News Brief

The death toll has risen every year since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels in December 2006. More than 2,000 in 2007, more than 5,000 in 2008, and last year's toll was 7,724. And there are 137 more already this year.

Will the fourth time be the charm? Organizers of a new "tax and regulate" marijuana initiative in Nevada hope so as they roll out a campaign aimed at the November 2012 election.

Belgians, Frenchmen, Germans, and other "drug tourists" looking to score on the Dutch border have won a temporary reprieve, as officials in Limburg have delayed plans to make cannabis cafes members only.

Sheriffs gone wild, narcs gone greedy, a jail guard gone horny, and a couple of jail guards gone dumb.

The State Department's "drugs and thugs" people in charge of Afghan counternarcotics policy aren't doing a very good job, an Inspector General's report has found. Of course, it's tough when you're tasked with Mission Impossible.

In a political maneuver to silence critics while Canada hosts the Winter Olympics, Prime Minister Steven Harper has shut down parliament until a new session begins in March. The move kills a harsh bill that was one vote from passage and would have imposed mandatory minimum prison sentences on people growing as a little as a single marijuana plant.

Bolivian President Evo Morales wants to amend his country's drug law to legalize coca farmers' small holdings and to bring allowed national cultivation limits in line with Bolivian reality. This won't go over well in Washington or with the UN anti-drug bureaucrats.

North Dakota farmers want to grow hemp. North Dakota has licensed them to grow hemp. But are they growing any hemp? No, and a new court decision means its likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Rhode Island approved adding a dispensary system to its medical marijuana program this spring, and now the state Department of Health has promulgated proposed rules to regulate it. But even if all goes well -- and non-controversially -- it could be another year before a dispensary actually starts dispensing.

Move over NAOMI, here comes SALOME. Just in time for the Winter Olympics, a new heroin maintenance trial is set to get underway early next year in Vancouver.