I don’t know how much attention this is going to get in the press, but this strikes me as an extraordinary – and as far as I know, unique – instance of cowardice and cruelty:

SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — A woman was told to move out of her apartment when the landlord discovered she has marijuana for medical use.

Bobbie Wooten, 47, uses a wheelchair because she was paralyzed from the waist down in a car crash several years ago and suffers severe spasms. She joined the state’s medical marijuana program when it went into effect last year. …

“My lease provides for a drug-free environment,” said David Kotin of Kay-Kay Realty. “Obviously, she is in violation of my lease.”

I suppose Kotin will also be going through the building checking for beer, Tylenol, and coffeepots now, right? That, or he and Kay-Kay Realty are unforgivably stupid, intellectually lazy, and inhumane. Or both.

Has anybody out there heard of similar instances of housing discrimination toward qualified medical marijuana patients operating within legal limits?

Reading this Atlanta Journal Constitution story revealing that more than half of the city’s police academy graduates used marijuana, and a third of them have criminal records, two thoughts occur to me.

First is the hypocrisy of a situation in which some people use marijuana and get arrested while others use marijuana but go on to lead productive lives – as police officers for heavens sake. Who decides which fate befalls a particular marijuana user? If marijuana use isn’t terrible enough to disqualify a person from the responsibilities of law enforcement, including the responsibility to arrest marijuana users, then how much sense does it make to arrest marijuana users in the first place? [Read more →]

I’ve written before about the death of Rachel Hoffman, a recent Florida State graduate who was murdered in a botched drug sting after Tallahassee police used a petty marijuana charge to pressure her into acting as an informant.

It’s at least a little comforting to see that there’s now some accountability for some of the principals involved in this tragic event.

But I can’t help wondering what would have happened had Rachel, through luck and grace, avoided her awful fate. What if she had safely purchased the drugs and weapons the cops had put her in harm’s way for? What if this dangerous scheme had led to drug convictions for these two smalltime thugs?

Would these officers still face disciplinary action? Or would their reckless caper be rewarded? I think we all know the answer.

Real accountability in Rachel Hoffman’s death won’t come until we acknowledge that the petty marijuana offense that dragged her into this situation should never have been a crime in the first place.

By the way, please check out this short tribute my colleagues John Berry and Joe Haptas made for Rachel.

Scott Day, a friend of MPP and a Montana medical marijuana patient who suffered from a rare, painful degenerative disease, died Tuesday at 34.

Scott and his wife Summer were raided in February and charged with possession, manufacturing, and distributing marijuana. Summer believes the stress of prosecution had a great deal to do with the deterioration of Scott’s health this year.

Legally, prosecutors may have been justified in pursuing the couple under state law. The two were not registered medical marijuana patients at the time of their arrest, although Montana law allowed them to present an affirmative defense that their marijuana use was medically necessary and therefore justified under the law.

Morally, however, there is absolutely no excuse for the nightmare state law enforcement inflicted on Scott and Summer. It’s too late for Scott now, but Beaverhead County Attorney Jed Fitch has a moral imperative to use his prosecutorial discretion to drop Summer’s charges and allow her to tend to her health and her grief.

If you agree, please let Mr. Fitch know.

Drug czar John Walters is back in California this week, flying around the Central Valley in a Blackhawk helicopter surveying the progress of the latest marijuana “eradication” adventure.Bruce Mirken has already written about these gaudy publicity stunts, but since Walters and his ilk like to play soldier so much, let’s see how their war on marijuana users is going elsewhere today …

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CNN just picked up on federal prosecutors’ attempts to hamstring the defense of San Luis Obispo medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch, which went to a jury yesterday. As we’ve mentioned before, not only is Lynch forbidden from testifying that he operated within state medical marijuana laws with local officials’ blessing, prosecutors even tried to bar “sick looking” witnesses from testifying on his behalf.

Makes sense: It’s much more difficult to convict an innocent man if the jury has evidence establishing his innocence, right?

So police discover a package of marijuana apparently shipped to the mayor of a small town in Prince George’s County and respond by sending a SWAT team to pounce on the unarmed man as he returns from work, killing his two Labradors for good measure. The police then handcuff him and his mother-in-law next to their pets and interrogate them for hours as blood pools on the floor. And a PG police spokesman says the raid was carried out properly according to their policies.

I’m sure it was. Does anybody else see anything wrong with our policies?

ABC’s “20/20″ aired this story Friday about Rachel Hoffman, a young Florida woman who was murdered by drug dealers after Tallahassee police pressured her into acting as an informant to avoid minor marijuana charges.

It would be easy to blame this on the extraordinary cowardice and ineptitude of the Tallahassee Police Department, but cowardice and ineptitude are inherent in our country’s war on marijuana users.

Tragedies like this one will remain routine, hideous occurrences as long as we treat innocent Americans like Ms. Hoffman as criminals.