What else will happen on November 4?

As Bruce Mirken pointed out in another post, Rep. Mark Souder, a stalwart drug warrior, may lose his seat in Congress this year.  Souder’s possible departure is part of a larger trend of drug warriors losing elections to more sensible candidates.

This change is largely due to the unpopularity of President Bush and the fact that most virulent prohibitionists have maintained close ties with his policies for the last eight years.  Their departure is significant for MPP and other drug policy organizations that hope to pass legislation in the next Congress.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the more exciting contests. 

Kentucky Senate Race:  Senator Mitch McConnell (R) v. Bruce Lunsford (D)

Sen. McConnell is currently in a dead heat with his opponent, Democrat Bruce Lunsford.  McConnell prides himself on securing millions of dollars in federal funding for marijuana eradication in Kentucky.  Come November, he may be seeking a new job.

Florida’s 24th District:  Congressman Tom Feeney (R) v. Suzanne Kosmas (D)

Rep. Feeney introduced an amendment in 2003 that would have forced federal judges to hand down harsh sentences to minor drug offenders and has opposed every sensible piece of drug policy legislation that’s come across his desk.  His opponent, Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, is currently leading by a 23-point margin. The only catch here is that Kosmas supported the Marijuana Grow House Eradication Act, a Florida law that MPP opposed. However she has supported alternatives to incarceration for non-violent offenders.

Colorado’s 4th District:  Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R) v. Betsy Markey (D)

Rep. Musgrave has been a consistent opponent of medical marijuana legislation in Congress.  In 2006, Musgrave took significant contributions from the National Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association while opposing a Colorado initiative to legalize adult marijuana use.  She’s currently losing to Democrat Betsy Markey by nearly 10 points.

Florida’s 8th District:  Congressman Rick Keller (R) v. Alan Grayson (D)

Rep. Keller has pushed for legislation to increase penalties for marijuana users and has always opposed medical marijuana legislation.  He currently trails his opponent by 4 points.

Michigan’s 7th District:  Congressman Tim Walberg (R) v. Mark Schauer (D)

In a state where MPP hopes to pass a medical marijuana initiative this fall, Walberg stands out as a strong opponent to medical marijuana legislation in Congress.  He is currently losing by 9 points to his Democratic rival.

Washington’s 8th District:  Congressman Dave Reichert (R) v. Darcy Burner (D)

Rep. Reichert, despite hailing from a medical marijuana state, has opposed efforts to protect Washington’s state law from federal interference.   He currently trails by 3 points in the polls.

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?

We have special feelings for Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) here at the Marijuana Policy Project, because a few years ago he called our executive director, Rob Kampia, "an articulate advocate for an evil position." Souder is perhaps the most implacable foe of medical marijuana in the U.S. Congress. And he may be in trouble.

Last week CQ Politics, which tracks House races, changed its rating of Souder's Indiana 3^rd District from "Republican Favored" to "Leans Republican," writing that "Republican strategists are concerned about Souder, even though he represents a strongly Republican-leaning district."

His latest troubles involve a report that he sought a congressional earmark for a company in which he owned stock. That would seem to be a pretty blatant ethical no-no, even though Souder's stock holdings were fairly minor. 

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, the committee backing Proposal 1 on the state's November ballot, has gone on the air with its first TV spots. One commercial features George Wagoner, M.D., whose wife Beverly died of ovarian cancer in 2007. The other features Deb Brink, a registered nurse and four-time cancer survivor.

The initiative has been endorsed by many of the state's leading newspapers, including the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and Lansing State Journal. MCCC has assembled a collection of recent news clips, including the endorsements.

A new study, published in the journal Schizophrenia Research, adds to the growing evidence that marijuana may be helpful to some who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. The study also sheds light on the ongoing controversy over marijuana's relationship to schizophrenia.

Researchers looked at three groups of young people, age 14-21 -- non-psychotic siblings of schizophrenia patients (considered at "genetic risk" for psychosis), adolescents with ADHD, and healthy controls -- and compared the marijuana users with non-users in each group on a variety of psychological tests. There was a correlation between signs of mental health disturbance and marijuana use for the group of siblings at genetic risk for psychosis, but not for the other groups. This suggests that marijuana may worsen the prognosis of those with a predisposition to psychosis but does not make healthy people psychotic.

In the ADHD group, the results suggested marijuana may be beneficial: In several of the tests, there was a trend toward better functioning among the marijuana using ADHD patients than among the non-users. In the article, the researchers discuss a possible mechanism by which marijuana "could attenuate some of the behavioral symptoms of ADHD." This is an area that cries out for more research.

The California Supreme Court rejected San Diego and San Bernardino counties' challenge of a state law requiring a medical marijuana patient identification card system Thursday, but San Diego supervisors vowed to appeal for a fourth time – this time to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The counties' argument rests on the disingenuous notion that federal law prevents them from establishing the I.D. card program in accordance with a 2003 state law designed to make it easier for law enforcement to verify legitimate medical marijuana patients. The fact that 42 counties have already implemented the program with no problems doesn't seem to matter to these county supervisors.

But let's face it: This isn't about any real confusion about conflicts between state and federal law. It's about a small group of elected officials who just don't like the state's medical marijuana law and don't care that it was the voters' decision to make and not theirs.

Now the voters will have to continue paying for these renegades' pointless legal crusade, and patients and law enforcement officers will have to wait for this simple tool that's making California's medical marijuana laws run smoother almost everywhere else in the state.

Funny Bruce should mention White House drug czar John Walters' taxpayer-funded boondoggle to Michigan to throw his political weight against the state's medical marijuana voter initiative yesterday.

It just so happens the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released its report on White House abuses of the Hatch Act, which governs executive branch employees' participation in partisan political events, the very same day.

The report singles Walters' office out for its audacity, saying, "Even offices with statutory provisions prohibiting political activity, like the Office of National Drug Control Policy, were enlisted in the election effort" supporting candidates identified by the White House.

In addition to his extraordinary willingness to flout the law, the committee also noted the drug czar's enthusiasm for doing so. Indeed, White House political affairs official Doug Simon called Walters one of their "superstars ... going above and beyond" to abuse his authority for political purposes in some of America's most "god awful places." That's right, America, Mr. Walters loves his party so much he was even willing to come to your lousy town – on your dime – to push its partisan agenda.

By the way, we're not sure how Walters could have inadvertently run so far afoul of the law – we've been trying to warn him for years.

Once again, the White House drug czar is on the road spreading disinformation at taxpayers' expense -- this time campaigning against Proposal 1, the Michigan medical marijuana initiative.

In a series of appearances in Lansing and the suburbs of Detroit, John Walters condemned the measure, as described by the Detroit Free Press:

LANSING -- A team of top national antidrug officials joined the late-starting campaign to defeat Michigan's medical marijuana initiative Tuesday, telling reporters Proposal 1 is a dangerous drug legalization scheme that will lead to more addiction and despair.

John Walters, a Michigan native who heads the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana has no legitimate medical use. Medical marijuana laws simply "make it easier for addicts to stay addicted," he said.

Walters brought with him -- really, I am not making this up -- a medical marijuana vending machine seized from a dispensary in Los Angeles earlier this year. It took three military guys to cart the thing around. And of course, Walters simply ignored the fact that Proposal 1 does not permit dispensaries, much less vending machines. Just how much did this exercise in irrelevance cost taxpayers?

Walters also ignored the emphatic statements from major medical organizations demolishing his claim that marijuana has no legitimate medical use. For example, in a detailed position paper issued earlier this year, the American College of Physicians, a 124,000-member organization consisting of oncologists, neurologists, and other internal medicine specialists, stated, "Evidence not only supports the use of medical marijuana in certain conditions but also suggests numerous indications for cannabinoids."

Finally, a word needs to be said about the claim that medical marijuana laws lead to "more addiction." In fact, no state with a medical marijuana law has seen an increase in teen marijuana use, and in most cases use has gone down markedly.

And medical marijuana actually allows patients to reduce the use of much more addictive opioid painkillers. Television host Montel Williams described this eloquently in a 2005 newspaper column. And research with animals has shown that cannabinoids in combination with drugs like codeine and morphine can produce equal or greater relief with lower doses of the narcotics while avoiding the development of tolerance, which can lead to addiction. Such combination therapy can even restore pain relief after the narcotics by themselves have lost efficacy due to tolerance.

The lies are coming thick and fast, so this is the time to get involved in the campaign.

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?

The second is that these candidates are apparently making the cut because the city, desperate to increase the size of its force, has lowered its standards – at least in the minds of city officials. But what if the responsible, adult use of marijuana weren't a crime? What if its manufacture and sale were regulated like alcohol rather than controlled by often-violent criminals? Atlanta's need for law enforcement would almost certainly decrease, and they could recruit fewer, higher-quality officers to pursue violent crimes.

Actually, that reminds me of a third, terrible thought: Does lowered standards mean more bad cops on the street? The job is too important, and the consequences of making mistakes are too dire. Atlantans ought to recall the shooting of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston two years ago next month by narcotics officers who mistakenly raided her house and then planted marijuana on her to try to cover their tracks.

We don't need more bad cops, and we don't need to waste good cops' time chasing marijuana users – especially if they're marijuana users themselves.

Once again the mass media are wringing their hands over damage to national forests and parks caused by clandestine marijuana farms, particularly in California. And yes, there are problems -- damage caused by pesticides and rat poison used to keep animals away, not to mention the fact that the untaxed proceeds often go to some pretty unsavory characters.

But -- and we've said this before, but it's worth saying again -- these problems have nothing to do with marijuana and everything to do with foolish laws that consign this very large industry to the criminal underground, guaranteeing that it is completely unregulated and untaxed. California, after all, is a leading producer of two psychoactive drugs, marijuana and wine. The legally regulated wine industry is a boon to the state, producing tax revenues, tourism, and prestige. The state is, in effect, running a controlled experiment comparing prohibition to regulation, and it's not hard to see which system works better.