News Brief

College athletes who like to toke up, take note! The NCAA is making it easier for you to test positive and, while it will lower the penalty, that lower penalty won't take effect for another year.

The agonizingly slow pace of implementing medical marijuana laws is causing problems in several states, while in California, the never-ending battles continue.

It's drug testing bill time in state legislatures again, and a measure to drug test welfare recipients now awaits a Senate floor vote in Virginia.

The Czech parliament has approved a medical marijuana bill, and the Czech president is expected to sign it, but patient advocates have some problems with some of its provisions.

Narcs gone bad, evidence gone missing, cops gone over to the other side, and another jailer in trouble. Just another week in the drug war.

It may soon be harder for patients to get access to hydrocodone-based pain relievers like Vicodin after an FDA advisory panel recommended moving them from Schedule III to Schedule II in an effort to prevent overdoses and addiction.

A bipartisan marijuana legalization bill has been rolled out in New Hampshire. That's one of at least six states where similar bills have been or will be filed this year.

A British grandmother caught smuggling 10 pounds of cocaine into the Indonesian resort of Bali has been sentenced to death -- even though prosecutors asked only for 15 years. The court said her actions hurt Bali's reputation as a tourist destination.

A Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, woman suffering from terrible pain went to the hospital for help. Instead, she was jailed for possessing two pain pills without a prescription. She died in jail two hours later.

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he wants to abolish mandatory minimum sentences, and he hopes the federal government doesn't spend a lot of money enforcing marijuana laws in states where it is legal.