News Brief

Alabama lawmakers declined to ban salvia divinorum, letting two bills die this week, but a prohibition on the psychedelic plant went into effect in Kansas.

Marijuana is big business in the Netherlands -- a conservative estimate says that the government collects $600 million a year in tax revenues from the coffee shops.

The Texas attorney general has issued an opinion that a law passed last year to allow a needle exchange program in San Antonio does not protect exchange workers from arrest under state paraphernalia laws, so the Lone Star State's first officially-sanctioned needle exchange is dead -- for now.

Iran complains that the West is ignoring opium production in Afghanistan, and some US Marines inadvertently help Tehran make its case.

A conservative Oregon political operative who specializes in "tough on crime" ballot initiatives has given up plans for an initiative that would undo the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act -- at least for this year.

Belated justice comes for two crooked cops, one in Dallas and one in Long Beach.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has sent the DEA a letter demanding that it explain its raids on medical marijuana patients and providers in California. He's threatening to hold hearings, too.

New Haven's former top narc heads to prison, a Louisiana DARE officer goes down, a South Carolina jail guard gets caught shooting cocaine, and an Idaho deputy gets caught ripping off cash and drugs.

Susan LeFevre got busted in Michigan at age 19 for small-time heroin sales. She copped a plea in hopes of leniency, but was instead sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. In 1976, she jumped the wall and fled to California, where she has led an exemplary life every since. Now, thanks to an anonymous tip, she has been tracked down and jailed pending extradition to Michigan. Should she now have to serve her time?

The Dutch are about to ban magic mushrooms. The cabinet passed a proposal and sent it to parliament, where it is expected to be approved.