UPDATED: Read a more recent post clarifying Paul’s comments here.

Back in May, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul defeated an establishment candidate to win his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, I pointed out that one of the issues Paul used to win over voters was his support of medical marijuana laws.

Now, in a telling political move, the son of Ron Paul has reversed his stance on the issue, telling the Associated Press last week that “he is opposed to the legalization of marijuana, even for medicinal purposes.” (He also stated that he doesn’t think the government’s war on drugs is “a real pressing issue” and that he wants to cut federal funding for drug treatment programs.)

Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with that episode from his past that’s been discussed so much in the news lately. Is Paul selling out medical marijuana patients as part of a strategy to deflect criticism? Or am I being too cynical?

For the record, Paul’s Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, isn’t much better when it comes to marijuana issues, and has received police endorsements because of his support for tougher law enforcement strategies.

In the latest example of a changing political atmosphere surrounding marijuana issues, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Washington state has been forced to clarify a series of cliché jokes his office made at the expense of medical marijuana research and patients.

Last week, Republican Dino Rossi issued an extremely immature and thoughtless press release criticizing federally funded research being conducted at Washington State University into marijuana’s effect on pain medication. The two-year study by psychology professor Michael Morgan involves injecting rats with synthetic cannabinoids and opiates in order to find ways to improve treatment for people suffering from chronic pain.

Rather than emphasize the great need for this type of research, as well as the proven efficacy of marijuana in helping to manage pain, Rossi decided to revert to hackneyed and unoriginal middle-school level humor. “Washington state taxpayers are tired of their money going up in smoke,” read the release issued by his office. “This bill isn’t going to stimulate anything other than sales of Cheetos.”

Morgan, who received $148,438 in federal stimulus funds from the National Institutes of Health, defended his research in an email to the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

“It is odd that Rossi thinks he knows more about good research than these neuroscientists. The goal of stimulus funds going to research was to create jobs and advance research to improve health care. Contrary to what Rossi’s press release says, I have created jobs. I funded both a graduate and undergraduate student with the $50,000 that I receive each year. It also provided a month of summer salary for me given that the State does not pay professors in the summer. The undergraduate I am currently funding actually graduated in May and would be unemployed if I did not offer her a job,” Morgan wrote.

He said pain treatments cost billions of dollars each year.

“…what we proposed has nothing to do with smoking marijuana or what Rossi implies. It would have been nice if Rossi had checked his facts before trashing research that could be very beneficial. There are millions of Americans suffering from chronic pain. Is Rossi arguing that we should not do research to find better ways to reduce this suffering?”

One day later, a spokesperson for Rossi was put on the defensive, and tried to backtrack by saying “no judgment was made [by the campaign] on the validity of the research.”

This last development is important for one major reason: After years of being considered a third-rail issue that politicians were free to scorn, more candidates and officials are now waking to the reality that marijuana reform issues—and medical marijuana in particular—are very, very popular among voters. As the Rossi campaign has discovered, the most controversial thing about medical marijuana nowadays can be opposing it. Nationally, 81 percent of Americans support medical marijuana.

In another interesting aside, Steve Elliot points out that Rossi this year earned distinction as one of the 11 Most Crooked Candidates in the entire nation, according to a list put together by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

After years of lobbying by MPP, patients, physicians, and other allies, New York State may finally be on the verge of passing a medical marijuana law.

A Senate budget resolution that passed last night includes a provision that supports including the legal sale of medical marijuana in the state budget. We hope that as the budget process continues, this language will also be included in the final legislation and will be passed as part of the budget process.

Senate Democrats estimate that licensing fees from dispensaries could generate up to $15 million that could go toward closing the state’s $9 billion budget gap.

This is a huge development. Stay tuned to MPP’s blog for updates.

Meanwhile, today, a medical marijuana bill, S. 4041-B cleared the Senate Codes Committee in a bipartisan 11-5 vote. This was the first time the bill passed the committee.

The U.S. Senate today passed historic legislation to end the decade-long ban on implementing a medical marijuana law in Washington, D.C. This marks the first time in history Congress has changed a marijuana law for the better. Only Obama’s signature is needed for the change to become law.

This is not only a huge victory for medical marijuana patients in the nation’s capital, it marks a historic shift on the medical marijuana issue nationwide. This is the first time Congress has given its assent to a state or local law that permits medical use of marijuana. Coming on top of the announcement that the Justice Department will no longer interfere with state medical marijuana laws, this shows that the ground has fundamentally shifted.

Before the D.C. law can go into effect, the city council will need to transmit the original 1998 initiative to Congress for a 30-day review period, which is not expected to present an obstacle. The law will take effect at the conclusion of this review, and the D.C. government will then be charged with creating regulations to govern the implementation of the initiative’s language.

It seems that Congress is finally listening to voters, who have supported protection for medical marijuana patients for well over a decade, as well as to the medical community’s growing recognition of marijuana’s medical value. Lifting the ban on D.C.’s law falls far short of sweeping, national reform, but it is surely a sign of good things to come.