Drug War Chronicle #564 - December 12, 2008

Recent reports from Holland have given the impression that the coffee shops are under pressure and could even be shut down. Don't believe it.

The Kanawha, West Virginia, school board wants to randomly drug test teachers. But that's stretching the law, and neither the teachers' unions nor the ACLU are going to let it happen without a fight.

StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) seeks tax deductible donations as year's end approaches for our educational programs -- especially our web site, on which readership continues to go up and up.

StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) is a nonpartisan organization, and no major party nominee for US President has yet supported enough of our mission to change that. Nevertheless, the views expressed in President-Elect Obama's books, speeches and campaign appearances are mostly positive, and enactment of them would make a major difference in drug policy and help many thousands of people. We need your help and your participation to fight this important fight at this time of opportunity.

Sodomizing SOB NYPD cops get indicted, a New York Health Department narc gets in trouble, so does a Michigan State Police narc and a Texas jail guard, and Rod Blagojevich isn't the only thing crooked in Chicago.

Pennsylvania housewife Christine Korbe heard what she thought were robbers breaking into her home at dawn on November 19. She opened fire from a stairway, shooting an FBI agent serving a drug arrest warrant on her husband before calling 911 to report a break-in. Now, in the latest example of overly aggressive drug raids gone bad, the FBI is dead, and Korbe is facing murder charges.

After Atlanta narcs gunned down 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in a bad drug raid, local officials sought to ease public outrage and concern by creating a Civilian Review Board to investigate abuses. Now the cops are trying to gut it.

Americans can rest secure in the knowledge that our country maintains its role as the world's leading jailer. According to a new Bureau of Justice Statistics report, we have an all-time record 2.3 million people behind bars, and that includes more than half a million drug offenders.

The Montana Meth Project, with its scary graphic images of the consequences of using the drug "just once," has been widely touted as a successful prevention effort. Not so fast, say researchers who have reviewed the results.

The death toll in Mexico's prohibition wars has passed 5,000 this year, making it comparable to the death tolls in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The German agency that regulates medicine has issued an exclusive license to a Belgian firm to import and distribute medical marijuana to a handful of patients who have won exceptions to the country's drug laws. The bud should be in pharmacies by next month.

People have grown cannabis for centuries in Morocco's Rif Mountains, and Moroccan hash has been a hit in Europe for decades. Now, after five years of trying to suppress the crop, the discussion over possible legalization has hit the public airwaves there.

Help build the movement and inform the public by running a StoptheDrugWar.org banner on your web site.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.

"You Can Help Encourage Obama to Answer Questions About Our Marijuana Policy," "DEA Says it Has a Policy of Not Arresting Medical Marijuana Patients," "Southeast Asia Plans to be Drug-Free by 2015," "Don't Consent to Police Searches or Answer Incriminating Questions," "America's Meanest Prosecutor Refuses to Resign," "Elderly People Who Grow Pot in Albania," "Can Both Sides of the Drug War Debate be Completely Wrong?," "The Discovery of 2,700-Year-Old Marijuana is Pretty Cool," "Are Cocaine Users Killing the Rainforest?"

StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) is seeking volunteers in the DC area to help with our membership drive; and from anywhere to help with a writing-based project on which work has already begun.

Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this spring (or summer), and you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!