Research Library

To reduce future flood damage, Houston needs a plan that features a strong vision focused on living with flooding, excellent information on flooding risks and safety concerns, and action on protecting residents' lives and livelihoods, Rice faculty scholar Jim Blackburn writes in an issue brief.

Houston and Harris County area law enforcement leaders weigh in on the need for drug policy reforms in the United States.

The landscape is changing for foreign direct investment in Latin America. Investments flow not only from north to south, but also from south to south and south to north. What's more, relatively small firms in developing countries are becoming as likely as multinationals to invest abroad.

With the Texas Legislature now considering several bills that would decrease penalties for marijuana possession and legalize the use of medical marijuana to treat a variety of conditions, authors William Martin and Katharine A. Neill present updated findings in this new issue brief that support the case for reforming marijuana policy in Texas.

Drug Policy Program director Bill Martin summarizes the scientific and fiscal evidence supporting the efficacy of syringe exchange programs and outlines a framework for public policies to deal with this aspect of drug use and abuse.

Using charts, figures and graphs of this survey data originally created by former career intelligence analyst Brian C. Bennett and updated by the Drug Policy Program, this issue brief offers an overview of drug use trends in America over the last four decades. The brief is part of a larger online project chronicling the pattern of the use and abuse of individual drugs over (in most cases) more than 40 years.

In 1972, a National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, comprising establishment figures chosen mostly by President Richard Nixon himself, issued a report that declared that “neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety” and recommended that Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana and seek means other than prohibition to discourage use. President Nixon ignored the report and Congress declined to consider its recommendations, but during the 40-plus years since its publication, at least 37 states have acted to refashion a crazy-quilt collection of prohibitions, nearly always in the direction favored by the commission. The specifics vary by state, but most reform legislation has followed one of three formulas: decriminalization of marijuana possession, legalization of marijuana for medical use, or legalization of marijuana for adult recreational use. In this issue brief, authors Katharine Neill and William Martin examine the facts and fears surrounding each of these options.

This issue brief proposes a framework for awarding bids in a public tender for exploration blocks. The context for the proposal is Mexico’s energy reform of 2013-2014.

This issue brief examines the signals conveyed by Mexico's 2014 energy reforms, and analyzes the limitations in law, institutional design and policy that may delay, if not derail, the reforms' success.

Mexico’s 2013–2014 energy reform promises to bring the country’s economic drivers and regulatory institutions in line with the global practices of free market democracies. If successful, this development would be a 180-degree turn. The accomplishment of such realignment is hardly assured, however.