Just this year, the companies of Halliburton and KBR, Inc. were charged with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.   They accepted, and made, payoffs in order to ensure the continuance of construction contracts.  Many other bits of evidence were found that further proved that they were committing acts of bribery, such as violations regarding the inner business workings which included the falsifying of accounting books and records.  The United States Securities and Exchange Commission required both of these companies to pay more than one hundred and fifty million dollars in fines.

This coincides with the more than four hundred million that the Department of Justice is requiring them to pay, making this the largest settlement to be be handed out in United States history since the inception of the FCPA.  The FCPA spokesperson has assured the American public that they will continue to deal with this corporate greed with the most severe of reactions and investigations.  Putting greed ahead of the law will just not be tolerated.  They are at work not only in America, but across the borders as well, keeping an eye on all of the transactions, business and financial, that affect the people of this country.  Illegal and illicit acts will be discovered and punished accordingly.

All the law enforcement agencies are coming together and collaborating on this effort.  No violations to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act will be tolerated in the US, and many other countries are adopting this stance as well.  Members of the Department of Justice, the SEC and theFCPA state that the end to this corruption in the form of bribery is their main focus, and they believe that the end is near.  Prosecution and penalties will be sought by these organizations, to the fullest extent of the law, as they try to put an end to this form of corruption on the American people and the people of the world.

The battle to decriminalize drugs, especially marijuana, here in the United States has been going on for some time.  Many advocates believe that, if legalized and tightly regulated, it would decrease the number of people using harder drugs and severely cut the amount of money going to dangerous drug cartels. In fact many countries have already passed similar laws to legalize the use, but not necessarily the selling, of these dangerous drugs. Although Amsterdam has legalized soft drugs, such as marijuana and mushrooms, and there are regulations regarding where they can be used and sold, even the hard drugs are tolerated more so than in the U.S.  Brazil and Columbia have also been reconsidering their stance on narcotics.

The most recent, however, and the most likely to affect us here U.S. is the new drug law that was passed in Mexico.  On August 20, 2009 the new law went into effect stating that it is no longer illegal to possess small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and crystal meth.  With nearly 12,000 drug related deaths in the past three years, Mexico is desperately revising legislation to put more pressure on the drug lords and less on the small time users.  Once caught for the third time, users will be referred to a nearby drug rehab where they will receive addiction treatment; although this is probably not the drug intervention that they are looking for.

Advocates of legalizing marijuana in the U.S. see this as a good sign.  With a global change of opinion in regards to drug and the rising cost of fighting the War on Drugs, they hold out hope that one day we will follow suit; even though several states have already decriminalized the use of marijuana and California has legalized it for medical purposes. The White House on the other hand was surprising silent on the issue.