News Brief

The US war on opium poppy production in Afghanistan turned literal Tuesday when US war planes attacked and destroyed a giant pile of poppy seeds in Helmand province. That'll show those seeds!

Albany, New York, sheriff's deputies suspected Tunde Clement was carrying drugs when he got off a bus from New York City in March 2006. They searched his backpack. Nothing. They strip-searched him. Nothing. Then the took him to a hospital, forcibly sedated him, and shoved a camera up his butt. Now, the county and the hospital are paying for their misdeeds.

Could decriminalization be coming to Chicagoland? The Cook County Board has approved it, but the Board president is making noises like he may veto it.

You've heard of medical marijuana vending machines in Los Angeles, right? Well, the UK one-ups LA with methadone vending machines in its prisons.

What a difference control of Congress makes! For years, pressure has been building to redress the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Now, finally, a bill that would do that is moving in the House, and while it's a Democratic bill it's getting strong bipartisan support. Things are looking good in the Senate too.

Oakland's medical marijuana dispensaries asked the voters to tax them, and the voters said "Okay." A measure creating a first-of-its-kind special business tax on medical marijuana sellers passed by a lopsided margin in pot-friendly Oakland.

Ryan Grim has produced an entertaining, enlightening, and absorbing social history of drug use in America. We have checked it out, and we think you should too.

As part of the Merida Initiative to provide Mexico with more than a billion dollars in anti-drug aid, Congress imposed human rights conditions on Mexico. Now, Human Rights Watch is urging the Obama administration to withhold some of that aid until Mexico deals with human rights abuses by its military.

Hawaii's Republican Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a bill that would have created a task force to study problems and issues with the state's medical marijuana program. Now, the legislature has overridden that veto.

Eleven years after DC voters overwhelmingly approved a medical marijuana initiative, Congress is finally butting out. The House yesterday approved the annual District appropriations bill without the Barr amendment, which had barred the District from implementing that vote.