News Brief

Now, here's a shocker: An Illinois study finds that blacks are five times more likely to be sent to prison for drug possession than whites.

Iran is already one of the world's leading death penalty countries, but it has been hanging drug offenders at a record pace so far this year.

Confronted with a new synthetic stimulant drug, a US senator reflexively reaches for the ban button.

Questions about marijuana legalization and drug policy dominated a YouTube "Ask Obama" forum last week, and this time, Obama responded with more than a laugh.

An Illinois sheriff goes down hard, a Massachusetts police chief parties too hard, a Massachusetts cop gets nailed for helping out his local pot dealer, and a Florida motorcycle cop gets caught stealing a bud in his helmet.

We present two weeks worth of Mexican drug war mayhem, and we review the death toll year by year since Calderon sent in the troops in 2007. The total has passed 35,000.

Some global heavyweights have taken on the international drug control system and how to come up with a better one.

Prince Georges County, Maryland, cops messed with the wrong guy when their SWAT team hit the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights and killed his dogs in a botched drug raid. Now they have to change their ways.

A leading advocacy group for pain patients has essentially been driven out of business by a federal prosecutor and the federal courts. The Pain Relief Network will be missed.

Which state on which coast will be the first to legalize marijuana? There are now bills filed in Massachusetts and Washington.