Drug War Chronicle #571 - February 6, 2009

On the campaign trail, President Obama pledged repeatedly to end the DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in California. The DEA hit four more in the LA area Tuesday, and the administration responded in the media Wednesday night.

With a budget crisis and a change in New York leadership, a politically perfect storm for reform of the state's draconian drug laws seems to be brewing. With the Rockefeller drug laws finally be repealed, after 35 years?

Bush administration holdovers are ordering raids on state-authorized medical marijuana clinics, despite President Obama's pledge to stop them. Please ask the new president and attorney general to take corrective actions sooner rather than later.

As violent intruders were battering down his door one night last January, Ryan Frederick picked up his rifle and shot through it, killing one. Now he's most likely going to prison for 10 years. Another misbegotten SWAT-style drug raid gone bad -- for everybody.

It's jail guards gone wild this week, plus a very sleazy Texas sheriff, some entrepreneurial Fresno narcs, and the latest problems with the evidence room in Galveston.

The South Dakota legislature has killed a medical marijuana bill, while the House has passed a bill to ban salvia divinorum.

An FDA panel has advised removing Darvon and its generic relatives from the market, citing safety and effectiveness issues. But banning the widely used opioid pain reliever could cause more problems than it solves.

The New Hampshire legislature will once again decide on marijuana decriminalization. Last year, it passed in the House, but died in the Senate.

Marijuana decriminalization will be on the Vermont legislature's agenda this session. A bill was filed Tuesday.

Last week, the US NATO commander in Afghanistan wanted to go after any and all drug traffickers as if they were enemy combatants. Now, faced with a rebellion by his commanders, he has had to back down.

Canada's medical marijuana laws have been declared unconstitutional in part, and now Health Canada has one year to get it right, a British Columbia judge has ruled.

A Tokyo magazine publisher keeps putting out issues that seem to tell people how to grow marijuana, and local authorities there are grumbling. The tempest comes as Japanese pot arrests are at an all-time high.

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

"The Drug Czar's Blog Should be Used for Good Instead of Evil," "White House Says Medical Marijuana Raids Will End," "Michael Phelps Faces Possible Prosecution for Bong Hit," "Ryan Frederick Found Guilty of Voluntary Manslaughter," "The Killing of Cheye Calvo's Dogs is a Story That Won't Go Away," "Ryan Frederick Trial Goes to the Jury," "Medical Marijuana Raids Continue, Time for Action from Obama," "Support for Marijuana Legalization is Growing in America," "The Bong Hit Heard Around the World," "Joe Biden's Drug Policy Record -- a Review," "Medical Marijuana Research Has Taken a New Direction This Century," "Gwinnett County Georgia SWAT Team Blowing It Big Time," "The Drug War's Dangerous Distortion of Medical Standards," "What Happened to the Drug Czar's Blog?"

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The Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition (RIPAC), a grassroots medical marijuana community of patients, caregivers, and advocates, is seeking an executive director to head its office in Providence.