Drug War Chronicle

California has been addicted to mass incarceration for the past quarter-century. Now, it looks like some federal judges are going to make the state go cold turkey. Tens of thousands of prisoners could be set free because California can't or won't pay to treat them as the Constitution requires.

Dutch banks have been snubbing coffee house accounts, closing existing ones and refusing to open new ones. Now, the Dutch government says the coffee houses are legal businesses and the banks must deal with them.

The Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy issued a report Wednesday calling for harm reduction, treating drug use as a public health issue, and decriminalizing marijuana. The report was an intervention aimed as much at Washington as at Vienna, where the UN meets next month to plot global drug strategy.

The Michael Phelps bong photo story has taken on a life of its own. It has garnered huge media coverage, much of it openly critical of the marijuana laws and official attitudes toward pot smokers. Now, drug reformers, sensing an opportunity to advance the cause, have organized a boycott of Kellogg cereals for refusing to renew his endorsement contract.

The drug reform community was hoping for a public health person -- not a cop or soldier -- to be named as drug czar. A cop is what we got, but a cop from a liberal town. Will an (arguably) progressive police chief as drug czar be as good?

Medical marijuana is moving again in Minnesota. A bill this week passed a Senate committee, despite crazed testimony from LaRouchites and Christian conservatives.

As commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama must now oversee our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As President, he is also responsible for another war, one that has gone on much longer and been more costly in terms of dollars spent and lives lost -- the war on drugs.

Bush administration holdovers are ordering raids on state-authorized medical marijuana clinics, despite President Obama's pledge to stop them. Please ask the new president and attorney general to take corrective actions sooner rather than later.

Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this spring (or summer), and you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!

Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we need your feedback to evaluate our work and make the case for Drug War Chronicle to funders. We need donations too.