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According to the complaint, the incident began when the bus arrived at the school and two employees boarded it in order to resolve a dispute in which the girls were not involved. The employees "smelled what they thought was marijuana," the complaint states, and five girls seated at the back of the bus, including Gaither and S.C., were detained and searched.
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During an interrogation that lasted the entire school day, and after being denied repeated requests to call their parents, the girls were required to "remove their shoes and socks, unbuckle their belts, unbutton their pants, and unzip their pants," the complaint says. They also had their "waistlines physically touched and searched" by a male employee while their pants were undone, and were made to "lift up their bras while their shirts remained on and jump up and down."

The searches were all performed behind closed doors and without the presence of police offices or female staff, the suit says. No marijuana was found. [Courthouse News]

The whole thing is so perverse and disturbing, it really ought to be examined in criminal court as well as civil. By the time a group of teenage girls was ordered lift their bras and hop up and down, it wasn't just a drug search anymore. This was something much sicker than that. But you can thank decades of propaganda-fueled marijuana hysteria for creating the environment in which school officials think they can get away with stuff like this.

Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use;  

Whether adults' use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918;  
 
Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana;  
 
Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels;

The costs associated with the current policies prohibiting marijuana sales and possession, including law enforcement, judicial, public defender, and corrections costs;

Whether there have been cases of corruption related to marijuana law enforcement;

The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws;

The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana;

Assume the government legalizes pot. It will be taxed (federal and state) and regulated for THC content. Do drug cartels just fold their tent? Hardly. Simply offer a more potent product at a lower cost -- tax-free, of course. Higher THC content is the goal of all serious pot smokers -- check out any issue of High Times, or the myriad of Internet sites offering more potent seeds.

While riding the Metro’s Red Line yesterday, I spotted former drug czar John Walters entering the train. When he ended up standing right beside me, I realized I couldn’t pass up the chance for a conversation. I know it sounds like a fruitless endeavor, but I’m an eternal optimist and thought, “Maybe if we have a casual lunch together, he’ll come to see the folly of keeping marijuana illegal.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is developing plans to seek up to 1,500 National Guard volunteers to step up the military's counter-drug efforts along the Mexican border, senior administration officials said Monday.

The plan is a stopgap measure being worked out between the Defense Department and the Homeland Security Department, and comes despite Pentagon concerns about committing more troops to the border — a move some officials worry will be seen as militarizing the region.

Take soldiers trained for war, seek out volunteers out of those who specifically would like to fight a drug war, arm them, and put them on American soil near a potentially volatile border.

Get ready for another Esequiel Hernandez -- possibly many.

TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) - Washington is to dramatically overhaul its Afghan anti-drug strategy, phasing out opium poppy eradication, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan told allies on Saturday.
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"The Western policies against the opium crop, the poppy crop, have been a failure. They did not result in any damage to the Taliban, but they put farmers out of work," [Richard] Holbrooke told Reuters after a series of bilateral meetings in Italy.

"We are not going to support crop eradication. We're going to phase it out," he said. [Reuters]

Last week, the UN released a major report that, for the first time, acknowledges and condemns the growing movement to legalize drugs, while simultaneously endorsing decriminalization for many drug crimes. No matter what your views on drug policy may be, it's remarkable that the UN is jumping headfirst into the legalization debate. It's equally notable that they're calling on countries around the world to reconsider policies of arresting users for small amounts of drugs.

Tragically, however, reporters at the Associated Press and USA Today somehow managed to take this groundbreaking report and turn it into something far less interesting. Both stories focus almost entirely on fluctuations in illicit drug production, which should be perfectly predictable by now to anyone who's followed international drug policy over a period of years. It's worth mentioning, but there's nothing new or exciting about it, particularly in the context of a report that was otherwise overflowing with controversial, politically-charged content.

Both stories buried the report's discussion of decriminalization, with USA Today's Donna Leinwand even managing to withhold mention of it until the very last line. What could have been a thought-provoking story about the international drug war leadership calling for fewer drug arrests was instead just another annual accounting of the drug war's progress (or lack thereof).

The point here isn't that an avowed partisan such as myself wants more media coverage that's favorable to my views. Of course I do. But my own prejudices notwithstanding, it's just a fact that the political focus of this report was unprecedented and powerfully newsworthy. The document literally begins on its first page with a heated discussion of how controversial the drug war has become, yet AP and USA Today failed to even mention this central theme of the report.

It's not a matter of taking sides, but rather simply acknowledging controversy when that's a major dimension of the story. It's in your interest to do this. The vigorous political debate that now surrounds the war on drugs is the easily the most effective angle for attracting readership to your drug policy coverage. Ironically, Leinwand's USA Today piece has links at the top of the page encouraging readers to submit the story to news aggregator sites including Digg and Reddit, which can exponentially increase your traffic. And guess what kinds of stories Digg and Reddit users are looking for. It's hilarious to find USA Today deliberately courting traffic from online communities that are obsessed with drug policy reform, while simultaneously ignoring the hooks that appeal to those audiences. Framing the story around the topics of legalization and decriminalization wouldn’t just have been appropriate under the circumstances, it would have made for a better headline, more links, discussion and traffic.

If you don’t believe me, write the story I'm suggesting and watch it outperform your initial coverage. I dare you.