Author Archives: Pete

Check out this whopper of an opening sentence in the Guardian: The loudest voices in US drug policy debates call either for enforcing prohibition with ever-increasing ferocity or for giving up altogether by letting corporations legally sell the currently illicit … Continue reading →

…Just some two-bit political analysis on my part. I’ve been fascinated the past couple of weeks by the vehemence of some of the political pundit discussions regarding Ron Paul’s candidacy. (Note: Keep in mind that when I talk about progressives/liberals/conservatives … Continue reading →

I have a new helper in the fight against the smuggling of endangered species. It’s a hamster named Sergeant Cheeks. He is able to detect the presence of endangered species or protected elements of endangered species (feathers, tusks, etc.) in … Continue reading →

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear the Florida case regarding using a dog sniff as cause to search a house. This is, of course, the ultimate extension of the atrocious decision authored by Justice Stevens in Caballes v. … Continue reading →

I guess you need one, since the last post had about 1 in 30 comments actually on topic. 🙂 (I hope some people actually watched the Frontline piece.) Amazing new bridge in Mexico built by the government makes it easier … Continue reading →

Very powerful video story at PBS Frontline worth watching in its entirety: Opium Brides It’s all about the collateral damage from drug wars and other wars. The government gets what it wants and the traffickers get what they want, and … Continue reading →

Thank you David Sirota. How Americans really feel about drugs A NYT op-ed uses “moderate” double-speak to deny the truth: Most people want marijuana legalized […] The latest example of this insidious framing comes in the form of a Monday … Continue reading →

Put down the Coumadin, Grandma, before we shoot you. [Via Radley Balko, who notes the word “use”]

Remember the RAND study that found that crime increased in areas after medical marijuana dispensaries were shut down? RAND made no causality claims, only correlation, yet the results enraged certain political entities, most notably the L.A. city attorney’s office. After … Continue reading →

An excellent piece on Siobhan Reynolds and her importance to the field of pain relief in Time Magazine by Maia Szalavitz. Why, she asked, when opioids can help treat chronic pain, are they frequently only available to the dying—but not … Continue reading →