News Feature

A decade ago, the leading British newspaper the Independent on Sunday called for the decriminalization of marijuana. This week, citing the dangers of skunk weed and alleged links to mental illness, the paper reversed course.

The US Supreme Court Monday heard oral arguments in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, pitting student free speech rights against schools' anti-drug policies.

The Peruvian government's US-backed forced coca eradication campaign is running into serious problems in the Upper Huallaga Valley. Clashes with police, roadblocks, and a general strike have all broken out in the past few days.

Despite an apparent vote to kill it last week, the New Mexico legislature has now passed a medical marijuana bill. It awaits only the signature of Gov. Bill Richardson, a strong supporter, to become law.

Medical marijuana, mandatory minimums, college aid and campus marijuana policies are all on the agenda in Maryland this year.

With nearly half the states having bills pending this year and some of them likely to pass, medical marijuana has gone mainstream.

Peru is currently the world's second largest producer of coca and cocaine, and the coca growers' movement there is gaining steam, but it still faces many hurdles, some internal, some external.

With the release of its annual report this week, the International Narcotics Control Board has set its sights on Bolivia and that country's pro-coca policies. The US is also preparing to make a decision on whether to decertify Bolivia as not cooperating in American drug war goals. The Bolivians don't seem to care.

The "coca, si; cocaine, no" policy of Bolivian President Evo Morales has brought peace to a region long riven by conflict and repression. But while coca farmers need no longer worry about violent conflict with the state, they are still having a hard time making enough money to survive. Plans are underway to do something about that.

Just a little over a year into his term, Bolivian President Evo Morales is engineering a "coca, yes; cocaine, no" policy that is reducing tension there and leading to cooperative eradication efforts with farmers. Will the US government go along with it?