A DeKalb County police officer was arrested on drug conspiracy charges on September 6th in Gwinnett. He is accused of tipping off a drug organization working in the area regarding police operations. The police officer is facing charges of drug trafficking of methamphetamines. Apparently the Gwinnett County Attorney’s Office also participated in the arrest of… Read More

An avalanche of recent news stories on liberalized marijuana laws recently passed in some states and gaining traction in others underscores by contrast how seriously authorities in Georgia continue to view marijuana possession. That is true even in instances of possession of small amounts of pot and without a person’s intent to sell or otherwise… Read More

Nearly five decades ago there was a massive push to address drug trafficking on the federal level. At the time, the answer that lawmakers proposed was to address the issue with a zero tolerance attitude. In 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was signed into law that created strict mandatory minimum sentencing. By 2012, a look… Read More

In a few recent blog posts, we drew attention to strong signals coming from the United States Department of Justice indicating that substantive change is on the horizon pertaining to the federal government’s prosecution of drug crimes. Please see, for example, our post entry dated August 15, 2013. That has indeed turned out to be… Read More

Anyone who watches reruns of 1970s criminal law dramas on television can readily conjure up the prototypical portrayal of the American landscape that featured at the time: urban areas ridden with social instability, drug dealers openly plying their wares on street corners and, most frighteningly, violent criminals freely roaming the streets because the criminal justice… Read More

An ex-federal DEA agent describes a clandestine government surveillance and arrest program through use of an illustration, as follows. Information covertly received by a special unit within the DEA called the Special Operations Division (SOD) from an NSA satellite intercept, or perhaps via a wiretap or an informant, would be passed along to state police…. Read More

It’s a case that is bound to resonate with most Americans, from Florida to California (where it occurred). And especially when viewed from the prism of, “It could have happened to me,” it is a flatly frightening — even horrifying — tale that fortunately ended up without the loss of life of an innocent person…. Read More

The rigor with which Georgia law enforcement authorities pursue and seek to convict individuals on marijuana-related drug charges in the state can be amply appreciated by contrast. Colorado serves well as a case in point. While Georgia law still provides for some of the most stringent criminal penalties in the country for marijuana possession of… Read More

Radley Balko is a writer with a special interest in civil liberties issues who commands a resume that lends credibility to what he has to say about topics in that sphere. Balko was a former Cato Institute analyst and senior editor at Reason Magazine. He is currently a senior writer and investigative reporter for the… Read More

The legal regime in the United States has long been an expressed fascination of and conundrum for legal commentators in other parts of the world, especially those living in countries that lack the subtle interplay between state and federal law arising from federalism. That concept — that some subject matter must be controlled by the… Read More