News Brief

Saudi Arabia executed more drug offenders this week, and Vietnam sentenced more to death. But in a rare move, China commuted the death sentences of two Ugandan women.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez' embrace of coca continued last weekend as he publicly chewed the leaf and thanked Bolivian President Evo Morales for bringing him some more. Coca isn't cocaine, Chávez pointed out.

A bill that would decriminalize the possession of up to 1.25 ounces of marijuana got a first hearing in the New Hampshire legislature this week. Two law enforcement officials spoke out in favor of it.

Last year, the Texas legislature approved a pilot needle exchange program in Bexar County (San Antonio), but a recalcitrant District Attorney has blocked it. Now, after San Antonio police arrested needle exchangers this week, the same DA is trying to hammer them.

The California Supreme Court has ruled that employers may fire medical marijuana users. The backlash is just getting underway.

US drug czar John Walters accused Venezuela of "colluding" in the cocaine traffic, an accusation Venezuela did not take lying down. Meanwhile, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says he chews coca, much to the dismay of the Miami Herald.

The Mexican army has moved into a number of Rio Grande Valley border towns in Tamaulipas state and taken over from local police, whom it is investigating for links to the drug traffic.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) has proposed a tax on illegal drugs as part of his budget proposal. $3.50 a gram for marijuana might be -- if it were legal, at least -- but $200 a gram for cocaine!?

In the latest installment of an ongoing snitch scandal in northeast Ohio, a federal judge has freed 15 men sentenced to prison on crack conspiracy charges based on perjured testimony from a DEA informant. Now, the informant is in prison, and the DEA agent is in the crosshairs.

The city council in Burlington, Vermont, has rejected putting a marijuana decriminalization proposal before the voters. But a council committee will study the idea.