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Sen. Nick Scutari said the Health Department's draft regulations for growing, distributing and buying medical marijuana set up too many roadblocks for people the law was designed to help. He wants to force the state to rewrite what he says are overly restrictive rules that make the program unworkable. Scutari said he'll introduce a resolution Monday challenging the proposed regulations.

A radio station broadcast what it described as a telephone conversation in which Mexican congressman Julio Cesar Godoy Toscano and one of Mexico's biggest drug prohibition lords, La Familia leader Servando "La Tuta" Gomez, express support for each other and discuss bribing a reporter. Godoy represents the western state of Michoacan, La Familia's stronghold. He already faces federal charges for allegedly protecting the drug trafficking organization but has immunity from arrest because he is a congressman.

President Barack Obama insulted -- albeit inadvertently -- the folks at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration by mentioning the FBI instead of their agency in remarks about the war on drugs. Over the years, the DEA has often felt neglected -- or at least has been in the shadow of the FBI. To boot, there have been occasional rumors over the years about the DEA being folded into the FBI, which also investigates drug cases.

Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw issued a travel warning advising Texans that nobody should head to Mexico at this point. McCraw stressed the advisory due to the increased drug prohibition violence and threat from drug trafficking organizations.

A Mexican drug trafficking organization already raking in hefty profits trafficking drugs to the United States under drug prohibition has discovered a new business in the western state of Michoacan -- illegal mining.

Arizonans appear to be ready to approve medical marijuana for the third time. A new statewide poll shows 52 percent of likely voters in support of Proposition 203. Only 33 percent are opposed, with the balance undecided.

Ten years ago, Portugal became the first Western nation to pass full-scale, nationwide drug decriminalization. That law, passed October 1, 2000, abolished criminal sanctions for all narcotics — not just marijuana but also “hard drugs” like heroin and cocaine. By any metric, Portugal’s drug decriminalization scheme has been a resounding success.

A survey shows that some 80 percent of Pennsylvanians are in favor of making marijuana legal for medical purposes. The survey, by two Franklin & Marshall College staff members, also showed that 33 percent of the state’s voters favor the outright legalization of marijuana.

The American Civil Liberties Union is representing a western Pennsylvania woman who says her newborn baby was seized by county welfare workers after she failed a drug test because she ate a poppy seed bagel.

Mothers from across California rallied at the state capitol Wedneday to launch a national movement to end the nation's war on drugs. The group wants alternatives to jail time for drug offenses, such as addiction treatment. "While it may seem counter-intuitive that a group of mothers would say such a thing, it's because we love our children and we really feel the war on drugs is more harmful than the drugs themselves," Gretchen Burns Bergman, mother and rally leader said.

New Jersey officials setting up the state's new medical marijuana program got a pipeful from people hoping to get one of the six Alternative Treatment Center Licenses that the new law calls for initially. It was a raucous assault on the recently revealed regulations crafted by Dr. Susan Walsh and her staff at the Department of Health and Senior Services.

The independent RAND corporation said that federal drug statistics are pretty much total garbage.