Rockefeller Laws: An End in Sight; Published: February 8, 2009; It took 35 years. The New York Legislature finally seems poised to overturn the infamous Rockefeller drug laws. The impending change comes too late for the tens of thousands of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who wasted away in prison because of mandatory sentencing policies when they should have been given treatment and leniency. But after years of building support for reform, legislative leaders now have it within their power to make wholesale changes in this profoundly destructive law.

F.D.A. to Place New Limits on Prescriptions of Narcotics; By GARDINER HARRIS; Published: February 9, 2009; WASHINGTON — Many doctors may lose their ability to prescribe 24 popular narcotics as part of a new effort to reduce the deaths and injuries that result from these medicines’ inappropriate use, federal drug officials announced Monday.

Ecstasy Ensnares Upper-Class Teenagers in Brazil; Lalo de Almeida for The New York Times; Sander Mecca was arrested at a bar when he was 21, accused by the police of being a drug dealer and put in prison, where he bunked alongside hardened criminals; By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO; Published: February 14, 2009; SÃO PAULO, Brazil — The trappings of upper-class teenage life seemed to come easily to Sander Mecca: girlfriends, rock bands, entry to stylish clubs — and a serious Ecstasy habit. Weekend-long raves were not the same without it for Mr. Mecca, who said he sometimes consumed six pills in a span of 12 hours.