Marijuana Legalization Support at Record High

While a majority still supports criminalization, more Americans than ever think marijuana should be legal, according the latest Gallup survey. Lydia Saad (a family friend) provides the analysis: Gallup's October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late ...

The Drug War In a Nutshell

Thoreau explains to a friend what will happen to him if he decides to grow a marijuana plant on his property:Masked men with guns would break down your door. They would confiscate your assets. They would drag you away in front of your family. They would lock you in a cage with violent criminal gangs. They would do these things because if you ...

Quote of the Day, Common Sense Edition

"However, I can state that as someone with an IQ over room temperature, the fact that we are debating whether it is appropriate for school authorities to strip search kids is a sure sign that something has gone horribly, horribly wrong with this country and our sense of perspective, and I blame the war on drugs." -- John Cole See "Supreme Court ...

Marijuana Prohibition Deadly

Radley Balko, responding to James Poulos, argues that criminalization of marijuana has been deadly: Det. Jarrod Shivers is dead and Ryan Frederick’s life is ruined over the prohibition of pot. Officer Ron Jones is dead, and Cory Maye, once sentenced to be executed, now faces a life sentence because of marijuana prohibition. Cheryl Lynn Noel is dead because of pot prohibition. ...

California Assemblyman Pushes Pot Legalization

In a rare bit of sanity from a California politician, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has begun to argue for the legalization of marijuana in California.Buoyed by the widely held belief that cannabis is California's biggest cash crop, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano contends it is time to reap some state revenue from that harvest while putting a damper on drug use by teens, ...

Ecstasy Safer Than Peanuts

A New Scientist editorial titled "Drugs drive politicians out of their minds" begins with an interesting thought experiment: IMAGINE you are seated at a table with two bowls in front of you. One contains peanuts, the other tablets of the illegal recreational drug MDMA (ecstasy). A stranger joins you, and you have to decide whether to give them a peanut or ...

Drug War Logic

Steven Taylor takes us on "Yet Another Foray into Drug War Logic" in which we learn that, no matter the outcome, it's evidence that we're winning the war on drugs. Which we've been just this close to winning for decades now.

Drugs and Sports: A Recipe for Success?

The juxtaposition of these two stories at YahooNews this morning is a tad odd:   Michael Phelps acknowledges photo using marijuana pipe and Santonio Holmes goes from drug dealer to Super Bowl MVP. Are we to conclude that illicit drugs are the route to athletic achievement? UPDATE: Radley Balko pens a "Letter From Michael Phelps" arguing that great athletes deserve to get high ...

Amsterdam Closing Brothels, Marijuana Shops

[caption id="attachment_28387" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Amsterdam Red Light district"][/caption] Amsterdam is closing most of its brothels and marijuana shops. My wife and I spent a week in Amsterdam two years ago and found it to be incredibly clean and safe. Certainly, it was pristine in comparison to major American cities, including New York and Washington, given the virtual absence of panhandlers and ...

Wire Politics

Jonah Goldberg argues that conservatives should have embraced "The Wire" more than we did. This is a Democratic city, run almost uniformly by liberals. While many of the problems most prominently on display can certainly be traced back to racism, racism itself is not a central issue in The Wire (nor is racism an inherently or historically conservative phenomena). These drug ...

Swiss Approve Free Heroin, Keep Marijuana Illegal

Only in America.

Bob Barr Wins LP Presidential Nomination

Former Representative Bob Barr has won the Libertarian Party nomination for President, narrowly defeating longtime Party activist Mary Ruwart. This is a rather welcome change for the LP, who have taken to nominating more radical, but relatively unknown candidates in past election cycles. As I've said before, Barr is their best candidate since Paul in 1988, and is ...

Coca’s Continual Comeback: This Time, Peru

Via the LAT: Peru sees cocaine making a comebackPeru's cocaine industry, the world's largest and most violent in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is again on the upswing. Plots of coca bushes, whose leaves yield cocaine, have increased by about one-third since 1999, to about 127,000 acres, according to Peruvian and United Nations estimates. And this time, the traffickers ...

How Much Reefer Did Barack Obama Toke?

I'm not sure what to make of the NYT feature "Friends Say Drugs Played Only Bit Part for Obama." In more than three dozen interviews, friends, classmates and mentors from his high school and Occidental recalled Mr. Obama as being grounded, motivated and poised, someone who did not appear to be grappling with any drug problems and seemed ...

The Incongruity of Needle Exchanges

Megan McCardle has an excellent little post defending needle exchanges. Along the way, though, she does point out an interesting little incongruity in the policy:Okay, a conservative or libertarian might argue, but drug users bring this trouble on themselves; why should I a) pay for clean syringes and b) implicitly sanction their irresponsible and self-destructive behavior? Well, okay, leave ...