Today the California state Assembly will hold a historic hearing looking at whether marijuana prohibition should be replaced with a system of regulation and taxation. The growing push for change in California – which also includes a handful of ballot initiatives in circulation -- was covered by this morning’s New York Times in an article that perhaps unintentionally reveals the feebleness of opponents’ arguments.

The story quotes John Lovell, lobbyist for several California police groups and the major voice for maintaining prohibition: “We get revenue from alcohol,” he said. “But there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues.”

If that’s the best they can do, the debate is over. The main social cost of alcohol comes from its tendency to promote violent and aggressive behavior, something marijuana simply doesn’t do, as explained in this article from the journal Addictive Behaviors. Not long ago, an independent panel of experts rated alcohol as significantly more dangerous than marijuana, in an article published in the prestigious journal The Lancet (unfortunately, the summary of the article you can read online for free doesn’t include the chart ranking various drugs).

If we want to reduce the social costs associated with booze, evidence suggests giving adults a safer, legal alternative makes sense. Mr. Lovell, meet reality.

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Congressman Sam Farr (D-Calif.) introduced the Truth In Trials Act of 2009 today (H.R. 3939), a bill that would give medical marijuana patients and providers the ability to argue in federal court that their actions were legal under state law.

Currently, a federal judge cannot consider state-level legality during a medical marijuana case. For example, Charles Lynch, a California resident who was on trial for operating a medical marijuana clinic that by all accounts operated in compliance with state law, was unable to defend himself by citing California’s medical marijuana law. And consequently, Lynch received a year-long jail sentence. He's just one of more than 100 people who were prosecuted under federal law during the Bush administration while being denied the right to defend themselves adequately in court.

The Truth In Trials Act would provide an affirmative defense for medical marijuana patients operating within the bounds of state law. If passed, it will protect patients and providers from disgraceful prosecutions in federal court.

While the Truth In Trials Act represents only a small step in the fight for substantive, national medical marijuana reforms, it will bring a fundamental fairness to federal medical marijuana trials. Please write your member of Congress and ask him or her to co-sponsor this bill. At MPP’s online action center, writing Congress is quick and easy.

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In news coverage of last week’s Department of Justice memo, there was a lot of confusion over exactly how many states have medical marijuana laws. Some outlets reported that 14 states have such laws. Others said 13 states. So which is it? And why the confusion?

The answer is 13. They are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

But many media—as well as some government sources—incorrectly counted Maryland as the 14^th state to protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and prosecution. Unfortunately, Maryland’s law does no such thing; the Free State has not yet earned a place among states with effective medical marijuana laws.

That’s because the Darrell Putnam Compassionate Use Act, signed into law in 2003 by then-Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R), falls short of the laws passed by the 13 medical marijuana states in many respects.

Here’s why: Maryland’s law protects patients from jail, but it does not protect them from arrest and does not give them any means of safe access to their medicine. Even patients using marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation are still subject to arrest, which has forced many to appear in court to prove they use marijuana because of medical necessity. While the law does protect seriously ill patients from any prison sentences if they can prove a medical necessity, it still allows for fines up to $100, and it gives prosecuted patients no recourse to seek refunds for legal fees. In many instances, the fate of medical marijuana patients in Maryland depends solely on their legal representation.

A proposal to create a state task force that would have re-evaluated Maryland’s current medical marijuana law died in committee earlier this year. But until reforms are passed, Maryland should not be included in the list of medical marijuana states.

Read more about Maryland’s medical marijuana laws and the latest legislative developments here.

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“The best gardeners of my generation are not hybridizing roses, are not working with orchids. They are working with this incredibly valuable and incredibly interesting plant called cannabis.”
--Michael Pollan

Before Michael Pollan’s best-selling books about food and the food industry, he wrote a fascinating volume about humanity’s symbiotic relationship with plants, called “The Botany of Desire.” That book is now a PBS special, airing for the first time this week, on October 28 at 8 p.m. If you have friends, family, coworkers, etc., who’ve never thought about our relationship with marijuana beyond the latest hysterical news story, this is the show they need to see.

The program traces the evolution of our relationship with four plants: the apple, the tulip, the potato, and cannabis.  And they aren’t as different as you might think. For example, both the apple and cannabis (now, of course, generally called marijuana in this country) have alternated between being treasured and being reviled.

The segment on marijuana (you didn’t really think we’d be focusing on tulips, did you?) is not a brief for ending prohibition. What it is, though, is a remarkably insightful and thoughtful look at how humans have related to this plant, what it’s taught us about our own physiology, and how we have helped it spread throughout the world. Though the marijuana segment is just one quarter of a two-hour program, it may be the best exploration of marijuana ever shown on U.S. television.

And yes, the segments on tulips, apples, and potatoes are pretty good too.

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Congressman Barney Frank, author of two important marijuana policy reform bills (H.R. 2835 and H.R. 2943), responded to a question about the direction of marijuana policy reform today on the Web site reddit.com. See the video below for his take on where the movement is headed.

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Yesterday, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that bong water can be considered a controlled substance, and that people caught in possession of said water can be prosecuted for possession of a drug mixture. Note: I am not making this up.

The ruling stemmed from a 2007 home search in which authorities seized, among other items, a glass bong containing about two-and-a-half tablespoons of water that tested positive for the presence of methamphetamine.

So what does this mean? According to Judge Paul Anderson, who authored the dissenting opinion, if the bong water is considered a drug mixture, the crime is a first-degree drug offense, and a first-time offender could serve seven years and two months in prison. If the bong water were considered paraphernalia, the same offender would be given a $300 fine for a petty misdemeanor conviction that would not go on their record.

Seven years and two months. For bong water.

Read the decision here.

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About the same time as I was posting about the Washington Post's refusal to run  MPP's response to Charles Lane's preposterous anti-medical-marijuana diatribe, the Post allowed Lane to strike again, with yet another online column filled with distortions and misstatements. I'm old enough to remember when the Post was a great newspaper. Yesterday I was angry; now I'm just sad.

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On Oct. 20, the Washington Post published an inaccurate and arguably libelous anti-medical marijuana diatribe by Charles Lane on its Web site. After a deluge of complaints, the version now posted is cleaned up slightly: shorn of an offensive reference to Supreme Court medical marijuana plaintiff Angel Raich as a hypochondriac and with a feeble "clarification" appended. But it's still a cascade of distortions and inaccuracies. Since the Post declined to print MPP's reply, we thought we'd share it with you:

Setting the Record Straight on Medical Marijuana
by
Bruce Mirken and Mike Meno

Charles Lane’s column, “Medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence,” (Oct. 20) was riddled with inaccuracies. Had Mr. Lane bothered to review the medical literature, he would have found not “hokum” and “snake oil,” as he calls it, but a small mountain of published, peer-reviewed research documenting that medical marijuana is a safe, effective, and sometimes even life-saving medication for many seriously ill Americans.

That’s not our opinion, it’s the opinion of a huge array of respected medical and public health organizations, including the American College of Physicians, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and many others. In 1999, for instance, the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine reported that “nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana.”

In a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Lymphoma Foundation of America, HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and other top experts stated, "For certain persons the medical use of marijuana can literally mean the difference between life and death. At a minimum, marijuana provides some seriously ill patients the gift of relative health and the ability to function as productive members of society."

And last year, the American College of Physicians – 124,000 doctors of internal medicine – stated, “Evidence not only supports the use of medical marijuana in certain conditions
but also suggests numerous indications for cannabinoids,” marijuana’s unique, active components.

A series of recent clinical trials has documented marijuana’s ability to relieve what is known as neuropathic pain – pain stemming from damage to the nerves. This type of pain plagues millions of Americans suffering from HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and other ailments, and is notoriously resistant to conventional pain drugs. Marijuana has been unequivocally shown to safely relieve this type of pain, even in many cases where conventional painkillers have failed.

While it is true that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved marijuana as a prescription medicine, the reason for that is political, not scientific. The federal government has maintained a stranglehold on medical marijuana research, preventing the types of studies that would be needed for FDA approval. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts are still fighting the federal government for the right to set up a research facility designed to move medical marijuana through the FDA approval process.

Finally, a word must be said about Mr. Lane’s reprehensible attack on Supreme Court plaintiff Angel Raich, who, he says, “might consider a consultation for hypochondria, or perhaps marijuana dependency” – apparently because anyone with multiple medical problems must surely be making them up. Actually, the Court’s majority opinion noted that Raich and fellow plaintiff Diane Monson had made "strong arguments that they will suffer irreparable harm, because, despite a congressional finding to the contrary, marijuana does have valid therapeutic purposes." Raich is having highly risky surgery October 28 – surgery that her doctors had originally ruled out because it is too dangerous -- because her brain tumor has now become life-threatening.

There is indeed much hokum in the medical marijuana debate, but it is coming from the opponents of medical marijuana, not the supporters.

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Monday’s Gallup poll showing that a record 44% of Americans favor making marijuana legal has brought increased attention to the need for an open, national debate on marijuana policy.

The fact that 44% percent of people favor taxing and regulating marijuana is even more impressive because—in stark contrast to many other public policy issues—for once, a substantial number of Americans actually view an issue favorably.

After all, Americans are a finicky bunch. We don’t like much these days, and in 2009 it’s impressive for anything to get 44% approval ratings. In fact, according to the latest numbers from a variety of polling sources, the idea of taxing and regulating marijuana enjoys higher support among the American public than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the top Democrat and top Republican in the House of Representatives, and—perhaps not surprisingly—Congress itself.

Take a look at these figures:

Based on these numbers, as well as the growing mainstream media coverage of marijuana issues, there is no longer any doubt that Americans see marijuana policy reform as a legitimate mainstream issue worthy of national debate. Let’s keep talking!

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Responding to recent calls to shutter Los Angeles county's medical marijuana collectives, MPP commissioned a poll that found Angelenos overwhelmingly supportive of medical marijuana access in their community.

According to the survey, 74 percent of Los Angeles County voters support the state's medical marijuana law. 77 percent said that they prefer regulating L.A.-area medical marijuana facilities over closing them all down. Support for regulation crossed all demographic groups, including Republicans who favor regulation over wholesale closure by a 62 to 30 percent margin.

The poll also found that 54 percent of voters think marijuana should be made legal for adults over 21 and and its sales taxed and regulated like alcohol.

Hopefully these results will further demonstrate to the Los Angeles City Council and other elected officials that attacking the medical marijuana community is a no-win game in L.A. politics.

The poll -- conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research -- surveyed 625 regular voters in L.A. County. The questions and results by demographic breakdown can be downloaded here.

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