News Brief

In its annual exercise in certifying the compliance of other countries with US drug policy objectives, the Bush administration this week listed 20 major producing or trafficking nations, but singled out only political foes Myanmar and Venezuela for decertification.

Shot Caller Press, LLC is conducting a poetry contest with cash prizes for prisoners, ex-prisoners, family members or friends of prisoners, prison guards, prison volunteers, or prison workers.

Florida pain patient Richard Paey won some justice Thursday when Gov. Charlie Crist went beyond his family's request for clemency and instead pardoned him in full. The wheelchair bound prisoner was three years into a mandatory minimum 25-year sentence as a drug trafficker for fraudulently trying to obtain pain pills. Now he is no longer even a convicted felon.

For the second time in less than a year, dozens of Rio de Janeiro police have been arrested in a drug prohibition-related corruption sweep.

In return for a wage increase, a Hawaii teachers' union bargaining unit agreed to a program of random, suspicionless drug testing of teachers. Now, the ACLU will challenge the program in court.

The first California medical marijuana provider prosecuted by the feds was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison -- again -- but Bryan Epis remains a free man for now.

A high-level DEA official has again linked the illegal drug trade to the funding of terrorist organizations, but failed to note the role of drug prohibition.

The Colombian government has offered its strongest criticism yet of US-backed aerial spraying of coca crops, saying it has been a failure.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union lives -- barely -- and is meeting this week in Indianapolis to continue the battle against demon run and its contemporary counterparts.

Another week's worth of law enforcement officers done in by the temptations created by drug prohibition, including a sheriff headed for prison for turning a blind eye, a prosecutor whose coke habit got him in trouble, a greedy Boston cop, and a pair of pill-peddling policemen.