State & Local Legislatures

Earlier this month, DEA agents strip-searched 147 Chinese nationals arriving in Saipan on vacation. The government of the Northern Mariana Islands is most unhappy.

A decade ago, Washington voters approved a medical marijuana law. Now, the state Department of Health has set quantity limits.

Spurred by YouTube videos and reports of increasing use, a bill that would ban salvia divinorum has passed the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) has vetoed a bill that would have provided employment protection for medical marijuana patients.

An Idaho Republican state legislator is threatening to introduce a medical marijuana bill next session. That would bring the state in line with neighbors Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Montana.

The biggest sentencing reforms in years were signed into law by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell last week, but the killing of a policeman by a parolee is now blocking all parole releases.

Suffering a budgetary hangover after years of "tough on crime" and mandatory minimum sentencing policies, the Pennsylvania Senate voted last week to divert nonviolent drug offenders to treatment, among other reforms. The House is expected to pass the bill soon.

A Nebraska shop-keeper must stand trial for selling salvia divinorum, even though it's not illegal in Nebraska.

In November, California residents will vote on a massive, complicated "treatment not jail" initiative known as the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) and appearing on the ballot as Proposition 5. Battle lines are now being drawn.

Washington voters approved medical marijuana a decade ago, but confusion over what constitutes an allowable quantity of medicine and plants continues. Now, the state health department is trying to set rules, and patients aren't happy with what it's proposing.