Weekly: This Week in History
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
The greater use of today's high potency marijuana has probably been a critical factor in the unprecedented surge among those seeking treatment for marijuana⦠[ofsubstance.gov]
The majority of people in drug treatment programs today are there because of a law enforcement intervention
Despite near-unanimous support, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has vetoed a bill preventing prosecutors from using bong water to calculate the weight of controlled substances in drug prosecutions â and a lawmaker who helped pass the legislation accused the governor of doing so for political reasons.
The bill was the result of a 4-3 Minnesota Supreme Court decision last year that allowed Rice County prosecutors to charge Sara Ruth Peck, 47, of Faribault, with first-degree drug possession â a charge often reserved for drug dealers â after the water in a glass pipe tested positive for traces of methamphetamine.
MEXICO CITY (AP) â After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
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Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.
"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."
Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.
The budget piece is fair to focus on, but we told AP that we objected to the article's mischaracterization of current policy. A fairer and more nuanced observation would have been: This does look/sound a lot different, but the budget scenario hasn't changed overnight (it never does, in any realm of government) and it will take some time to test the Administration's commitment to the new approach. [ofsubstance.gov]