As prosecutors across Maryland wait for the new law that will remove criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana, they’re taking a patchwork approach in the way they handle such cases.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/grid.jpg)
Impacted communities have long slammed U.S. policies of mass incarceration that are locking up more people than any other country in the world. Now that criticism is also resounding from the highly-regarded National Research Council (an arm of the National Academy of Sciences), which issued a devastating report this week charging that “unprecedented” levels incarceration are spreading great social harm.
The individual analyses of the economists and drug policyexperts, signed by five Nobel Prize winners in economics, expose the collateral damage of the drug war and offer suggestions on how the policies can—and should—change.
The war on drugs has been a $1tn failure. For more than four decades, governments around the world have pumped huge sums of money into ineffective and repressive anti-drug efforts.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/LeonJenkins-289x300.jpg)
Leon Jenkins tendered his resignation Thursday in the wake of the scandal involving the L.A. Clippers owner, whom the organization planned to honor this month.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/marc-morial-nsn042914.jpg)
The National Urban League announced on Friday that it will lobby against passage of the Johnson-Crapo housing reform bill unless changes are made in the Senate Banking Committee to the draft legislation to boost affordable housing before the bill is sent this week to the Senate floor.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Pasha-300x281.jpg)
Pasha Jackson prides himself on punctuality, so when he arrived 20 minutes late to the interview, he asked for forgiveness.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/AP736876952721-620.jpg)
How much does a full-time worker earning the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour make in one year? This worker earns only $15,080, which is $4,000 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. Most people would agree that this is not a livable salary anywhere in the nation, especially for families with children. Raising the minimum wage would make a significant difference for all Americans—and people of color in particular; it would increase the total combined wages of people of color by $16.1 billion.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/reparations_fourm_04-29-2014a.jpg)
CHICAGO (FinalCall.com) – The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan told a group of political leaders, researchers and activists that true commitment and a firm unwavering demand for real justice is required, if the call for reparations is ever to be taken seriously by the governments of the earth.
![](https://ibw21.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/professor-sir-hilary-beckles-nsn042214.jpg)
The conference is held at a key point in history. The reparations movement has floundered here, but it is growing in the Caribbean.
More than 40 years ago, psychiatry professor Lester Grinspoon wrote a groundbreaking book on marijuana that the New York Times dubbed at the time “the best dope on pot.”