Drug War Chronicle

Another public opinion poll shows support for marijuana legalization approaching -- but not quite reaching -- majority status. The reform movement has come a long way, but the numbers suggest it still has a ways to go.

It's a corrupt cops twofer for New Jersey, another twofer for Indiana, a two-for-one special on Texas deputies, and a lone prison guard in Florida.

Colorado's medical marijuana program is taking off, with the number of patients, recommending physicians, and dispensaries all on the rise. But a state agency has proposed rule changes that could blunt the growth, endanger the new-style dispensaries and make it more difficult for patients to obtain their medicine. There should be fireworks at Monday's public hearing on the proposal.

Ryan Grim has produced an entertaining, enlightening, and absorbing social history of drug use in America. We have checked it out, and we think you should too.

As part of the Merida Initiative to provide Mexico with more than a billion dollars in anti-drug aid, Congress imposed human rights conditions on Mexico. Now, Human Rights Watch is urging the Obama administration to withhold some of that aid until Mexico deals with human rights abuses by its military.

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

Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a bill that would have created a task force to study problems and issues with the state's medical marijuana program. Now, the legislature has overridden that veto.

Eleven years after DC voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana initiative, Congress is finally butting out. The House yesterday approved the annual District appropriations bill without the Barr amendment, which had barred the District from implementing that vote.

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