Officials in the United States are vowing to crack down on medical marijuana facilities even as the Obama administration signals a new hands-off policy on the drug.

Los Angeles officials have been agonising for two years over a move to introduce what they call sensible guidelines to help regulate the booming industry.

In the US, 14 states have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana, but no state has gone further than California and no city has gone further than LA, where there are more marijuana dispensaries than public schools.

Brian Berens is the owner of Green Oasis, a medical marijuana dispensary in LA.

"Daily I would say we get about 30 to 50 people in a day. We service the local community and... [Read More]

as swim's may know india is a major player in the illegal ketamine supply enclosed are two recent articals related to the ketamine bust done buy customes plus it seams that the indians along with china and russia are trying to crack down on illisit imports and exsports.

DRI busts `K' drug smuggling racket

G. Anand

Thiruvananthapuram: The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has busted a racket involved in the smuggling of ketamine hydrochloride, an anaesthetic often abused by youth as a party drug, to Sri Lanka and Malaysia. The DRI has arrested Muhammad Ali Jinnah, 34, a resident of Tamil Nadu, in connection with the incident.

According to the DRI, Jinnah was intercepted while attempting to fly to Colombo from the international airport here on Saturday morning. Nearly 20.5 kg of the drug, valued at nearly Rs.4 crores, was seized from the baggage submitted for security and Customs check in the name of Jinnah, an... [Read More]

Jim Webb Says America's Justice System Is Broken and Drug Policy Is Largely to Blame; Is Portugal's Liberal Approach a Model?

Ethan Nadelmann is feeling good. Really good.

As the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, Nadelmann has long advocated for the liberalization of U.S. drug laws -- specifically, making marijuana legal, regulated and taxed and ending criminal penalties on the possession and use of all other drugs.

For most of that time the Alliance has been relegated to the fringe of serious policy discussions, a space long occupied - or so the stereotype goes - by radical libertarians and readers of the ... [Read More]

Formulating policy in relation to drugs is obviously quite a difficult thing to do. I comment on it, as I always have, from the perspective of a psychiatrist who is interested in drugs and drugs and the brain.

We have a range of expertise on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD); we're very strong in terms of chemistry and pharmacology, and psychology; and we have a definite knowledge, interest and responsibility to look at social harms as well. We provide one arm of the policy-formulating perspective. In addition, there are a number of other agencies, organisations and individuals who contribute to policy formation.

There are also international partners – we have signed up to international treaties – which determine... [Read More]

A frequent claim made by opponents of marijuana policy reform is that hardly anybody is ever really arrested for low-level marijuana offenses. But like most prohibitionist arguments, that’s a lie.

In California, where marijuana possession was “decriminalized” in 1976 and medical marijuana legalized 20 years later, the state Department of Justice reports that law enforcement conducted a record 78,492 ... [Read More]

In the media rush to cover the DOJ memo on the Obama administration’s redirecting federal law enforcement efforts away from arresting and prosecuting state compliant medical cannabis providers CNN’s Lou Dobbs interviewed former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey and Cato Institute’s Tim Lynch…

Checkout Tim’s on-point rebuttal of McCaffrey’s usual double-speak, and that of others like blogger Joe Campbell, who’ve simply called out McCaffrey as, in Mr. Campbell’s view, “a liar”.

Any long time observer of Mr. Caffrey’s m.o. when being interviewed is to tell some whoppers to an unquestioning media, but in these recent videos McCaffrey, again, wrongly claims that no one gets arrested for cannabis; no one goes to jail or prison for cannabis-related offenses; that he didn’t lose in the seminal case Conant vs McCaffrey; cannabis is de facto legal in the United States, etc…Geesh! I guess when the hundreds of cannabis consumers who call the toll-free number... [Read More]

David Nutt explains what his dismissal means for drugs policy and scientific advice in Britain.

The UK government faces a revolt from its scientific advisers after it sacked the chair of its independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last week.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanded the resignation of psychopharmacologist David Nutt on Friday, after Nutt reiterated his views on the relative safety of various drugs in a lecture at King's College London Centre for Crime and Justice. Nutt gave the lecture in July but his comments came to light when the centre last week published a briefing based on the lecture. He had previously clashed with Johnson's predecessor Jacqui Smith, over his comments regarding the dangers of MDMA... [Read More]

Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama Administration. It is not something that the President and I discuss; it isn’t even on the agenda. Attorney General Holder issued very clear guidelines to U.S. Attorneys about the appropriate use of Federal resources. He did not open the door to legalization.

Regarding state ballot initiatives concerning “medical” marijuana. I believe that medical questions are best decided not by popular vote, but by science. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which studies and approves all medicines in the United States, has made very clear that the raw marijuana plant is not medicine, and any state considering medical marijuana should look very carefully at what has happened in California.

Legalization is being sold as being a cure to ending violence in Mexico, as a cure to state budget problems, as a cure to health problems. The American public should be skeptical of anyone... [Read More]

Obama's drug czar has said "legalization" isn't in his vocabulary. Here's why it should be.

More members of Congress have publicly questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii than have endorsed legalizing marijuana.

This comes despite the birth announcements printed in the Honolulu Advertiser in August 1961 and marijuana's deep inroads into the cultural mainstream.

Almost every voter under 65 in this country has either smoked cannabis or grew up with people who did. Among its erstwhile users are the last three presidents, one Supreme Court justice and the mayor of the nation's largest city. The pot leaf's image pervades popular culture, from Bob Marley T-shirts to billboards for Showtime's Weeds.

So why is actually legalizing it still considered a fringe issue? Why haven't more politicians -- especially the ones who inhaled -- come out and said, "Prohibition is absurd and criminal. Let's... [Read More]

Govt moves to restrict party pill drug


The government is moving to restrict sales of DMAA, an ingredient in a new generation of party pills.

Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne says the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs (EACD) has considered the risk posed by 1,3 dimethylamylamine DMAA and advised it be scheduled as a restricted substance.

The scheduling will mean a prohibition on:

- selling or supplying DMAA to anyone under 18 years of age

- advertising DMAA

- offering it as a gift or reward

DMAA is the replacement pill for BZP after it was banned 18 months ago, and is marketed as a safer alternative to alcohol and hard drugs.

Products containing DMAA will now have to meet strict labelling and packaging requirements.

Dunne says he has also asked the Ministry of Health to look at legislation prohibiting the sale of large quantities... [Read More]

Ecstasy might be linked to mental deficits


The drug ecstasy’s lesser-known physical harm is being scrutinized by University of Cincinnati researchers on two fronts with the help of a grant worth more than $400,000.

Krista Medina, an assistant professor of psychology and Judith Strong, a research associate professor of anesthesiology at UC are co-principal investigators in the study. The research revolves around the drug MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy.

“We are looking at ecstasy and the brain,” Medina said. “We are more interested in the chronic effects.”

The National Institutes of Health is funding the project with a two-year, $471,000 grant.

Medina,... [Read More]

Classification isn't all-important. What's crucial is that we recognise cannabis does increase the risk of schizophrenia

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), on which Professor David Nutt sits, has an unfortunate history in relation to cannabis. In 2002, it boobed by advising David Blunkett, then home secretary, that there were no serious mental health consequences of cannabis use; the council had done a sloppy job of reviewing the evidence. Since that time, they have been trying to regain credibility, and now accept that heavy use of cannabis is a risk factor for psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia. However, Professor Nutt's comments demonstrate how difficult it has been for some members of the... [Read More]

A YOUNG Scot has been found dead after taking a legal party drug known as liquid ecstasy.

Stephanie Balcarras, 22, of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, was slumped over a computer at a friend's house in Blackpool. Two people have been arrested in connection with her death.

Ms Balcarras is believed to have taken GBL (gamma-butyrolactone) – a chemical found in household items such as paintstripper – while clubbing in the seaside resort.

She had been staying with her sister Laura Jane in... [Read More]

On Wednesday the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee heard testimony on a marijuana legalization bill introduced by its chairman, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). According to the Drug War Chronicle, "The hearing marked the first time legalization has been discussed in the legislature since California banned marijuana in 1913." Judging from summaries of the testimony in various news accounts, prohibitionists needed more time to prepare their arguments.

The two most credible arguments raised by opponents of legalization were that increased marijuana consumption would impair productivity and contribute to traffic accidents. Both concerns can be countered by a comparison with alcohol, which... [Read More]

Looser Laws on Medical Pot Bring Big-City Strangers to Small-Town Northern California.

Education has long been preached as a way to keep kids away from drugs. It's the walk to school that has Supt. Tom Barnett worried.

This hardscrabble Northern California town has become a hotbed for medical marijuana farming. Kids stroll much of the year past pungent plants flourishing in gardens and alleys. The... [Read More]

European efforts to curb cocaine and heroin use made little impact in the past year, the EU's main drugs watchdog says in its annual report.

But cannabis use, particularly among young people, is declining, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

Heroin use in Europe is "stable but no longer diminishing", the EMCDDA says.

Combinations of drugs pose increasing problems, as do new synthetic drugs, many of them marketed on the internet.

"There is little to suggest any improvement regarding cocaine and heroin use in Europe, the two substances that remain at the heart of Europe's drugs problem," the EMCDDA says.
... [Read More]

Police Chief Carmen Smith says he knows three things about suspected drug trafficker Artemio Corona: He's from Mexico, prefers a Glock .40-caliber handgun, and is quite possibly growing marijuana on the Indian reservation that Mr. Smith patrols.

Last year, Mr. Smith's detectives identified Mr. Corona as the alleged mastermind behind several large ... [Read More]

Potent synthetic drugs proving hard to control as chemists produce alternatives quicker than authorities can ban them

Britain has become the online "designer drugs" capital of Europe with more than a third of all internet retailers that sell "legal highs" based in the UK, according to a report from the European Union's drug agency.

This new generation of online "head shops" is at the centre of a rapidly growing market in highly potent synthetic drugs, such... [Read More]

Dropping acid to boost the Pentagon’s psychic powers was just the start.

The Men Who Stare At Goats, the upcoming movie based on Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book of the same name, has George Clooney and Jeff Bridges in a bizarre military research project involving astral projection, remote viewing, and LSD. But for the real dope on the Army’s narcotics and psychedelics tests, you have to turn to Dr. James S. Ketchum, who wrote a firsthand account of the military’s trials with these “incapacitating... [Read More]

Becomes 3rd State to License Medical Marijuana Providers; Vote Seen as Latest Advance Spurred by Obama Policy

In a landmark vote, Maine voters today approved Question 5, making the state the third in the country to license nonprofit organizations to provide medical marijuana to qualified patients and the first ever to do so by a vote of the people.
... [Read More]