Breaking News:Dangerous Delays: What Washington State (Re)Teaches Us About Cash and Cannabis Store Robberies [REPORT]

Drug War Chronicle #640 - July 16, 2010

1. Plan Colombia: Ten Years Later

Ten years ago this week, President Bill Clinton signed off on the first $1.3 billion installment of Plan Colombia. A decade later, how is that working out? We ask the experts.

2. Chronicle Reviews: Two Books on Mexican Drug War, One on Border

Here we look at a journalistic account of the "secret life" of the border, an academic treatise on Mexico and its drug cartels, and a polemic against Mexico's drug war by one of its leading political figures.

3. California Marijuana Legalization Initiative Picks Up Big Labor Endorsement

Unions are beginning to jump on the California pot initiative bandwagon. This week, a biggie signed on: The United Food and Commercial Workers Western States Council.

4. Polls Split on California Marijuana Legalization Initiative

Is the California tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative winning or losing? Right now, it looks like it depends on which pollster you ask. In any case, this is looking like a very tight race.

5. Latin American Ex-Presidents Sign Anti-Prohibitionist "Vienna Declaration"

The authors of the Vienna Declaration are seeking to throw out the old prohibitionist drug policy paradigm in favor of one based on science and evidence. This week, the declaration picked up significant political support -- three former Latin American presidents.

6. Mexico Drug War Update

A car bomb attack in Ciudad Juarez Thursday that killed two police and a paramedic marked an ominous tactical turn in Mexico's prohibition-related violence this week. Meanwhile, the Mexican government put the death toll since President Calderon took office at 24,826.

7. This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Bad cop! Bad parole officer! Bad probation officer! Bad trooper! What? No bad jail guards? Well, it happens sometimes...

8. Budget Axe Falls on Stockton Narcs

California's Central Valley city of Stockton has been a poster child for the Great Recession, and now, with layoffs hitting the police department for the second time in two years, the cops have announced they don't have enough manpower to staff their dope squad.

9. School Drug Testing Has Little Impact, Dept. of Education Finds

Making highly motivated high school students urinate in a cup to play football or join the glee club isn't very effective, the Department of Education has found in a new study.

10. Nearly 2/3 of New Yorkers Support Medical Marijuana, Poll Finds

Here is yet another poll showing broad support for medical marijuana, this time in New York state. The surprise is no longer that people support medical marijuana, but that the New York legislature can't get around to passing it.

11. This Week in History

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

12. Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?

Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to funders. We need donations too.

13. Student Internships at StoptheDrugWar.org This Year!

Apply for an internship at DRCNet and you could spend a semester fighting the good fight!
Permission to Reprint: This issue of Drug War Chronicle is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

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