News Brief

Dr. John P. Morgan, coauthor of "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" and a leading academic advocate for drug policy reform, died suddenly last Friday. He will be sorely missed.

A judge in Cali has found a Colombian army colonel and 14 of his troops guilty of murder for killing 10 elite Colombian anti-drug police and their informant at the request of drug traffickers.

The drug laws just got tougher in Australia's Queensland. The parliament there passed a bill increasing penalties for Ecstasy, PMA, and a number of other drugs, added "analogues" to the list, and made it a crime to provide items used to make drugs.

As the British government prepares for a seemingly inevitable up-scheduling of marijuana, a new poll finds that a plurality of Britons like the penalties for pot possession as they are, and about one quarter would just like to see it legalized or decriminalized.

Scandinavia tends toward harsh drug policies, but that isn't stopping marijuana growers in Norway. Police there report a series of recent grow up busts.

With its prisons stuffed to the gills with drug offenders thanks to years of legislative "tough on drugs" initiatives, Idaho is now beginning to look for alternatives. One comes in a bill that would allow judges to divert "addicts" convicted of drug sales to treatment instead of giving them mandatory prison time.

The city of Tel Aviv has proposed a pilot heroin maintenance program for recalcitrant older users. Now it is seeking approval from the Israeli Ministry of Health.

Medical marijuana vending machines, oh my! The International Narcotics Control Board expresses its "concern."

Indiana's methadone clinics and patients are under attack in the Indiana legislature -- again. This time, pols want to make clinic patients have designated drivers and test them for marijuana. At least a proposal to bar them from bringing their children to the clinic has died -- for now.

A Pennsylvania cop's bad habits get him in trouble, a Boston cop goes to prison for steroids and perjury, and a Texas Department of Public Safety technician goes away for a long, long time for ripping off the lab's cocaine stash.