News Brief

A bill that would make New York the next medical marijuana state has won an Assembly committee vote.

Acting from firmly prohibitionist principles, the Russian government saw potential new drug threats on the horizon and promptly criminalized them.

With the Obama administration having removed the threat of federal prosecutions, the door is swinging open for an expansion of medical marijuana dispensaries. Activists in Oregon are walking through that door, and they are carrying a whole bunch of gathered signatures with them. Look for a dispensary initiative on the ballot there this fall.

Last weekend saw the single deadliest 24-hour-period ever in Mexico's drug war, with 69 people killed. And that's just for starters.

San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi wants the city's residents to vote on a measure that would make it city policy to license, tax, and regulate marijuana cultivation and sales, and not just medical. Now, he has to convince the rest of the Supes to agree with him -- or at least a majority.

The New Jersey legislature has become the first in the nation to pass a bill reforming mandatory minimum school zone laws. Gov. Jon Corzine has said he will sign it.

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

A Colorado judge has delivered a shot across the bow to towns and cities moving to ban medical marijuana dispensaries on the grounds they violate federal law.

A California judge can order a medical marijuana patient to hand in his ID card and give up his medicine if he wants to go on probation instead of to prison, an appeals court has ruled in a 2-1 decision. The ruling provoked a harsh dissent.

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.