State & Local Legislatures

Faced with high rates of opiate addiction and a rising overdose toll, the Massachusetts Senate is considering funding a pair of "secure treatment centers" for arrested drug users.

No one ever said it was going to be easy to get medical marijuana bill through state legislatures, and recent events in Minnesota and Rhode Island reinforce the notion that it's a lengthy, arduous process. But it isn't going to happen at all if you don't try, and that's what one Ohio legislator is doing.

Alabama lawmakers declined to ban salvia divinorum, letting two bills die this week, but a prohibition on the psychedelic plant went into effect in Kansas.

The Texas attorney general has issued an opinion that a law passed last year to allow a needle exchange program in San Antonio does not protect exchange workers from arrest under state paraphernalia laws, so the Lone Star State's first officially-sanctioned needle exchange is dead -- for now.

Florida is about to become the next state to ban salvia divinorum as a bill to do so passes the state Senate and heads for the governor's desk.

Getting caught with under an ounce of marijuana costs you $100 in decriminalized Nebraska, but fines would triple under a measure just passed by the state legislature.

Salvia mania continues across the land, as state and city legislators pass laws without waiting for evidence and North Dakota makes its first-ever bust for the plant -- a felony.

A Minnesota medical marijuana bill is headed for a House floor vote soon. It already passed the Senate last year, so is only one vote away from passage, but the Republican governor is threatening to veto it.

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 more than 30 years, Alaska's courts have held that the state constitution's privacy provisions protect citizens who want to smoke and possess small amounts of marijuana in their homes. Last week, the Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the state's latest effort to undo the status quo.