The Free Liberal

Manslaughter, Pregancy, and Drug Use in Hawaii

More than sixty organizations, including the Drug Policy Alliance, asked the Supreme Court of Hawai'i to overturn the conviction of Tayshea Aiwohi this week. Aiwohi is the first woman in the state to be charged and convicted of manslaughter on...

Dutch Official Seeks Further Liberalization to Solve Crime Problems

Gerd Leers was once a staunch prohibitionist in the Dutch Parliament, but three years as a local leader have changed his perspective. Leers, now the Mayor of Maastricht, a Dutch border city, is calling for the creation of "cannabis boulevards"...

Medical Marijuana Patients, Advocates React to Bans on Dispensaries

State-wide moratoriums on California medical marijuana (cannabis) dispensaries have caused an uproar in communities dependent on receiving medical marijuana from these locations. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, which legalized the use of marijuana for medicinal use. Since then,...

Casualty on the Home Front: A Rockefeller Drug Law Story

Jehu Richardson learned about injustice and false incarceration at a very young age. When he was a child in Liberia, Jehu’s grandfather, who was president of the country at the time, was assassinated and other members of his family were...

Dance Music Under Attack in Michigan

On March 20 in Flint, Michigan, a nightclub was raided by 60 officers from four different local law enforcement groups. The officers arrested 17 people on felony drug charges, but cited more than 100 with misdemeanor drug possession charges or,...

UN Commitment to HIV/AIDS Reduction Hurt By U.S. Pressure

At a meeting this week of the United Nations' main drug policy-making body, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) caved to pressure from U.S. drug warriors to stop promoting scientifically sound harm...

Improving Upon Drug Courts

Drug courts have been in the news a lot recently - increased funding for drug courts is a significant component of the White House's recently released drug policy budget, and the Government Accountability Office just came out with a report...

Torture on U.S. Soil

Last July, five members of the sheriff’s department in Campbell County, Tennessee, entered the home of Eugene Siler and maliciously beat him for more than two hours during a police drug raid. If it hadn’t been for the tape recorder...

Money Talks: A New Direction in the War on Drugs?

President Bush’s proposed 2006 federal budget is out and it has some interesting implications for the drug war. For starters, Bush wants to eliminate more than a billon dollars in federal law-enforcement grants to the states, including the problematic Byrne...

One Road to Recovery: A Prop 36 Success Story

It took Peter Kosinski 34 years to lose everything, and less than 2 years to begin to recover it all. When he was 11, Peter began experimenting with alcohol and marijuana, and over the years became what he considered a...

Fishing with Drug Dogs

by Rex Curry A new supreme court case states that cops can take dogs fishing. Dogs can go fishing for drugs under Illinois vs. Caballes. It is a reminder of the police-state tactics in the infamous Goose Creek videotape of...