ONDCP

Unleashed by a pair of US Supreme Court rulings, the Bush administration has been pushing random suspicionless drug testing of students. They've been having some success, but have also engendered a vigorous opposition movement.

Washington and Caracas traded barbs over Venezuelan cooperation (or the lack thereof) with US drug fighters this week.

For the first time in decades, there is a marijuana decriminalization bill before Congress. No one thinks it will pass this year, but you have to start somewhere.

In a historic US Congress Joint Economic Committee hearing Thursday, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) opened up discussion on the Hill of the economic costs of US drug policy.

While the nation worries about baseball players on steroids and teenagers smoking pot, an epidemic of drug overdoses is sweeping the country. There are methods of reducing the toll, but there are many obstacles, too, not the least of which is public and official indifference.

Current approaches to methamphetamine use in the US have largely failed and should be replaced by a "Four Pillars" approach embracing prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcement, according to a report issued Tuesday. Some states have already moved that direction.

President Bush and ONDCP head John Walters released the 2008 National Drug Control Strategy over the weekend. They are claiming some important victories, but some critics say not so fast.

The nation's second largest doctors' organization endorsed the medicinal use of marijuana in a major policy statement released last week.

The 2008 federal budget is a done deal now. The drug czar's youth anti-drug media campaign takes a well-deserved hit and DC wins the right to spend its own money on needle exchanges. But the drug war juggernaut just keeps rolling on along as law enforcement wins big bucks.

The latest annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use is out, and the Bush administration is claiming the numbers vindicate its anti-drug strategy. But a host of critics disagree.