News Brief

It's not just Marines pouring into Afghanistan this summer. As the Obama administration shifts its emphasis from poppy eradication to targeting traffickers, the DEA is expanding operations there big-time.

It's a corrupt cops twofer for New Jersey, another twofer for Indiana, a two-for-one special on Texas deputies, and a lone prison guard in Florida.

Shem Walker was trying to run scruffy ruffians off of his stoop. Now, he's dead. Adam Stogner didn't want to let a deputy see what he had in his mouth. Now, he's dead. Demarco Washington didn't want to go back to jail on a drug charge. Now, he's dead. And so is an unnamed man who allegedly pointed a gun at police during a predawn drug raid.

When 136 people died after drinking illicit alcohol in India's Gujarat state, critics were quick to call for an end to alcohol prohibition there. The state government isn't listening to them.

America's drug war in Latin America is a bipartisan affair. The Obama administration is negotiating with the Colombian government to create a major anti-drug base there to replace the one in Manta, Ecuador. Oh, and it also has nice force projection capabilities.

Mexico's prohibition-related violence is very ugly, and it's not just the narcos committing atrocities. The Mexican military has been accused of more than 2,000 human rights abuses, ranging from theft and robbery to rape, torture, and murder as it wages war on the so-called cartels.

The Danish government cracked down on the Christiania enclave's famous "Pusher Street" six years ago. But now, with the hash trade spreading across the city and fomenting gang violence, "Pusher Street" doesn't seem so bad in retrospect, and Copenhagen officials are pondering whether to open Amsterdam-style coffee shops.

Since cannabis went back to being a Class B drug in England, London police have been ticketing and fining marijuana users like crazy. But funny thing -- they aren't bothering to pay the fines.

The future of Holland's pragmatically tolerant approach to cannabis sales is up for debate this year. A government commission has recommended making the coffee shops "members only," but also legalizing the supply of cannabis to the coffee shops. Neither is likely to fly within the broader European Union context.

A crooked Chicago cop goes to prison and a pair of jail guards get stung.