Drug War Chronicle

The Washington state marijuana decrim and legalization bills were killed in committee this week. That means it will be up to the voters to legalize pot in November through an initiative -- if organizers can come up with enough signatures in time.

Will the second time be the charm in South Dakota? Four years ago, a medical marijuana initiative there lost by four points. Now, advocates are ready to try again, and they think they can go over the top this time.

Apply for an internship at DRCNet and you could spend a semester fighting the good fight!

At least seven heroin users have died from dope contaminated with anthrax in Scotland, and one in Germany. Harm reductionists and public health experts are demanding that government respond with more than "quit using."

Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. If enacted, it would provide for the first comprehensive review of criminal justice policies in decades.

The statehouses are humming and marijuana-related bills are coming fast and furious. Here's a glance at a few introduced in recent days.

Last weekend saw the single deadliest 24-hour-period ever in Mexico's drug war, with 69 people killed. And that's just for starters.

Another legislative season begins across the land, and with it comes another crop of bills demanding drug testing of people receiving public benefits, from unemployment to food stamps to state medical assistance. They're expensive, they're impractical, and they're most likely unconstitutional, but that doesn't stop drug war demagogues from promoting them.

A bill that would make New York the next medical marijuana state has won an Assembly committee vote.

Acting from firmly prohibitionist principles, the Russian government saw potential new drug threats on the horizon and promptly criminalized them.