Illegal Drugs

Latest Articles

Weed picking up speed?

Just say now
When the Phoenix published a cover story about the potential tipping point in the fight to end marijuana prohibition, we smelled something in the air: it seemed more than ever that such a resolution might be possible.
By MIKE MILIARD | July 09, 2009

Art appreciation

Letters to the Boston Phoenix editor, June 12, 2009
The recent Phoenix editorial on state-government funding for arts and culture highlighted many of the challenges we face as we try to meet our aspirations as a community amidst a very difficult economic environment.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | June 10, 2009

An old dog teaches his tricks

A Maine marijuana icon hopes to reinvigorate his cause
"You can call me a pothead," slow-talking Harry Brown tells me, roughly 15 minutes into my visit to his 80-acre farm in Starks, Maine.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 10, 2009

Legalize pot now

With support from the unlikeliest circles, this could be marijuana's moment
The Obama administration, already overtaxed with two foreign campaigns, made headlines this past week when the White House's newly minted director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy called for an end to the "War on Drugs."
By MIKE MILIARD | June 01, 2009

From the mouths of innocents

Modern poverty
It has become an unwelcome reality, living from paycheck to paycheck and worrying about job stability, but what about being born a guiltless young person growing up with a drug-addicted parent, no job skills, and no home?
By SONYA TOMLINSON | May 13, 2009

The Big Hurt: Devil music

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When I was around 10 years old, I wandered into a rural flea market and found one of the greatest pieces of music journalism ever written: a forgotten crank masterpiece called Backward Masking Unmasked that had been written in 1983 by Texan minister Jacob Aranza.
By DAVID THORPE | May 05, 2009

Hemp — the law, the musical

Dept. of Really Strange Bedfellows
When liberal congressmen like Barney Frank begin co-sponsoring bills with libertarians like Ron Paul, there must be something funny in the air.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 29, 2009

Going to pot

State medical marijuana law advances
The state's medical-marijuana laws, which govern how patients can access pot for medical purposes, is on the brink of significant change.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | April 15, 2009

NFL follies

Pro football gets tossed around. Plus, Kirk Snyder goes to the dentist.
Not only was Donte Stallworth officially charged with DUI manslaughter, but another former AFC East star, former Buffalo Bill running back Travis Henry, reached a plea agreement on drug charges.
By MATT TAIBBI | April 08, 2009

A dog's life

Failure
Advice from the magical marijuana guinea pig
By KARL STEVENS | April 01, 2009

92. Rick Ross

INSPECTOR BLECCH
The boss of the South likes to slang rhymes about slinging rock, but according to the Smoking Gun , the only hard time he did in Dade County was on the other side of the law: although he refuses to admit to it, he reportedly served 18 months as a corrections officer. For a rapper, that’s about as sexy as blowing your hype man on stage. As it is, Ross is so ugly he keeps his sunglasses on at all hours — even when traumatizing a Fader TV interviewer by whipping off his shirt to reveal his numerous tattoos . . . and his (bigger-than-Trina’s) man-tits.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

The Big Hurt: Weezy goes free, Miley turns bitter, Martin still lame

Music news in brief
The good news: the 2006 drug charges against Lil Wayne have been dropped after a judge ruled that the search leading to his arrest wasn't proper.
By DAVID THORPE | March 19, 2009

Wideouts gone wild

Lock the liquor cabinet and hide the keys — it's that time of year again
Late February is a heavy-arrest period in American sports, for the simple reason that the college-football season is over, spring practices have not yet begun, and they have not yet deployed armed alcohol-sniffing police robots on college campuses around the nation.
By MATT TAIBBI | February 18, 2009

You're Probably in a Drug-Free School Zone Right Now

For all the good it does
Ever seen a crack dealer brandish a chrome tape measure and inch his way out of a "drug-free school zone" before slinging fat rocks to pregnant teenage mothers? No?
By CHRIS FARAONE | February 11, 2009

Question 2 backlash heats up

Rolling the Genie Back in the Bag
Since Question 2 was activated on January 2, it's been difficult to walk the streets of Massachusetts without encountering red-eyed hordes of marijuana-blazing vagrants.
By CHRIS FARAONE | January 28, 2009

The DEA says no (again) to medical marijuana. Now what?

High on Obama?
Rick Doblin, president of Belmont-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), can't believe how long it's dragged on.
By MIKE MILIARD | January 14, 2009

Blount's blunts

Sports blotter: "Gone to pot" edition
Let’s just say it’s been a while since we’ve seen a pound-worthy entry to the annals of pot busts, as we did this week.
By MATT TAIBBI | December 19, 2008

Letters to the Portland editor: December 19, 2008

By | December 17, 2008

Drugs and culture

Books
University of Southern Maine professor Wendy Chapkis usually studies, teaches, and writes about gender issues, so her latest non-fiction outing, Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine , might seem like a bit of a departure.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 04, 2008

Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc

The real reason law-and-order types love mandatory-minimum sentencing? It's money in their pockets.
With aromatic puffs of change, Bay State stoners rejoiced on Election Day.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | December 09, 2008

Letters

GUNNING FOR THE TIMES
Harvey Silverglate’s " The Gray Lady in Shadow " (January 6) was excellent and raised extraordinary concerns.
By | October 27, 2008

Max Payne

Bloodless, PG-13-rated action noir
No longer the undercover DEA agent of the game, Max oversees NYPD “cold case” files. They don’t come much colder than this one.
By BRETT MICHEL | October 25, 2008

Pilgrims’ progress

Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies
India, 1838. The opium business is booming, and drug money fills the British Empire’s coffers, offsetting a trade imbalance created by imports of Chinese tea and silk. But now the emperor wants the drug trade stopped.
By CHRIS WANGLER | October 08, 2008

Blunt object

The political fight over a November marijuana-reform ballot question has sparked a Battle of the Bong
Question 2 supporters claim Massachusetts district attorneys committed “at least 15 violations of Massachusetts campaign-finance and election laws” in the runup to the marijuana-decriminalization vote.
By CHRIS FARAONE | September 25, 2008

High times in Canada

Letters to the Boston editor, August 29, 2008
Two weeks ago, we ran a story about how the seemingly tranquil, inoffensive, and pristine little Canadian province of Prince Edward Island was actually a relative hotbed of marijuana growing.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | August 27, 2008

Smoke screens

Does a surge of stoner movies mean America is going to pot?
What does it say about America that marijuana movies are a hot genre right now, perhaps hotter even than in the heyday of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong’s 1978 Up in Smoke ?
By PETER KEOUGH | August 18, 2008

Pot Edward Island

Canada's most picturesque province is surprisingly also the fertile center of an underground marijuana explosion
It seems modern-day islanders have discovered another way to smile through the summer and avoid the blues during the bleak local winters.
By ALAN R. EARLS | August 19, 2008