News Brief

The Dallas police department will now hire applicants who admit to past hard drug use -- but only if it was more than 10 years, the applicant was under 21, he didn't shoot up, and he only did it once.

There's some funny accounting in some Mississippi anti-drug task forces, there's a bunch of dope missing from the Boston police evidence room, and crooked cops are headed for prison in Chicago, Nashville, and New Haven.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says he is willing to discuss marijuana decriminalization. He is responding to a proposal from a key Democratic legislator, and he's taking a much softer stance than he did just a couple of months ago.

The Nebraska attorney general and at least one legislator want to protect Cornhusker youth from salvia divinorum by sending them to prison for five years if they get caught with it.

An Ohio SWAT shot and killed a young black mother and wounded the toddler she was holding in her arms during a routine drug raid last Friday. An angry community wants some answers and some accountability.

North Wales Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is at it again. The veteran critic of drug prohibition has stirred up a hornet's nest with his latest comments, including one that ecstasy is "safer than aspirin."

The Texas legislature last year gave local law enforcement the option of ticketing misdemeanor marijuana offenders instead of arresting them, but only Travis County has gone for it.

Less than two weeks after Congress finally removed a decade-old ban on the District of Columbia using its own money to fund needle exchanges, District officials announced they would spend $650,000 to expand existing program and start new ones.

Iran rang in the new year by hanging three drug offenders, and Vietnam sentenced eight more to die.

If you're in pain at a hospital emergency room, you're more likely to get the medication you need if you're white, a new study has found.