News Brief

Cops planting drugs, cops stealing drugs, cops stealing and doing drugs, cops stealing drugs and money--just another week of drug prohibition-related corruption.

The New Jersey Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will extend drug court eligibility to any nonviolent offender who is likely to receive a sentence of probation.

A marijuana decriminalization initiative effort got underway last Friday in Joplin, Missouri.

Citing cases of human rights violations by soldiers prosecuting Mexico's drug war, the country's top human rights official has called for an end to the military's role.

After a three year struggle with recalcitrant local officials, a dedicated and persistent activist has managed to get a package of marijuana initiatives on the ballot in a small Idaho town.

A committee of the European Parliament has called for a pilot project for diverting illicit Afghan opium to the licit medicinal market.

Vietnam sentences more people to die for drug trafficking, while Iran hangs 17 for similar offenses.

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.