News Brief

A Chesapeake, Virginia, narcotics officer was killed last week as he attempted to break down a door during a raid on a suspected marijuana grow operation. His alleged killer now faces first degree murder charges.

Leonard French followed New Mexico's medical marijuana law to the letter, but that didn't stop the Pecos Valley Drug Task Force from seizing his plants and grow equipment and giving it to the DEA. Now he's suing.

Joining a handful of other states, Illinois made salvia divinorum illegal as of January 1. Now, Virginia wants to be next. A bill to ban it has already passed the House of Delegates and is headed to the state Senate.

Nigeria's top narc warns of the evils of marijuana as he burns tons of the stuff, but it looks like he's fighting a losing battle.

A debate on drug policy is gathering steam in Vermont, where the legislature is set to ponder both marijuana decriminalization and harsher sentencing for some hard drug offenses.

Giving or selling any amount of marijuana to a minor can get you 10 years in South Dakota, but now the state attorney general wants to increase those penalties for all but small amounts, and his bill is moving in the legislature.

For 30 years, Nebraska has lived with marijuana decriminalization. Now, a state legislator wants to take the state back to the bad old days.

Because small-time marijuana possession is decriminalized in California, a state appeals court has ruled that even if police see you smoking a joint in your living room, they still can't search your place without a warrant -- unless you let them.

The arrest and prosecution of a Kansas pain management physician and his nurse wife have prompted a leading pain advocacy group to file a lawsuit challenging the application of the Controlled Substance Act when it comes to doctors and patients.

The new year has brought more drug war violence to the Mexican border, as drug gunmen battled cops and soldiers in a bloody confrontation in Rio Bravo, across the river from McAllen, Texas.