Ron Paul may have achieved something of a victory by coming in third in the Iowa caucus yesterday, which is something few political wonks could have imagined a couple of months ago. Still, something should be said for the fact that he maintained his firm stance against the drug war after being narrowly beaten by candidates who are absolutely against marijuana reform.

In an early morning interview, Paul renewed his call to end federal interference in state marijuana laws and repeatedly called the drug war a failure. He even went so far as to call it a worse failure than alcohol prohibition! And according to Paul, his performance at the Iowa caucus proves that many Americans agree with him and are fed up.

Here’s the video, courtesy of Huffington Post.

And then we have Newt Gingrich. Earlier today at a press conference in New Hampshire, an SSDP member asked the candidate how he felt about states’ rights and how the Founding Fathers would have felt about growing marijuana. [Read more →]

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The Coalition to End Marijuana Prohibition, the MPP-backed issue committee paying for the signature drive in Colorado for the initiative to regulate marijuana like alcohol, has hit a major milestone.

As of today, the campaign has 100,000 signatures in hand! This puts us more than two-thirds of the way toward our goal of collecting 145,000 raw signatures by January 6, with 86,105 valid signatures needed to qualify the initiative for the November 2012 ballot.

There are some amazing volunteers helping out on the ground, but we simply cannot finish the drive without also paying people to circulate petitions. The cold weather that’s descending on Colorado has forced us to increase the amount we’re paying per signature by $0.50. Would you please help us cover the additional $22,500 that we need to finish the signature drive by donating $10, $50, or even $1,000 today?

According to the latest poll, 51% of Coloradans support regulating and taxing marijuana like alcohol, with only 38% of voters opposed. While these are encouraging numbers, the campaign is far from over. This is one of the primary reasons we need to finish the signature drive as soon as possible — so the campaign can begin to focus on educating the residents of Colorado about the benefits of passing this initiative.

If you live in Colorado and would like to help the campaign, there are a variety of ways to do so. Visit this page to find out what you can do, including becoming a paid signature gatherer.

Together, we will end marijuana prohibition.

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It’s bad enough that so many self-declared conservatives, who support personal freedoms and limited government in so many other respects, are opposed to taxing and regulating marijuana. But it’s completely unacceptable for an otherwise stalwart progressive to have such backward views on marijuana.

Asked last night whether she supports legalizing and regulating marijuana, leading Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren gave a flat, no-nonsense (and no-common sense) “no.” Several other candidates for the Democratic nomination had more reasoned answers, and one correct answer – that marijuana should be taxed and regulated in a manner similar to alcohol (apparently to big applause).

Ms. Warren might want to give some more thought to the question the next time it comes up. The people of Massachusetts she hopes to represent already decided by a wide margin that people shouldn’t be arrested for possession of small amounts of marijuana when 65% of them voted in favor of an MPP-written and sponsored decriminalization initiative (PDF) just three years ago.  And it’s not just Massachusetts. By far the most popular draw at the White House’s We The People petition site is “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol.” In fact, half of the top ten most popular submissions deal with the subject.

Even President Obama gets it at times: “If you think about the enormous changes that have been made in terms of people’s use of tobacco, for example, that wasn’t because they were arrested.” Did you hear that Ms. Warren?

If you live in Massachusetts and would like to politely urge Ms. Warren to reconsider, you can do so here.

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We are all used to the federal government offering only limited deference to states when it comes to medical marijuana. And we are certainly used to it refusing to admit that patients have a legal right to use marijuana for medical purposes, or even that marijuana has medical value at all.

Apparently, it also thinks that those who are abiding by state law and using medical marijuana do not have certain constitutional rights, either.

In a memo issued last week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the federal government asserted that it is a violation of federal law to possess a gun or ammunition if you are a marijuana user. This broad definition also includes individuals who are state-legal medical marijuana patients.

It is important to note that this is only the opinion of the BATFE and is not legally binding. A case dealing with this issue for an individual patient has not been taken up on a federal level, yet many who are charged with federal marijuana violations often find themselves facing additional firearms charges extending from searches of their property. The Department of Justice has so far kept fairly close to its word when it comes to leaving medical marijuana patients alone, but one could easily imagine a situation in which a firearm violation could be used to prosecute a particularly meddlesome patient who may not be doing anything involving marijuana that would warrant investigation.

It is also important to remember that the federal government cannot force state and local law enforcement to enforce federal law. For example, the DEA can’t make the Colorado state police ignore their medical marijuana laws and start arresting patients for violating the Controlled Substances Act. So don’t start worrying that just because you have a medical marijuana card, you are about to be raided because you own a firearm. In fact, a court decision in Oregon ruled that states have every right to allow patients to possess firearms and may even grant them concealed-carry licenses if they wish.

However, federal law enforcement does reserve the right to charge you with firearms violations if you are a patient and own a gun. This should be no more worrisome in practical terms than the Department of Justice asserting that it has the legal right to charge you with marijuana violations if you are a patient and own some medicine.

This is much more troubling in terms of individual rights and human dignity. The Second Amendment clearly states our rights as citizens to possess firearms. The federal government, however, seems to think that people who use marijuana to treat their illnesses can not only face arrest for doing so, but are also not entitled to the same constitutional rights as everyone else. Regardless of the promises to not target medical marijuana users, it is pretty clear that the government views them as second-class citizens. This discrimination cannot be tolerated in a free society.

The full memo can be viewed here.

Special thanks to Ed Docter from the Montana Cannabis Industry Association for the tip.

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