News Brief

A car bomb attack in Ciudad Juarez Thursday that killed two police and a paramedic marked an ominous tactical turn in Mexico's prohibition-related violence this week. Meanwhile, the Mexican government put the death toll since President Calderon took office at 24,826.

Is the California tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative winning or losing? Right now, it looks like it depends on which pollster you ask. In any case, this is looking like a very tight race.

The authors of the Vienna Declaration are seeking to throw out the old prohibitionist drug policy paradigm in favor of one based on science and evidence. This week, the declaration picked up significant political support -- three former Latin American presidents.

Here is yet another poll showing broad support for medical marijuana, this time in New York state. The surprise is no longer that people support medical marijuana, but that the New York legislature can't get around to passing it.

Making highly motivated high school students urinate in a cup to play football or join the glee club isn't very effective, the Department of Education has found in a new study.

Voters in Oregon and Washington will not have a chance to legalize marijuana this year after initiative signature-gathering campaigns came up short last Friday. See ya in 2012?

A blue-ribbon committee led by one of Norway's most respected political figures has called for heroin prescription trials, harm reduction measures, and expanded treatment options for hard drug users. But the government still has to agree, and the heroin prescription trial in particular is controversial.

In what could be a critical test case for medical marijuana patients in Michigan, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for firing a worker who legally used medical marijuana.

2010 is on the way to being the bloodiest year yet in Mexico's ever-escalating prohibition-fueled violence. In 2008, 5,000 were killed; last year, the toll was 8,000. This year, we're only at the half-way point, and the toll so far is closing in on 6,000.

The Russians want more appointments to high positions in the UN, and it looks like a Russian diplomat will replace outgoing UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa. Given Russia's retrograde positions on drug policy issues, alarm bells are going off.