Drug War Chronicle #468 - January 12, 2007

A new anti-drug department in New Jersey's largest city will bring everything the mayor and police chief say they don't want.

Police portray themselves as up against dangerous criminals as they fight the war on drugs, but you might be surprised...

DEA agents seize hundreds of millions of dollars a year in drug busts, but a Justice Department audit finds the agency is pretty lax in its handling of all that cash.

Hiding marijuana inside cannoli, taking cocaine from a murder scene, and peddling cocaine are all on the radar this week. So is an investigation into drug smuggling at a US Air Force base in England.

Faced with rising crime and murder rates, city officials in Newark and New Orleans are blaming drugs and using more of the same old same old to try to crack down.

Police in Wichita are no longer charging small-time hard drug possession as a felony -- less than a quarter-gram of meth or coke, and all you get is a misdemeanor paraphernalia charge, and you don't even go to jail!

Bryn Mawr coeds apparently liked to squeeze condoms filled with flour to fend off stress over final exams, but when one student tried to take one home for the holidays, she ended in jail for three weeks charged as a drug trafficker. Now the city of Philadelphia gets to pay for its mistake.

The arrest of a pair of registered Colorado medical marijuana patients last fall is setting off a legal battle that will help clarify the state's medical marijuana law. But if they lose, they face up to six years in prison.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will once again sponsor a series of regional summits to encourage middle-school and high-school administrators to enact federally sponsored random student drug testing -- but you can go too.

Early in his presidential term, Mexican leader Felipe Calderon has already called out the army to fight drug traffickers. Now, his government is pondering the creation of a "drug czar" to coordinate the fight.

The European Parliament has budgeted $1.3 million to promote a dialog with civil society over its continent-wide drug policy review set for next year.

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

Colbert Report, Tyrone Brown Support Letters, The Nation, In These Times, NCCD, Tasers, Drug Truth Network, Cannabinoid Chronicles, DOJ Study

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