News Brief

A state marijuana decrim effort was defeated by an ardent Republican legislator. It's also a case of how "careless lips sink ships."

Cannabis coffee shops in the Dutch border province of Limburg will become "members only" next year as local mayors seek to inhibit "drug tourism." There are other restrictions, too.

A suburban Pittsburgh cop gets probation, two Kentucky cops cop pleas, and a Massachusetts cop gets arrested at work. Just another week in the drug war.

Kansas federal prosecutor Tanya Treadway may have picked on the wrong woman when she went after the Pain Relief Network's Siobhan Reynolds for criticizing her prosecution of a local pain management physician. Now, the ACLU has joined Reynolds in fighting off a Treadway subpoena aimed at chilling her free speech rights and seeing what the doctor's defense is up to.

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe has already presided over years of drug war directed at his own country, he's busily trying to recriminalize drug possession, and now he wants to throw peasant coca farmers in jail. This is a man out of step with his region.

There's been another California medical marijuana dispensary raid with the DEA involved, but so far, it looks like the real culprit is a crusading sheriff in Bakersfield.

Jimmy Carter once let Evo Morales pick some peanuts on his Georgia farm. Now, Morales has invited Carter to pick some coca leaves on his farm in Bolivia's Chapare.

It's getting harder and harder to get prosecuted for drug possession in Argentina. The Argentine courts' slow drift toward decriminalization continued this week.

Bryan Epis, one of a handful of people convicted in federal court for supplying medical marijuana under California's Proposition 215, is facing 10 years in prison. A three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that should stick, but an appeal is pending.

Two-thirds of British Columbia voters favor marijuana legalization, according to a new poll. Now, if only someone would clue in the political parties that claim to represent them.