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packaged synthetics (image via wikimedia.org)
packaged synthetics (image via wikimedia.org)

Czechs Ban New Synthetic Drugs, Salvia, Ketamine

Acting with great rapidity for a legislative body, the Czech Parliament has moved to ban dozens of synthetic drugs, and the stuff that gets you high in salvia divinorum, too.
Latest News

DC's Medical Marijuana Program to Get Off Ground on April 15

After months of delay, Washington, DC Mayor Vince Gray announced that the rules and regulations governing the District's medical marijuana program will go into effect on Friday, April 15 when they're published in the D.C. Register. The news comes as advocates of the program started complaining loudly about delays in its implementation, which dates back almost a year.
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hostagenation.jpg
hostagenation.jpg

Chronicle Book Review: Hostage Nation

We review a book on Colombia and US drug policy seen through a lens focused on American contractors and Colombian politicians kidnapped by the FARC.
In The Trenches

DC: Mayor to Implement Medical Marijuana

 

DC: Mayor to implement medical marijuana

Thanks to everyone who took action on our alert and contacted the mayor’s office!

Dear friends:

We did it! Mayor Vince Gray announced today that the District will be implementing its medical marijuana program. The calls you made and the emails you sent in response to last week’s alert no doubt played a role in today’s announcement and helped illustrate the power of getting involved with local government.

The final regulations are scheduled to be included in the April 15 issue of the DC Register. Shortly thereafter, those interested in opening one of the five dispensaries and 10 cultivation centers in the District will be able to submit applications to the Department of Health. Seriously ill patients whose doctors recommend marijuana will also be able to send in their applications to become registered patients, although they will not be able to legally possess marijuana unless it was purchased from a licensed dispensary.

MPP, with your support, has been fighting for years to see this law take effect. Thanks to the District of Columbia Patients’ Cooperative, and to everyone who took the time to reach out to the mayor’s office, and congratulations to the patients who have waited all too long for this day. It’s been a pleasure working by your sides to make sure patients will finally be protected in the District.

Sincerely,

[object Object]

Dan Riffle
Legislative Analyst
Marijuana Policy Project

Chronicle
California Gov. Jerry Brown takes a tiny step toward corrections reform.
California Gov. Jerry Brown takes a tiny step toward corrections reform.

California Corrections "Realignment" Not Nearly Enough [FEATURE]

California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill "realigning" corrections in the state, but that's just the tiniest of baby steps toward fixing an out of control prison system. How about some real sentencing reform?
Blog
420marijuana.png
420marijuana.png

Obama Announces 420 Gathering on Facebook

[inline:420marijuana.png align=right]

If one thing ought to be undeniably clear by now, it's that the President just loves being lobbied for marijuana legalization. That's why he keeps hosting popularity contests for political issues on the internet, and inviting the decidedly predictable chorus of calls for ending the war on drugs. So, in order to ensure that his next such event is similarly well attended, the President is asking us to join him for a live 4/20 celebration on Facebook that you don't want to miss!

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parthenon_25.gif

This Week in History

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
Chronicle
prohibition fuels violence (image via Wikimedia)
prohibition fuels violence (image via Wikimedia)

Mexico Drug War Update

More bloody days in Ciudad Juarez, and violence flares in Veracruz as well.
Blog
Maine medical marijuana dispensary.png
Maine medical marijuana dispensary.png

Idiot Compares Medical Marijuana Dispensary to Japanese Nuclear Reactor

The East Coast's first dispensary has opened in Frenchville, ME, and although no one has been remotely harmed by it in any way whatsoever, some area residents believe it may only be a matter of time before patient access exacts a vicious toll from innocents in the vicinity. The award for most terrified local moron clearly goes to the guy who went on the news and drew parallels between the horrific nuclear crisis unfolding in Japan and the facility growing marijuana up the road (at 1:47):

Chronicle
prohibition corrupts (image via Wikimedia)
prohibition corrupts (image via Wikimedia)

This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Missing drug money, meth-dealing sheriffs, cocaine-snorting crooked cops, cops turned robbers -- it's just another week on the corrupt cops beat.
Chronicle
Latest News

Is DARE Program Worth It?

While participants remain enthusiastic, scientific reviews have been negative on the effectiveness of the DARE program, which started in Los Angeles in 1983. A 2006 report by the U.S. Surgeon General concluded that those who participate in DARE are just as likely to use drugs as those who don’t. Khadija K. Swims, of Grand Valley State University, reviewed several studies on DARE and concluded the program is "ineffective" in preventing future drug, alcohol and tobacco use in adolescents. The results of such studies mean schools can’t spend federal money on DARE. Under rules that went into effect in 1998, the Department of Education requires agencies that receive federal money to prove within two years that their programs reduce drug use among students.
Latest News
Latest News

Florida Political Action Committee Protests Gov. Rick Scott's New Drug Testing Policy by Sending Him Urine

Last month, Gov. Scott signed an executive order allowing random drug testing of state employees and a bill is currently working its way through Florida's legislature that would require welfare and food stamp recipients to undergo drug testing. The Committee for the Positive Insistence on a Sane Society, or PISS, is calling the smelly "gift" a peaceful protest. "In one breath our CEO professes to be focusing on cutting wasteful government spending and laying off tens of thousands of state employees, while at the same time he announces a program to drug test state employees without any legitimate basis for such an invasion of privacy," a PISS press release stated.
Latest News

Vermont Considers Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Medical marijuana has been legal in Vermont since 2004, for those with qualifying illnesses — including cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis — who sign up for the state’s registry. The 2004 law allows patients to grow their own marijuana, but advocates say many find that a daunting task, leaving them with the prospect of making illegal deals for street dope. The answer, advocates say, is to legalize a small number of medical marijuana dispensaries — nonprofit operations that would grow marijuana and sell it to those on the medical marijuana registry.
Latest News

Venezuelan Drug Trafficker, Walid Makled, Says Chávez Government Officials Tied to Cocaine Trade

Walid Makled says he had top Venezuelan generals and government officials on his payroll. He says that five or six plane-loads of cocaine take off everyday from San Fernandeo de Apure, in south-western Venezuela, bound for the US, via Honduras and Mexico. "It’s an everyday thing. Not every other day, it’s every day. Between FARC and the Venezuelan Army, we’re talking about four or five planes leaving Apure every day."
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Chronicle
No growing your own, you Mainers! (Image courtesy of the author)
No growing your own, you Mainers! (Image courtesy of the author)

Maine Marijuana Decriminalization Bills Die

Bills that would have decriminalized up to five ounces of weed or six pot plants were killed in a Maine legislative committee last week.
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Chronicle
Will voters take matters into their own hands now? (Image via Wikimedia)
Will voters take matters into their own hands now? (Image via Wikimedia)

Marijuana Legalization Bill Dies in Washington State

A move to legalize weed through the legislative process has died in Olympia, but some are acting to put a legalization initiative on the November ballot.