Responding to recent data suggesting that young Queenslanders are switching to ecstasy in the wake of a steep increase in the state government's tax on popular "alcopops," a leading drug researcher

New England Patriots running back Kevin Faulk was suspended for one week and fined two weekly paychecks, or about $300,00

Eight months after Congress voted to end a decade-long ban on the use of federal funds for needle exchange programs (NEPs) in the District of Columbia, money is starting to flow to the programs in

It's encouraging to see prominent educators take a stand for more sensible drug policies:

As college students gear up for annual back-to-school parties, a group of university and college presidents in California and across the country this week pushed for a national debate over whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18.

The current limit ignores the reality of drinking during college years and drives it underground, making binge drinking more dangerous and students less likely to seek help in an emergency, according to a petition signed by more than 100 campus presidents. Though they don't call for an outright age rollback, the campus chiefs said they support "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age." [LA Times]

The drug czar's office went code red, of course, and was probably more than a little displeased at having to respond to a bunch of respected college presidents who couldn't be ignored or accused of being pro-drug. With the help of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, they've compiled a list of emphatic counterpoints most of which, if true, would compel us to ban alcohol entirely for everyone. My favorite is that, "all underage drinking is unsafe drinking."

And isn't that just precisely the point here? Kids are getting bombed surreptitiously in dormrooms across America. They're being ushered into the drinking culture by the drunkest people on earth. And they're afraid to ask for help in an emergency because well-meaning morons have criminalized their behavior instead of supervising it.

Of course, beyond the practical problems with the 21 drinking age, I'm still a big fan of the old cliché that if you're old enough to fight and die for your country, you're old enough to drink a beer. That argument should've worked a long time ago, but I guess I've been fighting for drug policy reform long enough to know that being right doesn't mean politicians will do what you propose.

So instead, every American between the ages of 18 and 20 should refuse to serve in the armed forces until this is addressed, lest they should find themselves fighting in defense of a freedom they may not live long enough to taste.

The latest outrage in Canada's heated harm reduction debate came at the hands of Health Minister Tony Clement who went off the rails by questioning the ethics of doctors who practice harm reduction:

MONTREAL — The association representing Canada's doctors rapped Health Minister Tony Clement on Monday after he questioned the ethics of physicians who support the use of supervised injection sites for drug addicts.
…

"Is it ethical for health-care professionals to support the administration of drugs that are of unknown substance, or purity or potency, drugs that cannot otherwise be legally prescribed?" Clement said.

He said that in any other medical setting, supervised overdoses would be considered "highly unprofessional." [Canadian Press]

Canada's doctors beg to differ:

The Canadian Medical Association's president responded to Clement by saying 79 per cent of members agree that safe-injection sites and harm-reduction programs work.

Dr. Brian Day said sites that allow addicts to inject their own narcotics under the supervision of medical staff have been successful in curbing illegal drug use and slowing the spread of disease.

"We specifically take issue with the minister using that phrase," Day told reporters after Clement's speech.

"The minister was off base in calling into question the ethics of physicians involved in harm reduction.

"It's clear that this was being used as a political issue."

Doctors are not politicians. They work to save lives and they are the experts on how to do that. If they all agree that existing programs are working, and some politician disagrees, then he is just wrong and he should shut up.

The drug war debate is ugly and that's not gonna change anytime soon. But one thing we can do without is politicians feigning moral superiority over the doctors who are saving lives every day. That's what this is about. Harm reduction shouldn't be a political issue and if you succeed in politicizing it for the wrong reasons, people will die.

By the narrowest of margins, the Aloha State's Big Island Hawaii County Council has rejected a state and federally funded marijuana eradication program known as "Green Harvest." The action came dur

Faced with rising drug overdose deaths and high rates of opiate addiction, Massachusetts lawmakers this week began discussing a $5 million plan to fund two "secure treatment centers" for arrested d

A state-sanctioned needle exchange program envisioned for Bexar County (greater San Antonio) under legislation passed last year will not happen -- at least not this year.

Officials of the Iranian government announced last week that they are embarking on a pilot program to provide syringes and condoms to drug users in an effort to prevent the spread of AIDS and hepat

Oddly, the Drug Czar has created a new webpage that offers great tips for any teen looking to catch a buzz. The page claims to be a warning guide for parents, but the potentially deadly secrets contained within it are available for anyone to see. I was able to access all of the site's content without even being asked to verify that I'm over 18.

I've learned to steal drugs from the elderly because they don't monitor their pill count or throw away leftovers because they're super old and confused. Also, there's like a billion websites that don't even check prescriptions and will send me anything. I'm gonna go cure my boreditis now. Thanks, Office of National Drug Control Policy!

Editor's Note: Shane G. Trejo is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. His bio is in our "staff" section.

It turns out that prohibition has found an effective way to make marijuana truly toxic. As seen in Germany where marijuana has been tainted with lead in order to increase its weight and increase profits an estimated $682 per pound:

One bag bought from a dealer even contained lead particles big enough to see, which meant the lead must have been added deliberately, rather than being absorbed into the plant from contaminated soil. … The authorities do not know where the tainted marijuana came from or why the lead was added, but the German police suspect that it was done to make money. The samples tested contained 10 percent lead by weight, which translates into an increased profit of about $682 per pound of marijuana.

Maybe Fox News was onto something when they reported about the killer weed. Of course, legalization and regulation would solve any tainted supply problems of not just marijuana but any drug. If policy makers had any concept of history, they would realize this. Look at what happened during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s:

Highly toxic wood alcohols found their way into much of the available bootleg liquor. When denatured industrial alcohol was not sufficiently diluted, or was consumed in large quantities, the result was paralysis, blindness and death. In 1927, almost twelve thousand deaths were attributed to alcohol poisonings, many of these among the urban poor who could not afford imported liquors. In 1930, U.S. public health officials estimated that fifteen thousand persons were afflicted with "jake foot," a debilitating paralysis of the hands and feet brought on by drinking denatured alcohol flavored with ginger root.

When was the last time you saw an American alcohol consumer come down with a case of jake foot? That’s right, never. Because when a person goes to the store to buy liquor or beer, they know exactly what they are getting. I can’t for the life of me remember any deception-related scandals or recalls related to alcohol suppliers. Elected officials choose to ignore the lessons that history has taught us. And as a result, over 100 people have been poisoned in Germany after having to buy marijuana from an unregulated, criminal market. Society suffers while the perpetrators can continue to sell the lead-laced pot with no accountability or consequences.

David Borden, Executive Director

The Drug Czar is warning everyone about an epidemic of meth-laced ecstasy tablets coming into the country from Canada:

Alarmingly, more than 55 percent of the Ecstasy samples seized in the United States last year contained methamphetamine. Cutting their product with less-expensive methamphetamine boosts profits for Canadian Ecstasy producers, likely increases the addictive potential of their product, and effectively gives a dangerous “face lift” to a designer drug that had fallen out of fashion with young American drug users. [Pushing Back]

I'll tell you whose fault this isn't: mine. See, I don't think ecstasy should even be illegal. I don't want it to be manufactured by drug gangs in Canada, or anyone else who might lace it with methamphetamine or other noxious crap. I think it should be manufactured by licensed professionals and sold to adults through regulated outlets. Many people have been saying this for a long time to no avail and now look what's happened.

So if meth-laced ecstasy isn’t my fault, whose fault is it? Ironically, but rather obviously, it is the fault of the exact people who now complain about all the bad ecstasy rolling across our northern border.

The Drug Czar's blog has been very concerned about harm reduction lately. They've taken the counterintuitive position of opposing efforts to save the lives of drug users, which seems like a strange choice. Now I understand why: they think harm reduction is the opposite of what it actually is.

These so-called "harm reduction" strategies are poor public policy because their underlying philosophy involves giving up on those who can successfully recover from drug addiction. [PushingBack.com]

This is wrong for a very simple reason: you cannot recover from addiction if you're dead. Harm reduction programs are not an alternative to treatment, rather they go hand in hand. Harm reduction keeps people healthy and alive, thereby creating opportunities for them to subsequently recover from addiction.

We could do nothing. That would be "giving up." We could ask drug addicts to either quit or die. That would be "giving up." Instead, harm reduction activists have taken to the streets and attacked this problem directly. They've studied the leading causes of death among drug users and created programs to reduce those casualties. That's the opposite of giving up.

Just pretend for a moment that you're cruel and you want drug users to die in large numbers. How would you go about it? Well, you would begin by eliminating regulated distribution so that users are forced to obtain unsafe products from criminals on the street. You would reduce access to clean needles in order to spread AIDS. You would enforce criminal sanctions against users so that they're afraid to seek help. And you would lobby aggressively against anyone who's studied the problem and proposed programs to reduce AIDS and overdoses.

Now I'm not saying the Drug Czar wants to kill people. I'm just saying he presides over a policy that is perfectly tailored to achieve that outcome. And he dares to suggest that the people out there working with addicts and saving lives are the ones who've given up.

The needle exchange program bill passed nearly a year ago by the New Jersey state legislature has borne its first fruit.

Explaining the failure of marijuana prohibition is easy. Sociology, economics, history, and psychology can all help to explain why a safe and popular drug cannot be removed from the market by force. Still, there is another important reason why marijuana is here to stay: it evolves at an incredibly rapid pace, becoming stronger and more profitable every day.

The vigorous growth and adaptability of the marijuana plant has long frustrated efforts by law-enforcement to thwart its production. Specific strains are easily cross-bred, producing offspring that emphasize certain qualities, thus growers in Oregon can develop a strain that grows well in Oregon's climate with minimal effort. Hybridization not only improves potency, but can also shorten flowering time and increase yield, thereby enabling growers to produce more in less time.

We're witnessing a situation in which the biological vigor of the plant itself has far outpaced law-enforcement efforts that were never effective to begin with. Indoor-grown strains can advance through 3-4 generations in a year's time, with the best specimens from each batch selected for cloning or crossbreeding. Each successive generation carries on the best traits of the former, which explains why growers can now accomplish in a basement what used to require an acre or more in the woods.

The great irony of all this is that drug warriors still think increased marijuana potency is an argument for their side. In reality, nothing could better illustrate the failure of their efforts to reduce the drug's production. Harsh marijuana laws have incentivized growers to produce a stronger product, which carries the same penalties by weight, while commanding higher prices on the street.

As the bitter debate over marijuana legalization rages on, the plants will grow ever faster, bigger, and stronger. Marijuana is one of nature's most remarkable creations, and it is unbelievable that so many people still haven't figured out that this plant is here to help us. From healthy foods to a promising cancer cure, we should be grateful that cannabis sativa grows and evolves as vigorously as it does.

With every forward step in marijuana's evolution, the war against this resilient plant becomes less and less effective.

Note: Thanks to court-qualified cannabis expert Chris Conrad for answering growing questions, and to pot-paparazzi Steve Bloom for turning me on to the government's awesome 2008 cultivation assessment, which got me thinking about this.

Please join us for a screening of AMERICAN DRUG WAR. This will be a very special event! We will be dedicating the screening to Claudia Jensen - activist, pediatrician, and warrior against the powerful elite that fight so hard to keep marijuana illegal. ADW participant, friend and associate, Dr. Claudia Jensen lost her life to breast cancer on September 15, 2007, may she rest in peace. Special guest speakers include Judge Gray, T. Rodgers, Kevin Booth, and Joe Peitri.

An amendment to the Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill that would have barred the dispersal of federal funds from those departments to any city that opened a safe injection site for drug users

You can urine test them. You can take away their financial aid for college. But you can't stop the kids from getting high. Some people will try anything, and I don't think arresting them is going to help:

Information Bulletin
New Drug – JENKEM

On 09/19/07 Cpl. Disarro received and email from a concerned parent regarding a new drug called “Jenkem”. The parent advised their child learned about this drug through various conversations with several students at Palmetto Ridge High.

Jenkem originated in Africa and other third world countries by fermenting raw sewage to create a gas which is inhaled to achieve a high. Jenkem is now a popular drug in American Schools. Jenkem is a homemade substance which consists of fecal matter and urine. The fecal matter and urine are placed in a bottle or jar and covered most commonly with a balloon. The container is then placed in a sunny area for several hours or days until fermented. The contents of the container will separate and release a gas, which is captured in the balloon. Inhaling the gas is said to have a euphoric high similar to ingesting cocaine but with strong hallucinations of times past. [Snopes]

This doesn't sound like a good idea. But what shall we do about it? You can't pop people for poop possession, or piss-test people for piss sniffing. Should we launch a massive public education campaign warning kids that fermenting their excrement and breathing in the resulting fumes will get them wasted? That could backfire.

So I don't know what the solution is. For starters, we should wait to see if this is a real problem or just another hysterical response to a couple gross, though isolated, incidents. If there really is a rising trend of Florida youths sniffing fermented feces, maybe it's just an overreaction to the Miami DEA Chief's recent claim that marijuana will kill you.

Repressive law enforcement responses to injection drug users in Southeast Asia are undermining the effort to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS in the region,

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