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Teenage Mexican Drug Trafficking Organization Hitman Is a U.S. Citizen

The floppy-haired 14-year-old turned, like any other modern teen, to YouTube to make his confession. But unlike a typical 8th-grader, Edgar Jimenez confessed to beheading people for Mexican Drug Traffickers for the price of $2,500 each. Mexican authorities nabbed the "hit boy" known as "El Ponchis" at an airport; he was en route to Tijuana, where he and his teenage sister were planning to sneak into San Diego. Why? He's an American citizen.
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In The Trenches

You Did It (Action Alert)

We Are the Drug Policy Alliance.

Senate leadership is sitting on a bill that would pave the way for criminal justice and drug policy reforms. Urge your Senators to support this bill!

Take Action!

Email Your Senators

Dear friends,

Thanks so much for your emails and phone calls to the U.S. Senate! We're very close to creating an independent commission to urge Congress and President Obama to reduce incarceration and improve public safety. This commission is a great opportunity to put the failed war on drugs on trial. I'm optimistic we can finally make this happen, but we need your help again.

Please contact your Senators today before Congress adjourns for the year. Tell them to pressure Senate leadership to pass the National Criminal Justice Commission Act.

If we can get this commission established, we hope to force Congress and the President to consider important ideas like making marijuana legal, treating drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue, and eliminating failed drug war programs that waste taxpayer money.

Senator Jim Webb (D-Va) and others have a plan to pass the bill, but in order for the plan to work we need to show enormous support. The best thing you can do is email your Senators. And then forward this email to friends and family.Please contact your Senators now and help pass this critical legislation. Together we can march this bill over the finish line. We're very close.

Sincerely,

Bill Piper
Director, Office of National Affairs
Drug Policy Alliance

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Maine Sheriff Calls for Drug Agency Chief's Ouster

The sheriff in Maine's easternmost county, Washington County's Sheriff Donnie Smith, is crossing swords with Maine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Roy McKinney. Smith said that the MDEA is a "rogue agency." He cited several incidents including an agent's misuse of a stun gun, $3,000 in missing drug buy money and a video that surfaced showing an agent flash his badge, drink some beer and then drive away.
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Draft of Colorado Medical Marijuana Rules Is a 90-Page Tome

Medical marijuana advocates and government representatives hammered out the final details of proposed new rules that would give Colorado the most comprehensive seed-to-sale cannabis business regulations in the nation. The rules would govern everything: how state officials regulate marijuana cultivation; how dispensary owners keep track of their sales; what makers of marijuana-infused pastries should put on their labels. Several of the rules would place Colorado in unprecedented territory — for instance, requiring marijuana growers to install security cameras through which state auditors could remotely monitor their crop.
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Chronicle
Blog
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It’s Time to End America’s Failed Cannabis Prohibition (Opinion)

Allen St. Pierre and Paul Armentano of NORML opine that the end of cannabis prohibition is near. How can they tell? When the beneficiaries of the status quo — both prohibitionists and contrabandists — join together to actively oppose long sought alternatives to America’s expensive, unsuccessful, anti-free market and Constitution-warping cannabis prohibition, then it is clear that change is upon us.
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Government Heads for Clash with Scientists Over Drug Advice: A Plan to Remove the Legal Minimum Number of Scientists from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs Risks Further Harming Relationships with Scientists and with Evidence (Opinion)

The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill has major implications for UK drug laws and the potential to damage the quality of scientific advice the government (and parliament) gets, and to further dent the scientific community's confidence in the government.
Chronicle
In The Trenches

Drug Truth 12/06/10

Cultural Baggage * Century of Lies * 4:20 Drug War NEWS  *  Time 4 Hemp PLEASE sign petition to drug czars to appear on our programs:  http://www.petitiononline.com/dtn/

Cultural Baggage for  12/05/10 29:00  Neill Franklin, Dir of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Daniel Robello of DPA re horrors of Mexican drug war + Mary Jane Borden with Drug War Facts "What is harm reduction?"

LINK:   http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3182

TRANSCRIPT:  Mon

Century of Lies for  12/05/10  29:00  Wanda James speaking for Kush Con, largest ever cannabis conference in Denver Dec 17-19, Dr. Robert Melamede, Pres of Cannabis Science + DTN Editorial

LINK:   http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3183

TRANSCRIPT: Mon

4:20 Drug War NEWS, 12/06 to 12/16/10  Link at www.drugtruth.net on the right margin -

Sun - Daniel Robello of Drug Policy Alliance re horrors of Mexican drug war Sat - Dr. Robert Melamede, "Flips Vs Blips"

Fri - Neill Franklin, director of LEAP (2 of 2) + DTN Editorial Thu - Dr. Robert Melamede the absurdity of prohibition Wed - Neill Franklin, Dir of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition 1 of 2 Tue - Wanda James speaks for Kush-Con the worlds largest marijuana convention in Denver, Dec 17-19 Mon - Mary Jane Borden of Drug War Facts: "What is Harm Reduction?"

Programs produced at Pacifica Radio Station KPFT in Houston, 90.1 FM.  You can Listen Live Online at www.kpft.org

-  Cultural Baggage Sun, 7:30 PM ET, 6:30 PM CT, 5:30 PM MT, 4:30 PM PT

-  Century of Lies, SUN, 8 PM ET, 7 PM CT, 6 PM MT & 5 PM PT

-  Time 4 Hemp, My segment Fri 12:45 AM ET, 11:45 PM CT, 10:45 PM MT, 9:45 PM PT at www.americanfreedomradio.com

Who's Next?":  Kathy Staudt, UTEP Professor

Hundreds of our programs are available online at www.drugtruth.net, www.audioport.org and now at James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.  http://www.bakerinstitute.org/dtn

We have potcasts, searchability, CMS, XML, sorts by guest name and by organization. We provide the "unvarnished truth about the drug war" to scores of broadcast affiliates.  You can tune into both our 1/2 hour programs, live, at 6:30 central time on Pacifica's KPFT at http://www.kpft.org  and call in your questions and concerns toll free at 1-877-9-420 420. 

The two, 29:00 shows appear along with the seven, daily, 3:00  "4:20 Drug War NEWS" reports each Monday morning at http://www.drugtruth.net .  We currently have 95 affiliated, yet independent broadcast stations.  With a simple email request to [email protected] , your station can join the Drug Truth Network, free of charge.

Check out our latest videos via www.youtube.com/fdbecker  Please become part of the solution, visit our website: www.endprohibition.org for links to the best of reform.  "Prohibition is evil." - Reverend Dean Becker, DTN Producer, 713-462-7981

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WikiLeaks: Is Argentina Washing Dirty Drug Trafficking Money? (Opinion)

Need more evidence of the futility of the war on drugs? Look no further than a WikiLeaked cable from the U.S. Embassy in Argentina released last week. It turns out that for all the happy talk about international cooperation to combat money laundering, the embassy believes some politicians may not really be interested.
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Obama Administration Warns Oakland on Medical Marijuana Farms

The Obama administration has warned Oakland over the licensing of four giant medical marijuana farms, saying the plan is in violation of state and federal law and could trigger multiple legal actions against the city. Officials from the Justice Department’s civil division and the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco delivered the blunt message to Oakland City Attorney John Russo, according to two officials who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to talk about the meetings. At issue is an ordinance, approved by the Oakland City Council last July, to license four industrial facilities to cultivate and process medical marijuana and sell the product to dispensaries around the state.
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Ghost Towns: Ciudad Juarez Residents Flee New Homes to Escape Drug Prohibition War Violence

Across the border from El Paso, Texas, a mass exodus triggered by a murderous prohibitionist war for drug trafficking routes into the United States has left huge swaths of Ciudad Juarez uninhabited, rocking Mexican home builders and gutting the large industrial city of its upwardly mobile working class. Residents are fleeing many towns along the Mexican border, but the migration is perhaps most acutely felt in Juarez, which until recently was among Mexico's fastest-growing cities, its industrial jobs attracting immigrants from across the country and Central America.
In The Trenches

Attention Students: Start a SAFER Campus Campaign This Spring

The SAFER Campuses Initiative is off to an early start for Spring 2011, and we want to help you get a campaign going on your campus.

We're already helping several campuses get their efforts off the ground, and we'll continue to help them and others work to change campus policies and spark public debate about the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol.

The goal of the SAFER Campuses Initiative is to work with students at as many schools as possible, so please contact us today to let us know if you are interested in working with us on your campus or at one near you.

Whether you're interested in running a full-blown SAFER campaign, or simply taking action when opportunities present themselves, we want to hear from you!  We will be able to provide you with a great deal of support, including instructions, materials, and direct assistance.

The SAFER movement began just five years ago on two college campuses in Colorado, and since then it has spread across the nation. Now, students at more than a dozen schools, including five of the 15 largest in the nation, have adopted SAFER referendums, calling for reductions in campus penalties for marijuana use so they're no greater than those for alcohol use. At a few of those schools, SAFER campus leaders are now working with administrators to develop and implement policy changes that reflect the student votes. Perhaps most importantly, these efforts have generated significant news coverage and discussion at the campus, local, and even national level.

If you're interested in working with SAFER on your campus or on one that's nearby, please take a minute to check out the SAFER Campuses Initiative website, then send us an e-mail and answer the following questions about yourself and your school so we can get things rolling.

1. What school are you currently attending or interested in working at?

2. Are you a member of a student organization working on marijuana policy reform? If so, which one? If not, are you interested in potentially starting one? (NOTE: being part of or starting a student organization is not required, but can be very helpful.)

3. Anything else that might be of note? A personal story? A particular skill or work/volunteer experience?

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Gov. Christie Makes Deal on New Jersey's Medical Marijuana Regulations

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie struck a deal to partially rewrite his administration's proposed medical marijuana regulations, which had advocates and some lawmakers ready to revolt. Under the new plan, medical cannabis could be grown and distributed at more places than Christie originally wanted. It also would allow terminally ill patients easier access to the drug, but an unusual potency cap would remain.
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Drug Prohibition War Spills Into San Diego

In San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area, warehouses may be housing cross-border tunnels used to smuggle huge amounts of drugs from Tijuana, Mexico. After two major underground passages were discovered last month less than two blocks from one of nation's busiest border crossings for cargo, federal authorities are knocking on doors of warehouse owners and tenants to ask for help.
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Chronicle
Michele Leonhart, on hold (Image courtesy Wikimedia)
Michele Leonhart, on hold (Image courtesy Wikimedia)

Senator to Place Floor Hold on DEA Nominee Leonhart

The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday approved the nomination of Michele Leonhart to head the DEA, but one senator has vowed to place a hold on it on the Senate floor over the issue of pain relief for seniors.