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It is springtime on The Farm, a cooperative in the heart of Oregon's Applegate Valley wine country that will grow some 200 plants to supply about 70 card-carrying medical marijuana patients. Here, surrounded by wineries, bed and breakfasts, churches and a school, the legal side of marijuana operates in plain sight, visible to hang gliders soaring overhead, drivers on nearby roads, and viewers of Google Maps. "The fact is that they can grow marijuana right under our nose...Until we catch them doing something illegal with it, there is nothing we can do about it," said Grants Pass Police Sgt. Ray Myers.

For years, these inspections have been conducted before cattle cross the border, but the drug prohibition war has prompted the U.S. to move some of its operations north. The change, instituted over the past year at three of the 11 ports along the U.S.-Mexico border, is drawing concern from some cattle raisers, who fear infections long eradicated in the U.S. but still showing up in Mexico will spread before inspection. The change is supposed to be temporary, although there are no immediate plans for the American inspectors to return to Mexico.

Jeremy Sare of the Guardian says that when it comes to the new wave of legal highs, the UK's politicians are like Amish farmers blinking up at jet planes tearing across the sky. They are wilfully living "out of time" but certain of the virtue of their archaic methods. There is no evidence to suggest making a drug controlled can reduce its use.

Gov. Jack Markell has signed legislation making Delaware the 16th state to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The Montana Cannabis Industry Association filed legal papers with the secretary of state’s office Thursday to start a signature-gathering effort to let Montanans vote in 2012 on a soon-to-be medical marijuana law it opposes. The paperwork was delivered to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s office late Thursday. "We’re moving forward on all fronts," said Kate Cholewa, spokeswoman for the group. "The people want what they voted for and what the Legislature did is not it."

In a rare show of bipartisanship and upstate-downstate agreement, freshman state Sen. Mark Grisanti is co-sponsoring a bill with Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries to reduce from a misdemeanor to a violation public possession of small amounts of marijuana. The co-sponsors say many people, especially minorities in New York City, end up getting arrested for small amounts if they are stopped by a police officer and told to empty their pockets -- at which point the possession becomes public.

Washington medical marijuana advocates have been trying to pass a bill to allow marijuana dispensaries. Last month, Governor Chris Gregoire vetoed large parts of their bill. She said it would’ve put state workers in the position of violating federal law. Gregoire says she wants all the states that allow medical marijuana to petition the federal government to reclassify cannabis as a schedule II drug. She scheduled a conference call among those states Thursday.

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon militarized his country's battle to continue drug prohibition in December 2006, more than 34,600 have died in prohibition violence. Along with the violence has grown a pervasive culture of corruption and fear. After the discovery of the most recent mass graves, 16 police officers were detained under suspicion of involvement. Despite the government's promises of security and increased aid, many remain unconvinced, and say that governmental control in the region is visible little, if at all.