No seriously, just look at Mexico and tell me that the drug war isn't a complete disaster:

TIJUANA, Mexico — Tijuana's public security spokesman says a fleet of brand new patrol cars has been burned in a Molotov cocktail attack.

Ernesto Alvarez says the 28 vehicles were hit in the predawn attack at a Mazda dealership. Six were destroyed, the rest damaged but possibly reparable. [AP]

Reparable, you say? Yeah, imagine it's your first day on the job as a cop in Tijuana and they give you a new patrol car that's already been lightly toasted by a firebomb.

Miami Herald has the story of a pot deal that went horribly wrong:

An argument over marijuana inside a Hialeah apartment Tuesday left one man dead, one wounded and a third under arrest, police said.

Really awful stuff. One guy thought he was gonna get robbed, pulled a gun and everything went crazy from there. You couldn't possibly keep track of how often things like this are happening.

And I can just picture the anti-drug crowd crowing, "and you want to legalize this stuff?" You're damn right we do. We want to decide who sells and where they'll be located. We can keep this business out of apartment buildings filled with children and put it in a safe place instead. Until that happens, you can never know when or where the next violent tragedy will occur. Currently, it's being sold in all the wrong places by all the wrong people. We can fix that. Easily.

Fortunately, the folks at The Miami Herald seem to be on the right track here. Right next to the story is a poll asking "Do you think legalizing marijuana would reduce crime?" So far 75% say yes, and maybe you guys can help bring that number up even higher. It's a good sign that the press is beginning to make that connection. There's no better time to discuss legalization than when lives are lost over a bag of marijuana.

In a blow to hard-line San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who has yet to find a medical marijuana dispensary she considers legal and who has coordinated a series of raids on dispensaries in recent years, a jury in San Diego Tuesday acquitted the manager of a local dispensary of marijuana possession and distribution charges. Jovan Jackson, 31, a Navy veteran, cried as the not guilty verdicts were read. He was, however, convicted on possession of Ecstasy and Xanax, small quantities of which were found in his home during an August 2008 raid. Still, Jackson expressed relief outside the courthouse. "I was very thankful," Jackson said. "This has been a long road. It hasn't been easy. I felt like a lot of weight was on my shoulders." Jackson's was the first medical marijuana case to go to trial since a series of Dumanis-orchestrated raids on dispensaries in September that resulted in 31 arrests and the closing of 14 San Diego-area dispensaries. Dumanis led other mass raids in 2006 and in February of this year. Jackson operated the Answerdam Alternative Care Collective, which was twice approached by undercover officers who had fraudulently obtained medical marijuana recommendations. Since the narcs had proper documentation under California law, and once they joined the collective by paying a $20 fee, Jackson let them purchase medical marijuana. Prosecutors presented evidence of $150,000 in credit card receipts and five pounds of marijuana seized during raids at the dispensary as evidence that, "This case is about making money, plain and simple," as Deputy District Attorney Chris Lindberg put it to the jury. But a large-scale operation is not out of line for a collective that boasted 1,649 members, as defense attorney K. Lance Rogers told the jury. He also reminded jurors that the narcs had signed up for the collective under false pretenses and that state law allows medical marijuana patients to legally buy marijuana from a collective that grows it. Jurors agreed, acquitting Jackson on the marijuana charges. Jurors told reporters after the trial that they found Jackson innocent because the state laws regarding medical marijuana sales from collectives were vague. "On a personal level, if you're going to hold somebody to a law, you have to define that law," said juror Perry Wright. It's not the end for Jackson. He faces up to three years in prison on the Ecstasty and Xanax possession charges, although he will most likely receive probation. And he faces another round of marijuana distribution charges from a similar undercover buy made this year. Given the verdict in this case, DA Dumanis might want to consider whether a re-run trial is worth the taxpayers' money and whether any of her pending dispensary prosecutions should go forward. But she probably won't.

Having apparently missed the memo that the alleged causal link between marijuana and psychosis is demonstrably false, BBC News is still spreading mindless hysteria and confusion about it. In an article overflowing with dubious claims, this one in particular caught my eye:

The experts believe skunk is particularly damaging because it contains more THC.
…
Unlike skunk, hashish - cannabis resin - contains substantial quantities of another chemical called cannabidiol or CBD and research suggests this can act as an antidote to the THC, counteracting its psychotic side effects.

And where did all that delicious, brain-nurturing CBD come from? It came from the cannabis plant, i.e. the exact thing you're claiming is so dangerous. The statement above, though not entirely untrue, highlights the fundamental ignorance about the cannabis plant that underlies this whole crazy obsession with "skunk" that has gripped the British press for years now. So let me break this down for you:

1. Skunk is just one variety of cannabis and hardly comprises the bulk of the market for good marijuana. It's an old strain that's been hybridized a million times over with other strains to the point that one rarely knows if they're smoking Skunk or not. Many strains contain some amount of Skunk, but there's generally no way to tell, especially if you're buying on the black market. In reality, the British press is just using the term "skunk" as slang for any type of high-potency marijuana. And that's why the hash comparison is absurd…

2. The only reason hash is often high in CBD is because hash is usually made from indica strains, which produce more CBD. But most commercial cannabis is indica-dominant anyway, so the whole idea that hash contains some special ingredient that's missing from cannabis is just pure nonsense. It all comes from the plant and it just depends what variety you're using. Instead of calling everything "skunk" and confusing everyone, why not educate the public about which strains have the healthiest ingredients?

If you're concerned about the safety of marijuana users, there is absolutely only one logical solution: regulate and control the product so that users know what they're getting and researchers know what they're studying. We could argue about this for a thousand years, or we could test it out right now and learn the truth.

The Hamas government running the Gaza Strip has adopted a law that allows for the death penalty for drug dealing. The move came Monday with a Hamas decision to cancel Israeli military laws on drugs and replace them with Egyptian drug laws. "The government has approved a decision to cancel the Zionist (Israeli) military law with regard to drugs and enact Egyptian law 19 of 1962," Gaza Attorney General Mohammed Abed said in a statement. "The latter law is more comprehensive in terms of crime and criminals and the penalties more advanced, including life sentences and execution. The Zionist law included light punishments that encouraged rather than deterred those who take and trade in drugs, and there is no objective, national or moral justification for continuing to apply it," Abed said. The Egyptian drug law will remain in effect until the Palestinian parliament passes a new drug law. But the parliament has only met rarely since elections in 2006. The Gaza Strip was administered by Egypt from 1948 to 1967, when Israel seized the territory, along with several others, during the Six-Day War. Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlers from the territory in 2005, when it was under the control of the secular Fatah Party of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. But Hamas unexpectedly defeated Fatah in Gaza elections in the 2006 elections and consolidated its power in a bloody factional struggle with Fatah the following year. Because of an ongoing Israeli blockade, most goods, including illicit ones, imported into Gaza are smuggled in, primarily through a network of tunnels on the Egyptian border. But Hamas has cracked down on drug trafficking and drug traffickers, claiming more than 100 arrests, and the seizure of dozens of kilograms of drugs, mostly marijuana.

They call this a gateway drug?

In the study, 40 percent of marijuana users said they have used marijuana to control their alcohol addictions, 66 percent said they used marijuana instead of prescription drugs, and 26 percent said marijuana helped them stay off other illegal drugs. [MPP]

For the 1000th time, the empirical reality about marijuana turns out to be the precise opposite of what the propaganda would have you believe.

I have a friend who has a variety of acute medical problems including severe diabetes, hepatitis C and liver cancer. He is now in the final stage of life.