Drug War Chronicle #751 - September 20, 2012

Colorado's Amendment 64 campaign is leading by about 10 points in the polls, but not complacent as the clock ticks down toward November 6.

Award-winning film maker Rick Ray turns his camera and his sharp eye on the ongoing medical marijuana wars with his 2012 documentary Lynching Charlie Lynch. It's quite good.

Doh! The GAO has found that the drug war is driving federal prison overcrowding and that that can have negative consequences. That's a shocker.

Three marijuana legalization initiatives, two medical marijuana initiatives, and one sentencing reform initiative are on state ballots this year. We'll be running a feature story on one of them each week between now and election day, but we've created this short-term feature to keep up with all of them.

Last issue, we reported that the DEA had taken the week off. Well, they're back, and so is the push-back.

There is more good polling news from Colorado, but we'd still like to see those numbers for marijuana legalization go higher.

The Oregon marijuana legalization initiative is trailing narrowly in a new poll, with a large number of undecideds.

California will become the 10th state to enact a Good Samaritan law designed to reduce fatal drug overdoses by providing some protections from criminal prosecution for people seeking emergency help for overdose victims.

A Massachusetts crime lab analyst whose zeal to help prosecutors win drug cases has endangered the prosecution of more than 30,000 drug cases after her misconduct in the lab was uncovered.

Bolivia and Venezuela told the US to take a hike after President Obama last week certified them as not cooperating in US drug policy objectives. They suggested the US take a good look in the mirror.

A Virginia prison guard smuggles heroin, a Pennsylvania cop steals and uses it, and a New Jersey cop pays off a prostitute with it, and that's just some of the crooked cop action this week.