News Brief

Medical marijuana is a big business and only getting bigger, according to a new study produced by a financial analysis firm.

Add Kentucky to the short list of states that have banned the synthetic stimulant mephedrone, typically marketed as "bath salts."

It's only mid-March, but 19 people, including two law enforcement officers, have already died in drug enforcement-related incidents this year. The latest deaths came last Wednesday in Houston and Tulsa.

Jacksonville undercover narcotics officers serving drug and fugitive warrants shot and killed the suspect after he displayed a weapon.

A South Carolina drug task force's effort to apprehend a fugitive instead resulted in a shootout leaving a deputy wounded and the suspect dead.

Bills that would allow state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries are moving in Washington, which already has a medical marijuana law, and Delaware, which doesn't.

Florida's new Republican governor wants to make state employees pee in a cup to keep their jobs. The state ACLU reminds him that that's a constitutional no-no.

The perennial legislative impulse to drug test people receiving public benefits has petered out this year in Little Rock.

New York City has earned the dubious distinction of being the world's marijuana arrest capital. But such (dis)honors come at a price. A big price.

One might have thought the Sooner state would start thinking about letting people out of prison only later, but a bill to reduce imprisonment is moving in Oklahoma City.