In November 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington state made historic decisions to legalize marijuana for recreational sale and use, flying in the face of anti-pot moralists, drug warriors, and a century’s worth of prohibitionist policy. At the start of this year, these policies began to take effect, with pot shops opening for business for the first time on this side of the Atlantic.
Typically, April showers bring May flowers. This year, however, April also delivered a torrent of racially charged issues to the national stage. In Michigan, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ban on university-admissions programs that use race as a criterion in college admissions.
Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) warned that Democrats are likely to lose ground to Republicans this November if they continue to emphasize fundraising over organizing.
The prosecution of pregnant women for drug use represents the unhappy convergence of the war on drugs and the war on reproductive rights.
Pope Francis called Friday for governments to redistribute wealth to the poor in a new spirit of generosity to help curb the “economy of exclusion” that is taking hold today.
I begin this tribute to Norman Girvan, a friend and a comrade, with the words of a great Jamaican literary figure, Dennis Scott. It’s his poem “Hatch: Or, The Revolution Viewed as an Exploding Library”
Too many laws in the U.S defy basic human rights principles of justice by resorting to overly punitive sentences for nonviolent and low-level crimes, according to a report published Tuesday by Human Rights Watch.
Late last month, US attorney general Eric Holder announced [3] that the Obama administration would release new guidelines for clemency petitions, opening up the possibility that thousands of people serving long prison sentences for non-violent drug offenses might be released. The guidelines require [4] that applicants have served at least 10 years on a charge that would be prosecuted differently today – a standard which mostly applies to drug charges – and that they have a good prison record, a limited prior arrest record and no ties to organized crime. The author of this op-ed has served 14 years and nine months of her sentence and hopes that she might qualify for clemency.
(TriceEdneyWire.com) — The civil rights community’s get-out-the-vote machine is slowly reawakening. But given what’s at stake in this year’s mid-term elections, activists say, GOTV (Get Out The Vote) campaigners need to shake off their malaise—ASAP.
By Colin Campbell, The Baltimore Sun
A red-faced state trooper hardly acknowledged Harry Belafonte before a 1967 performance at theUniversity of Baltimore during heat of the civil rights movement.
More than any other group, black job applicants are being turned away by U.S. companies under the implicit assumption that they are using illegal drugs, according to a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
Just a few months ago, Florida Republican leaders were backing a legal challenge to oppose a medical marijuana ballot initiative in the state, saying it would lead to the “Coloradoification” of the state.