State & Local Legislatures

A medical marijuana bill in New Hampshire has passed a key committee vote and is now headed for the House floor. A similar measure failed there by a handful of votes two years ago.

The Hawkeye State turns a deaf ear to the entreaties of medical marijuana patients. A bill that would have helped has died without action.

People suffering drug overdoses sometimes die because their companions either delay seeking medical assistance or fail to act at all for fear of getting arrested themselves. New Mexico has a law providing limited immunity for people in those circumstances. Now, a Washington legislator hopes to make his state the second to pass such a law.

The New York Assembly passed a Rockefeller drug law reform bill last week. Now, the Senate has decided to submerge Rockefeller reform within a broader budget package in a bid to avoid having to take individual votes on it. Meanwhile, as if supporters needed any more ammunition for reform, another damning report is out this week.

Tenaha, Texas, lies between Houston and the casinos of Shreveport across the Louisiana line. The town thought it hit the jackpot with a sleazy policing scheme, but now it may be coming up snake eyes.

The Minnesota medical marijuana bill has passed another pair of hurdles as it makes its way toward a hostile governor.

South Dakota has become the 14th state to ban salvia divinorum, based on little more than YouTube videos and the fear that somebody somewhere might be getting high for a few minutes.

More than 35 years after their passage, New York's Rockefeller drug laws appear to be on their last legs. But it's not a done deal yet, and the battle over what the final reform package will look like continues in Albany.

The effort to legalize medical marijuana in Minnesota is taking up where it left off last year. A bill has now passed two Senate committees, and action in the House is expected shortly. But the Republican governor is still threatening to veto it.

The Pew Center on the States has released a report noting that 1 in 31 Americans is either in jail or prison or on probation or parole. Although two-thirds of them are probationers or parolees, it is prisons that are gobbling up the corrections budget. That needs to change, the report said.