The War On Drugs

Fri - January 19, 2007

DEA Makes Major Move Against Los Angeles Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided 11 Los Angeles County medical marijuana dispensaries Wednesday, including five in the city of West Hollywood, where supportive officials have been working with store owners to responsibly regulate their operations. The raids mark a departure from recent DEA actions in the state, which for the most part this year have targeted dispensaries in areas where local officials are unsupportive of or even hostile to medical marijuana.

Posted at 02:00 PM Read More

Mon - January 15, 2007

Study debunks "gateway" theory of drug abuse

A new study says that a tendency toward delinquency or living in a neighborhood where drugs are readily available are just as important in determining whether a young person will abuse marijuana as whether or not he tries cigarettes or alcohol first.

Posted at 03:18 PM Read More

Fri - January 12, 2007

More Cops Died Directing Traffic Than Waging the Drug War Last Year

It turns out that while enforcing drug laws is not exactly safe, statistically it's not especially dangerous either. According to Drug War Chronicle research based on reports at Officer.Com, which compiles a list of all line of duty police deaths nationwide based on press reports and reports from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), despite making nearly two million drug arrests last year, only four American police officers were killed enforcing the drug laws, and in only two of those cases was drug law enforcement the direct cause of death. One undercover officer was killed making a drug buy, one officer was killed serving a drug arrest warrant, one highway patrolman died in a crash on the way to a drug bust, and one officer was killed when he intervened in a clash between rival drug gangs.

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Tue - December 19, 2006

Marijuana is the #1 cash crop in the U.S.

The new report that was released yesterday that shows marijuana is the nation's number one cash crop. The report, written by Jon Gettman, Ph.D., explains that wholesale marijuana sales are at $36 billion annually, which is greater than corn ($23 billion) and vegetables ($11 billion) combined.

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Tue - December 12, 2006

Man to serve 55 years in prison for marijuana

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the mandatory 55-year prison sentence that a lower court imposed on a man who was convicted of carrying a handgun during three marijuana deals in Utah.

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Sun - November 26, 2006

An Argument for Drug Legalization

LEAP, a group of former law enforcement officers opposed to the war on drugs, visits Great Britain this week. Simon Jenkins, writing for the Sunday Timesonline (UK) argues against prohibition and for licensing. He outlines the failure of the war on drugs.

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Wed - October 18, 2006

A Billion Dollars a Year Spent on Jailing Pot Offenders

NORML's Paul Armentano has an op-ed in today's Examiner pointing out that the U.S. is spending $1 billion dollars a year to incarcerate people for marijuana offenses. The figure comes from the latest report released by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

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Fri - October 13, 2006

Pain Patients, Pain Contracts, and the War on Drugs

Pain contracts. Pain management contracts. Medication contracts. Opioid contracts. Pain agreements. They go by different names, but they all mean the same thing: A signed agreement between doctor and patient that lays out the conditions under which the patient will be prescribed opioid pain medications for the relief of chronic pain. (To see a standard pain contract, click here.)

Posted at 02:16 PM Read More

White House spends your money to oppose Nevada marijuana initiative

White House Drug Czar John Walters visited Las Vegas yesterday to illegally hand out taxpayer dollars to local Nevada organizations that are willing to oppose a state ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in the state.

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Thu - September 28, 2006

Government thugs handcuff children, kill dog during $60 marijuana raid

A police strike team raided a woman's Prospect Street apartment and handcuffed her children and killed her dog early Tuesday in a $60 pot bust.

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Fri - September 22, 2006

House Votes to Require School Districts to Allow Random, Warrantless Mass Search Policies

In a voice vote Tuesday night, the US House of Representatives voted to approve a measure that would force school districts across the country to adopt policies allowing teachers and school officials to conduct random, warrantless searches of all students at any time based on the "reasonable suspicion" that one student may be carrying drugs or weapons. Sponsored by Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY), the Student Safety Act of 2006 (H.R. 5295) had no committee hearings and was fast-tracked to the House floor.

Posted at 09:41 AM Read More

Drug Arrests Hit Another Record High, More than 786,000 Marijuana Arrests Alone in 2005

The FBI released its annual Uniform Crime Report Monday, and it showed that despite nearly two decades of drug reform efforts, the drug war continues unabated, at least when measured by arrests. According to the report, overall drug arrests hit a record 1.8 million last year, accounting for 13.1% of all arrests in the country. Marijuana arrests totaled 786,545, another all-time high.

Posted at 09:39 AM Read More

Wed - September 13, 2006

West Virginia Police To Use New Device in Drug Detection

The drug crackdown in West Virginia is about it get easier for officers thanks to the new EyeCheck technology, and the Mountain State is the first in the U.S. to use it.

Posted at 06:50 PM Read More

Thu - September 7, 2006

Anti-marijuana ads increase teen use

You know those anti-marijuana TV ads that feature outrageous scenarios like stoned teenagers driving over a little girl on a bicycle, one stoned teenager shooting another in his parents' den, another stoned teenager date-raping another, and a teenager who gets pregnant because she smoked marijuana? A new independent report — commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — finds that the ads not only fail to reduce teen marijuana use, but in some cases actually increase teen marijuana use!

USA Today, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News' Web site, and newspapers around the country have all covered this damning new evidence of the drug czar's failure. Read some of the coverage here.

Posted at 10:46 PM Read More