Drug War Chronicle

Sen. Jim Webb's bill to create a bipartisan National Criminal Justice Commission has passed the House of Representatives and the Senate Judiciary Committee. Your phone calls to US Senators could be what passes the bill this year and gets the top-to-bottom review of the criminal justice system started.

We in the drug reform movement are filled with optimism after a historic year and campaign, and we are getting the anti-prohibitionist message out to more and more people than ever. But your help is needed to allow it to continue.

An ex-governor is assassinated, and Ciudad Juarez sees its 130th police officer killed this year. Just another week in the prohibition-related violence plaguing Mexico.

The marijuana movement is starting to organize to protect its economic interests, and now, the cannabis movement has a Washington lobbyist.

The effort to roll back overly restrictive medical marijuana regulations in New Jersey hit a bump in the state Senate Monday, but it's not dead yet.

Pioneering psychedelic pharmacologist Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin has suffered a stroke, but is expected to recover.

A fungus that blighted the Afghan opium crop this year is being blamed for heroin shortages in England that are leading to adulterated smack and even fake smack, and that's sending some users to the hospital.

What, no crooked jail guards? How about a federal judge? We've got one this week, as well as a couple of dirty narcs, and a sticky-fingered police captain.

A pot legalization bill passed the House in the US territory of the Northern Marianas Islands a couple of weeks ago, but now it has been killed in the Senate.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has said money laundering and police reforms are key to winning victory over the drug cartels. But with the jockeying already beginning for the 2012 elections, their prospects are fading.