Police/Suspect Altercations

A Detroit-area man who tried to drive away from a drug arrest was shot and killed by a deputy hanging onto his car door. He becomes the sixth person to be killed in US domestic drug law enforcement operations so far this year.

Hopes that things are quieting down in Ciudad Juarez are fading after a bloody week there. And that's just one front in Mexico's drug wars.

Ciudad Juarez continues to be a hot spot, with five police officers killed there already this year. But it's not alone.

2011 was a busy year in drug policy. Here is our selection of the biggest stories of the year here at home.

Although it was a relatively quiet week in Mexico's drug wars, it's probably now safe to say that 50,000 people have been killed in prohibition-related violence there since President Calderon sent in the army in December 2006.

We're only halfway through January, and we already have four dead in drug war incidents so far this year. This week, two allegedly armed men were shot and killed by police in separate incidents in Arkansas and California.

The murders, raids, and arrests continue, without making any apparent difference in anything.

A man with "mental difficulties" who was apparently growing marijuana to self-medicate with, opened fire when a police drug task force entered his Ogden, Utah, home Wednesday night. Six police were shot; one is dead.

There has been no holiday break in Mexico's prohibition-related mayhem, but it's now looking like 2011's death toll is going to be down from last year.

Five more US drug war deaths this month bring the year's total to 54.