Drug War Chronicle

Hard-line former Philadelphia DA Lynne Abraham is taking pot shots her successor, DA Seth Williams, over his policy of treating marijuana possession offenders more leniently. Williams and his crew are hitting back.

The nation's capital will soon join the ranks of jurisdictions allowing medical marijuana use after the DC City Council approved regulations this week. But according to advocates, the measure is lacking.

Organizers of an initiative that would legalize the possession of up to an ounce of pot have handed in far more than the required number of signatures required to make the November ballot in Detroit.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.

Over the weekend, Newsweek published a leaked draft of the 2010 National Drug Control Strategy. No one is sure why it was leaked, or by whom. A pair of leading observers of federal drug policy dissect it for us.

Bent on flexing their "tough on crime" muscles and impervious to polls showing a majority of Canadians want to legalize pot, Canada's Conservatives have reintroduced a bill creating mandatory minimum prison sentences for growing as few as 6 pot plants or making any amount of hash. That's so last century, Ottawa!

Calderon's war on drugs is closing in on the 20,000 dead figure, according to a running tally by the Mexico City newspaper El Universal. And the prohibition-related killing continues unabated.

It must be silly season already in Baton Rouge. A House committee there has deliberated on and passed a bill that would allow legislators and state officials to take voluntary drug tests and mental health evaluations and post the results on the Internet.

Another SWAT raid over pot, another dead dog, another traumatized family. But this one was caught on videotape, and now the outrage is spreading across the land.

"Is Medical Marijuana a Step Towards Full Legalization?," "A Small Bag of Marijuana = Police Shooting Your Dogs in Front of Your Child," "Cop Accidentally Argues for Marijuana Legalization," "'This Administration Firmly Opposes the Legalization of Marijuana'," "Weird Drama at the Drug Czar's Office."