Drug War Chronicle

Breaking with his past practice, President Obama Thursday granted commutation to eight federal prisoners serving long sentences for crack cocaine-related offenses, including Clarence Aaron, who has been in for 20 years.

Guatemala is considering allowing the legal, controlled cultivation of opium poppies in a bid to weaken drug trafficking.

Today we have a plethora of pot polls, hope on banking, an important decision by Washington state regulators, and hints of change to come from Canada's Tories, among other news.

In an era where so much of the national debate is still framed by prohibition-based thinking, our small, dedicated and passionate staff keep anti-prohibitionists on the cutting edge of legislation and policy. That's why we need your help to keep StoptheDrugWar.org and the Drug War Chronicle going strong in 2014.

Despite some improvement, the mainstream media continues to get it wrong on the drug issue in many, many ways. This makes it as crucial as ever for reformers to continue to fund and make our own media.

The Senate Judiciary will be marking up three sentencing reform bills Thursday. They are significant ones.

The Michigan Senate wound up its 2013 session by a passing a welfare drug testing bill. The House already passed one. Both will be alive when the legislative session starts up next year.

The latest Monitoring the Future numbers on teen drug use are out. Most drug use is down or stable, and teen marijuana use is well withing historic levels, but that isn't stopping some from sounding alarms.

Oregon's plan to regulate dispensaries statewide moves ahead, Washington state looks like it will let medical marijuana patients keep their personal grows, a new national certification program is announced, and more.

They may be smoking more pot in Washington state than anyone thought, the Florida medical marijuana signature-gathering campaign is going down to the wire, opium production is up in the Golden Triangle, and aerial eradication is paused in Colombia (after planes get blown out of the sky). And more.