News Brief

$38 an ounce for kind bud?!?!? That's what RAND says could happen if California legalizes it. Tax revenue estimates are all over the place, depending on multiple factors. And consumption could go up dramatically, but it might not. Bottom line: Nobody knows for sure what's going to happen.

There is no end in sight to the prohibition-related violence plaguing Mexico, and now, the cartels have started making threats aimed at law enforcement on the US side of the border.

Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife Linda ran a pain management clinic in Haysville, Kansas. Now they are most likely headed for long stints in federal prison for their efforts after being found guilty of illegal prescribing and related offenses by a federal jury in Wichita.

California half-way decriminalized simple pot possession back in the 1970s, setting a maximum $100 fine, but leaving offenders with a misdemeanor criminal record. Now, a bill that has already passed the Senate and is moving in the Assembly would complete the process by downgrading the offense to a civil citation.

In a bid to reduce public nuisance complaints aimed at Amsterdam's famous cannabis coffee shops, the city government is about to embark on an experiment: to-go-only coffee shops and on-premises-consumption-only coffee shops.

In a classic example of the balloon effect, coca production has gone down in Colombia, according to the UNODC, only to be replaced by increasing production in Peru.

As the rising conservative clamor to "secure the border" -- whatever that means -- grows louder, the Obama administration is moving fast to pay for more border guards, customs and immigration agents, DEA agents, FBI task forces, and even a couple of unmanned drones -- about $600 million total of "emergency appropriations."

Who knew the Kentucky legislature could be so progressive? A state maternal health law passed in 1992 protects women from being prosecuted as child-endangerers for drug use while pregnant, and last week the state's Supreme Court told prosecutors to obey the law.

Medical marijuana is hitting the Pacific. There was already interest in the Northern Marianas, and now a Guamanian senator has introduced a bill in that US territory.

From a Supreme Court whose rulings too frequently defy both justice and common sense, finally, a decision that embraces both. The high court has unanimously held that a pair of petty drug offenses is not grounds for mandatory deportation of legal immigrants.