DEA

Although Washington state has a medical marijuana law and the city of Seattle has a lowest law enforcement priority ordinance, Seattle police two weeks ago raided a medical marijuana co-op, seizing patient records and 12 ounces of medicine. The co-op got the records back, but now the DEA has seized the marijuana.

Research from Italy suggesting that whole-plant marijuana extracts provide more effective pain relief than isolated compounds from the plant should be welcome news for medical marijuana supporters.

The Republican National Committee Wednesday attacked Sen. Barack Obama for suggesting he would end DEA raids on medical marijuana providers in states where it is legal. Given broad popular support for medical marijuana, it is not at all clear that this will be a winning issue for the GOP.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has sent the DEA a letter demanding that it explain its raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in California. He's threatening to hold hearings, too.

Using YouTube videos of young people under the influence of salvia divinorum as exhibit number one, legislators across the country are stepping up efforts to ban the intense, fast-acting hallucinogen.

For the first time, Brazilian authorities have found coca plantations and a cocaine lab on national territory, and they are worried there could be more.

With the DEA raiding dispensaries in the Bay Area this year, the Berkeley City Council voted Tuesday to make the city a medical marijuana sanctuary.

In the latest installment of an ongoing snitch scandal in northeast Ohio, a federal judge has freed 15 men sentenced to prison on crack conspiracy charges based on perjured testimony from a DEA informant. Now, the informant is in prison, and the DEA agent is in the crosshairs.

The case of Canada's famed marijuana advocate Marc Emery raises issues of basic fairness and illuminates the darkness in today's criminal justice system.

Critics of the widespread use of informants in the drug war have long argued the system is subject to abuse. Three cases of informants gone bad popped up in the past week.