• Legal highs evade being banned as scientists run out of cash to test them

    Funding cuts mean crime networks can flood Britain with new drugs
    The Observer (UK)
    Sunday, February 12, 2012

    Scientists studying Britain's rapidly increasing number of synthetic recreational drugs are struggling to assess the risks they pose because money for testing is being cut. Legal highs are flourishing as their manufacturers seek to stay ahead of drug classification laws by tweaking the chemical composition of their legal products to replicate the effects of illegal ones.

  • Testing pot in a legal vacuum

    Few standards apply to quality of marijuana, because the federal government considers all use illegal
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Sunday, February 12, 2012

    testing-potOnly some top-end dispensaries test their products, and even they can't be sure the results are reliable. Because all marijuana possession is illegal under federal law — and the Justice Department has been cracking down recently — the nascent labs are as unregulated and vulnerable to prosecution as dispensaries and growers. In Colorado, the one lab that tried to get a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration was promptly raided by that agency.

  • Pills and progress

    Signs of compassion mixed with pragmatism are emerging in America’s treatment of drug users, who are also changing their habits
    The Economist (UK)
    Saturday, February 11, 2012

    On a recent evening, some 50 people turned up for their weekly reckoning at Judge Joel Bennett’s drug court in Austin, Texas. Those who had had a good week—gone to their Narcotics Anonymous meetings and stayed out of trouble—got a round of applause. The ones who had stumbled received small punishments: a few hours of community service, a weekend in jail, a referral to inpatient treatment. Most were sanguine about that. Completing the programme will mean a year of sobriety and the dismissal of their criminal charges.

  • Legalised cannabis?

    Decriminalisation would help stop gang warfare say Town Hall
    Berlingske (Denmark)
    Friday, February 10, 2012

    A political majority at Copenhagen Town Hall is pushing for cannabis to be decriminalised. In a joint letter, four out of five local politicians have appealed to Minister of Justice Morten Bødskov to set up a trial run to test the effects of legalising the popular drug. The Social Democrats' spokesman on social affairs, Lars Aslan Rasmussen, said current drug policy hasn't worked in curbing organised crime and gang warfare so it's time for a re-think.

  • Cannabis drivers 'twice as likely to cause car crash'

    BBC News (UK)
    Friday, February 10, 2012

    Drivers who use cannabis within three hours of driving are twice as likely to cause a collision as those not under the influence of drugs or alcohol, says a Canadian study. This is because cannabis impairs brain and motor functions needed for safe driving, the researchers suggest. The study, Acute cannabis consumption and motor vehicle collision risk: systematic review of observational studies and meta-analysis, reviewed nine studies of 50,000 people worldwide who had been in serious or fatal crashes.

  • Marijuana legalization initiative set to go on Nov. ballot

    A measure to create a state-licensed system for the sale of marijuana will be voted on in November after the Legislature declined to act on it
    The Seattle Times (US)
    Thursday, February 9, 2012

    initiative-502An initiative seeking to legalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana will be decided by voters. If passed, Initiative 502 would make Washington the first state to legalize recreational use of marijuana. It would place the state at odds with federal law, which bans marijuana use of all kinds. Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, who chairs the House State Government & Tribal Affairs Committee that was considering the initiative, said the Legislature would not act on it, meaning it will instead automatically appear on the November ballot.

  • Ex-resident and police say Christiania’s future threatened by violence

    In an opinion piece, former resident says Christianites need to band together against the gangs that control Pusher Street
    The Copenhagen Post (Denmark)
    Tuesday, February 7, 2012

    denmark_copenhagen_pusher_street_crackdownIn response to an opinion piece in Politiken newspaper, in which a former Christiania resident encourages residents of the commune to stand up to the gang members that control its hash market, the chief inspector of the Copenhagen Police says the enclave’s future is threatened by the criminality. “The hash trade is accompanied by violence and other serious crimes to an extent that Christiania is threatened,” chief inspector Jørn Aabye said to the newspaper.

  • South American prison deaths tied to overcrowding, official says

    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Tuesday, February 7, 2012

    Violence at prisons in South America, where at least eight inmates were killed in recent weeks, remains tied to alarmingly shoddy conditions and rampant overcrowding, a United Nations official said Thursday. "The implementation of harsh drug laws has fueled rising incarceration rates and has contributed to severe prison overcrowding," the Washington Office on Latin America and the Transnational Institute wrote in a study two years ago.

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  • California pot industry's next move: Ballot initiative for state regulation

    The Sacramento Bee (US)
    Monday, February 6, 2012

    A proposed ballot initiative aimed for the November elections begs a key question looming over California's medical marijuana industry: Can stricter state regulation keep the federal government from shutting it down? Dispensaries, medical marijuana growers and a powerful union local are rallying behind an initiative that would regulate California's $1.5 billion pot trade.

  • MPs complete legislation aimed at legalizing cannabis for medical purposes

    Prague Radio (Czech Republic)
    Friday, February 3, 2012

    A group of Czech MPs from all of the parties in the Chamber of Deputies has completed legislation which could legalise the use of cannabis in the Czech Republic for medical purposes. Currently, thousands of sufferers from debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s, Lyme borreliosis and multiple sclerosis, have been forced to break the law to obtain marijuana to help ease their pain, a situation which could soon change if the bill passes in the lower house. According to reports, the medical use of cannabis in the Czech Republic could be legal within the year.

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