Drug War Chronicle

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

The British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the government body charged with setting drug policy, has a new chairman this week, and he has said he wants to downgrade Ecstasy to a less serious drug classification.

Move over, Sicilian Mafia. The Calabrian mob, grown rich and powerful off trafficking in black market cocaine, are the new tough guys in Europe.

Colombia's vice-president went to London to attend events related to a new British campaign against cocaine consumption, but while he was there, he suggested maybe legalization should be part of the discussion.

The Chilean government recently reclassified marijuana as a "dangerous drug" like heroin or methamphetamine, but one senator is crying foul.

Faced with high rates of opiate addiction and a rising overdose toll, the Massachusetts Senate is considering funding a pair of "secure treatment centers" for arrested drug users.

Attorneys for Dr. Stephen Schneider, a Kansas physician indicted by the feds as a "pill mill" operator, have now filed a motion seeking dismissal of the indictment and challenging the constitutionality of the Controlled Substances Act.

The DEA agent helped police in a Missouri do some COPS-style raids earlier this year. There was only one problem: He wasn't a DEA agent. Now the people busted are suing.

On opposite sides of the country, crooked cops are headed for long prison sentences, and another Atlanta narc is going to the big house. Meanwhile, a Customs and Border Protection agent in San Diego and a jail guard in the Florida panhandle get busted.