Drug War Chronicle

A Minnesota medical marijuana bill is headed for a House floor vote soon. It already passed the Senate last year, so is only one vote away from passage, but the Republican governor is threatening to veto it.

Mexican drug traffickers have provided money to build churches and other public works in poor villages, the head of the Mexican bishops' conference said over the weekend. His colleagues were appalled.

Judges in Algeria, Pakistan, and Syria have handed down death sentences to drug offenders so far this month, some of them for marijuana trafficking offenses, but Vietnam's president commuted the death sentence of a Vietnamese-born British citizen. His three Vietnamese accomplices are still facing execution.

It's Reefer Madness time in Britain in the run-up to a widely anticipated reclassification of marijuana as a more serious drug. Segments of the British press are playing a particularly pernicious role.

Federal prosecutors had no qualms about going to the press when they indicted Haysville, Kansas, physician Dr. Steven Schneider for his pain medication prescribing practices. But it's a different matter when Schneider and his allies want to get their side of the story out. Now, the feds are seeking a gag order.