Open Thread

“bullet” Grits for Breakfast notes that, in Texas, a conservative GOP senator who is a medical doctor has filed a bill authorizing local governments to implement needle exchange programs. It’s going to be a tricky one for the prohibitionists. I wonder how they’ll try to demonize him?
“bullet” Blame the Drug War has been following the Yorkton vigilante case in Canada, where a father went over to his daughter’s drug-dealing boyfriend’s house and shot and killed him. Start here, then here.
“bullet” The ONDCP yesterday claims that legal opium from Afghanistan can’t work because there’s an oversupply of opium based products. But on the same day…

Afghanistan’s opium poppies should be used to alleviate a shortage of painkillers in the NHS, the British Medical Association has said. […] Diamorphine, which is derived from opium poppies and which is also known as heroin, is used to relieve pain after operations. But there is a critical shortage of the drug in Britain, forcing doctors to use more expensive and less effective alternatives.

Phillip Smith has more.
“bullet” Transform Drug Policy Foundation blog has been doing an outstanding job of following the recent political maneuverings regarding drug policy in the UK. Their most recent post discusses the ways in which the policy of prescribing addictive drugs for the purpose of reducing crime is being… considered.