Project SAM has emerged as a "third way" effort to blunt progress toward marijuana legalization by emphasizing public health and treatment. Its leaders include a conservative columnist, an addiction-plagued ex-congressman, and a professional neo-prohibitionist.
The Republican platform section on crime lays out the party's official positions, and while they stay "tough on crime," there are also some hints of evolving positions.
activists protest exclusion of drug users and sex workers (conference video at http://drogriporter.hu/en)
The International AIDS Conference in Washington this week saw foreign drug users and sex workers excluded even amidst a rising clamor for ending the drug war to help stop the spread of disease.
Commission members Michel Kazatchkine, Ruth Dreifuss, and Ilana Szabo at London press conference
When it comes to slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS, the imperatives of the drug war are a hindrance, not a help, a new report from the Global Commission on Drugs finds. There is a better way, the group says.
caravan launch at Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, Plaza Juárez, Mexico City (@CaravanaUSA @MxLaPazMx)
A Caravan of Peace calling for an end to failed prohibitionist drug policies in the US and Mexico will leave San Diego in August and arrive in Washington, DC, in September. It's hoping to educate some people along the way and have a lasting impact.
A bill to make simple hard drug possession a misdemeanor instead of a felony was defeated in the California Senate by members who were afraid they could "see Amsterdam" on the horizon. Oh, the horror!
After Cameron Douglas got caught with heroin and Suboxone in federal prison, he got hammered with an additional 4 1/2 years. That harsh sentence has sparked an effort not only to overturn that sentence, but also to highlight the lack of drug treatment for addicted prisoners.
Gretchen Burns Bergman at the National Press Club (Moms United)