Drug War Chronicle #622 - February 26, 2010

As Mexico's war on drugs continues to spiral out of control, pressure is mounting for a new approach. A conference in Mexico City this week had a few suggestions.

Stop the presses! Global drug prohibition bureaucrats say drug reform is bad! But each year, they're getting more flak for their efforts.

Bryan Epis is once again a medical marijuana martyr. This week, Epis, the first California medical grower convicted by the feds, was returned to federal prison to serve eight more years of a 10-year sentence imposed in 2002. He had been out on appeal, but his appeals have run out.

While elected officials on both sides of the board dismiss legalization of the drug trade, Mexico continues to pay the price. Another 137 people were killed in prohibition-related violence there this week.

A pill-peddling cop, a court officer fudging drug tests in return for pills, and, of course, the requisite crooked jailers -- just another week in the drug war.

He's back! San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has reintroduced his groundbreaking marijuana legalization and regulation bill. Last session, it became the first legalization bill anywhere in the US to win a legislative committee vote. Maybe this time it will go further. If not, voters may take matters into their own hands in November.

It was just a meeting about reducing drug demand, but both the Mexican and the US governments felt compelled to speak out against drug legalization. First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you...

First it was New York Senate Republicans blocking action on medical marijuana. Then last year, Senate Democrats managed to blow themselves up, indirectly preventing a bill from passing. Will 2010 be the year? Medical marijuana is moving in both the Assembly and the Senate.

The DEA's efforts to subvert administration policy favoring state medical marijuana laws is not winning it any friends, and is gaining it some powerful new opponents.

This week, Denmark became the latest European country to embrace heroin maintenance for hard-users. A clinic opened Monday in Copenhagen.

A Belgian court ruling sparked by a group of activists planting single marijuana seeds each two years ago could open the way for collective pot gardens there.

MedicalMarijuana.ProCon.org, part of the ProCon.org family, is an in-depth web site presenting information and views from a variety of perspectives on the medical marijuana issue. The Chronicle is running a series of info items from ProCon.org over the next several weeks, and we encourage you to check it out.

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

"Colorado Congressman Fights Back Against DEA's Medical Marijuana Raids," "New Synthetic Marijuana Products: Are They Medicine?," "Opponents of Medical Marijuana Should Just Give Up," "Pot Wars -- Battlefield California," "Employment Discrimination Against Medical Marijuana Patients Must End," "Federal Policy on Medical Marijuana is Still a Confusing Mess."

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