In December, five students at Columbia University were arrested and charged with running one of the largest college-campus drug conspiracies in recent memory. This week, criminal defense attorneys for two of the students announced that they plan to ask the judge to approve them for diversion into a drug court, where they could be given […]

When five Columbia University students were arrested on drug charges in December, it brought up a number of troubling questions about America’s War on Drugs. It was allegedly one of the largest college-campus drug conspiracies in recent memory — run by five Ivy League students with majors like applied mathematics and anthropology. This week, criminal […]

Police like to use dogs trained to detect the presence of drugs. With a positive indication of the presence of drugs by a drug-sniffing dog, police officers have probable cause to search a stopped vehicle. What state-compiled data in Illinois recently showed, though, is that drug-sniffing dogs are usually wrong in their conclusions about whether […]

If you saw a study that showed judges on the same federal court were handing down very different sentences for the same sort of crime, it might look like a case of growing injustice. But as Derrick Z. Jackson recently wrote in the Boston Globe, it actually shows that a growing number of judges are […]

Synthetic marijuana, marketed under a variety of names including “K2” and “Spice,” is typically made of plant materials that are coated with chemicals designed to simulate a marijuana high. The products are typically labeled as incense or potpourri and have been available over the internet, paraphernalia shops and convenience stores for $10 to $20 per […]

The haul in an Atlanta-area federal drug bust last week was enormous: 45 people and more than two tons of drugs were seized, law enforcement authorities said. The Associated Press reports that the arrests were part of Operation Choke Hold, targeting the Atlanta-area distribution point for the Mexican drug cartel, La Familia Michoacana. Among the […]

Grammy winning rapper T.I. was back in court here in his native Atlanta today, pleading to be spared of further time behind bars. Nevertheless, a federal judge decided to revoke the musician’s probation due to a September drug arrest in Los Angeles. T.I. had been out on probation after serving 10 months for a weapons […]

Nino Lyons was convicted of drug trafficking after a trial that lasted a week in 2001. The jurors heard testimony from witnesses about how they made enormous drug buys from Lyons. One said Lyons hired him to murder drug suppliers. What the jury didn’t hear was that the witnesses were convicted felons who were given […]

Chris Hawkins, a former North Carolina defensive back who is accused of buying University of Georgia receiver A.J. Green’s jersey, is facing felony drug charges in Georgia. Hawkins was arrested by Georgia State Patrol officers last year for misdemeanor possession of marijuana and felony trafficking of cocaine. (Last week, the NCAA suspended A.J. Green for […]

Almost every state government has budget problems. That means every state is looking for ways to save money and eliminate unnecessary spending. Atlanta criminal defense attorneys are interested to see that many states are looking seriously at the money spent on the “war on drugs,” and finding that the money is not well spent. Instead […]