News Brief

Utah is finding there's not much there there when it comes to drug-abusing welfare applicants, and it's paying good money to do so.

The North Carolina legislature is about to pass a welfare drug testing bill. At least they took out the part where county employees had to tell people they wouldn't be tested if they didn't apply for benefits.

A federal medical marijuana banking bill was introduced, an Oregon bill that would allow and regulate dispensaries heads to the governor's desk, Berkeley and Oakland fight the feds.

Is decriminalization coming to the nation's capital? A bill to do that was introduced Wednesday, and there is strong public support for it.

More trouble for Philly and its rogue narcs, an Alabama jail guard goes down, so does a Mississippi narc, and a Calfornia narc cops a plea to stealing dope for resale.

Britain is about to become the latest European country (as well as Canada and the US) to ban khat, criminalizing the mild stimulant used by tens of thousands of African emigrants there. And it is ignoring its own drug advisors to do so.

Oklahoma's welfare drug testing program has come a cropper in terms of saving money for the state, with only 2.2% of applicants being denied for failing drug tests or refusing to take them.

The Pennsylvania NAACP stepped up its support for a marijuana legalization bill with a 4th of July press conference calling for its passage.

In the fifth drug war killing in the past two weeks, members of a Massachusetts SWAT team shot and killed an apartment dweller after he allegedly confronted them with a weapon during a pre-dawn drug raid.

Marijuana decriminalization goes into effect Monday in Vermont, leaving New Hampshire as the odd man out when it comes to decriminalization in the region.