News Brief

Marijuana decriminalization will be on the Vermont legislature's agenda this session. A bill was filed Tuesday.

The House passed the economic stimulus bill Wednesday, including $3 billion for Byrne grants and $1 billion for COPS. But as the bill heads to the Senate, more than a dozen national organizations are calling for the funding to be cut -- and replaced by programs that will actually do some good.

Another jail guard gets caught, a Michigan narc cops a plea, so does an Arizona cop, and a North Carolina deputy is going to prison.

Faced with anger and ridicule over its drug testing policies, the World Chess Federation decided it didn't want to punish one of game's most popular figures for missing a drug test after all.

The US Supreme Court has chipped away at the Fourth Amendment yet again, this time in a case involving the frisking of passengers in vehicles stopped for traffic violations.

The US general who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan wants to give NATO troops the authority to treat any drug traffickers as military targets. NATO is saying no, thanks.

When New Mexico passed a medical marijuana law in 2007, that law allowed for nonprofit entities to provide medical marijuana for qualified patients. Now, nearly a year and a half later, the state Department of Health has issued regulations for those nonprofits. It is progress, but not enough for some.

A Nebraska man prosecuted for selling salvia -- even though it isn't illegal there -- has been acquitted, but moves to ban the psychedelic member of the mint family are ongoing across the land.

Let's hear it for the global drug trade! It's been propping up the international financial system, said Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and crime.

President Obama has appointed a long-time federal drug war bureaucrat acting director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It feels more like stay the course than change for the better, at least for now.