News Brief

Los Angeles dispensaries got a reprieve last week -- or did they? The busts there continue, despite the ban on the ban. And there's more news from around the state and the country as well.

The Murray County, Georgia, scandal keeps unraveling, another prison guard goes down, and a pair of South Texas deputies are going away for awhile.

A young man sitting in a car with a pellet gun and 50 Ecstasy tablets in the wee hours of the night Sunday is dead after an encounter with police.

The Danish government could be providing heroin pills to addicts as early as next year under a proposal from the health minister.

Montana's first registered medical marijuana caregiver has died in federal prison after being sentenced to five years on federal drug charges stemming from the DEA raids of March 2011. Richard Flor was 68.

A medical marijuana bill has been pre-filed in Kentucky.

The city council in Springfield, Missouri reluctantly passed a marijuana decriminalization ordinance to avoid a citizen vote, but has plans to amend it.

A bill designed to reduce overdose deaths by preventing the prosecution on drug charges of victims or people who seek emergency aid for them has passed the California legislature and awaits the governor's signature.

Arkansas will be the first southern state where voters will have a chance to approve medical marijuana at the polls. An initiative there has qualified for the November ballot, state officials said Monday.

Marijuana legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington state picked up regional NAACP endorsements this week as the most recent polls show them both leading, but by no means comfortably. Oregon's initiative also gained the civil rights group's support, earlier this month.