Drug War Chronicle #602 - October 2, 2009

Canada's "Prince of Pot" is in jail in Vancouver, awaiting extradition to the US to accept a five-year plea bargain for selling marijuana seeds to US customers. But if anyone thinks that is going to shut up Emery and his supporters, they should think again.

Hundreds of people came to San Francisco last weekend for the annual NORML conference. The organizers can be forgiven if it seemed a bit California-centric because so much related to marijuana policy is occurring in the Golden State. With the clamor for marijuana reform gaining decibels by the day, the atmosphere was headier than ever.

Mexico's foreign minister said this week that the high death toll in his country's drug war was a sign his government's policy was correct. If that's the case, he just got more confirmation, as the body count continues to rise.

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We've got two weeks worth of corrupt cops again: dope-peddling cops, dope-stealing cops, cops who rip off motorists, cops who rip off their departments, cops who take bribes, cops who squeal to dealers.

We would be remiss if we didn't mention Boston's annual Freedom Rally, the first since Massachusetts voters passed a state decrim law.

Libertarian Free Staters are staging daily pot-smoking civil disobedience protests in Keene, New Hampshire, and this week, the protests spread to Manchester.

The Bush administration warned Congress and the public that we had to allow federal agents to do surreptitious "sneak and peek" searches in order to fight terrorism. Funny how that worked out.

Nearly 40,000 died of drug-related causes in 2006, the vast majority of them overdoses. Dying on drugs is rapidly gaining on dying in car wrecks as America's leading accidental cause of death -- a grim demonstration of the failure of prohibition.

More than a year after the DEA quietly reported that a veterinary anti-parasitic agent was showing up in cocaine, and after at least two US deaths linked to the tainted drug, federal public health officials have finally issued an alert warning doctors, treatment centers, and public health professionals of the menace.

It's been 20 years since Janet Reno established the first drug court in Miami. Now, there are more than 2,100 of them, but the nation's leading criminal defense attorneys' group says they are distorting justice and need serious reforms.

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

Every two years drug policy reformers from across the United States and around the world come to the International Drug Policy Reform Conference to listen, learn, network and strategize together for change. This year the conference is in Albuquerque, in November, and StoptheDrugWar.org is a partner.