News Brief

Medical marijuana legislation saw progress in two more states this week, as bills advanced in New Jersey and Delaware. But the New Jersey bill just got more restrictive, too.

Is the Veterans Administration changing its tune on medical marijuana? Well, not exactly, but now it looks like at least they won't throw you out of their pain management programs if you're a registered user in a state where it's legal.

Cops pocketing drug money, cops ripping off drug dealers, cops protecting drug dealers, cops stealing dope, and, of course, another dope-smuggling jail guard.

Taxi drivers' wake-me-up or terrorist drug threat? The herbal stimulant khat is popular with elements of America's immigrant East African population despite being banned by federal law. Now, Washington, DC, home to one of the nation's East African immigrant communities, wants its law to be as severe as federal law. A battle is brewing.

Germany is about to become the latest country to move heroin maintenance from pilot program to permanent. In the US, we maintain our addicts behind bars.

A British drug reform advocacy group is bound to shock some sensibilities with its new bus-side ad campaign, but that's precisely the point.

Canada's Conservative government is hard-line on drug policy issues. It wants mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes and it is in court to try to block Vancouver's safe injection site. But now, it is funding a heroin maintenance pilot project--again.

The Rhode Island legislature is well on its way to passing the medical marijuana dispensary bill by overwhelming veto-proof margins. Take that, Gov. Carcieri!

Louisiana proponents of random, suspicionless drug testing are smarting after being handed a pair of defeats in the past 10 days.

In its first review of Canada's asset forfeiture laws, the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that judges must look at the circumstances of each case in deciding whether full, partial or no forfeiture orders should be issued. In the US, prosecutors make forfeiture decisions.