This video is being distributed by a group opposing legislation to tax and regulate marijuana in California. Seriously. We are not making this up.

Today the California state Assembly will hold a historic hearing looking at whether marijuana prohibition should be replaced with a system of regulation and taxation. The growing push for change in California – which also includes a handful of ballot initiatives in circulation — was covered by this morning’s New York Times in an article that perhaps unintentionally reveals the feebleness of opponents’ arguments.

The story quotes John Lovell, lobbyist for several California police groups and the major voice for maintaining prohibition: “We get revenue from alcohol,” he said. “But there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues.”

If that’s the best they can do, the debate is over. The main social cost of alcohol comes from its tendency to promote violent and aggressive behavior, something marijuana simply doesn’t do, as explained in this article from the journal Addictive Behaviors. Not long ago, an independent panel of experts rated alcohol as significantly more dangerous than marijuana, in an article published in the prestigious journal The Lancet (unfortunately, the summary of the article you can read online for free doesn’t include the chart ranking various drugs).

If we want to reduce the social costs associated with booze, evidence suggests giving adults a safer, legal alternative makes sense. Mr. Lovell, meet reality.

To their great credit, the editors at Forbes.com offered us the opportunity to respond today to last week’s absurd column by Rachel Ehrenfeld. Enjoy.

Sometimes the only appropriate response is to laugh out loud. Forbes.com columnist Rachel Ehrenfeld has discovered that the National Institute on Drug Abuse is presently soliciting proposals from a contractor to grow marijuana for research and other purposes.

Apparently unfamiliar with The Google and other search tools available on the Intertubes, Ehrenfeld actually thinks this is part of “Obamacare,” and the fact that NIDA is “venturing into the marijuana cigarettes production and distribution” is the evil brainchild of George Soros, the pet villain of prohibitionists and other reactionaries.

Oh dear. That the federal government has been distributing medical marijuana to a small group of patients for more than three decades seems to have escaped her notice. So has the fact that, under present (thoroughly dysfunctional) rules, scientists doing clinical research on marijuana must obtain the marijuana for testing from NIDA, along with the fact that for most of that time the government has contracted with the University of Mississippi to produce marijuana for this purpose.

Poor Rachel rants about how studies have supposedly documented adverse effects of marijuana and fails completely to notice the wealth of research that documents medical efficacy and safety — not to mention the vast array of medical and public health organizations that have recognized marijuana’s medical potential.

Nah, it’s all a conspiracy, with evil George Soros pulling Obama’s puppet strings.

Rachel, call us when you return to planet Earth.

A quick item from our Aggressive Stupidity files. Whom would you trust more on medical issues?

The California Narcotics Officers Association, from its official training materials: “Marijuana is not a medicine. … There is no justification for using marijuana as a medicine.” [emphasis in original]

Or…

The American College of Physicians, from its position statement on medical marijuana: “Preclinical and clinical research and anecdotal reports suggest numerous potential medical uses for marijuana. … Given marijuana’s proven efficacy at treating certain symptoms and its relatively low toxicity, reclassification [out of Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act] would reduce barriers to research and increase availability of cannabinoid drugs to patients who have failed to respond to other treatments.”

From time to time drug warriors tell us that no one goes to jail for marijuana possession. Tell that to Cynthia Prude, whose daughter Theresa died in a Houston, Texas jail over the weekend while serving a two and one-half week jail sentence for marijuana possession.

Thus far, officials aren’t revealing the circumstances or the cause of death, but this isn’t the first time someone has died serving a short jail sentence for marijuana possession. In September 2004, quadriplegic Jonathan Magbie — who used marijuana to relieve the chronic pain lingering from the childhood accident that left him paralyzed — died in the Washington, D.C., jail while serving a 10-day sentence for marijuana possession.

One year after a SWAT team shot and killed two Labrador retrievers in a marijuana raid on an innocent small-town mayor’s family, the Prince George’s County, Md., sheriff responsible has announced his department did nothing wrong. [Read more →]

For those who missed it, here’s the clip of Rob debating marijuana policy with drug war cheerleader David Evans on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ that Bruce mentioned a couple days ago.

By the way, although these things are always subject to last minute changes, it looks like MPP’s Bruce Mirken will be on CNBC discussing ending marijuana prohibition this evening sometime after 8:30 p.m. EST.