News Brief

The stench emanating from Philadelphia's Narcotics Field Unit grew even more rank this week, an Arizona cop steals cash to feed his pill habit, and two Indianapolis cops turned thugs are headed for prison.

One congressman marches resolutely backwards into the last century with a bill proposing 25-year sentences for people peddling kind bud. The "kush super-marijuana" turns good citizens into "zombie-like" creatures and must be stopped, suburban Chicago US Rep. Mark Kirk warns.

Rhode Island will become the third medical marijuana dispensary state and the first to expand an existing program to include dispensaries. This after the both houses of the legislature overwhelmingly overrode a veto by chronic medical marijuana obstacle Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri.

The marijuana movement has a ways to go in Chile, according to a new poll. Only about 20% support legalization, and it's about the same for medical marijuana.

Explicitly acknowledging the medicinal use of the herb, the Croatian Supreme Court has thrown out marijuana possession charges against a war veteran who used it to treat PTSD.

Rep. Barney Frank has reintroduced a bill to protect medical marijuana patients and providers and move pot from Schedule I to Schedule II. Will it get any further in a Democratic Congress than it did in Republican ones?

It never ends. Another week of greedy jail guards and thieving policemen. This whole cops robbing drug dealers thing is getting kind of old, too.

In a hangover from the Clinton and Bush administrations' war against medical marijuana, California dispensary operator Charles Lynch was sentenced to a year and a day in prison Thursday. That was well below the mandatory minimum five-year sentence required by federal law, and Lynch remains free on appeal, but advocates say he should not have been punished at all.

Drug overdoses -- both licit and illicit -- are the second leading cause of accidental death for adults in the US. Now, a member of Congress wants to do something about it, and the Drug Policy Alliance has some ideas.

More than a quarter of American adults polled in a recent survey don't think simple drug possessors need to go to jail. That's a start.