Feature: Canada's New Drug Strategy: Mandatory Minimums In, Harm Reduction Out
Canada's ruling Conservative Party has unveiled a US-style drug strategy with mandatory minimums and without harm reduction. It's not getting a friendly reception.
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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories
This week, it's not individual cops, but entire drug squads gone bad, and, of course, the requisite drug-smuggling prison guard.
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Prohibition: San Francisco Mayor Says Drug War an "Abject Failure," Sheriff Agrees
Mayor Gavin Newsom has criticized the nation's political leadership -- including his own party -- for continuing a drug war that causes crime and doesn't work.
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Drug Treatment: GAO Study Reveals Abuse Allegations, Deaths at Residential Treatment Programs
A stint in teen boot camp can prove infinitely more deadly than the original problems they purport to address.
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Tobacco: California City Becomes First to Ban Smoking In One's Own Home
The northern California town of Belmont has enacted a partial indoor smoking ban affecting people in multi-home dwellings.
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Europe: Dutch to Ban Magic Mushroom Sales
Holland's ruling conservative government is trying to roll back tolerance policies.
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Middle East: Lebanese Political Crisis Means Bumper Hash Crop
A Lebanese government paralyzed by political infighting and a Lebanese Army busy fighting with Islamic radicals have provided all the impetus necessary for farmers in the Bekaa Valley to return to their favorite cash crop.
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Southeast Asia: Burmese Opium Production on the Rise
Poppy planting was up 29% the first half of this year, while opium production jumped by 46%, according to a new UN report.
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Southwest Asia: US Turns Up the Pressure to Spray Poppy Fields, Afghan Government Resists -- So Far
US drug warriors have long wanted to unleash herbicidal sprays as a weapon to put a dent in Afghanistan's burgeoning opium poppy crop, but the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai -- along with a number of NATO allies -- has staunchly resisted American entreaties. In the wake of the country's record-breaking opium harvest this year, however, the Americans are turning up the pressure, but so far to no avail.
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Europe: North Wales Top Cop Calls For Legalization, Regulation of Drugs
Another leading police official has called for an end to drug prohibition.
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Resource: Reformer's Calendar Accessible Through DRCNet Web Site
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to the events coming up the soonest, and more.
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Resource: DRCNet Web Site Offers Wide Array of RSS Feeds for Your Reader
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War Chronicle and more -- is now available.
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Webmasters: Help the Movement by Running DRCNet Syndication Feeds on Your Web Site!
Support the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
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Feedback: Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?
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Students: Intern at DRCNet and Help Stop the Drug War!
Apply for an internship at DRCNet for this fall (or spring), and you could spend the semester fighting the good fight!
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Weekly: Blogging @ the Speakeasy
"The Drug Czar's Blog Accidentally Admits That Drug Laws Ruin Lives," "The Truth About Why Republican Candidates Oppose Medical Marijuana," "When The Drug Czar Says We're Winning The Drug War, It Means Nothing," "Mitt Romney's Horrible Encounter With a Medical Marijuana Patient," "McCain and Giuliani Say Terrible Things to a Medical Marijuana Patient."
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More Web Site Success: Another Big Digg Hit Last Week Massively Increased Our Web Site Traffic
Massive increases to our web site traffic have increased our costs, and we need your help to pay for it.
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The Drug Czar's Blog Accidentally Admits That Drug Laws Ruin Lives
Yesterday, in a post titled "Random Drug Testing Can Save Lives," the Drug Czar once again blogged himself into a corner. The piece quotes extensively from a Kentucky newspaper article, which argues that random drug testing will save students from getting arrested:
"There was a tragedy in Scott County last week. A young man's future was ruined, and the events that took place will likely haunt him for the rest of his life.
Unless you've been on vacation, you've probably already heard that a superstar athlete on the Scott County basketball team was arrested on felony drug charges, which could result in him going to prison for as long as 10 years. [Georgetown News]
That's awful. But what does this have to do with random drug testing?
...Whether we realize it or not, the real tragedy is this young man wasn't caught sooner, through a less punitive program intended to help youthful offenders, not send them to prison. The greater tragedy, to my way of thinking, is that we, as a community and a school system, haven't seen fit to acknowledge reality and implement a random drug testing program in our high school, and perhaps our middle schools.
So what exactly did this young man do that could get him locked away for 10 years? He was arrested for 1.6 grams of crack on school grounds. Crack/powder sentencing disparity + school zone = 10 years for a one-day supply of drugs.
By conceding that this young man's life has been ruined, the Drug Czar does far more to indict our brutally unfair sentencing laws than to promote random drug testing. He is literally telling us that we should let him collect urine from our children, otherwise his drug soldiers will put them in jail for a decade.
And if that doesn't make your head spin, consider that cocaine leaves your system in 1-2 days and will rarely come up in a drug screen anyway. You can smoke crack all night on Friday and pass a drug test on Monday, so none of this whole insane conversation about saving people from crack laws with drug testing even makes sense to begin with.
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