Drug War Chronicle #709 - November 17, 2011

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Fed up with endless recycling of low-level, problematic drug offenders through the criminal justice system, Seattle and King County have embarked on a "treatment not arrest" pilot program designed to break the cycle.

The federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California is provoking legal challenges. First ASA, and now, NORML have filed lawsuits seeking to halt it.

An California appeals court decision saying localities can ban medical marijuana dispensaries is only adding to the industry's woes.

The Justice Department's offensive against medical marijuana distribution just spread to the Seattle area, with the DEA raiding 14 dispensaries Tuesday.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is no friend of medical marijuana, and he proved it again last week with an opinion telling police they can seize patients' medicine.

An initiative to tax and regulate marijuana in Washington state is pulling in some big names and big bucks, but it hasn't completely unified the state's marijuana community behind it. That may not matter.

The cavalcade of arrests, busts, and killings continues in Mexico.

The good news is that prohibition-related killing in Mexico may be leveling off. The bad news is that it's leveling off at horrendous levels.

Yet another Latin American politician comes out for legalization. This one is running for president in the Dominican Republic.

A meth-dealing cop in Hawaii, a dope-load protecting cop in Houston, a pair of cops willing to sell information to drug dealers in Jacksonville and Cincinnati, and a contraband-toting jail guard in Alabama make this week's hall of shame.