Pubdate: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 Source: DrugSense Weekly (DSW) Website: http://www.drugsense.org HOT OFF THE 'NET - ------------------ U.S. COCAINE PLANE INVASION SPOOKING LATIN AMERICA By Bill Conroy, Narconews.com http://www.narconews.com/Issue51/article3031.html - ------------------ CRAZY 'POT WILL MAKE YOU SELL YOUR CHILDREN' Warning from Otherwise Sane Senator By Ron Fisher, NORML Iowa constituent writes to Sen. Tom Harkin asking why medical pot is illegal, constituent gets off-the-wall fearmongering reply. http://alternet.org/drugreporter/79425/ - ------------------ OUR MOST IMPORTANT LEGISLATION EVER By Ethan Nadelmann I am excited to announce that the Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPA's lobbying arm) is sponsoring a ballot measure in California that represents the biggest sentencing and prison reform in United States history. http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/031408nora.cfm - ------------------ THE GOLDEN AGE How Americans Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Workplace Drug Testing By Greg Beato, Reason Magazine In the increasingly divided American landscape, where language, faith, and prime-time television no longer unite us as they once did, a thin golden line holds the nation together http://www.reason.com/news/show/124385.html - ------------------ UNODC DIRECTOR DESCRIBES DPA EVENT AS '1000 LUNATICS', 'OBVIOUSLY ON DRUGS' By Steve Rolles, Transform Drug Policy Foundation In a strange and disturbing turn of events here in Vienna at the UN CND, the UNODC director Antonio Maria Costa, who had seemed to be making positive rhetorical gestures to the concerns of the NGO community with his speech on Monday, has this morning managed to spectacularly embarrass the UNODC with some intemperate remarks insulting a large swathe of the very civil society he has been at such pains to claim meaningful engagement with. http://drugsense.org/url/bBlvt1Cn - ------------------ UNITED NATIONS DRUG POLICIES VIOLATE UNITED NATIONS CHARTER A coalition of groups including the International Harm Reduction Association, Human Rights Watch and the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, have published a report taking the United Nations drug control policies to task for not being in compliance with essential human rights principles -- principles which, by United Nations charter, take precedence over other United Nations treaties. The report is: Recalibrating the Regime: The Need for a Human Rights- Based Approach to International Drug Policy http://hrw.org/pub/2008/hivaids/beckley0308.pdf - ------------------ SOMEONE HAS TO START WONDERING WHAT THE F IS GOING ON The Wire co-creator Ed Burns talks about failure in the drug war, public education, the war in Iraq, and police strategies. By Radley Balko http://www.reason.com/news/show/125309.html - ------------------ DPA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ETHAN NADELMANN ON THE COLBERT REPORT The Comedy Central funnyman recently visited DPA's New York City office to shoot a segment of "Better Know a Lobbyist" for The Colbert Report. http://www.spike.com/video/2952263/ - ------------------ DRUG TRUTH NETWORK Cultural Baggage - 03/12/08 - John Baeza John Baeza with 24 years of law enforcement experience now a speaker for LEAP, (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition) + Poppygate Report with Glenn Greenway and a call for the first ever "Friends of LEAP" meeting, to make a coordinated contact with elected officials. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/1800 Century of Lies - 03/11/08 - Virginia McDavid Virginia McDavid, running for a congressional seat in the state of Texas dares to discuss the need for change to our drug laws + NPR interview of "The Wire" writer & extract from "Faces of Colombia" http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/1799 - ------------------ WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK - ------------------ CONTACT THE 2008 CANDIDATES: DEMAND ACTION FOR SAFE ACCESS! As the presidential primaries get closer and closer, we need to know where all the candidates stand on important medical marijuana issues. Call, write, and ask the candidates in person on their campaign trail where they stand on medical marijuana. http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=5103 - ------------------ THE WORLD PSYCHEDELIC FORUM The World Psychedelic Forum with over 60 seminars, lectures, and panel discussions, presented by more than 50 experts, and some 30 young researchers from all over the world, with a rich audio-visual supporting program, and a variety of external events during 3 nights offers a unique Easter weekend in Basel for the young and the young at heart, for the interested lay persons, as well as the professional, a gathering you will never forget! http://www.psychedelic.info/index_2_eng.html - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake