I was fortunate this past week to be part of a cannabis regulation & legalization roundtable. Convened at request of President of Botswana, Duma Gideon Boko, and organized by the Eastern & Southern Africa Commission on Drugs, it’s evidence of newly emerging drug policy perspective in the region.

I am pleased to announce my appointment as a Senior Fellow at Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, at the University of Toronto. It is my honour to be associated with this wonderful institution & to have the opportunity to be included among such an impressive stable of fellowship peers.

My new piece for Global Initiative on the emergent fentanyl geopolitics between Canada and the US is out today.

In last minute meeting, Trudeau commits to appoint “Fentanyl Czar” to lead national response against the drug, listing Mexican Cartels as terrorist orgs, & creating new Canada-US joint Strike Force to target organized crime.

In response, US tariffs paused for 30 days. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

“This is not a trade war, this is a drug war”.

The absurdity of it all is breathtaking. The smuggling of fentanyl from Canada contributes less than 1% to the US fentanyl street supply, a fact supported by data from the US DEA. www.cbp.gov/newsroom/sta...

Wait! What!?! You left the suitcases in the car!?!?!?
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Former head of Bolivian Anti-Narcotics Agency, Maximiliano Perez, has been extradited to the US, charged with cocaine importation. He joins a growing collection of former senior counter-narcotics officials there who used their political power to aid drug traffickers.

www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...

In an indictment unsealed in New York today, the Chief Superintendent of the Royal Bahamas Police & other officials are accused of having led efforts to support & protect large-scale cocaine shipments transiting Bahamas en route to the US.

www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr...

As someone who has known and interacted with OCCRP journos over the years, I find the content of this article disturbing - both for its allegations of bias, and for the weakness of its ‘substantive’ conclusions.

To me, it has a ‘hit piece’ aura. Plenty of smoke. No fire. Shameful.

The OCCRP Board does make clear that they “…are confident that no government or donor has exerted editorial control over the OCCRP reporting”. And a great deal of this has been award-winning reporting as well.

I think the issue of US funding is a red herring in the sense that many NGOs the world over receive US funding and operate independently & effectively.

Here though it would seem that the concern is the allegation that the US “…has the power to veto the nomination of “key personnel” in the NGO”.

I have to say… I didn’t see this coming. A devastating joint investigative report by Mediapart & others has revealed that the global organized crime-focussed investigative journalism group OCCRP isn’t nearly as “independent” as it has claimed.

www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/i...

Earlier this year we released a somewhat controversial report that examined the present & future of global synthetic drug markets, particularly as it relates to the potential evolution of org criminal groups.

If ur interested, you can download that report here: globalinitiative.net/wp-content/u...

Synthetic drugs & drug markets have been a focus for much of this year, and this will continue into 2025.

Forthcoming elements of this workstream incl. an analysis of tech evolution within drug production & trafficking environments, w/ particular focus on AI & machine learning.

Follow for updates.

At moment, we’re working w/ local peers to finalize papers on:

-a generational shift in Myanmar’s meth production landscape;

-inventory of Kenya’s drug market;

-chemical analysis & signature mapping of heroin in Southern Africa;

-qualit. analysis of drug market livelihoods.

To be avail Q1 2025.

I am pleased to announce the publication in International Journal of Drug Policy of an open access research paper by colleagues and myself that’s drawn from recent drug market-based fieldwork & analyses we undertook in Guinea-Bissau. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...