Four years after 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston was shot and killed by Atlanta narcotics officers who falsified evidence before and after a completely unwarranted raid on her home, the city of Atlanta has announced it will pay a $4.9 million settlement to her family. 

In November 2006, officers conducted a “no knock” raid on Johnston’s home based on bogus information from an informant who said he had purchased drugs there. (After the raid, the informant told a local news station that he had never even been to Johnston's home, and that police asked him to fabricate the story after the shooting.)

Johnston, who lived alone, apparently mistook the plainclothes officers for intruders and, according to the prosecutor trying the officers, fired one shot through the door and hit nothing. The police responded, firing 39 shots, killing Johnston and apparently wounding three of their own.

Investigators did not find any evidence that drugs were being sold in the apartment. In an apparent attempt to fabricate a cover story, one of the officers, J.R. Smith, planted three bags of marijuana in the home, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Yonette Sam-Buchanan.

The raid made national headlines, and the three officers involved eventually plead guilty to federal charges including conspiracy, voluntary manslaughter and making false statements. They are currently serving sentences in federal prison.

"The resolution of this case is an important step in the healing process for the city and its residents," Atlanta’s mayor, Kasim Reed said in a statement yesterday. "As a result of the incident, several police officers were indicted in federal and state court on charges and were later convicted and sentenced for their actions. In addition, the narcotics unit of the Atlanta Police Department was completely reorganized, which included changes in policy and personnel."

Unfortunately, raids like the one on Kathryn Johnston’s home continue to occur every day in places all over the country. Some compensation for Johnston’s family is a good start to repairing the damage, but a much more appropriate legacy for this highly-publicized tragedy would be for officials nationwide to realize that in a free society, armed officers shouldn’t be sent on missions to break down doors and potentially use violence in order to enforce nonviolent drug offenses.

UPDATED: Read a more recent post clarifying Paul's comments here.

Back in May, when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul defeated an establishment candidate to win his party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate, I pointed out that one of the issues Paul used to win over voters was his support of medical marijuana laws.

Now, in a telling political move, the son of Ron Paul has reversed his stance on the issue, telling the Associated Press last week that “he is opposed to the legalization of marijuana, even for medicinal purposes.” (He also stated that he doesn’t think the government’s war on drugs is “a real pressing issue” and that he wants to cut federal funding for drug treatment programs.)

Gee, I wonder if this has anything to do with that episode from his past that’s been discussed so much in the news lately. Is Paul selling out medical marijuana patients as part of a strategy to deflect criticism? Or am I being too cynical?

For the record, Paul’s Democratic opponent, Jack Conway, isn’t much better when it comes to marijuana issues, and has received police endorsements because of his support for tougher law enforcement strategies.

In the latest example of a changing political atmosphere surrounding marijuana issues, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Washington state has been forced to clarify a series of cliché jokes his office made at the expense of medical marijuana research and patients.

Last week, Republican Dino Rossi issued an extremely immature and thoughtless press release criticizing federally funded research being conducted at Washington State University into marijuana’s effect on pain medication. The two-year study by psychology professor Michael Morgan involves injecting rats with synthetic cannabinoids and opiates in order to find ways to improve treatment for people suffering from chronic pain.

Rather than emphasize the great need for this type of research, as well as the proven efficacy of marijuana in helping to manage pain, Rossi decided to revert to hackneyed and unoriginal middle-school level humor. “Washington state taxpayers are tired of their money going up in smoke,” read the release issued by his office. “This bill isn't going to stimulate anything other than sales of Cheetos.”

Morgan, who received $148,438 in federal stimulus funds from the National Institutes of Health, defended his research in an email to the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

"It is odd that Rossi thinks he knows more about good research than these neuroscientists. The goal of stimulus funds going to research was to create jobs and advance research to improve health care. Contrary to what Rossi's press release says, I have created jobs. I funded both a graduate and undergraduate student with the $50,000 that I receive each year. It also provided a month of summer salary for me given that the State does not pay professors in the summer. The undergraduate I am currently funding actually graduated in May and would be unemployed if I did not offer her a job," Morgan wrote.

He said pain treatments cost billions of dollars each year.

"...what we proposed has nothing to do with smoking marijuana or what Rossi implies. It would have been nice if Rossi had checked his facts before trashing research that could be very beneficial. There are millions of Americans suffering from chronic pain. Is Rossi arguing that we should not do research to find better ways to reduce this suffering?"

One day later, a spokesperson for Rossi was put on the defensive, and tried to backtrack by saying “no judgment was made [by the campaign] on the validity of the research.”

This last development is important for one major reason: After years of being considered a third-rail issue that politicians were free to scorn, more candidates and officials are now waking to the reality that marijuana reform issues—and medical marijuana in particular—are very, very popular among voters. As the Rossi campaign has discovered, the most controversial thing about medical marijuana nowadays can be opposing it. Nationally, 81 percent of Americans support medical marijuana.

In another interesting aside, Steve Elliot points out that Rossi this year earned distinction as one of the 11 Most Crooked Candidates in the entire nation, according to a list put together by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Yesterday, organizers of the ballot measure to make up to an ounce of marijuana legal in Detroit filed an appeal to overturn the city election commission’s outrageous decision to remove the question from the November ballot.

In June, the Coalition for a Safer Detroit submitted more than 6,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot. Earlier this week, in an affront to democratic ideals, the Detroit Election Commission voted 3-0 to remove the measure, saying they were following a recommendation from the city’s law department, which was concerned that removing criminal penalties for marijuana in Detroit would be pre-empted by state law.

"If you're on the cutting edge of social change, litigation is just a cost of doing business," Tim Beck, the petition’s organizer, told the Detroit Free Press.

In late 2006, Mexican president Felipe Calderon announced a new government-backed military offensive against his country’s drug cartels, believing they could be defeated through sheer brute force. Four years later, more than 28,000 people have been killed, and the drug cartels are more powerful than ever, controlling vast manufacturing and distribution networks that have helped to bankroll kidnappings, extortion, human trafficking, and the corruption of an estimated 60 percent of U.S. border agents.

The majority of the cartels’ revenue – more than 60 percent, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy – comes from selling marijuana in the United States. Remember this.

Finally realizing the futility of the status quo, Calderon last week softened his position and said he was open to a debate about lifting prohibition as a way to combat the cartels and deprive them of their main source of income. (Officially, he remains an opponent of legalization.)

Then over the weekend, Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox (who as a former president is more politically flexible than his sitting successor) went even further, saying he firmly supports ending prohibition as a way to quell the violence. “Radical prohibition strategies have never worked,” Fox wrote, explaining that he sees legalization “as a strategy to weaken and break the economic system that allowed cartels to earn huge profits."

This line of thinking is not new, obviously. Other Latin American nations are realizing prohibition doesn’t work, and former leaders of Brazil and Columbia, as well as former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, have been among those calling for its end.

Meanwhile, as the war rages on in Mexico, street shoot-outs have become commonplace, journalists fear their own safety so much that they don’t even report the violence, and school children are being trained to duck and cover in order to avoid the crossfire.

But with Mexico awash in blood and its leaders desperately looking for solutions, our officials have offered nothing but the same failed options. With one hand, the U.S.  gives the Mexican government millions of dollars to continue funding its horrifically unsuccessful war, and with the other, our officials continue to deny the irrefutable reality that prohibition has not worked and another approach is needed — one that will stop handing the cartels a virtual monopoly over such a lucrative trade.

When asked directly if legalizing and regulating marijuana in the United States could help weaken the cartels, drug czar Gil Kerlikowske was characteristically close-minded. “All the things they are involved in, all these incredibly horrible crimes, of which narcotics is only a part, would still go on,” he told The Dallas Morning News.

A spokesperson for the State Department was even more tight-lipped: “While the question of debating legalization is for Mexicans to decide, we don't think the legalization of drugs is the answer.”

A few things:

1. Kerlikowske’s own office, ONDCP, is the same one that reported cartels make (at least) 60 percent of their money from selling marijuana here in the U.S. So we can only assume the drug czar is being knowingly dishonest when he says taking marijuana out of the criminal market wouldn’t have some impact on the cartels. If those drug organizations were operating at 40 percent of their current wealth, that would mean 60 percent fewer corrupt officials, weapons purchases, cartel manpower, etc.
2. “The question of debating legalization” is not just “for Mexicans to decide.” Maybe the State Department hasn’t noticed voters in the largest U.S. state will have an opportunity to turn the page on marijuana prohibition just three months from now, and several other states are considering similar proposals.
3. For government officials, it doesn’t have to be a question of whether or not regulation, rather than prohibition is “the answer.” They could simply start off with the middle road Calderon took and say it’s time for a debate. That’s what Gov. Schwarzenegger did last year in California, and now the debate over Prop. 19 has helped launch a national dialogue about ways to reform our disastrous marijuana policies.

While the mainstream media, state governments, and a growing number of politicians and pundits are eagerly wading into the debate over America’s marijuana prohibition, top officials in Washington still refuse to accept that it’s not only already underway but is increasingly moving in a new direction.

Or as Sylvia Longmire, a drug cartel analyst and border security consultant, told AOL News:

It's difficult to comprehend how the U.S. government could acknowledge Calderon taking on the legalization debate, knowing full well that U.S. demand and consumption helps fuel the drug war, and not take at least baby steps towards engaging in a similar debate [in the U.S.].

Difficult is one way to put it. Infuriating might be another.

Once again, government officials are trying to suppress the will of voters when it comes to marijuana issues. The Detroit Free Press reports today that the Detroit Election Commission has voted 3-0 to reject a November ballot initiative that would have given city voters a chance to decide whether to allow adults to legally possess small amounts of marijuana.

Members of the commission said they were following a recommendation by the city's Law Department, which said the proposal was pre-empted by state law forbidding possession of the drug. Detroit attorney Matt Abel, a petition organizer, said: "This would have sent a message to the police that they should focus on more serious crime." Abel said he and others behind the proposal were considering filing an appeal in Wayne County Circuit Court.

In June, the Coalition for a Safer Detroit turned in more than 6,000 signatures to place the marijuana measure on the ballot.

Stay tuned for updates about the ongoing effort to ensure that Detroit voters have their say on November 2.

MPP legislative analyst Dan Riffle discusses proposed regulations for a medical marijuana law in Washington, D.C. on NewsChannel 8.

Bruce Fein served as a high-ranking Justice Department official during the Reagan administration, and has since gone on to work for conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Now, as a member of the “Just Say Now” advisory board, he’s joined the growing number of conservatives who are calling for a legal and regulated marijuana market.

Watch below:

Progressive political blog FireDogLake launched its online marijuana legalization campaign yesterday. Complete with a website and an advisory board that includes former law enforcement officers, physicians, and activists, the campaign—called “Just Say Now”—is designed as a “transpartisan” nexus of sorts for the growing nationwide movement to end marijuana prohibition.

Partnering with FDL for the campaign is Students For Sensible Drug Policy, which recently made an excellent decision by naming our former colleague Aaron Houston as its new executive director. Though we miss Aaron’s presence in the office, his new position ensures that he’ll continue to play a leading role in combating the destructive policies of marijuana prohibition.

For more, check out this clip of FireDogLake founder and publisher Jane Hamsher announcing the “Just Say Now” campaign on CNN.

More than 2,000 people in Colorado applied for licenses to run state-regulated medical marijuana dispensaries, growing facilities or related businesses before this weekend’s application deadline, according to state officials. In total, the state made $7.34 million from application fees alone.

More than 700 applied specifically for dispensary licenses, far exceeding the number expected by state officials, who estimated that only half of the state’s roughly 1,100 pre-existing dispensaries would apply for licenses. State officials will now conduct thorough background checks on applicants before awarding licenses, which are expected to generate additional millions in annual revenue for Colorado.

“This outpouring of applications is another sign of how willing and eager marijuana business owners are to be taxed, regulated, and given equal treatment to other legitimate establishments,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, in a press release. “By sensibly regulating its medical marijuana industry, Colorado stands to gain untold millions in new revenue while at the same time providing legal clarity and rational oversight to what may soon be the largest regulated marijuana market in the world.”

In June, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (D) signed legislation designed to regulate the state’s medical marijuana industry through a system of local and state licenses. A state-licensed medical marijuana program is up and running in New Mexico, and similar programs will soon be operational in Rhode Island, Maine, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. – but the number of sanctioned dispensaries to be allowed in each of those states is fewer than 10. Colorado’s law will authorize hundreds, and potentially more if future demand increases.

A Rasmussen telephone poll released May 15 showed that there is also plurality support among Colorado voters for further expanding the state’s marijuana laws. Forty-nine percent of likely voters said they support taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol, with an additional 13 percent still undecided.