Drug WarRant Saturday, June 13, 2009 Drugs Won the War That's the title of Nicholas Kristof's new column in the New York Times This year marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's start of the war on drugs, and it now appears that drugs have won. [...] Here in the United States, four decades of drug war have had three consequences: First, we have vastly increased the proportion of our population in prisons. [...] Second, we have empowered criminals at home and terrorists abroad. [...] Third, we have squandered resources. [...] The movement to reform is unmistakable and unstoppable. It's just a matter of when and how much dishonest interference the entrenched drug warriors can lay down. [Thanks, Tom!] 8:55:43 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment [] Open Thread Must read: Ethan Nadelmann Hey Progressives: Why Don't you Care About the 'Drug War' Like You Care About Other Issues? [Thanks, Jackl] Charlie Lynch sentenced. Charlie Lynch was sentenced to one year and one day in jail for operating a medical marijuana clinic that was legal under California state law. U.S. District Court Judge George Wu declined to impose the 5-year mandatory minimum that federal prosecutors deemed appropriate and I've been informed that the U.S. attorney was visibly upset with this outcome. In contrast, Reason reports that Lynch's attorneys "seem extremely happy and relieved with the sentence and are convinced they will knock it down much lower and that Lynch will not be in prison anytime soon." He shouldn't spend a day in prison, but this is great news, considering the possibilities. Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act Reintroduced In Congress Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, along with over a dozen cosponsors, reintroduced legislation in Congress today to strengthen legal protections for state-authorized medical marijuana patients. This may have a better chance now. Plea for help... Between an extremely crazy traveling schedule, and the meltdown of my computer, it's been very hard for me to keep track of everything that's going on (my newsreader is showing over 5,000 unread articles, which is just depressing). So... I ask my regulars (and anyone else) to pass on any top items that I'm missing (or post them in comments). Thanks. You guys are the best! DrugSense Weekly 9:26:38 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment [] U.S. silenced World Health Organization report on cocaine Transform has the story: The largest ever study of cocaine use around the globe was carried out in the early 90's by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and funded by the UN Inter-regional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), but under pressure from the US its publication was suppressed when it became clear the report's findings were in direct conflict with the myths, stereotypes and propaganda that prop up the war on drugs (read the complete leaked report here). Some of the conclusions from the report that the U.S. didn't like: "Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use. Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users." There's lots more, and the U.S. threatened to withhold funding from the WHO unless they disassociated themselves with the report. Go read Transform's entire post. 9:07:03 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment [] Blog Recovery I apologize for the lack of posts this past two weeks. In addition to my being extremely busy in New York last week, and in Aspen, Colorado this week, my computer suffered a nervous breakdown. I thought I was going to be able to solve it by re-installing the system software, but the problem was more severe. I had to wipe the drive and do a fresh install, and then restore from a backup (my most recent one was prior to leaving for New York. This was all made much more difficult by being on the road. Now, the blogging software I use operates off one local computer to upload, so the restored backup doesn't think I had any posts since I left for New York, and is likely to eliminate those. I have archived those posts and all the comments at this separate page so we don't lose anything. This should take care of things so I can go back to semi-regular blogging. In the meantime, I am still in Aspen, and tomorrow I start the drive back to Illinois with 16 college students (the Improv Mafia) who did a remarkable job here performing in the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival. Here they are, really high... ... 12,096 feet high, to be exact, above Independence Pass outside Aspen. 8:55:11 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []