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.

Here’s the video:

Huh. So this is what a self-styled “historian” thinks.

“I think Jefferson and George Washington would strongly discourage you from growing marijuana, and their tactics to stop you would be more violent than they would be today.”

While there is no evidence to suggest that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson actually used marijuana (despite what you may have heard in Dazed and Confused), there is plenty of evidence that they both grew hemp and supported its cultivation throughout the country.

There is also no evidence that they would have supported violent tactics against American citizens for growing a plant. That sounds like something King George would have done.

Gingrich is all about it, though. Over the years, he has repeatedly supported creating insanely draconian punishments for drug offenses, even going so far as to push for the death penalty for smugglers. He recently suggested making our drug policies closer to those of Singapore.

So when faced with a loss to a candidate whose supporters often rally around the intent of the Founding Fathers, Gingrich decides to rewrite history to make it sound like men who rebelled against tyranny would support his tyrannical policy stances.

People care about honesty. Maybe that explains why Ron Paul beat Gingrich by eight points last night.

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Back in 2009, the Minnesota Legislature passed a medical marijuana bill that was immediately vetoed by then-governor Tim Pawlenty. At the time, Bachmann was a U.S. Congresswoman. One would assume that she was paying attention to the important issues within her state during this period, especially one as contentious as medical marijuana.

Here is a recent video from Jason Karimi, asking the candidate what she would do if another state, such as Iowa, were to allow medical marijuana:

Apparently, Bachmann hasn’t really given the issue of medical marijuana, and how it relates to states’ rights, much thought at all.

Do you believe her?

On an interesting side note, Fishbone are supporters of MPP’s mission and were the featured entertainment at our annual fundraiser earlier this year.

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First, the signature drive to put an initiative on the November ballot that would add medical marijuana dispensaries to the state’s existing law is coming to a close. With more than 74,000 signatures already verified, it is highly likely that this initiative will appear before the voters this year.

In other news, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled that medical marijuana patients applying for a concealed-carry handgun license could not be denied based on their status as a “drug user.” While legal to use with a doctor’s recommendation in Oregon, marijuana is still considered an illegal drug under federal law. According to the federal Gun Control Act, marijuana use can be justification to prevent a person from carrying a concealed firearm. According to the Court of Appeals, however, state and local law enforcement personnel are required to follow state law, which does not explicitly prevent medical marijuana patients from obtaining the license.

Finally, with another groundbreaking move by a public entity, the Oregon Board of Pharmacy has voted to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule II drug. While this will have little effect on medical marijuana in the state, it carries a symbolic importance in the greater national campaign to remove marijuana from the overly restrictive Schedule I. In February, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy recommended the same change, but Oregon appears to be the first state to actually enact it. Marijuana still remains a Schedule I drug on the federal level.

With all these moves to legitimize marijuana going on, it seems like things are looking up for Oregon patients. Make sure to keep your eye on Oregon in coming months to see if the dispensary initiative qualifies and if voters approve it in November.

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This recommendation puts Iowa one step closer to enacting a medical marijuana law, as its own officials have now definitively recognized marijuana as a medicine. The Iowa House and Senate are each considering bills that would protect from arrest chronically ill patients who use marijuana to alleviate their conditions, but the bills missed deadlines that would have allowed them to be enacted this year. Fortunately, this recommendation from the Board of Pharmacy will put increased pressure on lawmakers to pass a law in the next session.

A Des Moines Register poll released yesterday found that 64% of Iowans support patients’ use of medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

Keep checking MPP’s blog and our Iowa state page for the latest developments.

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The board was required by a court order to evaluate the scientific evidence surrounding medical marijuana Monday to determine whether it ought to be reclassified under the state’s controlled substances list.

But the board’s justification for rejecting the evidence presented said much more about the board’s condescending attitude toward medial marijuana and its advocates than it did about the evidence itself.

Seizing on one small point made by advocates – that 13 states had already passed medical marijuana laws – here’s what Guthrie County pharmacist DeeAnn Wedemeyer-Oleson had to say:

I liken this a lot to when I was a junior in high school and I pleaded to my dad that the time I should be allowed to stay out at night should be extended to one o’clock in the morning.

I said, I was a junior in high school and all my other friends got to stay out until one o’clock in the morning. And he said, ‘well if all of your friends jumped off the bridge, does that mean you should jump off the bridge?’

That’s cool. I liken Wedemeyer-Oleson’s logic to when I was in kindergarten and would stick my fingers in my ears and sing loudly whenever a grownup would try to tell me something I didn’t want to hear.

[update: Carl Olsen, whose group won the court order that led to the pharm board's review, makes an important point in comment #3 that I missed in my original post. The argument that 13 states already accept medical marijuana's safety and efficacy is by no means small. It should have been crucial to the board's decision if they'd applied the Iowa legal standard of whether marijuana has any accepted medical use in the United States. Thanks for clarifying that, Carl.]

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