State & Local Executive Branches

Testilying -- the practice of police perjuring themselves to get an arrest or win a case -- is so prevalent in the NYPD that something has to be done, a federal judge complained this week.

Police in Utah who cleaned up meth labs in the 1980s and 1990s have filed dozens of workers compensation claims asserting exposure to the caustic chemicals caused a variety of physical ailments. Now, those claims are being dismissed for lack of evidence.

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis thinks selling medical marijuana is illegal. But a San Diego jury disagreed Tuesday in the first dispensary case since her latest round of raids back in September.

The era of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses has come to an end in Rhode Island. But that's just a start -- you can still get up to 50 years for 10 pounds of pot.

Getting medical marijuana bills passed in state legislatures is a long, hard slog. So far this year, only one bill has passed into law, the Rhode Island dispensary bill, which builds on an existing medical marijuana law. Two states' legislatures, Minnesota and New Hampshire, passed bills, only to have them vetoed. But there's still hope in a few places. Here's a rundown of medical marijuana at the statehouse this year.

Los Angeles has been trying to regulate its mushrooming medical marijuana dispensaries for four years. It could be coming down to the wire next week, but storm clouds loom as city and county prosecutors argue that any medical marijuana sales are illegal.

Like other states, Tennessee is feeling the effects of the bad economy, and so is the state's budget. Now, the governor is seeking a 9% across-the-board budget cut, and that could mean -- God forbid! -- that the state might have to let some nonviolent prisoners get out a few months early.

The Drug Policy Alliance's 2009 International Drug Policy Reform Conference got underway Thursday in Albuquerque, and it looks like the biggest yet. Here's an initial report from the conference opening. Look for much more next week, too.

To be a caregiver or not be a caregiver? That is the question in Colorado, and the criminal courts, civil courts, state bureaucrats, and the medical marijuana industry are all fighting over it.

For years, federal prosecutors on the US-Mexican border have been so swamped with smuggling cases that they refuse to prosecute busts under 500 pounds. Local prosecutors can't handle the overflow, either, so now, the US is sending busted Mexican pot smugglers back home to be prosecuted.