Asset Forfeiture

Veteran activist Dana Beal of Global Marijuana March fame spent more than a week behind bars in Illinois, arrested on money-laundering charges after police found $150,000 in cash. But he bailed out Thursday after the original charge vanished, to be replaced by an obstruction of justice charge. The cash is still in custody.

California's Mendocino County has grown rich off of marijuana, but problems have come with the prosperity. Now, everyone is waiting to see whether last week's still undecided election will mean the county takes a step backward from its liberal cultivation laws.

Summer music festival season is here, and with it, the annual exercises in drug law enforcement aimed at festival-goers and highway travelers in general. Here are a few tips for avoiding trouble.

In its battle against medical marijuana dispensaries, the DEA has brought its landlord-threatening letter campaign to San Francisco. Now, the dispensaries are suing in federal court, and the House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the matter.

Georgia's Fulton County (Atlanta) district attorney has some odd ideas about how asset forfeiture funds should be spent, an audit of his books has found.

The ACLU is challenging the seizure of nearly $24,000 dollars from a New Mexico trucker by the DEA as part of its asset forfeiture program.

A new police chief in Austin has opened a criminal investigation into the way the department spent money it seized in asset forfeiture operations. Among the items: More than $600 for coffee cops and nearly $1,900 for a race clock, whatever that is.

For the last decade, some California cities have seized the vehicles of people caught trying to buy drugs. Those days have come to an end, thanks to a California Supreme Court decision.

DEA agents seize hundreds of millions of dollars a year in drug busts, but a Justice Department audit finds the agency is pretty lax in its handling of all that cash.

Florida has an asset forfeiture law that provides for legal recourse, but that's too much bother for one Sunshine State police department.