Drug War Chronicle

A Newark, New Jersey, man is dead at the hands of drug police after they said he approached them with a loaded weapon (how did they know?), but angry neighbors had a different version of events.

Portland's police chief demonstrates why local initiatives are only a start, a new Urban Institute report has ideas for reducing the federal prison population, the Irish parliament rejects marijuana legalization on its first go round, and more.

There's a lot going on in the world of drug policy. Here are the stories we noted in our new Chronicle AM daily survey this week.

When can you get a guilty plea overturned in federal court? When the cop who busted you is crooked, that's when.

And the beat goes on. From the West Coast to the East Coast and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast, medical marijuana is on the agenda.

We took a week off from the Corrupt Cops stories, but the corrupt cops sure didn't. Here's a rather lengthy list of backlogged law enforcement miscreants.

Voters in Colorado and Michigan approve marijuana measures (and so do voters in Portland, Maine--see our news brief), another New Mexico anal drug search victim emerges and the Mexican military moves into Lazaro Cardenas.

Portland, Maine, has become the first East Coast city to vote to legalize marijuana possession, and it did so overwhelmingly.

An especially egregious drug war excess in New Mexico makes the news, the mayor of Toronto 'fesses up to smoking crack, Morocco gets ready to talk marijuana legalization, and more.

Former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso called for global drug decriminalization and other reforms in an op-ed published on CNN.com today.