Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.) introduced the National Criminal Justice Act of 2009 last week, an exciting piece of legislation that will create a commission to study, among other things, America’s war on drugs. The commission will look broadly at criminal justice reforms, with an emphasis on reducing America's rising prison population (now the largest in the world per capita). Centered in that debate is the hard truth about America’s punitive drug laws. One-third of U.S. inmates are drug offenders, and…

  On Sunday night, CBS's "60 Minutes" did a grimly fascinating piece on the escalating drug war in Mexico. Reported by Anderson Cooper (whose day job, of course, is at CNN), the piece was as notable for what it didn't cover as what it did. Like most recent media coverage of the growing carnage along our southern border, the "60 Minutes" story carefully tiptoed around the proverbial elephant in the room. That elephant, of course, is prohibition. Here is a piece of what I wrote in a letter to Cooper…

A commission led by three former Latin American heads of state blasted the U.S.-led drug war as an utter failure in a report released Wednesday. The report, by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, called for the U.S. to re-examine its punitive, enforcement-based drug policies and consider decriminalizing the use of marijuana. What’s really startling about this report is not its findings – we’ve long known the war on drugs was a failure – but rather our government’s response.  As…

Last night, CNBC aired its much-touted documentary, "Marijuana Inc." It was a decidedly mixed bag. It was a portrait of an industry that is huge and thriving, despite the energetic efforts of assorted law enforcement agencies to "eradicate" it. No sane person could watch the program and come away thinking that present government efforts to curb marijuana production or use are working.  With California's Mendocino County as the focus, the crashing failure of the war on marijuana was on vivid display. What…

David Murray, the alleged "chief scientist" at the White House drug czar's office, seems determined to end his tenure in a blaze of dishonesty. In a just-published article in New Scientist that examines the excellent Beckley Foundation Global Cannabis Commission report, Murray touts recent declines in U.S. teen marijuana use and claims, "In the absence of prohibition, it would have been difficult to achieve that." That's nonsense, as we've already pointed out. As many U.S. teens currently smoke marijuana…

With that time of year approaching, we humbly offer a few New Year's resolutions for some of the individuals and institutions sure to be affecting all of our lives in 2009: President-elect Barack Obama: To move quickly to keep your campaign promise to end the DEA's medical marijuana raids. And to appoint a drug czar who treats science as a guide for policy, not something to be spun in the service of ideology. The news media: To treat announcements from the drug czar's office, the Drug Enforcement…

Yesterday, Bruce pointed out that the latest government data indicate that over the past 15 years teen cigarette use has declined and marijuana use increased to the point where teens use them pretty much equally now. At his press conference announcing the annual report, Monitoring the Future, I asked White House drug czar John Walters to explain his insistence that marijuana must be prohibited for adults in order to protect children when the data suggest the exact opposite. I don't have a transcript…

Consider this: As I write this, with 67% of precincts reporting, marijuana decriminalization is passing in Massachusetts with 65% of the vote. Obama, who is carrying the state handily, is getting 62%. In Michigan it's similar. With 40% of the vote in, medical marijuana is passing with 63% while Obama is carrying the state with 55%. And this is not just a blue state phenomenon. In 2004, George W. Bush carried Montana with 59% of the vote, while medical marijuana passed with 62%. Memo to the new Congress…

Every time I think the murder of 22-year-old Rachel Hoffman couldn't get more repulsive, new details emerge suggesting there's no end to the incompetence, recklessness, and misplaced values of the officers who caused her death. The young woman – whom the Tallahassee Police Department recruited as a confidential informant after threatening her with a marijuana charge – was murdered by the drug dealers she'd been sent to ensnare in a sting operation. One of the many confounding aspects of the case…