News Brief

Bryan Epis is once again a medical marijuana martyr. This week, Epis, the first California medical grower convicted by the feds, was returned to federal prison to serve eight more years of a 10-year sentence imposed in 2002. He had been out on appeal, but his appeals have run out.

Both city and federal officials cracked down on the thriving LA medical marijuana scene Thursday, employing raids and civil enforcement actions.

A pill-peddling cop, a court officer fudging drug tests in return for pills, and, of course, the requisite crooked jailers -- just another week in the drug war.

He's back! San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has reintroduced his groundbreaking marijuana legalization and regulation bill. Last session, it became the first legalization bill anywhere in the US to win a legislative committee vote. Maybe this time it will go further. If not, voters may take matters into their own hands in November.

While elected officials on both sides of the board dismiss legalization of the drug trade, Mexico continues to pay the price. Another 137 people were killed in prohibition-related violence there this week.

First it was New York Senate Republicans blocking action on medical marijuana. Then last year, Senate Democrats managed to blow themselves up, indirectly preventing a bill from passing. Will 2010 be the year? Medical marijuana is moving in both the Assembly and the Senate.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon caught serious flak this week from two different directions: Angry residents of Ciudad Juárez, tired of the killing and the soldiers, and the Mexican Catholic Church, which issued a report critical of human rights abuses in the military and crooked law enforcement.

Cocaine contaminated with a veterinary de-worming agent called levamisole made the news last fall when coke users started coming down with a nasty disease called agranulocytosis and a few of them died. While the clamor has quieted, the tainted dope hasn't gone away. In fact, there seems to be more of it than ever.

In 2008, an effort to decriminalize marijuana was turned back in the New Hampshire legislature. Now, they're at it again, and a bill has already passed a key House committee and is headed for the floor.

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy had to be dragged into reconsidering marijuana's classification as a Schedule I drug with no medical benefit. But now it has done so, and is recommending it be rescheduled and that the legislature look into setting up a medical marijuana program. In so doing, it has become the first state pharmacy board to take such an action ahead of voters or lawmakers.