News Brief

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.

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.

The resort to the death penalty for drug offenders continues in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, with two executed in Iran last week and six sentenced to death in Vietnam.

The Tennessee Court of Appeals has thrown out the state's illicit drug tax. The state will appeal, and plans to continue assessing the tax in the meanwhile.

Georgia's Fulton County (Atlanta) district attorney has some odd ideas about how asset forfeiture funds should be spent, an audit of his books has found.

The Pennsylvania Pharmacy Board has unveiled a proposed rule that would allow for the purchase of up to 30 needles without a prescription. The move is a harm reduction measure intended to reduce the sharing of injection equipment by drug users and thereby reduce the spread of infectious diseases.

A lawsuit filed by a Santa Cruz medical marijuana co-op and the city and county of Santa Cruz to try to block federal raids on providers in California is down but not out after an adverse ruling by a federal judge.