UPDATE (5/31/2011): This blog has been put on an indefinite hiatus. Editor Amanda J. Crawford has joined Bloomberg News. Read more here.

——————————————————————————-

CrawfordOnDrugs.com is dedicated to exploring issues and news connected with the United States’ failed War on Drugs. Based in Phoenix, Arizona, the blog is particularly focused on the intersection of border issues and drug war policy. It is funded, in part, through a fellowship grant by the Open Society Institute to editor Amanda J. Crawford. For more information or to share tips or ideas, e-mail Amanda@CrawfordOnDrugs.com.

Amanda J. Crawford

Crawford has spent more than a decade writing about politics and criminal justice issues in Arizona, Maryland and Washington, D.C. She has covered Capitol Hill and Arizona’s state Legislature, written extensively about prison reform and criminal sentencing policies and authored award-winning projects on health care, lobbying, prison issues, child welfare and polygamy. Now Crawford has turned her attention to the drug war as a freelance magazine writer and a 2010 Soros Justice Fellow with the Open Society Institute.

Crawford graduated with honors from the University of Maryland’s College of Journalism and worked at publications throughout Washington, D.C. She was a temporary correspondent in People Magazine’s Washington bureau and a staff writer at The Baltimore Sun. In 2003, Crawford moved to Phoenix to cover the state’s troubled prison system for The Arizona Republic. After five years as one of the newspaper’s top government and project reporters, she joined the faculty of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, where she also earned her master’s degree.

Crawford’s articles have been published in newspapers and magazines across the country. She is a regular contributor to Phoenix Magazine. Crawford has been honored with dozens of state and national journalism awards and in 2007 she was a finalist for the prestigious Livingston Award, which recognizes the best U.S. journalists under 35 years old.

She is available for freelance assignments on public policy or feature topics.

Email Crawford at Amanda@CrawfordOnDrugs.com.

David E. Robles

Robles is a research assistant with CrawfordOnDrugs.com and writes the weekly news feature “This Week In Drugs,” which publishes every Friday evening. Robles is an honors student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Email Robles at David@CrawfordOnDrugs.com with news items and tips.