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OLYMPIA, Washington – Washington is one of four states where measures to legalize and regulate marijuana have been introduced, and about two dozen other states are considering bills ranging from medical marijuana to decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the herb.

“In terms of state legislatures, this is far and away the most active year that we’ve ever seen,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports reforming marijuana laws.

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WASHINGTON – The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.

Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.

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“Both of them could have ended up dying in a hospital having run up bills of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Kellerman, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Emory University. “Neither of them wanted that, and I fought like hell to keep that from happening.”

As politicians on Capitol Hill debate reforming the health care system, doctors and ethicists say there could easily be tremendous cost savings if doctors and family members had more conversations about end-of-life issues.

A March 2009 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggested that more than $76 million per year could be saved if half of the people who die from cancer annually had end-of-life conversations with their doctors. In the authors’ sample, patients who reported having those talks had 36 percent lower health care costs in the final week of life. Read about life expectancy and health care reform

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WASHINGTON – The Obama White House left open the possibility Sunday that the president would break a campaign promise and raise taxes on people earning less than $250,000 to support his health care overhaul agenda.

White House adviser David Axelrod said the administration wouldn’t rule out taxing some employees’ benefits to fund a health care agenda that has yet to take final form. The move would be a compromise with fellow Democrats, who are pushing the proposal as a way to pay for the massive undertaking without ballooning the federal deficit.

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One of the Democratic advisers told CNN there is fear within the party that the president’s signature issue is “on the rocks” because of dramatically high cost estimates for separate bills being drafted by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts and Max Baucus, D-Montana.

The Congressional Budget Office’s estimate for the Kennedy bill — that it will cost $1 trillion and yet leave millions of Americans without health insurance — has given Republicans strong political ammunition to charge reform may be too expensive at a time of massive federal deficits.

“We’re going to need the White House to step it up a little bit and get more engaged,” said a second Democratic adviser, who acknowledged concerns that Republicans are gaining steam in the message battle. “We’ve got some time to sort this out, but decision time is just around the corner.”

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WASHINGTON – The pharmaceutical industry agreed Saturday to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors on Medicare and defraying the cost of President Barack Obama’s health care legislation, capping secretive negotiations involving key lawmakers and the White House.

“This new coverage means affordable prices on prescription drugs when Medicare benefits don’t cover the cost of prescriptions,” Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement announcing the accord.

The deal marked a major triumph for Baucus as well as the administration. Obama praised the deal.

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In Mexico last year, drug violence was blamed for the deaths of 78 soldiers and more than 6,000 others. This year, the drug violence has claimed more than 2,900 lives, according to the newspaper El Universal.

Much of the violence has affected the U.S.-Mexico border.

Over the last five years, about 87 percent of firearms seized and traced by Mexican authorities were purchased in the United States, a draft of the report says. Most of the weapons were acquired at gun shops and shows in border states, according to the report. Many of these are high-caliber and high-power weapons, including AK-47s and AR-15 semiautomatic rifles.

Full Story At Obama lacks key leaders in drug cartel crackdown – Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has unveiled a broad new strategy to fight violent Mexican drug cartels on the border. It only lacks the presidential choices to run the top U.S. agencies battling drugs, border smuggling and illegal guns.

The White House has yet to nominate anyone to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the Customs and Border Protection agency, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Those positions remain empty — their duties performed by career officials acting in a temporary capacity — even as the White House pledges an all-out attack on the drug cartels that threaten to destabilize Mexico and expand operations in the United States.

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WASHINGTON – However they satisfy their nicotine cravings, tobacco users are facing a big hit as the single largest federal tobacco tax increase ever takes effect Wednesday.

Tobacco companies and public health advocates, longtime foes in the nicotine battles, are trying to turn the situation to their advantage. The major cigarette makers raised prices a couple of weeks ago, partly to offset any drop in profits once the per-pack tax climbs from 39 cents to $1.01.

Medical groups see a tax increase right in the middle of a recession as a great incentive to help persuade smokers to quit.

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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama has chosen Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s drug czar and lead a stepped-up campaign against substance abuse, Vice President Joe Biden announced Wednesday.

Biden said the 36-year law enforcement veteran will bring to the task a lifetime of experience working on drug policy.