This just in… A federal court in Argentina has decriminalized the personal consumption of drugs in that country. According to the court’s ruling, punishing drug users only “creates an avalanche of cases targeting consumers without climbing up in the ladder of [drug] trafficking.”
Last month at a UN meeting in Vienna, Argentina’s Minister of Justice, Aníbal […]

The Alaska Court of Appeals on Friday put law enforcement agencies on notice that it would not tolerate “implicitly coercive” search requests during traffic stops. The warning came in the form of a ruling on the case of Susan S. Brown, a driver pulled over on November 24, 2004 allegedly because of the light illuminating […]

Richard Paey is a chronic pain patient in year three of a 25-year mandatory-minimum sentence for trafficking in drugs — his own pain medication.
But his freedom is just hours away.
Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet voted unanimously to grant Paey a full pardon Thursday morning for his 2004 conviction on drug trafficking and possession […]

The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s guideline revisions shrinking the penalty gap between crack and cocaine powder took effect last week. (Amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines take effect automatically six months after they’re approved by the commission unless they’re overriden by Congress, which in this case took no action.) As a result of the changes, The […]

The Senate approved a bill Friday decriminalizing possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use � including heroin, cocaine, LSD and Ecstasy.
President Vicente Fox’s office indicated that he would sign the bill, which has already passed the lower house of Congress. Mexican officials say they hope the measure will allow police to focus on […]

The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that a small congregation in New Mexico can use hallucinogenic tea in its religious rituals.
It’s the first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts. In the ruling, Roberts wrote that federal drug agents should have been barred from confiscating the tea.
Full Story: KRON
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Governor Carcieri still opposes a medical marijuana bill — voted into law today — for the same reasons he cited last June when he vetoed it, according to his press secretary.
Carcieri’s office issued a statement on the governor’s position after the House this afternoon overrode Carcieri’s veto, making Rhode Island the 11th state to decriminalize […]

A broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program Friday to regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco. Opponents say that’s essentially legalizing growing the drug.
Under the test program, to be conducted in the southern city of Maastricht, growers would no longer be the target of police raids or prosecution.
Full Story: Detroit Free […]

This happened last week, but I sort of forgot about it until some friends brought it up last night. Hats off to Denver for making inroads towards a sane drug policy.

Voters here approved making Denver the first major city to legalize small amounts of marijuana, but the mayor warned that state law still makes […]

A special initiative group of scientists is establishing the Russian Psychedelic Society. The new organization has a goal to legalize the use of psychoactive drugs in official medicine, the mysterious lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD-25, first and foremost. A prominent US scientist, Stanislav Grof, is expected to participate in the first congress of the new […]