News Brief

Crooked policing sparks lawsuits in Oakland and New Haven, another jail guard goes down, so does a Border Patrol inspector, a Louisiana narc gets busted for burglary, and an Illinois cop gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

The Swiss will vote November 30 on whether to decriminalize marijuana and whether to continue the government's ongoing four pillars drug strategy, complete with prescription heroin.

A pair of would-be North Dakota hemp farmers were in a federal appeals court Wednesday as they resumed their bid to get the federal government out of their way.

Five years ago, the Thai government waged a "war on drugs" that left nearly 3,000 people dead in less than three months. Now, it has declared a new drug war, and human rights groups are issuing warnings.

Texas is the latest state to see an effort to ban salvia divinorum with a bill introduced this week. Another bill would limit its sales to adults, but it's not the one getting attention.

People busted with dirty pipes or needles in Cleveland will no longer face felony drug possession charges -- unless they try really hard.

The lower house of the Czech parliament has approved reforms to the penal code that would decriminalize marijuana possession and separate "hard" and "soft" drugs.

Do drug defendants have the constitutional right to cross-examine the laboratory analysts who prepare crime lab reports? That was the question before the Supreme Court in oral arguments Monday.

Who will replace drug czar John Walters in an Obama administration? The early speculation centered on LAPD Chief William Bratton, but now he has removed himself from consideration.

The US has spent $6 billion on Plan Colombia since 1999. The goal was to reduce coca and cocaine production by half. They didn't even come close, a new GAO report reveals.