war on drugs

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will consider legislation designed to overhaul the nation’s criminal justice system by creating a commission to examine that system and make reform recommendations to Congress. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), is designed to confront the problem of the nation’s incarceration rates, which [...]

Former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson is about the furthest thing from a bleeding-heart apologist for criminal behavior. But in his column in today’s Washington Post, Gerson makes a good case in support of needle exchange programs to combat HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases among illegal drug users.
Critics claim that needle-exchange programs create a [...]

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Gil Kerlikowske, the newly minted head of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, is calling for a radical refocus of the nation’s efforts to fight drugs — beginning with the elimination of the Nixon-era term, “War on Drugs.”
The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he [...]

This morning’s Senate panel hearing on the wide discrepancy between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine-related crimes offered the Obama administration its first official opportunity to weigh in on the contentious issue. And while the White House announced its support for closing the gap, it also appears to be leaving Congress with the sole responsibility [...]

Well, you might have a bit more if Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) get their way. The two lawmakers have plans to reintroduce legislation to legalize the domestic farming of industrial hemp, a genetic but non-psychoactive relative of marijuana.
Hemp advocates (yes, there are hemp advocates out there) argue that the change would [...]

Here’s the final chapter on the months-long controversy over the United Nations’ efforts to establish the next decade’s global drug policy guidelines.
As we noted yesterday, language adopting “harm reduction” strategies didn’t make the cut, largely because the Obama administration opposed it. But that wasn’t quite the end of the debate.
After the declaration was finalized in [...]