A study just published online by the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology suggests that marijuana may protect the brain from some of the damage caused by binge drinking.

The study, by researchers at the University of California San Diego, used a type of high-tech scan called diffusion tensor imaging to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter. The subjects were students aged 16-to-19, divided into three groups: binge drinkers (defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting for boys or four or more for girls), binge drinkers who also smoked marijuana, and a control group who had very little or no experience with either alcohol or drugs.

As expected, the binge-drinking-only group showed evidence of white matter damage in eight regions examined, as demonstrated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) scores. But in a finding the researchers described as “unexpected,” the binge-drinking/marijuana group had lower FA scores than the controls in only three of the eight regions, and in seven regions the binge-drinking/marijuana group had higher scores – indicating less damage – than the binge drinkers who didn’t use marijuana (unfortunately, not all of these stats are in the summary linked above; access to the full article requires payment).

Brain white matter tracts were “more coherent in adolescents who binge drink and use marijuana than in adolescents who report only binge drinking,” the researchers wrote. “It is possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death.” The scientists noted that such protection has already been shown in lab and animal studies.

Indeed, the U.S. government has a patent on cannabinoids as neuroprotectants. Yes, the same government that wants you to believe that marijuana will rot your brain knows that its active components protect brain and nerve cells from many kinds of damage.

In a statement issued by MPP today, director of state campaigns Steve Fox said, “This study suggests that not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that booze causes. It’s far better for teens not to drink or smoke marijuana, but our nation's leaders send a dangerous message by defending laws that encourage the use of alcohol over marijuana.”

Fox is co-author of the new book, “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?” The book is getting lots of favorable press coverage, and recently hit number 14 on the Amazon.com bestseller list.

Mexico enacted a law decriminalizing possession of marijuana (and other drugs) yesterday, according to the Associated Press.

The new law defines 5 grams of marijuana as a “personal use” amount. People caught in possession of less than that amount will face no penalty until their third offense, at which point the law requires them to enter addiction treatment. The change is part of the Mexican government’s efforts to fight a very hot war against drug cartels along its border with the U.S. By decriminalizing marijuana, Mexico seeks to free up law enforcement resources that have been wasted arresting non-violent marijuana users.

A similar law, proposed during former president Vicente Fox’s administration, was defeated following significant opposition from President George W. Bush. We have not seen the same pressure from the Obama administration this time around. In fact, current Mexican president Felipe Calderón has used this new law to send a message north about the need for a similar debate to take place on our side of the border. Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan, for example, called for such a debate to be taken seriously by the U.S. in April, and the Mexican Senate scheduled discussion of the new law to coincide with President Obama’s first trip to Mexico.

Taking these events in context -- especially considering the chorus of high-profile former Latin American leaders calling for the U.S. to change its heavy-handed drug policies -- a clear message emerges: our neighbors are paying a heavy price for our marijuana laws, which account for 70% of the cartels' profits.

In a sense, we’ve been exporting the worst consequences of prohibition to our southern neighbor by forcing marijuana to remain a business for thugs and criminals. Just like alcohol prohibition, marijuana prohibition causes more harm than the drug itself. The violence in Mexico has forced its government to face that reality; our politicians should pay close attention.

H.R. 2943, legislation in Congress that seeks to remove federal penalties for marijuana possession, is currently in committee. Please visit mpp.org/federal-action to ask your member of Congress for his or her support.

MPP's director of state campaigns, Steve Fox, is the co-author of a new book entitled, Marijuana is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink? The purpose of this book is to educate Americans about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol, and to force them to consider why we punish adults who use the less harmful substance.  The critically acclaimed book also provides supporters of marijuana policy reform with the information and talking points necessary to spread the "marijuana is safer" message to friends and family.

To raise awareness about the book, the authors are coordinating a "Book Bomb" that will take place tomorrow, August 20.  The goal is to have hundreds of people order the book from Amazon.com on the same day so that it reaches #1 on the online bookseller's rankings.  As far as we know, no book advocating for marijuana policy reform has reached that milestone.  To learn more about the book and to sign up for the Book Bomb, visit http://www.marijuanabookbomb.com If you sign up, you will get an email tomorrow reminding you about the Bomb.

Thanks in advance for participating!  And please share this blog post with any friends who might be interested.

Among the more interesting pieces of news that came out while I was on vacation the first half of August was a new study in the journal Cancer Prevention Research, which found that marijuana smokers have a lower risk of head and neck cancers than people who don't smoke marijuana. Alas, this important research has been largely ignored by the news media.

While this type of study cannot conclusively prove cause and effect, the combination of this new study and existing research -- which for decades has shown that cannabinoids are fairly potent anticancer drugs -- raises a significant possibility that marijuana use is in fact protective against certain types of cancer.

A team of researchers from several major universities conducted what is known as a "case-control" study, comparing patients who had squamous cell carcinoma of the mouth, larynx, and pharynx with control patients matched for age, gender, and residence location who did not have cancer. By looking at matched groups with and without cancer, researchers hope to find patterns indicating risk or protective factors. In this case they focused on marijuana use, but also took into account known risk factors for this type of cancer, including tobacco and alcohol use.

After adjusting for those confounding factors, current marijuana users had a 48% reduced risk of head and neck cancer, and the reduction was statistically significant. Former users also had a lower risk, though it fell short of being significant. The investigators crunched the numbers several different ways -- for example, by amount of marijuana used or the frequency of use -- and the findings stayed the same nearly across the board, with moderate users showing the strongest and most consistent reduction in cancer risk.

The scientists write, "We found that moderate marijuana use was significantly associated with reduced risk HNSCC [head and neck squamous cell carcinoma]. The association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use)."

Strikingly, among drinkers and cigarette smokers, those who also used marijuana reduced their cancer risk compared to those who only drank and smoked cigarettes. So marijuana may actually have been countering the known bad effects of booze and cigarettes.

This is important, and by any reasonable standard, it's news. But this afternoon, a Google News search for coverage of this study produced a grand total of nine hits. None of these -- none -- was from a major newspaper, wire service, or TV network.

A huge wildfire ablaze in  Santa Barbara County over the last week has been linked to a clandestine marijuana grow operation in the Los Padres National Forest. As we often point out, prohibition is to blame for these destructive illegal gardens because it leaves this popular agricultural product in the hands of criminals with no regard for the environment instead of legitimate farmers.

Orange County Register columnist and author of "Waiting to Inhale, the Politics of Medical Marijuana" Alan Bock writes in his blog post that the proliferation of these sites on public lands is a result of misguided asset forfeiture laws:

So it’s not surprising that faced with the loss of property whether a crime was proved against them or not  or charges were even filed, marijuana growers began to use land that they didn’t own and couldn’t be seized. The best bet was not some poor innocent’s land, but government land, of which there is more than an abundance in the western states, which couldn’t be forfeited because the government already owns it. So the national forests became the preferred venues for large marijuana grows, the forests were in some cases degraded and became less useful to the public they were supposed to benefit — and now we have a major wildfire allegedly started by marijuana growers.

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.

The Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement raided two Los Angeles area medical marijuana dispensaries today. Only limited information is available so far, but MPP will be watching the situation closely.

Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske offered a correction on Friday to the erroneous comments he made regarding marijuana’s medical value. His new statement, however, is nearly as problematic as the old.

Last month, the drug czar told reporters that marijuana “has no medical value.” During a follow-up interview with KOMO-TV in California on Friday, he corrected that statement:

Sometimes you make a mistake and you work very hard to correct it. That happens. I should’ve clearly said ’smoked’ marijuana and then gone on to say that this is clearly a question that should be answered by the medical community.

Kerlikowske continued, saying, “The FDA has not determined that smoked marijuana has a [medical] value.”

While it’s refreshing to see a drug czar who is capable of admitting a mistake, his new statement still falls short of an honest assessment of marijuana's medical value. The FDA’s position on medical marijuana (which is derived from a statement the agency released in 2006) is largely political and was rejected by the medical community following its release. The FDA ignored the government’s own report, published by the Institute of Medicine in 1999, which states, “there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses.”

Numerous studies have found specific medical uses for smoked marijuana, and some of the most interesting research has been done since the FDA released its statement in 2006. Several studies from the University of California, for example, have found that marijuana is highly effective at treating neuropathic pain, a type of nerve pain for which traditional pain medications are notoriously inadequate.

The drug czar's correction falls short.

The House sponsor of Rhode Island's medical marijuana law, Rep. Thomas Slater, passed away today after a long battle with cancer.  In addition to championing the needs of seriously ill patients who could benefit from medical marijuana, he was the tireless advocate of the needy in his district, from driving elderly constituents to the pharmacy or supermarket to sponsoring legislation for health care for uninsured children and affordable housing. In June, the Providence Journal published a moving profile of this amazing man, which you can read here.

Despite being ravaged by cancer, Rep. Slater continued to trek to the legislature this summer to ensure the passage of a bill to add nonprofit dispensaries, or "compassion centers," to the The Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act. The initial law allowed patients or their caregivers to grow marijuana, but many testified that they risked violence buying their medicine on the streets. Rep. Slater's heartfelt efforts paid off: His colleagues in the House unanimously voted to override Gov. Carcieri's veto of the bill, and they then gave him a standing ovation. Three years earlier, they had voted to name the medical marijuana law in his honor. Only Rep. Slater voted against this gesture.

Rep. Slater will be deeply missed. But his legacy will live on. Thanks to his leadership, more than 500 seriously ill patients in Rhode Island can now use their medicine without fearing arrest. And, by the new year, the state will have registered a nonprofit to provide regulated, safe access to their medicine.