Oakland is about to become the first city to authorize large scale marijuana cultivation. The move could generate millions of dollars in taxes and create hundreds of new jobs. While the measure has yet to pass, current medical marijuana growers fear the move will drive many of them out of business.

The kidnappings of five petroleum company workers along with 30 others have terrorized the oil community, paralyzing segments of the business. Months later, families have still heard nothing.

Phoenix officials are discussing how to deal with a November ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for medical purposes.

Soldiers opened fire on a family car at a checkpoint in northern Mexico, killing a 15-year-old boy and another person. It is at least the second time this year that a family has been caught up in a shooting involving Mexico's military, which has come under intense criticism for human rights abuses as soldiers fight drug traffickers.

Gov. Haley Barbour on Friday signed a bill immediately banning the sale and possession of the herbal mixture known by names such as Spice, K2, Demon, Voodoo, Genie and Zohai.

In the first of a three-part investigation, The Guardian's Rory Carroll reports from the gateway to America, at the center of drug cartel violence that has claimed 28,000 lives since December 2006.

Arkansas' judicial officials are questioning whether Washington-Madison County Drug Court, a popular local television program, should be aired. An opinion from the Arkansas Supreme Court Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, issued Thursday, appears to quash any thought of taking any version of the show national and questions whether it should continue to be broadcast locally. The committee members, two retired judges and a law professor, issued a scathing opinion saying they had concerns with any broadcast of drug court proceedings.

A Detroit-area judge is allowing some defendants arrested in a series of raids to keep using state-approved medical marijuana while out on bond.

On August 25, the Los Angeles Times published an open editorial written by six former US drug czars referring to cannabis policies in the Netherlands while voicing their opposition to California's Proposition 19. On September 2, ENCOD president Fredrick Polak sent an open letter to the LA Times.

Yet more evidence that the tired statement made by prohibitionists that "marijuana is a gateway drug" is false. Researchers said the predictors of whether someone uses harder drugs are social factors such as income status, psychological stress levels, employment status/potential, race and ethnicity, etc., not whether they ever smoked pot before. [Of course, more than a decade ago Institute of Medicine research conducted at the behest of Gen. Barry McCaffrey -- then the U.S. drug czar -- concluded "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs", and that marijuana has been mistaken for a gateway drug in the past because "Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana -- usually before they are of legal age."]

Drug traffickers exert influence over 71 percent of Mexico’s 2,439 municipal governments and completely control 195 of them. Criminal groups find it easy to dominate municipalities because local administrations are chronically short of money and suffer from neglect on the part of the state and federal governments.

The FDA has approved a new sublingual film formulation of the opioid dependence treatment combination buprenorphrine/naloxone (Suboxone).

Young British workers on the island of Ibiza appear to agree that a wave of drug prohibition raids over the past weekend will have no impact.

Increasing drug prohibition violence in Mexico poses a risk to the nation’s credit rating in the “medium term” and may threaten economic growth. The violence is shaving 1.2 percentage points off the economy annually, Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero said today. Moody’s probably won’t downgrade the country before President Felipe Calderon’s term ends in 2012.

The extremely dangerous city of Ciudad Juárez had more homicides this past August than any other month since prohibition-inspired drug trafficking organizations began fighting a turf war in 2008. Other very deadly months include this past June, when 313 people were slain, and August 2009, with 315.

Data analyzed by Harvard University's Professor Jeffrey Miron confirm the hypothesis that drug and alcohol prohibition cause increased rates of violence.

New Mexico proposes to raise fees on medical marijuana producers to bring in money to administer the program.

Australian barrister and former political adviser Greg Barns opines on why drug prohibition is bad for Australia and calls for an end to the drug war.

Former California state senator Tom Hayden opines that he supports the November ballot initiative to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana because our country's long drug war is a disaster and there is an alternative that is better for our health, safety and democratic process.

An Oregon judge has tossed out evidence seized in a marijuana case after ruling that police ignored "no trespassing" signs while acting on a tip in a drug raid last year.

Mexico’s Federal Police Commissioner Facundo Rosas said today that 3,000 police officers have been fired since May. Six of those officers have been charged in the death a murdered mayor. Rosas said the fired cops were either linked to corruption or failed to do their jobs.

Fox's KTXL television station in Sacramento, California will be the first-ever in the United States to air a paid commercial advertisement for a medical marijuana dispensary.

The results of a published today in the Canadian Medical Association Journal: smoking pot can make some of the pain go away, without the patient getting high. The finding comes from what researchers in Montreal believe to be the first outpatient clinical trial of smoked cannabis, involving 21 people with chronic neuropathic pain.

Michele Leonhart's nomination to head the Drug Enforcement Administration has been complicated by a ponzi scheme that has ensnared DEA agents and officials. "Given Leonhart's raids against medical marijuana dispensaries and her alleged role in covering up the House of Death scandal, it would be funny if what sinks her nomination is some retirement Ponzi scheme," said Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Phenomenally rich due to drug prohibition, Mexican drug gangs, which used to focus exclusively on ferrying narcotics such as cocaine to the United States, have diversified into other lucrative criminal activities such as human smuggling and extortion.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos declared his support for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's call for a discussion on drug legalization. "We are entering an era of the narco-trafficking business where one must have these type of reflections," he said. Santos announced that he will seek to form a united stance with Mexico and Peru on the legalization issue if California votes to legalize marijuana at the ballot in November.

Stashing cash in spare tires, engine transmissions and truckloads of baby diapers, couriers for Mexican drug traffickers are moving tens of billions of dollars in drug prohibition profits south across the border each year, a river of dirty money that has overwhelmed U.S. and Mexican customs agents.

 

 

Dear friends,

After the possible kidnapping attempt of a college student last Friday, the U.S. Consulate is warning Americans who travel to Monterrey that they face a greater risk of being kidnapped.

Drug Policy Alliance ED, Ethan Nadelmann, opines on President Obama's drug policy reform moves since entering office.

According to Ron Hyman of the Colorado Department of Health, there is a backlog of 60,000 to 70,000 applications for state-issued medical marijuana licenses waiting for approval. The delay is costly -- there is more than $5 million in application fees waiting to be processed.

Drug policy has focused on a policing approach of prohibition and incarceration, which has contributed to spreading HIV within the injection-drug community. Comprehensive drug reform policies are showing better results. Despite massive investments in drug law enforcement in the past three decades, with much of the international interdiction effort paid for by the U.S. government through assistance to national military and police forces, there is "a general pattern of falling drug prices and increasing drug purity" throughout the world, according to the Vienna Declaration.

Representatives from the Latino Voters League (LVL) and the National Black Police Association have given formal endorsements of Proposition 19, The Regulate, Control & Tax Cannabis Initiative of 2010. If passed, the measure would legalize the private adult possession and cultivation of marijuana, and allow local government the option to regulate the plant’s commercial production and sale.

New Jersey State Senator Nicholas P. Scutari (D-Union) introduced a measure urging Governor Christie to support and advocate for federal legislation that would provide legal protection to patients who use medical marijuana in compliance with state laws. The Senator’s bill would express the Legislature’s support and urge the Governor to support and advocate for H.R. 2835, known as the “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act.” In states with legalized medical marijuana, H.R. 2835 would protect patients, prescribing doctors, distributors and anyone authorized to obtain, possess or distribute marijuana on behalf of a patient against arrest and prosecution by federal authorities.

Cultural Baggage * Century of Lies * 4:20 Drug War NEWS  *  Time 4 Hemp

Protect your community!Tell Congress to stop supporting
militarized police drug raids.

Drug prohibition violence continues to build in Mexico where a gun fight occurred in front of the American School Foundation, the school of choice for the children of many of Monterrey's top businessmen as well as the children of Americans working in the city. The gun battle is the latest sign that Mexico's prohibition violence is spreading to wealthier areas of the country which had long thought themselves immune, and has deepened the fear that has gripped Monterrey in the last few months.

According to federal Health Department data, across the U.S., cocaine and marijuana use have been static since 2002. But New York is a hot-bed for drugs, and Manhattanites are particularly heavy users. A review of drug-test data compiled by drug testing firm Sterling Infosystems shows that cocaine is losing its favor among investment professionals, and is being replaced by marijuana.

“No patient left behind” is the mantra of the Denver-based Medical Marijuana Assistance Program of the Rockies (MMAPR). Working with indigent, low-income patients, MMAPR has launched a mobile doctors service, bringing doctors to the patients themselves. Through the support of local dispensaries and other medical marijuana industry businesses, MMAPR is able to not only provide convenient doctor visits, but also significant savings to patients, often as much as 25 percent.

Scientists claim that a single dose of the drug Ketamine, nicknamed Special K, acts like "magic" lifting people out of depression in hours and lasting more than a week. Studies have found it can treat depression within hours, even when years of alternative treatments have failed, and the effects of just one dose can last up to 10 days. The drug was even shown to restore brain-connections damaged by stress.

Russ Belville, NORML's outreach coordinator, has collected and debunked eight of the craziest claims about a post-legalization state of California predicted by opponents of Proposition 19.

A growing movement in Mexico to legalize drugs, particularly marijuana, is taking shape. Four proposals that aim for varying degrees of decriminalization or legalization of drugs are on the docket in Mexico’s House of Deputies, and another is circulating in the Senate. Meanwhile, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who was a key U.S. ally in the war on drugs, has backed the legalization of drugs, saying prohibition has failed to reduce violence and corruption.

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

The U.S. was denied greater access to Colombian military bases when a joint base deal aimed at combating drug trafficking among other things was deemed unconstitutional by Colombia's Constitutional court. The deal was reached after Ecuador refused to renew the lease on the US military base of Manta almost three years ago. During his refusal, President Rafael Correa said, "If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorian base in the United States."

Experts say Mexico's President FelipeCalderon needs to get entrenched problems in the penal and judicial system under control if he is to have any chance of winning a war that has claimed more than 28,000 lives since late 2006 and sparked fears that drug trafficking organizations could turn Mexico into a lawless narco state.

 

Legislation approving at least six non-profit alternative treatment centers to dispense medical marijuana in New Jersey was approved in January. Politicians have delayed the implementation date until January 2011. Meanwhile, terminally ill patients are in pain and dying.

President Felipe Calderón summoned legislators to participate later this week in his continuing discussions with all of Mexico’s political establishment about how to win the war against the drug trafficking organizations. Is legalization on the table?