News Brief

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.

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.

$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.

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.

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.