Without much fanfare, the Global War on Terror has ended. The new name for these military interventions is the Overseas Contingency Operation. Press Q&A. Some Republican representatives discuss. (SPOILER: They are not pleased.) Military blogs discuss. Similarly, the War on Drugs also looks to be on the way out, though no new name for the project has been announced at this time.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on May 14, 2009 - 53 comments

The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs. The Sentencing Project has just released a report (pdf) finding that, for the first time in 20 years, the number of Black Americans in state prison for drug offenses has fallen. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of White drug offenders in state prisons rose about 43 percent, while the number of Black offenders declined by 22 percent. One cause may be a rise in the use of drug courts, which are locally administered programs that divert offenders into treatment rather than incarceration. The Sentencing Project has a recent report (pdf) on this issue as well.
posted by lunit on Apr 16, 2009 - 32 comments

In May 1995, the American government's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) made an attempt to disrupt the supply chain of methamphetamine precursors, such as pseudoephedrine, by shutting down two major suppliers of the precursors under authority granted by the Domestic Chemical Diversion Control Act. Was it successful? Only temporarily, according to new research by Carlos Dobkin and Nancy Nicosia. (via)
posted by Pants! on Apr 8, 2009 - 47 comments

(Some links NSFW) Any down on their luck stoner is familiar with so called, "legal bud" Herbs of all kinds have been marketed online to the connectionless or legally restricted that offered a marijuana like high without the legal consequences. Everyone knows they are all scams. It might surprise you, that some were not. Commonly sold under the names Spice or Zohai, mixtures of herbs sprayed with synthetic cannabinoid substances such as HU-210 or JWH-018 have been available online for at least the past four years. [more inside]
posted by furiousxgeorge on Jan 25, 2009 - 53 comments

Towards a culture of responsible drug use - an essay by the creators of Erowid [via]
posted by daksya on Sep 8, 2008 - 53 comments

A SWAT team in Maryland raids a city's mayor's house and kills his dogs. Oh, and the warrant was wrong.
posted by Optimus Chyme on Aug 7, 2008 - 117 comments

Ten Years in Jail for Selling Lightbulbs
posted by lalochezia on Mar 6, 2008 - 91 comments

Hooked! Trapped! Teenage Booby Trap! Users Are Losers! Vintage anti-drug comics scanned and posted by Ethan Persoff. Plus dozens of other "Comics with Problems"-- like "Rex Morgan, MD Talks About Your Unborn Child" and "Capt Veedee-O and Ms. Wanda Lust in VD Claptrap."
posted by dersins on Dec 6, 2007 - 15 comments

DrugPolicyCases.com - Yakov Spektor, a New York-based attorney, combed through two decades of US Supreme Court opinions "to discern certain trends in the Court's treatment of various issues" related to the War on Drugs. The collection of opinions are organized by case, author and topic.
posted by daksya on Nov 26, 2007 - 8 comments

Richard Paey Speaks - An interview with the paraplegic man sentenced to 25 years in prison for treating his own pain, but now out after a full pardon by the Florida Governor. [more inside]
posted by daksya on Nov 20, 2007 - 42 comments

The US Sentencing Commission has recommended that Federal sentencing guidelines be reduced for crimes involving crack cocaine -- and is now deliberating making the new guidelines retroactive for prisoners already incarcerated. [WaPo] If taken into effect, about 3,800 inmates could be released by this time next year. [more inside]
posted by Avenger on Nov 12, 2007 - 29 comments

"An open society must be prepared to listen to those who offer a critique of its conventional wisdom—and our conventional wisdom about drugs and addiction should be no exception."
posted by daksya on Sep 22, 2007 - 50 comments

The British Transform Drug Policy Foundation has recently released their 2nd guide After the War on Drugs: Tools for the debate. Described as a guide for prospective and current policy reform advocates, it enumerates the points typically brought up against reform, and offers strategies to rebut them. Somewhat of a counterpoint to the US DEA's Speaking Out Against Drug Legalization.
posted by daksya on Aug 9, 2007 - 48 comments

Spiritual Highs and Legal Blows - the power and peril of religious exemptions from drug prohibition
posted by daksya on May 23, 2007 - 8 comments

Entheogens and Psychotherapy. A 2001 paper by Canadian psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics and his own experience with LSD. Now, because of this paper, he is no longer allowed to enter the U.S. [Via MindHacks.]
posted by homunculus on Apr 24, 2007 - 20 comments

America's forgotten war. Are we winning?
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Apr 11, 2007 - 39 comments

Stories from Inside: Prisoner Rape and the War on Drugs (PDF). A new report by the human rights group Stop Prisoner Rape. [Via Drug WarRant.]
posted by homunculus on Mar 23, 2007 - 61 comments

Dopey, Boozy, Smoky—and Stupid - Mark Kleiman of UCLA examines drug policy in general and offers some suggestions [via]
posted by daksya on Jan 30, 2007 - 49 comments

Dude, like, what did you do during the war? Young Israeli activists fight the war on terra in their own little way. Similar criticisms have been used before, usually to political advantages. Others call it yet another hysterical conflation.
posted by yonation on Aug 16, 2006 - 9 comments

"The system for classifying illegal drugs in Britain, which determines how users are punished, is unscientific and illogical and should be completely overhauled", according to a new report. See updated chart on the harm potential of various drugs.
posted by daksya on Jul 31, 2006 - 31 comments

The Drug War Goes to the Dogs. SWAT teams (usually the young ones) seem to commit a lot of puppycide. (Via The Agitator, who is also a MeFite.)
posted by homunculus on Jul 13, 2006 - 31 comments

So how's the War on Drugs proceeding in Afghanistan? Barry McCaffrey, former drug czar, trumpets, "Opium production has been dramatically slashed by 48% just in the past year[2005].". Oops, actually that's the acreage of opium cultivation; production went down by only 10%, due to increased yields. In any case, that's so last year. Instead of the socially detrimental policy of poppy eradication, wouldn't it be preferable to allow licensing of poppies for legitimate medical needs? The Afghan farmers agree, but some think the idea is flawed.
posted by daksya on Jun 16, 2006 - 17 comments

Schaffer Library of Drug Policy - read the transcripts of hearings held on the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act, or the text of court decisions regarding drug policy, or the well-researched Consumer Unions report on licit and illicit drugs, or the differences between beer and drugs, according to Anheuser-Busch. A huge archive of materials, admittedly compiled from a pro-reform perspective.
posted by daksya on May 20, 2006 - 27 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

Overgrow.com --one of the largest and most comprehensive sites written by and for cannabis growers about cannabis cultivation, complete with user forums and immense photo galleries--along with Heaven's Stairway Seeds (hempqc.com), Cannabisworld.com, and Eurohemp.com have all been shut down, their owners arrested in Canada, and the servers seized. The story hasn't yet made the Canadian news, but it raises many questions about free speech online.
posted by fandango_matt on Feb 5, 2006 - 45 comments

Drug policy reform in Colombia [via]
posted by daksya on Jan 3, 2006 - 13 comments

The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition by Jeffrey Miron of Boston U.. So far, endorsed by 500+ economists, including Milton Friedman.

Key points:
*End prohibition and save $7.7 billion in govt. expenditure.
*Tax its sale, like alcohol, and generate $6.2 billion in revenue.
posted by daksya on Jun 1, 2005 - 79 comments

"Defending America's Most Vulnerable" - a new bill, introduced in the House by the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Among other provisions, 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time conviction of distributing a small amount of marijuana to a person under 18 years of age; virtually every drug crime committed in urban areas subject to "drug free zone" penalties that carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence; a 2-year sentence for those who witness or learn about drug distribution near colleges and do not report it to authorities within 24 hours and do not provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting the offender.
posted by daksya on May 16, 2005 - 45 comments

The King County Bar Association of Washington state, has released a resolution as part of their Drug Policy Project calling for a non-commercialized & state-supported regulated distribution of currently illicit drugs. Their FAQ addresses the inevitable concerns over such an approach. Another document provides a tour of the historical and cultural contexts of drug laws. The Association also outlines how the regulated approach might be workable, considering the purview of the federal Controlled Substances Act. [via DrugWarRant]
posted by daksya on Mar 3, 2005 - 13 comments

The Supreme Court, in a 6-2 decision Monday, ruled that police do not violate the Fourth Amendment when they use a drug-detecting dog to locate illegal drugs in the trunk of a car during a legal traffic stop. The decision, and dissents from Ginsburg and Souter.
posted by trharlan on Jan 24, 2005 - 45 comments

War on Drugs - Do you remember it? A call for support of this amorphous war has been trumpeted by every American President from Nixon through Clinton. The current guy, has associated himself (at least a little bit) with the Drug War in the previous campaign but current policy, not so much. What I’m curious about is the actual phrase, the concept of War on Drugs. It looks like we still dedicate large sums of money to the effort. It seems to me that we just don’t use the phrase much anymore. Did we win? Did we lose? Do we just want to forget about it? Or, did we repackage the endeavor under a new name? I tend to think we are not capable of waging more than one war against the nameless other at a given time. It would just be too scary. So, I think maybe we're bundling the War on Terror and the War on Drugs under a new brand name.
posted by Crackerbelly on Dec 8, 2004 - 31 comments

"After the War on Drugs - Options for Control is a major new report examining the key themes in the drug policy reform debate, detailing how legal regulation of drug markets will operate, and providing a roadmap and time line for reform." It's concise and reasonable, but is this report from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Google News lookup) really "the first practical road map for a benign drug policy that must follow the collapse of drug prohibition"? ... "No countries have yet legalised any drug covered under the U.N. convention" - will anything change anytime soon?
posted by mrgrimm on Nov 2, 2004 - 10 comments

Eat 'em if you got 'em: hemp-based foods were banned several years ago, thanks to the Drug Enforcement Agency's neverending "war on (some) drugs" but lawyers for hemp-based food companies successfully overturned the law, and the deadline ran out on the DEA to challenge it. Not that I would ever want to eat a hemp cheeseburger, but it's nice to know I can. Hopefully hemp rope will remain legal as well.
posted by mathowie on Sep 30, 2004 - 19 comments

Opium Made Easy: One gardener's encounter with the war on drugs.
posted by Gyan on Sep 22, 2004 - 35 comments

DEA wants to reclassify low grade painkillers as morphine equivilants. The DEA, in all it's wisdom, has decided that the next target on the "war on drugs" is hydrocodone, the most commonly used prescription pain killer in the country. "Ah," you say..."but surely there's congressional oversight for that sort of radical change in the Drug Schedule." But you'd be wrong. Funny old world when the budget and staff keeping getting bigger and bigger and the only way they can win a battle is to chase the arthritic.
posted by dejah420 on Feb 17, 2004 - 33 comments

Tommy Chong in prison. 3 months into his 9 month prison sentence for selling bongs, the LA City Beat talks to Tommy Chong and the LA Weekly talks with his family about the details of his case. [Via Drug WarRant.]
posted by homunculus on Dec 17, 2003 - 21 comments

The war on drugs is unfairly targeting doctors who prescribe legal pain medication to their patients who suffer from chronic pain, according to a spokeswoman of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. She was speaking at a press conference of patient and physician advocacy groups, sponsored by the Pain Relief Network, in support of Dr. William Hurwitz. Dr. Hurwitz has been indicted and imprisoned for prescribing high doses of opioid pain relievers, as have other pain-management doctors. But these crackdowns may end up doing more harm than good to patients in chronic pain. [More inside.]
posted by homunculus on Oct 13, 2003 - 22 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

"Hemp for Victory!" A USDA educational film from 1942 extolling the patriotic virtues of growing the crop that, a half-century later, over 600,000 people would be arrested for possessing. (Gotta love the official "Producer of Marihuana" license.) How times have changed.
posted by digaman on May 4, 2003 - 7 comments

Starting with Super Bowl 2002 , the ONDCP launched a media campain linking drugs to terror, pregnancy, shooting your friend with your dad's gun, and running over a girl on her bike (Cost to taxpayer: $3.4 million). Soon after, the ads were refuted and parodied. Now the ONDCP says they'll end the ads in June, but not before they make some token Earth Day link and a weak argument against legalization.
posted by MarkO on Apr 22, 2003 - 32 comments

You may have seen the PSAs with Nick & Norm (So it is alright to support terrorism, a little?) Now the Marijuana Policy Project in their War on Drug Czar has released a parody. [QT, Real, or WMP]
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood on Feb 26, 2003 - 14 comments

A frequent point of opposition to the war on drugs is that of taxation. The argument goes like this: If the prohibition on illegal drugs ended, the government would see a surplus like no other (and pay for treatment, enforcement, etc). The folks in Kansas have a strange hybrid option: keep them illegal, but ask that drug dealers report taxes on their profits. Their FAQ lists the details and the a rate sheet (pdf) is available. Drug dealers not following suit can be busted as tax evaders, in addition to selling drugs. Novel approach or silly idea?
posted by mathowie on Feb 6, 2003 - 38 comments

Well known for speaking the truth about governments and getting pressured for it [7th paragraph from the top], Alain Labrousse recently published his Dictionnaire géopolitique des drogues [Geopolitical Dictionary of Drugs]. I don't think it's been translated in English yet, but all his previous works have, so I'm sure an English version is on the way. His latest book is being well received by everyone who's interested in "open source" information about drugs, particularly how the various national economies profit from them. A recent review [in French], cites one example of twisted international relations concerning drugs [my translation]: Europe speaks no evil about activities in Morocco, the most important source of cannabis in the world, or in Turkey, where scores of laboratories transform afghan opium into heroin, simply because these two countries provide a frontline of resistance to radical Islam. In North America, in Mexico, the United States tolerated for 70 years the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional - PRI), even though its leaders supported, and even chose mexican drug cartels. Geostrategic interests outweigh the most basic needs of the war against drugs.
posted by titboy on Feb 5, 2003 - 0 comments

Drug War Roundup V. "It's the most horrible mistake I've ever made," says a juror who helped convict Ed "Guru of Ganja" Rosenthal of marijuana production. The judge in Ed's case didn't consider him a flight risk, but may have after reading "The Drug War Refugees" (reg. req.), about Americans fleeing to Canada. The entire drug trade is approximately "the size of the Spanish economy and about 8 percent of world trade." And, of course, is responsible for hippo migration to Columbia.
posted by raaka on Feb 4, 2003 - 22 comments

Can the current prohibition really be blamed on one guy? First he tells Congress that "marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind" and then World War 2 comes and farmers are encouraged to grow it. After the War, he turns around and tells Congress that it could be used by the Russians to make our men lazy and pacifistic. If he had kept his original argument, our men would be insane killers against the Russian army. What would the country be like if there never was a HARRY J. ANSLINGER ?
posted by Degaz on Oct 14, 2002 - 27 comments

Drug War Roundup IV. An athlete who refused a drug test was stripped of her awards. She plays bridge. American Indians who honed their skills tracking drug smugglers recently trained Baltic border guards in the hopes of preventing nuclear weapon proliferation. Another chapter was written in the ongoing "is ecstasy all that dangerous?" debate. Salvatore Gravano is on his way back to prison for running an ecstasy ring. Nevada is edging closer to legalizing up to three ounces of marijuana, to the disdain of Bush's Drug Policy director and Nevada's biggest police group. A Canadian right wing party and cops came out against their government's recent pro-legalization report. I see a pattern, but maybe it's just the pudding.
posted by raaka on Sep 7, 2002 - 30 comments

Cops Abuse New Anti-Terror Law. The raid was perhaps the state's first known instance of law enforcement officers using new anti-terrorism police powers in a case unrelated to terrorism... Ahh, yes. The War On Drugs meets The War Against Terror.
posted by fnord_prefect on Aug 5, 2002 - 13 comments

"Drugs and the Internet: An Overview of the Threat to America’s Youth" It should probably come as no surprise that the government is interested in finding out what kind of drug-related information exists on the internet. What might surprise you is the Department of Justice’s self-described methodology and intent in pursuing that objective, with little apparent concern for such trivialities as oh, say, the First Amendment. For example, take a look at what the DOJ thinks constitutes "offending websites." Or how about this "threat": "Drug-culture advocates are chiefly interested in expanding the size of the community to both legitimize their activity and increase pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish drug control laws." (pressure on lawmakers to change or abolish laws? How un-American!) Needless to say, official statements like this scare some people, including rave fans, who appear to be a particular focus of the government’s efforts. (via overlawyered.com).
posted by pardonyou? on Mar 26, 2002 - 16 comments

While some EU countries are negotiating peace after their failed war on drugs, US legislators keep on the old Prohibition path. Just yesterday I noticed the new "My Anti-Drug" campaign included the careful discalimer that "all drugs, even marijuana" are morally wrong to take. Equating the harm and effects of all controlled substances isn't helping kids, it just makes them ignorant. Of course, most Americans' Anti-Drug is alcohol.
posted by skallas on Jan 1, 2002 - 29 comments

Bush: Drug users=terrorist lackeys George W. Bush says if you just quit drugs, terrorism will go away.
posted by brookish on Dec 14, 2001 - 37 comments