News Brief

Some legislators never met a psychoactive substance they didn't want to prohibit. Kansas state Sen. Peggy Mast (R) is one of them. Now, she wants to do to K-2 what she's already done to salvia divinorum and jimson weed.

In a historic shift of position, the American Medical Association now says that marijuana is medicine, more research is needed, and its status as a Schedule I drug should be reviewed.

A dirty Philly cop gets smacked hard, a dirty St. Louis cop gets his hands slapped, and two more jail and prison guards get caught.

To be a caregiver or not be a caregiver? That is the question in Colorado, and the criminal courts, civil courts, state bureaucrats, and the medical marijuana industry are all fighting over it.

Breckenridge, Colorado, a Rocky Mountain ski town, just voted overwhelmingly to legalize marijuana under municipal ordinance. Denver did that in 2005.

Dutch authorities at all levels are tightening the screws on the country's famous cannabis coffee shops, and now a prominent coffee shop owner is on trial for violating the rules about how much he can have on hand.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is floating an amendment to Jim Webb's bill to create a commission on criminal justice reforms. Grassley's amendment would bar any talk of legalization or decriminalization.

For years, federal prosecutors on the US-Mexican border have been so swamped with smuggling cases that they refuse to prosecute busts under 500 pounds. Local prosecutors can't handle the overflow, either, so now, the US is sending busted Mexican pot smugglers back home to be prosecuted.

The British government seems to think that if drug policy is not supported by science, you need to trash the science -- and the scientist -- not the failed policy. It fired a leading voice for science- and evidence-based drug policies last Friday for what amounted to heresy against official dogma.

No break in Mexico's prohibition-related violence as the death toll since December 2006, when President Calderon called in the army, has now topped 15,000. The latest victims include a US soldier gunned down in a Ciudad Juárez strip club with five other people.