The House sponsor of Rhode Island's medical marijuana law, Rep. Thomas Slater, passed away today after a long battle with cancer.  In addition to championing the needs of seriously ill patients who could benefit from medical marijuana, he was the tireless advocate of the needy in his district, from driving elderly constituents to the pharmacy or supermarket to sponsoring legislation for health care for uninsured children and affordable housing. In June, the Providence Journal published a moving profile of this amazing man, which you can read here.

Despite being ravaged by cancer, Rep. Slater continued to trek to the legislature this summer to ensure the passage of a bill to add nonprofit dispensaries, or "compassion centers," to the The Edward O. Hawkins and Thomas C. Slater Medical Marijuana Act. The initial law allowed patients or their caregivers to grow marijuana, but many testified that they risked violence buying their medicine on the streets. Rep. Slater's heartfelt efforts paid off: His colleagues in the House unanimously voted to override Gov. Carcieri's veto of the bill, and they then gave him a standing ovation. Three years earlier, they had voted to name the medical marijuana law in his honor. Only Rep. Slater voted against this gesture.

Rep. Slater will be deeply missed. But his legacy will live on. Thanks to his leadership, more than 500 seriously ill patients in Rhode Island can now use their medicine without fearing arrest. And, by the new year, the state will have registered a nonprofit to provide regulated, safe access to their medicine.

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I've been absent from this blog for a couple weeks, taking a much needed vacation and trying my best not to think about marijuana policy. While away, I did what I usually do when I need to clear my head: I read some Mark Twain -- in this case a collection of his topical writings, some too incendiary to be published during his lifetime.

And Twain, damn him, got me thinking about marijuana policy.

In a piece called "Corn-Pone Opinions," first published 13 years after his death, Twain observes, "I am persuaded that a coldly thought-out and independent verdict on a fashion in clothes, or manners, or literature, or politics, or religion, or any other matter that is projected onto the field of our notice and interest, is a most rare thing -- if it has indeed ever existed. ... we shall merely conform and let it go at that. We get our notions and habits and opinions from outside influences."

Twain's essay was written many decades before public opinion polling showed that, once the results of an election are known, a far higher percentage will say they voted for the winning candidate than actually did so. As a race, we like to follow the pack and not stray too far from what we believe our friends and neighbors think.

And that tendency is what makes possible what Twain calls in another essay "the silent and colossal national lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses ..." Such lies, he explains, are rooted not in what is said, but what is unsaid -- by, for example, the millions of Americans who, when Twain was a child, knew slavery was wrong but said nothing. By silently acquiescing to what they thought was the majority sentiment so as not to stand out from their neighbors, they enabled a massive evil to be perpetuated for decades.

And so it is with our war on marijuana, an evil that persists because most of us silently go along with the colossal, national lie that the criminalization of tens of millions of our fellow citizens -- and the arrest of over four-fifths of a million of them each year -- is accomplishing something worthwhile rather than spreading injustice through every facet of society.

The answer -- the only answer -- is to break the silence. End the lies -- and not just on this blog or drug policy listserves or other forums for the converted. We need to speak up at every opportunity -- at work, at PTA meetings, at the barbershop, with friends and neighbors and co-workers. Even when it's awkward. Especially when it's awkward.

So how was your summer vacation?

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Scott Turner, a New Hampshire medical marijuana patient who made headlines during the presidential primaries when he got then-Sen. Obama to promise to end federal interference in medical marijuana states, died Aug. 4.

Scott, who suffered a long, painful battle with degenerative joint disease and a degenerative disc disease, was a great friend to MPP and a tireless advocate for the rights of patients to use medical marijuana without fear of arrest.

Most recently, he was involved in the fight to pass a medical marijuana bill in New Hampshire, which was vetoed by the governor after legislators scrambled to pass a bill they had reworked to his specifications.

We here at MPP will miss Scott dearly, and we offer our sincerest condolences to his wife and family. We'll continue your work, Scott, and make sure the New Hampshire legislature overrides Gov. Lynch's veto and ensures no seriously ill Granite Stater ever has to endure what you endured just to treat your pain.

Here's Scott back in August 2007, securing Obama's support for the rights of medical marijuana patients, which led the Obama administration to announce its historic policy change earlier this year:

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Two weeks ago, when drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told reporters that “marijuana is dangerous and has no medical benefit,” he also repeated a line he’s been using since taking the job as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy: "Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine."

This oft-repeated line (see an example here) is concerning to those of us who want President Obama making informed decisions about our nation’s marijuana policies. How can he discuss its merits if he doesn’t know the word?

To solve this problem, MPP has created a Web page that allows you to e-mail President Obama the definition.

Click here to define “legalization” for President Obama.

It also lets you add a message about why you support ending marijuana prohibition. Go ahead and take action today, and help MPP arm President Obama with the knowledge he’ll need to make an informed decision about the future of America’s marijuana laws.

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British scientists warn increasing hostility toward scientific evidence that contradicts political agendas could hinder the collaborative relationship policy and science enjoys in Britain, the Guardian reported yesterday.

Last November, the British government ignored the advice of its Scientific Advisory Board and moved marijuana into a more dangerous class of drugs, a move described by top scientists at the time as "a sad departure from the welcome trend … of public policy following expert scientific advice."

Of course, here in the United States, government has been ignoring its scientific advisors on marijuana policy for decades, at least since Nixon first lined his bird cage with the two-year study he commissioned recommending marijuana's decriminalization.

And that unwelcome trend continues to this very day here, as evidenced by drug czar Gil Kerlikowske's recent lie that marijuana "has no medicinal benefit." Not sure who Kerlikowske's scientific advisors are, but the one we taxpayers use, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, says: "Nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety … all can be mitigated by marijuana."

Then again, it doesn't take a scientist to know that it's wrong to deny sick people medicine that eases their pain, or to arrest responsible adults because they prefer a drug that's safer than alcohol or tobacco.

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Last week, several thousand MPP members called and e-mailed the White House to express outrage at drug czar Gil Kerlikowske’s statement that “marijuana is dangerous and has no medical benefit.” A big thanks to everyone who took action!

This week, the White House started sending out a form letter in response to our concerns. As you can see from the letter, the old half-truths and outright lies from the Bush administration still infect the drug czar’s position on marijuana. 

The letter essentially hides behind a 2006 statement from the FDA, which claims, “No sound scientific studies have supported medical use of smoked marijuana.” There are two problems with this: First, it’s not true. On MPP’s Web site, we’ve posted numerous studies that support marijuana’s medical efficacy. Second, the statement is widely recognized as untrue. When the FDA released it in 2006, health experts and newspaper editorial boards around the country immediately denounced the position as political and unscientific.

The letter also goes to great lengths to frame the issue around “smoked marijuana.” This is a classic tactic used by prohibitionists to link medical marijuana with smoking. However, many medical marijuana patients these days are vaporizing or simply eating marijuana, two delivery methods that virtually eliminate the health risks associated with smoking.

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MPP spokesperson F. Aaron Smith responds to a raid on an illicit marijuana growing operation in Sonoma, CA. These raids usually target operations run by Mexican drug cartels and are the direct result of the prohibition of marijuana. He compares them to alcohol bootleggers and asserts that taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol will put these criminals out of business and save police time and money. 07/29/2009

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It's already that time of the year again: CAMP season -- when law enforcement agents, donned in paramilitary gear, set out on the hunt for marijuana in the California wilderness. And prohibitionists are already touting massive plant seizures as a victory for their cause.

Over the past decade, CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Planting) seizures have increased by 2,000 percent but marijuana use and availability have remained relatively stable. And besides being futile, this "eradication" program actually drives illegal marijuana farms further into hard-to-find wilderness areas that are the most ecologically sensitive.

Every summer, the media jumps all over the CAMP raids but all too often, reporters fail to ask the obvious question of why criminals are growing billions of dollars worth of marijuana on public lands in the first place. The answer, of course, is that prohibition fuels an illegal market in marijuana -- just as it did when alcohol was illegal in the 1920s. These criminal marijuana farmers are the bootleggers of the 21st century.

Regulating marijuana is the only way to get it out of the forests and into a controlled market.

After all, it's no accident that there aren't clandestine vineyards, hop fields, or tobacco plantations being planted in the forests of California.

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Check out the highlights of MPP's 4th Annual Party at the Playboy Mansion, from June 4, 2009.

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MPP Executive Director Rob Kampia appears on Fox Business News "Happy Hour" to discuss efforts in California to tax and regulate marijuana, and how it will help the state's revenue problems. 07/24/2009

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