Search Results: drug policy (917)

The Drug Policy Alliance, one of Colorado’s most vocal drug-reform organizations over the past decade, is closing the doors of its state office on May 22.

A proponent of drug and marijuana policy reform, the DPA opened a Colorado chapter in 2011. That office played a part in legalizing recreational pot statewide in 2012, and also worked on numerous efforts at the city and state levels, including during the most recent legislative session.

President Michele Ross (far left) and co-founder Melanie Rodgers (far right) stand with scientists and doctors on IMPACT Network’s advisory board.

Scientists are coming out of the woodwork in support of medical marijuana — and the Drug Policy Alliance is standing by them, putting its money where their mouths are.

To support marijuana research, the Denver-based IMPACT Network recently started a program called Scientists for Legalization. Twenty-five scientists have joined so far, and they’re asking the government to fund cannabis research at the state and national levels. They’re also asking that researchers who study marijuana have protection.

Photos and more below.

Editor’s note: This is part two of correspondent Shannon Brandt’s reports about the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in Denver last week. To read part one, click here.
A logo is often regarded as a condensed, compressed, symbolic summoning-up of everything that a big entity means to represent in everyday life. In most cases, the logo can even be seen as the most visible sign of the collective intelligence seething and rattling away behind it. Denver Westword has the full coverage.

Big photos below.

Which state will be the next to legalize marijuana? What do the Obama administration’s recent announcements about marijuana legalization and mandatory minimums really mean? What are some solutions to the national overdose crisis that takes more lives than car accidents or gun violence? Those were just some of the questions that over 1,000 people gathered to consider at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference hosted by the Drug Policy Alliance at the Sheraton Denver Downtown Hotel October 23-26. Denver Westword has the entire coverage.

The first retail sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado has yet to be rung up, but the state is already reaping some convention business as a result of its groundbreaking reforms of drug laws. Next week more than a thousand elected officials, health care professionals, students, drug war veterans and policy wonks from thirty countries will descend on downtown Denver for the International Drug Policy Reform Conference — four days of panels and analysis of drug policies that will also be a celebration of Colorado’s key role in the reform movement.
Our friends at Denver Westword have more.

As we told you last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce some rather substantial changes to federal drug policy this week including dropping mandatory minimum sentencing in some drug cases, early release for non-violent offenders, allowing states to handle more drug cases and, eventually, bi-partisan drug reform at the congressional level.
According to the Drug Policy Alliance, we can expect Holder’s comments sometime today in his remarks to the American Bar Association national convention in San Francisco.

Attorney General Eric Holder.

Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday told NPR that too many people are in jail for nonviolent drug crimes and that there is a great need for federal drug sentencing reform in the United States.
“The war on drugs is now 30, 40 years old,” Holder told NPR. “There have been a lot of unintended consequences. There’s been a decimation of certain communities, in particular communities of color.”

If you combined Saturday Night Live‘s “Really?” segment with ESPN’s celebration of boneheaded NFL plays titled “C’Mon Man!” you would have my reaction to Derek Rosenfeld’s recent HuffPo article trashing our commander in chief. In his piece “President Obama Is the Last Person Who Should Joke About Marijuana”, Rosenfeld, who is the Internet communications associate at the venerable Drug Policy Alliance, took issue with one joke from the Prez’s annual White House Correspondents Dinner.
What was so egregious about Obama’s marijuana diss? It wasn’t one to begin with.

The Raw Story
Former federal drug policy adviser Kevin Sabet: “I can’t imagine the Administration is going to say it is going to be OK with retail sales”

A former senior drug policy adviser in the Obama Administration said on Sunday that it was “unlikely” the federal government will allow Colorado and Washington to legalize marijuana, despite the fact that citizens of both states voted to do so.

“I think the administration has been very clear and the President has been very clear that he is against legalization,” former drug policy adviser Kevin Sabet said on MSNBC’s Up With Chris Hayes. “From public health grounds, we know with legalization we are going to have a cheaper drug, more people are going to use it, it is just going to be more socially acceptable and according to the NIH [National Institutes of Health] that is a problem for one in six kids — it is not a problem for everybody, but it can be a problem on the roads and for IQ and learning, et cetera,” Sabet annoyingly bullshat.
Global Commission Members, Including Four Former Presidents, To Gather in Warsaw Oct. 24-25
On Heels of Success in Latin America, Global Commission Will Strategize Next Steps for Global Drug Policy Reform
The Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) will gather in Warsaw on October 24 and 25 to highlight the impact of the war on drugs on public health in Eastern Europe and prospects for change around the world.
The Global Commission was convened in July 2010 and has been working to establish a road map for change in drug laws and policies. It is currently composed of 22 international leaders, including seven former presidents.
The GCDP meeting in Poland brings the debate to Eastern Europe, in order to focus on the dramatic human and social consequences of the prevailing hardline approach to drugs in the region. The meeting will include a roundtable organized by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza to allow interaction with key media and stakeholders.
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