The United States Conference of Mayors has put saving lives ahead of drug war politics and rejected the Drug Czar's dangerous public policy ideas. Via the Drug Policy Alliance:

The USCM last year declared the war on drugs a failure and called for a “New Bottom Line” in U.S. drug policy, which should be measured by the number of lives saved rather than the number of people imprisoned. This year’s resolution sets forth a comprehensive strategy for cities and states to reduce overdose morbidity and mortality by:

*Supporting local programs that distribute naloxone – an opiate antagonist medication effective in reversing the respiratory failure that typically causes death from opioid overdose – directly to drug users, their friends, families and communities;

*Urging state governments to adopt emergency “Good Samaritan” immunity policies that shield from prosecution people who are experiencing or have witnessed an accidental or intentional drug overdose and who have contacted 911 to request emergency medical treatment for the victim of drug toxicity or overdose;

*Calling on the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to urgently fund research to evaluate scientifically the effectiveness of overdose prevention interventions and develop model programs; and

*Calling on the Food and Drug Administration to take all necessary and reasonable steps to facilitate the testing and approval of nasal and/or over-the-counter formulations of naloxone and to consider recommending prescription naloxone concurrent with prescribing strong opioid analgesics

None of this should be even remotely controversial, and yet it is. Shockingly, the Drug Czar's office is actually opposed to distributing overdoses prevention kits based on the callous theory that bad outcomes will teach users to behave:

Madras says the rescue programs might take away the drug user’s motivation to get into detoxification and drug treatment.

"Sometimes having an overdose, being in an emergency room, having that contact with a health care professional is enough to make a person snap into the reality of the situation and snap into having someone give them services," Madras says. [NPR]

Thinking about this, I can't get over how sad and embarrassing it is that our mayors are forced to take a leadership role in developing sensible drug policies at the national level when we have a White House office that's supposed to be doing that. The public officials in Washington, D.C. who've been tasked with addressing the nation's drug problem have abdicated that role, arguing instead for malicious restrictions on proven life-saving interventions.

America's mayors deserve our gratitude for stepping forward and doing what they can to fill the gaping hole created by the Drug Czar's pitiful lack of leadership with regards to preventing overdose deaths.

Update: SSDP has a page where you can contact your state legislators about Good Samaritan policies. It only takes a second, do it.

Anytime you apply pressure in the war on drugs, the market just shifts to accommodate the new conditions. Thus, efforts to crack down on domestic methamphetamine production by limiting access to precursor chemicals may have reduced meth cooking, but they have not stopped people from snorting drugs and getting all tweaked out:

While methamphetamine remains a problem in Oregon City, arrests for possession have been declining. Arrests for cocaine possession, however, increased from 2006 to 2007. That trend is mirrored statewide.
…

Officials point to the similarity of the effects of the drugs as a major reason for cocaine's comeback.

"Meth addicts have a need for a certain amount of energy," said Detective Jim Strovink of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. "Heroin makes people laid-back, so that's not really for them. They're finding they can get the same high with cocaine. That's where they're getting their jolt." [The Oregonian]

Of course, we were already going after cocaine, so now what? We've restricted access to pseudo-ephedrine based cold medicines in order to stop people from getting high, but all it did was boost the cocaine market. It seems the only people who can't get the drugs they need are allergy sufferers.

Decades of drug war demolition tactics have taken their toll on our diplomacy in South America:

QUITO (Reuters) - From Argentina to Nicaragua, Latin Americans have elected leftist leaders over the last decade who are challenging Washington's aggressive war on drugs in the world's top cocaine-producing region.

These governments are shaking off U.S. influence in the region and building defense and trade alliances that exclude the United States. Some now say they can better fight drugs without U.S. help and are rejecting policies they do not like.

The strongest resistance to U.S. drug policies is in Ecuador and Bolivia, two coca-growing countries of the Andes, and in Venezuela.

This is just the inevitable consequence of bribing foreign governments to let our soldiers run around on their land slashing and burning the livelihoods of impoverished populations. We've declared war on the coca plant itself, insisting that it not be grown even by indigenous people who've used it for thousands of years for altitude sickness and appetite suppression. As it becomes increasingly clear that none of this is accomplishing anything, everyone's starting to realize that we have no intention of ever leaving.

We literally go around giving report cards to sovereign nations rating their cooperation in our own hopeless effort to stop Americans from using drugs. Both sides in the South American drug war are funded with U.S. dollars, yet we bare only the burden of our own indulgence, not the horrific violence and destabilization wrought by the endless war on drugs.

Thanks to democracy, however, the victims of our disastrous policies in South America may elect leaders who want to kick us the hell out. I can’t say I blame them.

Honestly, I've been predicting this for years. It just makes sense. Pigeons like to carry small items from place to place, and drug smugglers are always looking for new ways to deliver the goods:

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A sharp increase in drugs and cellphones found inside a Brazilian prison mystified officials -- until guards spotted some distressed pigeons struggling to stay airborne.

Inmates at the prison in Marilia, Sao Paulo state had been training carrier pigeons to smuggle in goods using cell phone sized pouches on their backs, a low-tech but ingenious way of skipping the high-tech security that visitors faced.
…

Officials said the pigeons, bred and trained inside the prison, lived on the jail's roof, where prisoners would take their deliveries before smuggling the birds out again through friends and family.

The scheme was uncovered when guards on the prison walls saw some pigeons struggling to fly.

For a second I was surprised that no one else thought of this before now, but then I realized. These guys didn't invent using pigeons to smuggle drugs. They got caught using pigeons to smuggle drugs. And only because they got greedy and made the poor things carry cell phones. For all we know, pigeons are being used all over the world to move small amounts of dope around, which can add up to quite a bit if you use a whole flock of 'em.

Add another item to the list of peculiar activities born in the drug prohibition laboratory.