Sentencing

In a bid to save money and be smarter on crime, Colorado has enacted a package of bills that, among other things, will reduce some drug use and possession sentences, allow greater judicial flexibility in sentencing, and keep some technical parole violators from being sent back to prison. But the package also increases some drug sales and manufacturing sentences.

The Associated Press has just declared the war on drugs a failure. When will the politicians admit the same?

New Jersey MS patient John Ray Wilson was convicted of growing marijuana in December. The state legalized medical marijuana in January. But Wilson was still sentenced to five years in prison last week.

The number of people doing time in state prison declined last year for the first time since bell-bottom jeans were in fashion, although just barely. Could we be seeing the first rumblings of a seismic shift in prison population trends?

Sen. Jim Webb's (D-VA) National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. If enacted, it would provide for the first comprehensive review of criminal justice policies in decades.

A California judge can order a medical marijuana patient to hand in his ID card and give up his medicine if he wants to go on probation instead of to prison, an appeals court has ruled in a 2-1 decision. The ruling provoked a harsh dissent.

Like other states, Tennessee is feeling the effects of the bad economy, and so is the state's budget. Now, the governor is seeking a 9% across-the-board budget cut, and that could mean -- God forbid! -- that the state might have to let some nonviolent prisoners get out a few months early.

West Africa has become an important transshipment point for cocaine headed from South America to Europe. They also grow a lot of marijuana there. Now, the Liberian government wants to crack down, and it's reading from the old US drug war playbook.

Whether the Obama administration has ushered in a new era when it comes to the federal government and medical marijuana is arguable. One thing that isn't is that victims of Clinton and Bush era raids remain behind bars or facing prosecution. There are beginning to be moves afoot to right that lingering wrong.

Canadian cannabis entrepreneur and legalization advocate Marc Emery is just weeks away from a US federal prison term. But if US and Canadian authorities think they can shut him and his supporters up, they are in for a surprise.