News Feature

With the Bush administration preparing to leave town, so is drug czar John Walters. Now the question is who will replace him... and should he be replaced at all?

After eight years of Republican rule and the Bush presidency, drug policy and related reformers are ready for change. They have some concrete ideas, too. Here's a look at them and the prospects for change in Washington.

California's "treatment not jail" Proposition 5 is defeated and so is one "tough on crime" initiative, but another one won favor with Golden State voters. Meanwhile, dueling "tough on crime" initiatives also passed in Oregon.

Marijuana won big in Tuesday's election. Every state and local initiative on the ballot won, and by impressive margins, despite the best efforts of cops, prosecutors, and the drug czar.

With the elections a few days from now, we reprint our review from four weeks ago of drug policy and sentencing reform initiatives going to the ballot in several different states.

It's back to the drawing board for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act. Initiative organizers have suspended signature-gathering in the face of weak support in initial polling.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) held its 37th annual national conference in Berkeley, California. Here's a report.

Right now, all eyes are on November 4, but leading drug reform groups are already looking down the road to 2010 and beyond.

In 2002, the Office of National Drug Control Policy set goals of reducing marijuana and overall drug use. Despite artful manipulation of the numbers, ONDCP has failed at its stated goal, but it has managed to drive into treatment thousands of pot smokers who didn't need it.

Drug reform hasn't been much of an issue in the presidential campaign, but there are differences between the major party candidates -- and much larger differences between them and a trio of minor party candidates with solidly radical drug reform proposals. For whom to vote?