News Brief

We really get tired of writing the same old story about record prison and jail populations every year, but it's that time again.

A grassroots petition drive to get medical marijuana on the 2010 ballot in Florida is underway. Organizers need almost 700,000 signatures and $5 million for the drive and the election campaign, and they're counting on web-based activism to get them there.

Ohio's law criminalizing salvia divinorum went into effect Tuesday, but the first arrest under it came Monday. Go figure.

The British government contends that drug legalization could not possibly have enough benefits to justify switching from prohibition, but it has never provided the evidence. Now, a new study that actually has done a comparative analysis finds the UK could be saving billions a year by legalizing.

Police say that aggressive drug raids are good at protecting police, but two dramatic officer deaths that were caused by those tactics suggest the opposite. So do the statistics -- only three law enforcement officers died conducting drug raids last year. At least that many citizens were killed, and who knows how many dogs.

Minnesota's medical marijuana bill won its fourth and final Senate committee vote Thursday. It's won that many House committee votes, too. Floor votes loom, but so does the grim visage of a veto-wielding Republican governor.

Canada's Conservative government is pushing a pair of tough on drugs and crime bills that would institute mandatory minimum sentencing, but the Liberals and the NDP are starting to push back.

What's up with Pennsylvania? Yet more ugliness from the Keystone State, as well as the all too predictable border guard in trouble and jail guard with a bad habit.

Will Connecticut be the next state to decriminalize marijuana possession? A bill is moving in the legislature, but a Republican governor is making veto noises -- again.

Just what an expectant mother with a drug problem needs: To be arrested and go to jail. That's what one Missouri bill would do. Over in Tennessee, legislators showed some common sense by refusing to act on similar bills.