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Cannabis Gets a Trade Association [FEATURE]
The marijuana movement is starting to organize to protect its economic interests, and now, the cannabis movement has a Washington lobbyist.
Executive Branch
Feature: NATO, US Deepen Anti-Drug Operations in Afghanistan in Bid to Throttle Taliban
The drug war in Afghanistan is about to heat up. NATO has agreed to target drug traffickers and heroin labs aligned with the Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgency, and the US is quietly planning to put American soldiers on the ground with poppy eradication teams and their Afghan army protectors. The question is: Will any of this work?
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Election 2010 and US Drug Policy in Latin America [FEATURE]
Will US drug policy in Latin America change for the better or the worse after the 2010 elections? Or will it stay the same? We ask the analysts.
It's Up to You (Action Alert)
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We Are the Drug Policy Alliance
Goodbye, Gil?
Heritage Foundation Says Cut Drug Czar's Office, Byrne Grants, More
The Republicans ran on a vow to cut the budget deficit, but were short on specifics. The Heritage Foundation has a few ideas, including axing the drug czar's office and some other anti-drug spending.
Obamacare and the War on Drugs
Some conservatives outraged by Obamacareâs individual mandate had helped pave the way for it through drug prohibition policies. The Justice Department is defending Obamacare by asserting that a 2005 Supreme Court case about medical marijuana, Gonzales v. Raich, permits such a broad reading of the Commerce Clause that the federal government can tell individual citizens that they have to buy health insurance.
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New Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Crack Cocaine Now in Effect
New federal sentencing guidelines reducing, but not eliminating, the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine offenses are now in effect.
What the Feds Can Do About Prop 19
Attorney General Eric Holder, President Obamaâs top law-enforcement officer, has said the administration will âvigorously enforceâ federal drug laws in California if Proposition 19 wins at the ballot box. For all the trails that approving Proposition 19 would blaze, much of its impact would depend on the extent to which Holder follows through on that threat.
Attorney General Holder Says He Will Enforce Marijuana Laws Even If California Votes to Decriminalize, ACLU Says Continued Criminalization of Marijuana Has Disproportionate Impact on Communities of Color (Press Release)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 16, 2010
CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU national, (646) 233-9572 or (212) 549-2582; [email protected]; Rebecca Farmer, ACLU of Northern California, (415) 269-6275; [email protected]
SAN FRANCISCO – In a letter made public late Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Department of Justice will “vigorously enforce” federal laws against marijuana in California, even if the state’s voters next month approve Proposition 19, a ballot initiative that would decriminalize marijuana in the state. The proposed initiative would allow adults 21 and older to possess and grow small amounts of marijuana for their personal use and allow cities and counties to regulate and tax commercial sales. Holder’s letter was sent to nine former chiefs of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The criminalization of low-level marijuana possession has disproportionately impacted communities of color, has no impact on public safety and serves to divert criminal justice resources from the prosecution of more serious crimes.
In a letter sent to Holder several weeks ago, the former DEA chiefs urged him to take legal action challenging Proposition 19 in court if it passes and to make clear that it would be void even if passed because federal law would preempt it under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S Constitution. Holder’s letter this week was notably silent on both issues.
The following can be attributed to Allen Hopper, Police Practices Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California:
“Attorney General Holder’s silence speaks volumes. He does not say that the Department of Justice will seek an injunction against Proposition 19 being enacted because there is no constitutional basis for doing so. A bedrock constitutional principle underlying our federalist system of government prohibits the federal government from telling the state of California what laws it can and cannot pass or forcing the state to expend its resources prosecuting low-level marijuana offenses. It is deeply disappointing that the Obama administration would seek to impede a law that would go great lengths toward dismantling one of the defining injustices of our nation’s failed “war on drugs”: the fact that people of color, and especially youth of color, are disproportionately arrested for low-level marijuana possession. Such arrests do not increase public safety, and merely serve to divert already scarce criminal justice resources from the investigation of more serious crimes.”
lioness statue, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial (courtesy wikipedia.org)
Drug Policing Not a Very Dangerous Job, Stats Again Show
Some 48 law enforcement officers were murdered doing their job last year, according to the FBI. None of them died enforcing drug laws, despite how scary police like to make the drug war sound.