• Uruguay says pot law won't make it a drug haven

    Reuters
    Sunday, June 24, 2012

    legalizar-uruguay-2012bUruguay's government plans to start growing marijuana soon after a law legalizing sales of the drug passes Congress, but a ban on selling to foreigners will stop the country becoming a drug tourism hot-spot, officials say. The government announced plans to legalize the marijuana market as part of a drive to stop rising crime, arguing that the drug is less harmful than the black market where it currently trades.

  • Lawsuit Accuses Police of Ignoring Directive on Marijuana Arrests

    The New York Times (US)
    Friday, June 22, 2012

    Nine months ago, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly issued a memorandum directing police officers not to make arrests for possession of small quantities of marijuana discovered when suspects are ordered to empty their pockets in stop, question and frisk encounters. But police officers have continued to charge New Yorkers with misdemeanor crimes — rather than issuing them tickets for violations — for possession of small amounts of marijuana despite Mr. Kelly’s directive, according to a lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society.

  • Uruguay Considers Selling Marijuana

    Wall Street Journal (US)
    Thursday, June 21, 2012

    legalizar-uruguay-2012cUruguay is showing a novel approach to Latin America's growing fatigue with the war on drugs with a new proposal: normalize marijuana use and hand over its distribution and marketing to the government. Under a plan, which the leftist government will soon present to lawmakers, the state will oversee sales, which would be allowed only to adults 18 and older. The government would try to attain "regulated and controlled legalization."

  • Uruguay mulls government marijuana sales

    Associated Press
    Thursday, June 21, 2012

    legalizar-uruguay-2012Uruguay is planning a novel approach to fighting its rising crime: having its government sell marijuana to take drug profits out of the hands of dealers. Under the plan backed by President Jose Mujica's leftist administration, only the government would be allowed to sell marijuana and only to adults who register on a government database, letting officials keep track of their purchases over time. Profits would reportedly go toward rehabilitating drug addicts.

  • New report connects international aid for drug enforcement to gross human rights violations

    PR Newswire
    Thursday, June 21, 2012

    partners-in-crime-flatMillions of dollars in international aid for drug enforcement is spent in countries with extremely poor human rights records resulting in serious abuses, according to a new report by the non-governmental organisation, Harm Reduction International. Launched in advance of the UN day against drugs, on June 26, the report Partners in Crime: International Funding for Drug Control and Gross Violations of Human Rights tracks drug enforcement funding from donor states, often via the United Nations, to countries where executions, arbitrary detention, physical abuse and slave labour are weapons in the war on drugs.

  • Can Stop-and-Frisk Be ‘Mended’?

    Editorial
    The New York Times (US)
    Wednesday, June 19, 2012

    As marchers in Manhattan protested the Police Department’s increasingly unpopular stop-and-frisk program on Sunday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg took to the pulpit at a predominantly black church in Brooklyn and said the policy must be “mended, not ended.” But a Sunday visit to church is not going to fix a program that ensnares hundreds of thousands of residents a year, most of them black and Hispanic. The city will have to do much more to calm public anger and bring this runaway program into line with constitutional law.

  • David Nutt: alcohol consumption would fall 25% if cannabis cafes were allowed

    Former chairman of drugs advisory committee tells MPs Dutch-style 'coffee shops' would make people drink less
    The Guardian (UK)
    Tuesday, June 19, 2012

    A former government adviser on drugs has told MPs that alcohol consumption would fall by as much as 25% if Dutch-style cannabis "coffee shops" were introduced in Britain. Prof David Nutt also told the Commons home affairs committee that he stood by his claim that horse-riding was more dangerous than taking ecstasy, despite the fact that the comparison triggered his sacking as chairman of the advisory committee on the misuse of drugs (ACMD).

  • Les “cannabis social clubs” arrivent en France

    Des militants antiprohibitionnistes ont annoncé leur intention de se déclarer en préfecture comme producteurs de cannabis dans le cadre de ces associations dont le modèle est venu d’Espagne
    Les Inrocks (France)
    Mardi, 19 juin 2012

    Si PS et UMP pensaient avoir enterré le débat sur le cannabis avec la fin de la campagne des législatives, ils se sont trompés. Des militants viennent en effet d’afficher leur détermination à faire évoluer la législation en annonçant, lors d’un Appel du 18 Joint anticipé à Tours, la création de nombreux “Cannabis social club” un peu partout en France, rapportent nos confrères de la Nouvelle République. Illégaux dans l’Hexagone, ces “clubs” n’en resteront donc, pour l’instant, qu’au stade de groupes informels d’amateurs d’herbe ne réunissant chacun pas plus d’une dizaine de membres.

  • Some Southern California 'nonprofit' pot shops make big money

    Documents show a cash-infused retail world bearing little resemblance to the one pitched to voters for the 1996 Compassionate Use Act for 'seriously ill Californians'
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Sunday, June 17, 2012

    medical-pot3Many medical marijuana dispensaries have been making huge sums of money even as they claim to be nonprofit, according to court and law enforcement records, industry insiders, police and federal agents. The Los Angeles Times found a cash-infused retail world unlike the one pitched to voters who passed the Compassionate Use Act for "seriously ill Californians" in 1996.

  • 'Bolletjesslikker opsluiten zinloos'

    Patrick Meershoek
    Het Parool
    Zaterdag, 16 juni 2012

    bolletjesBolletjesslikkers horen niet in de gevangenis. Het berechten en opsluiten van ongeveer vijftienhonderd kleine drugssmokkelaars per jaar heeft geen noemenswaardig effect op de invoer van cocaïne en vormt een zware belasting voor Openbaar Ministerie, rechtbank en gevangenis.

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