News Brief

A meth dealing Texas deputy and a pill-peddling Missouri jail guard head for the big house.

At least some legislators in the Heart of Dixie are showing they have hearts. The Alabama House Judiciary Committee approved a medical marijuana bill this week.

Nederland now joins Denver and Breckenridge on the list of Colorado communities that have voted to remove penalties for adult marijuana possession. Durango could be next, and the whole state could vote on the issue in 2012.

Maine is about to become the latest state to set up a medical marijuana dispensary system. The measure has passed the legislature and the governor is expected to sign it.

A Maryland medical marijuana bill won an important Senate committee vote this week, but with time running out for the legislative session, it looks to be stalled in the House.

The drug czar doesn't want to talk about what the federal response to marijuana legalization in California might be. Let's hope he has to talk about it come November 3.

Facing a severely clogged criminal court system, the city of Philadelphia will no longer prosecute small-time pot possession cases as criminal misdemeanors, but as summary offenses. But the cops will still arrest you anyway.

What's an insurgent guerrilla movement to do when it needs funds to sustain its war? India's Naxalites are doing what so many have done before: Turning to the black market in illegal drugs and drug crops.

The prohibition-related violence in Mexico took an ominous turn this week as supposed cartel armies attacked military bases in the north. And then there's the typical toll of dead cops, dead narcos, and dead civilians.

Support for medical marijuana is broad and deep among the American public, and support for general pot legalization continues to trend upward, although we're not quite over the top nationally, a new poll finds.