News Brief

A pilot heroin maintenance program in three British locations has been successful in cutting crime and street drug use, according to preliminary results.

It looks like medical marijuana will be on the 2008 ballot in Michigan. Organizers of a signature-gathering campaign for an initiative turned in nearly 500,000 signatures this week, almost 200,000 more than needed.

The Irish Labor Party debated whether to make cannabis legalization or decrim part of the party platform at its annual conference last Friday, but deferred a decision on whether to do so.

With elections looming on Saturday and his party trailing, Australian Prime Minister has announced a "zero tolerance" plan to take control of welfare payments for drug offenders.

Arch-drug warrior went a little too far when he called opponents of his pet financial aid drug convictions law a pack of drug legalizers. Now, he's being called on it.

The Australian state of Queensland is effectively increasing penalties for a number of drugs by rescheduling them as more dangerous.

Another harvest season has come and gone in California, and law enforcement is crowing about record marijuana plant seizures. The numbers are huge, but the numbers missed are bigger -- and so are the lost tax revenues.

A week after Denver voters for the third time in as many years signaled that marijuana users should not be arrested, city officials are moving -- reluctantly -- to implement a lowest priority initiative.

Tennessee's narc of the year gets busted, and cops in Boston and Buffalo cop pleas.

Pop music is full of drug references, researchers have found, most of them positive. Stop the presses!