Drug War Chronicle #643 - August 5, 2010

For nearly 30 years, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting has waged a quixotic battle to eradicate California's outdoor marijuana industry. It's at it again this year.

A "transpartisan" effort to push marijuana legalization and get out the vote in November got its official kick-off Tuesday.

StoptheDrugWar.org has completed the first stage of a major upgrade and expansion of our web site. This article explains some of what we've done so far, and also where some sections of the site that you've been used to from before can still be found.

While New York has long had needle exchange programs, their participants faced hassles from the cops for carrying needles and residues. That will be illegal now.

More crooked prison and jail guards get busted, another sticky-fingered cop goes down, so does a Rio Grande Valley lawman, a former California Highway Patrol trooper is in big, big trouble, and a small-town Texas police force has troubles in the dope squad.

After a presidency most notable for the ever-rising death toll in his war with the cartels, Mexican President Calderon is starting to sing a different tune.

President Obama has signed into law a bill that reduces, but does not eliminate, disparities in federal sentencing for crack and powder cocaine offenses. It isn't retroactive, which means current prisoners still wait for relief.

The Massachusetts legislature passed, and the governor signed, legislation to reform some mandatory minimum sentences. But the final version omitted some important provisions originally endorsed by the Senate.

There is now an American citizen on death row in for selling speed in Indonesia.

Three months out from election day, California's Prop 19 marijuana legalization campaign is out-fundraising the opposition by better than ten-to-one. And unlike the opposition, a chunk of Prop 19's money is in the form of small donations from the grassroots.

The Marijuana Policy Project and its Nevada affiliate want a marijuana legalization initiative on the 2012 ballot. A new poll suggests they have a lot of work to do over the next 27 months if it's to pass. Advocates say public education is what it's going to be about.

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