In California, a drug treatment initiative is being debated and receiving some fair coverage in the press (though the mainstream press isn't necessarily in love with the proposal, as evidenced by the Los Angeles Times editorial in the This Just In section above). Elsewhere, college students are demanding at least minimal fairness in the enforcement of some drug laws.
]]>Californian activists see record breaking cannabis arrests as evidence of a failed policy, but the police attribute the rising numbers to more vigorous enforcement, read misallocation of their time and resources, stemming from their frustration.
The record for largest cannabis growing operation in Canada has been broken again, "with an estimated street value of $40 million." Another drug war success?
Canadian courts may be, once again, gradually coming to the conclusion that laws prohibiting possession are unconstitutional because they fail to make allowance for medicinal use.
]]>Prohibitionists in Vancouver, British Columbia hired former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, trotting him out to rail against InSite, the supervised injection center. Even the conservative Globe and Mail found Giuliani's predictable criticism of the injection center to be too much: "With all due respect for Mr. Giuliani... he and the American war-on-drugs model have no lessons to offer Canada on drug control."
In the U.K., it looks as if MDMA may be downgraded to a less-serious B class from the current A (most dangerous) classification. "Ecstasy is not an addictive drug and it is already eight years since a Police Foundation inquiry found it to be several thousand times less dangerous than heroin and to play a part in fewer than 10 deaths per year." Expect prohibitions to strike back, claiming this would be the wrong message for youth, and an invitation to use.
And finally this week, from the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Professor Judith Pratt asks if the Beatles would have sounded the same if they hadn't taken drugs? Pratt, who spoke at the Cavern Club in Liverpool last week looked at the possible influences of cannabis and LSD on the Fab Four's creativity. "What would their songs be like if they hadn't been exposed to drugs? Taking drugs certainly had a positive influence on The Beatles's songwriting... They might not have gone into that more spiritual spiral if they hadn't taken LSD."
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