Drug War Chronicle #753 - October 4, 2012

The Arkansas medical marijuana initiative is ready for a final push toward victory as the clock ticks down toward Election Day. It could use some money for some late ads, though.

With marijuana legalization initiatives heading to the ballot, some with a good chance of passage, and with growing international support for a real debate on prohibition, people are talking about drug policy like they never have before.

Just over a month out, medical marijuana and marijuana legalization initiative campaigns are heating up.

Mitt Romney (mis)speaks out on medical marijuana, the LA dispensary ban is repealed, and the feds keep on grinding away at medical marijuana providers with another conviction in Montana and a lengthy prison sentence in Michigan. And that's just for starters.

The Massachusetts drug lab testing scandal continues to reverberate. Now, the lab analyst at the center of it has been arrested, and courts are scheduling special sessions to free the more than 1,100 behind bars in cases where she was involved.

Canada has responded to the emergence of a new synthetic stimulant drug the old-fashioned way: by banning it.

The association representing British Columbia municipal governments has endorsed a resolution calling for marijuana decriminalization. That puts it in line with more than two-thirds of the province's residents, but not with the federal government in Ottawa.

Coca production is up in Peru for the sixth year in a row, responding to thriving demand from Brazil and Europe. Colombia is barely holding on to first place now.

A last ditch effort to block an Arkansas medical marijuana initiative from appearing on the November has failed.

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor gets caught peddling pot, and a TSA agent and an Alabama cop head to prison for taking bribes from drug dealers.