Legal Community

A towering figure in American drug reform has left us.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has become the first justice ever to endorse marijuana legalization.

They may be smoking more pot in Washington state than anyone thought, the Florida medical marijuana signature-gathering campaign is going down to the wire, opium production is up in the Golden Triangle, and aerial eradication is paused in Colombia (after planes get blown out of the sky). And more.

In a major policy speech to the American Bar Association Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced sentencing reform measures he is ordering the Justice Department to undertake, especially backing away from the use of mandatory minimum sentencing for low-level nonviolent drug offenders.

A Reuters investigative report has shone a light on a publicity-shy DEA unit that uses information from NSA surveillance and other sources to jump start criminal investigations, then hide their origins.

Everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop after last week's marijuana legalization votes in Colorado and Washington. Here's what we could see happen.

And so it begins. Prosecutors in two of Washington's most populous counties have said they are dismissing pending marijuana possession cases in the wake of last Tuesday's victory for I-502.

A US 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision saying police do not need a warrant to track people through their cell phones has broad implications. The ACLU is on the case.

In the latest installment of his series of investigate reports on prosecutorial misconduct in the war on drugs, Clarence Walker looks into an Assistant US Attorney in Tucson whose dirty tricks cost him the case.

It's mainly news from California this week, with DEA and LAPD raids leading the way, but also some snippets from Colorado and Montana, and the DEA head goes on the hot seat.