Drug War Chronicle #537 - May 23, 2008

Nearly a year after it went into effect, New Mexico's medical marijuana program is registering and providing ID cards to patients, but its innovative provisions for state-licensed, -owned, or -operated marijuana production and distribution are stalled in the regulatory process.

No one ever said it was going to be easy to get medical marijuana bill through state legislatures, and recent events in Minnesota and Rhode Island reinforce the notion that it's a lengthy, arduous process. But it isn't going to happen at all if you don't try, and that's what one Ohio legislator is doing.

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On opposite sides of the country, crooked cops are headed for long prison sentences, and another Atlanta narc is going to the big house. Meanwhile, a Customs and Border Protection agent in San Diego and a jail guard in the Florida panhandle get busted.

The DEA agent helped police in a Missouri do some COPS-style raids earlier this year. There was only one problem: He wasn't a DEA agent. Now the people busted are suing.

Attorneys for Dr. Stephen Schneider, a Kansas physician indicted by the feds as a "pill mill" operator, have now filed a motion seeking dismissal of the indictment and challenging the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act.

Faced with high rates of opiate addiction and a rising overdose toll, the Massachusetts Senate is considering funding a pair of "secure treatment centers" for arrested drug users.

The British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the government body charged with setting drug policy, has a new chairman this week, and he has said he wants to downgrade Ecstasy to a less serious drug classification.

Colombia's vice-president went to London to attend events related to a new British campaign against cocaine consumption, but while he was there, he suggested maybe legalization should be part of the discussion.

Move over, Sicilian Mafia. The Calabrian mob, grown rich and powerful off trafficking in black market cocaine, are the new tough guys in Europe.

The Chilean government recently reclassified marijuana as a "dangerous drug" like heroin or methamphetamine, but one senator is crying foul.

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

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"Rachel Hoffman's Family Issues an Urgent Call for Change," "If You Write Bad Pro-Drug War Editorials, We Will Find Them and Embarrass You," "The Obama Campaign Responds to My Criticism of His Position on Marijuana Decriminalization," "Informant Identified in Fatal Maple Tree/Marijuana Mix-up," "Virginia Senator Jim Webb Speaks Out Against Marijuana Laws," "New British Drug Czar Supports Reducing Penalties for Ecstasy," "Drug Czars Say the Darndest Things," "Dick Morris Tells John McCain to Propose Harsher Cocaine Laws," "'You Don't Want This!'"

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