Newswire

The House Judiciary Committee has passed a bill that would make it a violation of US law for US citizens to engage in conduct in other countries that is legal there but which violate US drug laws here. (Link to Story)

Susan Walker reports on a study of the alcohol and drug prohibition eras conducted by Euan Wilson of The Socionomics Institute. Wilson's research includes the role of social mood during prohibition, and provides a fascinating look at when and why society sanctions drugs -- and when society decides enough is enough. Walker says the takeaway message is that the same social mood that drives the stock market also plays a significant role in popular attitudes regarding the prohibitions against drugs and alcohol. (Link to Story)

Scott Lemieux, Assistant Professor of Political Science at The College of Saint Rose, discusses the Supreme Court's continued long-standing assault on constitutional protections in service of the war on drugs (or, as it might be more accurately described, the war on some classes of people who use some types of drugs). (Link to Story)

Another drug case was dismissed in connection with allegations of police misconduct by San Francisco officers. More than 85 cases have been dropped because of a string of videos released by Public Defender Jeff Adachi that he said show misconduct by plainclothes officers performing drug busts at residential hotels in the city. The latest dismissal might not be the last related to the police misconduct allegations. Adachi said last week that the district attorney's office has provided him with a list of 6,900 cases involving officers from the previous videos, which appear to show officers from the Police Department's Southern Station entering rooms without a warrant or consent, contradicting what was written in the officers' reports. (Link to Story)

Proposed laws in the New York legislature that would allow New York residents to call for medical assistance during drug or alcohol overdose situations without fear of prosecution have been introduced in both legislative chambers. Both bills will first be under consideration in the Codes Committees. (Link to Story)

An inner city council in Melbourne has voted almost unanimously in favor of trialing injecting rooms to deal with what's been described as a war zone where brazen drug deals are an everyday occurrence due to prohibition. (Link to Story)

Enriched by drug prohibition, Joaquin Guzman Loera reportedly possesses a personal fortune capable of rivalling Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Loera is believed to be responsible for more deaths in the United States than bin Laden because of his drug transportation business and the inherent dangers associated with it created by prohibition. (Link to Story)

The massacre due to drug prohibition in Guatemala that left 27 people dead at a cattle ranch – believed to be the work of Mexico's notorious drug trafficking organization, the Zetas – has forced a 30-day state of emergency. None of the victims had ties to drug trafficking organizations, authorities said. Rather they were innocent ranch workers and their families caught up in an increasingly bloody prohibition war. (Link to Story)

For years, these inspections have been conducted before cattle cross the border, but the drug prohibition war has prompted the U.S. to move some of its operations north. The change, instituted over the past year at three of the 11 ports along the U.S.-Mexico border, is drawing concern from some cattle raisers, who fear infections long eradicated in the U.S. but still showing up in Mexico will spread before inspection. The change is supposed to be temporary, although there are no immediate plans for the American inspectors to return to Mexico. (Link to Story)