Cannabis & Hemp

No Rational Basis: The Pragmatic Case For Marijuana Law Reform

By Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen, 17 Virginial Journal of Law and Public Policy 45 (2009) FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE AT: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1366422 ABSTRACT: This article presents a critique of marijuana prohibition and suggests some alternative regulatory approaches that would be more productive and consonant with justice. Part I relies on a […]

Cannabis & Hemp

Liberty Lost: The Moral Case For Marijuana Law Reform

By Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen, 85 Indiana Law Journal 279 (2010) FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE AT: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1366426 ABSTRACT: Marijuana policy analyses typically focus on the relative costs and benefits of present policy and its feasible alternatives. This essay addresses a prior, threshold issue: whether marijuana criminal laws abridge fundamental individual […]

International

Former Boy Scouts killed in border drug war

There’s so many gruesome and tragic stories about violence along the U.S.-Mexico border related to the drug war lately that it’s hard not to become desensitized.

However, this story from the El Paso Times about a young U.S. citizen and his friend being gunned down in Juarez, Mexico regardless of their apparent clean living, is a reminder of how bad it is.

Family members, who held his funeral Tuesday, said they did not know the reason behind the attack. News reports said the two men were coming from a boy scout camp before they were gunned down.

Law Enforcement & Prisons

New Zealand attempts to crush gardening industry

Police in New Zealand raided garden shops across the nation earlier this week, because some of the materials being sold may have been used to grow cannabis. Some people arrested in Wellington are charged with selling drug-growing equipment, including 600-watt lightbulbs, bottles of Superior Potash, Guano Superbloom and Budzilla, pH […]

Hot Off The 'Net

DrugWarRant gets ONDCP to clarify its innuendo

Nice work by Pete Guither over at DrugWarRant, my favorite drug war blog. Pete noticed that federal anti-drug officials were playing quite loose with language regarding “drugged driving,” making the problem seem more widespread than it really is. The Office of National Drug Control Policy replied to Pete and changed […]

Hot Off The 'Net

Fox News slobbers over aged drug-sniffing dog

Many of the worst tendencies of mainstream journalism’s approach to drug policy issues are highlighted in this Fox News report. It’s about an Arizona woman who bought a retired police drug dog and is trying to convince local parents that they should pay her to drag the dog through their […]