Executive Branch

For five years, Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, operated a pain management clinic in Haysville, Kansas. Now, they are on trial as drug dealers in a federal prosecution that revisits the ongoing conflict between the imperatives of pain treatment and those of drug law enforcement.

The drug czar was in the hot seat at a Wednesday congressional hearing, and activists and academics got a chance to weigh in on the flaws of US drug policy as well.

The illegal drug supply is increasing, and Mexican narcos are public enemy #1, according to the Justice Department's primary drug intelligence unit. There's no end in sight, the unit concludes.

Bryan Epis is once again a medical marijuana martyr. This week, Epis, the first California medical grower convicted by the feds, was returned to federal prison to serve eight more years of a 10-year sentence imposed in 2002. He had been out on appeal, but his appeals have run out.

US, NATO and Afghan military forces are consolidating their hold on the Taliban stronghold of Marja in Helmand province. But now is when the real battle for hearts and minds begins.

Cocaine contaminated with a veterinary de-worming agent called levamisole made the news last fall when coke users started coming down with a nasty disease called agranulocytosis and a few of them died. While the clamor has quieted, the tainted dope hasn't gone away. In fact, there seems to be more of it than ever.

President Obama has vowed to slash discretionary federal spending, but it isn't going be done on the back of the drug war. Federal drug control spending is up 3.5% in his Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Mostly it's the same old, same old drug war, but there are some interesting surprises.

Nearly nine years after the fact, the CIA has completed its internal investigation of the shooting down of a civilian aircraft over Peru that left an American missionary and her infant daughter dead. The agency found little wrong with its behavior, but not everyone agrees.

The Obama administration has nominated the acting DEA administrator to be permanent DEA administrator. But this veteran DEA agent carries some baggage with her, and drug reformers are looking for ways to challenge the nomination.

The State Department's "drugs and thugs" people in charge of Afghan counternarcotics policy aren't doing a very good job, an Inspector General's report has found. Of course, it's tough when you're tasked with Mission Impossible.