Some Canadian activists claim their government is borrowing a classic play from the American drug warriors: suppressing inconvenient information. Also, in the Mexican drug war, journalists are being killed; while one city in Illinois is being very quiet while changing the way it enforces laws, including marijuana laws.
]]>American taxpayers are once again paying for ONDCP officials to travel around the country to lobby against these initiatives, complaining about out-of-state funders and fomenting fear of marijuana mayhem, as evidenced in California.
Meanwhile, the situation in California may be improving as a consequence of local, state and self-regulation.
In the U.K., a proposed "three-strikes" approach to cannabis possession appears to be out of play, now that proponents have learned that police do not record strikes.
]]>Ah, it was only in spring of 2001 that Colin Powell was off to Kabul, to reward the Taliban with millions of dollars - for their splendid job of ruthlessly enforcing prohibition on Afghanistan. But my, how times change! Immediately after the US-led NATO forces invaded and routed the Taliban, opium flowed from Afghanistan as never before. Now we are told, it is all about saving the children from Afghan dope; this (now) is Why We Fight. The UK Independent newspaper this week attempted to sell UK taxpayers on a newly re-packaged war in Afghanistan, this time a shiny new war, a war on the poppy plant. Expect this new anti-drug surge to be as effective as other prohibition "wars".
In Canada, the election (prohibitionist Stephen Harper won) crowded out cries of foul over the RCMP's funding of tailor-made anti-Insite reports. Some papers like The Province, seemed to downplay a new report that "North America's first heroin trial project has been a resounding success," to scold those who "seem to choose confrontation over consultation". Others weren't so ready to gloss over the RCMP's blatantly partisan propaganda-cum-research. Gary Manson at the Globe and Mail was unable to remain silent over "the Mounties' latest antics" using "taxpayers' dollars to hire researchers to author papers that undermine Insite" which "it obviously hoped and expected would cast the drug treatment centre in a poor light."
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