Medical marijuana patients in Washington state are allowed to have a 60-day supply of medicine. A process to define what that means in practical terms, overseen by the state Health Department and based on expert input from doctors, researchers, and patients, was going just fine until Gov. Christine Gregoire stepped in, apparently trying to override science with politics. Having tossed out science-based recommendations in favor of a political compromise, it now seems the mess is only worsening and may even lead to a lawsuit. Why must it be so hard to base health policy on facts and data rather than posturing?

Tom Riley's nonchalant statement about the relationship (or lack thereof) between tough drug laws/enforcement and rates of use, cited in Dan's earlier post, contradicts just about everything ONDCP has been saying for years whenever a state considers loosening its marijuana laws. In a March 19 press release, deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns railed against a New Hampshire proposal to decriminalize marijuana, saying such a move "sends the wrong message to New Hampshire's youth, students, parents, public health officials and the law enforcement community," and would lead to "more drugs, drug users and drug dealers on their streets and communities."

But then, intellectual consistency has never been ONDCP's strong suit.

Guess what?

A report just published in the journal of the Public Library of Science says more Americans have tried marijuana – as well as cocaine – than people in any of the other 16 countries studied.

That includes the Netherlands – where 20% of the population have tried marijuana, compared with 42% of Americans – despite the drug's quasi-legal status there. And while U.S. officials regularly badmouth the Dutch system, in which adults can purchase marijuana from regulated businesses, here's another startling statistic: American kids were nearly three times as likely to try marijuana by age 15 as their Dutch counterparts.

Given these discrepancies, the study authors concluded that drug use rates might not even be related to drug policy at all.

Strange. Then why go to all the trouble and expense to arrest marijuana users? Why insist on handing this lucrative market to organized criminals rather than impose commonsense regulations as we do with alcohol and tobacco?

Rather than defend his office's obsession with arresting users as a necessary means to fighting drugs, drug czar spokesman Tom Riley practically concedes the point:

"The U.S. has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison. Should we spend less? We're just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.''

That's right: Our drug use rates are higher than just about anyone else's because – unlike the Dutch, who may choose to use marijuana without the threat of arrest – we're just so gosh darned free.

A newspaper in Texas essentially rewrites a recent White House press release about the horrors of increased marijuana potency. Reporters who take time to do some actual research can quickly learn that scientists consider these alarming claims completely unproven. One really does get tired of having to repeat this stuff, but repeat it we must -- and will. 

A smattering of news outlets, including Wired, have picked up on a recent study showing that a cannabinoid in marijuana called beta-caryophyllene may have all sorts of useful medical properties and doesn't make the user high. But this is nothing new: A number of cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD) have similarly broad medical potential and no psychoactive side effects. Here's a link to one recent scientific article about CBD.

Hank Sims of the North Coast Journal in Humbolt County, Calif., makes a good point about the true likely consequences of the gaudy, high profile federal raids on marijuana grows in Southern Humboldt County this week:

"We’ll know soon whether the operation has any connection to actual, bad crimes — violent crimes. Perhaps it does; more likely it does not. In which case, what will it accomplish? Well, the price of dope has fallen steadily over the last few years, and the regular Mom ‘n’ Pop marijuana farmers populating the hills around Humboldt County have had to plant more and more to keep their income up. The reason? Oversupply. Everyone and their uncle is a dope grower, at least in Arcata. As always, the net effect of prohibition-style federal operations will be to reestablish a decent, inflated price for the product. Growers who don’t end up in jail might end up sitting pretty this time next year."

The idea that we can simply "eradicate" all the marijuana growing in our parks, forests, backyards, attics, and bedrooms and wipe it off the face of the earth forever is pure fantasy. This is America's largest cash crop after all. In California alone, we're talking about more than $12 billion that's up for grabs to anyone willing to assume the risk.

Still, it obviously comforts some to have a small army running around town brandishing uprooted plants as though they were war trophies. Despite the fact that the feds are only just packing out of town today, and no arrests have even been made yet, the Eureka Reporter editorial board has already declared the operation a "success," gushing about how "impressive" the whole spectacle was.

Less impressive, but far more effective, would be to stop playing cops and robbers and bring the whole marijuana industry out of the shadows and into the legitimate market. Until we do, count on more law enforcement-induced windfalls for drug dealers.

Short answer: Don't hold your breath!

It could certainly be interesting though if Senator Obama offered the slot to Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.), who says the following in his new book: "The time has come to stop locking up people for mere possession and use of marijuana. It makes far more sense to take the money that would be saved by such a policy and use it for enforcement of gang-related activities."

Other then Webb, Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico stands out for his yeoman's work on getting his state to become the 12th to allow medical marijuana access.

On the Republican side, the pickings are pretty slim although most people would probably be interested to know that although former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is no reformer on this issue, he has a very interesting history with medical marijuana and his own personal use in the 1970's when he admitted, "Smoking marijuana was a sign we were alive and in graduate school in that era."

Of the above listed, the safe bet says Senator Webb is probably the only one even being seriously considered for the gig. We will see.

Below is a letter I just sent to the producers of National Public Radio's Morning Edition, as well as to NPR's ombudsman. I think we all need to start insisting that news organizations use accurate terminology, rather than the language used by drug warriors to deliberately cloud the picture.

Hello,

Listening to Morning Edition today, I was surprised to hear a story about violence related to ongoing battles between law enforcement and Mexican drug trafficking organizations refer to this as "drug violence." The reference was clearly inaccurate and misleading.

What is occurring is not "drug violence" -- that is, violence related to the actions or effects of drugs. Rather, it is violence caused by drug prohibition, the criminalization of popular products that relegates their production and distribution to an unregulated underground that exists in a constant state of battle with the police. That some of this violence is connected to the marijuana market is the clearest evidence that it is in fact prohibition violence, not drug violence.

Marijuana, after all, reduces violent or aggressive tendencies in users. Only breathtakingly stupid public policies can take a product that suppresses violence and turn its production and sale into a source of violence. 

Even alcohol -- a drug that irrefutably is a cause of violence and aggression -- is generally produced and sold without significant violence or disorder. The only time that changed was the 1920s, during America's disastrous experiment with Prohibition.

Accurate terminology matters. Please refer to prohibition-related violence by its proper name. Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,

Bruce Mirken

Director of Communications

Marijuana Policy Project

In a refreshing, though no doubt unintended, bit of honesty, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy seems to be acknowledging that alcohol is the true "gateway drug." In a June 26 post on ONDCP's blog, the federal drug warriors proclaim, "More than 67 percent of young people who start drinking before the age of 15 will try an illicit drug. Children who drink are over 7 times more likely to use any illicit drug, are over 22 times more likely to use marijuana, and 50 times more likely to use cocaine than children who never drink."

ONDCP regularly uses similar correlations between marijuana and use of other drugs to argue that marijuana is a "gateway drug" that must be kept illegal for adults, but they make no such argument for banning booze. The truth -- which the folks at ONDCP know  but will never say -- is that neither alcohol nor marijuana causes people to try other drugs. People inclined to try mood-altering substances simply start with what's most easily available.

Whenever people find out that I work for the Marijuana Policy Project the first question I'm asked is...well, forget the first question, it's usually pretty inane.  The second question I'm generally asked is, "How did you get into that?" or "Why'd you decide to work there?"

I have a few reasons.  One of them is social justice.  Rarely do I find myself getting fired up so much as when I talk about the outrages suffered by people of color in the name of the War on Drugs.  Though most of us will never experience it, systematic racism is alive and well throughout America.

But, there is another reason--one that's only gotten my attention in the last year or so.  Basically, it boils down to the lack of compassion and understanding for medical marijuana patients.  The recent case of Tim Garon, a Seattle patient who was denied a liver transplant for having used doctor-recommended medical marijuana is just one example of a number of similar situations. Brilliant, now we're turning patients back into victims.

Check out the news clip from his story below, but be advised, it can be hard to watch: