News Brief

Prop 19's lead has dropped three points in the latest SurveyUSA poll, but it's still leading with the election less than 60 days away.

Voters in Madison, Wisconsin, will have a chance to tell their legislators where they stand on medical marijuana in November, and a second town is considering it, too.

The big news in Mexico this week was the capture of "La Barbie," a major figure in the drug wars. Will it make any difference?

Oh, temptation, such a torment for the weak-willed. A South Carolina cop peddle's his drug dog's training dope, an Iowa cop gets caught with a bunch of coke, and a Florida trooper is profiling out-of-state pain patients and stealing their medicine.

The marijuana extract Sativex has been approved to treat another condition in Canada. That makes three.

In California, small time pot possession is still a misdemeanor even though the maximum sentence is a $100 fine. The legislature has just passed a bill to fully decriminalize it by making it an infraction.

Las Vegas is most definitely not on the way to becoming Amsterdam-in-the-Desert, if a new poll is to be believed.

A Detroit pot legalization initiative had enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, but a city commission disqualified it, and now a local judge has agreed. An appeal may come, but it may be too late.

A pioneering Swiss cannabis/hemp activist, Bernard Rappaz, has renewed his hunger strike after being re-imprisoned by Swiss authorities.

The German health ministry announced last week that it was moving to legalize medical marijuana, and that no law changes are necessary, merely the changing of some regulations.