From the Washington Post, an absolute must-read.

Just two days after the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review proclaimed that the mainstream media are “are acting less childish about pot,” along comes the New York Daily News to prove that childishness is alive and well.

On Wednesday, MPP began airing two new TV ads around New York state in support of medical marijuana legislation. The spots feature real patients talking about the severe pain they suffer every day and how medical marijuana helps them. Amazingly, these serious and sober ads were rejected by three New York City TV stations.

The Daily News found it all quite amusing: "Just say yes! That's the message a national pro-pot group is taking to New York's airwaves," the paper wrote. After quoting me about why we did the campaign, the story concluded, "The city's ABC, CBS and Fox affiliates harshed the group's buzz by declining to run the ads, Mirken added."

Uh, no, I actually didn’t say anything remotely like that. But what I really said wasn’t nearly as cute.

Today, Congressman Mark Souder (R-Ind.) attempted to pass an amendment that would continue to prevent students with even minor drug convictions from receiving financial aid. His amendment was withdrawn, paving the way for students with drug convictions to seek higher education and a better life.

Souder authored a provision in 1998 that for nearly 10 years has blocked students with drug convictions from receiving financial aid. This year, congressional Democrats added language to SAFRA (Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, HR 3221), which fixed the problem created by Souder’s provision. During discussion of the bill today, Souder offered an amendment that would have undone this fix.

Congressman Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.), a close ally of MPP, convinced Souder to withdraw his amendment.

Eliminating financial aid for students with drug convictions is one of the most small-minded policies in America’s war on drugs. By preventing these students from seeking opportunities in higher education, the provision locked many students into a cycle of poverty and forced low-income students to bear the brunt of a misguided, prohibitionist mindset. The fix, which would allow students access to aid, will provide hundreds of thousands of students the opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families.

SAFRA is still working its way through the legislative process. MPP will continue to update you on its progress.

Remember that gut-wrenching footage of the wheelchair-bound medical marijuana patient being pulled out of his chair and into the back of a squad car? The victim of this brutality was Rev. Paul Cody, operator of the Hillcrest Compassion Care medical marijuana collective in San Diego.

Paul has told the San Diego City Beat that he's planning on filing a legal complaint for his treatment during the raid on Hillcrest. Paul is paralyzed from the waist down due to a motorcycle accident, and he repeatedly told the police officers that his condition required that he receive special treatment but sadly, the thugs carried on as if terrorizing a man in a wheelchair was just another day at the office.

“I told them again and again, I’m paralyzed, I have to be in the front seat,” he told CityBeat later.

Cody says he told officers repeatedly of his special needs, but they didn’t listen. With his particular injury, he can’t support himself sitting upright, and he has special requirements for how his legs are supposed to be arranged, which mandates that he sit in the front seat of cars. But Cody says cops cuffed him behind his back and shoved him into the back, where he slumped over. He says he has the bruises to show the damage done to him.

Needless to say, MPP wishes Paul the best of luck in his challenge. More importantly, we look forward to the day when local officials everywhere in California finally begin following the state's long-standing, voter-approved medical marijuana law so that people like Paul are no longer victimized by their own government.

U.S. marijuana arrests declined somewhat in 2008, according to figures released by the FBI today. According to the just-released Uniform Crime Reports, U.S. law enforcement made 847,863 arrests on marijuana charges last year, 89 percent of which were for possession, not sale or manufacture – more arrests for marijuana possession than for all violent crimes combined. One American was arrested on marijuana charges every 37 seconds.

Marijuana arrests peaked in 2007 at over 872,000, capping five years of all-time record arrests.

The new report comes on the heels of the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released Sept. 10, which showed an increase in both the number and percentage of Americans who admit having used marijuana. In  2003, when marijuana arrests set what was then an all-time record of 755,186, 40.6 percent of Americans aged 12 and over said they had used marijuana. In 2008, that figure was 41 percent, or 102,404,000 Americans willing to tell government survey-takers that they had used marijuana.

Apparently, massive numbers of arrests didn’t curb marijuana use.

“This slight dip in the number of marijuana arrests provides a small amount of relief to the tens of millions of American marijuana consumers who have been under attack by their own government for decades,” said Marijuana Policy Project executive director Rob Kampia in a statement issued by MPP today. “It’s time to stop wasting billions of tax dollars criminalizing responsible Americans for using a substance that’s safer than alcohol, and to put an end to policies that simply hand this massive consumer market to unregulated criminals.”

To put that arrest figure in perspective, it’s equivalent to arresting every man, woman and child in the city of San Francisco – plus about 23,000 more people from nearby suburbs – in just one year. Do you feel safer?

According to the San Diego County District Attorney's Office -- the agency that led yesterday’s multi-jurisdictional raids on local medical marijuana providers -- warrants were served at 14 dispensing collectives and six associated residences. So far, 23 people have been arrested in connection with the raided facilities.

The D.A.’s press release attempts to justify the actions using an extremely narrow interpretation of state law relating to the role of a “primary caregiver.” It does not address whether or not the facilities in question were operating as “collectives” – a more common state-legal model for dispensing medical marijuana.

One thing that's clear about this case is that San Diego would have been better served if its leaders had moved to properly regulate medical marijuana facilities rather than resisting any effort to do so before resorting to brute force to shutter legal access to local patients.

If you've had any doubt that these raids are being carried out by heartless thugs, just look to the image below from video captured by San Diego’s KFMB News showing an officer manhandling a wheelchair-bound patient into the back of a patrol car. Remind me again, how is this serving the interest of public safety?

The new National Survey on Drug Use and Health is out, and it puts the final nail in the coffin of the war on marijuana conducted by George W. Bush’s drug czar, John Walters.

Walters’ fanaticism about marijuana is epitomized by a November 2002 letter sent to the nation’s prosecutors by his deputy, Scott Burns, claiming that “no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana.” Walters carpet-bombed the nation with anti-marijuana propaganda – TV, radio and print ads, reports, press conferences, news releases, etc. – and quickly began to follow up with exaggerated claims of success.

That game is now over. Compare the just-released 2008 data to the 2002 survey, the first to reflect Walters’ policies:

In 2002, 94.9 million Americans admitted having used marijuana at some point in their lives. In 2008, that figure had grown to 102.4 million. In percentage terms, that’s an increase from 40.4 percent in 2002 to 40.6 percent in 2008 – unchanged, statistically speaking. For current (past 30 days) use, the pattern is similar: 14.6 million or 6.2 percent in 2002, 15.2 million or 6.1 percent in 2008. The slight declines of a couple years ago have now been entirely erased and were likely no more than statistical noise.

The drug war industrial complex will never admit it, but the most intensive anti-marijuana campaign since the days of “Reefer Madness” produced exactly nothing.

Several San Diego-area medical marijuana collectives were raided today in a county-wide sweep apparently coordinated by the district attorney's office. It's unclear at this time whether or not any arrests have been made or exactly what -- if any -- state law violations are being alleged in these cases.

Given San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis' dismal record of circumventing California's medical marijuana laws and prosecuting patients, this recent action is unfortunately not very surprising. MPP is continuing to keep a close watch on the situation in San Diego; we'll provide an update if more relevant information becomes available.

In Tuesday’s San Francisco Chronicle, columnist Jon Carroll went off on an ad that’s run lately in his paper and others promoting a drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The drug is called Humira, and Carroll is aghast at warnings in the ad, which advise that people taking this drug might be at risk for fatal infections, heart failure, and “certain types of cancers.”

“I look at the risk-benefit ratio, and I worry,” Carroll concludes, and understandably so.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, characterized by inflammation of the lining of the joints. It can be painful and even disabling.

Of course, there’s a drug that’s a well-documented pain reliever and anti-inflammatory, and there is already some evidence that it may work for rheumatoid arthritis. It doesn’t cause fatal infections, cancer, or heart failure. But you won’t see major drug companies advertising it. Can you name this drug?

On Sunday, the British newspaper The Observer wrote, "In June 1971, US President Richard Nixon declared a 'war on drugs.' Drugs won."  Read the rest here.