News Brief

The marijuana reform movement has found a most unlikely spokeswoman: A silver-haired octogenarian Texas Republican woman. But Ann Lee isn't just any silver-haired octogenarian Texas Republican woman.

There's less than a month to go, but some initiatives are more active than others.

The big news this week is that Oakland is suing the feds over their efforts to shut down Harborside. Meanwhile, the battles continue at the state and local level in California and beyond.

Some Michigan narcs were up to no good, a New Mexico probation officer getscaught carrying pounds of weed, a New York City prison guard gets caught peddling pot and placebos (!) to prisoners, and a Florida cop gets caught stealing weed to use as probable cause for a search warrant. Just another week in the drug war.

A state Health Department review of New Jersey's needle exchange program has found it is working and should be continued.

A San Diego housewife and an Arizona Border Patrol agent both died at the hands of Border Patrol agents in drug-related incidents in recent days, bringing this year's toll of drug war killings to 48.

Veteran antiwar activist Tom Hayden opened the first day of the national NORML conference with a call for the creation of a social justice-based peace movement to end the drug war.

Just over a month out, medical marijuana and marijuana legalization initiative campaigns are heating up.

Mitt Romney (mis)speaks out on medical marijuana, the LA dispensary ban is repealed, and the feds keep on grinding away at medical marijuana providers with another conviction in Montana and a lengthy prison sentence in Michigan. And that's just for starters.

A former Pennsylvania prosecutor gets caught peddling pot, and a TSA agent and an Alabama cop head to prison for taking bribes from drug dealers.