"Twelve years ago, Portugal eliminated criminal penalties for drug users. Since then, those caught with small amounts of marijuana, cocaine or heroin go unindicted and possession is a misdemeanor on par with illegal parking.
Experts are pleased with the results."
[more inside]
posted by vidur
on Mar 27, 2013 -
125 comments
Bill Moyers Journal, April 17, 2009 From crime beat reporter for the BALTIMORE SUN to award-winning screenwriter of HBO's critically-acclaimed The Wire, David Simon talks with Bill Moyers about inner-city crime and politics, storytelling and the future of journalism today.
Sorry for the one link post.
posted by dougzilla
on Apr 21, 2009 -
23 comments
Thirty-six years after the
National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse recommended that "simple possession" of pot be decriminalised, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has
introduced a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), to remove federal criminal penalties for possession of up to 100 grams (about three-and-a-half ounces) of marijuana and the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce (28.3 grams). Drug reform advocates
lit up hailed the legislation as "an important step toward bringing federal law into line with scientific fact, practical reality and public opinion." Is America, at long last, having a collective moment of sanity?
posted by kliuless
on Apr 20, 2008 -
76 comments
Stop Snitchin' may be the hidden link between
hip hop and the 1980s alternative rock group,
House of Freaks. According to the New York Post, journalist
Ethan Brown has accomplished
"making the Stop Snitching movement seem reasonable" in his new book
Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice. Brown argues that harsh
mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses have created a "cottage industry of cooperators" and
informants who fabricate evidence, because
Provision 5K1.1 of federal sentencing guidelines gives leniency in exchange for "substantial assistance to authorities." According to Brown, two of these
criminal cooperators included
Ray Dandridge and
Ricky Gray, the perpetrators of the
Richmond spree murders that ended the life of
Brian Harvey of House of Freaks, his wife, and his two children. On the other hand,
Mark Kleiman argues that the Stop Snitchin' movement has driven
homicide clearance rates so low that, in some cities, "you have a better than even chance of literally getting away with murder."
[more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Dec 11, 2007 -
61 comments
In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place.
Brian C Bennett aims to rectify
that. From
trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to
investigation of the
deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for
cocaine purity over the years, or treatment
admissions, or
arrest trends. The site map is your
quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.
posted by daksya
on Feb 27, 2006 -
18 comments
91 pounds of LSD? ...at that dosage level, Pickard and Apperson possessed 2 billion hits of acid—enough to give every person in the Western Hemisphere two doses and still have 250 million hits left over.
Ryan Grim is writing about acid again at Slate.
posted by Gankmore
on Mar 15, 2005 -
98 comments
Elliott could no longer bear the waste. He had six staff and a budget of £3.5m a year. He had a potential client group of 25,000 users ... but at the end of all his work and all that public money, the total number of detox beds he was able to provide was five. The Guardian reports from the front-line of the drugs war. (
part two) You may have no interest in Drugs or the UK but read this superb piece for a profile of a bureaucracy in farcical, tragic, total collapse.
posted by grahamwell
on May 23, 2003 -
5 comments
Right.
Let me get this straight.
A security guard
found a handbag
unattended in a night club. He then
searched the bag, supposedly looking for ID, and found a small packet containing a white powdery substance, which he handed over to the Central Narcotics Bureau.
A woman, Ms. Low, later says the handbag belongs to her.
The Judge notes that "There was no denial that this was her handbag. She claimed it was hers."
Ms. Low's friend, after being offered immunity from prosecution, then says they
both snorted cocaine earlier on in the evening.
On the basis of the evidence presented, Ms. Low is sentenced to 18 months in prison.
posted by netsirk
on Aug 6, 2002 -
46 comments
Yasmine Bleeth only gets two stinking years probation. Yeah, she gets court costs, yeah, she gets community service. But no jail time. Unless it's because she only had (only had?) less than 25 grams of cocaine...oh, and driving under the influence. The question this post begs is: Is this another instance of a double standard for celebrities? I've heard about double standards for child molestation (a football player in New York), murder (Ray Lewis), etc...and there are obviously MANY instances of celebrities getting preferred treatment when it comes to drug charges. I guess this is just another one.
posted by taumeson
on Jan 10, 2002 -
20 comments
