News Feature

Campus drug reform activists from around the country -- and beyond -- gathered last weekend in College Park, Maryland, for SSDP's 10th annual international conference. They lobbied, they listened, they learned, and now they're heading back home well-energized to apply the lessons they learned.

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.

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.