News Brief

The Taliban is profiting from prohibition. The Islamic insurgents made $100 million last year taxing poppy farmers, UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa said this week.

An Ohio jailer, a Connecticut cop, and a pair of Florida deputies get busted, a Louisiana cop goes on trial, a Texas constable cops a plea, and so does a Texas US Border Patrol Agent.

Two weeks ago, we reported on the battle over Mendocino County's Measure B, which would rein in the county's liberal cultivation laws. Now the results are in: B won in a squeaker.

For the second year in a row, the New York Assembly has passed a medical marijuana bill. But the state Senate must act by Monday, when the legislature recesses, or the effort to enact a medical marijuana law in the Empire State will be dead for this year.

The Law, Constitution, and Justice Committee of Israel's Knesset (parliament) has approved a measure that would ban the sale of bongs, or water pipes often used to smoke marijuana. It has two more readings to go and then a floor vote to become law.

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?