At 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, supporters of legalized marijuana in Maine will crowd into a hearing room in Augusta to support a Portland legislator's bill to decriminalize pot. Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, sponsor of LD 1453, "An Act To Legalize and Tax Marijuana," said she was thrilled to learn about the hearing that has been scheduled before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

In a televised speech on the House floor about his arrest in Connecticut last Friday on driving-under-the-influence and marijuana-possession charges, House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson admitted to using marijuana to treat flare-ups of the pancreatitis that landed him in the hospital last November. Watson, R-East Greenwich, said he took a small amount of the drug with him when he went to Connecticut that day to help a friend move because he had had a pancreatic attack the day before, and wanted the drug handy if he had another severe one.

While much of Mexico's mainstream media, especially television stations and local newspapers, has shied away from covering killings and naming the drug trafficking organizations involved, a blog and its anonymous curator publish graphic details of spiraling prohibition violence. At Mexico's "blog del Narco" the images are gruesome and unedited: a dead man in a sports jersey with his face covered in dried red blood and grey sand; a woman hanging from a rope above a busy urban over-pass and naked bodies lined up on the ground displaying clear, uncensored, signs of torture. Some recent headlines from the site include: "Entire town taken hostage by Gunmen in Chihuahua"; "Eleven year old arrested in Acapulco with AK 47"; "Sinaloa cartel welcomes new police chief with tortured body"; and "Mass narco grave, 60 bodies found, total 148 corpses".

Drug trafficking organizations gunmen have been attacking Mexican border towns once thought to be safe from the country's rampant drug prohibition violence. The cities of Miguel Alemán, across the border from Roma, Texas, and Ciudad Mier have come under siege.

State Rep. Robert Watson (R-East Greenwich), the House Minority Leader, who criticized the Legislature by invoking the image of pot-smoking immigrants is facing drug charges in Connecticut.

Drug trafficking organizations have muscled their way into Central America, opening a new chapter in the drug prohibition war that almost certainly will exact further cost on U.S. taxpayers as American authorities confront these organizations on a new frontier. The extent of the infiltration is breathtaking. Drug trafficking organizations now control large parts of the countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America. They've bought off politicians and police, moved cocaine processing laboratories up from the Andes, and are obtaining rockets and other heavy armament that make them more than a match for Central America's weak militaries.

Los Angeles' latest plan — to hold a lottery to allow 100 medical marijuana dispensaries to operate — is facing resistance from shop owners who say they've followed all the rules yet still face closure. Lawsuits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court follow scores of other suits that stymied the city's fitful attempts to crack down on an unknown number of renegade dispensaries. The new ones could launch another series of judicial hearings and thwart the city's bid to enforce its ordinance.

The Florida Supreme Court has cited a lack of state standards for drug-sniffing dogs in throwing out evidence one of the canines detected in a Panhandle case. The 5-1 ruling says training certificates and records aren't enough to establish a canine's reliability.

As state Attorney General Paula Dow awaited guidance from top federal law enforcement officials on whether New Jersey's planned medical marijuana program is legal, supporters questioned whether the state was looking for a reason to delay the program's launch this summer. Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said there is "nothing new" about the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's position on properly run state medical marijuana programs. "The legislature worked on this bill for almost five years and it was thoroughly vetted legally."

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the insanely smart and funny Real Time host talks Palin, marijuana, and politics, among other topics. Here -- in honor of 4/20 -- is the marijuana part.

It appears Washington's Governor Chris Gregoire is being intellectually dishonest regarding a letter the US Department of Justice sent to her saying that federal prosecutors could slap any state employee who administers medical marijuana licenses with a criminal prosecution. Not only is Gregoire mischaracterizing the letter (which never says the Feds "would" prosecute), she also ginned up this whole controversy herself by specifically asking the Obama administration if state employees would be "immune from arrest or liability" knowing full well that prosecutors would never provide blanket immunity. Now Gregoire is leveraging the letter to bully the legislature into watering down the medical marijuana bill this week — asking them to gut key protections for sick and dying patients and complicating access for their caretakers. The fact is that no state employee has ever been prosecuted for activities related to medical marijuana so long as he or she was in compliance with state laws governing its licensing and regulation.

According to a new study released today by ListenLogic, a social media intelligence firm, 7.3% of patients across 12 therapeutic areas publicly cite marijuana as an alternative treatment option. The study was based upon an analysis of over 30,000 online, patient-level conversations across different medical conditions within which alternative treatments were mentioned.

In early April, thousands of Mexicans poured into the streets in over 20 Mexican cities to raise their voices in a chorus of protest against the government's ineffective and increasingly unpopular military campaign against drug trafficking organizations. These mass mobilizations mark some of the most heated condemnation yet of violence and impunity associated with President Calderón's U.S.-supported "drug war." The day of protest has been described as a historic "sea change" in Mexican public opinion.

The odor of burnt marijuana is no longer enough for police officers to order a person from their car, now that possession of less than an ounce of marijuana has been decriminalized in Massachusetts, the state's highest court ruled today. "Without at least some other additional fact to bolster a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, the odor of burnt marijuana alone cannot reasonably provide suspicion of criminal activity to justify an exit order," the court ruled in a decision written by Chief Justice Roderick Ireland.

Gil Kerlikowske has had enough with being Drug Czar even though he's only been at it less than two years. He has headed police departments in Seattle, WA and Buffalo, NY -- now he'd like to do the same in Chicago.

"At least 12,000 children have lost one or both of their parents," said Gustavo de la Rosa, an official from Mexico's human rights commission. Those motherless and fatherless children, said de la Rosa, are a lasting and tragic legacy of Mexico's drug prohibition war. After witnessing the execution of a parent, the children -- even if physically uninjured themselves -- face a lifetime of emotional scarring.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington is urging state senators to ignore Gov. Chris Gregoire's threat to veto a bill that would set up a regulated medical marijuana dispensary system. The House and Senate have passed legislation to license dispensaries. After a warning from federal prosecutors of arrest liability for employees who break federal law, Gregoire said she'd veto legislation that requires state workers to implement a licensing system.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer has vetoed a Republican bill that would have repealed the state's voter-approved medical marijuana law. Schweitzer vetoed the bill along with several others he called "frivolous, unconstitutional or in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana." Voters in 2004 overwhelmingly approved the use of medical marijuana.

At least 88 bodies have been found in a complex of mass graves in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, security officials say, likely victims of the country's ongoing drug prohibition war. The graves are the largest concentration ever found in one area in Mexico.

As the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bureau has ratcheted up efforts to cope with the tide of crime sweeping across the Southwest border, Mexican drug trafficking organizations have stepped up efforts to infiltrate CBP and other federal, state and local agencies responsible for policing the border.

The growing medicinal marijuana business in the United States despite the drug’s illegal status has many insurance firms seeing green — as in money. But north of the 49th, where there is no federal prohibition on medicinal pot, legal growers are green with envy because it’s next to impossible to get insurance coverage in Canada.

 

DC: Mayor to implement medical marijuana

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.

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.

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."

Lawmakers are introducing the North Carolina Medical Cannabis Act to legalize medical marijuana in the state. The bill would allow people with conditions such as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS and hepatitis C to buy and use medical marijuana. Sponsors believe legalizing medical marijuana would bring $250 million a year into North Carolina within four years of legalization.

Alabama’s illegal drug tax dates back to the late 1980s, when state governments were looking for new ways to crack down on the drug trade. In 1998, according to state documents, Alabama collected $161,947 in taxes on illegal drugs. In 2010, collections were just $1,275. Charles Crumbley, director of the Investigations Division at the State Department of Revenue, said, "Enforcing it was just more trouble than it was worth."

Recent decapitations and killings have residents on edge over whether local street gangs are mimicking larger drug trafficking organization violence in the nation's capital. "I think of these groups as cells, as franchises," said Alfredo Castillo, attorney general for Mexico state, the suburban area surrounding Mexico City. "As franchises what do they want? They want the know-how, the business model, and in the end, they want their backing in case of an extraordinary problem."

Despite overwhelming public input asking for a looser ordinance that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to locate in commercial areas throughout San Diego and remain open while they pursued permits, the San Diego City Council voted 5-2 for an ordinance that will close down all dispensaries for at least a year and force them to locate only in industrial zones — inconveniently far from the patients they serve.

Mexican drug trafficking organization members threatened to kill U.S. agents working on the American side of the border. Republican Michael McCaul said a law enforcement bulletin was issued warning that Mexican traffickers were overheard plotting to kill Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Texas Rangers stationed along the border.

Medical marijuana patients and the caregivers who provide the drug for them came out in large numbers to a hearing at the State House in opposition to a bill that would further regulate the industry. They said the proposal, introduced by state Rep. John M. Carnevale, would raise the prices for medical marijuana and potentially limit patients’ access.

Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, told an audience at the Pasadena Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, "More African-American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began." Why have rates of incarcerated black men skyrocketed over the past 30 years? Alexander says it's the war on drugs which focuses primarily on minority communities even though multiple studies have proved that whites use and sell illegal drugs at rates equal to or higher than blacks. Despite this data, four of five black youths in some inner-city communities can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetimes.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.

For decades, Colombian drug trafficking organization have pursued their trade with amazingly professional ingenuity, staying a step ahead of authorities by coming up with one innovation after another. When false-paneled pickups and tractor-trailers began drawing suspicion at US checkpoints, the traffickers and their Mexican partners built air-conditioned tunnels under the border. When border agents started rounding up too many human mules, one group of Colombian smugglers surgically implanted heroin into purebred puppies. But the drug runners’ most persistently effective method has also been one of the crudest — semi-submersible vessels that cruise or are towed just below the ocean’s surface and can hold a ton or more of cocaine.

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