Heroin Lifers, DEA Pain Guidance, California Lowest Priority Initiatives

Those are the feature stories I think I will be doing this week. It doesn't always happen that way, though. Some readers may recall that I was going to do the Louisiana heroin lifer story last week, but I didn't manage to get ahold of any of the people critical to the story. I'm back on it again this week. Similarly, something may break during the week. This typically happens on Thursday, the day we're supposed to be wrapping up the Chronicle. I'll also be looking into the DEA's release last week of a new policy statement on pain management. Some reformers have hailed it as a victory for the movement, but others are not so sure, and neither am I. I'll be talking to a wide range of people who are involved in this issue to try to find out what this really means. Meanwhile, elections are only a matter of weeks away. I'll be taking a look this week at how things are going in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Santa Monica, the three California cities where "lowest law enforcement priority" marijuana initiatives are on the ballot. And, of course, there will also be the seven or eight shorter pieces we do each week.