drugs

(Runtime 1:01)Last month, the number of opioid overdoses in Walla Walla spiked to 124% more than the local monthly average, according to the county’s…

What do you really know about psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms? Research on the substance has lagged behind in the U.S. but recent grassroots…

What do you really know about psilocybin, commonly known as magic mushrooms? Research on the substance has lagged behind in the U.S. but, recent…

More than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the U.S. last year — a record number of cases that reflects a rise of nearly 30% from 2019, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said the increase was driven by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl as well as pandemic-related stressors and problems in accessing care.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that some crack cocaine offenders sentenced to harsh prison terms more than a decade ago cannot get their sentences reduced under a federal law adopted with the purpose of doing just that.

In the middle of this year’s legislative session, the Washington Supreme Court dropped its Blake decision, declaring the law criminalizing drug possession in the state to be unconstitutional. What followed was a sprint by lawmakers to answer the justices’ enormous ruling — a balancing act between conservatives eager to make drug possession a felony again and progressives who wanted to make decriminalization permanent.

A senior Drug Enforcement Administration official told NPR efforts to target drug cartels operating inside Mexico have unraveled because of a breakdown in cooperation between law enforcement agencies and militaries in the two countries.

Prohibition did not limit the demand of alcohol, and many people did not support it, including the police. On an early morning in March 1920, Seattle Police Lieutenant Roy Olmstead and Sergeant T.J. Clark met a crew of bootleggers loading a shipment of Canadian whiskey from Vancouver, B.C. for Seattle. Olmstead and Clark were not there to arrest the criminals, but to watch over the process, since they controlled the operation.

For advocates of drug policy reform and those in the world of criminal defense, the ruling “was a much-needed nail in the coffin on the war on drugs,” said Ali Hohman, director of legal services at the Washington Defender Association. Meanwhile, many prosecutors, law enforcement officials and lawmakers are nervous about its implications.

In a decision with implications for tens of thousands of cases dating back decades, the Washington Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the state’s felony drug possession law because — unlike the laws of every other state — it did not require prosecutors to prove someone knowingly or intentionally possessed drugs.