Executive Branch

Looking to be an FBI agent? The rules on disqualifying applicants based on past drug use, especially marijuana use, just got a little more lax.

A high-level State Department official said last week that the US will shift its opium eradication policy in Afghanistan, but there is less there than meets the eye.

Do snitches have the right not to be named? A Philadelphia grand jury has indicted two people on witness intimidation charges for posting flyers outing an informant.

Citing smoking-gun memos between White House political staffers and the drug czar's office, the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Tuesday accused the Bush administration of politicizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And they're deposing witnesses.

While President Bush has pardoned 12 Thanksgiving turkeys in an annual White House ceremony since taking office 6 1/2 years ago, he has commuted only four people's prison sentences, one of them Scooter Libby's. We want more!

Eleven years ago, no Americans had the protection of a state medical marijuana law. Now, some 50 million do, but that means some 250 million don't. While progress has been made, it has been slow, and there is plenty more to do.

Canadian Glendene Grant's daughter went missing in Las Vegas last year. Now, US officials won't let her entry the country to look for her because she has a two-decades old drug conviction.

Even the Bush administration wanted to get rid of the federal grant program that funds multi-agency drug task forces at the state and local level. But spurred by powerful law enforcement interests, the Senate has voted to restore funding.

Two Atlanta narcotics officers have pleaded guilty in the November drug raid death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, but it looks like that's just the beginning of problems for the Atlanta narcotics squad.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a report showing black and Hispanic drivers are more likely to be subjected to vehicle searches than whites, but it says it can't conclude racial profiling is to blame. It also lacks some key numbers that could make the case.