News Brief

A Chicago SWAT raid of a social club and the killing of a homeowner in a Florida SWAT raid that netted less than an ounce of marijuana are the latest incidents to put heavy-handed police tactics in the spotlight.

A Dutch ban on tobacco smoking in public venues has Amsterdam's coffee shop owners worried. Smoking marijuana remains okay, but those Euro-style tobacco-laced joints will be forbidden.

Coca production in the Andes was up last year, the UN reported this week. The biggest percentage increase was in Colombia, where years of US-funded herbicide spraying have failed to stop farmers.

Trouble in the Hoosier State this week, with some Indy cops busted for ripping off pot dealers and selling their wares and a Muncie drug task force being investigated over its asset forfeiture practices. Also, a Wyoming jailer steals his cop father's drug dog pot stash, and a Massachusetts cop cops a plea.

A Massachusetts man has gotten a medical marijuana distribution initiative on the ballot in Ferndale, Michigan. Is he positioning himself to cash in when (and if) voters approve a statewide medical marijuana initiative in November?

The Argentine government is working on a rewrite of its drug laws, but courts there aren't waiting for the politicians. In April, two federal tribunals in Buenos Aires declared the drug possession laws unconstitutional, and now more courts have followed suit.

The Oregon Court of Appeals has rejected an employer's firing of a medical marijuana patient who did not use on the job, saying it violates state anti-discrimination laws.

A Scottish think-tank tasked by Parliament with figuring out how to reduce drug-related harm has called for marijuana legalization, safe injection sites, and opiate maintenance.

Veteran activist Dana Beal of Global Marijuana March fame spent more than a week behind bars in Illinois, arrested on money-laundering charges after police found $150,000 in cash. But he bailed out Thursday after the original charge vanished, to be replaced by an obstruction of justice charge. The cash is still in custody.

The Merida Initiative anti-drug assistance package for Mexico and Central America passed the House this week, but Mexico is balking at human rights and other conditions in the Senate version of the bill. Will the Senate sacrifice human rights on the altar of the drug war?