Decriminalization

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is floating an amendment to Jim Webb's bill to create a commission on criminal justice reforms. Grassley's amendment would bar any talk of legalization or decriminalization.

In an address to an international health conference in Vietnam, the UN's top health rights official slammed forced "rehab camps" and called for decriminalizing drug use. As many as half million people could be locked up in punitive, old-school mass detoxification camps.

According to a pair of recent opinion polls inspired by a presidential committee that recommended easing up on soft drugs and prostitution, Romanians favor the latter more than the former.

The forces of reaction are on the move in Perth. Claiming a mandate from a year-old election, Western Australia Premier Colin Barnett wants to turn back the clock on marijuana law reform, and he's got some more ugly surprises in store, too.

It's been 20 years since Janet Reno established the first drug court in Miami. Now, there are more than 2,100 of them, but the nation's leading criminal defense attorneys' group says they are distorting justice and need serious reforms.

Hundreds of people came to San Francisco last weekend for the annual NORML conference. The organizers can be forgiven if it seemed a bit California-centric because so much related to marijuana policy is occurring in the Golden State. With the clamor for marijuana reform gaining decibels by the day, the atmosphere was headier than ever.

We would be remiss if we didn't mention Boston's annual Freedom Rally, the first since Massachusetts voters passed a state decrim law.

More than a decade ago, Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that drug possession was not a prosecutable offense. Now, President Uribe is moving to undo that, but the country's Supreme Court has put a roadblock in his path by upholding that ruling.

The drug policy wheel is turning, and the US and its hard-line repressive drug policies are becoming increasingly isolated in the hemisphere as in the past week alone 150 million Latin Americans came under one form of decriminalization or another.

A bill that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of drug for personal use is now the law of the land in Mexico. Although there was some doubt President Calderon would approve it, it appeared in the official gazette Thursday. It also includes provisions to allow the state and localities to go after small-time drug dealers, a power previously reserved to the federal government.