fire truck lent by Dr. Bronner's for SSDP/Prop 19 campus tour
This Year's Top 10 Domestic Drug Policy Stories
This was your year on drugs. Or at least, your year in drug policy reform. Here's our top 10 drug policy issues of the year.
Synthetic Cannabinoids
Idaho Businesses Try Selling Altered Versions of Spice
Certain Treasure Valley businesses think they've created an exception to the ban by tweaking the chemicals found in Spice, but law enforcement says, "not so fast." Officers went into a couple businesses, seized samples, and sent those off for testing. Results are not back yet but according to the Idaho Office of Drug Policy, the sellers could be charged.
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Legal or Not, Synthetic Marijuana is Here to Stay
Spice was destined to become a phenomenon. For decades, magazines like High Times have advertised famously fake pot products that apparently sold well enough to support a robust marketing campaign, despite being completely useless. Anyone could have predicted that a legal marijuana substitute capable of producing the familiar buzz of pot itself would be massively successful. That's exactly what happened, and regardless of the pending federal ban announced this month by the DEA, there's good reason to believe this drug is here stay.
DEA Criminalization of 'Fake Marijuana' Repeats Mistakes of Past Prohibitions (Opinion)
Grant Smith, federal policy coordinator in the Drug Policy Alliance's office of national affairs in Washington, D.C., says we know from marijuana prohibition that law enforcement has no control over the drug market and the criminals who run it. By choosing to ban K2 outright, lawmakers are committing millions of taxpayer dollars to investigate, prosecute and incarcerate K2 users. He points out that we simply cannot afford to expand the war on drugs at a time when budgets are in the red and the United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world.
Banned in 30 days (Image courtesy Wikimedia)
DEA Bans Synthetic Marijuana
Synthetic marijuana products sold as incense or potpourri under brand names like K2 and Spice have been banned in an emergency move by the DEA. You have 30 days before the ban takes effect.
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Sen. Orrin Hatch Asks DEA to Ban Spice, K2
We can't have people getting high legally can we? Orrin Hatch doesn't think so, and wants the DEA to ban Spice.
Royal Castle Square, Warsaw
Poland Shutters Synthetic Drug Shops
The Polish government is cracking down on new synthetic drugs and wants the power to pull from the shelves any product that could be harmful to health or life. It didn't mention Polish vodka, though.
Synthetic Cannabinoids: K2/Spice Banned in Missouri
The knee-jerk prohibitionist impulse remains strong in America, especially in the South. Confronted with a synthetic cannabinoid, states are lining up to ban it.
Synthetic Cannabinoids: Georgia Becomes Latest State to Ban K2
Products like Spice and K2 that contain a synthetic cannabinoid that gets you kind of high have only appeared in the US in about the last year, but a number of states have already acted to ban them. Georgia is the latest.
Attempts to Ban Fake Marijuana Are Further Proof of Prohibition's Failure (Opinion)
Mike Meno, director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, opines that K2 bans are misguided because they don't address the core issue: millions of Americans want to use marijuana, or something that will mimic its effects, and if they're afraid about illegal means of doing so, they will continue to seek out legal alternatives.