State & Local Government

Alcohol Prohibition was repealed 75 years ago today. Are there lessons to be learned, and is it going to take another 75 years to end drug prohibition?

Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos was interested in police socialization, so he joined the Baltimore PD and hit the mean streets of the city's Eastern District for more than a year as a uniformed officer. The book he wrote based on his experiences is an illuminating gem.

The drug war records of some key Obama picks -- Biden, Emanuel, Holder -- are prompting wailing and gnashing of teeth among some drug reformers, but others suggest it's better to keep working quietly on progress than obsess on the past.

With national elections just days behind them, some 300 Colorado marijuana reform activists wasted no time getting down to brass tacks as they met in Denver for the 2008 Colorado Marijuana Reform Seminar and Boot Camp.

Another year, and another report showing racial profiling by Illinois law enforcement. Now, civil rights groups want the governor to end the policy of allowing consent searches by state troopers.

Who profits from drug prohibition? With this article we begin our occasional series on Vested Interests of Prohibition, and we begin with a law enforcement establishment grown fat off drug war bounty.

Some well-known Puerto Ricans are calling for the legalization, taxation, and regulate sale of marijuana in a bid to reduce the prison population and keep kids away from unsavory elements.

It's not exactly "stop the presses" material, but two new reports from Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project provide even more confirmation that America's drug war is racially biased and waged mainly against black Americans.

Susan LeFevre got busted in Michigan at age 19 for small-time heroin sales. She copped a plea in hopes of leniency, but was instead sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. In 1976, she jumped the wall and fled to California, where she has led an exemplary life every since. Now, thanks to an anonymous tip, she has been tracked down and jailed pending extradition to Michigan. Should she now have to serve her time?

New York City decriminalized marijuana possession nearly three decades ago, but cops there still managed to arrest nearly 40,000 people for pot last year and 400,000 in the last decade.