is the story of drug dealer Calvin Buari, presented by journalist Steve Fishman in the new podcast Empire on Blood.
Read MoreAttorney General Jeff Sessions says the War on Drugs has been "a roaring success," and that ending stop-and-frisk practices caused crime to spike. The evidence says otherwise.
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