I’ve seen these before, but never in the news:

From the Coventry Evening Telegram:

Drug users will be able to dump their illegal stashes without getting in trouble before they enter a massive dance festival near Stratford this weekend. Warwickshire Police will again have an amnesty zone just before the entrance of Global Gathering at Long Marston airfield.

But why would anyone do that?

An article this morning in the Daily Journal in northeast Mississippi reports that efforts to restrict purchase of the chemical components of methamphetamine have caused a reduction in the number of meth labs in Lee County. But don't get too excited: there's just as much meth available in the county now as before. Now, though, it's imported, and the stuff is worse -- it's crystal meth, also known as ice, and according to Sheriff Jim Johnson it's a lot more potent than the stuff people are making locally.

A several part story by Audra Burch in the Miami Herald Sunday discussed the shooting death of nine-year old Sherdavia Jenkins, her life before it and her family in the aftermath. Jenkins was a bystander, playing with a brother and sister and friend, when she was struck down by a stray bullet in "an open space between two buildings that police say became a shooting gallery for a smalltime drug peddler and a street tough." It's the kind of tragic story that is tragically too common to always make the papers.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The Allegheny County district attorney's office has launched an investigation into what happened to $4,000 that Glassport police failed to return to a local bar owner when drug charges against him were dropped. "The fact that money was seized and placed in an evidence locker and turned up missing is unacceptable," said district attorney's office spokesman Mike Manko.

I agree, but I’d go a step further and call it a crime. Grand larceny to be specific. Of course, Glassport officers think it’s just a procedural problem:

Steubenville, West Virginia, has an interlocking problem of drugs and prostitution, The Intelligencer in nearby Wheeling reported this morning. The article was prompted by an anti-prostitution sting operation that rounded up six men and five women Wednesday night.

"The prostitution and the drugs go hand-in-hand," [police chief William] McCafferty said. "Most of the (prostitutes) are drug users, and that's how they support their habit. None of the men who are coming here to purchase the product the women are selling are from Steubenville, and we don’t need them in our city.

It's the day the Chronicle is published, and, as my mother was always fond of telling me, there's no rest for the wicked. I'll be spending the afternoon writing a piece for the Oaksterdam News http://www.oaksterdamnews.com/ The Oaksterdam News wants its readers to know about the Drug War Chronicle, and we're certainly happy to help.