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When renowned R&B producer Dallas Austin was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in a Dubai prison for cocaine possession, he found an unlikely advocate in Republican Senator and Christian music composer Orrin Hatch, according to the New York Times:

The release of a music producer from a Dubai jail this week, quick on the heels of his conviction for drug possession, turns out to be a story of high-level string-pulling on the part of Mr. Hatch, the conservative Utah Republican and songwriter, along with Lionel Richie, the singer; Quincy Jones, the music entrepreneur; and an array of well-connected lawyers, businessmen and others, spanning cities and continents.

And it gets better:

Here's a late Sunday night heads-up on what I'll be working on this week--subject, of course, to breaking news and other vagaries... The Portland pot initiative handed in signatures Saturday, and it looks like they will have enough to make the ballot... Thursday's raids on San Diego area medical marijuana dispensaries and moves against doctors saw the feds and local officials attempting to show that the dispensaries and the doctors were not practicing "legitimate" medical marijuana medicine. Is that really what the feds and cops were doing? Is that really the case? And what does the future hold for the dispensaries?...

The British online publication "Spiked" noted in a larger story, citing a March article in the Guardian, that there is confusion over whether NATO troops are fighting a "war on drugs" in Afghanistan" or a "war on terror." Philip Cunliff wrote:

[T]he British mission objective is further confused by the question of whether the British army is fighting a war on drugs or the war on terror. Former British defence secretary John Reid argued that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is "absolutely interlinked" with the war on terror (though in fact, it was the Americans who endorsed their local allies’ poppy cultivation after the Taliban curtailed it) (4). On the other hand, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General James Jones, has said: "You won’t see NATO burning crops, but you will see us gather intelligence and support the national effort as best we can."

Professor Lynn Zimmer, a sociologist at Queens College in New York, was widely regarded among both drug policy scholars and activists as the most original thinker on drug issues in the United States. She died at her home this past Sunday. Please visit the Drug Policy Alliance's blog at http://blog.drugpolicy.org/2006/07/in-memoriam-lynn-zimmer-1947-2006.html to post your respects and memories.