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Gunmen kill 17 people at a drug rehab in Mexico (Sept. 3, 2009)
"Authorities had no immediate suspects or information on the victims. Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, is Mexico's most violent city, with at least 1,400 people killed this year alone. Most of the homicides are tied to drug gang violence, which has taken a heavy toll across Mexico. Earlier the same day, gunmen ambushed and killed a senior security official in the home state of President Felipe Calderon."

Burma's Opium Production Back on Rise (Sept. 2, 2009)
"A Feb. 2 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime found that the price of opium in Burma, also known as Myanmar, increased by 15% last year. As a result, Burmese land dedicated to poppy cultivation actually expanded in 2008, despite promises by the country's ruling junta to combat its reputation as one of the world's most notorious narco-states."

Is the Taliban Stockpiling Opium? And If So, Why? (Sept. 2, 2009)
"If international drug- and law-enforcement officials are right, the Taliban might be hiding up to $3.2 billion worth of opium inside Afghanistan, potentially causing huge complications for NATO's decision this month to attack Afghanistan's opium laboratories and smuggling networks. If it exists, the drug stockpile would also have a major bearing on Afghan officials' tentative peace talks with the Taliban, which are favored by U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus and both U.S. presidential candidates."

Report: Afghanistan's Opium Boom May Be Over (Sept. 2, 2009)
"But there is a twist. Afghan poppy crops are now high-yield, say U.N. officials, thanks to better irrigation methods and especially good rains over the past year. While acreage devoted to the flowers fell, production of opium itself dropped only 10% in Afghanistan last year, to about 6,900 tons. Each hectare of poppies yielded about 123 lb. (56 kg) of opium — 15% more than last year."

Mexico is safer than in the past, minister says (August 25, 2009)
"Mexico decriminalized the use of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin [Friday, August 21, 2009]. The move will help focus on major traffickers, officials said."

AP Source: Michael Jackson's death ruled homicide (August 25, 2009)
"While the finding does not necessarily mean a crime was committed, it means more likely that criminal charges will be filed against Dr. Conrad Murray, the Las Vegas cardiologist who was caring for Jackson when he died June 25 in a rented Los Angeles mansion."

Marines assault Taliban town in Afghanistan (August 12, 2009)
"Marines said they killed between seven and 10 militants in Wednesday's push and seized about 66 pounds (30 kilograms) of opium, which the militants use to finance their insurgency. Troops hope to restore control of the town so that residents can vote in the election."

U.S. Military Base Plan Puts Colombia in Hot Water (August 12, 2009)
"As one of the few surviving pro-U.S. conservative heads of state in a continent that has swung left, Colombia's President, Alvaro Uribe, is used to being at odds with his neighbors. But accustomed though he may be to swimming against Latin America's political tide, Uribe is scrambling to explain his less-than-transparent decision to allow the U.S. military to use air bases on Colombian soil to track drug traffickers and even rebels."s

Phony Stats on Cocaine Prices Hide Truth About War on Drugs (July 22, 2009)
"John Walters had some data he wanted to make public, but he also had a credibility problem. Just two years earlier, in 2005, Walters, the country’s drug czar, had cited a hike in the price of cocaine as a battlefield victory in the war on drugs—only to see the price fall just as he was touting the increase. He was ridiculed in some quarters of the press; others decided to stop listening to him. This time around, in the summer of 2007, Walters went looking for the most receptive audience he could find. So he zipped down New York Avenue to the headquarters of The Washington Times, the conservative daily based in the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Walters, according to a staffer present at the briefing, came with a small staff and a stack of glossy pages making the case that the United States had turned a corner in the war on drugs. Prices for cocaine, he said, were rising fast. And that, he explained, can only mean a decline in supply. The Times wouldn’t bite. The data were suspiciously thin."

Foreign Policy Magazine Exposes Folly of Marijuana Ban (July 22, 2009)
"The reason why the editor of Foreign Policy magazine Moises Naim's recent column is significant is because for far too long the foreign policy community has been a willing conduit for exporting America's wrongheaded and failed cannabis prohibition around the globe. But, the American dominance of the drug policy debate has started to wane over the last 8-10 years in quarters like the United Nations, and columns like Mr. Naim's underscore the myriad reasons why America's elected policymakers need to adopt a reform mindset--notably under an Obama administration--not status quo retrenchment into an unyielding, prohibition-centric cannabis policy."

Drug czar: Feds won't support legalized pot (July 22, 2009)
"The federal government is not going to pull back on its efforts to curtail marijuana farming operations, Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Wednesday in Fresno. The nation's drug czar, who viewed a foothill marijuana farm on U.S. Forest Service land with state and local officials earlier Wednesday, said the federal government will not support legalizing marijuana. 'Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine,' he said. Kerlikowske said he can understand why legislators are talking about taxing marijuana cultivation to help cash-strapped government agencies in California. But the federal government views marijuana as a harmful and addictive drug, he said. 'Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit,' Kerlikowske said in downtown Fresno while discussing Operation SOS -- Save Our Sierra -- a multiagency effort to eradicate marijuana in eastern Fresno County."

Who Are the Drug Lords? (July 21, 2009)
"Who are the drug lords? They are every politician who lives and breathes war, drugs, terror or otherwise. They are the corrupt corporate heads, malicious media barons, venomous judges and cretinous cops, who, knowing full well the truth, choose to follow their nose to riches, to embrace a lie, to feed their evil cornucopia with the lives of their fellow man."

Something Is Happening Down There (July 21, 2009)
"The battle against the drug gangs is a complicated one. A lot of money is involved, and the drug lords are pretty smart. They now keep a lot of their processing (opium into morphine or heroin) labs mobile. The vehicles travel with armed guards, but force is a last resort. The security detachment is also armed with a lot of cash, and the first weapon to be deployed is a bribe. That usually works. But the U.S. intelligence troops are after the drug gangs now, and this makes concealment more difficult. The U.S. military isn't releasing any play-by-play of these operations, lest they provide useful information to the enemy. It won't be until the end of August that an initial assessment is possible, and not until the end of the year until one can check the trends in wholesale and retail prices for heroin. As Afghanistan heroin production grew since the 1990s, the world supply has doubled, and prices have come down by about 50 percent. More people are using, and dying from, heroin. And now we can add many of the victims of the fighting in southern Afghanistan to that toll."

Worldwide production of heroin and cocaine falling, says UN drug chief (July 20, 2009)
"Drug use should be treated more as an illness than a crime, the head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said today as the body's annual report announced a worldwide decline in the production of cocaine and heroin. The report for 2009 called for traffickers to be targeted rather than users and announced that there was a worldwide growth in synthetic drugs.""

Chavez Attacks US Report Naming Venezuela a ‘Narcotics State’ (July 20, 2009)
This is a great way of making one's unliked leftist darker-skinned President of a South American country look bad to the US public while simutaneously helping justify the spending of US tax money to maybe, just maybe, do things like, say, destabilize Venezuala, the country Chavez currnetly heads? Chavez has long been a very irritating thorn in the Us' side. How long he will remain as President, well, let's all wish him the best.

Revolutionary Latin America and Today's Nexus of Terror (July 20, 2009)
"The irony of the narcotics scourge alone is how the massive accrued wealth of the narco-terrorist’s hierarchy is at the expense of the citizenry and the victims, as a nation must struggle with the overwhelming massive resources needed to defend their homeland. It has been reported that Mexican drug syndicates “generate more revenue than at least 40% of Fortune 500 companies.” And let’s face it – Mexico remains under siege.

Marijuana Legalization: CBS News Poll Has Support at 41% Nationwide (July 19, 2009)
"A CBS News poll conducted over the weekend has found that 41% of Americans support marijuana legalization, while 52% oppose, and 7% are undecided. The figure matches that of a January CBS News poll. Support dropped to 31% in an April CBS News poll before rebounding this month."

Most ‘Trusted Man In America’, Also Supported Marijuana Law Reform (July 19, 2009)
"RIP Walter Cronkite! In the summer 1992, I was told by an assistant that I had a phone call, and that 'unless the person on the phone was kidding, that it was someone claiming to be Walter Cronkite.'..."Drug war is a war on families By Walter Cronkite Article Published: Sunday, August 08, 2004"
" In the midst of the soaring rhetoric of the recent Democratic National Convention, more than one speaker quoted Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address, invoking 'the better angels of our nature.' Well, there is an especially appropriate task awaiting those heavenly creatures - a long-overdue reform of our disastrous war on drugs. We should begin by recognizing its costly and inhumane dimensions."

State helps ease drug offenders’ release (July 19, 2009)
"NEW YORK STATE — In the fall, low-level drug offenders will begin trickling out of state prisons and into treatment programs under the landmark state drug law reforms passed earlier this year. Legislation dismantling most of the state’s strict Rockefeller drug laws was signed into law in April by Gov. David Paterson. The bill repealed many of the state’s mandatory minimum prison sentences for lower-level drug offenders."

World drugs in graphics (July 19, 2009)
"A UN agency has published a comprehensive report on the worldwide illicit drugs market, the World Drug Report 2009. The graphs and maps below show the extent of the problem and measures to tackle it."

DEA boosts its war in Afghanistan (July 19, 2009)
"The move is seen as a recognition that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won with military force alone. Until near the end of its eight years in office, the Bush administration failed to link the drug traffickers in Afghanistan with the rising insurgency, basing its anti-drug campaign primarily on an effort to destroy the vast fields of poppy that produce more than 90 percent of the world's heroin....After Sept. 11, the Bush administration's focus on counterterrorism and, later, the war in Iraq, extensively depleted U.S. global counternarcotics efforts, especially in South Asia, they say. The DEA also suffered from hiring freezes, budget cuts and a lack of political support despite its intelligence showing ever-closer links between drug traffickers and terrorist groups."

La Familia cartel kills 12 federal agents in Mexico drug war attack (Jully 19, 2009)
"A powerful Mexican drug cartel has unleashed a killing spree against the authorities in a challenge to the leadership of the President in his home state....The perception that the war against drugs is being lost is pervasive. A poll published in Milenio said that only 28 per cent of Mexicans believed that the Government was winning, and more than half thought that it was losing."

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories (July 17, 2009)
"It's a corrupt cops twofer for New Jersey, another twofer for Indiana, a two-for-one special on Texas deputies, and a lone prison guard in Florida. Let's get to it...."

Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade (May 10, 2007)
"The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions."

U.S., allies seen as losing drug war (May 7, 2007)
"The United States and its Latin American allies are losing a major battle in the war on drugs, according to indicators that show cocaine prices dipped for most of 2006 and U.S. users were getting more bang for their buck."

101-year-old Zambian man nabbed over cannabis cultivation, trafficking (May 3, 2007)
"DEC spokesperson Rosten Chulu confirmed the arrest of Timothy Chilekwa, a peasant farmer of Namembo village in Southern province who was born in 1906. Chulu said the old man was nabbed for alleged unlawful cultivation of cannabis weighing 1.2 tons. He was also found trafficking two sacks of cannabis weighing 6. 95 kg, Chulu said. The spokesperson said the 101-year-old would appear in court soon."

Was Timothy Leary Right? (May 3, 2007)
"Are psychedelics good for you? It's such a hippie relic of a question that it's almost embarrassing to ask. But a quiet psychedelic renaissance is beginning at the highest levels of American science, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Harvard, which is conducting what is thought to be its first research into therapeutic uses of psychedelics (in this case, Ecstasy) since the university fired Timothy Leary in 1963. But should we be prying open the doors of perception again? Wasn't the whole thing a disaster the first time? The answer to both questions is yes."

The Farce of the War on Drugs (May 1, 2007)
"My brother Howard Wooldridge served as a decorated police officer and detective in Lansing, Michigan for 18 years. During that time, he collared killers, drunk drivers, child molesters, rapists, wife beaters and drug dealers. What he learned launched him on a crusade to stop the federal government’s useless 35 year 'War on Drugs.'"

Coca Growers Shake the Andes Once Again (April 27, 2007)
"During the last few days, coca growers, especially in Peru and Colombia, have been in the news again, as their actions have given the media something to talk about."

LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US (April 27, 2007)
"BC psychotherapist denied entry after border guard googled his work."

No Jail for Willie Nelson on Drug Charge (April 25, 2007)
While the editor of DrugWar.com applauds this decision by the judge, I can't help but wonder how hard the judge would have thrown the book at me for the exact same offense.

The War on Salvia Divinorum Heats Up (April 14, 2007)
"Middlebury, Vermont, this week declared a public health emergency to prevent a local business from selling it. It's already illegal in five states -- Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Delaware -- and a number of towns and cities across the country, and now politicians in at least seven other states have filed bills to make it illegal there. For the DEA, it is a 'drug of concern.'"

Book Offer: Lies, Damn Lies, and Drug War Statistics (April 14, 2007)
"Normally when we publish a book review in our Drug War Chronicle newsletter, it gets readers but is not among the top stories visited on the site. Recently we saw a big exception to that rule when more than 2,700 of you read our review of the new book Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy."

Plant growers served search warrant (April 11, 2007)
"Three WSU students were surprised when a plant they were growing in their closet was mistaken for marijuana."

California in bid to impose 7.25% sales tax on cannabis (April 10, 2007)
"For decades, smoking marijuana has been an illicit affair, a key anti-establishment ritual for America's counter-culture underground. But the legalisation of the drug for medicinal purposes in California has presented its advocates with a dilemma: to remain firmly on the wrong side of the law or accept a demand to pay taxes on its sale."

The Other War: Democratic Candidates are Deafeningly Silent on the Drug War (April 9, 2007)
"There is a major disconnect in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House. While all the top candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed War on Drugs, a war that has morphed into a war on people of color."

Ex-officer likens drug war to Prohibition (April 8, 2007)
"Retired police officer Peter Christ on Tuesday compared the contemporary war on drugs to National Prohibition of the 1920s."

Minnesota drug laws: Are they too harsh? (April 8, 2007)
Momentum gathers for review of sentencing rules

Drug Czar Blasted for Lack of Leadership (April 8, 2007)
"During the course of research for this series, it became apparent that many prominent players in the war on drugs don't have many compliments for the current drug czar, John Walters."

Is the Drug War Nearing an End? (April 8, 2007)
"Little by little by little there is some hope that the "war" on drugs is becoming a political issue - the first step in undoing a set of policies that make little sense no matter how you look at them."

Law Enforcement Group Visits Maine To Advocate For Legalization Of Drugs (April 8, 2007)
"LEAP, or Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, says it has 5,000 members, made up mostly of retired and active law enforcement professionals. The group tours the country speaking to various civic groups about what they call a $60 billion failed war on drugs."

Afghans pin hopes on a new economy (April 8, 2007)
"As a competitive economy awakens in one of the world's poorest countries, the residents of Kabul are jockeying to get ahead in a city flush with cash from US soldiers, foreign aid workers, new investors, parliamentarians, and drug traffickers."

Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala (April 8, 2007)
"If the trip to Guatemala was a fiasco, Colombia was no better, Bush's arrival in Bogotá couldn't have happened at a worse time as every moment ticked off another scandal, some of them leading in the direction ofo President Uribe's office, and nothing that Bush or Uribe president could say concealed the fact that the Colombia phase of the U.S. anti-drug war was more dead than alive, which was even more certain when it came to extraditing Colombian suspected felons to the U.S."

Analysis: U.S. anti-drug war in Afghanistan (April 8, 2007)
"In a bluntly worded letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the lawmakers said inter-agency rivalry and U.S. policy failures in Afghanistan risked allowing it to slide back into chaos."

Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories (April 7, 2007)
"A Georgia fire captain gets caught peddling coke, a pair of New Haven narcs lose their jobs, a former Mississippi police chief cops a plea, and a former Ohio cop goes back to prison. Let's get to it...."

Methamphetamine: Feds Make First Cold Medicine Bust Under Combat Meth Act (April 7, 2007)
"An Ontario, New York, man last Friday won the dubious distinction of being the first person arrested under the 2005 Combat Meth Epidemic Act. According to a DEA press release, William Fousse was arrested for purchasing cold tablets containing more than nine grams of pseudoephedrine within a one month period."

Harm Reduction: New Mexico Governor Signs Overdose Death Reduction Measure (April 7, 2007)
"New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) Wednesday signed innovative legislation that would protect friends or family members who seek medical attention for drug overdose victims. The law is the first of its kind in the country."

Pot-Growing Takes Root in the Suburbs (April 1, 2007)
"In Coldwater Creek, a middle-class housing development outside Atlanta, the neighbors mind their own business and respect each other's privacy - ideal conditions, it turns out, for growing marijuana in the suburbs."

Bob Barr Flip-Flops on Pot (March 28, 2007)
"Bob Barr, who as a Georgia congressman authored a successful amendment that blocked D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana initiative, has switched sides and become a lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project."

What the heck is Sibel Edmonds' Case about? And why should I care? (March 28, 2007)
"Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one... But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it... You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people."

Mexican Envoy Highly Critical of U.S. Role in Anti-Drug Effort (March 23, 2007)
"The United States has contributed 'zilch' to Mexico's efforts to combat the nations' joint problem with criminal narcotics gangs, Mexico's new ambassador to Washington said yesterday."

Colorado Has Song in Its Heart, and Not Drugs on Its Mind (March 14, 2007- Free NYTimes registration required)
"The Colorado General Assembly wants to be quite clear on this point: When the singer-songwriter John Denver praised the joys of Colorado and sang about 'friends around the campfire, and everybody’s high,' in 1972, he was not referring to illicit drugs. Definitely not. Don’t even think it. The high in question, lawmakers say, is really about nature and the great outdoors — the tingly feeling you get after a nice hike, perhaps."

U.S. faults friends, foes in drug war (March 5, 2007)
"The United States said top anti-terror allies Afghanistan, Pakistan and Colombia had fallen short in the war on drugs despite enhanced counter-narcotics efforts and it criticized perennial foes Iran, North Korea and Venezuela for not cooperating."

Cuba’s War on Drugs (March 5, 2007)
"A review of the main results of the Cuban efforts against illegal drug trafficking as well as prevention during 2006, shows a marked reduction in the presence of drugs on the island, with 1.7 tons of narcotics seized, the lowest figure of the past 11 years and almost four times less than the amount detected in 2003."

Drug War Corrupting Cops In Hawaii and Elsewhere (March 5, 2007)
"Claiming to be the 'world’s leading drug policy newsletter,' the Drug War Chronicle publishes a regular online feature called, 'This Week’s Corrupt Cops Stories.' The typical Hawaii newspaper reader probably comes across these cops-gone-bad stories pretty rarely. But, when hundreds of reports compiled over the past year from around the nation are read at one sitting, they add up to a hidden cost of America’s ill-fated drug war -- widespread corruption inside local police departments, prisons and jails."

Drug war rips apart Mexico (March 5, 2007)
"More than 250 people were executed last year in Acapulco as the sweltering Pacific resort became the latest battleground between rival cartels battling for supremacy of the multibillion-dollar drug trade."

In Guatemala, officers' killings echo dirty war (March 5, 2007)
"The two sets of brazen killings set off a vicious diplomatic conflict between Guatemala and El Salvador — heightened by news reports suggesting that the congressmen were indeed drug dealers — and ignited a political scandal here. It shed light on how corrupt the National Police has become, and raised questions about links between drug dealers and high-level police officials, as well as whether the government can contain drug trafficking without international help."

Collision Course: Bolivia's "Coca, Si; Cocaine, No" Policy Runs Afoul of the International Drug Control Board and, Probably, the United States (March 1, 2007)
"A confrontation is brewing over Bolivian President Evo Morales' effort to rationalize coca production in his country and expand markets for coca-based products....Now, the Morales government is also pushing for expanded legal markets for coca products and, in a joint venture with the Venezuelan government, is preparing to begin coca product exports to that country."

Ga. Reconsiders No - Knock Warrant Rules (March 1, 2007)
"A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use ''no-knock'' warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs."

Here we go again (Feb. 22, 2007)
"We're happy we could help with that, Mr. Vice President, but Colombian cocaine is still readily available in U.S. cities, so we have a difficult time thinking we got a good deal for our $4 billion. In fact, we don't believe Americans are getting their money's worth for any of the cash the government has thrown into the bottomless pit of the drug war. Court dockets are packed and prisons are overcrowded, yet illicit drugs are still readily available to anyone who wants them."

Latin America: Mexico Moves to Decriminalize Drug Possession -- So It Can Concentrate on Drug Traffickers (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Legislators from Mexican President Felipe's Calderon's National Action Party (PAN -- Partido de Accion Nacional) have introduced a bill in the Mexican Senate that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs for 'addicts.'"

DPS officials were told of lax lab security (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Texas Department of Public Safety officials were aware of security breaches in the handling of their drug evidence as recently as 2006 and as far back as at least 2003 — problems such as failure to log evidence out of storage, containers of marijuana left open and the lack of a monitoring system for a high-security drug vault — according to the agency's internal audits."

'Safest city' now has drug war (Feb. 22, 2007)
"From the shopping malls and the fashionable clothes of its residents, this could be any affluent U.S. suburb. Residents pride themselves on their prosperity. But in recent weeks, drug-related violence has shattered the tranquillity."

Mexican president gives soldiers pay hike as drug war intensifies (Feb. 22, 2007)
"Soldiers waging a nationwide offensive against drug traffickers will get a pay hike of nearly 50 percent this year in a bid to insulate them from corruption, Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced Monday."

New Federal Study Shows Methamphetamine Use Decreased Between 2002 and 2005 (Jan. 31, 2007)
"A new analysis of data from The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) shows that past-year use of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant, declined between 2002 and 2005 among persons age 12 or older....The study also shows that the number of persons who used methamphetamine for the first time in the 12 months before the survey remained stable between 2002 and 2004 but decreased between 2004 and 2005."

Tell Governor Spitzer to Support Rockefeller Drug Law Reform (Jan. 31, 2007)
"The Rockefeller Drug Laws require extremely harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. Most of the people incarcerated under these laws are convicted of low-level, nonviolent offenses, and many of them have no prior criminal records. Today 14,139 people are locked up for drug offenses in NY State prisons, comprising nearly 38% of the prison population. This costs New Yorkers over half a billion dollars a year. Send a message to Governor Spitzer now, urging him to support real reform."

Mexico eyes Colombian experience in drug battle (Jan. 27, 2007)
"Mexico's top prosecutor on Thursday looked to Colombia's experience in counter-narcotics and conflict for lessons to help his government battle drug cartels whose violence has engulfed parts of the country."

Rio gang kills seven as drug war spreads (Jan. 27, 2007)
"The mutilated bodies of seven youths, some with their heads and legs chopped off, have been found in an abandoned car in a notorious Rio de Janeiro slum. They appeared to be the latest victims of a long-running drug war that has made Rio, which depends heavily on tourism, one of the most violent cities in the world."

Drug Policy Reform Group to Partner with State of New Mexico in Federally-Funded Meth Prevention Education Program (Jan. 27, 2007)
"In a first for drug reform organizations, the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) New Mexico office has been designated to create a statewide methamphetamine education and prevention program directed at high school students, thanks to a $500,000 grant obtained by US Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) as part of a Justice Department appropriations bill. The grant is the result of years of close collaboration between DPA and New Mexico state and local officials dating back to the administration of former Gov. Gary Johnson (R), a prominent voice for drug law reform."

Spot in brain may control smoking urge (Jan. 27, 2007)
"Damage to a silver dollar-sized spot deep in the brain seems to wipe out the urge to smoke, a surprising discovery that may shed important new light on addiction. The research was inspired by a stroke survivor who claimed he simply forgot his two-pack-a-day addiction - no cravings, no nicotine patches, not even a conscious desire to quit."

Case highlights medical-pot dilemma (Jan. 23, 2007)
"'If they didn't arrest me with 1,500, it's not likely they're going to come back and arrest me for 50,' said Sarich, whose advocacy group, CannaCare, says it has provided marijuana plants for 1,200 patients all over the state. Some of his new plants, delivered by patients in Longview, Federal Way and Vancouver, Wash., are descendants of the plants he lost."

Alleged cartel members extradited to Texas (Jan. 23, 2007)
"A suspected Mexican drug lord whose cartel allegedly smuggled more than 4 tons of cocaine a month over the U.S. border will stand trial in Texas. Osiel Cardenas-Guillen, the alleged kingpin of the Gulf Cartel, and three other alleged drug lords appeared in a Houston court Monday. Mexican authorities delivered Cardenas-Guillen and 14 other alleged Mexican drug dealers and criminals to Houston late Friday and early Saturday, the Drug Enforcement Administration said."

Burdened U.S. military cuts role in drug war (Jan. 22, 2007)
"Stretched thin from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has sharply reduced its role in the war on drugs, leaving significant gaps in the nation's narcotics interdiction efforts."

S.F. area is No. 1 for regular drug use, study says (Jan. 21, 2007)
"The San Francisco metropolitan area has a higher percentage of people who are regular drug users than any other major metropolitan area in the USA, a study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found."

Executive Order 13420 -- Dismantling the DEA (Jan. 21, 2007)
"This is the order I will sign after delivering my inaugural address," says Steve Kubby, who is again running for office this time seeking the nomination from the Libertarian Party as their Presidential candidate.

Cocaine found on 99.9% of UK banknotes (Jan. 21, 2007)
"Pretty well every banknote in the UK shows traces of cocaine, forensic scientists have claimed. According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, 99.9 per cent of the two billion notes currently in circulation have come into contact with Bolivian marching powder."

A Legacy of Torture: From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act (Jan. 21, 2007)
"In today's world, the US government's use of torture and complicity in its clients' use of it is part of the headlines on a regular basis. Yet very few US citizens believe that methods like waterboarding, beating, and electrical shocks could be -- and have been -- used on US citizens." But the fact that torture is used profusely in US jails and prisons is unsurprising to those who've been inside the US "justice" system.

Reefer Madness (Jan. 21, 2007)
"I was never an activist until I got busted [noted Tommy Chong]. But it ’s not so much my efforts as the substance itself. Pot lives and dies on its own reputation....Years ago, people would do booze jokes. Then they start dying of cirrhosis of the liver and all these alcohol-related car accidents. Alcohol started out as a fun thing and ended up as this evil thing that kills people. Pot is the opposite...."

In the Costly War on Drugs, Who's To Say What Is Right? (Jan. 21, 2007)
"It seems like you lack a certain enthusiasm for the war on drugs, I said. I do lack enthusiasm for the war on drugs, he said. I asked about legalization. He shrugged. 'Monday, Wednesday and Friday I think they should be legalized. Tuesdays and Thursdays I think they should be illegal. I don't like drugs. I strongly disapprove of them. The costs are great. But it's expensive to incarcerate somebody. The costs are enormous either way. I don't know what's right.'"

Democracy and Plan Colombia (Jan. 21, 2007)
Just what effects are the massive spraying in anti-cocaine and poppy efforts that are one of the main tenents of Plan Colombia, not to mention all the arms and training given to the Colombian military and governments to combat Colombian peasents...errr, I mean, dastardly narco-terrorists? No major advancement of democracy it appears.

Drug mafia, CIA blamed for sacking of Afghan governor (Jan. 21, 2007)
"As The Washington Post has plainly summarized, 'corruption and alliances formed by Washington and the Afghan government with anti-Taliban tribal chieftains, some of whom are believed to be deeply involved in the trade, [have] undercut the [counter-narcotics] effort.'"

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