• New Rules Slashing Crack Cocaine Sentences Go Into Effect [CNN]
• Conrad Murray Declines to Take the Stand in Jackson Death Trial [New York Daily News]
• Micro Meth Labs Proliferate [Wall Street Journal]
• Anonymous Skeptical of Proposed Attack on Zetas Cartel [Wired.com]
• Scottish Ministers Face Legal Battle Over Minimum Pricing of Alcohol [The Guardian]
• The Military's Complicated Relationship with Narcotics [Wired.com]
• Dad "Cooked Meth While Children Slept" [Coolum News]
• Drunken Wrestling Demo Ends with One Arrested, One Hospitalized [ABC News]

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Comedy actress Goldie Hawn has been portrayed as a "cocaine-sniffing sexpot who loved European men" by her ex-husband, Bill Hudson, in his upcoming book. Hawn, now 66, is well-remembered for films like Private Benjamin and Overboard, and won an Academy Award for her supporting role in Cactus Flower. But her silver screen career isn't what's currently making the news: Hudson says that on the couple's second date—at a Rolling Stones concert—"A large plate of cocaine came by and she took a huge snort." In what seems like a continuation of compulsion that might well require some additional fuel, they then proceeded to have sex from 1am-1pm, writes Hudson, who claims she believed in open marriage and had multiple affairs with European men. He adds that Hawn's own father told him before their marriage: "Just watch yourself...Goldie tends to want a different man for every mood she's in." Hawn has yet to respond to requests for comment; to be fair to her, the allegations date from some time ago—the pair were married between 1976 and 1979. Hudson is long estranged from their children—actors Oliver and Kate—and his revelations will hardly endear him to his ex-wife. Two Versions: The Other Side of Fame and Family, which will be published on December 1, can be pre-ordered on Amazon and is already on sale at a generous 35% discount. What may be more disturbing to Goldie Hawn fans than her alleged Scarface impression is her reported habit of continually referring to herself in the third person and yelling, "Goldie will do whatever she wants, when she wants!"

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Late Friday night, the White house slipped out a flat rejection of several popular online petitions calling for the legalization of marijuana. The We the People website, which claims to be “Your Voice In Government,” has failed to give a voice to more than 150,000 people who signed the petitions. Although more Americans support legalizing marijuana than approve of President Barack Obama’s performance, the White House continues failed policies set in place by disgraced former president Richard Nixon. “We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms,” claims the rejection statement, in a piece of "reefer madness"-style propaganda: as anyone who's visited ER on a Friday night can attest, it's not stoners—perhaps suffering from stomach-ache after eating too many Cheetos—who make up the lion's share of intoxicated admissions. It's drinkers.

Ignoring evidence that the decriminalization of marijuana and other drugs elsewhere has brought great benefits, White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske states disingenuously: “As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem. We also recognize that legalizing marijuana would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use.” In case you are in any doubt of Kerlikowske’s closed-minded approach, consider that the former Seattle Police Chief told KUOW radio, “Legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." He also threatened that the federal government would sue California if it legalized marijuana via Proposition 19. With Kerlikowske running the Office of National Drug Control Policy, there's no room for opposing views.

Another former law enforcement officer, Major Neal Franklin of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), has a different take on legalization—and on listening to the voice of the people.
"It's maddening that the administration wants to continue failed prohibition polices that do nothing to reduce drug use and succeed only in funneling billions of dollars into the pockets of the cartels and gangs that control the illegal market," says Franklin. "If the president and his advisers think they're being politically savvy by shying away from much-needed change...they're wrong. The recent Gallup poll shows that more Americans support legalizing marijuana than support continuing prohibition, so the administration is clearly out of step with the people it claims to represent.” Franklin’s message to the flip-flopper-in-chief is clear: “President Obama needs to remember his campaign pledge not to waste scarce resources interfering with state marijuana laws and his earlier statement about the 'utter failure' of the drug war."

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In September a video was posted on YouTube by a group calling itself the "Zetas Killers," vowing violence against the notorious Mexican drug cartel. Now another film—apparently posted by the well-known but shadowy hacker collective "Anonymous"—carries threats of a very different nature, promising to pursue the gangsters and their corrupt collaborators through the power of sensitive and potentially deadly information obtained by online hackers. In the video (a version in English is posted here, but the original is in Spanish, using Mexican slang but with a Spanish accent) a suited man in a Guy Fawkes mask gestures eerily as a voice warns, "You made a huge mistake in taking one of us." This refers to the recent alleged kidnapping of an Anonymous "hacktivist" by the Zetas in Mexico's Veracruz state. The voice also declares Anonymous to be "fed up" with the Zetas' "kidnapping, stealing and blackmailing." It threatens to expose the "journalists, taxi drivers and police officers" who are helping the cartel, by publishing names, photographs and addresses. Previous targets of Anonymous include child porn websites and those who use them—as well as Fox News. And last week, Anonymous launched an online attack against the Oakland Police Department for its behavior in shutting down the Occupy Oakland encampment. This latest video warns the Zetas to "Release him, and if anything happens to him, you will always remember this upcoming November 5th." The date is Guy Fawkes Night, the anniversary of a famous foiled plot to blow up the British Houses of Parliament in 1605. The internet has increasingly become a battleground in Mexico's drug war—hackers recently plastered a website promoting former Tabasco Attorney General Gustavo Rosario with the words "Gustavo Rosario is a Zeta."

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• Officials Bust Drug-Smuggling Ring Linked to Mexican Cartel [New York Times]
• Police and Drug Lobby Clash Over Oklahoma Meth Bill [AP]
• Meth Behind Chinese Mekong Deaths? [Asia Sentinel]
• Doctors "Should Ask" Teen Patients About Alcohol, Drug Use [Reuters]
• Drunk Driver who Killed Nun Found Guilty of Felony Murder [WAMU]
• Montel Williams Impressed by Israeli Approach to Medical Marijuana [CBS News]
• Buddies Fight Off Beer-Hunting Burglar [Chicago Tribune]

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It’s time to say “boo” to the annual scare-mongering over marijuana-laced Halloween treats, says NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. What got them riled up were the dark implications about the role of medical marijuana suggested by this year’s campaign. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department called a press event Friday to display “a variety of candy, soda, chocolate and other snack foods containing concentrated amounts of marijuana that were recently seized from local marijuana dispensaries.” Sgt. Glen Walsh, a spokesman for the LA County Sheriff’s Department, solemnly warned parents to inspect the candy their children bring home after trick-or-treating before letting them consume it. But how, exactly, do you screen your child’s holiday candy for weed? To misquote Ry Cooder, you can tell by the smell—or the taste. Specifically, a “pungent smell or an odd taste.” Walsh also allegedly fired off this whopper: the level of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, “can vary from zero to over 90%,” he said. NORML has volunteered to test some of that "90%" stuff, and we can’t help wondering how marijuana has come to join a long list of Halloween urban legends that includes razor blades, pins and poison. Let’s face it—whoever met a stoner willing to hand out his precious stash to an army of snot-nosed neighborhood kids? No matter. KABC-TV in Los Angeles tried to stir up a witch’s brew of dread anyway with this report.

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