News Brief

Well, we've got another questionable drug raid killing by police, this time in Las Vegas. A 21-year-old black man, Trevon Cole, who smoked a little pot, was about to become a father when Las Vegas police burst through his apartment door. Now, he's dead--shot by a narcotics detective--and not for any good reason that the police have so far provided. Oh, and the cop who shot him seems to have a bad habit of shooting people under questionable circumstances.

Washington is now the second state to adopt a "911 Good Samaritan" laws in a bid to prevent drug overdose fatalities. It's a smart harm reduction move.

Fire bombs. Graffiti attacks. Anonymous anti-medical marijuana flyers handed out to school children. Whether medical marijuana has gone too far is a hot issue in Billings, Montana, and it's simmering all over Big Sky Country as "ganja-preneurs" push the envelope.

Iranian hangmen have been keeping busy in recent weeks as some 30 drug offenders have been executed since May 23. Maybe it's time to ramp up that campaign against the death penalty for drug offenses.

In 2006, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that people could be prosecuted as drugged drivers based solely on the presence of marijuana metabolites in their bodily fluids. Now, a more liberal Supreme Court has overturned that decision, holding that marijuana metabolites are not controlled substances and the states drugged driving law can thus not be applied to them.

It was judgment day for two crooked cops and a jail guard this week, and another jail guard just found out his judgment day is coming. Meanwhile, new corrupt cop cases showed up at a rate of one a day this week.

The now infamous SWAT raid in Columbia, Missouri, in February that left a family traumatized and a family dog dead keeps on generating citizen activism there. Now, a new group formed because of the raid is calling for permanent reforms.

Canadian "Prince of Pot" Marc Emery has already run up against US federal prison rules, and is sitting in solitary confinement as a result.

Detroit led the way in approving medical marijuana in Michigan. Now, it's poised to lead the way in legalizing the possession of up to an ounce by adults.

For years, the annual Bureau of Justice Statistics jail population report has had the same bottom line: The jail population is up again. Not this year.