• Bill to decriminalize marijuana possession is advanced by N.J. Assembly committee

    The Star Ledger (US)
    Monday, May 21, 2012

    smoking-pot2New Jersey took a step toward decriminalizing marijuana possession today when an Assembly panel unanimously approved a bill that would allow offenders to pay fines instead of going to jail. Under the terms of the measure, anyone arrested with fewer than 15 grams of marijuana — just under a half-ounce or slightly more than 30 joints — would be subject to a $150 fine for a first offense, a $200 fine a second time and a $500 penalty for a third and subsequent offenses.

  • Pot groups hope Oregon race sends feds a message

    Associated Press
    Thursday, May 17, 2012

    Medical marijuana advocates have a message for Democratic leaders and federal prosecutors with an eye on political office: Don't mess with pot. Pushing back against a federal effort to stem the proliferation of medical marijuana operations, one of the nation's largest drug policy groups claimed credit for the defeat of a former federal prosecutor who was the early favorite to win the Democratic primary for Oregon attorney general. 

  • Supporter of Oregon medical pot law wins attorney general race

    Reuters
    Wednesday, May 16, 2012

    In a primary election race for Oregon's top law enforcement post, the candidate who pledged to protect medical marijuana patients scored a decisive victory over a rival who led a cannabis crackdown last year. Retired judge Ellen Rosenblum, strongly backed by proponents of liberalized marijuana laws, captured 63 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary for state attorney general. Because no Republicans sought their party's nomination for attorney general, the Democratic primary victor, Rosenblum, becomes the presumptive winner in November's general election, making her the first woman to claim that office.

  • A Judge’s Plea for Pot

    Gustin L. Reichbach is a justice of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn
    The New York Times (US)
    Wednesday, May 16, 2012

    The New York State Legislature is now debating a bill to recognize marijuana as an effective and legitimate medicinal substance and establish a lawful framework for its use. The Assembly has passed such bills before, but they went nowhere in the State Senate. This year I hope that the outcome will be different. Cancer is a nonpartisan disease, so ubiquitous that it’s impossible to imagine that there are legislators whose families have not also been touched by this scourge. (See also: New York judge with cancer makes case for marijuana)

  • Former Supreme Court justice blasts minimum sentences for marijuana offenders

    Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) vol. 184 no. 8
    Tuesday, May 15, 2012

    Canada’s new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders are based on “very bad criminal law policy” and constitute a threat to public health as well as the concept of judicial proportionality, former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Louise Arbour says. The law should, and almost certainly will, face a justifiable constitutional challenge, Arbour adds of the omnibus crime legislation, Bill C-10, which received royal assent in March. Forcing judges to impose minimum sentences for drug offences endangers the legal precept of proportionality, under which judges must tailor the level of punishment to the severity of the crime, adds the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

  • Latin America's fatal prison problem

    The Global Post
    Monday, May 14, 2012

    Prison riots in Venezuela. Jailbreaks in Mexico. Prison fires in Honduras. Latin America is displaying violent cases of the ails of its prison systems. Overcrowded and rundown, many of the region’s jails are out of control and ready to burst. In this in-depth series, GlobalPost gets inside some of the most violent jailhouses of the Americas to figure out what’s gone horribly wrong.

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  • Legal cannabis rejected by government

    City council members criticise the government, arguing that legalisation is the only solution to the crime created by the booming and illicit trade of cannabis
    The Copenhagen Post (Denmark)
    Monday, May 14, 2012

    State-run hash and marijuana dispensaries won't be popping up in Copenhagen any time soon after the Justice Ministry this weekend turned down Copenhagen City Council's request to experiment with legalising cannabis in the city. In a letter to the council, the justice minister, Morten Bødskov (Socialdemokraterne), wrote that the government could not permit the experiment as they believed that legalising hash and marijuana would likely increase both availability and use, which was unwise given the range of side effects that cannabis has been linked to. The rejection was met with disappointment from members of the city council, including the deputy mayor for social affairs, Mikkel Warming (Enhedslisten).

  • The Israeli pharmacologist who kick-started marijuana research

    ‘Working in a small country certainly has its positive aspects,’ Raphael Mechoulam says. ‘It couldn’t have happened in the United States’
    Israel21c (Israel)
    Monday, May 14, 2012

    raphael-mechoulamHalf a century ago, Hebrew University Prof. Raphael Mechoulam isolated and synthesized THC, the main psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant. By 1963, Mechoulam and his research partners had revealed the structure of cannabidiol (CBD), a key ingredient in cannabis. By the following year they had isolated THC for the first time, established its structure and synthesized it.

  • Saying No to Costly Drug Laws

    Aleksander Kwasniewski, former president of Poland from 1995 to 2005
    The New York Times (US)
    OpEd
    Friday, May 11, 2012

    In the year 2000, as the president of Poland, I signed one of Europe’s most conservative laws on drug possession. Any amount of illicit substances a person possessed meant they were eligible for up to three years in prison. Our hope was that this would help to liberate Poland, and especially its youths, from drugs that not only have a potential to ruin the lives of the people who abuse them but also have been propelling the spread of HIV among people who inject them. We were mistaken on both of our assumptions.

  • Weed pass sparks new problems

    RNW (Netherlands)
    Wednesday, May 9, 2012

    The introduction of the 'weed pass' in the south of the Netherlands is leading to growing problems. Since 1 May, only Dutch residents are able to purchase soft drugs in coffeeshops. Foreigners are barred. In protest against the move, many coffeeshops in Maastricht and other southern Dutch cities have closed their doors. Foreign drug tourists and Dutch residents who don’t have a pass are heading further north. In cities in the weed pass area, like the eastern border town of Venlo, growing numbers of illegal drugs dealers are hanging out near coffeeshops. They’re harrassing not only drugs tourists but also local residents. 

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