1. FEATURE: THE OLYMPICS MEETS THE WAR ON DRUGS
   Competition at the Olympic Games was overshadowed by a dramatic escalation of the war on drugs by Italian police, who raided Austria's biathlon and cross-country skiing teams late the night before they were set to compete.
2. FEATURE: MARYLAND DELEGATE INTRODUCES BILL TO EASE STATE AID FOR STUDENTS AFFECTED BY FEDERAL DRUG PROVISION
   A bill in the Maryland legislature would help students who lost federal financial aid for college because of drug convictions to obtain financial assistance through state programs.
3. FEATURE: FROM THE EAST BAY, THE CANNABIS CULTURE SPEAKS
   Along with cannabis dispensaries, patient support services providers and a gift shop, Oakland's 10-year old "Oaksterdam" enterprise now has a newspaper too.
4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's two for Texas, two for Tennessee in this week's rogues' gallery, but also cops gone bad from Pennsylvania and Maryland, South Carolina and Florida.
5. AYAHUASCA: SUPREME COURT OKAYS USE OF PSYCHEDELIC TEA IN CHURCH RITUALS
   A unanimous US Supreme Court ruled Monday that the US branch of a Brazilian church may use a psychedelic tea containing a controlled substance as part of its religious rituals.
6. PROHIBITION: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WAVERS
   The Wall Street Journal's editorial page has an impregnable reputation as a bastion of conservative thought and a long history of support for drug prohibition. But something is going on at the nation's second most widely read newspaper.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: ILLINOIS BILL MOVING, PASSES SENATE COMMITTEE
   A bill that would allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana squeaked by a state Senate subcommittee with a one-vote margin last week and is now heading for a Senate floor vote.
8. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW MEXICO BILL DIES IN HOUSE AS TIME RUNS OUT
   For the second year in a row, an effort to push a medical marijuana bill through the New Mexico legislature has won passage in the state Senate only to stall in the House.
9. SOUTHEAST ASIA: DRUG WAR SUCCESS MEANS POVERTY FOR LAOTIAN FARMERS
   A program to eradicate opium farming in Laos has been so "successful" that farmers there are now in dire need of economic assistance.
10. CANADA: BRITISH COLUMBIA'S NEW DEMOCRATS SAY LEGALIZE IT
    The leading opposition party in the western Canadian province has officially called for legalization of marijuana.
11. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: FLORIDA APPEALS COURT RESTRICTS WARRANTLESS DRUG DOG SEARCHES
    The Florida 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that police must obtain a warrant before drug-sniffing dogs are allowed to search private property.
12. CELEBRITY MOUTH: BRUCE WILLIS DECLARES WAR ON COCAINE
    In what is presumably a bid to gin up publicity for his new movie, 16 Blocks, movie tough-guy Bruce Willis is talking tough about cocaine.
13. WEB SCAN
    Cannabinoids for Cancer Treatment, Perjury in Police Misconduct
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. JOB OPPORTUNITY: COMMUNITY LIAISON, PREVENTIONWORKS!, WASHINGTON, DC
    The capital city's syringe exchange/harm reduction program is hiring a Community Liaison.
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #423 -- 2/16/06

1. FEATURE: NEW MEXICO MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL LIKELY TO DIE WITHOUT A FLOOR VOTE BARRING LAST-DITCH EFFORT
   The New Mexico legislature's 2006 short session ends at noon Mountain Time today, and barring a last-second, long-shot maneuver, the medical marijuana bill supported by the state's governor will go with it.
2. FEATURE: DRUG POSSESSION FOR PERSONAL USE IS NOT A CRIME, ARGENTINE COURT RULES
   In a decision that could go before the nation's Supreme Court, a judge in Argentina's Buenos Aires province has found a penalizing drug possession unconstitutional.
3. FEATURE: FOES FUME AND FLEE AS DRUG REFORM REACHES OUT TO CONSERVATIVES
   For the second year in a row, drug reformers took the message to a seemingly unlikely audience -- the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.
4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's a bumper crop of bad cops this week, with strange goings on in two Arkansas towns, cops up to no good across the South and in Massachusetts and Washington state, a prosecutor in trouble in San Francisco, and a pair of federal air marshals who were apparently marshaling white powder safely to its destination. And we give a shout-out to a web site that you'll like if you like this feature.
5. FEDERAL DRUG BUDGET: DEMOCRATIC SENATORS URGE RESTORING FUNDS FOR DRUG TASK FORCES
   In an attempt at using tough-on-crime rhetoric to win partisan political advantage, a number of Democratic senators are criticizing the Bush administration for seeking further cuts in drug war spending programs beloved by law enforcement.
6. MARIJUANA: DECRIMINALIZATION MEASURE MOVING IN MASSACHUSETTS
   In the first of many steps, a bill that would impose fines -- not jail time -- for marijuana possession in Massachusetts has been approved by a legislative committee.
7. MARIJUANA: OAKLAND-STYLE "MEASURE Z" CAMPAIGNS SLATED FOR MORE CALIFORNIA CITIES
   People involved in Oakland's groundbreaking 2004 initiative -- which made private, adult marijuana transactions the city's lowest law enforcement priority -- are set to expand the effort to other California cities.
8. ECSTASY: AFTER THE FACT, WISCONSIN LEGISLATOR SEEKS TO STIFFEN PENALTIES
   The Ecstasy curve appears to be past its peak, according to standard measures. But that hasn't stopped a Wisconsin legislator from taking action now.
9. EUROPE: BELGIAN SOCIALISTS CALL FOR REGULATED MARIJUANA SALES
   A junior partner in Belgium's governing coalition is calling for the country's three-year-old marijuana decriminalization experiment to be extended to outright legalization.
10. WEB SCAN
    Sentencing Project on the War on Marijuana, Marsha Rosenbaum on Drug Hysteria for Alternet
11. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
12. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #422 -- 2/10/06

1. EDITORIAL: I WAS ALMOST ON TV LAST WEEK
   DRCNet executive director David Borden was supposed to appear on a national TV show last week, but got bumped at the very last second. Today he tells the story for this audience.
2. FEATURE: FEDERAL DRUG BUDGET CONTINUES MODEST DOWNWARD TREND, BUT STRATEGY PROMISES SAME OLD SAME OLD
   With tax cuts and the war on terror competing for dollars, even the drug war is not exempt from the budget-cutter's ax.
3. FEATURE: STATES, COLLEGES BLOCK FINANCIAL AID TO STUDENTS WITH DRUG CONVICTIONS EVEN WHEN THEY DON'T HAVE TO, DRCNET-SPONSORED STUDY FINDS
   Thousands of college students with drug convictions could be receiving financial aid from their states even though federal law bars them from obtaining federal assistance. But in most places they are falling through administrative cracks and getting denied, a study released this week has found.
4. FEATURE: WITH AUSTRALIA IN THE GRIP OF REEFER MADNESS, NEW SOUTH WALES MOVES TO SEVERELY PUNISH THE DREADED "HYDRO"
   Opposition is building to a proposed measure in the Australian state of New South Wales to dramatically increase penalties for marijuana grown indoors using hydroponics.
5. EUROPE: ITALY TAKES A GIANT STEP BACKWARD
   The Italian parliament Monday voted final approval for a new drug law that reimposes sanctions for marijuana users and erases the distinction between "soft" and "hard" drugs. Drug quantities triggering prison time are yet to be determined, but it's not looking good.
6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   An Oklahoma prosecutor tries to swipe some evidence, a Milwaukee cop is in trouble for a little side cocaine trafficking, and a Tennessee detective is involved in a confused incident regarding a crashed pickup truck and some missing drug.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: CALIFORNIA COUNTY DROPS FEDERAL LAWSUIT, WILL SEEK TO OVERTURN COMPASSIONATE USE ACT IN STATE COURT
   San Diego County has quietly dropped its federal lawsuit seeking to overturn California's medical marijuana law, but has re-filed it in state court.
8. HARM REDUCTION: PEDIATRICIANS BACK NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
   Pediatricians should advocate for needle exchange programs to reduce the rate of HIV infection among young drug users, the American Academy of Pediatrics said a revised policy statement earlier this month.
9. CHRONIC PAIN: FLORIDA PAIN PATIENT APPEALS DRUG TRAFFICKING SENTENCE AMIDST MEDIA GLARE
   Last year, Florida pain patient Richard Paey was sentenced to a mandatory minimum 25-year prison sentence after authorities watched him roll his wheel chair from pharmacy to pharmacy seeking the massive amounts of narcotic pain relievers needed to make his life bearable. Tuesday, Paey was back in court to appeal his convictions and sentence in Tampa.
10. IN MEMORIAM: AL LEWIS DEAD AT 82 -- BEST KNOWN AS "GRANDPA MUNSTER," ACTOR WAS ALSO ACTIVIST AND DRUG LAW REFORMER
    Al Lewis, best known for his role as "Grandpa Munster" in "The Munsters," died last Friday at the age of 82. Lewis was a long-time activist who campaigned against New York State's draconian Rockefeller drug laws, among other causes.
11. WEB SCAN
    New LEAP Video, Reason on Bush's Drug Warriors, Afghan Farmers in London, Conservatives Attacked Over Soros Link, Humanists Resolution
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #421 -- 2/3/06

1. FEATURE: AFGHAN OPIUM CONUNDRUM -- FOUR YEARS ON, THE WEST SEARCHES FOR ANSWERS
   Four years after the United States invaded and overthrew the Taliban, neither the West nor the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai has figured out what to do about the country's burgeoning opium economy.
2. FEATURE: SSDP SUES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT DISPUTE
   The organization Students for Sensible Drug Policy announced last week it has filed a lawsuit over a hefty fee the Department of Education wants to release state-by-state data on the number of students affected by the Higher Education Act drug provision.
3. FEATURE: DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE ISSUES FIRST CONGRESSIONAL DRUG POLICY VOTER GUIDE
   A new Congressional voter guide identifies "heroes," "villains" and "champions" of drug policy reform.
4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, systemic corruption in the Topeka drug squad continues to roil local law enforcement, and a civilian sheriff's office employee in Oakland has more on her mind that filing reports.
5. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: STEVE KUBBY JAILED AND SUFFERING IN CALIFORNIA
   His four-year odyssey as a medical marijuana refugee over since last week, Steve Kubby has asked a court for house arrest or to be allowed to use medicinal marijuana while jailed. No correctional facility in the state allows prisoners access to this particular medicine despite state law making it legal.
6. HEA REFORM: CONGRESS PASSES PARTIAL REFORM TO LAW BARRING FINANCIAL AID TO STUDENTS WITH DRUG CONVICTIONS
   With the passage of a controversial budget bill, Congress has scaled back the Higher Education Act drug provision to apply only to those in school at the time of their offenses.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW MEXICO BILL CLEARS SENATE, HEADS FOR HOUSE AS CLOCK TICKS
   The New Mexico medical marijuana bill blessed repeatedly by Gov. Bill Richardson passed the Senate overwhelmingly and now heads to the House, where legislators have a week to act.
8. MARIJUANA: ALASKA GOVERNOR'S BID TO RECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA BACKFIRES AS HOUSE REJECTS COMBINED "METHIJUANA" BILL
   Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and his allies hoped that tying their bill to recriminalize marijuana possession to a methamphetamine bill would help them steamroll the legislation into law, but it didn't work out that way this week.
9. EUROPE: ITALY POISED FOR GIANT STEP BACKWARD ON DRUG POLICY
   Possession of personal use quantities of drugs has been decriminalized in Italy for more than a decade, but a tough new law being pushed through parliament could change that.
10. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO'S DRUG WAR ERUPTS BLOODILY IN ACAPULCO
    In an unintended consequence of Mexican drug law enforcement, the sunny tourist destination Acapulco has found itself wracked by dramatic and murderous violence as rival cartels -- perhaps aided by corrupted police allies -- fight for control of the trade.
11. WEB SCAN
    Richard Paey on Sixty Minutes, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. JOB OPPORTUNITIES
    Drug Policy Alliance, Full-Time Legislative Assistant and Part-Time Office Manager
14. JOB OPPORTUNITY
    Publications Coordinator for Students for Sensible Drug Policy and DanceSafe
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

1. FEATURE: SAN DIEGO POLITICOS AND ACTIVISTS FACE OFF OVER MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   San Diego County's supervisors have never liked California's medical marijuana law. But the fight they started last week is one they may soon regret.
2. FEATURE: STUDY CLAIMING METHAMPHETAMINE IS OVERRUNNING HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOMS FAILS TO WITHSTAND SCRUTINY
   For the second time in less than a year, a lobbying group for county officials has managed to get the press to bite on methamphetamine studies that purport to show the popular stimulant is wreaking havoc across the land. But the group's claims don't stand up to scrutiny.
3. FEATURE: MEDICAL MARIJUANA REFUGEE STEVE KUBBY EXPELLED FROM CANADA, FACES LIFE THREATENING JAIL SENTENCE IN CALIFORNIA
   Medical marijuana refugee Steve Kubby flew from Vancouver to San Francisco Thursday evening, expelled by Canada at the bitter end of a four-year effort to remain in his adopted home and avoid serving a jail sentence he says could lead to his death.
4. FEATURE: ON THE OCCASION OF OUR 420TH ISSUE, WE LOOK AT 4:20
   The secret code for "time to get high" has been around since the late 1970s. But despite prohibition -- or perhaps because of it -- 4:20 is much less secret than it once was.
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, a Connecticut cop and an Arizona prosecutor let their bad habits get on top of them. Though we have a general policy of not going after simple possession charges -- everyone has their foibles -- this cop is charged also with distribution. And the prosecutor, well, it's his job to prosecute drug offenders, so we'll make an exception.
6. EUROPE: IRELAND TO START "CAUTIONING" MARIJUANA USERS -- NO, WAIT A MINUTE, WE CHANGED OUR MIND
   Ireland's Garda Siochana police were set to begin issuing "cautions" or warnings for marijuana smokers and small-time possessors instead of arresting them beginning next month. But at the last minute they did a u-turn.
7. EUROPE: BRITISH TO REVIEW DRUG CLASSIFICATION SCHEME
   Just days after deciding not to re-reclassify cannabis as a more dangerous drug, Britain's Home Secretary announced a government-backed review of the country's entire drug classification system. Early speculation points to both winners and losers.
8. SOUTH ASIA: INDIAN FARMERS, MAOISTS TEAM UP IN OPIUM TRADE
   Drought, drug prohibition, and simmering lawlessness in the northeastern Indian state of Jharkhand are combining in an all too familiar pattern as hard-pressed farmers team up with guerrilla fighters in what looks to be a burgeoning opium trade.
9. AUSTRALIA: GREEN PARTY TAKES A STEP BACK ON DRUG POLICY
   In the latest iteration of its drug policy platform, the Australian Green Party has retreated from its call to explore regulated distribution of marijuana and Ecstasy.
10. ELECTORAL POLITICS: NATIONALLY KNOWN DRUG REFORMER SEEKS GREEN PARTY GUBERNATORIAL NOMINATION IN CONNECTICUT
    Efficacy founder Cliff Thornton has publicly announced he is seeking the Green Party nomination for governor of Connecticut, kicking it off with a well-attended press conference in Hartford Wednesday.
11. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW MEXICO BILL WINS SENATE COMMITTEE APPROVAL
    A medical marijuana bill promoted by Gov. Bill Richardson in the state's off-year short legislative session was unanimously approved by the first of three Senate committees to vote on it.
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. JOB OPPORTUNITIES, MPP IN DC AND NEVADA
    The Marijuana Policy Project is hiring for positions in Las Vegas and Washington, DC.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #419 -- 1/20/06

1. FEATURE: ALASKA BILL TO RECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA FAST-TRACKED, PASSES SENATE
   Alaska Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski and his allies are pulling out all the stops to pass a bill that would recriminalize marijuana possession in the state.
2. FEATURE: WITH CONSERVATIVES POISED TO TAKE POWER, CANADIAN DRUG REFORM PONDERS AN UNFRIENDLY FUTURE
   With Canada's Conservative Party expected to take power in Monday's election and leader Steven Harper taking the tough on drugs and crime line, observers of drug policy are wondering how bad things might get.
3. FEATURE: SWISS MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION TO GO TO VOTERS... UNLESS PARLIAMENT ACTS FIRST
   A year and a half after conservative opposition in Switzerland's lower chamber blocked a measure that would have legalized marijuana, proponents have gathered enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on the issue.
4. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   While we tend to focus on individual cases of corruption, this week the rot has spread and the stench takes on institutional form, with departments on both coasts having big problems and a big city jail where it seems like everyone was in on the illicit action.
5. SUPREME COURT RULING: ADMINISTRATION CANNOT USE FEDERAL DRUG LAWS TO BLOCK OREGON'S ASSISTED SUICIDE LAW -- ATTEMPTS INCREASED PAIN LEVELS AMONG DYING
   In a decision handed down Tuesday, the US Supreme Court upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law, ruling the feds can't use the drug laws to punish doctors who prescribed drugs to help people kill themselves in states that permit the practice. Pain treatment took a hit in Oregon when they tried eight years ago.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SAN DIEGO TERM LIMITS INITIATIVE FILED IN RESPONSE TO SUPERVISORS' ATTACKS ON STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW
   The San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted to challenge California's medical marijuana law in federal court, and has resisted a state mandate to create a medical marijuana patient registry. Now, members may be about to pay the ultimate political price for ignoring the will of the voters.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR PUTS COMPASSIONATE USE ACT ON LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
   In a surprise move, Gov. Bill Richardson has included a pending medical marijuana bill on his agenda for the state's 30-day legislative session begun this week.
8. MOTHERING: UTAH APPEALS COURT OVERTURNS CHILD ENDANGERMENT CHARGE IN MARIJUANA BREAST-FEEDING CASE, BUT UPHOLDS LAW ITSELF
   In a pair of rulings, the Utah Court of Appeals upheld a state law making "exposure to" illicit drugs evidence of child endangerment, but drew the line at charging a mother under the law for breast-feeding her baby while admitting to smoking marijuana twice in a three-week period.
9. MARIJUANA: "WEEDS" ACTRESS MARY LOUISE PARKER WINS GOLDEN GLOBE, SAYS "LEGALIZE IT"
   Actress Mary Louise Parker, who plays suburban pot-dealing mom Nancy Botwin in the Showtime TV series "Weeds," beat out a quartet of Desperate Housewives to win best comedy actress at Monday night's nationally-televised Golden Globe awards, and she used the occasion to call on the US government to legalize marijuana.
10. EUROPE: BRITAIN WILL NOT RECLASSIFY CANNABIS AS A MORE HARMFUL DRUG -- ADVISORY COUNCIL CALLS RISK OF MENTAL ILLNESS "VERY SMALL"
    British Home Secretary Charles Clarke announced Thursday that marijuana will remain in the less-punished class of illegal drugs.
11. LATIN AMERICA: COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT FORCED TO PROBE PARAMILITARY INFLUENCE-BUYING
    In the wake of widely publicized allegations that drug-running rightist paramilitary groups are using their cocaine profits to buy their way into Colombia's political system, President Alvaro Uribe has ordered an investigation into the campaign finances of two of his allies in the Senate.
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #418 -- 1/13/06

1. FEATURE: FEDERAL METH PRECURSOR STING TARGETING SOUTH ASIAN CONVENIENCE STORES DRAWS PROTESTS, ACLU INTERVENTION
   For several dozen hard-working South Asian immigrants and their families in northwest Georgia, the American dream has turned into a nightmare.
2. FEATURE: CANNABIS CAUSING SCHIZOPHRENIA IN BRITISH MARIJUANA POLICY
   In an act of political expediency against a background of tabloid hysteria over links between marijuana and mental illness, the Blair government has proclaimed that it may well reclassify marijuana back to Class B. Or maybe not.
3. FEATURE: ALITO HEARINGS YIELD INCONCLUSIVE BUT MOSTLY BAD FORECASTS FOR DRUG WAR ISSUES
   Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito is not the libertarian kind of conservative jurist, and his record on issues relating to drug policy tilts decidedly in the direction of government power. The reach of the Interstate Commerce Clause, which underpins federal drug prohibition, is potentially an important exception. But the nominee provided too little information for anyone to do much besides guess.
4. FEATURE: IN THE WAKE OF BOOKER, SOME SMALL RELIEF FOR A SMALL FRACTION OF FEDERAL CRACK COCAINE OFFENDERS
   Last year's Supreme Court decision in the Booker and Fan Fan cases threatened to draw retaliation from Congressional hardliners in love with harsh sentencing. But a new study has found that for crack cocaine offenses, at least, most people are still getting very harsh sentences.
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another pair of drug-dealing prison guards, a drug-dealing small-town cop, a drug-dealing big city cop, and a really big time, big city drug-dealing cop make the news this week.
6. SENTENCING: FEDERAL APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS MANDATORY 55-YEAR SENTENCE FOR MAN WHO SOLD MARIJUANA WHILE ARMED
   Arguing that Congress intended to severely punish crimes involving guns and drugs, a three-judge panel from the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver found no problem with a 55 year sentence the trial judge had issued under protest.
7. SENTENCING: NEW JERSEY LEGISLATURE PASSES BILL TO END MANDATORY DRIVER LICENSE SUSPENSIONS FOR DRUG OFFENDERS
   New Jersey's 2004-2005 legislative session ended with a bill to allow judges to waive a previously mandatory six-month drivers license suspension for any drug offense passing. But bills to reduce the size of "drug free school zones" and legalize needle exchange failed to make it through.
8. MARIJUANA: BILL TO RECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA IN ALASKA INTRODUCED AND MOVING
   Attempts by Gov. Frank Murkowski and Alaska’s law enforcement establishment to recriminalize marijuana have been slapped down multiple times, but still they come back to try again.
9. EUROPE: LEADING BRITISH DATE RAPE DRUG IS ALCOHOL, STUDY FINDS
   Alcohol, not illicit drugs, poses the greatest date rape risk, according to a study whose results were published this week in the New Scientist.
10. EUROPE: ALBANIAN HEMP FARMERS FREED AS JUDGE RULES IT'S NOT MARIJUANA
    For the second time in five years, Albanian police have arrested farmers growing industrial hemp, and for the second time in five years, an Albanian judge has told the cops to knock it off.
11. LATIN AMERICA: US SEEKING TALKS WITH BOLIVIA'S MORALES ON COCA, TRADE
    A campaign pledge by Bolivian president-elect and coca grower Evo Morales to decriminalize the leaf's cultivation could place him directly at odds with US policy in the country. For once US diplomats in Bolivia are walking softly.
12. WEB SCAN
    NORML Animation, Budapest Drug Policy Dialogue
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #417 -- 1/6/06

1. EDITORIAL: ARGUMENTS BEST SET TO REST
   The best arguments against medical marijuana were aired in Rhode Island this week -- and failed.
2. FEATURE: RHODE ISLAND OVERRIDES GOVERNOR'S VETO TO BECOME 11TH STATE OKAYING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   Gov. Donald Carcieri thought a veto would stop medical marijuana in Rhode Island. But first the Senate and then the House turned his veto back, and medical marijuana is the law of the state.
3. FEATURE: MEDICAL MARIJUANA REFUGEE RUNNING OUT OF TIME, OPTIONS
   One of America's best known medical marijuana refugees may be coming home next week -- against his will and to face what could effectively be a death sentence.
4. FEATURE: CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET-CUTTING EXTENDS EVEN TO DRUG WAR SACRED COWS
   For decades, it has been almost anything goes when it comes to fulfilling budget requests for federal drug war funding. But several drug warrior favorites took big hits last month, and the impact is likely to be significant.
5. FEATURE: REFORMERS FOCUS ON COLORADO, NEVADA TO FREE THE WEED IN 2006
   In no state have voters or legislators legalized marijuana for recreational use, but if drug reformers have their way, this could be the year.
6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, the long-running Dallas "sheetrock scandal" grows even sleazier, a San Francisco cop is accused of being a serial horndog, and in Honolulu, a cop faces prison for selling meth and a prison guard may find himself on the other side of the bars for similar reasons.
7. METHAMPHETAMINE: TENNESSEE CREATES METH OFFENDER REGISTRY
   With the new year, meth offenders join sex offenders as social pariahs deserving of a permanent electronic registry in Tennessee.
8. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SATIVEX WINS FDA APPROVAL FOR TRIALS IN US
   GW Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the sublingual, cannabis-based spray medication Sativex, announced Wednesday that it won US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to proceed with Phase III clinical trials of the drug's efficacy in patients suffering from pain from advanced cancers.
9. EUROPE: KETAMINE NOW ILLEGAL IN ENGLAND
   Legal in Britain up until last week, "Special K," as the club drug Ketamine is popularly known, now carries penalties of up to two years in prison for possession or 14 years for sales.
10. LATIN AMERICA: DEA TO EXPAND INTO GUYANA
    The US Drug Enforcement Administration is preparing to set up shop in Guyana, the agency's first venture in the small, non-Spanish-speaking countries of South America's north coast.
11. WORLD-WIDE: THIS YEAR'S GLOBAL MARIJUANA MARCH IS COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU MAY 6
    Organizers of the May marijuana marches around the planet announced this week that they had at least 150 cities signed up for the annual event.
12. NEW DRCNET BOOK OFFER: "TULIA: RACE, COCAINE, AND CORRUPTION IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN"
    DRCNet's latest member premium is a book by the Texas Observer's Nate Blakeslee that paints an in-depth picture of the drug war's most notorious scandal and the rural and political landscape in which it unfolded.
13. WEB SCAN
    New England Journal of Medicine on the DEA vs. Oregon's Right to Die Law
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

1. NEW DRCNET BOOK OFFER: "TULIA: RACE, COCAINE, AND CORRUPTION IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN"
   DRCNet's latest member premium is a book by the Texas Observer's Nate Blakeslee that paints an in-depth picture of the drug war's most notorious scandal and the rural and political landscape in which it unfolded.
2. FEATURE: FEDS TARGET SAN FRANCISCO MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY -- DEA AGENTS FACE ANGRY PROTESTORS
   Dozens of patients and activists faced off with DEA agents raiding a highly respected medical marijuana cooperative in San Francisco Tuesday.
3. FEATURE: CONGRESS SCALES BACK HEA DRUG PROVISION -- WILL NOW APPLY ONLY TO STUDENTS BUSTED WHILE IN COLLEGE
   In a rare scaling back of a punitive federal drug law, Congress has decided to restrict the range of a provision of the Higher Education Act that takes financial aid for college away from students who have drug convictions. Advocates are pleased but unsatisfied.
4. FEATURE: BOLIVIANS ELECT EVO MORALES PRESIDENT -- INDIGENOUS LEFTIST COCA-GROWER LEADER WINS SWEEPING VICTORY
   In a major blow to official US international drug war policy, an ardent critic of coca eradication has been elected president of Bolivia by the widest electoral margin in decades.
5. APPEAL: DAVID BORDEN MAKES A CASE TO SUPPORT DRCNET FOR 2006
   2005 has been quite a year at DRCNet. In 2006 DRCNet will be able to advance the cause in a broader way and at a greater level than ever before -- but only with your help.
6. METHAMPHETAMINE: PATRIOT ACT EXTENSION DEAL PUTS SOUDER-SENSENBRENNER METH BILL ON HOLD
   Two drug warriors promoting a methamphetamine bill that would put Sudafed behind the counter and enact harsh new penalties tried to get their way by attaching it to the Patriot Act. But they found that Congressional maneuverings can cut both ways.
7. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It won't be a Merry Christmas for a South Carolina sheriff's deputy who made a small fortune protecting a meth dealer or for a Louisiana police chief who sold crack on the side.
8. PRESCRIPTION DRUGS: ALABAMA TO JOIN GROWING LIST OF STATES TRACKING PRESCRIPTIONS
   Over 20 states track patients' prescriptions for frequently abused drugs. But the databases come at a time when patients are widely under-treated for chronic pain and doctors are increasingly leery of prescribing large doses of popular pain relievers for fear of prosecution.
9. LATIN AMERICA: PERUVIAN COCA LEADER NANCY OBREGON ARRESTED
   Peru's most prominent coca leader was arrested December 16 in the Upper Huallaga River valley town of Tingo Maria.
10. HEROIN: BRITISH STUDY FINDS A DIFFERENT SORT OF USER
    The stereotypical heroin addict may be just that, according to a study of continuing heroin users who either escaped dependency altogether or managed to live controlled, productive lives while dependent on heroin.
11. EUROPE: HUNGARIAN PARAMEDICS AGREE TO KEEP POLICE AWAY FROM DRUG EMERGENCIES
    Following frequent complaints that drug users feared to call for help in emergencies due to fear of arrest, the Hungarian National Ambulance Service has agreed to instruct its paramedics to longer call the police when dealing with overdoses and other drug emergencies.
12. CARIBBEAN: NEW BERMUDA DRUG CHIEF HINTS AT MARIJUANA LAW REVIEW
    Two weeks after being appointed Bermuda's National Drug Control Minister, veteran drug-fighting police leader Wayne Perinchief fielded a reporter's question about drug decriminalization by saying he would review the island nation's marijuana laws.
13. LATIN AMERICA: DYING BRAZILIAN WOMAN FREED AFTER INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
    A 79-year-old Brazilian great-grandmother imprisoned despite terminal cancer for 19 rocks of crack cocaine found in a house she shared with her adult son has been released pending appeal.
14. WEB SCAN
    Reason/Cato 9th Circuit Raich Brief, CounterPunch on Bryan Epis, Drug Truth Network
15. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #415 -- 12/16/05

1. APPEAL: DAVID BORDEN MAKES A CASE TO SUPPORT DRCNET FOR 2006
   2005 has been quite a year at DRCNet. In 2006 DRCNet will be able to advance the cause in a broader way and at a greater level than ever before -- but only with your help.
2. FEATURE: DEA, LOCAL POLICE JOIN FORCES TO RAID 13 SAN DIEGO MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES
   Eyewitness accounts describe drawn guns, handcuffing of staff and patients, and marijuana and medical record seizures in a coordinated anti-medical marijuana sweep on Monday, but arrests were few.
3. FEATURE: JURORS ACQUIT CALIFORNIA NARC WHO KILLED RUDY CARDENAS IN MISTAKEN CHASE
   A San Jose jury Tuesday acquitted a California state narcotics officer of manslaughter in the February 2003 shooting death of Rudy Cardenas.
4. FEATURE: COCA LEADER EVO MORALES POISED TO WIN BOLIVIA PRESIDENTIAL VOTE SUNDAY
   An indigenous member of Bolivia's parliament who grows coca and is opposed by the US government is likely to take the reins of the national government. Drug warriors are not happy.
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "BUD, INC.: INSIDE CANADA'S MARIJUANA INDUSTRY"
   Vancouver Sun justice columnist Ian Mulgrew has been covering the marijuana beat in British Columbia for a decade, and his book provides a fascinating look at Canada's largest cash crop, its culture and its politics, and where it could be headed.
6. ALERT: PROTEST DEA'S DECEMBER OUTRAGE
   Earlier this week, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) took the cruel and reckless step of raiding 13 medical marijuana dispensaries that patients in the San Diego area rely on for needed relief for serious medical conditions. Please help patients by protesting this outrage to Congress.
7. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, a crooked Border Patrol agent gets sent to prison, so does a crooked border town sheriff, three more soldiers plead guilty in a massive Arizona sting, and a Chicago cop gets caught playing weed dealer.
8. SENTENCING: REPORT ON 2004 NEW YORK DRUG LAW REFORM FINDS LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE, MUCH MORE TO DO
   A report by the NYC Legal Aid Society found limited impact from last year's Rockefeller drug law reforms and called on the legislature to finish what it had started.
9. INDUSTRIAL HEMP: SOUTH DAKOTA INDIANS GO TO FEDERAL COURT IN EFFORT TO GROW CROP
   In 2000 and 2001, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation resident Alex White Plume and his family sowed hemp crops, only to have them destroyed by heavily armed federal raiders. This week he and his family went to federal appeals court to press their claim that hemp is not illegal.
10. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SHERIFF CAN'T REVOKE PISTOL PERMIT JUST BECAUSE OF MEDICAL USE, OREGON COURT RULES
    Washington County Sheriff Rob Gordon has pulled at least four concealed pistol permits because of their holders' medical marijuana use. Now a judge has told him he can't.
11. MARIJUANA: GOVERNOR TO TRY AGAIN TO END LEGAL MARIJUANA IN ALASKA
    Alaska's drug warrior governor has failed multiple times to defeat a state Supreme Court finding that possession of small quantities of marijuana is protected under the right to privacy. With a new year coming, Murkowski is back at it.
12. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: BILLS ACTIVE IN SEVERAL STATES
    Medical marijuana continues to be a hot issue in statehouses, with pending legislation continuing to progress in at least three states -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Wisconsin.
13. LATIN AMERICA: GAO REPORT CHALLENGES US STATISTICS ON COCAINE SEIZURES
    A new government report raises doubts about administration's claims of progress in reducing the flow of cocaine to the United States.
14. WEB SCAN
    Seattle Times, Village Voice, San Diego Raids and LEAP in Princeton
15. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. JOB OPENINGS: LISTINGS AT THE MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
    The Marijuana Policy Project currently has permanent job openings at its offices in Washington, DC, Montpelier, Vermont and Las Vegas, Nevada, and temporary positions in locations around the country.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #414 -- 12/9/05

1. UPDATE AND APPEAL: DRCNET IN 2006
   2005 has been quite a year at DRCNet. In 2006 DRCNet will be able to advance the cause in a broader way and at a greater level than ever before -- but only with your help.
2. FEATURE: VANCOUVER KEEPS LEADING THE WAY ON DRUG REFORM, DESPITE BUMPS IN THE ROAD
   The "Pot Block" is quieter these days since Marc Emery was indicted, and hard drug users a few blocks over are facing a police crackdown against public injecting. But Vancouver continues to lead Canada toward a post-prohibition future.
3. FEATURE: SEATTLE CONFERENCE ON DRUG WAR EXIT STRATEGIES GETS DOWN TO NUTS AND BOLTS
   The second and final day of Seattle's "Exit Strategy for the War on Drugs" conference saw dozens of reformers, academics and others confront a series of questions about how two drugs -- marijuana and methamphetamine -- should be regulated in a post-prohibition era.
4. FEATURE: WASHINGTON LEGISLATURE TO CONSIDER BILL TO EXAMINE ALTERNATIVES TO PROHIBITION
   A coalition of professional and civic groups in Seattle are resuming their campaign to pass potentially paradigm-breaking legislation.
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, we turn our attention from the mundane corruption of dope-dealing prison guards and dope-stealing bad cops to the systemic corruption created by the reliance on informants in drug cases.
6. MARIJUANA: DENVER MAN TO CHALLENGE POT ARREST AFTER LEGALIZATION ORDINANCE IN EFFECT
   Since Denver voters passed I-100 last month, officials police have ignored the will of the voters to prosecute at least 12 adults for simple marijuana possession. Now one of them is fighting back -- in court.
7. CHRONIC PAIN: SOUTH CAROLINA PAIN DOCTORS LOSE APPEAL, BUT GET NEW SENTENCING HEARINGS
   A trio of physicians lauded by patient advocates but accused of drug distribution and money laundering by the government have lost their appeal. But a recent Supreme Court ruling has given them a new chance at sentencing.
8. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: JUDGES GROWLS AT MORE POSSIBLE PROSECUTION MISCONDUCT IN BRYAN EPIS RESENTENCING HEARINGS
   Federal prosecutors handed defense attorneys evidence of official misconduct as the resentencing neared of a celebrated medical marijuana provider who had served two years of a 10-year sentence.
9. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SAN DIEGO COUNTY TO SUE TO OVERTURN CALIFORNIA LAW
   The San Diego County board of supervisors voted Tuesday to try to overturn California's Compassionate Use Act, which allows seriously ill people to use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.
10. LATIN AMERICA: PRISON SENTENCE FOR DYING WOMAN, 79, SPARKS INTERNATIONAL APPEAL
    A 79-year-old Brazilian woman with terminal cancer who weighs 88 pounds has been sentenced to four years in prison, sparking an international campaign to set her free.
11. AUSTRALIA: AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT GOES AFTER RAVE ECSTASY TESTING GROUP
    A Melbourne-based harm reduction organization that has been testing ecstasy tablets at raves is getting unwelcome attention from its state and federal governments.
12. EUROPE: CZECH LOWER HOUSE PASSES DRUG REFORM MEASURE, INCLUDING DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA POSSESSION AND PERSONAL GROWS
    The Czech Republic's lower house last week approved a penal code revision that will decriminalize simple marijuana possession and allow for growing for personal use. It is likely to become law.
13. CANADA: WITH ELECTIONS LOOMING, CONSERVATIVES TALK TOUGH ON DRUGS
    Canadian Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper is hoping talking tough on drugs will win his party votes in next month's national elections.
14. EUROPE: DUTCH POLITICAL PARTIES CALL FOR REGULATED PILOT PROGRAM TO SUPPLY MARIJUANA TO COFFEE SHOPS
    Dutch parliamentarians have reached an agreement on the details of a pilot program for a regulated supply of marijuana for the nation's famous "coffee shops" -- and warned the government it must act this week or they'll take further action.
15. WEB SCAN
    After I-75 in Seattle, re-launched web site from Bolivia's coca country
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #413 -- 12/2/05

1. UPDATE AND APPEAL: DRCNET IN 2006
   2005 has been quite a year at DRCNet. In 2006 DRCNet will be able to advance the cause in a broader way and at a greater level than ever before -- but only with your help.
2. EDITORIAL: NOW YOU CAN ASK ME WHY
   More than 75 readers responded to our request for pro-legalization sound bites. Here's a sampling of them.
3. OFFER AND APPEAL: THE GREAT DRUG WAR, BY ARNOLD TREBACH
   DRCNet's latest premium offer is a re-released classic detailing the outrages of the 1980s drug war -- outrages which still continue today.
4. FEATURE: PLAINTIFFS WANTED -- ACLU TO FILE LAWSUIT CHALLENGING FEDERAL BAN ON FINANCIAL AID FOR COLLEGE STUDENT DRUG OFFENDERS
   The ACLU is preparing to file a class action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a federal law barring students with drug convictions from receiving financial aid. Plaintiffs are needed.
5. FEATURE: CONFERENCE TO PLOT DRUG WAR EXIT STRATEGY GETS UNDERWAY IN SEATTLE
   In an historic conference that got underway yesterday in downtown Seattle, drug reform notables met to begin to plot strategies to move from drug prohibition to a regulatory drug control regime.
6. FEATURE: LOS ANGELES EVENT RAISES FUNDS FOR HEA VICTIMS
   While the ACLU Santa Cruz office was preparing a national class action lawsuit, a scholarship program that is finding many of their plaintiffs held a celebrity fundraiser several hundred miles to the south in LA.
7. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "TULIA: RACE, COCAINE, AND CORRUPTION IN A SMALL TEXAS TOWN," BY NATE BLAKESLEE (2005, PUBLIC AFFAIRS PRESS, 450 PP., $26.95 HB)
   The new book by the reporter who did groundbreaking work exposing the Tulia scandal is a page turner and a must read.
8. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   America's prisons must be a real captive market for wannabe drug dealers -- this week yet another prison guard goes down. And then there's the case of the bad cop turned bad kiddie van driver.
9. LAW ENFORCEMENT: CALIFORNIA DRUG TASK FORCE MUST HOLD PUBLIC MEETINGS, COURT RULES
   Open government activists have won a court ruling forcing LA County's Impact drug task force to allow public attendance at its board meetings. The repercussions could be statewide.
10. ASIA: SINGAPORE EXECUTES AUSTRALIAN FOR DRUG SMUGGLING
    Despite global appeals for clemency, Singapore this morning executed 25-year-old Australian citizen Nguyen Tuong Van just before dawn.
11. MARIJUANA: MARIJUANA CROP WORTH $1.5 BILLION IN ONE CALIFORNIA COUNTY ALONE, PAPER ESTIMATES
    Northern California's Mendocino County has been known for marijuana growing for at least 30 years. But the economic scale of the industry may be even greater than was thought.
12. SILLINESS: TWO FLORIDA GRADE SCHOOL GIRLS ARRESTED FOR FAKE MARIJUANA PRANK
    Police in Flagler County last week arrested two 10-year-old girls for bringing a bag of parsley to school and pretending it was marijuana.
13. EUROPE: ENGLAND TO DRUG TEST ARRESTED BURGLARS AND MUGGERS
    Under new powers granted police in Britain's fight against street crime, people arrested for "acquisitive crime" now face mandatory drug tests upon arrest.
14. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICO ALLOWS STATE, LOCAL COPS TO JOIN DRUG WAR
    Mexico's war on drugs has traditionally been the domain of federal police and, increasingly, the Mexican armed forces. But as of Monday, state and local police will have the authority to enforce federal drug laws aimed at traffickers too.
15. WEB SCAN
    New "Change The Climate" Animation
16. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

1. FEATURE: SAN FRANCISCO REGULATES MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARIES
   The city where California's medical marijuana movement was born has now regulated dispensaries, in a move that some lament but others see as providing further legitimacy.
2. EUROPE: DUTCH PARLIAMENT PONDERS EXPERIMENT IN "LEGAL" COFFEESHOP SUPPLY
   A majority in the Dutch lower house of parliament has proposed taking an experimental first step toward legalization of the supply side in the marijuana trade.
3. THE PROHIBITION DEBATE: FORMER NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT CHIEF JUSTICE SPARKS CONTROVERSY WITH CALL FOR LOOK AT DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION
   A former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice has suggested drug decriminalization to reduce street crime and the prison population. But what he's describing sounds more like legalization.
4. PROHIBITION AND VIOLENCE: CALIFORNIA DISPENSARY/GROWER ROBBERIES CLAIM FIRST FATALITY
   California's medical marijuana grows and dispensaries have long been the target of thieves and armed robbers, but now they suffered their first murder, Mendocino County activist and philanthropist Les Crane.
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week we have more guilty pleas in the ongoing Arizona smuggling sting that wrapped up a bunch of cops, prison guards, and soldiers, another cash-hungry prison guard, and a Miami cop accused of selling information to drug traffickers.
6. LAW ENFORCEMENT: AUSTIN POLICE CHIEF FIRES COP WHO KILLED DANIEL ROCHA
   The Austin, Texas, police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Daniel Rocha during a minor marijuana possession bust has been fired, but another officer only suspended for 28 days.
7. SENTENCING: RHODE ISLAND FEDERAL JUDGES NOT WAITING FOR CONGRESS TO FIX CRACK-POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING DISPARITIES
   Though federal judges for the most part have not deviated significantly from sentencing guidelines since a Supreme Court rulings last year made them advisory, judges in Rhode Island have used the cases to reduce the infamous 100:1 disparity in crack and powder cocaine sentencing.
8. SENTENCING: INDIANA JUDGE COMPARES METH COOK TO A TERRORIST, GIVES HIM 30 YEARS
   The first man convicted of running a home meth lab in Indiana's Delaware County has been sentenced to 30 years in prison by a judge who compared him to a terrorist.
9. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: ARKANSAS, WISCONSIN LEGISLATURES HOLD HEARINGS
   In two states where efforts to legalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons have yet to bear fruit, legislators recently held hearings on the topic.
10. LATIN AMERICA: COLOMBIA TO SUSPEND AERIAL FUMIGATION ALONG BORDER WITH ECUADOR
    The government of Colombia has announced it would suspend the aerial spraying of herbicides designed to kill coca and opium crops along its southern border at the request of neighboring Ecuador.
11. WEB SCAN:
    EMCDDA, Cato on Mexico, Jews and Medical Marijuana
12. JOB OPPORTUNITY:
    Operations and Technology Coordinator, Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, DC Area
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #411 -- 11/18/05

1. EDITORIAL: TELL ME WHY
   The case against drug prohibition is complex and not very conducive to "sound bite" argumentation. But we need to have the sound bites if we are going to effectively get our message out to the public.
2. FEATURE: ENHANCED MANDATORY MINIMUMS BLOCKED IN NEW METHAMPHETAMINE BILL
   Reformers won a partial victory in the removal of enhanced mandatory minimum sentences from a methamphetamine bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee.
3. FEATURE: THE 2005 INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE IN LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
   "People who love drugs" and "people who hate drugs" were among the many contrasting allies at the record-well attended 2005 International Drug Policy Reform Conference last week.
4. FEATURE: DEPORTED FOR A TRACE -- FARID'S TALE
   A European activist planning to attend last week's International Conference on Drug Policy Reform in California was instead detained overnight and deported by the authorities -- for 0.0001 grams of marijuana he didn't know he had.
5. LAW ENFORCEMENT: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week we've got cops stealing drug dogs, cops cooking speed, soldiers running drugs, and soldiers who thought they were running drugs.
6. SPORTS: UNDER CONGRESSIONAL PRESSURE, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL, UNION AGREE ON DRUG TESTING POLICY
   Yielding to intense pressure from Congress in the wake of steroid use scandals, Major League Baseball agreed Tuesday to a tough new drug testing policy.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: TWO MICHIGAN TOWNS PASS ORDINANCES -- OFFICIALS BALK
   Initiatives to allow medical marijuana use in two Michigan towns passed by comfortable margins in elections held November 8. Town officials, however, are promising a fight.
8. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: SUPREME COURT HEARS SEARCH CASE WHERE WIFE CONSENTED BUT HUSBAND REFUSED
   After Georgia police searched Scott Fitz Randolph's home for cocaine in 2001 -- over his objections but with his wife's consent -- the state's Supreme Court found one occupant's refusal of a warrantless home search was enough to make it illegal. Now the US Supreme Court will decide the issue for the land.
9. LATIN AMERICA: GUATEMALA'S TOP NARC ARRESTED IN US
   The chief of Guatemala's anti-drug police, his deputy, and another senior official were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, Wednesday on cocaine distribution conspiracy charges.
10. EUROPE: SATIVEX COMING TO ENGLAND, SPAIN
    A marijuana-based spray medicine approved in Canada will soon be available on a limited basis to patients in England and Spain as well, primarily cancer and MS sufferers.
11. ASIA: KOREAN ACTRESS WHO CHALLENGED MARIJUANA LAW SENTENCED TO PRISON
    The Korean Supreme Court Tuesday upheld an eight-month prison sentence for actress Kim Bu-sun, whose arrest for smoking marijuana in July 2004 led to national debate about the country's pot laws.
12. WEB SCAN
    In These Times, Alternet on Sembler and Straight, New SSDP Blog
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. ANNOUNCEMENT: SENLIS COUNCIL SEEKING RESEARCH PROPOSALS ON AFGHANI OPIUM LICENSING SCHEMES
    The European think tank that floated the recent opium licensing proposal in Afghanistan is now seeking proposals from researchers for phase two of the project.
15. JOB OPPORTUNITIES: WEBMASTERS FOR MPP IN DC, CRCM IN NEVADA
    The Marijuana Policy Project is hiring web site administrators for its office in Washington, DC, and for the Campaign to Regulate and Control Marijuana in Nevada.
16. INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY: CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY FOUNDATION
    The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation is seeking (paid) interns for research and writing assistance on the impact of drug prohibition on the economy.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #410 -- 11/4/05

1. FEATURE: DENVER SAYS LEGALIZE POT -- OFFICIALS VOW TO THWART WILL OF VOTERS
   After a tough and surprisingly bitter campaign, voters in Denver Tuesday approved a ballot measure legalizing the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by persons 21 or older. But more bitterness may be ahead, as city and state officials have vowed to ignore the vote.
2. FEATURE: SUPREME COURT HEARS AYAHUASCA RELIGIOUS USE CASE -- JUSTICES SKEPTICAL OF GOVERNMENT ARGUMENTS
   The US Supreme Court Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case in which the federal government seeks to bar a small religious group from using its holy sacrament, a hallucinogenic tea known as ayahuasca.
3. FEATURE: NEW MEXICO'S COMPREHENSIVE METHAMPHETAMINE RECOMMENDATIONS APPROACH "FOUR PILLARS" SCOPE
   A New Mexico working group on methamphetamine has released a set of comprehensive recommendations for dealing with the drug that explicitly recognizes the role of harm reduction as part of a broader strategy.
4. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "THE GREAT DRUG WAR: AND RATIONAL PROPOSALS TO TURN THE TIDE," BY ARNOLD TREBACH
   A classic by the founder of the modern drug policy reform movement detailing the outrages of the 1980s drug war has been re-released. The bad news is that it is still relevant.
5. EVENT: CELEBRITY PERRY FUND RECEPTION IN LOS ANGELES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7 -- YOU'RE INVITED
   Join DRCNet and friends at a celebrity fundraiser for the John W. Perry Fund, our scholarship program helping students who have lost government financial aid for college because of drug convictions.
6. MARIJUANA: IN LATEST GALLUP POLL, 36 PERCENT SAY LEGALIZE IT -- HALF IN THE WEST ARE READY
   Support for the legalization of marijuana has reached record levels.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COP STORIES
   A slow week on the corrupt cop front, with only yet another crooked prison guard making the roster -- you can help by sending in stories.
8. SENTENCING: NUMBER IN JAIL OR PRISON, ON PROBATION OR PAROLE NEARS 7 MILLION, 1.8 MILLION OF THEM DRUG OFFENDERS
   The US Bureau of Justice Statistics reports another all-time record for the American incarceration juggernaut.
9. SUPREME COURT: NOMINEE HAS MIXED BUT MOSTLY BAD RECORD ON DRUG-RELATED ISSUES
   Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel Alito is a former drug-fighting US Attorney whose support for increasing police powers has often exceeded that of other conservative jurists.
10. LATIN AMERICA: BOLIVIAN ELECTIONS RESCHEDULED
    The December 4 election that could put a left-leaning coca grower leader in the Bolivian presidency will now take place December
11. AUSTRALIA: AMID WAVE OF REEFER MADNESS, GOVERNMENT CALLS FOR TOUGHER MARIJUANA LAWS
    The Australian government of Prime Minister John Howard, egged on by the country's tabloid press, is pressuring state governments to roll back marijuana decriminalization laws adopted in the last dozen years.
12. WEB SCAN
    Hartford City Drug Conference, Norm Stamper
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. JOB OPPORTUNITY: EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
    The Marijuana Policy Project is seeking an Executive Assistant to manage MPP's main office in Washington, DC, and to assist the executive director. The application deadline is November 11, and the post could be filled sooner than that, so act fast if you think you want the job.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

1. FEATURE: DRUG WAR PRISONER COUNT OVER HALF A MILLION, US PRISON POPULATION AT ALL-TIME HIGH
   Numbers released by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics find that people sentenced for drug crimes accounted for 21 percent of state prisoners and 55 percent of federal prisoners in 2004.
2. FEATURE: LOOKING AT POSSIBLE US LIFE SENTENCE, CANADA'S "PRINCE OF POT" RISES TO THE CHALLENGE
   At first glance, it appears that nothing has changed on Vancouver's famous "pot block." But the Marc Emery seed company, which subsidized the block's famous activism, is no longer in business, and the US is trying to extradite Emery himself to face a possible life sentence.
3. FEATURE: MEDICAL MARIJUANA SUPPORTERS RALLY IN DC, SIX OTHER CITIES, IN EFFORT TO FORCE HHS TO ACT ON RESCHEDULING PETITIONS
   Hundreds of medical marijuana supporters rallied in seven cities to pressure the Dept. of Health & Human Services to act on its years-old petition to reschedule marijuana as a medicine.
4. EVENT: CELEBRITY PERRY FUND RECEPTION IN LOS ANGELES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7 -- YOU'RE INVITED
   Join DRCNet and friends at a celebrity fundraiser for the John W. Perry Fund, our scholarship program helping students who have lost government financial aid for college because of drug convictions.
5. ASIA: SINGAPORE TO EXECUTE AUSTRALIAN FOR DRUG SMUGGLING ANY DAY NOW -- AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ISSUES URGENT APPEAL
   Amnesty International is campaigning to save the life of a 25-year-old Australian citizen facing hanging by Singapore for drug smuggling. But it may be too late.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A South Carolina head narc goes down over shady dealings, and an entire Kansas drug squad is tainted in a prosecutor's report.
7. CREATIVE WRITING: MINNEAPOLIS FED SPONSORS ESSAY CONTEST ON DRUG ECONOMICS
   A usually staid essay contest for high school juniors and seniors has selected the provocative topic of illegal drug economics. Legalization is getting discussed.
8. COURTS: ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT SAYS GET A WARRANT!
   The Arkansas Supreme Court has upheld a lower court decision throwing out the evidence in a methamphetamine case because police failed to obtain a warrant before searching the house.
9. KATRINA LEGISLATION: BILL INTRODUCED TO EXEMPT HURRICANE VICTIMS FROM LAWS BARRING FEDERAL ASSISTANCE FOR PAST DRUG LAW VIOLATORS
   Some of the victims of Hurricane Katrina are past violators of drug laws, ineligible in many cases for federal welfare, food stamps, public housing and education benefits. A bill introduced this week would exempt them from such penalties for three years.
10. WEB SCAN
    NORML Report, Change The Climate Animation, USA Today v. Souder, Stamper on O'Reilly Factor
11. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
12. JOB OPPORTUNITIES: STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
    Two exciting job opportunities in the movement in Washington, DC.
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #408 -- 10/21/05

1. FEATURE: MARIJUANA ARRESTS AT ALL-TIME HIGH AGAIN
   America's war on drugs continued full steam ahead last year, and nearly 800,000 marijuana law violators were among those paying the price.
2. FEATURE: TORONTO MOVES TOWARD FOUR PILLARS-STYLE DRUG POLICY
   After an 18-month review, Toronto's Drug Strategy Advisory Committee has called for changes including decriminalization of marijuana possession and consideration of a safe injection site for hard drug users.
3. FEATURE: MOMA EXHIBIT MUTES DANCESAFE'S DRUG HARM REDUCTION MESSAGE
   Leaders of a rave culture harm reduction organization were eagerly awaiting seeing their work on exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art last week. But when they got there the result was disappointing.
4. EVENT: CELEBRITY PERRY FUND RECEPTION IN LOS ANGELES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7 -- YOU'RE INVITED
   Join DRCNet and friends at a celebrity fundraiser for the John W. Perry Fund, our scholarship program helping students who have lost government financial aid for college because of drug convictions.
5. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: FORMER SEATTLE POLICE CHIEF NORM STAMPER ON LEGALIZATION OF ALL DRUGS
   No beating around the bush for this top cop...
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   The corrupt cop beat is lonely this week -- only one case worth mentioning, and in that one a Pennsylvania detective apparently got away with the goods.
7. NEWSBRIEF: TRIAL FOR CALIFORNIA NARC WHO KILLED RUDY CARDENAS GETS UNDERWAY
   A California State Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agent went on trial this week for the February 2004 killing of Rodolfo "Rudy" Cardenas.
8. POST-HURRICANE: NEW ORLEANS NARCS ITCHING TO MAKE MORE BUSTS
   In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, the New Orleans Police Department's Vice and Narcotics Squad is eager to get back to busting nonviolent drug offenders.
9. POST-HURRICANE: CONGRESSIONAL CONSERVATIVES EYE CUTS IN ANTI-DRUG SPENDING TO PAY FOR KATRINA RELIEF -- REFORMERS CLAMOR FOR MORE
   Certain anti-drug programs are apparently on the chopping block as Congress seeks ways to pay for Gulf Coast rebuilding amidst a sea of red ink.
10. ASIA: CALM WORDS FROM AN INDIAN DRUG EXPERT
    Stop the presses! Legal drugs are a "greater menace" to public health than the illegal ones, an addiction expert in India says.
11. CANADA: BRITISH COLUMBIA HEALTH OFFICIALS CALL FOR DISCUSSION ON REGULATION OF ILLICIT DRUGS
    In a position paper released during an international symposium on drug policy this week, the Health Officers Council of British Columbia called the war on drugs an "abysmal failure."
12. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: BOTH NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR CANDIDATES SUPPORT IT
    It's always a question whether candidates will hold to their views stated during campaigns once elected. But if these two mean it, medical marijuana will have a friend in the governor's office in New Jersey next year.
13. WEB SCAN
    Stamper, Hartford, Emery, Prosecutorial Zealotry, LEAP
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #407 -- 10/14/05

1. EDITORIAL: WHY I'M STILL AN OPTIMIST
   Opinion polls will reflect a change in attitudes about drug prohibition within the next six years.
2. FEATURE: FORMER LAWMAN'S COAST TO COAST HORSE RIDE TO LEGALIZE DRUGS CONCLUDES AT STATUE OF LIBERTY
   With cowboy boots and jeans and a big, shiny belt buckle, Howard Wooldridge looks the part of the stereotypical Texas lawman. But the message Howard and horse Misty took to the highways and byways of America for seven months this year was hardly typical.
3. FEATURE: LORETTA NALL ENTERS ALABAMA GOVERNOR'S RACE
   After a 2002 encounter with the law turned Alabama housewife Loretta Nall into an activist, now she is championing the drug reform message as the Marijuana Party candidate in the 2006 race for governor.
4. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "BUSTED: DRUG WAR SURVIVAL SKILLS FROM THE BUY TO THE BUST TO BEGGING FOR MERCY"
   DC defense attorney Chris Fabricant book is a veritable bible for drug users or people who know and care about drug users.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A sticky-fingered Pennsylvania police chief pilfers pot, a trio of Texas cops gets caught running interference for traffickers, and yet another jail guard sells dope to inmates.
6. CENTRAL ASIA: AFGHAN PRESIDENT PUBLICLY LINKS DRUG TRAFFICKING, TERRORISM
   President Hamid Karzai has warned that the country could fall back into the hands of terrorists if the Afghan opium crop is not stamped out. But with the crop providing livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of families and accounting for 40-60 percent of Afghanistan's GDP, eradication is what might help the terrorists win hearts and minds most of all.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: CANADIANS DEPORT ACTIVIST/PATIENT STEVE TUCK, NOW IMPRISONED WITHOUT MEDICAL CARE BY US AUTHORITIES
   Medical marijuana activist and patient Steve Tuck was dragged from his bed by Canadian immigration officials last Friday and handed over to US authorities at the border -- catheter still attached.
8. MARIJUANA: POT AN ISSUE IN CINCINNATI MAYORAL RACE
   A mayoral candidate's proposal to increase marijuana penalties didn't go over well, but the issues continues to percolate in Cincinnati pre-election politics.
9. EMPLOYMENT: FBI MAY REVISE HIRING RULES FOR FORMER MARIJUANA AND OTHER DRUG USERS
   Some FBI officials are seeking to loosen limits on past drug use by qualified job applicants. It goes to the Director's desk soon for a decision.
10. MIDDLE EAST: US INVASION, CONTINUING INSURGENCY LEAD TO INCREASING DRUG USE IN IRAQ
    Drug use in Iraq is rising steadily as war-weary Iraqis turn to hard drugs to take the edge off a bleak and terrifying existence.
11. EUROPE: STUDY CALLS INTO QUESTION FRANCE'S OBSESSION WITH "DRUGGED DRIVING"
    Findings reported by the Paris newspaper Liberation suggest that a "zero-tolerance" drugged driving law passed in the midst of a heated anti-marijuana campaign may be mistargeted.
12. EUROPE: MOST MARIJUANA IN UNITED KINGDOM NOW HOME-GROWN BY SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS USERS
    Imports from traditional suppliers of marijuana to the UK have plummeted in the face of competition by users wanting to disassociate themselves from criminality and violence linked to the black market drug trade.
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #406 -- 10/7/05

1. FEATURE: PROHIBITION AND TERROR -- THE AFGHAN CONNECTION
   Among the forces working to sustain extremist organizations like Al Qaeda is one that policymakers don't like to talk about in direct terms -- drug prohibition.
2. FEATURE: AFGHAN OPIUM FARMERS CAUGHT IN THE SQUEEZE
   With opium the unquestioned mainstay of Afghanistan's economy but the government eradicating, rural Afghans are getting caught in the squeeze. Elders in a village north of Jalalabad told the story in an interview given to DRCNet this week.
3. FEATURE: AFGHAN OPIUM CONUNDRUM -- WHAT TO DO WITH WARLORDS, POLITICIANS INVOLVED IN THE DRUG TRADE?
   With the government of President Hamid Karzai attempting to solidify nascent national government institutions, Afghans inside the government and out ponder how to address the problem of members of the government and other powers who are involved in the illicit opium trade.
4. FEATURE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, GIVE AND TAKE -- AFGHANS TAKE ON THE SENLIS COUNCIL AND ITS LICENSING PROPOSAL
   Curiosity and intrigue mingled with worry, skepticism and even hostility last week as a European think tank's proposal to license Afghan opium growing for medical uses got discussed in Kabul.
5. EDITORIAL: THE CONSEQUENCES OF PROHIBITION (WAS "WHAT IS IT ABOUT OPIUM?")
   With Phil's Afghanistan adventure soon to come to a close, we reprint this October 2001 editorial by David Borden that closely relates to some of the topics Phil discusses in the four special Afghanistan reports published in this issue.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Drug War Chronicle may have taken a week off in covering the corrupt cops beat, but that doesn't mean the corrupt cops did. This week we have yet another prison guard gone bad and another crack-slinging policeman.
7. LATIN AMERICA: BOLIVIAN COCA LEADER AND PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDER EVO MORALES VISITS EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AS ELECTIONS THROWN INTO DOUBT
   With coca grower leader Evo Morales favored to win Bolivia's presidency, legislators in the European Parliament have stepped up to ensure that he is not robbed of victory by pre-election legal shenanigans.
8. LATIN AMERICA: US FUMIGATION PLANE SHOT DOWN IN COLOMBIA
   Leftist rebels in northeast Colombia shot a drug fumigation plane owned by the US State Dept. out of the sky September 30, killing the pilot, according to wire service reports.
9. WEB SCAN
   New CJPF Newsletter, Meth Conference Audio & Powerpoint Online, Meth Commentary from Cascade
10. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
11. PARTNERING: DRCNET SEEKING FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION COLLABORATORS
    DRCNet is interested in dialoguing with individuals who have strong academic skills and relevant backgrounds about the possibility of seeking funding together for work that will advance the issue.
12. CONTEST: NEW DRCNET T-SHIRT DESIGNS
    DRCNet is currently soliciting designs for new t-shirts to be made available on our web site and worn by people nationwide who want an end to prohibition and the war on drugs.
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

1. COMMENTARY: DIRECT FROM KABUL -- DRCNET ON THE SCENE IN AFGHANISTAN THIS WEEK AND NEXT
   Intrepid DRCNet editor Phil Smith is on the scene reporting on the drug war and reform efforts in Afghanistan -- David Borden comments.
2. ON THE SCENE I: EUROPEAN THINK TANK CALLS FOR LICENSED OPIUM CULTIVATION AT AFGHANISTAN CONFERENCE -- RESPONSE VARIED
   Amidst a burst of publicity and news coverage ranging from Kabul TV to the New York Times, thinkers and officials from around the world mixed with Afghans and representatives of neighboring countries at a three-day conference in Afghanistan this week.
3. ON THE SCENE II: AFGHANISTAN'S NEIGHBORS LOOK WITH INTEREST AT LICENSING PROPOSAL
   Most Afghan opium ends up not in the west but in neighboring countries like Iran and Russia. Representatives of those countries attended this week's conference in Kabul and promised to bring the idea of buying the nation's opium supply for the medical market back to their bosses.
4. ON THE SCENE III: BEYOND TREATMENT AND PREVENTION -- HARM REDUCTION IN AFGHANISTAN
   Afghanistan has its share or more of drug addiction. But the nation of 25 million people has a mere 100 treatment beds, and a lone needle exchange program sitting on a dusty side street in Kabul relies mostly on volunteers to help stem a looming epidemic of HIV and Hepatitis in the city's injecting population.
5. DENIED: MASSACHUSETTS JURY SLAPS DOWN OVERREACHING DISTRICT ATTORNEY IN "SCHOOL ZONE" BUST
   A western Massachusetts jury refused to convict 18-year old Kyle Sawin after prosecutors used enhanced "school zone" penalties to try to hit him with two years mandatory minimum in prison.
6. METHAMPHETAMINE: HOUSE DEMOCRATS CHALLENGE HARSHER PENALTIES IN FEDERAL METHAMPHETAMINE BILL
   Provisions in proposed federal methamphetamine legislation that would increase penalties for trafficking were challenged by some Democrats, foiling supporters' attempt to make the bill non-controversial and fast-moving.
7. METHAMPHETAMINE: SAMHSA SAYS METH USE STEADY, PROBLEM USE INCREASING -- DATA SAYS YES BUT NOT AS MUCH AS SAMSHA IMPLIES
   Spin-meisters in the press office of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration exaggerated the findings of the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use released last week.
8. NEEDLE EXCHANGE: LA COPS HASSLE NEP CLIENTS -- COMPLAINT FILED
   After two incidents of Los Angeles police interfering with city-authorized needle exchange programs in the last two weeks, the director of one of them has filed a formal complaint against four LAPD officers with the city Police Commission.
9. HARM REDUCTION: CANADA HEALTH MINISTER SAYS MORE SAFE INJECTION SITES SHOULD OPEN IF COMMUNITIES APPROVE
   With Vancouver's Downtown Eastside safe injection site now two years old and working as planned, Canada's Health Minister has green-lighted the opening of more of them.
10. WEB SCAN
    GAO Report, Cascade and AAPS Blast Meth Madness, New Orleans Jail in the Flood, MedMj Legal Brief Bank, Charles Shaw on Alternet, DEA's Microgram
11. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
12. DRCNET T-SHIRT DESIGN CONTEST
    DRCNet is currently soliciting designs for new t-shirts to be made available on our web site and worn by people nationwide who want an end to prohibition and the war on drugs.
13. OSI OFFERING JUSTICE FELLOWSHIPS IN 2006 -- DEADLINE NEXT MONTH
    The Open Society Institute's US Justice Fund will support individuals in 2006 through two Fellowship programs. But the deadline is October 14, so move fast!
14. JOB OPPORTUNITY: NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTOR, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
    The Marijuana Policy Project is hiring a National Field Director to spearhead MPP's grassroots organizing efforts in targeted congressional districts and nationwide.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

Issue #404 -- 9/23/05

1. EDITORIAL: TIME FOR ACCOUNTABILITY
   The sad case of Jonathan Magbie again gained the public's attention after members of his family this week filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the District of Columbia.
2. ENDLESS DRUG WAR, ENDLESS VIOLENCE: HARTFORD LOOKS FOR A NEW WAY
   Despite or perhaps because of intense law enforcement efforts against the drug trade, the violence associated with Hartford, Connecticut's black market continues to grow. But a conference next month will bring leaders and reformers together to see if Hartford can find a new way out.
3. DRCNET IN AFGHANISTAN: REFORMER CONFERENCE APPROACHES IN KABUL AS AMERICANS AND RUSSIANS DECRY AFGHAN OPIUM TRADE
   With Afghanistan still producing nearly 90 percent of the world's opium and heroin, alarm bells are ringing from Moscow to Washington. But a reform conference convening in Kabul next week will explore an alternative to the "more drug war" calls emanating from the Capitol and the Kremlin.
4. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: WISCONSIN BILL PENDING AS POLL SHOWS BROAD SUPPORT
   Medical marijuana is on the move in Wisconsin, with a legislator shopping his bill around and polling demonstrating massive public support.
5. NEEDLE EXCHANGE: BOSTON CRACKDOWN NETS NEEDLE EXCHANGE CLIENT
   A police crackdown on drug users in the Boston Common and Public Garden has raised the issue of the contradictory missions of public health and police in the drug war.
6. MARIJUANA: BOSTON'S FREEDOM RALLY BOUNCES BACK
   Recovering from a financial crunch after last year's Boston Freedom Rally against marijuana prohibition was washed out by Hurricane Ivan, the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition was back last weekend without missing a beat.
7. DRCNET T-SHIRT DESIGN CONTEST
   DRCNet is currently soliciting designs for new t-shirts to be made available on our web site and worn by people nationwide who want an end to prohibition and the war on drugs.
8. LATIN AMERICA: THREE SPANISH-LANGUAGE RESOURCES ON DRUG POLICY AVAILABLE
   Chronicle readers who speak Spanish might be interested in two books and a magazine that were available at the Buenos Aires conference last week.
9. WEB SCAN
   Change The Climate, Rockefeller Laws, Jonathan Magbie, Marc Emery, More...
10. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
11. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #403 -- 9/16/05

1. FEATURE: JUDGES AND LEGISLATORS FROM ACROSS LATIN AMERICA CALL FOR RADICAL DRUG LAW REFORM
   Attendees at last week's Buenos Aires saw something rare in North America: the active participation of judges, senators and congressman from across the continent calling for radical reform of the drug laws.
2. FEATURE: REFORMA ISSUES THE BUENOS AIRES DECLARATION, EYES 2008 VIENNA UN SESSION
   In parallel with the 1st Latin American Conference on Drug Policy Reform and the 1st Regional Symposium of Legislators and Judges on Drug Policy, the umbrella regional anti-prohibitionist coalition REFORMA held a series of meetings to chart strategy for both the national and international levels.
3. FEATURE: CANNABIS CULTURE IN BUENOS AIRES -- ALIVE AND SMOKIN', BUT WITH ONE EYE PEELED FOR THE POLICE
   Marijuana was by no means the primary focus of last week's Latin American drug policy reform conference. But in host city Buenos Aires as everywhere, its users and supporters make up a good chunk of the movement.
4. EUROPE: FORMER SCOTTISH HIGH COURT JUDGE SAYS LEGALIZE IT
   A week after a leading British Conservative suggested drug legalization, former judge of the Scottish High Court Lord McCluskey has added his voice as well.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   We go from the small-time to the big time (and the big house) this week, as a Colorado deputy gets caught smuggling drugs to prisoners and a New Jersey State Police veteran is indicted as part of a massive drug conspiracy.
6. CANADA: LIBERALS GIVE UP ON MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION BILL FOR NOW
   The Liberal government's much unloved marijuana decriminalization bill is dead -- at least until after the next elections.
7. HEALTH CANADA REVISITS PROPOSAL TO DISTRIBUTE MEDICAL CANNABIS IN LICENSED PHARMACIES
   Health Canada may resurrect a proposal to make government grown medicinal cannabis available in licensed pharmacies, according to Canadian press reports and NORML.
8. LATIN AMERICA: IN CONTINUING SPAT, US DECERTIFIES VENEZUELA FOR LACK OF ANTI-DRUG COOPERATION
   The Bush-Chavez feud took another turn for the worse Thursday as the State Department added Venezuela to its annual list of countries it says are not adequately waging the war on drugs.
9. WEB SCAN
   Cato Pain Forum, Slate on Rehnquist and Placidyl, Alternet on the Marijuana War, NORML Video Blog
10. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
11. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #402 -- 9/9/05

1. FEATURE: REGIONAL ANTI-PROHIBITIONIST CONFERENCE GETS UNDER WAY IN BUENOS AIRES
   Dozens of drug reform activists from throughout Latin America and Europe joined with legislators, judges, lawyers, researchers and local activists in Buenos Aires Wednesday evening to kickoff the Latin American Meeting for Drug Policy Reform and the 1st Regional Syposium of Legislators and Judges on Drug Policy.
2. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another mass bust of cops and soldiers in Arizona, a pair of DC cops having to explain why they had 90 pounds of coke in their luggage coming into Miami from South America, and a Honolulu cop busted for selling speed all make the Corrupt Cops feature this week.
3. EUROPE: CONTENDER FOR BRITISH TORY LEADERSHIP SAYS LEGALIZE DRUGS
   In remarks that will shock many Tories, a leading contender for the leadership of Britain's Conservative Party said Wednesday the United Nations should consider legalizing drugs.
4. ASIA: AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION ESSENTIALLY STABLE THIS YEAR DESPITE CRACKDOWN
   Afghanistan's opium crop, which supplies an estimate 87 percent of the global market, declined only slightly less opium this year despite a government crackdown on peasant poppy farmers and rapidly increasing international efforts led by Britain and the United States.
5. PRESS RELEASE: LAWRENCE, KANSAS, MOVING TO SHIFT MARIJUANA PROSECUTIONS TO MUNICIPAL COURT TO AVOID HEA DRUG PROVISION
   A move afoot in the college town of Lawrence would save would-be students from losing college aid under a law punishing drug offenders convicted in state or federal court.
6. SENTENCING: NEW YORK GOVERNOR SIGNS ANOTHER PARTIAL ROCKY REFORM BILL -- WILL FREE AT MOST 500 PRISONERS
   At the last minute, New York's governor has signed into law a bill that will allow some 500 people imprisoned under the Rockefeller drug laws to appeal their sentences and perhaps get out of prison early. But the cases are complicated and the process is slow.
7. MARIJUANA: SURGE IN ARRESTS HAS LITTLE EFFECT ON USE RATES, STUDY FINDS
   Despite hundreds of thousands of marijuana arrests each year, law enforcement has proven ineffective in curbing usage, the Justice Policy Institute reported in a study released late last month.
8. CANADA: VANCOUVER DRUG USERS' GROUP ASSISTS USERS WITH INJECTING IN ORDER TO REDUCE HIV TRANSMISSION
   In the wake of a Vancouver study finding users who have difficulty shooting up are more likely to contract HIV, a Vancouver drug users' group has begun a program to assist them -- potentially risking drug trafficking charges for doing so.
9. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: VIRGINIA NURSES ASSOCIATION REITERATES ITS SUPPORT
   The Virginia Nurses Association, the first in the country to come out in favor of medical marijuana, has reconfirmed its support for therapeutic cannabis and called for immediate legislation to legalize its medicinal use.
10. CROOKED SNITCHES: OREGON DROPS MORE THAN 40 CASES TIED TO BAD INFORMANT
    Marc Craven of Portland was a pro at bringing in information needed to bust alleged drug users and dealers. Unfortunately, also has a long history of entrapment and a felony criminal record. Now the state has dropped more than 40 of his cases.
11. EUROPE: CRACKDOWN IN GEORGIA
    Authorities in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia have embarked on an unprecedented effort to crack down on drug use and drug trafficking, and are employing tactics likely to promote vigilantism, according to drug reform activists.
12. QUOTE: WILLIAM REHNQUIST ON MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING
    Proof that there is no conservative consensus in favor of harsh mandatory drug sentencing are remarks delivered by the late chief justice during a widely cited speech delivered in the 1990s.
13. MEDIA SCAN
    HEA in Boston Globe, Medical Marijuana in New England Journal of Medicine, Medscape, More
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. JOB OPPORTUNITIES: MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
    The Marijuana Policy Project has full- and part-time job openings for campaigns in states around the country.
16. JOB OPPORTUNITY: HARM REDUCTION POSITION IN NEW MEXICO
    The Santa Fe Mountain Center is hiring a Street Outreach Worker to provide harm reduction outreach services to injection drug users in northern New Mexico.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #401 -- 8/26/05

1. APPEAL: DRUG WAR CHRONICLE STILL NEEDS YOUR HELP
   DRCNet has reached an important milestone -- your support is needed for there to be more.
2. EDITORIAL: A TALE OF TWO CITIES
   The contrast between Seattle police at the Hempfest and paramilitarized Utah County forces at a rave in the desert could not be starker.
3. FEATURE: PLUR MEETS SWAT AS UTAH COPS ATTACK ELECTRONIC DANCE PARTY
   What was supposed to be a night of dancing to electronic beats under the desert stars turned into a nightmare when 90 Utah law enforcement officers dressed in combat gear and carrying assault rifles attacked.
4. FEATURE: NATIONAL METHAMPHETAMINE CONFERENCE CONVENES UNSCATHED DESPITE ATTACK BY CONGRESSIONAL DRUG WARRIOR
   In the midst of a media-driven legislative hysteria over methamphetamine, more than 900 people gathered in Salt Lake City for more reliable information on the drug and its links to HIV and Hepatitis.
5. FEATURE: BUSH ADMINISTRATION METHAMPHETAMINE INITIATIVE A BOMB
   Stung by criticisms that it wasn't paying sufficient attention to the "methamphetamine epidemic," the Bush administration late last week responded with its own meth initiative. But it has failed to satisfy critics from either side of the debate.
6. FEATURE: WESTERN HEMISPHERE ANTI-PROHIBITIONISTS SET TO GATHER IN BUENOS AIRES
   Argentina's capital city will be the location of a three-day conference next month bringing together anti-prohibitionists from across the hemisphere.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A crooked police chief in Louisiana, a pair of crooked cops in Massachusetts, a quartet of crooked cops in Tennessee -- and one drug-dealing prison guard.
8. BLOGGING: AIRPORT CORRUPTION
   Finding a customs official or border guard willing to violate prohibition by turning a strategic blind eye is an easy matter with so much drug money available to spend.
9. MARIJUANA: LAWRENCE, KANSAS, PONDERS CITY MARIJUANA ORDINANCE -- IMPACT OF HEA CITED
   A proposal to move small-time marijuana possession offenses out of district court and into city court in the college of town of Lawrence, Kansas, is winning initial support from the mayor and other elected officials.
10. SENTENCING: ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAW REFORM MEASURE AWAITS GOV. PATAKI'S SIGNATURE
    A second chip may soon be removed from New York state's Rockefeller drug law wall.
11. EUROPE: FORMER BRITISH DRUG CZAR MO MOWLAM DEAD AT 55 -- CALLED FOR LEGALIZATION, AND WILL AGAIN IN FORTHCOMING BOOK
    Britain's outspoken former drug advisor has passed away, but her voice will live on in a forthcoming book called "Legalize Drugs."
12. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SUPREME COURT JUSTICE REGRETS VOTE ON RAICH CASE
    Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens agrees with medical marijuana, but by Congress, not the court.
13. MARIJUANA: 14TH SEATTLE HEMPFEST DRAWS 150,000 -- NO ARRESTS
    The nation's largest annual marijuana protest/festival has come and gone, again drawing record crowds and notably recording no arrests of any kind.
14. EUROPE: SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY CONSIDERS PRESCRIPTION HEROIN
    A leading Scottish drug authority is preparing the case for his party to become the first mainstream political party in the United Kingdom to call for prescription heroin for addicts.
15. SENTENCING: KANSAS LAWMAKERS WANT "INTERNAL POSSESSION" CHARGE
    Police in Kansas can already charge people with possessing, selling, or manufacturing drugs, but that isn't enough for some law enforcement officials and legislators.
16. WEB SCAN
    U-Mass/DEA Hearings, JPI Report on Marijuana Enforcement's Non-Impact
17. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
18. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #400 -- 8/19/05

1. EDITORIAL: LONG MEMORIES
   Issue #400 seems as good a time as any to show off our long memories at DRCNet. David Borden's long memory points to a double standard in Ohio officialdom's outlook on possible ethical violations by the governor now vs. three years ago when the drug reform measure Question One was on the state's ballot.
2. APPEAL: PLEASE MAKE A 400TH ISSUE DONATION TO DRCNET FOR DRUG WAR CHRONICLE
   DRCNet reaches an important milestone today -- your support is needed for there to be more.
3. FEATURE: KILLER DRUG RAIDS -- WHAT'S THE ALTERNATIVE?
   Drug War Chronicle reports with depressing regularity on the needless deaths of people, both innocent and guilty, at the hands of police in the course of anti-drug enforcement. What's the alternative to killer drug raids?
4. FEATURE: DC "TWO MILLION IS TOO MANY" PRISON RALLY LAYS GROUNDWORK FOR MORE, BETTER COLLABORATION
   Roughly a thousand people showed up in Lafayette Park across from the White House Saturday for the first national rally aimed at ending this country's reliance on mass incarceration.
5. EUROPE: LEADER OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATS IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SAYS LEGALIZE IT ALL
   The leader of Britain's Liberal Democrat party in the European Parliament has called for the legalization and regulation of all currently illicit drugs.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week it's more jail guards in trouble, a US soldier pleading guilty to coke-smuggling, and a Florida cop turned drug dealer.
7. BLOGGING: NATIONAL MARIJUANA PARKS
   DRCNet's Prohibition in the Media blog points to an Associated Press story on marijuana cultivation in Arizona's national forests that missed the point.
8. METHAMPHETAMINE: IN ANTI-METH LAB MOVE, OREGON BECOMES FIRST STATE TO REQUIRE PRESCRIPTION FOR COLD, ALLERGY MEDICATIONS
   Oregonians wanting Sudafed will now have to get a prescription, thanks to a legislature and governor who hope it will help curb meth labs.
9. METHAMPHETAMINE: SOUDER ATTACKS HHS FOR FUNDING HIV METH CONFERENCE
   A leading congressional drug warrior has angrily criticized the Department of Health and Human Services for allowing itself to be named as a "primary sponsor" of this weekend's first National Conference on HIV, Hepatitis and Methamphetamine. But prominent Utahns weren't with him on this one.
10. ASIA: MORE REEFER MADNESS FROM THE PHILIPPINES
    Hysteria over marijuana has been commonplace in the Philippines for years, and remarks this week by the National Police Deputy Director are a fine example.
11. WEB SCAN
    Seattle Weekly on the Drug Issue
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #399 -- 8/12/05

1. APPEAL: NEW DRCNET BOOK OFFER AND REQUEST FOR YOUR SUPPORT
   As Drug War Chronicle approaches a milestone -- issue #400 -- your support is needed more than ever. A new donations incentive -- complimentary copies of the new book "Breaking Rank" -- is available for you too.
2. DRCNET INTERVIEW: FORMER SEATTLE POLICE CHIEF NORM STAMPER
   A new book by former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper provides a thoughtful, passionate, and careful analysis of the myriad issues confronting American law enforcement. The nation's chiefs and politicos would do well to read it -- and so would you!
3. FEATURE: VENEZUELA THROWS OUT DEA, WASHINGTON THREATENS DECERTIFICATION
   In a move that may have more to do with diplomatic tensions than anything else, President Hugo Chavez has annulled a bilateral agreement that had allowed the US DEA to operate in Venezuela.
4. FEATURE: IN MIDST OF METH MANIA AND SEX OFFENDER SCARES, MINNESOTA TAKES TINY, TINY STEP TOWARD DRUG SENTENCING REFORM
   New criminal justice legislation in Minnesota is mostly about putting more people in prison for longer. But a tiny start at drug sentencing reform is in there too.
5. TESTIMONIAL: WHAT DRCNET DOES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA -- AND THE MOVEMENT
   Tom Angell of Students for Sensible Drug Policy explains some of what DRCNet's long-term movement-building strategy has meant for him and his work.
6. BLOGGING: DRCNET "PROHIBITION IN THE MEDIA" BLOG RESUMES PUBLISHING AS DRUG TRADE VIOLENCE HITS ACAPULCO, MEXICO
   DRCNet's "Prohibition in the Media" blog resumes publishing today after a hiatus. We comment on reporting by Reuters AlertNet, Reuters Foundation publication for international humanitarian nonprofits, on an outbreak of drug trade violence in the Mexican Pacific resort town of Acapulco.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   The Dallas sheetrock scandal continue to reverberate, drug cops in Florida and Ohio sample the wares, so does a crime lab tech in Missouri, and two more entrepreneurial jailers go down for their efforts.
8. DRUG RAIDS: FLORIDA SWAT TEAM KILLS BARTENDER IN HIS BEDROOM IN PREDAWN DRUG RAID -- TWO OUNCES OF MARIJUANA SEIZED
   Two members of a Sunset, Florida, SWAT team shot and killed a 23-year-old bartender early last Friday morning. The take -- two lousy ounces of marijuana.
9. METHAMPHETAMINES: IMMIGRANT STORE CLERKS BECOMING COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN WAR ON METH
   Spurred by new anti-meth laws which restricting the sales of cold remedies such as Sudafed, police and prosecutors across the country have been arresting convenience store clerks -- often immigrants -- sometimes on charges that carry substantial prison sentences.
10. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: CANNABIS CHURCHES SEEK TO INTERVENE IN UDV AYAHUASCA CASE WITH AMICUS BRIEF ARGUING BROAD INTERPRETATION
    A group of cannabis spiritualists are seeking to use an ayahuasca case going before the Supreme Court to urge the court to extend a religious freedom ruling to include marijuana.
11. RACIAL PROFILING: RHODE ISLAND POLICE STILL PICKING ON MINORITY MOTORISTS
    Four years after Rhode Island police began tracking the race of motorists they stop, a report by the state ACLU affiliate has found the problem may even be getting worse.
12. LATIN AMERICA: COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT SAYS GOVERNMENT MIGHT START BUYING COCA CROP
    In a stark contrast to current Colombian policy, ordinarily hard-line President Alvaro Uribe has proposed the government buy peasant farmers' coca crops in a bid to cut off funding to the FARC.
13. CANADA: METHAMPHETAMINE NOW SCHEDULE I, COOKS NOW FACE UP TO LIFE IN PRISON
    The Canadian federal government announced Thursday it had moved methamphetamine to Schedule I of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act -- signaling a significantly tougher stance against the stimulant and putting it on the same level as heroin and cocaine when it comes to sentencing.
14. WEB SCAN
    Marc Emery, Arianna Huffington, NORML on Marijuana vs. Marinol, Popular Science on Cannabis Medicines
15. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. JOB OPENINGS: THREE AT MPP
    The Marijuana Policy Project currently has three full-time job openings -- one in Las Vegas and two in Washington, DC.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #398 -- 8/5/05

1. FEATURE: MARC EMERY BUSTED -- CANADA'S LEADING MARIJUANA ACTIVIST FACING LIFE IN AMERICAN PRISON OVER SEED SALES
   Controversy has erupted in Canada after police arrested British Columbia Marijuana Party founder Marc Emery and two employees at the request of the US DEA, which wants to extradite them.
2. FEATURE: THE METHAMPHETAMINE EPIDEMIC -- LESS THAN MEETS THE EYE
   News consumers on the US East Coast can be forgiven for nervously glancing over their shoulders in search of a 20-foot wave of crystal meth rolling toward them out of the Midwest. But there is less to the "epidemic" of methamphetamine than meets the eye.
3. FEATURE: PRISON PROTEST AIMING FOR DC IN EIGHT DAYS
   A grassroots call for a national rally for prison and sentencing reform will bear fruit eight days from now in Washington, DC.
4. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, we've got cops stealing from drug dealers in Dayton and from the evidence locker in Detroit, and yet another prison guard caught trying to supplement his income.
5. PATRIOT ACT: HOUSE REAUTHORIZATION INCLUDES NEW "NARCOTERRORISM" OFFENSE
   A House of Representatives amendment to the Patriot Act would call any whose drug sales help fund listed terrorist group a "narco-terrorist" -- whether they knew it or not.
6. PATRIOT ACT: SOLD AS FIGHTING TERRORISTS, ACT IS USED IN MARIJUANA-SMUGGLING INVESTIGATION
   A Patriot Act provision sold as a crucial tool for combating terrorism has been used by federal officials to investigate a marijuana-smuggling operation.
7. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: NEW JERSEY POLICE LOOKING FOR MARIJUANA GROWERS MUST HAVE WARRANT TO SEE UTILITY RECORDS, APPEALS COURT HOLDS
   A state appeals court has said no to warrantless access to New Jerseyans utility bills. Now it goes to the state Supreme Court.
8. TREATMENT: CONGRESS LIFTS 30-PATIENT LIMIT FOR BUPRENORPHINE TREATMENT
   Both houses of Congress have approved legislation that will expand the use of methadone substitute buprenorphine as a treatment for heroin and other opioid dependency.
9. MARIJUANA: DENVER SAFER INITIATIVE HEADED FOR NOVEMBER BALLOT
   A voter initiative that would make Denver the first large city in the country to legalize marijuana possession is headed for the November ballot.
10. NEW ZEALAND: PARLIAMENT RECLASSIFIES SPEED AND ECSTASY, STIFFER PENALTIES COMING
    A move by the New Zealand Parliament will dramatically increase penalties for amphetamine-type stimulants.
11. TREATMENT: NEW WEB SITE PROVIDES RESOURCES ON OPIATE AGONIST THERAPY
    A new resource for patients, advocates, and opiate agonist treatment providers has appeared on the world-wide web.
12. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. JOB OPPORTUNITY: PREVENTION POINT PITTSBURGH
    Prevention Point Pittsburgh is hiring a Crisis Interventionist/Cross Systems Specialist to provide risk reduction and crisis management services to injection drug users enrolled in the needle exchange program.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #397 -- 7/29/05

1. EDITORIAL: CLEAR THINKING
   The new "meth baby" issue illustrates some of the obstacles to clear that are built into our issue.
2. THE SENSENBRENNER EFFECT: FEAR, FIRING, AND FALLOUT ON THE HILL
   A Congressional staffer who was the root of much drug war evil for more than 10 years has apparently been fired -- but no one wants to talk about it.
3. CONGRESS: HOUSE TURNS BACK REPEAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION ACT DRUG PROVISION, BATTLE RETURNS TO SENATE
   Progress was made amid defeat in a House committee markup vote last week.
4. METH AND MYTH: TOP DOCTORS, SCIENTISTS, AND SPECIALISTS WARN MASS MEDIA ON "METH BABY" STORIES
   More than 90 physicians, scientists, researchers, and treatment specialists Monday issued an open letter to the mass media calling it to task for "alarmist and unjustified" reporting on so-called "meth babies" and "ice babies."
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: BREAKING RANK: A TOP COP'S EXPOSE OF THE DARK SIDE OF AMERICAN POLICING
   Seattle's former top cop calls foul on the state of affairs in American policing today.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's mainly good, old-fashioned larceny this week, with sticky-fingered cops in Kansas, New Mexico and Texas making the news, while a Louisiana justice of the peace was trying to earn a little on the side.
7. THE FEDS: DEA DOESN'T FOLLOW OWN RULES ON SNITCHES, INSPECTOR GENERAL SAYS
   The DEA makes extensive use of confidential informants in their busts and prosecutions -- but does a poor job of judging their credibility or keeping track of how much they've been paid.
8. METHAMPHETAMINE: CONGRESSIONAL DRUG WARRIORS KEEP UP PRESSURE ON DRUG CZAR
   Republican drug warriors used a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday to renew their criticism of the Bush administration for proposed budget cuts that would affect programs that target methamphetamine.
9. ASIA: PLAN TO LEGALIZE AFGHAN OPIUM PRODUCTION DRAWING ATTENTION
   A proposal to deal with Afghanistan's opium crop through purchase for medical uses rather than eradication may see pilot projects start as soon as next year.
10. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: FLEX YOUR RIGHTS PROVIDES CITIZENS' GUIDE TO REFUSING NEW YORK SUBWAY SEARCHES
    The controversial new random search policy in New York City has prompted a controversial new web site section from the civil liberties organization training organization.
11. DRUGGED DRIVING: NO CONVICTION BASED JUST ON MARIJUANA TRACES, MICHIGAN APPEALS COURT RULES
    Prosecutors in Michigan will have to prove that drivers were actually intoxicated to convict them under the state's drugged driving law, a court has ruled.
12. MEDIA SCAN
    Time and New York Times on Pain, Nadelmann on Controlling Medical Marijuana
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. JOB OPPORTUNITY: OUTREACH COORDINATOR, STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY
    Youngish activists might want to apply for this position to work with students from around the country!
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #396 -- 7/22/05

1. FEATURE: CONGRESSMAN SENSENBRENNER MAKING NAME AS DRUG WAR EXTREMIST
   Watch out, Mark Souder -- Rep. Sensenbrenner is giving you a run for your money in drug warring.
2. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: STEVE MCWILLIAMS REMEMBERED AT TUESDAY VIGILS
   Supporters in at least 15 cities across the country gathered to honor the memory of the patient and activist who committed suicide last week.
3. DRCNET INTERVIEW: CHER FORD-MCCULLOUGH AND JEAN MARLOWE OF THE WOMEN'S ORGANIZATION FOR NATIONAL PROHIBITION REFORM
   Modern-day activists revive the approach the ended prohibition of alcohol last century.
4. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "AN ANALYTIC ASSESSMENT OF US DRUG POLICY," BY DAVID BOYUM AND PETER REUTER
   DRCNet Book Review: "An Analytic Assessment of US Drug Policy" by David Boyum and Peter Reuter (2005, American Enterprise Institute, 131 pp., $20.00 pb.)
5. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: CALIFORNIA REINSTATES ID CARD PROGRAM
   The suspension of California's pilot state medical marijuana ID card program in the wake of the US Supreme Court's adverse decision in the Raich case has proven short-lived.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: NEARLY A THOUSAND RALLY IN SANTA CRUZ
   Activists held the largest medical marijuana demonstration in Santa Cruz since supportive city council members and county supervisors authorizes a medical marijuana-distributing demonstration on the steps of City Hall in support of WAMM after it was raided by the DEA.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another prison guard smuggling dope, another cop caught tweaking, an airport security professional trying to get rich, a horny Florida deputy, and a Michigan police chief who sounds like a real decadent party animal.
8. NEW ZEALAND: IN PRAGMATIC RETREAT, NANDOR TANCZOS INTRODUCES MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION BILL
   In a retreat from the New Zealand Green Party's formal position that marijuana should be legalized, a Member of Parliament introduced a bill that would decriminalize possession.
9. EUROPE: MAGIC MUSHROOMS NOW ILLEGAL IN GREAT BRITAIN
   A loophole in Britain's drug law that allowed the importation of hallucinogenic mushrooms has now been closed.
10. ASIA: PHILIPPINES MAN GETS 15 YEARS FOR TWO JOINTS
    The sentencing of a man to 15 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes shows that the country remains mired in an on-going, full-blown anti-drug frenzy.
11. COERCED TREATMENT: PENNSYLVANIA LEGAL CHALLENGE THREATENS DRUG COURTS, JUDGE COMPLAINS
    An appeal filed a Pennsylvania woman could have national repercussions on the way drug courts work.
12. WEB SCAN
    NOW Resolution, American Chronicle, NYT Editorial on Richard Paey, NORML Report, APHA/DPA Oregon Amicus
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #395 -- 7/15/05

1. DRCNET INTERVIEW: CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROVIDER BRYAN EPIS
   Former California medical marijuana provider Bryan Epis is awaiting resentencing this month in the wake of a web of recent Supreme Court rulings. His original sentence was ten years.
2. FEATURE: CALIFORNIA'S "TREATMENT NOT JAIL" LAW FACES NEW ATTACK FROM OLD FOES
   Advocates and opponents of California's Proposition 36, passed with overwhelming voter approval in 2002, are in a war of words over a Senate bill that would effectively roll it back.
3. FEATURE: BUSH DRUG BUDGET CUTS FOR HIDTA, TASK FORCE GRANTS LOOK TO BE RESTORED
   The Bush administration appears set to lose one of their few drug policy proposals with which drug reformers agreed.
4. FEATURE: MUCH ADO ABOUT LOLLIPOPS -- MARIJUANA-FLAVORED CANDY, HEMP, POLITICIANS, AND THE MEDIA
   With politicians moving to get two marijuana-flavored candies taken off the market, hemp food advocates are scrambling to keep their products from getting mistakenly caught in the crossfire.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week we have a Coast Guardsman who switched sides, a Minnesota top cop with a nasty cocaine habit, Florida deputy with the same problem, a Louisiana drug task force commander hanging out with the wrong relative, and a New Mexico jail guard using his position to gain goodies.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: CALIFORNIA ACTIVIST FACING FEDERAL PRISON TIME COMMITS SUICIDE, COMMEMORATIVE VIGILS SET FOR TUESDAY
   Long-time San Diego medical marijuana patient, provider, and activist Steven McWilliams killed himself Monday night. Supporters are holding vigils Tuesday night to protest the government's driving him to his death.
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: ACLU, DPA THREATEN TO SUE SCHWARZENEGGER OVER SUSPENDING CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM
   California authorities announced last week they were suspending a pilot medical marijuana ID program over fears of subjecting state officials and cardholders to federal prosecution. Now two organizations are suing the Schwarzenegger administration to get the program reopened.
8. MAD SCIENCE: HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES MYCOHERBICIDE TESTING IN BID TO WIPE OUT DRUG CROPS
   Ardent drug warriors in the US House of Representatives have forced a provision on anti-drug fungi into the ONDCP bill -- against the wishes of federal agencies who think it's too dangerous.
9. MARIJUANA: WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA POLICE CHIEFS SAY DECRIMINALIZE IT
   Under Pennsylvania law, possession of up to 30 grams of marijuana -- slightly more than an ounce -- is a misdemeanor offense punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Some western Pennsylvania police chiefs would like to change that.
10. SENTENCING: HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE HEAD INTERFERES IN DRUG CASE, DEMANDS LONGER SENTENCE
    Rep. James Sensenbrenner has drawn criticism for privately demanding last month that a US appeals court alter its decision in a drug case.
11. SEARCH AND SEIZURE: UTAH FEDERAL COURT JUDGES SPLIT ON WARRANTLESS DOORKNOB DRUG TESTS
    Police in Utah have been using a machine that lets them search people's go to people's exterior home doorknobs for the presence of illicit drugs. Utah judges have split on the legality.
12. DRUG RAIDS: TWO UNARMED MEN KILLED IN SEPARATE DRUG RAIDS
    Hair-trigger police officers in separate drug raids in Utah and Florida shot and killed unarmed men early this month.
13. LATIN AMERICA: COCA LEADER POISED TO BECOME BOLIVIA'S NEXT PRESIDENT
    Two decades of hard-line US anti-drug policy in Bolivia is about to bear fruit, but it will be bitter fruit indeed for America's drug warriors.
14. ANNOUNCEMENT: SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE TO DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE IN LONG BEACH THIS NOVEMBER
    Are you an activist who wants to go to the national drug reform conferences but can never afford it? There may be a scholarship for you.
15. WEB SCAN
    Prison Smoking Ban, Patrick Crusade, Licensing Poppies, BlogCritics Book Review
16. JOB OPPORTUNITY: DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE, NYC
    Apply to work for our friend Tony Newman in New York!
17. SHORT TERM JOB OPPORTUNITY: MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT WEB SITE TRANSITION SPECIALIST
    Get paid to help MPP transition its web site to a new layout and server.
18. ERRATA: BRAZIL HARM REDUCTION
    Correction to last week's Brazil harm reduction story.
19. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #394 -- 7/8/05

1. EDITORIAL: FALLING BEHIND THE AYATOLLAHS AND THE COMMUNISTS
   Iran and Communist China are overtaking the United States in reforming policies lying at the intersection of the drug war and AIDS.
2. FEATURE: THE DOWNING STREET DRUG MEMO
   A suppressed British government report told Tony Blair two years ago the drug war has failed.
3. FEATURE: TWO MILLION IS TOO MANY -- GRASSROOTS MARCH AGAINST MASS IMPRISONMENT AIMS AT WASHINGTON, DC
   A broad and diverse coalition is coming together next month to protest the mass incarceration of their loved ones, friends, and countrymen.
4. FEATURE: DAMN MAD DAD USES ANCIENT VIDEO CLIPS IN ANTI-MEDICAL MARIJUANA SMEAR CAMPAIGN
   A New York anti-drug activist has edited together video clips from more than ten years ago to attempt to smear the medical marijuana issue. But the tape fails to deliver the damning evidence its maker promises.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE TO DRUG POLICY REFORM CONFERENCE IN LONG BEACH THIS NOVEMBER
   Are you an activist who wants to go to the national drug reform conferences but can never afford it? There may be a scholarship for you.
6. THE LONG MARCH: NOW ADOPTS STANCE OPPOSING DRUG WAR -- AFTER PRODDING FROM ACTIVISTS
   Meeting for its annual convention in Knoxville last weekend, the National Organization for Women (http://www.now.org) approved a resolution opposing the current drug war and calling instead for an approach to drug use, abuse, and addiction that emphasizes compassion, health, and human rights.
7. CAMPUS: EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ERROR ON HEA DRUG PROVISION DETERRED PEOPLE WITH DRUG CONVICTIONS FROM APPLYING FOR STUDENT AID
   The US Dept. of Education last week fixed an error on its financial aid web site that deterred some would-be students with drug convictions who might have regained their eligibility. But the deadline for applying had passed the day before.
8. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week we have a Texas twofer featuring a wheeling-dealing sheriff and a pot-selling cop, a New Hampshire drug task force with problems, yet another drug-dealing prison guard in New Mexico, and a coke-selling cop in Tennessee.
9. LATIN AMERICA: BRAZIL RECOGNIZES HARM REDUCTION
   Harm reduction programs such as needle exchanges have been underway in Brazil for at least 15 years, but have always operated in the legal shadows. Not anymore.
10. ASIA: INDONESIA COURT REOPENS CORBY TRIAL FOR NEW WITNESSES
    In a surprise move, the court that convicted Schapelle Corby of marijuana smuggling and sentenced her to 20 years has agreed to hear new witnesses that supporters say could win her freedom.
11. ASIA: GAO WARNS AFGHANISTAN EFFORT ENDANGERED BY DRUGS, TERRORISTS
    Afghanistan is in danger of once again become a "haven for terrorists," according to the US Government Accountability Office, and "limited" progress in suppressing Afghanistan's booming opium trade is a factor.
12. METHAMPHETAMINE: IN MOVE TO RESTORE FUNDING CUTS, LOCAL OFFICIALS DUB METH PUBLIC ENEMY #1
    A raft of news articles about methamphetamine accompanied the release of a police chiefs survey. But the subtext was funding.
13. OPIATE MAINTENANCE: KING COUNTY (SEATTLE) SEEKS APPROVAL TO PROVIDE METHADONE FOR IMPRISONED ADDICTS
    King County, Washington's jail hopes to become the second in the country to provide methadone maintenance to imprisoned addicts.
14. REPORT: TAXPAYERS FOR COMMON SENSE ON FAILED ANTI-MARIJUANA POLICY
    A report by the nonpartisan think tank Taxpayers for Common Sense has criticized government spending against marijuana.
15. WEB SCAN
    Change The Climate Flash Animation, Pain and the Law Report, Boston and Providence Phoenix on Medical Marijuana
16. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. JOB OPPORTUNITIES: ACLU DRUG LAW REFORM PROJECT
    The ACLU Drug Law Reform Project is hiring for the positions of National Field Organizer and Advocacy Associate.
18. JOB OPPORTUNITY: STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY
    Students for Sensible Drug Policy is seeking applications for the position of Legislative Director.
19. JOB OPPORTUNITY: ACLU OF WASHINGTON DRUG LAW REFORM PROJECT
    The ACLU of Washington is seeking a Campaign Manager for the Drug Law Reform Project in its Seattle office.
20. ERRATA
    Moises Hernandez Case
21. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #393 -- 7/1/05

1. EDITORIAL: STAR WARS AND THE DRUG WAR
   At the risk of getting adversely "pegged," DRCNet's executive director makes a Star Wars analogy this week.
2. FEATURE: RHODE ISLAND GOVERNOR VETOES MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL WEDNESDAY -- SENATE OVERRIDES THURSDAY
   Rhode Island's legislature may be on the way to overriding their governor's veto to become the 11th state to legalization medical use of marijuana.
3. FEATURE: COCA ON THE MARCH IN PERU
   In the last week, the Peruvian government's US-backed policy against coca cultivation has come under renewed attach from coca growers and their allies, including the local government of the ancient Inca capital in Cuzco.
4. FEATURE: MOST MARIJUANA USERS IN DRUG TREATMENT SENT THERE BY CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
   Three months ago, the government released a study finding that the number of people entering drug treatment for marijuana increased dramatically from 1992 to 2002. But a new government study released this week shows most were sent there in lieu of incarceration -- and have fewer signs of problematic drug use than those who weren't.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A sticky-fingered evidence room guard gets his reward, a long-running Dallas scandal takes down another cop, a New York City transit cop gets in trouble for his day job, and yet another prison guard gets caught peddling goodies to the inmates.
6. GLOBAL: WORLD DRUG TRADE WORTH $320 BILLION ANNUALLY, UN SAYS
   The 2005 World Drug Report of the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime estimates the global drug trade's annual revenues at more than $320 billion per year.
7. AIDS/HIV: HARM REDUCTION WINS BATTLE IN UN AIDS SESSION
   US efforts to remove harm reduction and needle access programs from the anti-AIDS vocabulary were rebuffed by the United Nations' AIDS agency this week.
8. ASIA: CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL ANTI-DRUGS DAY WITH EXECUTIONS, BONFIRES
   In what has become a macabre annual ritual, China marked the United Nations' International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking Sunday by ordering the execution of at least 24 people for drug crimes in one city alone.
9. HEMP: REP. RON PAUL INTRODUCES FEDERAL BILL FOR INDUSTRIAL HEMP
   For the first time since the federal government outlawed industrial hemp farming in the 1937, a bill has been introduced in Congress to allow it.
10. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: US PATIENT SEEKS ACCESS TO BRITISH MARIJUANA EXTRACT SPRAY THROUGH INVESTIGATIONAL NEW DRUG PROGRAM
    Sativex, a prescription marijuana extract applied via sublingual spray, went on sale last week in Canada. This week a Multiple Sclerosis victim from Illinois and her doctor announced they are seeking access to it through the FDA's Investigational New Drug program.
11. AFRICA: CANNABIS CULTIVATION FEEDS A HUNDRED THOUSAND FAMILIES IN MOROCCO
    Morocco's Rif Mountains region, long famous as a center for Moroccan hashish production, continues to live up to its reputation.
12. EUROPE: BRITISH MARIJUANA SMOKERS GROW THEIR OWN
    England is experiencing an "unprecedented boom" in home marijuana grows, according to the British newspaper The Independent this week, and the trend has reached critical mass.
13. WEB SCAN
    Cato on Pain, MPP PSAs
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. JOB OPPORTUNITY: HARM REDUCTION COALITION, NYC
    The Harm Reduction Coalition is recruiting for the position of Assistant Training Coordinator for the Harm Reduction Training Institute.
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #392 -- 6/24/05

1. FEATURE: THE OTHER SHOE DROPS -- FEDS MOVE IN ON CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   Less than two weeks after the US Supreme Court upheld the federal government's power to ban medical marijuana, the other shoe has dropped in San Francisco.
2. FEATURE: RHODE ISLAND MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL PASSES HOUSE, BUT FACES THREATENED VETO
   Rhode Island is one giant step closer to enacting a medical marijuana law this year, with overwhelming majorities in both chambers of the legislatures voting yes on it. Now will the governor make good on his threat of a veto?
3. FEATURE: NEW JERSEY JUDGE STOPS NEEDLE EXCHANGE IN ITS TRACKS
   At the request of seven legislators, a New Jersey appellate court judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking the implementation of local government-sponsored needle exchange programs in two Garden State cities.
4. FEATURE: DEA RAID ON BILLINGS DOCTOR BRINGS PAIN WARS TO MONTANA
   The DEA's war without quarter against what it sees as corrupt, pill-dealing physicians came to Montana last month. But with the raid also came an uproar, as patients and pain advocates press their case in Montana's court of public opinion.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Relationships with their snitches proved problematic this week for several law enforcement officers, while another had a problematic romance with an alleged dealer, and yet another resorted to good old armed robbery to get his share of the loot. Oh, and there's some pot on the loose down South.
6. SENTENCING: US ATTORNEY GENERAL CALLS FOR MORE MANDATORY MINIMUMS, LESS JUDICIAL DISCRETION
   Warning that there has been "a drift toward lesser sentences" since the US Supreme Court upended the federal sentencing structure last January, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales called Tuesday for more mandatory minimum sentences.
7. PSYCHEDELICS: IN NEW MEXICO, GROWING 'SHROOMS NOT DRUG MANUFACTURE
   Persons who are caught growing hallucinogenic mushrooms in the Land of Enchantment cannot be prosecuted under the state's drug trafficking and manufacturing statute, the New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled.
8. LATIN AMERICA: COLOMBIAN PARAMILITARIES IN GOING OUT OF BUSINESS COCAINE SALE
   A top Colombian military commander told the Associated Press last week that leaders of the rightist paramilitary militias are hurriedly selling-off huge amounts of cocaine before they demobilize under a sweetheart deal with the Colombian government.
9. ASIA: MALAYSIA TO PROVIDE NEEDLES, CONDOMS FOR HARD DRUG USERS
   Malaysia's government hangs drug traffickers for their crimes. But at least it is trying to stop injection drug users from hanging themselves with HIV.
10. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
11. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #391 -- 6/17/05

1. FEATURE: HOUSE MOVE TO BAN FUNDS FOR FEDERAL RAIDS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS GAINS SUPPORT, BUT FALLS SHORT
   The US House of Representatives Wednesday turned back a measure that would have barred the use of federal funds to go after sick people using marijuana for medical reasons.
2. FEATURE: ANOTHER "DRUG RELATED" DEATH -- AUSTIN POLICEWOMAN KILLS UNARMED TEEN
   It was in shabby subdivisions of southeast Austin that 18-year-old Daniel Rocha died, his heart penetrated by a single slug fired at point blank range by Austin police officer Julie Schroeder -- into his back.
3. FEATURE: US HAS MORE THAN A MILLION PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV, GOVERNMENT SAYS -- AS IT IGNORES PREVENTION FOR DRUG-RELATED CASES
   Federal officials continue to turn a blind eye to needle exchange programs -- and to pressure others to do so -- despite one-half of all new HIV cases being related to injection drug use.
4. FEATURE: CREEPSHOW -- A DISTURBING GLIMPSE INTO DEA MENTALITY
   We admit it: We don't like the DEA. But an unofficial web site for former and current DEA agents doesn't help its case either.
5. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A sheriff on the border succumbs to temptation, a prosecutor in San Francisco trades leniency for crank, two jail guards in New Jersey see their retail operation crash and burn, and a love-struck West Virginia cop makes a bad choice.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: RHODE ISLAND BILL APPROVED IN HOUSE COMMITTEE, FACES ONE LAST VOTE, BUT GOVERNOR VOWS VETO
   Rhode Island's governor is threatening to veto a pending medical marijuana bill supported overwhelmingly by the legislature. His office is giving medical marijuana supporters who offer their opinions "rude treatment."
7. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: HAWAII FEDERAL PROSECUTOR BACKS OFF
   Following criticism and under threat of a lawsuit for comments made after the Supreme Court's Raich decision, Hawaii US Attorney Ed Kubo has backed off.
8. POLICING: PHILADELPHIA DA DISBANDS DRUG UNIT
   Citing budgetary constraints, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham has disbanded a specialized group of prosecutors who had worked drug cases.
9. LATIN AMERICA: COCAINE PRODUCTION ON THE INCREASE, UN SAYS
   After five years of declines, cocaine production in South America is once again on the rise, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime has reported. But it never really went away.
10. LATIN AMERICA: MEXICAN ARMY INVADES NUEVO LAREDO, DETAINS POLICE FORCE AS CARTEL VIOLENCE HITS BORDER CITY
    The Mexican Army was patrolling the streets of Nuevo Laredo earlier this week after a steady drumbeat of drug prohibition-related violence reached a spectacular double crescendo last week.
11. AFRICA: SWAZILAND MARIJUANA GROWERS UNSTOPPABLE, POLICE SAY
    With African nations waiting for the effects of debt relief agreed on this week to gradually trickle down, farmers in the southern kingdom of Swaziland are making micro-level decisions to grown marijuana in the meantime.
12. MEDIA SCAN: SEATTLE TIMES
    The Seattle Times draws on the work of the King County Bar Association and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition to conclude it is "[t]ime for a new strategy in the war on drugs."
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #390 -- 6/10/05

1. EDITORIAL: LEARN TO SEE HOPE
   These times while dark hold hope for change, and those who learn to see hope can bring it to fruition the sooner thereby.
2. FEATURE: RAICH CASE RULING -- FEDS CAN ENFORCE MARIJUANA LAWS AGAINST PATIENTS, BUT STATE LAWS REMAIN IN EFFECT
   Contrary to what some anti-drug groups claim, state medical marijuana laws were not affected by yesterday's ruling, and remain in effect -- nothing in the law has changed.
3. DRCNET INTERVIEW: SUPREME COURT PLAINTIFF ANGEL MCLARY RAICH
   DRCNet spoke with Supreme Court plaintiff Angel Raich Thursday to see how she is responding to the decision and what comes next.
4. FEATURE: IN THE WAKE OF RAICH -- OFFICIALS IN THREE MEDICAL MARIJUANA STATES OVERREACT
   While the Supreme Court's Monday ruling in the Raich case did not invalidate any state medical marijuana laws -- they were not addressed by the court -- officials in at least three medical marijuana states reacted as if it had. Advocates are threatening to sue -- sooner rather than later -- if they don't back down.
5. FEATURE: RAICH RAMIFICATIONS -- THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
   Monday's Supreme Court decision does not change either state or federal laws regarding medical marijuana and has changed little on the ground. But the decision's ramifications are already beginning to reverberate in the nation's political scene.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: ONE DAY AFTER RAICH, RHODE ISLAND SENATE PASSES MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL
   One day after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban against medical marijuana, legislators in Rhode Island passed a medical marijuana bill by the most impressive margin ever recorded on the issue.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   More trouble for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a coke-crazed cop gets his first sentence, a deputy picks the wrong time to score, and a Mississippi twofer.
8. MARIJUANA: RETAILERS SAY LEGALIZE IT IN ONLINE POLL
   Prompted by last week's news that 500 economists including Nobel laureate Milton Friedman had called for a national debate on marijuana policy, RetailWire.com took the question to its readership.
9. EUROPE: DUTCH MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM AILING IN FACE OF WIDESPREAD AVAILABILITY FOR ALL
   If marijuana is easily and legally available for all comers, you don't really need a medical marijuana program, the Dutch government is finding out.
10. CANADA: VANCOUVER TELLS OTTAWA TO LEGALIZE IT
    A city of Vancouver report calls for the full-blown legalization of marijuana in Canada.
11. ASIA: INDONESIAN PROTESTORS CALL FOR CORBY'S EXECUTION WHILE AUSTRALIANS CALL FOR BALI BOYCOTT
    The case of Schapelle Corby, an Australian woman sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison after being convicted of marijuana smuggling, continues to roil relations between the two countries.
12. ASIA: IN MAJOR SHIFT, CHINA TO PROMOTE NEEDLE EXCHANGE
    In an implicit acknowledgment that purely repressive measures have not worked to reduce the nation's burgeoning HIV infection rate, the Chinese Health Ministry this week called on local communities around the country to promote needle exchange programs and the distribution of free condoms.
13. MEDIA SCAN
    Pain Man, Connecticut Cocaine Sentencing, Uncontrolled Substances
14. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #389 -- 6/3/05

1. FEATURE: US CONGRESSMAN CRITICIZES DRUG WAR AT JOHN W. PERRY FUND RECEPTION IN SEATTLE
   More than 50 Seattle area drug reformers, educators, and political figures led by US Rep. Jim McDermott gathered Wednesday evening in downtown Seattle for a successful fundraiser for a scholarship program set up by DRCNet to provide financial aid to students losing financial aid for college because of drug convictions.
2. FEATURE: BRITISH COURTS REJECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA NECESSITY DEFENSE
   The British Court of Appeal has ruled that medical marijuana users or suppliers in the United Kingdom may not avoid conviction by raising a medical necessity defense. But they also left the way open for an appeal to the House of Lords.
3. FEATURE: HIGH SCHOOL DRUG BUST AND HARD-LINE PROSECUTOR PROVE VOLATILE MIX IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS COUNTY
   An eight-month undercover investigation and mass arrest of minor offenders seemed like business as usual -- until a hard-line prosecutor announced he would charge them under the state's draconian "drug free school zone" law, inciting a civic rebellion that has yet to reach a conclusion.
4. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another week, another busted Border Patrol agent, another crooked cop going to the pen, a prosecutor gone bad headed to the same place -- and a case from New York City that demonstrates the moral rot at the heart of drug law enforcement.
5. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: LAWMAKERS RAID OREGON MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM SURPLUS
   Oregon legislators seeking to get the state Department of Human Services budget out of the red are moving on a bill that would reduce the deficit by, among other things, grabbing $900,000 in medical marijuana user fees currently sitting in a state Office of Medical Marijuana account.
6. SENTENCING: 9TH CIRCUIT SAYS PRISONERS WITH APPEALS PENDING CAN CHALLENGE SENTENCES
   The fall-out from a pair of Supreme Court decisions upending the nearly 20-year-old federal sentencing guidelines scheme continues.
7. SENTENCING: CONNECTICUT GOVERNOR VETOES BILL THAT WOULD HAVE ELIMINATED CRACK AND POWDER COCAINE SENTENCING DISPARITIES
   Connecticut's Republican governor, Jodi Rell, vetoed legislation Thursday that would have eliminated the disparity in sentences involving crack versus powder cocaine.
8. MARIJUANA: ALASKA GOVERNOR PLOTTING AGAINST MARIJUANA AGAIN, EYES 2006 SESSION
   Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski is addicted to criminalization and has vowed to pursue recently defeated anti-marijuana bills again next year.
9. MARIJUANA: MILTON FRIEDMAN AND 500 ECONOMISTS CALL FOR DEBATE ON PROHIBITION AS STUDY SUGGESTS REGULATION COULD SAVE BILLIONS
   Using the Wednesday release of a cost study of marijuana prohibition as a peg, more than 500 economists led by free market apostle Milton Friedman are calling for a national debate on moving toward regulated marijuana markets.
10. ASIA: CHINA SAYS DRUG WAR IS FAILING
    Blaming free trade and globalization, the authoritarian government of the planet's most populous nation conceded Thursday that its multiple crackdowns on drugs have failed to blunt increasing use.
11. AUSTRALIA: FIRST "DRUGGED DRIVER" TO SUE POLICE FOR DEFAMATION
    Forty-year-old John de John was exonerated of "drugged driving" by a laboratory, but only after TV camera crews had filmed his being stopped, forced to submit to drug tests and accused by police. Now he is suing the Australian state of Victoria for defamation.
12. ASIA: PHILIPPINES FARMERS SAY NO ROAD, NO END TO MARIJUANA GROWING
    Elders and officials in the remote Philippine region of Ifugao are "no longer excited" about participating in marijuana eradication programs. Their complaint -- the government has failed in its promise to build roads, and legal crops therefore cannot make it to market before rotting.
13. JOB LISTING: NATIONAL FIELD ORGANIZER, ACLU DRUG LAW REFORM PROJECT
    The ACLU Drug Law Reform Project is hiring.
14. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #388 -- 5/27/05

1. EDITORIAL: REASONABLE STANDARDS
   Routine perjury by police officers in drug cases should make the standard of reasonable doubt impossible to attain in the absence of evidence corroborating an officer's testimony. New Congressional legislation inspired by the Tulia scandal and sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has recognized the depth of this problem.
2. FEATURE: FEDERAL BILL TO REIN IN ANTI-DRUG TASK FORCES INTRODUCED IN RESPONSE TO TULIA SCANDAL
   Five years after 15 percent of the black population of small-town Tulia was rolled-up in a cocaine bust conducted by a rogue lawman, the reverberations from those arrests have arrived on Capitol Hill.
3. FEATURE: "DRUG TOURISTS" PROVOKE COMPETING CRIES FOR REGULATION, REPRESSION IN HOLLAND
   For nearly three decades, the Dutch approach to marijuana has made The Netherlands a beacon for drug reformers and pot connoisseurs alike. Now the government is at odds with itself in the debate over foreign "drug tourists."
4. FEATURE: CHANCES OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA PASSAGE IN STATEHOUSES NOW FOCUSED ON NORTHEAST
   The best prospects for successful passage of medical marijuana legislation this year are narrowing down to three states in the Northeast. Progress has been made, but hurdles remain.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first West Coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Missing evidence, missing money, a DA failing to act, a jury failing to convict, and a cop failing to keep his bad habits under control all make their way into this week's rogue's gallery.
7. MARIJUANA: MAINE GOVERNOR WANTS TO INCREASE FINES TO PAY FOR NARCS
   Maine's governor wants marijuana users to pay more for their own persecution.
8. CONGRESS: HOUSE BILL WOULD LET "VICTIMS" SUE DRUG DEALERS, BUT ONLY IF THEY SNITCH
   A bill introduced in Congress would allow people harmed by illegal drug use to sue those who made or sold the drugs -- but only if they snitch.
9. SOUTHWEST ASIA: AZERBAIJAN, US SIGN ANTI-DRUG AGREEMENT DESPITE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
   Despite US State Dept. documentation of extensive human rights abuses in Azerbaijan's criminal justice system, US taxpayers will transfer millions of dollars to the Azeri government as part of an anti-drug agreement.
10. EUROPE: SWISS PANEL SAYS NEW DRUG POLICY SHOULD INCLUDE ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, OPT FOR PRAGMATISM
    A federal commission has recommended that Switzerland adopt a drug policy that deals consistently and pragmatically with all drugs -- including alcohol and tobacco.
11. ASIA: THAI DRUG WAR NOW TARGETS COCAINE
    Thailand's prime minister has expanded his murderous war on drugs to include cocaine, mainly used by tourists and the wealthy. But he has scaled back his promise to make the nation "drug free."
12. UPDATE: SCHAPELLE CORBY SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS
    As legal observers predicted, Australian cause celèbre Schapelle Corby was spared the death penalty but given a heavy prison term for a marijuana conviction by an Indonesian court.
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. JOB LISTING: OUTREACH COORDINATOR, COALITION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REFORM (DRCNET)
    Work is available from July onward in the campaign to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act.
15. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #387 -- 5/20/05

1. EDITORIAL: WEAK CLAIMS OF SUCCESS
   The drug czar's claims of successes are weak and should not be allowed to obfuscate the harms the drug war has wrought.
2. FEATURE: BUSH ADMINISTRATION CLAIMS SUCCESS IN COLOMBIA DRUG WAR, SEEKS MORE MONEY
   As the annual congressional appropriations battle over funding for the US war on drugs in Colombia begins anew, critics are pointing to all sorts of problems and organizing for a new approach.
3. FEATURE: AS CALIFORNIA GRAPPLES WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA, SOME COMMUNITIES MOVE TO REGULATE OR BAN DISPENSARIES
   Nearly a decade after the passage of California's groundbreaking Proposition 215, which made medicinal marijuana use legal, some communities are attempting to circumvent the law with local moratoria and bans.
4. NIGHTMARE IN BALI: YOUNG AUSTRALIAN WOMAN FACES POSSIBLE DEATH SENTENCE FOR MARIJUANA SMUGGLING IN CASE STIRRING PASSIONS
   The case of Schapelle Corby, a 27-year-old beautician from Australia facing a possible death sentence in Indonesia for marijuana found in her luggage, is gaining global attention and threatening to damage relations between the two neighbors.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first west coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   The temptations of prohibition are writ large this week with a massive bust of cops and soldiers in Arizona, while on the East Coast, one cop is going to prison in Buffalo and two more appear headed that way in Baltimore. And out in the Rockies, having sex with a snitch is proving troublesome for one wayward law enforcement Lothario.
7. FREE SPEECH: NJ WEEDMAN ARRESTED AT STATEHOUSE OVER POT LEAF T-SHIRT
   Veteran wild man marijuana activist Ed Forchion, better known as the New Jersey Weedman, was arrested May 11 by New Jersey State Troopers as he attempted to enter the state capitol building in Trenton to deliver a press release to reporters.
8. SPORTS: DRUG CZAR'S TEAM RUNS FROM DRUG REFORM "ONE-HITTERS"
   A softball team fielded by staff of The Office of National Drug Control Policy, home of drug czar John Walters, has backed away from a confrontation with home town drug reformers.
9. AUSTRALIA: SOUTH AUSTRALIA ANNOUNCES TOUGH NEW DRUG LAWS
   In a move that has prompted accusations of political grandstanding by opponents, South Australia Premier Mike Rann announced Monday that the state will crack down on some drug offenses with tougher penalties to go into effect later this year.
10. ASIA: US "DRUG EXPERT" SAYS NO WAY TO AFGHAN OPIUM-INTO-MEDICINE PROPOSAL
    Even as violence once again flared in the US-backed campaign to eradicate Afghanistan's opium crop, a recently resigned former top State Department drug fighter rejected a proposal to solve the Afghan opium dilemma by diverting the crop to the legitimate global medicinal market.
11. CANADA: FORMER VANCOUVER TOP DRUG COP'S STUDY FINDS DRUG BUSTS BOOST DRUG SALES
    In a prohibition paradox, crackdowns on retail drug dealers result in lower prices and increased drug sales, says Vancouver Police Inspector Kash Heed, a former head of the department's drug squad.
12. EUROPE: GERMAN DRUG DEATHS AT 15-YEAR LOW, GOVERNMENT CREDITS HARM REDUCTION
    An annual report from the German Health Ministry has found that the number of people who died from illegal drug use in Germany is at its lowest level since 1989, and the German government is crediting harm reduction measures for the decline.
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. JOB LISTING: OUTREACH COORDINATOR, COALITION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REFORM (DRCNET)
    Work is available from July onward in the campaign to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act.
15. MORE JOB LISTINGS: DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT, COMMUNITY HIV/AIDS MOBILIZATION PROJECT
    Work is available at a variety of organizations in drug policy reform and AIDS/harm reduction.
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #386 -- 5/13/05

1. EDITORIAL: PAYING FOR PROPAGANDA
   Largely absent from recent debates on government-financed propaganda have been the long-running, thoroughly bipartisan anti-drug media campaigns -- which include paid advertising but are by no means limited to it.
2. FEATURE: MARIJUANA REMAINS LEGAL IN ALASKA
   Alaska remains the only state in the union where adults may legally possess marijuana, after the legislature adjourned without acting on a bill sponsored by the governor to recriminalize it.
3. FEATURE: MAJOR RUSSIAN DRUG REFORMS ON VERGE ON BEING REVERSED
   Dramatic reforms in Russia's criminal code past last year are on the verge of being reversed, thanks to lobbying by Russia's counterpart to the DEA.
4. FEATURE: ONDCP STUDENT DRUG TESTING ROAD SHOW DOGGED BY "TRUTH SQUADS"
   A four-city road show organized by the Office of National Drug Control Policy to promote student drug testing ended Wednesday.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first west coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
6. SENTENCING: HOUSE PASSES ORWELLIAN "ANTI-GANG" MANDATORY MINIMUMS
   Seventy-one House Democrats voted with a near-solid Republican majority to approve an "anti-gang" bill that includes many new and increased mandatory minimum sentences, including increased penalties for some drug offenses.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week, we revisit some corrupt cops we've covered in the past as new developments unfold.
8. COCAINE: CONNECTICUT HOUSE PASSES BILL TO ELIMINATE CRACK/POWDER DISPARITIES
   The Connecticut House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that would eliminate sentencing disparities between powder cocaine and crack cocaine sentences.
9. PAIN: BOSTON CONGRESSMAN WANTS NATIONWIDE BAN ON OXYCONTIN
   A Massachusetts congressman has introduced a bill to ban Oxycontin nationwide. It's not going over well.
10. PAIN: ABC'S NIGHTLINE GIVES SYMPATHETIC LOOK AT PAIN TREATMENT VS. PROHIBITION
    The growing controversy over the clash between the imperatives of medicine and those of the drug war when it comes to the use of opioids for pain treatment was the topic of ABC News' Nightline program Wednesday night.
11. PRISONS: SEX ABUSE OF FEDERAL INMATES BY GUARDS "A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM," JUSTICE DEPARTMENT SAYS
    The sexual abuse of inmates in the federal prison by US Bureau of Prisons personnel is a significant, ongoing problem that is often ignored by administrators and prosecutors, a report by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General has found.
12. INITIATIVES: DENVER MARIJUANA INITIATIVE SUBMITTED FOR APPROVAL
    Fresh from organizing successful student referenda on two campuses, a Colorado group Wednesday announced it had taken the first step to place a measure legalizing marijuana possession in Denver on the November ballot.
13. INITIATIVES: MICHIGAN MARIJUANA INITIATIVE EFFORT GETS UNDERWAY
    A Michigan organization has begun gathering signatures to place an amendment eliminating penalties for personal use, possession, or cultivation of marijuana on the November 2006 ballot.
14. MIDDLE EAST: LAWLESS IRAQ BECOMING KEY DRUG CORRIDOR, INCB SAYS
    High levels of violence and instability, along with porous borders, are drawing drug traffickers to Iraq, the International Narcotics Control Board said Thursday.
15. ASIA: TAIWAN CONSIDERS SYRINGE ACCESS TO REDUCE AIDS SPREAD
    Responding to figures showing injection drug use is now the leading cause of new HIV infections in Taiwan, health officials there announced they are considering providing drug users with sterile syringes.
16. CARIBBEAN: "GANJA PLANTER" LAMENT TOPS THE CHARTS IN TRINIDAD & TOBAGO
    A song bemoaning the plight of marijuana growers is all the rage in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad & Tobago.
17. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
18. JOB LISTING: OUTREACH COORDINATOR, COALITION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REFORM (DRCNET)
    Work is available from July onward in the campaign to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act.
19. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #385 -- 5/6/05

1. EDITORIAL: BAY STATE AGONY
   A committee of the Massachusetts legislature is considering a proposal to ban the widely-used painkiller Oxycontin outright. They should think about the people of the Bay State living in pain before taking such a reckless action.
2. FEATURE: WAR ON DRUGS SHIFTS TO WAR ON MARIJUANA
   A study of FBI arrest and conviction data by a Washington think-tank has underscored a dramatic shift -- and escalation -- in the US war on drugs during the 1990s.
3. FEATURE: STUDENTS AT SUNY NEW PALTZ RALLY TO DEMAND END OF MARIJUANA EXPULSIONS
   Two marijuana-related offenses can get you expelled from school at SUNY New Paltz -- as Kate Cozik found out the hard way. Now, with the support of local politicos, students are rallying for change.
4. FEATURE: "MARIJUANA IS SAFER" -- REFORMERS TAKE UP A NEW REFRAIN
   Last month, students at two Colorado universities voted overwhelmingly in support of referenda urging their schools to equalize school penalties for marijuana and alcohol infractions. Reformers, typically cautious of rhetoric that could be portrayed by opponents as encouraging drug use, are now pondering the political wisdom of the "marijuana is safer" message.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first west coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
6. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: FEDERAL BILL RE-LAUNCHED AND AMENDMENT PLANS ANNOUNCED AT DC PRESS CONFERENCE
   Congressmen, celebrities, medical marijuana patients and activists gathered for a press conference in Washington Wednesday to mark the reintroduction of two bills designed to ease the federal government's war on medical marijuana users and providers.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's another full plate this week, with cops ripping off drug buyers, getting kinky on stolen cocaine, and trying to frame citizens.
8. ASSET FORFEITURE: ALBUQUERQUE POLICE BROKE LAW WITH SEIZED FUNDS
   A City of Albuquerque audit of the city police department's use of federal drug forfeiture money has found the department violated state law and federal guidelines in its use of seized drug money.
9. METHAMPHETAMINE: OREGON DOCTORS REJECT PROPOSAL TO TURN IN METH USERS TO HEALTH OFFICIALS
   The Oregon Medical Association last weekend rejected a resolution proposing a state law that would require doctors to report methamphetamine-using patients to public health authorities.
10. METHAMPHETAMINE: METH-COOKING DEMO AT SCHOOL PERTURBS PARENTS
    Parents in Grays Harbor County, Washington, have gone "through the roof" over a deputy sheriff's demo for a high school class of how to cook methamphetamine.
11. OXYCONTIN: MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS WEIGH BAN ON POPULAR PAIN RELIEVER
    Legislators in Massachusetts are considering an outright ban on the popular narcotic pain reliever Oxycontin.
12. PRISONS: SOME ARCHITECTS CALL FOR PROFESSION TO REJECT PRISON, JAIL DESIGN JOBS
    A new movement has emerged among architects to boycott bids to design new jails and prisons.
13. NEEDLE EXCHANGE: NEW JERSEY CITIES EXPECT NEP APPROVAL TODAY
    Thanks to an executive order by former Gov. Jim McGreevey, two new cities are now set to open legal needle exchange programs. Legal challenges to the order remain undecided.
14. NEEDLE EXCHANGE: MASSACHUSETTS MELTDOWN
    Like the frightened, angry peasants who marched on Frankenstein's castle waving pitchforks and torches, the good citizens of Westport, Massachusetts, fended off the menace of a city-approved needle exchange program last week.
15. REEFER MADNESS: FEDS WARN THAT MARIJUANA MAKES KIDS CRAZY
    As part of national media campaign to educate youth about the "serious consequences" of marijuana use, drug czar John Walters and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration co-hosted a Tuesday press conference to warn that kids who smoke marijuana are more likely to develop mental health problems. But the research doesn't seem to add up to that conclusion.
16. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. JOB LISTING: OUTREACH COORDINATOR, COALITION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION ACT REFORM (DRCNET)
    Work is available from July onward in the campaign to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act.
18. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #384 -- 4/29/05

1. EDITORIAL: POINTLESSNESS
   A well conceived civil disobedience, or obedience, by fellow reformers abroad is effectively illustrating the pointlessness of drug prohibition.
2. FEATURE: IN CIVIL OBEDIENCE CAMPAIGN, HUNGARIAN DRUG USERS TURN THEMSELVES IN
   A campaign by drug users and former drug users has been giving Hungarian police fits -- and putting drug reform in the media spotlight just as a Hungarian parliamentary committee examining the subject is getting underway.
3. FEATURE: MARIJUANA RESEARCH GROW EFFORT HEADS FOR DEA HEARING
   The federal government has long stalled efforts to reclassify marijuana and obstructed attempts by researchers to do studies that could lead to the development of marijuana as a legal prescription medicine. Now, a Univ. of Massachusetts researcher is seeking a DEA hearing to allow him to seek scientific truth.
4. FEATURE: THE NORTH AMERICAN SYRINGE EXCHANGE CONVENTION
   Front-line harm reduction workers from around the country converged on Tacoma, Washington, last week for the annual North American Syringe Exchange Convention.
5. DRCNET INTERVIEW: TEN YEARS OF ORGANIZING HARD DRUG USERS -- ANN LIVINGSTON OF THE VANCOUVER AREA NETWORK OF DRUG USERS
   Hard drug users are demonized in Canada too, not just the US. But in Vancouver, home to one of the hemisphere's largest concentrations, they have organized and are taking a prominent role in shaping the city's cutting edge drug policies. Ann Livingston has been with the group from the beginning and talks to DRCNet about how it happened and how it can be replicated.
6. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first west coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
7. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   From the Big Apple to the Heartland, this week's roll of dishonor includes both corruption based on good, old-fashioned greed and the perhaps even more corrosive corruption of law enforcement officers abusing citizens and the law itself in their efforts to fight the drug war.
8. BAD COPS II: SOUTH TEXAS DRUG TASK FORCE FIGHTS DIRTY
   Texas state senator Juan Hinojosa worked to restrict the use of undercover police agents in the wake of the Tulia scandal. Now he has two bills that have aroused the ire of at least one Texas drug task force, and those cops are fighting back.
9. PRISONS: US INMATE POPULATION CONTINUES TO SWELL, NOW AT 2.1 MILLION
   The US prison system grew by about 900 prisoners a week between June 2003 and June 2004, and now tops 2.1 million.
10. DRUG CZAR: WALTERS UNDER ATTACK BY PROHIBITIONISTS
    Washington's prohibition establishment is beginning to eat its own tail, according to a report this week in the National Journal.
11. MARIJUANA MARCH: GLOBAL MARCH MAY 7 IN MORE THAN 180 CITIES
    If it is almost May, it is also almost time for the annual march for marijuana legalization coordinated by Dana Beal and his New York City-based organization, Cures Not Wars.
12. HOLLAND: MINISTERS SQUABBLE OVER CANNABIS -- ONE CALLS FOR LEGALIZATION, HAS PUBLIC OPINION ON HIS SIDE
    The conservative Dutch government's attempted hard line against cannabis was shaken this week as one cabinet member went off the reservation by calling for the complete legalization of "soft drugs throughout Europe.
13. EUROPE: BRITISH HEROIN MAINTENANCE PROGRAM TO EXPAND
    A British program that provides free heroin to addicts is set to expand in June, the National Health Service's Treatment Agency announced last week.
14. INDIA: CRACKDOWN ON OPIUM GROWERS SPURS CONFUSION, PROTESTS IN KARNATAKA
    Farmers in the countryside surrounding the high-tech center of Bangalore have been growing opium for years, apparently oblivious to laws restricting the cultivation of poppies. That has changed this month -- and the farmers aren't happy.
15. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. EVENTS: MPP GALAS NEXT WEEK AND THE FOLLOWING
    Celebrity events coming up on two coasts will support the cause.
17. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #383 -- 4/22/05

1. EDITORIAL: NOW HOW DO YOU FEEL?
   Imagine you're to spend a year in jail for violating a drug law. How do you feel? Imagine it's 20 years. Now how do you feel?
2. FEATURE: HOUSE CONSERVATIVES PUSHING BILL TO "FIX" SENTENCING, INCREASE MANDATORY MINIMUMS, CREATE NEW DRUG CRIMES
   House conservatives led by Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner are moving ahead with a draconian anti-drug bill that would set harsh new mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug crimes as well as creating new drug crimes.
3. FEATURE: CANADA APPROVES SATIVEX -- NATURAL MARIJUANA-BASED PHARMACEUTICAL TO BE ON PHARMACY SHELVES BY SUMMER
   The Canadian government announced Tuesday that it has approved Sativex, a prescription pharmaceutical product derived from marijuana extracts, as a treatment for the relief of neuropathic pain in people with multiple sclerosis.
4. FEATURE: BRITAIN PASSES "TOUGH" NEW DRUG BILL -- TOUGHER SENTENCES, NEW CRIMES, MORE POLICE POWER
   A tough drugs and crime bill that some observers hoped was only a campaign tool for the Labor Party has passed both houses of parliament and is set to become the law of the land.
5. ANNOUNCEMENT: DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE US REP. JIM MCDERMOTT, JUNE 1 IN SEATTLE
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the first west coast stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   More jail guards gone bad, a Border Patrol agent pleads guilty, a former Puerto Rican cop gets busted in a Florida heroin dragnet, and New York City police take preemptive steps to stop corruption before it starts.
7. SENTENCING: SOUTH CAROLINA BILL TO EQUALIZE CRACK, POWDER COCAINE PENALTIES MOVING
   A bill that would eliminate the disparities in sentencing for offenses involving crack and powder cocaine is moving in the South Carolina legislature -- but the news is not all good.
8. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE SACRAMENTAL AYAHUASCA USE CASE
   In a case that pits the Religious Freedom Restoration Act against the Controlled Substances Act, the Supreme Court announced Monday it would hear the Justice Department's appeal of a series of federal court rulings that it cannot bar the US branch of a Brazilian religion from using the psychedelic Amazonian tea.
9. ON CAMPUS: UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDENTS PASS REFERENDUM CALLING FOR EQUALITY IN MARIJUANA AND ALCOHOL PENALTIES
   Students at the University of Colorado in Boulder have voted overwhelmingly to signal their support of equalizing campus disciplinary penalties for marijuana and alcohol.
10. EUROPE: ENCOD OFFERS PEACE PIPE TO EUROPEAN UNION -- LITERALLY
    In a call to end drug prohibition and a move to dramatize civil society's exclusion from the EU's drug policy-making process, members of the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies presented a peace pipe to EU representatives at a public hearing Thursday.
11. ASIA: MALAYSIA CONSIDERING DRUG MAINTENANCE PROGRAMS?
    An exchange at the Malaysian Parliament last week suggested the Malay government may be willing to consider providing drugs to dependent drug users.
12. MEDIA SCAN:
    Debra Saunders on Student Drug Testing, Brown University SSDP Opens Drug Resource Center
13. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. SSDP T-SHIRT AND FLYER DESIGN CONTEST
    Students for Sensible Drug Policy is currently soliciting designs for new SSDP t-shirts and flyers, to be made available on the SSDP web site and used by youth and students nationwide.
15. ONLINE: AUDIO WEB CHAT WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL
    Log on with DPA later this month to chat online with the bestselling author.
16. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #382 -- 4/15/2005

1. EDITORIAL: A MORAL FOG
   The sentencing of a pain doctor for opiate prescriptions illustrates the corroded ethics of the system imprisoning him.
2. FEATURE: CHILL OVER PAIN MANAGEMENT DEEPENS AS LEADING SPECIALIST IS SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS IN PRISON
   The most closely watched in a growing procession of prosecutions of doctors involved in aggressive pain management with opioids ended Thursday in a suburban Washington, DC, federal courthouse.
3. FEATURE: NEW REFORM GROUP TARGETS COLORADO CAMPUSES WITH REFERENDUMS TO EQUALIZE MARIJUANA AND ALCOHOL VIOLATION PENALTIES
   Colorado college campuses have garnered much unwelcome publicity in recent months because of alcohol-related incidents. A new organization is now seeking equalize campus penalties for alcohol and marijuana infractions so students don't choose the more dangerous substance to avoid being punished more severely.
4. FEATURE: PRISON RAPE: THE STORIES NEED TO BE TOLD
   Many corrections officials maintain that prisoner rape is a rare occurrence, but research shows otherwise. Drug offenders are among the most vulnerable prey for sexual violence behind bars.
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: ORGIES OF THE HEMP EATERS
   There is very little of the standard drug policy reform rhetoric in this compilation of cannabis culture -- but a reminder that there is indeed a world out there in which drug czar John Walters and the rest of his prohibitionist posse are basically irrelevant.
6. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Police officers in Pennsylvania and Texas are headed to prison for their misdeeds, while in other incidents this week cops, deputies, and even a fire department official are in trouble with the law.
7. HARM REDUCTION: SAN FRANCISCO ORDINANCE ALLOWING SYRINGE SALES WITHOUT PRESCRIPTION NOW IN EFFECT
   Legislation approved last year allowing California cities and counties to pass ordinances okaying the sale of syringes without a prescription is beginning to bear fruit.
8. METH MADNESS: ILLINOIS BILL TO HEIGHTEN METHAMPHETAMINE PENALTIES MOVING
   Democrats in the midwestern state have crafted legislation to ramp up penalties for methamphetamine offenses and create new meth-related offenses. It's on its way to becoming law.
9. MEDICAL MARIJUANA: SOUTH DAKOTA INITIATIVE GETTING UNDER WAY
   A newly formed group headed by a veteran South Dakota activist has taken the first official steps toward getting a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2006 ballot.
10. AFRICA: UGANDAN FARMERS CALL FOR MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
    Farmers in Uganda's Busia district have responded to police raids on their marijuana crops by calling for legalization of the crop.
11. ASIA: THAILAND DRUG WAR, PART III
    After murdering some 2,500 people during the prior phases of its bloody drug war, the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra Monday announced plans to initiate a third phase.
12. ASIA: POLICE IN HO CHI MINH CITY DETAIN 650 IN NIGHTCLUB DRUG SWEEP
    Following the lead of its neighbors in what has become the world's most repressive region in the war on drugs, Vietnamese police over the weekend rounded up more than 650 people in Saigon nightspots and forced them to undergo on-the-spot urine tests.
13. ASIA: SOUTH KOREA TO INSTITUTE TREATMENT FOR DRUG OFFENDERS
    The South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare and the ruling Uri Party have agreed to allow courts to impose drug treatment when handing down suspended sentences for drug offenders.
14. ASIA: AFGHAN OPIUM ERADICATION CAMPAIGN OFF TO VIOLENT START
    What was supposed to have been a model for the Afghan government's new opium eradication program ended in violent confrontation Monday.
15. CONGRESS: HOW DID YOUR US REPRESENTATIVE VOTE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAST YEAR?
    By the time you read this, the Supreme Court may have already spoken on the constitutionality of medical marijuana prohibition. This would be a good time to look up whether or how your Representative in Congress voted on the issue last time.
16. ALERT: PLEASE HELP STUDENTS LOSING FINANCIAL AID FOR COLLEGE BECAUSE OF DRUG CONVICTIONS GET THEIR AID BACK
    Participate in DRCNet online action alerts asking Congress and two state Legislatures to undo Rep. Mark Souder's much-criticized law stripping college aid from students with drug convictions.
17. WEEKLY: THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
18. ONLINE: AUDIO WEB CHAT WITH DR. ANDREW WEIL
    Log on with DPA later this month to chat online with the bestselling author.
19. JOB LISTING: DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS, DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE
    Experienced individuals check out this DC job opportunity in the movement!
20. WEEKLY: THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #381 -- 4/8/05

1. MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILLS MOVING IN THE STATES
   Medical marijuana continues to be a hot issue in state legislatures this year.
2. HEMP LEGISLATION ON THE MOVE IN THE STATES
   Industrial hemp advocates and supporters have been busy this legislative season.
3. NORML 2005: ACTIVISTS MEET AND PLOT IN AMERICA'S MARIJUANA MECCA
   More than 500 marijuana activists gathered in San Francisco last weekend for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws annual conference.
4. PUSHING THE ENVELOPE IN OAKSTERDAM
   When city officials tightened the screws on Oakland's thriving medical marijuana neighborhood, it looked like Oaksterdam's fleeting glory days were already behind it. But nine months later, at least one former dispensary has taken the leap into non-medical sales to adults.
5. HOW DID YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS VOTE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAST YEAR?
   By the time you read this, the Supreme Court may have already spoken on the constitutionality of medical marijuana prohibition. This would be a good time to look up whether or how your Representative in Congress voted on the issue last time.
6. PLEASE HELP STUDENTS LOSING FINANCIAL AID FOR COLLEGE BECAUSE OF DRUG CONVICTIONS GET THEIR AID BACK
   Participate in DRCNet online action alerts asking Congress and two state Legislatures to undo Rep. Mark Souder's much-criticized law stripping college aid from students with drug convictions.
7. NEWSBRIEF: WITH PROHIBITION FAILING, CHINA CALLS FOR "PEOPLES' WAR" ON DRUGS
   With the number of both drug arrests and officially recognized "drug addicts" on the rise, Chinese authorities are responding with a call for more, better drug war.
8. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Sometimes we are hard-pressed to come up with material for this feature, but this week our cup runneth over with a veritable cornucopia of corruption.
9. NEWSBRIEF: SUPREME COURT LETS STAND RULING ALLOWING DRUG DOG SEARCHES OUTSIDE PEOPLE'S HOMES
   The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal of a Houston case in which police used a drug dog to sniff outside a man's garage, the second ruling in recent months ratifying expanded police powers at the expense of the fourth amendment.
10. NEWSBRIEF: STATE COURTS IN INDIANA, OREGON RESTRICT POLICE GARBAGE SEARCHES
    While the US Supreme Court has repeatedly held that police do not need a search warrant to search people's trash once it has been placed outside for collection, two recent rulings in state courts will place limits on police in Indiana and Oregon.
11. NEWSBRIEF: IOWA LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS CRITICIZES DRUG POLICY, CALLS FOR SENTENCING REFORM
    After an 18-month study of prison and sentencing policy in Iowa, that state's chapter of the nonpartisan national civic organization has called for serious sentencing reform.
12. NEWSBRIEF: NORML ISSUES SOBERING REPORT ON PROHIBITIONIST "DRUGGED DRIVING" OFFENSIVE
    A report from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws provides a sobering analysis on an effort crafted by drug war bureaucrats and drug testing entrepreneurs to criminalize drug users who drive -- even if they're not under the influence. The laws are already on the books in 11 states.
13. MEDIA SCAN
    American Enterprise Institute on US Drug Policy, New York Times on Hurwitz Case, Christopher Hallam on Afghanistan, NYPD Narcotics Against Legalization
14. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #380 -- 3/25/05

1. EDITORIAL: RISE OR FALL
   Every now and then a candid comment by a public official reveals the sheer incoherence of the government's anti-drug strategy. The latest such remark came from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, on the topic of opium in Afghanistan.
2. REEFER REVERSAL? BRITISH GOVERNMENT TO RECONSIDER CANNABIS RECLASSIFICATION
   In the midst of a parliamentary election campaign where drugs have become a key issue, the Labor government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair moved last weekend to reconsider its reclassification of cannabis.
3. MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILLS FAIL IN ILLINOIS, NEW MEXICO
   Drug reformers and patient advocates started 2005 with high hopes of seeing more states jump on the medical marijuana bandwagon. They will now have to look somewhere beside Illinois and New Mexico to gain a legislative victory this year.
4. SPECIAL TO DRCNET: STEROIDS, SLUGGERS, AND THE WAR ON DRUGS
   University of Texas drugs and sports expert John Hoberman comments on last week's US congressional hearings on steroids in baseball.
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: SPORTS, SEX, ETERNAL YOUTH: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF TESTOSTERONE
   From the bedroom to the boardroom, from Olympic stadiums to the neighborhood YMCA, and in countless unseen pockets of everyday life, it is all about performance. John Hoberman's "Testosterone Dreams: Rejuvenation, Aphrodisia, Doping" is a powerful rumination on the history and meaning of the quest for athletic excellence and eternal youth.
6. DRCNET LETTER TO JUDGE WEXLER ON UPCOMING HURWITZ SENTENCING HEARING
   David Borden urges the Hurwitz case judge to release Dr. Hurwitz because of jurors' fundamental misconceptions about the case as revealed in quotes given by their foreman to the Washington Post.
7. PLEASE HELP STUDENTS LOSING FINANCIAL AID FOR COLLEGE BECAUSE OF DRUG CONVICTIONS GET THEIR AID BACK
   Participate in DRCNet online action alerts asking Congress and two state Legislatures to undo Rep. Mark Souder's much-criticized law stripping college aid from students with drug convictions.
8. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another mixed bag this week, with a crooked 911 dispatcher, another former prosecutor gone downhill, and a group of notorious Oakland police facing justice -- again.
9. CORRUPT COPS STORIES ON THE AIR
   DRCNet's "This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories" series is now on the air, thanks to the Cultural Baggage Drug Truth Network.
10. EVENTS AND CONFERENCES COMING UP FOR DRUG REFORMERS -- COME OUT AND BE A PART OF IT
    Events and conferences are coming up around the country -- come out and get to know the people in the movement!
11. NEWSBRIEF: DC JUDGE CLEARED IN JAIL DEATH OF PARALYZED MARIJUANA USER
    A ten-day sentence for marijuana possession turned into a death sentence for Jonathan Magbie when the DC Jail and a hospital failed to provide the quadriplegic with proper medical care. The judge who sent him to his death has now been cleared of misconduct by a judicial commission.
12. NEWSBRIEF: MICHIGAN NIGHTCLUB RAVE RAID NETS 118, MANY CHARGED ONLY WITH FREQUENTING A "DRUG HOUSE"
    Dozens of Michigan police raided a Flint nightspot late Saturday night, arresting 118 club goers, mostly for "frequenting a drug house." The mass arrests of apparently innocent people parallels a similar 2003 bust in Wisconsin.
13. NEWSBRIEF: FROM EXILE, KUBBY CHALLENGES SEARCH WARRANT IN CASE THAT CAUSED HIM TO FLEE UNITED STATES
    Activist Steve Kubby fled California in 2001 to avoid a virtual death sentence through denial of access to medical marijuana. Now Kubby is alleging fraud by Placer County officials in a bid to overturn his conviction.
14. NEWSBRIEF: BRITAIN'S TOP TV COP SAYS LEGALIZE HEROIN
    While British politicians are busy wringing their hands over marijuana as parliamentary elections loom, actor Alex Norton of police drama "Taggart" fame has other drugs on his mind.
15. NEWSBRIEF: MARIJUANA CROPS DEFENDED IN FIJI SENATE HEARING
    A Fijian senate ad-hoc committee on drugs and vice holding a public hearing on marijuana growing in the Navosa region got an earful from local residents.
16. NEWSBRIEF: AFGHAN ANTI-OPIUM DRIVE CAUSES PRICES TO RISE, MAKES NEW PLANTING MORE ATTRACTIVE, UN HEAD ANNAN SAYS
    The effort to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan, strongly backed by the United States and the United Nations, is threatened by its own success, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday.
17. NEWSBRIEF: AT US BEHEST, PAKISTAN CLERICS VOW JIHAD AGAINST DRUGS
    Last month DEA administrator Karen Tandy urged Pakistani Muslim religious scholars to issue a religious decree, or jihad, against drugs. At a meeting last weekend, some of them took her up on it.
18. MEDIA SCAN
    Media Scan: Becker-Posner Blog, Neal Peirce, URI on HEA, Tulia, Loretta Nall, Baker Institute on Needle Exchange, New Jersey Network on Medical Marijuana, Whosarat.com
19. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
20. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #379 -- 3/18/05

1. EDITORIAL: HOW TO LAUNCH A NATIONWIDE DRUG EPIDEMIC
   Congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball, with celebrity sports stars subpoenaed to be there, was the talk of the airwaves. If history is a guide, more teen steroid use may result.
2. ALASKA MEASURE TO RECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA HEADED FOR HEARINGS NEXT WEEK
   Thanks to rulings by the state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, Alaska is the only state in the union to have legalized the possession of up to four ounces of marijuana in one's home. Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski doesn't like that, and he's trying to change it -- again.
3. THE UN VIENNA MEETING: GLASS HALF EMPTY OR GLASS HALF FULL?
   Last week, Drug War Chronicle reported on the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting in Vienna, but our deadline came before the meeting ended. This week we report on how it all turned out.
4. MARIJUANA REGULATION EFFORTS MOVING FORWARD IN NEVADA AND VERMONT
   Efforts to regulate marijuana like alcohol and tobacco are underway at different ends of the country, with legislation in Vermont and a Nevada effort aiming at the 2006 ballot.
5. MARIJUANA LAW ENFORCEMENT COSTS MORE THAN $7 BILLION A YEAR -- AND DOESN'T WORK, SAYS NEW REPORT
   A new report from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws pegs the costs of marijuana law enforcement in the United States at $7.6 billion annually and finds that escalating marijuana arrests over the past two decades have failed to have any impact on marijuana use rates.
6. COASTERS TO STOP THE DRUG WAR
   Order DRCNet's new Stop the Drug War coasters -- and enjoy your favorite beverages while talking about prohibition.
7. EVENTS AND CONFERENCES COMING UP FOR DRUG REFORMERS -- COME OUT AND BE A PART OF IT
   Events and conferences are coming up around the country -- come out and get to know the people in the movement!
8. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Another slow week on the corruption front -- nothing spectacularly evil, just the same old banal personal corruption of cops and jailers who either couldn't resist temptation or let their habits get on top of them. But the taint of drug law-related corruption is cumulative, and each story like this adds to the general impression of police run amok.
9. NEWSBRIEF: US DRUG WAR HURTS WOMEN, SAYS NEW REPORT
   In a report released Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union and two other groups charged that US drug policy is bringing severe, disproportionate harm to women
10. NEWSBRIEF: WELFARE BILL AMENDED TO CUT FUNDING TO STATES THAT FAIL TO DRUG TEST WELFARE RECIPIENTS, BUT NONE CURRENTLY DO
    A bill that would extend welfare reform legislation enacted by Congress in 1996 would cut federal welfare funding to any state that does not require drug tests for those applying for or receiving welfare benefits. But at least one state has seen such policies struck down as unconstitutional by a federal court.
11. NEWSBRIEF: POLICE IN MISSOURI TOWN SEEK TO OVERTURN MARIJUANA REFORM ORDINANCE
    Police in Columbia, Missouri, are trying to overturn a voter-approved law that spares students from financial aid loss by treating marijuana possession as a municipal ticketable offense rather than a prosecutable state one.
12. NEWSBRIEF: HEROIN MAINTENANCE STUDY NOW UNDERWAY IN VANCOUVER
    The NAOMI heroin maintenance pilot project got underway Monday in Vancouver, with three users becoming the first in North America to participate in such a program, receiving and injecting free heroin in NAOMI's highly secure facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
13. NEWSBRIEF: VANCOUVER SUN SAYS LEGALIZE IT
    In a four-day series of editorials last week, British Columbia's largest newspaper, the Vancouver Sun, called for the legalization of marijuana. The editorial series came as parliament considers a middle-ground measure to decriminalize pot possession and as Canada reeled from the killings of four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in a raid only tangentially -- but sensationally -- linked to a small marijuana grow-op in Alberta.
14. NEWSBRIEF: UN PREDICTS COCAINE PRICE INCREASE, CITES COLOMBIA "SUCCESS"
    The top United Nations anti-drug official in Colombia has predicted that cocaine prices in the United States and Europe will rise next year because of US-sponsored aerial fumigation of coca. But officials couldn't explain why there've been no signs of it so far.
15. NEWSBRIEF: EUROPEAN DRUG THINK-TANK CALLS FOR LEGALIZING AFGHAN OPIUM CROP -- AFGHAN GOVERNMENT REACTION MIXED
    A Paris-based drug policy think-tank called last week for Afghanistan's record illicit opium crop to be regularized, with farmers licensed to grow poppies for medicines such as morphine and codeine. Government ministers have made conflicting statements about the idea.
16. NEWSBRIEF: CRACKDOWN IN SAO PAULO'S "CRACKLAND" STIRS CRITICISM
    A police crackdown on crack cocaine users and homeless people in the central Sao Paulo area known as Cracolandia has drawn criticism from Brazilian harm reduction groups.
17. MEDIA SCAN
    Tony Papa on Artists Against the Drug War for Alternet, Slate on the WTO and Marijuana Laws, UK Overdosing on Opiates Article
18. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
19. MAPS BENEFIT AUCTION
    The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is hosting an online benefit auction this week on E-Bay.
20. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #378 -- 3/11/05

1. BUSY WEEK: CAMPAIGN FOR REPEAL OF HEA DRUG PROVISION ON THE "RISE"
   The campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act's anti-drug provision got a boost this week, with a record number of starting cosponsors on a repeal bill and eight members of Congress speaking for events Wednesday and Thursday.
2. UN FORUM HIGHLIGHTS DIVIDES OVER HARM REDUCTION -- US POWERFUL BUT ISOLATED
   The United Nations' Commission on Narcotic Drugs meeting this week in Vienna became the latest battleground in an effort led by the United States to de-legitimize harm reduction strategies in general and needle exchange programs in particular.
3. POLICE AND NEEDLE EXCHANGES: THE PHILADELPHIA STORY AND BEYOND
   An effort by Philadelphia police to crack down on the city's illicit drug markets has had an unintended undermining impact on the city's needle exchange programs.
4. HOWARD RIDES AGAIN: FORMER TEXAS LAWMAN RIDING CROSS COUNTRY ON HORSEBACK TO EXPLAIN WHY COPS SAY LEGALIZE DRUGS
   Texas lawman Howard Wooldridge and his horse Misty are riding across the United States, explaining the message on his t-shirt: "Cops Say Legalize Drugs: Ask Me Why."
5. DRCNET INTERVIEWS DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ETHAN NADELMANN ON REACHING OUT TO THE RIGHT
   It must have seemed surreal to see Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann appearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington earlier this month. Nadelmann spoke with Drug War Chronicle this week on reformers reaching out to the right.
6. COASTERS TO STOP THE DRUG WAR
   Order DRCNet's new Stop The Drug War coasters -- and enjoy your favorite beverages while talking about prohibition.
7. NEWSBRIEF: FEDERAL PROSECUTORS ASK LIFE SENTENCE FOR DR. HURWITZ
   Federal prosecutors are seeking to send nationally-known Virginia pain specialist Dr. William Hurwitz to prison for life. But others see him as a humane, life-saving physician.
8. NEWSBRIEF: MOUNTIE MURDERS SHIFT CANADA MARIJUANA DEBATE RIGHTWARD EVEN THOUGH GROW-UP LINK TENUOUS
   When James Roszko shot and killed four Royal Canadian Mounted Police at his rural Alberta farm last week, he may also have fatally wounded prospects for that country to move beyond limited marijuana law reform.
9. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's the usual motley assortment again this week: Small time dishonesty in Texas, enterprising jailers in Tennessee, and a cop with a bad habit in Minnesota.
10. NEWSBRIEF: IN COLORADO FIRST, DENVER POLICE RETURN MARIJUANA TO PATIENT
    On March 4, medical marijuana patient Thomas Lawrence made Colorado history as the Denver Police Department returned to him a bag of marijuana it had seized during a January 11 traffic stop.
11. NEWSBRIEF: PERUVIAN FIRST LADY DEFENDS COCA
    In a February 22 speech at George Washington University in Washington, DC, Peruvian first lady Elaine Karp said that coca cannot be stamped out because its use is deeply rooted in Andean cultures. And, it's good for you.
12. NEWSBRIEF: LOCAL AUTHORITIES TRYING TO BAN MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH IN LONDON NEIGHBORHOOD
    The Annual Cannabis March and Festival in the London neighborhood of Brixton is in danger of being banned by local authorities. But former organizers of the event have already disavowed any connection with it.
13. NEWSBRIEF: DUTCH COFFEE SHOPS FACING PRESSURE, GREATER CONTROLS
    For the past three decades, Amsterdam has been Mecca for marijuana connoisseurs and advocates of regulated cannabis sales and use. That may be changing -- or it may not.
14. EVENTS AND CONFERENCES COMING UP FOR DRUG REFORMERS -- COME OUT AND BE A PART OF IT
    Events and conferences are coming up around the country -- come out and get to know the people in the movement!
15. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #377 -- 3/4/05

1. THE IGNORANCE AND THE DAMAGE DONE
   Two weeks ago DRCNet reported on Rep. Mark Souder's hearing and the international attack on harm reduction it presaged. While some anti-harm reductionists like to borrow Neil Young's song title, "The Needle and the Damage Done," globally it is ignorance causing bad policies that is driving up the spread of HIV and AIDS.
2. INTERNATIONAL HARM REDUCTION BATTLE HEATING UP
   The Bush administration's attack on harm reduction internationally has gone into high gear -- and so have harm reduction supporters.
3. NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY TAKING LUMPS FROM ALL SIDES
   US drug czar John Walters unveiled the country's 2005 National Drug Control Strategy last week, only to run into criticism from unexpected quarters and research findings that contradicted some of its primary planks.
4. UNDER NEW SOUTH DAKOTA ANTI-METH LAW, DRUG USE EQUALS CHILD ABUSE
   A bill passed last week by the South Dakota legislature as an anti-methamphetamine measure defines use or distribution of ANY hard drug in a location where children are present as child abuse. Under civil law that means the state can take people's children away from them.
5. DRCNET NEEDS YOU TO WRITE THE SENATE
   A misguided law written by arch-drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder has taken financial aid for college away from more than 160,500 would-be students because of drug convictions. A House bill to repeal the law will be reintroduced next week. Your help is needed to get one in the Senate.
6. DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE REP. JOHN CONYERS AND KEMBA SMITH, MARCH 9 IN WASHINGTON, DC
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the second stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
7. COASTERS TO STOP THE DRUG WAR
   Order DRCNet's new Stop The Drug War coasters -- and enjoy your favorite beverages while talking about prohibition.
8. EVENTS AND CONFERENCES COMING UP FOR DRUG REFORMERS -- COME OUT AND BE A PART OF IT
   Events and conferences are coming up around the country -- come out and get to know the people in the movement!
9. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week has been a quiet one on the police corruption beat. We go on nevertheless, not so much with corrupt cops as with cops on dope.
10. NEWSBRIEF: FOUR CANADIAN MOUNTIES KILLED RAIDING MARIJUANA GROW
    In a bloody incident certain to raise the decibel level as Canada grapples with marijuana law reform, four members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were shot to death Thursday morning as they investigated a marijuana grow in remote northwestern Alberta.
11. NEWSBRIEF: LEGALIZE IT, SAYS BUSINESS WEEK COLUMNIST
    In a Monday column for the Internet version of Business Week, contributing economics editor Christopher Farrell called for legalizing currently illicit drugs and taxing them at very high rates.
12. NEWSBRIEF: WASHINGTON STATE DRUG REFORM COALITION LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN
    A coalition of Washington state professional and civic groups led by the King County Bar Association officially kicked off its campaign for alternatives to drug prohibition with a Seattle news conference Thursday.
13. NEWSBRIEF: TEXAS RACIAL PROFILING STUDY FINDS NO PROGRESS, CALLS FOR BAN ON CONSENT SEARCHES
    Nearly four years after the Texas legislature enacted legislation to track racial profiling, a study has found that blacks and Hispanics continue to be stopped and searched at higher rates than whites.
14. NEWSBRIEF: ARKANSAS BILL THAT WOULD HAVE CUT METHAMPHETAMINE SENTENCES DEFEATED
    DRCNet reported a month ago on the progress of an Arkansas bill that would have reduced sentences for some methamphetamine offenders. It was too good to be true.
15. NEWSBRIEF: UTAH TREATMENT NOT JAIL BILL DYING FOR LACK OF FUNDING
    Proposed legislation in Utah to divert drug offenders from prison to drug treatment appears to have been mortally wounded by legislators' refusal to spend $6 million to fund the program.
16. NEWSBRIEF: COLOMBIA GUERRILLAS DEMAND RETURN OF COMMANDER EXTRADITED TO US
    Colombia's leftist rebel army, the 17,000-strong FARC, is demanding the release by the US of one of its top commanders as a condition for the release of 63 hostages it is holding, including three American mercenaries and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.
17. NEWSBRIEF: BRITISH OPPOSITION PROMISES TOUGH NEW DRUG WAR IF ELECTED
    As British Conservatives gear up for elections in May, they are staking out a tough anti-drug position. So is Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labor Party.
18. NEWSBRIEF: AS BRITISH PARTIES EMBRACE STUDENT DRUG TESTING, RESEARCH REPORT FLASHES CAUTION LIGHT
    With British Conservatives and Laborites busily embracing random student drug testing as they vie to out-tough each other on drug and crimes issues ahead of looming parliamentary elections, a respected think-tank has released on report challenging both the efficacy and the ethics of testing school kids for drugs.
19. NEWSBRIEF: "THE MARIJUANA-LOGUES" TOUR CANCELLED AFTER PAROLE OFFICER FORCES TOMMY CHONG TO QUIT
    The touring show of "The Marijuana-Logues," which has been wowing stoner audiences off-Broadway for a year, has been canceled because star Tommy Chong's parole officer was threatening to send him back to prison.
20. A DRUG WAR CAROL NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH AND FRENCH
    The comic book-style Dickens parody/drug war critique is now online in two more languages.
21. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
22. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #376 -- 2/25/05

1. EDITORIAL: PROOF
   Years after candidate George Bush's non-answers to questions about his possible drug past fueled controversy and a sense that he indeed had such a past, proof for some of it at least has at last emerged. On one level, it's not very important. On other levels, the proof after all these years raises some important philosophical issues.
2. CAMPAIGN AGAINST "SOUDER'S LAW" PROGRESSES FORWARD AND OUTWARD IN DC AND THE STATES
   The campaign to repeal the Higher Education Act's (HEA) drug provision -- the brainchild of arch-drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder -- continues to pick up steam.
3. OHIO DRUGGED DRIVING BILL HITS SPEED BUMPS IN HOUSE AFTER QUICK SENATE APPROVAL
   A bill that would define drivers as impaired if certain set quantities of illicit drugs or their metabolites are detected in their blood or urine sailed through the Ohio Senate last week, but may have been knocked off course this week in the House as opponents mobilized to amend or defeat it.
4. MEDICAL MARIJUANA AT THE STATEHOUSE 2005 -- AN OVERVIEW OF PROGRESS SO FAR
   With medical marijuana already approved directly by voters in eight states and by the legislative process in three more, the push for medical marijuana in state legislatures is well underway this year.
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEWS: "DRUGS AND DEMOCRACY" AND "DANGEROUS HARVESTS"
   Two complementary collections of essays on drug crops and the drug war have different aims and focuses, but between them readers will find a wealth of information on drug production, drug prohibition, and their impact on producers and producer nations not usually found in an easily accessible fashion.
6. DRCNET/PERRY FUND EVENT TO FEATURE REP. JOHN CONYERS AND KEMBA SMITH, MARCH 9 IN WASHINGTON, DC
   Please join DRCNet and the Perry Fund for the second stop in our national tour raising money for student scholarships and awareness of a bad law.
7. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week there are new developments in a pair of nasty stories previously mentioned here, as well as a motley collection of cops and prosecutors who probably don't qualify as corrupt, but who have the sort of bad habits for which they usually arrest or prosecute others.
8. NEWSBRIEF: BUSH ALL BUT ADMITTED PAST DRUG USE IN SECRETLY RECORDED TAPES
   In conversations with a friend who secretly recorded his comments, President Bush all but admitted to having a past history of drug use. The tapes were released late last week.
9. NEWSBRIEF: PUSHING NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY, DRUG CZAR CALLS FOR DRUG WAR TO EMULATE TERROR WAR
   On the eve of Wednesday's official release of the 2005 National Drug Control Strategy, drug czar John Walters told Reuters the US should employ some of the techniques it uses in the "war on terror" to the war on drugs.
10. NEWSBRIEF: PARENTS MORE CHILL ABOUT TEEN DRUG USE, STUDY FRETS
    Barely half of today's parents would be upset if they caught their teens experimenting with marijuana, according to an annual survey released Tuesday. That has the Partnership for a Drug-Free America worried.
11. NEWSBRIEF: IN LATEST BORDER KILLING, AGENT SHOOTS UNARMED MARIJUANA MULE
    The FBI and Arizona local authorities are investigating an incident in which a US Border Patrol agent shot and killed an unarmed Mexican man who was part of a group backpacking marijuana across the border. It is only the latest incident of Border Patrol agents wounding or killing unarmed Mexican immigrants.
12. NEWSBRIEF: MORE METH MADNESS -- IOWA SCHOOL DISTRICT TO BAN HOMEMADE GOODIES FOR FEAR OF CRANK CONTAMINATION
    The superintendent of Iowa's rural Mount Pleasant School District is set to recommend that the school board bar children from bringing homemade treats to share with other students at school events out of fear the cakes and cookies could contain methamphetamine.
13. NEWSBRIEF: MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION TO BE DEBATED AT CANADIAN LIBERAL PARTY MEET
    The Canadian parliament is already debating a bill from the ruling Liberal Party to decriminalize marijuana possession. But in a sign of discontent with halfway measures, party delegates from Alberta have crafted a resolution calling for the legalization and taxation of the country's booming marijuana trade.
14. NEWSBRIEF: SINGAPORE'S FIRST-EVER COCAINE BUST PROMPTS AD CAMPAIGN AIMED AT ELITE
    Officials in Singapore are targeting the rich and the powerful in an anti-drug media campaign after more than a dozen members of the puritanical city-state's glitterati were rounded up in the nation's first cocaine bust.
15. NEWSBRIEF: COUNTERCULTURE ICON HUNTER THOMPSON DEAD BY HIS OWN HAND
    Author, provocateur, prodigious drug-taker and rabble-rouser Hunter Thompson's savage journey through life came to an end last Saturday when he committed suicide at his long-time home in the mountains outside Aspen, Colorado.
16. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. JOB OPENINGS WITH MPP NEVADA CAMPAIGN, AND OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
    A host of new work opportunities in the movement have just opened up.
18. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #375 -- 2/18/05

1. SOUDER CIRCUS: COMMITTEE HEAD ATTACKS HARM REDUCTION AND ITS ADVOCATES IN HEARING, HINTS AT INTERNATIONAL CRACKDOWN -- REFORMERS MAKE STRONG SHOWING
   Leading congressional drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder has been waging his own war against harm reduction programs like needle exchange. But reformers made an unexpectedly strong showing during a four-hour hearing he had hoped would discredit them.
2. BUSH DRUG BUDGET PLACES DRUG CZAR IN HOT SEAT BEFORE CONGRESS
   With a deficit-riddled budget geared to national defense and homeland security, even the war on drugs is no longer sacrosanct.
3. ILLINOIS MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL STYMIED BY DRUG CZAR APPEARANCE -- FOR NOW
   A bruising battle over medical marijuana legislation in the Illinois House took a surprise -- and disappointing -- turn Thursday. But the setback may be only temporary.
4. BASEBALL ON DRUGS: BATTERED BY SCANDAL, THE MAJOR LEAGUES EMBRACE DRUG TESTING
   Under media and government pressure, Major League Baseball is preparing to announce a new drug testing agreement by March 1.
5. BLOGGING: REUTERS PIECE QUESTIONS VALIDITY OF MEXICAN DRUG WAR BUT FAILS TO POINT OUT THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF LEGALIZATION
   A growing chorus of Mexican drug trafficking experts have pointed out how the Fox administration's war against the cartels has increased violence.
6. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COP STORIES
   A relatively slow week by recent standards, with only three cases worthy of mention -- from Texas, Kentucky and Iowa, two of them unresolved.
7. NEWSBRIEF: BUSH ADMINISTRATION APPEALS RULING ALLOWING RELIGIOUS AYAHUASCA USE
   In one of his first acts as US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales has asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a series of federal court rulings allowing a New Mexico church to use an hallucinogenic tea known as ayahuasca in its rituals.
8. NEWSBRIEF: CALIFORNIA MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS SUE SCHWARZENEGGER, HIGHWAY PATROL OVER POT SEIZURES
   A medical marijuana defense group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Highway Patrol on behalf on medical marijuana patients in the Golden State. Their target: a CHP policy of confiscating even medical marijuana found during traffic stops.
9. NEWSBRIEF: MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILLS DOA IN IOWA, SOUTH DAKOTA -- IOWA SUPREME COURT ADDS INSULT TO INJURY
   Iowa and South Dakota have quickly become the first states to reject medical marijuana this year. Similar legislation will soon be put to the test in as many as 20 states.
10. NEWSBRIEF: ILLINOIS BILL WOULD REQUIRE DRUG TESTS FOR TEEN DRIVERS, TOUTED AS ANTI-METHAMPHETAMINE MEASURE
    Illinois state Rep. Roger Eddy (R-Hutsonville) this week introduced a bill that would require all Illinois high school students to pass a drug test before they could receive their drivers' permits. Though Eddy touted it as a means of squelching methamphetamine use, the measure is much more likely to ensnare teenager marijuana smokers.
11. NEWSBRIEF: DEA HEAD URGES FATWAS AGAINST DRUGS IN PAKISTAN
    Who knew that DEA administrator Karen Tandy was an Islamic religious scholar?
12. NEWSBRIEF: NEW RESEARCH SUGGESTS STUDENT DRUG USE SURVEYS MISS THE MARK
    A review of three decades of youth drug use surveys suggests they are not an efficacious measure of student well-being.
13. NEWSBRIEF: HEARTLAND HYSTERIA -- BAG OF DIRT GETS FIRST GRADER PUNISHED AS DOPER
    When implemented robotically by overzealous police and school officials entranced by the doctrine of "zero tolerance," drug prohibition's totalitarian tendencies produce results that would be laughable if they were not such a sad reflection on the society that produced them.
14. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
15. SSDP SEEKING CONTACTS IN MAINE FOR MARCH CAMPAIGN
    Students for Sensible Drug Policy is seeking contacts in the state of Maine to help repeal the first federal drug law in 35 years.
16. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #374 -- 2/11/05

1. EDITORIAL: A CAUTIOUS FIRST STEP
   The northern North Americans in Canada are taking another cautious step for drug policy reform. The stakes -- saving a generation of heroin addicts.
2. FIRST NORTH AMERICAN HEROIN MAINTENANCE STUDY NOW UNDERWAY IN VANCOUVER
   Hard-core heroin users began lining up this week in Vancouver to participate in a pioneering study where researchers will provide them with free heroin.
3. DRCNET INTERVIEW: MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT DIRECTOR ROB KAMPIA
   Rob Kampia and Chuck Thomas split with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws to form the Marijuana Policy Project in 1995. DRCNet spoke Tuesday with Kampia, the organization's executive director, to look back at where the group and the movement has been and forward at what comes next.
4. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: "IT'S JUST A PLANT," BY RICARDO CORTES (2005, MAGIC PROPAGANDA MILL, $17.95 HB)
   This beautifully illustrated children's story about marijuana provides a sober, thoughtful, and non-propagandistic treatment of the issue for curious children and nervous parents.
5. DRUG WAR CHRONICLE'S PHIL SMITH FEATURED IN NEW BOOK -- "UNDER THE INFLUENCE" AVAILABLE AS DRCNET PREMIUM
   Drug War Chronicle needs your support to do things right in 2005 -- donate and get a complimentary copy of the book "Under The Influence," including two chapters by Chronicle editor Phil Smith!
6. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   This week we revisit a pair of stories on which we previously reported, examine a pair of marginally corrupt cases, one involving a police narc and one involving a prosecutor, and look at one absolutely hideous example of corrupt and thuggish policing of the foulest sort.
7. NEWSBRIEF: MEMPHIS TAXPAYERS TO PAY BIG TIME FOR POLICE DRUG RAID KILLING
   The good burghers of Memphis are about to make a big pay-out for the behavior of their police in a 2002 drug raid gone bad.
8. NEWSBRIEF: BUSH BUDGET SLASHES FUNDS FOR LOCAL POLICE, INCREASES DEA FUNDING
   In a 2006 federal budget proposal marked by hefty increases for the Pentagon and the State Department and belt-tightening for almost everyone else, even spending for police is on the chopping block. But not for the DEA.
9. NEWSBRIEF: WHAT METH EPIDEMIC? NATIONAL SURVEY SHOWS AMPHETAMINE USE UNCHANGED FROM YEAR EARLIER
   About 1.2 million people reported using methamphetamine or prescription stimulants for non-medical reasons in 2003, according to the government's annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health -- a number virtually unchanged from the 2002. With meth use seemingly leveled off, one might ask, what meth epidemic?
10. NEWSBRIEF: DEATH SQUAD KILLINGS SPIKE UPWARD IN DAVAO
    The human rights component of a joint training exercise between US and Philippine agencies has yet to sink in, with summary executions in Davao spiking upward at 45 last week. Calls for an investigation are growing.
11. NEWSBRIEF: INDIAN GOVERNMENT BLINKS IN FACE OF THREATENED DRUG SHORTAGE
    India's pharmaceutical industry, trade associations, and retail pharmacists have given consumers three more weeks of access to prescription drugs ranging from Valium to morphine and beyond, as the government promises to look into a campaign of arrests and harassment by the country's zealous Narcotics Control Board.
12. NEWSBRIEF: MARIJUANA REFORM UNDER ATTACK IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA
    As elections loom in Western Australia, the Labor government of Premier Geoff Gallop is under broad attack for its liberalization of marijuana laws in the state.
13. NEWSBRIEF: BOB MARLEY BIRTHDAY BASH IN ADDIS ABABA COMES OFF WITHOUT A HITCH
    Despite warnings last week from the US State Department that Ethiopia has strict drug laws and would be practicing heavy security during the annual Bob Marley Foundation festival in Addis Ababa, Sunday's concert went off without a hitch for the hundreds of thousands in attendance.
14. NEWSBRIEF: LONDON POLICE CHIEF RAMPS UP RHETORICAL WAR ON MIDDLE-CLASS COCAINE USE
    Incoming London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair continued his campaign of verbal promises to go after recreational cocaine users for a second week.
15. WEB SCAN: DEBRA SAUNDERS, DRUG WAR CAROL, DPA WEB CHAT, DRUG TRUTH RADIO
    Drug reform to check out in mainstream and alternative media and on the web.
16. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. ERRATA: METH BILL SPONSOR
    Correction to January 28th methamphetamine "CLEAN UP Act" story.
18. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #373 -- 2/4/05

1. DRUG WAR CHRONICLE'S PHIL SMITH FEATURED IN NEW BOOK -- "UNDER THE INFLUENCE" AVAILABLE AS DRCNET PREMIUM
   Drug War Chronicle needs your support to do things right in 2005 -- donate and get a complimentary copy of the book "Under The Influence," including two chapters by Chronicle editor Phil Smith!
2. EDITORIAL: DEA HAS STEPPED IN IT THIS TIME
   A letter from the National Association of Attorneys General to DEA chief Karen Tandy took the agency to task for their withdrawal of its pain treatment FAQ. When a majority of state attorneys general want to meet with the DEA chief in person to tell her she's wrong, DEA has clearly "stepped in it."
3. "NOT YOUR FATHER'S MARIJUANA" CANARD AGAIN EXPOSED -- THIS TIME BY DEA
   The refrain is familiar: The marijuana of today is worthy of increased concern because it is so much more potent than the pot smoked by the hippies of yore. But this particular myth has again been essentially debunked -- this time by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
4. NEVER SAY DIE: NEVADA MARIJUANA REGULATION INITIATIVE IS BACK AFTER FAVORABLE FEDERAL COURT RULING
   The turbulent efforts to bring marijuana within the control of law in Nevada have taken an upturn, with a favorable court ruling sending the campaign's language to the legislature and voters.
5. DRCNET INTERVIEW: ROGER GOODMAN, KING COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION DRUG POLICY PROJECT
   In a groundbreaking resolution adopted January 19, Washington state's King County Bar Association effectively declared war on drug prohibition. Drug War Chronicle spoke with the head of KCBA's drug policy project this week.
6. BLOGGING: MOBILE, ALABAMA POLICE CHIEF STUCK "INSIDE THE BOX" OVER CITY'S RISING DRUG TRADE VIOLENCE, AND MORE
   This week DRCNet's "Prohibition in the Media" blog highlighted rising violence in a southern city and a State Department travel advisory over violence on the US-Mexico border.
7. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   There must be a bad moon rising out in cop country: There has been a serious outbreak of corruption cases, drug-smuggling prison guards, and cops gone to pot across the country.
8. NEWSBRIEF: DEA PAIN FAQ RETRACT FLAP FALLOUT CONTINUES -- CRITICISM COMES FROM UNEXPECTED DIRECTION AS AGENCY SEEKS COMMENTS
   Controversy over the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) mysterious vanishing guidance to physicians and law enforcers about what constituted permissible opioid prescribing practices for the treatment of pain -- the pain FAQ -- continues, this time with criticism of the agency coming from a most unexpected quarter: the nation's state attorneys general.
9. NEWSBRIEF: HEA REPEAL PICKING UP STEAM -- CONGRESSIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE, ARIZONA LEGISLATORS URGE RESCINDING OF SOUDER'S LAW
   The broad-based effort to repeal the Higher Education Act drug provision has gained new support in recent weeks, with a congressionally-appointed committee calling for effective repeal of the provision and a bipartisan group of Arizona legislators introducing a resolution to the same effect.
10. NEWSBRIEF: DEA MUST PAY HEMP INDUSTRY PLAINTIFF'S LEGAL BILLS, COURT RULES
    A court has found that the US Drug Enforcement Administration's position attempting to ban foods containing non-psychoactive hemp was not "substantially justified." That means that DEA must reimburse Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps more than $20,000 in legal bills the company accrued as it financed the Hemp Industry Association's defense of their industry.
11. NEWSBRIEF: INDIANA OFFICIAL CALLS FOR NATIONAL AGENCY TO PROVIDE DRUGS TO ADDICTS
    The president of Indiana's Lake County Board of Commissioners has called for a form of drug maintenance therapy for hard-core addicts in an open letter to his local newspaper and state and federal officials.
12. NEWSBRIEF: IN SWAN SONG, ASHCROFT CALLS FOR HARSHER SENTENCES, CHASTIZES FOES
    During his term as the nation's top law man, US Attorney General John Ashcroft was a relentless advocate of "tough on crime" policies. In a Tuesday speech that may well be his swan song, Ashcroft was still talking that old time religion.
13. NEWSBRIEF: MAN BITES DOG! ARKANSAS BILL TO LOWER METH SENTENCES MOVES FORWARD
    Across the land, lawmakers are scurrying to pass laws to fight the "scourge" of methamphetamine. But in Arkansas this week, legislators headed in a different direction.
14. NEWSBRIEF: LONDON TOP COP WARNS HE WILL TARGET CASUAL COCAINE USERS
    London's new top police official, Sir Ian Blair, took over as Metropolitan Police Commissioner Tuesday and wasted no time in announcing a war on casual cocaine users in the city.
15. NEWSBRIEF: BELGIAN CANNABIS CLARIFICATION NOW IN EFFECT
    Belgium passed a law decriminalizing the personal possession of marijuana under most circumstances in January 2003, but parts of that law have been in limbo since October. This week the Ministry of Justice and the Public Prosecutor's Office moved to clarify the situation.
16. NEWSBRIEF: SPANISH PHARMACIES TO BEGIN SELLING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
    Some 60 pharmacies in Spain's Catalonia region are set to begin dispensing medical marijuana, under a pilot program set to get underway before the end of April
17. NEWSBRIEF: SAFE INJECTION SITE OPENS IN OSLO
    Even in staunchly prohibitionist Scandinavia, harm reduction measures are hard to resist: After years of indecision by Norwegian and city of Oslo authorities, a safe injection site in Norway's capital city is now open.
18. NEWSBRIEF: RASTAS, WATCH OUT AT ETHIOPIAN MARLEY FEST, STATE DEPARTMENT WARNS
    Two weeks of festivities in Ethiopia will mark the 60th anniversary of reggae superstar Bob Marley's birth. The US State Department is giving a heads up to travelers who may be thinking about emulating his spliff-puffing ways while they are there.
19. NEWSBRIEF: INDIA NARCS SET OFF PRESCRIPTION DRUG PANIC
    Raids on pharmaceutical wholesalers and retailers by India's Narcotics Control Bureau have prompted the industry to stop accepting shipments of a wide variety of prescription drugs regulated under the nation's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. Will the Indian government blink?
20. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
21. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #372 -- 1/28/05

1. DRUG WAR CHRONICLE NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT IN 2005
   Thanks to your enthusiasm, Drug War Chronicle has completed 7 ½ years of publishing. 2005 is going to be an exciting and important year in drug reporting, but we need your support to be able to do it right.
2. EDITORIAL: EXTREME AND MORE EXTREME
   Extreme and more drug war tactics in the US and abroad violate human rights and are cause for outrage.
3. US TRAINING PHILIPPINE SOLDIERS, COPS IN HOTBED OF ANTI-DRUG DEATH SQUAD ACTIVITY
   The Philippines has embarked on a loudly proclaimed war on drugs and drug users, but unlike nearby Thailand has delegated its extrajudicial killings to shadowy death squads. Now, the US military and DEA and working hand in glove with their Filipino counterparts in the very city most closely tied to the rampage.
4. TIP OF THE ICEBERG: POLICE PERJURY GOES FAR BEYOND TOM COLEMAN
   One of the final chapters in the Tulia scandal was written two weeks ago when undercover police officer Tom Coleman was convicted of perjury after a sting that sent more than three dozen black residents of the small Texas panhandle town to prison. While the usual suspects were quick to crow that Coleman's conviction showed that "the system works," members of the defense bar, judges, former prosecutors, and academics argue persuasively that Coleman's lying was not an aberration.
5. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   From Tennessee to New Mexico to California to Massachusetts, drug prohibition generates an endless stream of individual law enforcers who succumb to the allure of easy profits.
6. BLOGGING: NEWS STREAM CONTINUES TO ILLUSTRATE FUTILITY OF PROHIBITION AND THE URGENT NEED FOR SOME FORM OF LEGALIZATION
   Overdoses in Austin and a "drug house" slaying were only two of prohibition's tragedies this week. DRCNet's "Prohibition in the Media" blog explains the unspoken truths within mainstream media drug coverage on an ongoing basis.
7. NEWSBRIEF: POLICE USE FLASH BANG GRENADE IN MARIJUANA RAID, INJURE INNOCENT WOMAN -- DRCNET MENTIONED
   Police in Niagara Falls, NY, are under fire after a flash bang grenade thrown into an apartment during a marijuana raid last week left a local woman hospitalized with serious burns. Neighbors and critics have decried the tactic as reckless.
8. NEWSBRIEF: SUPREME COURT ALLOWS DRUG DOG VEHICLE SEARCHES WITHOUT CAUSE
   The Supreme Court has once again expanded the ability of police to conduct warrantless searches, this time okaying the use of drug-sniffing dogs to check motorists detained for traffic violations even when police have no reason to suspect they have committed a crime. Dissenters see the opinion potentially leading to widespread drug dog sweeps of sidewalks and parking lots.
9. NEWSBRIEF: IN SENTENCING RULING FALLOUT, SUPREME COURT ORDERS REVIEW OF FEDERAL SENTENCES FOR HUNDREDS OF PRISONERS
   The Supreme Court Monday instructed federal courts to review the sentences of nearly 400 prisoners who contended they were wrongly punished under federal sentencing guidelines that the Supreme Court declared invalid on January 12.
10. NEWSBRIEF: US BACKS OFF FROM AFGHAN AERIAL SPRAYING AS ANTI-OPIUM "JIHAD" GETS UNDERWAY
    The United States will not resort to the aerial spraying of herbicides as part of its effort to suppress the Afghan opium crop -- at least for now.
11. NEWSBRIEF: US PRESSURES UN DRUG OFFICE TO OPPOSE HARM REDUCTION LANGUAGE, UN SAYS OKAY
    Last November the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sent a letter to a high-level US anti-drug official promising to stop talking about "harm reduction." A European NGO coalition released the letter this week.
12. NEWSBRIEF: JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ENDS APPEAL OF RULING THROWING OUT BAN ON TRANSIT ADS FOR MARIJUANA LAW REFORM
    The Justice Department gave up this week on efforts to keep alive a congressionally-imposed ban on marijuana advocacy ads on mass transit systems.
13. NEWSBRIEF: ALASKA GOVERNOR SEEKS TO OVERTURN LEGAL HOME MARIJUANA POSSESSION
    In the latest effort to override the state constitution, Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski has asked the state legislature to ignore two Alaska Supreme Court rulings and re-criminalize home marijuana possession. While he's at it, Murkowski wants to increase some current marijuana misdemeanors to felonies.
14. NEWSBRIEF: METH I -- NEW SENATE METHAMPHETAMINE BILL WOULD LIMIT COLD PILL SALES NATIONWIDE
    Last week DRCNet reported on ongoing efforts in the states to restrict the sales of popular over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine, chemicals used by home meth lab cooks as part of popular speed-cooking recipes. Now, ten US senators, led by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, are leading an effort to make such restrictions nationwide under federal law. American cold sufferers, beware!
15. NEWSBRIEF: METH II -- FEDERAL CLEAN-UP ACT CLEANED UP -- PROVISION DESIGNED TO PUNISH MUSIC VENUES DROPPED
    Reformers last year prevented a methamphetamine bill that included an "anti-rave" provision from making it to a vote. This year the provision is absent from the legislation.
16. NEWSBRIEF: METH III -- KANSAS SHERIFF KILLED IN CONFRONTATION AT METHAMPHETAMINE LAB
    Kansas Sheriff Matt Samuels was shot and killed January 19 as he attempted to arrest a parole violator who was cooking methamphetamine at a home lab in the northeast part of his county. His shooter was arrested after a seven hour standoff, and prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty.
17. NEWSBRIEF: LONDON AUTHORITIES GRUMBLE ONE YEAR INTO CANNABIS RECLASSIFICATION
    A year ago this month the British government downgraded the criminal status of marijuana, causing arrests to drop by a third and thousands of police man hours to be saved. But some London officials are grumbling that the relaxation in the cannabis law has led some to think the stuff is now legal -- it is not -- and to the pervasive stench of pot fumes on London streets.
18. NEWSBRIEF: JAPAN TO MOVE TO OUTLAW DESIGNER DRUGS
    A little more than two years ago, the Japanese government slammed shut a loophole in the law that allowed for the sale and consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms, citing public health concerns. Now the government has set its sights on designer drugs, too.
19. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
20. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #371 -- 1/21/05

1. EDITORIAL: UNFORTUNATE BEDFELLOWS
   The US government in its drug policy has aligned less with its allies of the free world and more with those nations where democracy, human rights, and rule of law are weak.
2. FOLLOWING OKLAHOMA'S LEAD, STATES TARGET COLD REMEDIES IN FIGHT AGAINST METHAMPHETAMINE
   Across the Midwest and from Montana to Mississippi, lawmakers and law enforcement are making a concerted push this year to restrict consumer access to legal over-the-counter cold and allergy medications such as Sudafed.
3. MEXICAN STAND-OFF: GOVERNMENT SENDS IN TANKS, SOLDIERS IN EFFORT TO RETAKE PRISONS FROM NARCOS
   The scene at Mexico's main maximum security prison was slightly surreal this week, as army tanks and soldiers and prisoner family members gathered outside the walls in a standoff.
4. BLOGGING: A STUNNING ADMISSION BY BALTIMORE POLICE OFFICIALS, AND MORE
   This week "Prohibition in the Media" discusses an insightful article by the Baltimore Sun in which police officials actually admit their strategy has sparked more violence. Also this week, drug trade homicide prosecutions in Michigan, and a dealer rapes a cocaine user in Florida.
5. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   A Texas prosecutor is busted for possession with intent to distribute, and a Detroit cop who gave drugs to users so he could photograph them is convicted for conspiracy and abetting drug delivery. Both could face hard time.
6. NEWSBRIEF: GERMAN SUPREME COURT REJECTS "ZERO TOLERANCE" DRUGGED DRIVING LAW IN CANNABIS CASE
   Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, the highest court in the land, has ruled that tiny traces of THC in a driver's bloodstream are not sufficient to convict him of driving while intoxicated and punish him by revoking his driver's license.
7. NEWSBRIEF: MASS ARRESTS OF DRUG USERS IN IRAN
   Iranian police have arrested more than 50,000 people for drug use in Greater Teheran alone in the past nine months, and thousands more have been arrested in the city of Mashad.
8. NEWSBRIEF: MARIJUANA BILLS FILED -- MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN NEW JERSEY, DECRIMINALIZATION IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
   New Hampshire and New Jersey were first out of the gate with marijuana reform bills this year -- New Jersey's to legalize medical use, New Hampshire's to decriminalize possession and reduce penalties for sales.
9. NEWSBRIEF: RESISTANCE TO METHADONE CLINICS REARS HEAD IN VIRGINIA, WASHINGTON STATE
   Southwest Virginia has been one of the centers of the so-called Oxycontin epidemic in recent years, so one would think people there would be keen to support treatments designed to wean people from the drug. One would be wrong.
10. NEWSBRIEF: KING COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION (SEATTLE) CALLS FOR LEGAL, REGULATED DRUG MARKETS
    In a resolution adopted Wednesday, the King County Bar Association (Seattle) called for "a new framework of state-level regulatory control over psychoactive substances."
11. NEWSBRIEF: TEXAS BILL WOULD BAN DRUG OFFENDERS FROM ENTERING CERTAIN SAN ANTONIO NEIGHBORHOODS
    State Rep. Ruth Jones McLendon has introduced a bill in the Texas legislature that would allow the city of San Antonio to ban anyone arrested for a drug offense from entering certain parts of the city except to go directly home or to work. While McLendon claims it is aimed at drug traffickers, the bill as written would apply to possessors as well -- even before they're convicted.
12. NEWSBRIEF: LAST WEEK'S SUPREME COURT RULING PAYS OFF FOR NEW YORK WOMAN
    Legal scholars remain divided on the ultimate impact of last week's Supreme Court decision in the Booker and Fan Fan cases. But for one New York woman, there is little to debate.
13. NEWSBRIEF: MARTHA STEWART, PRISONER ADVOCATE
    There is nothing like a taste of justice American-style to make even the haughtiest of the hoity-toity start to think about reforming the system.
14. NEWSBRIEF: MPP ASSISTS POOR MONTANA MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS
    In the wake of a successful ballot initiative approving a medical marijuana program in the state of Montana, the Marijuana Policy Project has initiated a fund to assist Big Sky residents with the program's costs.
15. NEWSBRIEF: MAINE ACTIVIST PROVIDING MEDICAL MARIJUANA INDICTED FOR TRAFFICKING AND CULTIVATION
    Prominent Maine marijuana activist Don Christen was indicted Tuesday on two counts of aggravated marijuana trafficking and one count of aggravated cultivation, for his work providing medical marijuana to patients out of his home.
16. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
17. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #370 -- 1/14/05

1. EDITORIAL: MAKE NO MISTAKE
   It is a rare day when an establishment institution such as the US Supreme Court does something radical. Yet the Court has intervened in federal sentencing, and by extension probably in many states' sentencing, in a dramatic fashion. Make no mistake, the fight will start soon.
2. SUPREME COURT ENDS CURRENT FEDERAL SENTENCING SYSTEM
   For nearly 20 years, sentencing guidelines scheme have caused the federal prison population to swell dramatically, with a majority of those prisoners being drug offenders. A Wednesday ruling by the Supreme Court has brought that system to a sudden halt.
3. COURSE REVERSAL: POLAND MOVING FROM "ZERO TOLERANCE" TOWARD EASED DRUG LAWS
   After five years of tough new laws aimed at reducing drug use in Poland, the Polish government appears headed for a change of course.
4. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   Bad apples just keep popping up in this dirty little war on drugs. This week we have examples from Passaic, New Jersey and from the Mexican border, plus justice finally coming around for an infamous cop from Tulia.
5. BLOGGING: JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI COCAINE RING TAKEN DOWN, OUR SIDE COMMENTS ON LEGALIZATION FOR BBC
   This week "Prohibition and the Media" predicts futility for a massive inter-agency cocaine bust in Mississippi, and highlights a commentary on BBC by one of DRCNet's allies.
6. NEWSBRIEF: CLASHES AND CONFLICT AS AFGHAN "JIHAD" AGAINST OPIUM GETS UNDER WAY
   Prodded by the United States, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has begun his promised "jihad" against the nation's mainstay opium crop. Early indications are that there is lots of rough road ahead.
7. NEWSBRIEF: SOUTH DAKOTA LEGISLATORS READY TO REDUCE ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTIES AGAINST STUDENTS CAUGHT WITH DRUGS
   With the state's prison system eating into the budget, the South Dakota legislature convened a Criminal Code Revision Commission to examine changes in the laws. That commission has recommended that the student drug law be revised downward, so that students face only a 60 day suspension -- if they complete drug counseling or treatment.
8. NEWSBRIEF: US TROOPS GO FROM IRAQ COMBAT TO SCOTTISH DRUG TREATMENT
   A Scottish hospital famed for its drug and alcohol treatment of patients from the British National Health Service is now treating US service men and women traumatized by their deployments in Iraq.
9. NEWSBRIEF: MARINES CLAIM FALLUJAH FOES WERE HOPPED UP ON DOPE
   US Marines who fought in the November assault on the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah have reported finding numerous stockpiles of stimulant drugs such as amphetamines and adrenaline. Bizarrely, they also claimed to have found crack pipes, which would presumably be quite rare in a country never known for having a cocaine-using population.
10. NEWSBRIEF: VIOLENT CONSOLIDATION UNDERWAY AMONG MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKING GROUPS
    Amidst horrendous and high profile violence, the number of major drug trafficking organizations in Mexico has shrunk from seven down to two.
11. NEWSBRIEF: BLACK MARKET MARIJUANA FINANCES MAOIST REBELLION, INDIAN OFFICIALS SAY
    Authorities in the eastern Indian state of Orissa are complaining that "huge tracts" of marijuana are being grown to finance the activities of Maoist rebels in the state and neighboring territories. Police have reported discoveries of "massive cultivation" in at least eight villages.
12. NEWSBRIEF: CRACKDOWN ON ECSTASY IN MALAYSIA
    It was a less than happy beginning to the New Year for patrons of the Techno Discotheque in Bandar Sri Damansara, Malaysia, last week as police enforcing a crackdown on the popular club drug Ecstasy arrested 261 of them.
13. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #369 -- 1/7/05

1. EDITORIAL: STOP BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE
   A growing dilemma in Afghanistan is bringing into sharper focus the urgent need for society to enact some form of drug legalization. But legalization or not, opium eradication would be an error of historic proportions.
2. BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S AFGHAN DILEMMA COMING TO A HEAD: PROMOTE STABILITY AND FIGHT TERROR -- OR FIGHT DRUGS?
   The US wants to fight the war on terror against Al Qaeda and the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan -- but also remains formally committed to the drug war and the eradication of the illicit opium poppy crop. The two objectives are fundamentally in conflict, and that gives the Bush administration a big problem.
3. BLACK STATE LEGISLATORS CONDEMN DRUG WAR, SEEK ALTERNATIVES
   The nation's largest organization representing African-American state legislators has condemned the war on drugs and is demanding alternative policies less harmful to black communities.
4. FDA OKAYS SECOND ECSTASY STUDY -- EFFECT ON TERMINAL CANCER PATIENTS TO BE TESTED
   The Food and Drug Administration has approved a pilot study to examine whether MDMA, better known as the popular club drug Ecstasy, can help terminal cancer patients come to grips with end-of-life anxiety and depression.
5. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   It's a mixed bag this week, with one clearly corrupt law enforcer, several who are severely misguided and hypocritical although probably not corrupt, and one truly bizarre tale out of Detroit.
6. BLOG: LEGALIZERS SCORE BIG THIS WEEK
   Work in Syracuse by the group ReconsiDer: Forum on Drug Policy has involved the city council in the issue and prompted a nationally syndicated editorial released by the Washington Post.
7. NEWSBRIEF: DALLAS SCHOOLS USING TRACE SCANNER FOR DRUG DETECTION
   Trace scanners are devices that pick up microscopic traces of substances, and are typically found in airports, where they search for explosives, and prisons, where they are used to detect traces of illegal drugs on visitors. Now, the Dallas Independent School District, which has become the nation's first to use the devices to find drugs and drug users in its classrooms and hallways.
8. NEWSBRIEF: PLUNGING DOLLAR LOSES FAVOR WITH DRUG DEALERS
   The US dollar has long been the world's de facto common currency, but with it declining in value against the Euro and other currencies, it is beginning to lose favor with some cash connoisseurs including global drug dealers, Grant's Interest Rate Observer reported last month.
9. NEWSBRIEF: HAWAII UNIONS AND HOTELS SEE DRUG TESTING FIGHT AHEAD
   With labor contracts at many major Hawaii resorts and hotels set to expire next year, unions and employers alike are gearing up for a major battle over drug testing.
10. NEWSBRIEF: HERE COME THE REVENOORS -- TENNESSEE ILLEGAL DRUG TAX NOW IN EFFECT
    Under a new law that went into effect January 1, the state of Tennessee has begun assessing an excise tax on illegal drugs.
11. MEDIA SCAN
    Neal Peirce and Ted Galen Carpenter on Legalization, Dr. Jane Orient on the Pain Prosecutions, Nation Tony Papa Interview, COHA on Guatemala Drug Trade
12. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
14. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's listings for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #368 -- 12/24/04

1. EDITORIAL: DISCREDITED CONVICTIONS AND THE RULE OF LAW
   Comments to the Washington Post by the Hurwitz jury foreman this week may complete the swift discrediting of the trial. Ultimately, though, the government is still to blame.
2. CONFLICT OVER PAIN MANAGEMENT HEATS UP AS MAINSTREAM MEDICAL GROUPS WAKE UP
   The long-simmering battle between federal drug law enforcers and pain management doctors, patients, and academics over the proper use of opioid pain medications such as Oxycontin is finally turning white hot.
3. IN RUN-UP TO NEW EUROPEAN UNION DRUG STRATEGY, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTS REPORT CRITICAL OF CONTINUED DRUG WAR
   Meeting in Strasbourg on December 15, a plenary session of the European Parliament approved a report on the new European Union (EU) drug strategy that bluntly calls existing EU policy "a failure" and proposes fundamental changes in European drug policy.
4. YOUNG REFORMERS GIVE DRUG CZAR HARD TIME AT MONITORING THE FUTURE PRESS CONFERENCE
   The room temperature rose at the National Press Club Tuesday when young members of drug reform groups posing as reporters asked questions of drug czar John Walters and his clique of co-conspirators.
5. DRCNET BOOK REVIEW: UNDER THE INFLUENCE: THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO DRUGS
   Under the Influence is a sampler kit of drug war essays that brings light to dark corners with energy and commitment. Editor Preston Peet has organized 49 essays into seven categories that take readers on a high-speed tour of drug war zones near and far.
6. LEGALIZATION TALK
   Starting this issue, Drug War Chronicle will each week reprint one or two entries from our Prohibition and the Media blog, as well as let you know about other interesting developments or resources of relevance to the prohibition/legalization debate.
7. NEWSBRIEF: SENIOR CITIZENS SUPPORT MEDICAL MARIJUANA, AARP POLL FINDS
   Nearly three out of four older Americans support legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana, a poll conducted for the American Association of Retired Persons has found.
8. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
   There is no rock 'n' roll, but plenty of sex and drugs in this week's peak at corruption in the drug war.
9. NEWSBRIEF: FROM FEDERAL PRISON, MARTHA STEWART CALLS FOR SENTENCING REFORM
   In an open letter to supporters from the federal prison where she is serving a five-month sentence, home decorating diva Martha Stewart has called for sentencing reform -- especially for nonviolent and drug offenders.
10. NEWSBRIEF: ANACHRONISTIC LAW COULD HAMPER HEMP IN SOUTH AFRICA
    A nascent industrial hemp industry in South Africa appears poised for takeoff except for one small problem: It's illegal.
11. NEWSBRIEF: DUTCH OPEN FIRST RETIREMENT HOME FOR JUNKIES
    The country that brought the world coffee shop weed sales and sensible harm reduction policies is at again -- according to the UK newspaper The Scotsman, the world's first retirement home for drug addicts has opened in Rotterdam, with plans for more on the way.
12. NEWSBRIEF: HUNGARIAN HIGH COURT OVERTURNS DRUG REFORMS
    In a December 13 ruling, Hungary's Constitutional Court restricted the use of diversion to drug treatment for some drug offenders, narrowing the scope of reform legislation enacted in 2003.
13. NEWSBRIEF: INTELLIGENCE BILL YIELDS NEW FEDERAL DRUG FIGHTER POSITION
    The 3,000-page Intelligence Reform Act, passed earlier this month by Congress and quickly signed into law by President Bush, will add a new layer to the federal anti-drug bureaucracy.
14. NEWSBRIEF: FIRST CANNABIS-BASED PRESCRIPTION DRUG WINS PRELIMINARY APPROVAL IN CANADA
    The Canadian government announced Tuesday that a natural marijuana extract, which will be sold under the brand name Sativex, has won preliminary approval to be prescribed as a medicine in Canada.
15. NEWSBRIEF: CANADIAN STUDY TO EXAMINE SAFETY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA
    Even as Canada moves toward becoming the first country to approve the cannabis-based prescription medicine Sativex, Canadian researchers announced Tuesday they are commencing a study of the safety of smoked marijuana as medicine.
16. NEWSBRIEF: ILLINOIS NURSES JOIN GROWING LIST OF NURSING GROUPS SUPPORTING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
    The Illinois Nurses Association has joined at least a dozen state nursing associations and the American Nursing Association in endorsing the use of marijuana as a medicine.
17. MEDIA SCAN
    Reason magazine on the pain wars, Alexander Cockburn on Gary Webb, Faith Under Fire discusses legalization, Grits for Breakfast on the possible abolition of drug task forces in Texas, new Bureau of Justice Statistics report.
18. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
19. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
20. JOB OPPORTUNITY AT MAPS
    The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies is hiring a Membership Services and Communication/Development person for their office in Sarasota, Florida.
21. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
22. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #367 -- 12/17/04

1. EDITORIAL: HE WOULD NOT TORTURE
   This week a heroic doctor was convicted in a court, by a jury that wasn't afforded information they should have had, of charges that should never have been brought, under laws that shouldn't exist. Soon he will be given a prison sentence that any right-thinking person should regard as obscene. His crime was that he would not torture his patients by denying them pain medication.
2. DR. HURWITZ CONVICTED ON 50 COUNTS, FACES LIFE IN PRISON
   Prominent Northern Virginia pain management specialist Dr. William Hurwitz was seen as a savior by his patients, but a federal jury in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday found him guilty of being a drug dealer.
3. DEA BLOCKS PRIVATE MARIJUANA RESEARCH GROW, PATH TO FDA APPROVAL
   The Drug Enforcement Administration has at long last acted on a nearly four-year-old request by an academic researcher to grow marijuana to test it for medical uses -- but only to deny it.
4. DRCNET INTERVIEW: MEMBER OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT PAUL FLYNN
   Vice-chair of the British House of Commons' all-parties drugs group, Labor MP Paul Flynn has been a tireless campaigner for real drug law reform in Great Britain.
5. INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST, "DARK ALLIANCE" AUTHOR GARY WEBB DEAD AT AGE 49
   Gary Webb, the prize-winning former San Jose Mercury News investigative reporter whose series on the "dark alliance" between the CIA and Nicaraguan Contras to import cocaine into the US in the early 1980s ignited a firestorm of controversy, died December 10 an apparent suicide.
6. DRCNET JOINS THE BLOGOSPHERE WITH NEW "PROHIBITION AND THE MEDIA" CRITIQUE
   DRCNet has officially joined the "Prohibition and the Media" will critique mainstream news articles that report on the consequences of prohibition but which (for the most part) offer no mention of prohibition to their readers.
7. NEWSBRIEF: AYAHUASCA CHURCH WINS TEMPORARY VICTORY IN SUPREME COURT
   Members of a New Mexico congregation will have a psychedelic Christmas for the first time in six years thanks to a December 8 US Supreme Court ruling.
8. NEWSBRIEF: NEW JERSEY LAWMAKERS TO ASK COURT TO STOP NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
   After a decade of struggle to legalize needle exchange in New Jersey, outgoing Gov. James McGreevey bypassed a recalcitrant legislature and okayed the practice by executive order last month. Late last week, three legislators vowed to go to court to block McGreevey's order.
9. NEWSBRIEF: REEFER MADNESS THREATENS HAWKEYE STATE, IOWA DRUG CZAR WARNS
   Meth may get all the publicity in the Midwest, but marijuana is a dangerous and escalating threat, Iowa's top drug-fighter warned December 10. "It's not your father's marijuana" was the refrain.
10. NEWSBRIEF: FAMILY FILES $100 MILLION LAWSUIT IN KENNETH WALKER KILLING
    Last week it was reported that the police killers of the unarmed Kenneth Walker a year ago would escape state criminal prosecution. Now, Walker's family has filed a $100 million wrongful death suit naming Muscogee County, County Sheriff Ralph Johnson, and Deputy Glisson as respondents.
11. NEWSBRIEF: ALASKA DISTRICT ATTORNEY TO CHALLENGE 1975 COURT DECISION PROTECTING MARIJUANA POSSESSION BY ADULTS
    The district attorney for the city of Anchorage, at the behest of Gov. Frank Murkowski, is requesting a judge to reexamine a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court ruling that made possession of marijuana by adults inside the home legal, NORML reports.
12. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    Last week, for the first time in ages, we had trouble finding a worthy corrupt cop story. Not to worry -- the drought has broken.
13. NEWSBRIEF: BRITISH GOVERNMENT TRIPPING ON MAGIC MUSHROOM POLICY
    The legal status of psychedelic such in Great Britain is muddied after a recent wave of arrests of mushroom sellers, the Guardian reported this week.
14. NEWSBRIEF: WORLD'S FIRST RANDOM DRUG TEST OF DRIVERS RESULTS IN WORLD'S FIRST RANDOM DRUGGED DRIVER BUST AND THREAT OF WORLD'S FIRST LAWSUIT AGAINST THE PRACTICE
    The world's first program to randomly drug test drivers got underway in the Australian state of Victoria Monday, and it scored its first victim within 15 minutes, according to Australian press reports.
15. NEWSBRIEF: EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS SWAZILAND MARIJUANA CROP FOUNDER ON POVERTY, MEDICAL NEED, UN SAYS
    Smallholder farmers in the southern African nation of Swaziland are ignoring efforts to suppress the marijuana crop because it provides cash income and medicine, according to a report from the United Nations' Integrated Regional Information Networks Monday.
16. NEWSBRIEF: ISLAMIC MILITANTS KILL RUSSIAN DRUG COPS, CLAIM THEY WERE DEALERS
    Islamic militants attacked an office of the Russian anti-drug police Tuesday in the volatile Caucasus region, killing four of them and seizing more than 170 pistols and submachine guns, Reuters reported. According to the attackers, the anti-drug cops were actually a "criminal organization" that was peddling dope and getting the locals strung out.
17. WEB SCAN: AFGHAN POPPIES, EUROPEAN HEP C
    One opinion piece and a drug think tank's new study.
18. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
19. INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AT MPP
    The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has three paid internship openings.
20. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
21. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #366 , 12/10/04

1. THE PERRY FUND AND DRCNET GO TO BOSTON
   Dozens of drug reformers, educators, and concerned citizens with crowded into the Omni Parker House Hotel in downtown Boston Thursday evening to support a scholarship fund for students losing federal financial aid for college because of drug convictions.
2. DRCNET INTERVIEW: WHITNEY TAYLOR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DRUG POLICY FORUM OF MASSACHUSETTS
   At age 34, DPFMA head Whitney Taylor is already a tested veteran of the good fight. Today she shares her past and recent experiences with Drug War Chronicle.
3. NEW YORK LEGISLATORS CUT SOME ROCKEFELLER SENTENCES, BUT REAL REFORM REMAINS ELUSIVE
   After years of inaction, the New York state Rockefeller drug law reform logjam broke this week. But drug reformers and their allies are less than satisfied because the sentencing bill failed to address what they have identified as the failure to address their key concerns.
4. HURWITZ FATE IN HANDS OF JURY
   The trial of Northern Virginia pain management specialist Dr. William Hurwitz wound to an end this week, and Hurwitz' is now in the hands of a federal jury. Federal prosecutors are seeking to send the nationally known doctor to prison for life.
5. REP. SOUDER URGES FDA REVIEW OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA, PROVOKES BATTLE OF THE "DEAR COLLEAGUE" LETTERS ON CAPITOL HILL
   Leading congressional drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) is at it again, this time with a bill to have the federal health bureaucracy do a report and publicity on marijuana's harms but not its benefits. Medical marijuana supporter Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) has responded.
6. NEWSBRIEF: NO JUSTICE FOR KENNETH WALKER -- POLICE SHOOTER NO-BILLED BY GRAND JURY
   On December 10, 2003, the unarmed Kenneth Walker was killed by two shots to the head after being pulled out a vehicle drug agents mistakenly thought was that of a Florida drug dealer. On November 23 a Georgia grand jury refused to indict former Deputy David Glisson for the killing.
7. NEWSBRIEF: CALLING DRUG RAID ON HELL'S ANGELS AN "ATTACK," JUDGE THROWS OUT EVIDENCE
   When Arizona police conducted a pre-dawn raid on a Hell's Angel's clubhouse in Phoenix in July 2003, they knocked at the door, waited six seconds, then tossed a "diversionary" grenade and broke a window at the back of the building. The judge has called it an "attack that violated search and seizure laws, and has thrown out the evidence.
8. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COP STORY
   Either all the bad apples have gone good or the corrupt cops have gotten smarter. This week, for the first time in memory, we suffer a shortage of corrupt cop stories, and the one story we do have barely rises to the level of corruption -- it's more like sheer orneriness and vengeance.
9. NEWSBRIEF: PERUVIAN COCA GROWERS MOBILIZING AGAIN
   Frustrated by the Peruvian government's unwillingness or inability to address their grievances over forced coca eradication, Peruvian coca grower organizations were on the move this week.
10. NEWSBRIEF: HAWAII MEDICAL MARIJUANA ARRESTS SETTLED WITH $30,000 PAY-OUT
    Medical marijuana really is legal in Hawaii, and police on the Big Island have found that out the hard way.
11. NEWSBRIEF: JIMSON WEED NOW ILLEGAL IN OKLAHOMA
    Under a law that was passed in April and went into effect November 1st, the weirdly psychoactive member of the datura family known folklorically for making sheep crazy, is now considered a "synthetic controlled substance," with punishments of up to a year in jail for possession to up to life in prison for distribution.
12. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
13. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
14. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
15. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #365 , 12/3/04

1. DRCNET EVENT: REP. BARNEY FRANK TO KEYNOTE FOR PERRY FUND FORUM/FUNDRAISER, DECEMBER 9, 2004, BOSTON
   One of Congress's leading champions of drug law reform will address a forum/fundraiser benefiting the John W. Perry Fund, providing scholarships to students who have lost their college aid because of drug convictions.
2. DEA RETRACTION OF PAIN FAQ ANGERS, SCARES DOCTORS AND PATIENTS
   The DEA has released a document attempting to justify its reasons for retracting a document on pain management and diversion enforcement. Their collaborators in medicine have released a response tearing DEA's claims to shreds and expressing grave concern for the move's impact on pain management.
3. HURWITZ TRIAL UPDATE AND CALL FOR SUPPORT
   The prosecution has rested its case against Dr. Hurwitz. Frank Fisher provides an update on a major prosecution failure and the defense's first day, while the Pain Relief Network asks supporters in the DC area to come out Monday when Hurwitz takes the stand himself.
4. RAICH CASE AS MUCH ABOUT FEDERALISM AS ABOUT MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   Monday's oral arguments in Ashcroft v. Raich, where the Supreme Court took up the case of two California medical marijuana patients, featured much discussion of the merits of medical marijuana. But the court's decision has as much or more to do with federalism and states' rights as marijuana or medicine.
5. MEDICAL MARIJUANA AT THE SUPREME COURT -- A TASTE OF THE DAY'S EVENTS
   Medical marijuana supporters began lining up outside the US Supreme Court at 4:00am Monday morning, vying for a chance to be present as the justices heard oral arguments in a case that could force the federal government to leave medical marijuana patients alone in states where it is legal.
6. TOP COPS SAY DRUG WAR A FLOP IN TWO NEW SURVEYS
   A survey conducted for the Police Foundation and Drug Strategies, and another for the National Association of Chiefs of Police, both find whopping majorities of police chiefs consider the drug war to be a failure.
7. NEWSBRIEF: GROUP CAN DISPLAY MARIJUANA REFORM ADS, FEDERAL COURT RULES
   Change the Climate a Boston-based organization that fights the drug war with advertisements aiming to change the cultural surrounding marijuana, won its First Amendment lawsuit against the MBTA and can now run its ads in the subways.
8. NEWSBRIEF: SUPREME COURT PUTS HOLD ON RELIGIOUS AYAHUASCA USE
   Two weeks ago, the New Mexico branch of a Brazilian church won the right in federals appeals court to use the hallucinogen ayahuasca in its religious rites. On Wednesday, the Bush administration sought and won a stay from the Supreme Court blocking the church from using its sacrament until they have heard the case.
9. NEWSBRIEF: DELAWARE LEGISLATURE TO TAKE UP NEEDLE EXCHANGE AGAIN
   Delaware is the last state to allow neither non-prescription needle sales nor NEPs as harm reduction measures for the prevention of HIV/AIDS. But that could change next year, as Delaware lawmakers vow to push once again for passage of an NEP bill.
10. NEWSBRIEF: BRITAIN'S BRAVE NEW WORLD OF DRUG TESTING GETS UNDERWAY
    British Prime Minister Tony Blair has moved forward with plans to institute drug testing of arrestees, who could then be charged with possession if traces of drugs are found in their systems. The proposed measure is part of a package of "tough on crime" bills Blair is touting as part of his campaign to be reelected.
11. NEWSBRIEF: AFGHAN OPIUM FARMERS CLAIM THEY ARE BEING SPRAYED WITH PESTICIDES
    The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is investigating claims from villagers that their fields have been subjected to aerial fumigation as part of the effort to suppress opium production in the country.
12. NEWSBRIEF: DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE REJECTS GRANT OVER ANTI-TERROR CLAUSE
    One of the nation's premier drug reform groups, the Drug Policy Alliance, is returning a $200,000 grant from the Ford Foundation because of a new clause they say undermines freedom of speech.
13. NEWSBRIEF: FEDERAL SENTENCING GUIDELINES FILL PRISONS WITH BLACKS, HISPANICS, STUDY FINDS
    A United States Sentencing Commission study released November 23 found that the number of minority offenders doing time in federal has climbed dramatically since the introduction of federal sentencing guidelines in 1987. Minorities now make up a majority of the federal prison population, the study found.
14. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORY
    A trio of Memphis, Tennessee, cops are facing a variety of charges ranging from drug possession to conspiracy to commit burglary, and those aren't even the most fun of the counts.
15. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
16. NEW HARM REDUCTION GRANT PROGRAM FOR ACTIVISM AND POLICY BY AND FOR DRUG USERS
    The International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD) of the Open Society Institute has announced a new grant competition in support of activism and policy development by and for drug users.
17. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
18. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
19. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #364 , 11/26/04

1. EDITORIAL: EPIC AND TURBULENT TIMES
   Two important court cases -- one civil against the government for medical marijuana, one criminal against a heroic pain doctor -- make this an epic and turbulent time for issues related to the drug war. On both counts, the federal government is guilty.
2. DRCNET EVENT: REP. BARNEY FRANK TO KEYNOTE FOR PERRY FUND FORUM/FUNDRAISER, DECEMBER 9, 2004, BOSTON
   One of Congress's leading champions of drug law reform will address a forum/fundraiser benefiting the John W. Perry Fund, providing scholarships to students who have lost their college aid because of drug convictions.
3. SEEKING POLITICAL TRACTION, BRITAIN'S BLAIR MARCHES BOLDLY BACKWARDS ON DRUG POLICY
   Facing a general election five months from now, embattled British Prime Minister Tony Blair Tuesday took the opportunity of the annual Queen's Speech to unveil a "tough on crime" drug bill as a centerpiece of his pre-election legislative program.
4. SSDP DOES COLLEGE PARK: SIXTH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE SHOWS OFF A MATURING ORGANIZATION
   The beats were breaking and the dance floor was shaking upstairs at Lupo's Chop House a block south of the University of Maryland campus in College Park last Saturday night as nearly 300 members of Students for Sensible Drug Policy marked the completion of the group's sixth annual national conference.
5. NEWSBRIEF: PENNSYLVANIA "TREATMENT AND JAIL" SENTENCING REFORM GETS GOVERNOR'S SIGNATURE
   Two important court cases -- one civil against the government for medical marijuana, one criminal against a heroic doctor -- make this an epic and turbulent time for issues related to the drug war. On both counts, the federal government is guilty.
6. NEWSBRIEF: POLLS FIND CANADIAN MAJORITY FAVORING MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION
   The results of two surveys of Canadians came in this week, and both suggest the government's plan to make possession of small amounts of marijuana a ticketable offense is behind the curve.
7. NEWSBRIEF: MORE SUPPORT FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA FROM CONNECTICUT NURSES AND TEXANS
   Medical marijuana continues to pick up support, both among the public at large and among medical professionals.
8. NEWSBRIEF: REP. SOUDER BUSILY FIGHTING THE "GOOD" FIGHT
   Indiana Republican Congressman Mark Souder just can't get enough of the war on drugs.
9. NEWSBRIEF: UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT TO PAY $15,000 TO STUDENTS ARRESTED FOR MARIJUANA ADVOCACY
   Two University of Vermont students arrested in April at an on-campus "420" rally because they advocated legalizing marijuana will be paid $7,500 each by the university for violating their First Amendment rights.
10. NEWSBRIEF: FEDERAL APPEALS COURT SAYS POLICE CAN TAKE HAIR SAMPLES WHENEVER THEY FEEL LIKE IT
    The US 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled late last month that police may remove and drug test large amounts of from a suspect's head, neck and shoulders without a warrant or probable cause.
11. NEWSBRIEF: PHILIPPINE DRUG DOC CALLS FOR MARIJUANA DECRIMINALIZATION
    Even in the Philippines, whose newspapers are filled with drug busts and sympathetic accounts of death squad killings of drug users and sellers, calls for reform can be heard.
12. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    It's not just more of the same old same old this week. We have also been introduced to a Texas cop who hasn't yet found himself facing criminal charges but whose career smells of the institutionalized corruption emanating from those notorious ethical cesspools, the Lone Star State's federally-funded and multitudinous drug task forces.
13. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
15. CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY FOUNDATION SEEKING EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
    The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation is seeking a detail-oriented person interested in social justice to serve as executive secretary or administrative assistant.
16. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
17. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #363 , 11/19/04

1. EDITORIAL: GOING THE WRONG WAY IN AFGHANISTAN
   US officials are preparing to ramp up anti-opium measures in Afghanistan. If they care about security -- and Afghanistan -- they'll think again.
2. DRCNET EVENT: REP. BARNEY FRANK TO KEYNOTE FOR PERRY FUND FORUM/FUNDRAISER, DECEMBER 9, 2004, BOSTON
   One of Congress's leading champion of drug law reform will address a forum/fundraiser benefiting the John W. Perry Fund, providing scholarships to students who have lost their college aid because of drug convictions.
3. BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO GO AFTER AFGHAN OPIUM TRADE
   In the three years since the US overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban regime in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Afghanistan has reemerged as the world's leading opium producer. The Washington Post reported this week that after a summer-long review of the Afghan situation, the Bush administration had decided to try to break the back of the Afghan opium trade. Analysts are concerned at the possible consequences.
4. IRV ROSENFELD CELEBRATES 22 YEARS OF GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE
   There are not many people who can say they have the federal government's permission to smoke marijuana, but Florida stockbroker Irv Rosenfeld is one of them. This weekend he marks 22 years of federally supplied medical marijuana.
5. GENE DOPING: SPORTS AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL
   While the sports world has been riveted by news of steroid users and innuendo about those who might be, the next wave of performance enhancement has been forming.
6. NEWSBRIEF: MASSACHUSETTS JUDGE RIPS "DRUG FREE ZONE" MANDATORY MINIMUMS
   One of Massachusetts' leading jurists spoke out Monday against the state's "drug free zone" law, saying that the mandatory minimum sentence for drug possession is discriminatory and corrodes faith in the fairness of the criminal justice system.
7. NEWSBRIEF: JUDGE SENTENCES MARIJUANA SELLER TO 55 YEARS, THEN ATTACKS MANDATORY MINIMUMS
   A federal judge in Salt Lake City Tuesday sentenced budding rap music entrepreneur Weldon Angelos, 25, to 55 years in prison for minor marijuana sales to a police informant while armed -- then complained that mandatory minimum sentencing laws made him do it.
8. NEWSBRIEF: BILL TO PROTECT MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS INTRODUCED IN SENATE
   For the first time, the US Senate will consider a bill designed to protect medical marijuana patients.
9. NEWSBRIEF: MISSOURI SUPREME COURT JUST SAYS NO TO SUSPICIONLESS DRUG DOG TRAFFIC SEARCHES
   The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled that detaining motorists stopped for traffic violations until a drug dog can arrive violates the Fourth Amendment's protections against warrantless searches.
10. NEWSBRIEF: "IRRATIONAL" SENTENCES DRIVE KENTUCKY PRISON CRISIS, REPORT SAYS
    A study authored by one of Kentucky's most respected and influential law professors calls for repeal of "irrational penalties" that have caused the state's prison population to explode. Drug sentences and a tough habitual offender law are the primary culprits.
11. NEWSBRIEF: FEDERAL APPEALS COURT AGAIN UPHOLDS RELIGIOUS AYAHUASCA USE
    A New Mexico-based branch of a Brazilian church that uses an Amazonian psychedelic in its ceremonies has for the third time fended off the federal government's attempt to ban the practice in the United States. Actual ceremonies using the plant may begin again soon.
12. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    We missed a week last week, but that doesn't mean all the prohibition-related corruption suddenly vanished. The beat goes on, and this week we feature one especially sordid, if small-time case, as well as one more typical corruption case.
13. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
15. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
16. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #362, 11/12/04

1. EDITORIAL: THE SPIRIT OF LAWFULNESS
   That which is lawless in its essence is not made truly lawful through the passage of mere laws.
2. EVER UPWARD: AT NEARLY 1.5 MILLION, US PRISON POPULATION AT NEW HIGH
   The number of people in prison in the United States increased again last year, according to a report released Sunday by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics
3. IN AN HOUR OF CONSERVATIVE ASCENDANCY: PROSPECTS FOR DRUG REFORM AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL DURING THE NEXT FOUR YEARS
   Drug War Chronicle this week spoke with a number of national drug reform leaders to see how the new Congress and reinvigorated Bush presidency will affect the prospects for reform in Washington. While the overall prognosis was decidedly grim, some bravely sought silver linings in the election results nevertheless.
4. SYRACUSE RECONSIDERS DRUG POLICY
   Efforts by the Syracuse, NY, based reform organization ReconsiDer are beginning to bear fruit.
5. NEWSBRIEF: CONGRESSIONAL DRUG WARRIOR THREATENS CANADA OVER MARIJUANA LEGISLATION
   With the Canadian government once again considering a bill that would make marijuana possession a ticketable offense, a leading American drug warrior is again blustering against any such move.
6. NEWSBRIEF: IN NEW TWIST IN THAI DRUG WAR, POLICE DETAIN AND DRUG TEST CLUB GOERS
   The conservative Thai government's "social order" campaign is now reaching into the pants of Bangkok nightclub goers.
7. NEWSBRIEF: ANN ARBOR OFFICIALS TO IGNORE VOTERS' WILL ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   Only a week after voters in the college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, voted by a whopping margin to decriminalize the use of marijuana for medical reasons, the city's police chief announced his department would ignore the new law.
8. NEWSBRIEF: GEORGIA SUPREME COURT SAYS WIFE CAN'T CONSENT TO SEARCH OF HOME AGAINST HUSBAND'S WILL
   In a 4-3 ruling, Georgia's Supreme Court threw out evidence of cocaine use by Americus attorney Scott Fitz Randolph, who was arrested after his wife called police to their home and showed them what she said was proof of his drug habit.
9. NEWSBRIEF: AUSTIN, TEXAS, COP KILLED ENFORCING MARIJUANA POSSESSION LAW
   Another police officer has died enforcing prohibition, this time during an especially pointless incident.
10. NEWSBRIEF: SUPREME COURT TO LOOK AT DRUG DOGS IN TRAFFIC STOPS
    The US Supreme Court Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case that could bring the practice of using drug dogs to sniff vehicles during routine traffic stops to a screeching halt.
11. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
12. THE DARE GENERATION RETURNS TO DC: STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY 2004 NATIONAL CONFERENCE NEXT MONTH
    Students and activists from across the country will convene at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Sixth Annual National Conference in College Park, Maryland, outside Washington, DC, next month.
13. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
14. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
15. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's calendar for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #361, 11/5/04

1. EDITORIAL: IRONIC HYPOCRISY
   Mitch Daniels, a Republican who ousted a Democratic incumbent Tuesday to become governor-elect of Indiana, has a drug conviction from his college days at Princeton. Under a law written by another Indiana Republican, he could have lost his financial aid and been forced to drop out if it had happened today.
2. BIG WIN IN BIG SKY COUNTRY: MONTANA APPROVES MEDICAL MARIJUANA
   Montana Tuesday became the tenth state to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.
3. ALASKA MARIJUANA INITIATIVE DEFEATED
   With Alaska courts having ruled possession of up to four ounces of marijuana is legal in one's home, the state already has the most progressive pot laws in the country. But voters there Tuesday turned down an opportunity to advance even further.
4. OREGON MEASURE TO EXPAND MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACCESS DEFEATED
   Oregon voters approved a medical marijuana initiative in 1998, but balked Tuesday at a second measure aimed at improving it.
5. MORE THAN A THOUSAND DRUG OFFENDERS CONTINUE LIFE SENTENCES FOLLOWING DEFEAT OF CALIFORNIA THREE-STRIKES REFORM INITIATIVE
   An initiative that would have amended California's notorious three-strikes law to apply only to offenders whose third strike was a violent crime was derailed by a last-minute scare campaign led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
6. LOCAL MARIJUANA INITIATIVES AND QUESTIONS WIN IN ANN ARBOR, COLUMBIA, OAKLAND AND MASSACHUSETTS
   Tuesday was a good day for local marijuana initiatives and questions, with victories in Ann Arbor, Columbia, Missouri, Oakland, California, and a number of communities in Massachusetts.
7. NEWSBRIEF: VICTORY FOR ROCKEFELLER LAW FOE IN ALBANY DA RACE
   Running on a platform calling for repeal of the New York's draconian Rockefeller drug law, Democratic insurgent David Soares overcame Republican and conservative Democratic opposition to win the race for District Attorney in Albany, New York, on Tuesday.
8. NEWSBRIEF: ANOTHER TULIA IN EAST TEXAS?
   A mid-October drug bust that netted 72 alleged crack dealers -- all black -- in the East Texas town of Palestine is raising eyebrows at at least one widely-respected Texas publication.
9. NEWSBRIEF: SOUTH CAROLINA JURY REFUSES TO SEND OPIUM SMOKER TO PRISON FOR DECADES, ACQUITS HIM OF TRAFFICKING INSTEAD
   A South Carolina prosecutor was ready to send a Laotian opium smoker to prison for 25 years as a drug trafficker, but that was too much for jurors to swallow.
10. NEWSBRIEF: DR. HURWITZ TRIAL UNDERWAY, KEY PAIN DOCTOR PROSECUTION
    Northern Virginia pain management specialist Dr. William Hurwitz went on trial in Alexandria Thursday in a prosecution that could be a landmark in the DEA's war on pain doctors and patients.
11. NEWSBRIEF: GROUP HANDS OUT FREE CRACK PIPES IN VANCOUVER HARM REDUCTION ACTION
    A group representing Vancouver's hard drug users has opened a new front in the effort to reduce drug-related harms.
12. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    Drug war-related law enforcement corruption is by no means limited to the United States, and this week we break with tradition to include a particularly egregious case from Great Britain -- along with some of the usual from home.
13. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. THE DARE GENERATION RETURNS TO DC: STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY 2004 NATIONAL CONFERENCE NEXT MONTH
    Students and activists from across the country will convene at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Sixth Annual National Conference in College Park, Maryland, outside Washington, DC, next month.
15. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
16. DRUGWARMARKET.COM SEEKING INFORMATION, AFFILIATIONS, LINK EXCHANGES
    DrugWarMarket.com, a web site that follows the economy of the drug war, is seeking affiliations, link exchanges, information.
17. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's calendar for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #360, 10/29/04

1. ON THE BALLOT: MARIJUANA, MEDICAL MARIJUANA, SENTENCING REFORM
   With national elections now just days away, it is time to review one last time the drug policy-related initiative measures on the ballot in various states and localities.
2. MARIJUANA ARRESTS AT ALL-TIME HIGH, FAR EXCEED VIOLENT CRIME ARRESTS
   Despite a decade of marijuana law reforms and protestations by police chiefs across the land that marijuana is not a priority, the FBI reported Saturday that the number of arrests for violations of the marijuana laws hit an all-time high in 2003.
3. LATIN AMERICAN ANTI-PROHIBITIONIST UMBRELLA ORGANIZATION FORMS, EYES UN 2008 VIENNA MEETING
   The movement toward an integrated hemispheric coalition to end the drug war has taken another step forward with the formation last month of a new, anti-prohibitionist umbrella group.
4. AFRICAN AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL GROUPS MOVE INTO DRUG REFORM ARENA
   Fueled by a sense that blacks bear a disproportionate burden in the drug war, a new umbrella grouping of African-American professional associations dedicated to winning changes in the war on drugs has emerged and is calling for a series of limited reforms designed to reduce the number of African Americans going to prison for drugs.
5. NEWSBRIEF: FORMER INTERPOL CHIEF CALLS PROHIBITION "OBSOLETE AND DANGEROUS"
   The former chief of Interpol called drug prohibition "obsolete and dangerous" in an op-ed published Wednesday in Le Monde. Europe must take the lead in reforming the drug laws, Raymond Kendall wrote, particularly at the UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs in Vienna in 2008.
6. NEWSBRIEF: PROHIBITIONIST BUSH SUPPORTERS "EXPOSE AND OPPOSE" SOROS
   In an event timed just days before next week's national election, prohibitionist supporters of President George Bush held a "National Anti-Drug Summit to Expose and Oppose George Soros" Thursday in Washington, DC.
7. NEWSBRIEF: NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR BYPASSES LEGISLATURE, OKAYS NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS BY EXECUTIVE ORDER
   With the clock ticking down on his scandal-shortened term and frustrated by a recalcitrant legislature, New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey (D) Tuesday issued an executive order allowing three Garden State cities to begin needle exchange programs (NEPs) in an effort to stem the spread of HIV and other viruses transmitted through intravenous drug use.
8. NEWSBRIEF: NADER CALLS ON BUSH TO GRANT CLEMENCY TO DRUG WAR PRISONERS
   Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader called in an October 24 letter for President Bush to grant clemency to some 30,000 nonviolent federal drug offenders.
9. NEWSBRIEF: BALTIMORE COPS OFFER MINOR DRUG SUSPECTS FREEDOM FOR GUNS
   The Baltimore Sun reported Saturday that police in Charm City have for years followed an unofficial policy of picking up people on minor drug charges and offering to let them go if they turn in a weapon. But the dropping of charges in exchange for weapons is neither legal nor enforceable, according to experts cited by the Sun, and some residents don't like it either.
10. NEWSBRIEF: US-CANADA JOINT BORDER DRUG THREAT ASSESSMENT SAYS BC BUD ONLY TWO PERCENT OF US MARIJUANA IMPORTS
    Although drug czar John Walters has screamed loudly and often about the menace posed to the US by high-grade Canadian marijuana. But a sober assessment of cross-border drug issues done by law enforcement in both countries seriously undercuts his hysterics.
11. NEWSBRIEF: FIJI ISLANDS IN GRIP OF REEFER MADNESS
    Marijuana is much in the news in the South Pacific Fiji Islands these days, with police and doctors warning of its dangers for users while persistent pot-growers in the Navosa Highlands face threats of increased police action, according to the Fiji Times.
12. NEWSBRIEF: THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    The daily grind of drug war corruption continues. This week, we find crooked deputies in Tennessee, dope-planting cops in Pennsylvania, and big trouble for the federal government and some Customs agents in Texas.
13. THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
    Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
14. THE DARE GENERATION RETURNS TO DC: STUDENTS FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY 2004 NATIONAL CONFERENCE NEXT MONTH
    Students and activists from across the country will convene at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Sixth Annual National Conference in College Park, Maryland, outside Washington, DC, next month.
15. APPLY NOW TO INTERN AT DRCNET!
    Make a difference next semester! DRCNet and the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform are seeking motivated and hardworking interns for the Spring 2005 Semester.
16. ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT: PART-TIME JOB OPPORTUNITY AT DRCNET
    DRCNet is seeking a part-time Administrative Assistant to work with the Executive and Associate Directors and the Member Coordinator. The Administrative Assistant will assist with all manner of clerical and administrative tasks.
17. THE REFORMER'S CALENDAR
    Showing up at an event can be the best way to get involved! Check out this week's calendar for events from today through next year, across the US and around the world!

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Issue #359, 10/22/04