Drug War Chronicle

Utah is getting organized for marijuana law reform, the NAACP is supporting a "states' rights" federal marijuana bill, attention turns to the drug war south of the border in Washington, and more.

State level marijuana legalization activists look ahead, Colorado announces hemp farming rules, Denver backs away from a backyard pot-smoking ban, and strife continues in Mexico.

A Newark, New Jersey, man is dead at the hands of drug police after they said he approached them with a loaded weapon (how did they know?), but angry neighbors had a different version of events.

Portland's police chief demonstrates why local initiatives are only a start, a new Urban Institute report has ideas for reducing the federal prison population, the Irish parliament rejects marijuana legalization on its first go round, and more.

There's a lot going on in the world of drug policy. Here are the stories we noted in our new Chronicle AM daily survey this week.

When can you get a guilty plea overturned in federal court? When the cop who busted you is crooked, that's when.

And the beat goes on. From the West Coast to the East Coast and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast, medical marijuana is on the agenda.

We took a week off from the Corrupt Cops stories, but the corrupt cops sure didn't. Here's a rather lengthy list of backlogged law enforcement miscreants.

Voters in Colorado and Michigan approve marijuana measures (and so do voters in Portland, Maine--see our news brief), another New Mexico anal drug search victim emerges and the Mexican military moves into Lazaro Cardenas.

Portland, Maine, has become the first East Coast city to vote to legalize marijuana possession, and it did so overwhelmingly.