Sentencing

In courthouses across the country, enforcing the drug laws is big business. We look at courthouse action in three separate locations to get a snapshot of the drug war.

Reacting to reports of flavored methamphetamine entering the market, two senators have introduced a bill that would increase prison sentences for anyone who flavors a drug to lure children.

A bill that would significantly expand the so far modest reforms of New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws has passed the state Assembly.

Last year, the Cincinnati city council voted for an ordinance that would make marijuana possession a criminal offense, saying it would reduce violent crime. It hasn't, but the council this week voted to extend it anyway.

Tyrone Brown is a free man! He walked out of prison in Texas Thursday after receiving a conditional pardon 17 years into a life sentence for violating probation by smoking pot.

With state elections just 10 days away in Australia's New South Wales, the Green Party's call to decriminalize drug possession is causing a stir.

City councilmen in Lafayette, Colorado, have backed away from an ordinance that would have increased penalties for marijuana possession after a judge resigned in protest and a strong grassroots efforts by Colorado activists scorched them.

A Nevada state senator wants to make people who grow even a single marijuana plant in a home where children are present subject to a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

Mexico's ruling party is pushing through a bill that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs for first time offenders and "addicts" -- but may really be designed to facilitate that country's drug war by allowing state authorities to get more involved in it and lengthen sentences for traffickers.

A Colorado town wants to increase the penalties for simple marijuana possession, but a local judge's public stand has thrown the move into doubt.