Drug War Chronicle #636 - June 11, 2010

The DEA has announced another massive anti-drug operation, this one involving thousands of agents, hundreds of law enforcement agencies, thousands of arrestees, millions of dollars and tons of drugs. In law enforcement terms, it's big. But it's tiny compared with the scale of drug use and the drug trade in the US, and it won't reduce the use or availability of drugs in the US.

Fire bombs. Graffiti attacks. Anonymous anti-medical marijuana flyers handed out to school children. Whether medical marijuana has gone too far is a hot issue in Billings, Montana, and it's simmering all over Big Sky Country as "ganja-preneurs" push the envelope.

There has been a dramatic increase in methadone overdose deaths in Pennsylvania and the nation in recent years. Keystone State legislators are misguidedly aiming at the state's methadone maintenance treatment clinics.

Ciudad Juarez passed a grim milestone this week as it marked its one thousandth prohibition-related killing of the year.

It was judgment day for two crooked cops and a jail guard this week, and another jail guard just found out his judgment day is coming. Meanwhile, new corrupt cop cases showed up at a rate of one a day this week.

The now infamous SWAT raid in Columbia, Missouri, in February that left a family traumatized and a family dog dead keeps on generating citizen activism there. Now, a new group formed because of the raid is calling for permanent reforms.

Canadian "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery has already run up against US federal prison rules, and is sitting in solitary confinement as a result.

The Washington state marijuana legalization initiative campaign took a serious hit this week when a union it had been courting decided not to help fund signature-gathering. Now, with only three weeks left, Sensible Washington has less than half the signatures it needs and no money. Can a heroic volunteer effort save it?

In 2006, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that people could be prosecuted as drugged drivers based solely on the presence of marijuana metabolites in their bodily fluids. Now, a more liberal Supreme Court has overturned that decision, holding that marijuana metabolites are not controlled substances and the states drugged driving law can thus not be applied to them.

The UN says Rwanda needs a drug law. Rwanda agrees, and it's going to include medical marijuana.

Iranian hangmen have been keeping busy in recent weeks as some 30 drug offenders have been executed since May 23. Maybe it's time to ramp up that campaign against the death penalty for drug offenses.

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

2010 is a critical year in the effort to end prohibition and the war on drugs. The StoptheDrugWar.org (DRCNet) "Changing Minds, Changing Laws, Changing Lives" campaign is asking for you to pitch in -- your support is more important now than it has ever been before!

A coalition of organizations -- StoptheDrugWar.org is a partner in it -- is presenting the first full-day conference on drug policy reform on Capitol Hill. And it's free.

"This Week's Dumbest Drug War Quote," "Police Department Teaches Citizens How to Flex Their Rights," "High School Censors Marijuana Legalization Editorial in School Newspaper," "Everyone Loves to Read About Marijuana Legalization," "Marc Emery Calls Out Selfish Marijuana Growers for Opposing Legalization."

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