Washington, D.C.'s medical marijuana law cleared a mandatory 30-day Congressional review period Monday night, after Congress declined to take action against a D.C. Council bill that allows the District to license between five and eight medical marijuana dispensaries. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton made the announcement on Tuesday. The District will join 14 states across the country in having effective medical marijuana laws.

This historic development comes almost 12 years after 69 percent of District voters approved a referendum on medical marijuana in 1998. Congress had blocked the law’s implementation until last year. Now the District Department of Health and Mayor Adrian Fenty are tasked with developing a set of regulations for dispensaries that will be licensed to distribute medical marijuana to qualified patients. Medical marijuana is not fully legal yet, as the new law allows qualified patients to legally possess marijuana only if it comes from a licensed dispensary.

“After thwarting the will of District voters for more than a decade, Congress is no longer standing in the way of effective relief for D.C. residents who struggle with chronic ailments,” MPP executive director Rob Kampia said in a press release. “This moment is a long overdue victory for both D.C. home rule and the wellbeing of District residents whose doctors believe medical marijuana can help ease their pain.”

Under the bill, patients who are suffering from chronic conditions including HIV/AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis, and receive a recommendation from their doctor will be able to obtain safe access to medical marijuana through a system of licensed dispensaries. A task force will be charged with, among other things, recommending additional conditions, such as PTSD or severe, chronic pain to the list of qualifying conditions. Unlike the laws in 13 out of 14 medical marijuana states, patients will not be allowed to grow their own medicine, though the task force will also examine the issue of home cultivation. Medical marijuana will be subject to the city’s 6 percent sales tax.

Major news! The Department of Veterans Affairs has formally announced that patients being treated at V.A. facilities will be allowed to use medical marijuana if they live in one of the 14 states where it is legal.

This historic development was trumpeted over the weekend in a front-page New York Times story that quoted MPP’s Steve Fox. “We now have a branch of the federal government accepting marijuana as a legal medicine,” Steve told the Times, adding that the department needs to make its guidelines clear to patients and V.A. officials nationwide.

Under the policy, V.A. doctors still won’t be allowed to recommend marijuana to patients, but legal medical marijuana users will not be automatically precluded from pain management programs. Previously, many veterans believed they could lose access to prescription pain medications if they were found to be using medical marijuana, and some—including an Army veteran interviewed by The Times—were even told they needed to choose between medical marijuana and other pain medications. This latest policy clarification should prevent similar future incidents.

But there is still more that needs to be done. The new policy does not apply to patients or veterans in the 36 states where medical marijuana is still illegal. Many veterans rely on the V.A. for all their healthcare needs as well, and even if they live in a medical marijuana state, they may not be able to receive a recommendation from a non-V.A. doctor.

Regardless, this is a huge step forward – and one more crack in the federal government’s baseless opposition to sane medical marijuana policies.

Last month, we wrote about the tragic slaying of Trevon Cole, a 21-year-old father-to-be who was shot and killed by a police officer in front of his pregnant fiancé during a raid on their Las Vegas home.

At the time, police claimed they had evidence that Cole was a marijuana dealer; undercover officers had reportedly purchased marijuana from him on three separate occasions and allegedly took an unknown amount from his home during the raid.

Cole’s fiancé said at the time that Trevon smoked marijuana occasionally but was not a drug dealer, and police were slow to answer questions about the validity of the raid itself, let alone the tactics used.

Now we know why: They raided the wrong Trevon Cole.

Read the details here in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

While police contended they were going after a major drug dealer, they in fact purchased only 1.8 ounces for $840 from Cole over five weeks. This was apparently the only confirmation police needed to raid the couple’s home with guns drawn. And the disproportionate and needless tactics that were employed ultimately claimed another innocent life in the government’s unjustified war on marijuana.

The family has not yet filed a lawsuit against the police department, and is waiting for the results from Cole’s autopsy, according to their lawyer.

Stay tuned to the blog for updates.

The cost of pointless marijuana eradication efforts in California went up Wednesday when sheriff’s deputies shot and killed an unidentified man while hiking around in the woods looking for clandestine grow sites.

It is currently unknown whether this man was involved in marijuana cultivation, whether he was armed or fired at deputies, or even if there was any marijuana found nearby. Authorities are being typically tight-lipped about the entire incident.

What is known, beyond any doubt, is that eradication efforts are a complete failure, despite a huge fiscal and human cost.

Every year, state and local law enforcement agents suit up in camouflage and spend weeks going on hiking trips or flying around in helicopters looking for marijuana. They spend vast amounts of money trying to find more marijuana than previous years, in order to be eligible for federal funds that they, in turn, spend on finding more marijuana the next year.

And sometimes, people die. Whether in shootouts with criminal cultivators (and possibly innocent hikers) or in accidents in the rugged terrain, people are hurt and killed every year during eradication efforts.

And yet, both legal and illicit marijuana is still plentiful in California. So what is worse, the “problem” or the “solution?”

According to one local business-owner, the answer is obvious:

"We see something like this every once in a while, you know, there's a lot of these marijuana patches out this way," said Howard Miller, 69, owner of the Junction Bar and Grill Restaurant at 47300 Mines Road, which claims to be "as close to the Old West as you can get."

"The marijuana patches don't bother me," Miller said. "But I don't like the shootouts."

Perhaps the cowboys in camouflage do, since they consistently rally against the one thing that would eliminate illicit growing on public land and end this tragic farce: taxing and regulating marijuana.

Here it is, the latest MPP Insider!

Today, a coalition of organizations supportive of medical marijuana patients and providers -- including MPP, Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), NORML, California NORML, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), and Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) --  is calling on President Obama to withdraw his nomination of Michele Leonhart to serve as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The following is a from press release just sent out on behalf of the coalition:

Ms. Leonhart, who is currently the DEA’s acting-administrator, has not demonstrated that she is capable of leading the agency in a thoughtful manner at a time when 14 states have enacted medical marijuana laws and science is increasingly confirming the therapeutic benefits of the substance.

Under Leonhart's leadership, the DEA has staged medical marijuana raids in apparent disregard of Attorney General Eric Holder's directive to respect state medical marijuana laws. Most recently, DEA agents flouted a pioneering Mendocino County (CA) ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff. Joy Greenfield, 69, had paid more than $1,000 for a permit to cultivate 99 plants in a collective garden that had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff.

Informed that Ms. Greenfield had the support of the sheriff, the DEA agent in charge responded by saying, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.” The DEA's conduct is inconsistent with an October 2009 Department of Justice memo directing officials not to arrest individuals “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

Ms. Leonhart has also demonstrated that she is unable to be objective in carrying out the duties of the administrator as it relates to medical marijuana research. In January 2009, she refused to issue a license to the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for FDA-approved research, despite a DEA administrative law judge’s ruling that it would be “in the public interest” to issue the license. This single act has blocked privately funded medical marijuana research in this country. The next DEA administrator will likely influence the outcome of a marijuana-rescheduling petition currently before the agency. It is critical that an administrator with an open mind toward science and research is at the helm.

“With Leonhart’s nomination pending, one would expect her to be more — not less — respectful of the Department of Justice and the rights of individuals in medical marijuana states,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations at the Marijuana Policy Project. “Such behavior is an ominous sign for the future of the DEA under her leadership. Moreover, she has continually demonstrated her desire to block privately funded medical marijuana research in this country. The Obama administration has reversed many Bush administration policies over the past 18 months. It is time to transform the culture at the DEA by either withdrawing Leonhart’s nomination or directing her to change her attitude toward medical marijuana.”

Researchers at the University of Michigan have sifted through nationwide data to determine the prevalence of different drug-related emergency room visits and (surprise, surprise!) their recently released results show that “marijuana dependence was associated with the lowest rates” of emergency room visits.

NORML’s Paul Armentano has broken down the study here on Alternet:

Among those surveyed, subjects that reported using cannabis were the least likely to report an ED visit (1.71 percent). Respondents who reported lifetime use of heroin, tranquilizers, and inhalants were most likely (18.5 percent, 6.3 percent, and 6.2 percent respectively) to report experiencing one or more ED visits related to their drug use.

Investigators concluded, “[M]arijuana was by far the most commonly used (illicit) drug, but individuals who used marijuana had a low prevalence of drug-related ED visits.”

Paul also points to a recently released RAND study that found California hospitals received only 181 admissions related to marijuana in 2008, compared to an estimated 73,000 such admissions related to alcohol.

This is extremely valuable information in the debate over marijuana prohibition, since opponents of legalization—including the nation’s drug czar—consistently argue that marijuana’s “social costs” are a leading reason why we shouldn’t lift prohibition.

When they make this argument, Gil Kerlikowske and others will always mention the social costs of alcohol without including any supporting evidence to show that marijuana leads to similar results. The reason they don’t cite such evidence, of course, is because they don’t have any. Findings about the extremely low level of emergency room visits for marijuana compared to alcohol and other drugs simply drive another nail into such blissfully ignorant prohibitionist logic.

Oh, and if anyone tries to argue that this situation will somehow change drastically in a regulated marijuana market, consider this: More than 3 million Californians currently use marijuana (at least once) annually, yet fewer than 200 of them end up in the hospital for related reasons.

Kerlikowske and others shy away from stats like these, however, because they are further evidence of marijuana’s high margin of safety—and the insanity behind its prohibition.

The signature count is in, and it’s official!

In November, Oregon voters will have an opportunity to vote on a measure that would improve access for medical marijuana patients by allowing the creation of nonprofit, state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries. The official name for the ballot question will be Measure 28.

This positive news expands the number of local elections this year that will have marijuana-related questions on the ballot. To review:

• In California, voters will consider Proposition 19, which would make it legal for adults 21 and over to use and grow marijuana for personal use, as well as allow local governments to tax and regulate the drug.
• In South Dakota and Arizona, voters will have a chance to add their states to the list of those with effective medical marijuana laws, potentially bringing the total number nationwide to 16 (plus the District of Columbia).
• And in Detroit, voters will decide whether to make it legal for adults to possess up to one ounce of marijuana in the city.

Most polling so far has been very encouraging. Be sure to go out and vote if you live in one of these states. Everyone else, tune-in for the results on November 2!

After word spread of DEA raids on medical marijuana collectives in San Diego and Mendocino County last week, many are left wondering if federal agents deliberately violated the Obama administration’s instructions to not interfere with state medical marijuana laws.

Under the Department of Justice policy announced in an October memo, federal agents are no longer supposed to target or prosecute medical marijuana patients or providers who operate in “clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state law.”

Yet, according to local accounts, the sites raided last week were legal under state law. From the Press Democrat:

Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman confirmed Friday that the [raided] property owner had the proper paperwork and the marijuana was legal in the eyes of the county.

“This was a federal operation and had nothing to do with local law enforcement,” he said. “The federal government made a decision to go ahead and eradicate it.”

Steve Elliott has more in Alternet:

A multi-agency federal task force descended on the property of Joy Greenfield, the first Mendo patient to pay the $1,050 application fee under the ordinance, which allows collectives to grow up to 99 plants provided they comply with certain regulations.

Greenfield had applied in the name of her collective, “Light The Way,” which opened in San Diego earlier this year. Her property had passed a preliminary inspection by the Mendo sheriff’s deputies shortly before the raid, and she had bought the sheriff’s “zip-ties” intended to designate her cannabis plants as legal.

In the days before the raid, Greenfield had seen a helicopter hovering over her property; she inquired with the sheriff, who told her the copter belonged to the DEA and wasn’t under his control.

The agents invaded her property with guns drawn, tore out the collective’s 99 plants and took Greenfield’s computer and cash.

Joy was not at home during the raid, but spoke on the phone to the DEA agent in charge. When she told [him] she was a legal grower under the sheriff’s program, the agent replied, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.”

The DEA has not yet released any statement explaining their actions, which all reports indicate violated their DOJ-issued guidelines.

With the number of state medical marijuana laws at 14 and growing, there is an urgent need for the federal government to ensure that its policy on state medical marijuana laws is made “clear and unambiguous” to its enforcers as well. The DOJ guidelines issued in October should have done just that, but apparently the DEA in California didn’t get the memo.

Maine took an important step toward enhancing patient access to medical marijuana on Friday, when officials awarded the state’s first operating licenses to six nonprofit dispensaries that will open across the state. Regulated dispensaries were added to Maine’s law in November, after nearly 60% of state voters approved an MPP-drafted initiative that made Maine the third medical marijuana state to allow dispensary licenses, and the first to do so through the ballot.

In related news, New Mexico, which was the first state to license dispensaries, just approved six more medical marijuana producers—bringing the state’s total number of licensed, nonprofit dispensaries to 11.

These establishments—when properly regulated—provide patients in need with safe, reliable and orderly access to their medicine, saving them the effort of growing their own while also sparing them from having to resort to the often dangerous and unpredictable black market.

Elsewhere, Rhode Island has been holding hearings on applicants for dispensary licenses there, while New Jersey and Washington, D.C. are considering similar plans. In Oregon, it seems increasingly likely that state voters will consider adding dispensaries to that state’s law this November.