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“The drug czar has blood on his hands for blocking the humane and medical use of cannabis for sick, disabled and dying people,” Kubby said.

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red”– Macbeth

[Update: Link fixed.]

Jacob Sullum properly points out the hysteria behind the latest unfounded crack baby: the meth baby. He quotes from an open letter from physicians and drug treatment specialists:

Despite the lack of a medical or scientific basis for the use of such terms as “ice” and “meth” babies, these pejorative and stigmatizing labels are [...]

I’m out of town and missed the news until today, but as the many contributors who wrote me said… this needs to be posted:
Link

EMERY EMPIRE RAIDED AT REQUEST OF UNITED STATES
Cannabis activist and two others arrested
By Jennifer Garner

Canadian police acting under orders from US officials raided the headquarters of the British Columbia Marijuana Party (BCMP) [...]

This is nothing new — something I’ve railed about for some time as it relates to drug task forces here in the states, but this article from Canada just kind of drove me a little nuts.

It was a drug raid that came close to going tragically wrong.

As armed narcotics officers got set to barge through [...]

Make sure you read Radley Balko’s latest at Fox: Justice Often Served by Jury Nullification

The doctrine of jury nullification (search) rests on two truths about the American criminal justice system: (1) Jurors can never be punished for the verdict they return, and (2) Defendants cannot be retried once a jury has found them not [...]

Via NORML’s ezine comes this ruling: (I’m quoting extensively, because it’s pretty important)

Traverse City, MI: The presence of cannabis’ primary metabolite, THC-COOH, is insufficient evidence of impairment to warrant a conviction under the state’s “zero tolerance” per se drugged driving law, according to a recent ruling by the Michigan Court of Appeals. The decision [...]

Great article in the Rolling Stone by Robert Dreyfuss

America’s long-running war on drugs has, literally, gone to pot.

More than two decades after it was launched in response to the spread of crack cocaine — and in the midst of a brand-new wave of methamphetamine use sweeping the country — the government crackdown has shifted from [...]

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Seeing Drug War Religious Extremists Mark Souder and John Mica rake the Drug Czar’s office over the coals for not being tough enough in the war on drugs is simultaneously hilarious and sad.
The Representatives made it clear that Meth is the new Heroin (or the new Crack, or [...]

President Bush has sent a new nomination to the Senate for confirmation as Deputy Director for Demand Reduction, ONDCP to replace Andrea Barthwell. (Note: the word “vice” also means “to replace” — just seems odd to use it there.)

The nominee is Bertha K. Madras, a researcher with Harvard Medical School. Her expertise appears [...]

That’s right — two years ago today, I started blogging. I thought at the time that I’d post once a week or so (since this is post #1062 I think you can see that my estimate was a bit off).
I just went back and looked at my first post. It was a report [...]