DEA

An Associated Press story at the end of August raised the alarm about levasimole-tainted cocaine, but the problem has been emerging for years. Now, while waiting for the feds to act, harm reductionists and public health workers grapple with how to respond.

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.

The Obama administration said it wouldn't raid medical marijuana providers who act in accordance with state law, but a bust last week raises a few questions.

It's not just Marines pouring into Afghanistan this summer. As the Obama administration shifts its emphasis from poppy eradication to targeting traffickers, the DEA is expanding operations there big-time.

"It's about rope, not dope" was the message as the Oregon House passed a bill allowing for industrial hemp production. It already passed the Senate, and the governor is expected to sign it, but it passed by veto-proof majorities if he doesn't. Still, the federal prohibition on hemp production in the US remains an enormous obstacle.

With US and NATO policies for dealing with the Afghan poppy group undergoing quite radical shifts -- giving up on eradication, treating traffickers as terrorists -- Gretchen Peters' exposé of the links between the traffic in prohibited drugs and the Taliban and Al Qaeda couldn't be more timely or more informative.

Rep. Barney Frank has reintroduced a bill to protect medical marijuana patients and providers and move pot from Schedule I to Schedule II. Will it get any further in a Democratic Congress than it did in Republican ones?

At the request of Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), the House Appropriations Committee has added language to the Justice Department appropriations bill asking the Obama administration to clarify its stance on DEA raids on medical marijuana providers in states where it is legal.

There's been another California medical marijuana dispensary raid with the DEA involved, but so far, it looks like the real culprit is a crusading sheriff in Bakersfield.

Jimmy Carter once let Evo Morales pick some peanuts on his Georgia farm. Now, Morales has invited Carter to pick some coca leaves on his farm in Bolivia's Chapare.