News Feature

NYPD arrested more than 50,000 people, mostly young people of color, for marijuana possession last year. Thursday, protestors went to the mayor's house to tell him to put a stop to it.

A San Francisco medical marijuana community already unhappy with federal raids on dispensaries was outraged and energized by Monday's raid on Oaksterdam. Hundreds of protestors went to the federal building to let the US Attorney know it.

An historic meeting has taken place in Guatemala. Three Central American presidents got together to talk about alternatives to drug prohibition, including legalization and regulation of drug use and the drug trade.

A bill pending in California would make misdemeanors out of drug possession offenses that are currently felonies. An impressive coalition is growing in support of it, but law enforcement is skeptical.

The fight-back to restore federal needle exchange funding stripped out of last year's budget has begun in earnest, with a congressional call-in, actions in a dozen cities, and civil disobedience and dozens of arrests on Capitol Hill.

The White House has released its proposed 2013 federal drug budget, and it looks pretty much like all the other federal drug budgets, only bigger.

There are four marijuana legalization initiative campaigns under way in Oregon, but only two of them look to have a serious chance at making the ballot. One would be enough.

A severe lack of funding could prevent any of the California marijuana reform initiatives from making the ballot. "Anyone got a spare $2 million?" the campaigns asked plaintively at a Mill Valley public meeting Tuesday night.

Bills to legalize medical marijuana have been filed (or are about to be filed) in 18 states, and advocates point to three or four of them that are looking like they have a particularly good chance of passage.

The New Mexico legislature has commissioned a study of emerging and evidence-based harm reduction practices, including supervised injection sites. That could lead the way to a pilot program there. There is also agitation for SIJs in San Francisco and New York City.