News Brief

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) and 25 cosponsors have filed a bill that would lift the 20-year-old federal ban on funding for needle exchange programs.

Although Washington state has a medical marijuana law and the city of Seattle has a lowest law enforcement priority ordinance, Seattle police two weeks ago raided a medical marijuana co-op, seizing patient records and 12 ounces of medicine. The co-op got the records back, but now the DEA has seized the marijuana.

The Bolivian government announced late last week that it would fund its own anti-drug units in a bid to reduce foreign (read: US) influence over its coca and cocaine policies.

A leading independent British commission has examined the UK's war on drugs and found it ineffective and misguided.

Prison guards get busted as cocaine traffickers in Louisiana and New Jersey, and a pair of North Carolina cops plea to helping out the local cocaine trade.

Another year, and another report showing racial profiling by Illinois law enforcement. Now, civil rights groups want the governor to end the policy of allowing consent searches by state troopers.

A pair of Iranian physicians who are internationally known harm reduction practitioners have been arrested by Iranian authorities. No reason has been given, they are being held incommunicado, and there is a petition drive underway to secure their release.

An initiative that would make adult marijuana possession offenses the lowest law enforcement priority is in the signature-gathering phase in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The man who until last month was in charge of US anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan accuses the Karzai government of involvement in the drug trade. He's not too happy with the US military and NATO, either.

The resort to the ultimate sanction for drug offenders continues apace in China and Saudi Arabia.