Drug War Chronicle #516 - December 28, 2007

As 2007 comes to a close, Drug War Chronicle takes a look at the 500+ stories we published this year, and offers you our best judgment call on what were the year's top ten drug war stories.

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Critics of the widespread use of informants in the drug war have long argued the system is subject to abuse. Three cases of informants gone bad popped up in the past week.

The allure of cocaine proves too much for a California highway patrolman and a pair of Brooklyn narcs, and a pair of New Jersey cops pay for peddling pills.

With California facing a $14 billion budget deficit, the governor's budget cutters have come up with a proposal to release more than 22,000 nonviolent offenders before their sentences are up.

Possession of salvia divinorum is a felony in Illinois beginning next week.

In November, voters in Hailey, Idaho, approved initiatives legalizing medical marijuana and industrial hemp and instructing the town to make marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority. Now, the Idaho attorney general's office has found those initiatives to be "invalid" and the city is balking at implementing them.

The Chinese National People's Congress is set to pass that country's first drug law, after subsuming drugs within the general criminal code for half a century. Designated addicts may actually get gentler treatment in the new framework than they receive now.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, the son of a man once imprisoned on drug charges in the US, has called for pardons for low-level drug mules serving long sentences in his country's prisons.

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

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