Marc's wife Jodie Emery and the "Vansterdam" cannabis community are coming to terms with the Prince of Pot's conspicuous absence.
As foreseen by reformers and feared by prohibitionists, the ubiquity and economic momentum of the medicinal cannabis industry in California is gradually undermining criminal prohibition.
Even wildly optimistic reformers fail to account for all the ancillary economic activity cannabis legalization will foster.
]]>The Canadian Supreme Court last week rejected government attempts to justify use of drug sniffer dogs as a "pretext for a search for drugs."
Canadian Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson again goaded the Canadian Senate to pass mandatory minimum laws for drugs, put forward by the Conservative Party. Nicholson's praise for mandatory minimums comes at a time when many U.S. states are repealing mandatory minimums which have packed prisons with low-level drug offenders while doing little to actually stem drugs.
A piece in this week's Houston Chronicle asks, "how to end the slaughter in Juarez (Mexico)?" Answer: stop drug prohibition. Re-allow adults the same freedoms all Americans once shared. As one ex-narcotics officer admits: "Drug prohibition is causing all of this... The global war on drugs is probably the greatest public policy failure of all time."
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