News Brief

A bill that would have imposed a tax on illegal drugs and required possessors to obtain it within 48 hours has died a timely death in the Virginia legislature.

Who shoots drugs? Teenage black junkies? Middle-aged white guys? You might be surprised.

In the wake of the killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston during a "no-knock" drug raid gone bad, the Atlanta NAACP is calling for tight restrictions on such raids, as well as other police reforms.

A proposed draconian new drug law in the southwestern African nation of Namibia is running into intense opposition at public hearings this week. Some people think 20 years in prison for possessing a joint is too much.

North Dakota's Agriculture Commissioner signed the first two licenses for farmers to grow hemp on Monday, but they must still win approval from the DEA. Don't hold your breath.

Britain's Conservative Party has joined the call to license Afghan opium. The move comes just days after the British Medical Association called for it to be converted into diamorphine (heroin) for use by the National Health Service.

Louisiana's "heroin lifers" got no relief from the state Supreme Court last week when it ruled a 2001 law cutting sentences did not apply retroactively. But they still have one more avenue of redress.

Despite the meth mania rampant in the media and among law enforcement and politicians, official numbers show meth use levels stagnant in recent years and beginning to decline in 2005.

Narcotics officers in Jacksonville, Florida, shot and killed two men in separate incidents during undercover drug operations in late January. Both men were black, neither was a drug dealer, and calls for an investigation are increasing.

This week, we have a prison guard busted for smuggling drugs OUT of a jail, along with more typical drug-smuggling guard cases, a teenage military policeman in trouble, a retirement age former cop busted, and another Nashville police officer found guilty of drug corruption charges.