The Office of National Drug Control Policy today released its first National Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy . The full 80-page report is here. The report is required to be submitted to Congress under the Northern Border Counternarcotics Strategy Act of 2010 (Act).

What's to come: More intelligence-gathering and sharing. [More...]

The Weed Wars continue. Here's the U.S. Attorney's press release on yesterday's California medical marijuana dispensary raids. DOJ's "justification" for the raids is in this earlier press release.

The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear two medical marijuana cases.

The California Supreme Court has jumped into the fray again over the legality of medical marijuana laws, deciding on Wednesday to review two lower court rulings that impact how and whether local governments can regulate pot dispensaries across the state.

In their weekly closed-door session, the justices voted unanimously to review cases out of Long Beach and Riverside that dealt with the ongoing conflict between California's voter-approved law allowing the use of medical marijuana and federal laws barring the use or sale of the drug. The state Supreme Court's rulings in the cases are likely to have a widespread impact in the Bay Area, where cities from San Jose to Oakland have regulations dealing with medical marijuana providers.

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The Colorado Department of Revenue joined the short list of two other states asking the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II controlled substance. Marijuana is currently a Schedule I controlled substance, a classification reserved for substances deemed to have no medicinal value or a high potential for abuse. From the DEA website:

Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. Some examples of substances listed in schedule I are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), peyote, methaqualone, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (“ecstasy”).

State law required the Director to write the letter. House Bill 1284, the 2010 law with regulations for medical marijuana, specifies the duties of the state licensing authority. It includes this provision:

"The state licensing authority shall....

....In recognition of the potential medicinal value of medical marijuana, make a request by January 1, 2012, to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to consider rescheduling, for pharmaceutical purposes, medical marijuana from a schedule I controlled substance to a schedule II controlled substance.

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Nicholas Pert is about to graduate from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. He's also been stopped, frisked and searched more than five time. He relates his account in a New York Times Op-Ed today. He's also going to be a witness for the Center of Constitutional Rights in its lawsuit seeking to prevent the NYPD from making racially motivated stops.

For young people in my neighborhood, getting stopped and frisked is a rite of passage. We expect the police to jump us at any moment. We know the rules: don’t run and don’t try to explain, because speaking up for yourself might get you arrested or worse. And we all feel the same way — degraded, harassed, violated and criminalized because we’re black or Latino. Have I been stopped more than the average young black person? I don’t know, but I look like a zillion other people on the street. And we’re all just trying to live our lives.

As to why he decided to testify: [More...]

The height of Republican hypocrisy is the phony outrage of Congressman Darryl Issa at the DEA's money laundering stings, particularly in Mexico. These stings are as old as the hills and well-publicized. (Issa's absurd letter to AG Eric Holder is here.) Even Fox News says he's missed the beat on this one.

The Justice Department and the State Department acknowledged the laundering this week. The DEA issued this statement earlier this week confirming it.

Why wouldn't they? DEA, the IRS and Customs (now ICE) have been engaging in undercover laundering of proceeds for drug traffickers at least since Ronald Reagan was President. Republicans crowed about the stings then. [More...]

The DEA, our global holy warriors, have announced the opening of a new office is Sofia, Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Embassy notice is here.

The DEA has been training Bulgarian law enforcement officials from the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP) since 2008. DEA Regional Director of DEA, Mark Destito is in Bulgaria today for meetings. [More...]

Radley Balko has a new feature article at Huffington Post on law enforcment's misplaced priorities in the War on Drugs.

"The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentivizes departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats," said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.

"When our cops are focused on executing large-scale, constitutionally questionable raids at the slightest hint that a small-time pot dealer is at work, real police work preventing and investigating crimes like robberies and rapes falls by the wayside," Downing said.

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There were at least 14 DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state today. More than a dozen people were arrested.

Tonight, DEA Special Agent in Charge Matthew Barnes issued this statement:

"The DEA will exercise its investigative authority to pursue criminal actions for any violation of federal law, when warranted. This includes investigating organizations or individuals that grow, manufacture or distribute any illegal drug to include marijuana, and those who rent or maintain a property to facilitate drug trafficking."

Here are Eric Holder's prepared remarks for his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee on "Fast and Furious."

From the news articles on the hearing, it doesn't seem like the Republicans accomplished much in their "got-cha game" hearing other than making Holder eat a little bit of humble pie.

The New York Times reports on one of my favorite topics, the increased militarization and globalization and intelligence-gathering powers of our new world cops, the DEA.

From shootouts in Honduras to raids in Guatemala, Colombia, Afghanistan and Africa, to monitoring prescription use here at home, the DEA is smack in the middle (pun intended) at a cost of billions a year. Our new global holy warriors. But who's watching the DEA? Congress? It just keeps feeding them money. [More...]

Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers detained in Iran, describes her year in solitary confinement in the Iranian prison in the New York Times. It's very depressing, but a good reminder that extended solitary confinement is torture.

Carlos Sagustume, the Guatemalan ex-soldier and drug dealer who became a DEA informant, has been paid $9 million for his work by the U.S. Government.

The Associated Press explains the payments, $7 million of which came from the State Department's Narcotic Rewards program.

Sagustume, who was the prime informant in the Viktor Bout case, also reeled in Monzer al Kassar, whose 30 year sentence was upheld by the Second Circuit in September. Viktor Bout's lawyer questioned Sagustume about his role in the case. The New Yorker had this long and fascinating article on the elaborate sting and DEA's Special Operations Division (SOD.)

Sagustume said he has only been paid $250,000 so far for Viktor Bout, but he's hoping for more, likely in my view for a cut of any forfeiture proceeds. [More...]

Via Huffington Post and NORML, here's the letter signed by 9 members of Congress asking President Obama to stop the raids on medical marijuana businesses.

It is our strong position that local and state governments must be allowed to develop, implement and enforce their own public health laws with regard to medical cannabis," the letter stated.

The letter asks Obama to administratively reschedule marijuana so it's no longer a Schedule I substance or publicly support H.R. 1983, States' Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, that would prohibit federal interference in state-run medical marijuana clinics. The bill was introduced by Rep. Barney Frank. [More...]

Antwain Black was the first inmate freed from federal prison yesterday, the day the new retroactive U.S. sentencing guidelines went into effect, implementing the lower penalties for crack cocaine offenses in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. (The act reduced the ratio of crack/powder cocaine penalties from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1.)

Hopefully, Mr. Black will be the first of thousands. It is estimated that about 12,000 prisoners will see a reduction of about three years in their sentences. The Courts have been planning for the motions for months. Here's how it will work in the District of Colorado.

Not every inmate sentenced for crack will get a reduction. FAMM has this handy FAQ outlining the requirements.

Marcy at Empty Wheel considers whether the informant in the Iran case could be the informant in the Viktor Bout case, a question I raised last week.

After thinking more about this, I've concluded they aren't the same. Here's why: The testifying informant in the Viktor Bout case goes by the name Carlos Sagastume. He testified he is from Guatemala, is a former military officer turned drug dealer, and when his supplier in Guatemala got busted, Mexican police took him to Mexico, where he was freed after paying a $60,000 "ransom." He says he then contacted the U.S. embassy offering to be an informant for the DEA. The DEA brought him to the U.S. in 1998 and he's been working as a paid informant for them ever since. [More...]