News Brief

Six weeks out from election day, the Washington marijuana legalization initiative is showing the best polling numbers yet.

Now, here's a shocker: All the former heads of the DEA want Attorney General Holder to speak out against the marijuana legalization initiatives.

No DEA raids or federal threat letters to report this week, but the battles over medical marijuana continue on many fronts.

A Louisiana cop gets strung out in a hurry, a Florida cop is has car problems, a Kentucky state trooper has perv problems, and one member of a rogue New Jersey drug squad heads to prison.

An Alabama man faced with deputies coming to take him in on drug charges shot himself instead last Sunday night. That's the 47th drug war death of the year.

Is the world's longest-running insurgency coming to an end? The Colombian government and the leftist guerrillas of the FARC have announced their first peace talks in a decade, but that's just the first step.

Drug reformers won't find the Democratic platform's positions on drug policy very inspiring.

The Republican platform section on crime lays out the party's official positions, and while they stay "tough on crime," there are also some hints of evolving positions.

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.