Drug War Chronicle

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"Colorado Congressman Fights Back Against DEA's Medical Marijuana Raids," "New Synthetic Marijuana Products: Are They Medicine?," "Opponents of Medical Marijuana Should Just Give Up," "Pot Wars -- Battlefield California," "Employment Discrimination Against Medical Marijuana Patients Must End," "Federal Policy on Medical Marijuana is Still a Confusing Mess."

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MedicalMarijuana.ProCon.org, part of the ProCon.org family, is an in-depth web site presenting information and views from a variety of perspectives on the medical marijuana issue. The Chronicle is running a series of info items from ProCon.org over the next several weeks, and we encourage you to check it out.

The DEA's efforts to subvert administration policy favoring state medical marijuana laws is not winning it any friends, and is gaining it some powerful new opponents.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon caught serious flak this week from two different directions: Angry residents of Ciudad Juárez, tired of the killing and the soldiers, and the Mexican Catholic Church, which issued a report critical of human rights abuses in the military and crooked law enforcement.

Cocaine contaminated with a veterinary de-worming agent called levamisole made the news last fall when coke users started coming down with a nasty disease called agranulocytosis and a few of them died. While the clamor has quieted, the tainted dope hasn't gone away. In fact, there seems to be more of it than ever.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.

US, NATO and Afghan military forces are consolidating their hold on the Taliban stronghold of Marja in Helmand province. But now is when the real battle for hearts and minds begins.

A series of DEA raids on medical marijuana growers and labs in Colorado in recent weeks is raising serious questions about whether the Denver DEA is following Justice Department policy... or whether the Obama administration's stance on medical marijuana is shifting back toward the bad old Bush days.