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Impaired Driving Bill Draws Opposition From Medical Marijuana Users

Montana's House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on Representative Ken Peterson’s bill which aims to make it illegal to drive while on any dangerous drugs "per se." House Bill 33 also includes metabolite, or any molecule left in the body, yet excludes prescription medication if taken under doctors orders. "This bill makes sure you can’t drive while impaired under the influence of drugs and I don’t think this bill requires any showing of impairment, it deems somebody to be on the wrong side of the law merely for having a few molecules of certain substances in their blood," said medical marijuana patient Barbara Trego.
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Mexico's Ex-President Vicente Fox: Legalize Drugs

As Mexico drowns in drug prohibition related bloodshed — suffering almost 12,000 murders in 2010 — it is perhaps unsurprising that government critics turn up their screaming that the war on drugs isn't working. But it was a bit of a bombshell when former president Vicente Fox added his voice to the chorus. The cowboy-boot wearing leader, who ruled Mexico from 2000 to 2006, had once declared the "mother of all battles" against crime and rounded up drug kingpins.
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Choice Medical Marijuana Strains: Matching Up Strains with Symptoms

The general rule of thumb is that there are two types of marijuana, sativas and indicas, though most plants are a combination of the two with one type dominant. Sativas tend to be more cerebral—that is, better for mood conditions and daytime use. Indicas tend to have more of an impact on the body and are better for treating pain and sedation.
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Did You Know? Marijuana Use in Decrim States, on DrugWarFacts.org

DrugWarFacts.org, a publication of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is an in-depth compilation of key facts, stats and quotes on the full range of drug policy issues, excerpted from expert publications on the subjects. The Chronicle is running a series of info items from DrugWarFacts.org over the next several weeks, and we encourage you to check it out.
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Chronicle
If we can't keep drugs out of the prisons, how can we keep them out of the country?
If we can't keep drugs out of the prisons, how can we keep them out of the country?

This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

A small-town jail guard, a big city cop, and a US Border Patrol agent all go down this week.
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Hemp: Good Stuff, Bad Rap

Hemp has omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, contains 33 percent protein, is a good source of vitamin E and is low in saturated fat. It's an environmentally friendly crop that grows fast and requires few pesticides. But it is also a controversial food source because of its relationship with its cousin, marijuana.
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Medical Marijuana Dispensary Ban Finds Disfavor in Laguna

Medical marijuana dispensaries remain illegal in the city despite a state agency's vote to reject the ban. The Coastal Commission asked Laguna Beach to go back to the drawing board and find a way to regulate marijuana dispensaries instead of opting for a city-wide ban.
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Medical Marijuana Ads Help Sagging Media Profits

Medical marijuana advertising is taking off, propping up the fortunes of ailing media companies that have seen income from other business sectors plummet in the recession. Advertisements offering free edibles for new patients and products such as "super silver haze" are helping to keep the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SF Weekly and East Bay Express in business. Similar ads have even started cropping up — tentatively — in more staid publications, such as the San Francisco Chronicle.
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British Columbia Man Shot After Being Caught in Mexican Drug Prohibition War Crossfire

A Penticton, B.C., man vacationing in Mexico is recovering in hospital from a gunshot wound after being caught in a bloody crossfire that left one man dead in yet another round of drug prohibition violence in the troubled country. The man, in his 60s, was leaving a Mazatlan pharmacy with his wife on Sunday when gunmen opened fire, spraying their intended target with bullets and striking the man in the leg below the knee, according to family members.
Chronicle
Bolivian coca leaf chewer (image courtesy of the author)
Bolivian coca leaf chewer (image courtesy of the author)

US Says No to Lifting UN Coca Leaf Ban

Bolivia wants to undo a treaty clause that has outlawed the traditional practice of coca chewing for the last 50 years, but the US and others stand ready to block that effort.
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Latest News

Guatemala Army No Match for Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations

Guatemalan soldiers tasked with sweeping out Mexican drug trafficking organizations are finding they are outgunned and ill-equipped, raising fears of a power vacuum in parts of the country even after a 30-day military siege. "Organized crime is not just infiltrating us, it pains me to say it but drug traffickers have us cornered," Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom told Congress last week.
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Perspective: To Prevent AIDS in Russia, Drug Addicts Need Care

Russia has one of the fastest spreading HIV epidemics in the world, driven largely by the government's refusal to institute measures to treat the country's drug addicts — measures that have dramatically reduced HIV infections in drug addicts in other countries, including the U.S.
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In The Trenches

Introducing Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society

Points (Blog of the Alcohol and Drug History Society)


 The Alcohol and Drugs History Society Launches

Points
 

 
 
 
 
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 

Contact: Joseph Spillane, Managing Editor, [email protected], (352) 273-3355


The Alcohol and Drugs History Society Launches Points
 

January 18, 2010 - The Alcohol and Drugs History Society today unveiled Points, an interdisciplinary blog that examines present-day cultural developments and policy debates through various historical lenses. Led by Managing Editors Drs. Joseph Spillane and Trysh Travis, Points brings historical considerations to bear on contemporary drug and alcohol-related issues. Spillane and Travis hope the blog will act as a resource and virtual meeting space for  scholars, advocates, activists, and others interested in unraveling the complex relationship between past and present controversies surrounding mind-altering substances both legal and illicit.

Contributing Editors Caroline Jean Acker (Carnegie Mellon University), Charles Ambler (University of Texas-El Paso), Joseph Gabriel (Florida State University), Brian Herrera (University of New Mexico), David Herzberg (University of Buffalo), Amy Long (drug policy reform and free speech advocate), Michelle McClellan (University of Michigan), and Ron Roizen (independent scholar) will join Spillane and Travis in posting short, thoughtful reflections on topics as varied as addiction and treatment methodologies, the global drug war, media representations of substance use and abuse, the pharmaceutical industry, and alcohol and drug-related pedagogy. Points will also feature periodic interviews with authors of recent books on relevant topics and contributions from guest bloggers outside the university. "We hope to distill - no pun intended - some of the most exciting new scholarship on the history of drugs and alcohol into engaging and readable material that will interest a broad audience," says Spillane.

In addition to Points, the Alcohol and Drugs History Society publishes the ADHS Daily Register and The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Joseph Spillane is the author of Cocaine: From Medical Marvel to Modern Menace in the United States (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and an Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida (UF). His most recent project is a study of liberal prison reform in twentieth-century New York State. Trysh Travis teaches in UF's Center for Women's Studies and Gender Research and is currently working on an edited collection entitled "Re-Thinking Therapeutic Culture." Her first book, The Language of the Heart: A Cultural History of the Recovery Movement from Alcoholics Anonymous to Oprah Winfrey, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2009.
 

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