UNITED KINGDOM : Authorities in England's largest city are slowly ceding ground on marijuana policy as popular practice and attitudes outpace efforts to contain the plant. On June 15th, Scotland Yard announced it would ease up on pot smokers and possessors in one south London neighborhood. While parliament, with the exception of a handful of members, has been loath to address marijuana decriminalization, public opinion is solidly in favor. According to a poll commissioned by the Guardian (London) last October, 80% of Britons support decriminalization, with two-thirds of young adults (18-34) seeing smoking a joint as no worse than downing a pint
(http://www.drcnet.org/wol/157.html#britain).

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens told reporters last Friday that, as part of a crime-fighting initiative in the Lamberth neighborhood, police will no longer arrest persons caught with small amounts of marijuana. "We are not turning a blind eye to crime," said Stevens, "but we have to prioritize. Possession and use of cannabis is not a priority."

Under current law, police can arrest and courts can jail small- scale marijuana offenders, but the Scotland Yard officials said it wasn't worth it. Commissioner Stevens told reporters each
marijuana arrest could take an officer off the streets for up to six hours. Commander Paddick agreed, saying police could focus on more serious crimes. "I've never met anyone who had to commit
crimes to fund a cannabis habit," he told the Guardian," but crack cocaine users commit robbery, burglary, and car crime."

The program could be expanded to the rest of the city if successful, Scotland Yard said.

LOUISIANA : Back in early May, dramatic sentencing reforms passed overwhelmingly in the Louisiana Senate. Last week, the Louisiana House approved the measure by a 65-35 vote,
with minor changes. Gov. M.J. "Mike" Foster (D) supported the legislation and is expected to sign the bill into law.

SB 239 marks a dramatic turnaround for Louisiana, which currently boasts the nation's highest per capita incarceration rate. Once signed into law, the bill will:

* End mandatory minimum sentences for a wide variety of
nonviolent crimes ranging from skimming gambling profits to
promotion of obscene devices and also including drug offenses.
The 4-year minimum sentence for heroin possession, for example,
may now be suspended or served on probation. In a successful
amendment in the House, video voyeurism, arson of a church and
weapons possession charges will still mandate mandatory minimums.

* Reduce drug possession and sales sentences. Sale of heroin,
currently punishable by a life sentence, will now draw a sentence
of 5-to-50 years. For possession or possession with intent of
more than 60 pounds of marijuana, the sentence range is halved,
to from 5-to-30 years. Methamphetamine manufacturing sentences
were reduced most dramatically, from 40-to-99 years to 10-to-30
years. Cocaine distribution drops from a 5-year minimum sentence
to a 2-year minimum.

* Set up a panel to review currently incarcerated inmates and
determine whether they should be eligible for early parole
hearings.

* Change the state's habitual offender law, so that before
someone can be sentenced to life under its provisions, he/she
must have been convicted of two violent felonies. Under current
law, any felony convictions count.

U.S.- MEXICO BORDER: Days before the border's unofficial ambassador of drug
legalization, New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, headed across the Rio Grande to practice his persuasive powers on his Mexican counterparts at the Border Governors Conference last weekend, Washington's official ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, was practicing drug policy damage control in Mexico City. At the border conference, held in Tampico, on the Gulf Coast, the governors of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas joined the governors of the Mexican states of Baja California, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora, and Tamaulipas to announce they will study drug trafficking as a health issue, not just a criminal justice problem. (California Gov. Gray Davis stayed home to deal with the energy crisis.) In Mexico City, Davidow took to the halls of the University of the Valley of Mexico to launch a broadside
against drug legalization.

The confluence of events suggests that the US government is finally beginning to comprehend that its drug policy consensus is rapidly eroding in MexicoBut the rise of anti-drug war sentiment across the border is only now provoking a belated counteroffensive by the US embassy. Speaking on June 1st, Davidow blasted drug legalization as a "false solution" that would lead only to a world of junkies,
crime and violence. [Ed: Such a world would apparently be somehow distinct from today's world of junkies, crime and violence.] Davidow sketched out the libertarian and harm reduction approaches to legalization for his young audience, then attempted to demolish them.

Unfortunately for Davidow and the rest of the US foreign policy drug-war establishment, the border governors are looking in a different direction. In a move initiated by the Mexican governors, they announced on June 8th that they will form a commission of scholars from both sides of the border to focus on drug smuggling as a public health issue.

New Mexico Gov. Johnson cheered the idea. "I couldn't be more excited about what happened here," he told the Associated Press. "I happen to believe that this is the reason why we have a militarized border and this whole concept or belief that everyone who comes across the border is a drug trafficker -- that's the perception of the United States."

Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martinez, who has survived an assassin's bullet, but hundreds of whose constituents have died in border violence related to drug trafficking, had already come out in
favor of putting legalization on the agenda, but reiterated that stand at the conference.

"This should be studied, analyzed, and looked at to see what the people want and what the effects are from a different perspective that considers not only their prohibition, but also in given time
their approval for medical purposes or rehabilitation or other reasons," he told the conference. "We need to study all aspects of drug use, especially marijuana."

But not everyone was ready to hop on the reform bandwagon. Baja California Gov. Alejandro Gonzalez told the conference the time and situation were not right. "I think the consensus was to give more attention to the health problems caused by drug trafficking," he said, "but to be able to consider legalizing some of these drugs, such as marijuana -- one country or one region can't do it when it is a problem of many countries."

Clearly, the border governors were not ready for a great leap into the unknown, but the conference results are yet one more indication that drug war orthodoxy is crumbling on both sides of the border.

Gov. Johnson pronounced himself satisfied with the progress. "You don't go from an arrest 'em, lock 'em situation to legalization overnight," he told the AP, "but every governor here is at least willing to look at some middle ground."

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