Drug czar John Walters is back in California this week, flying around the Central Valley in a Blackhawk helicopter surveying the progress of the latest marijuana "eradication" adventure.Bruce Mirken has already written about these gaudy publicity stunts, but since Walters and his ilk like to play soldier so much, let's see how their war on marijuana users is going elsewhere today ...

Federal prosecutors won their case against Morro Bay medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch. Having successfully argued that evidence establishing him as a responsible, law-abiding business owner was irrelevant under federal law and therefore inadmissible, painting him to a jury as a common drug dealer was a piece of cake.

At the very same time in San Diego, however, feds conveniently applied the exact opposite logic to justify raids on four dispensaries, citing evidence that the establishments weren't complying with state medical marijuana laws – the same laws that were irrelevant to Lynch's defense.

Meanwhile, it looks like cops in Tallahassee lied to a grand jury investigating local law enforcement's role in the death of Rachel Hoffman, a recent college graduate murdered in a sting operation after being pressured into acting as an informant. Not content to accept responsibility for the death of a young girl who by all accounts sold just enough marijuana to pay for her personal use, cops tried to smear her as a major drug kingpin making nearly $2 million a year. Considering that she was busted with 5 ounces of marijuana and that her dad still paid the rent on her apartment, nobody's buying it.

Finally, after local police insisted that a raid on a Prince George's County mayor that resulted in the death of the man's two black Labs was executed by the book, it now appears not only that the man is probably completely innocent, but that cops had lied when they said they had a warrant authorizing the no-knock raid.

From his perch in a combat helicopter high over the Sequoia National Forest, it's easy for Mr. Walters to portray this war on marijuana as a success. But from the ground, it's an unconscionable mess.

In case you've missed it, MPP-TV has been busy over the last couple of weeks producing a slew of new videos.  We've got Rep. Barney Frank and Rob Kampia discussing H.R. 5843, the “Personal Use of Marijuana By Responsible Adults Act,"  a couple of videos featuring an exclusive interview with Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, and a video of our chat with travel guru Rick Steves and his thoughts on marijuana prohibition.  Check them out, let us know what you think, and send us your ideas for the kinds of videos you'd like to see!

CNN just picked up on federal prosecutors' attempts to hamstring the defense of San Luis Obispo medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch, which went to a jury yesterday. As we've mentioned before, not only is Lynch forbidden from testifying that he operated within state medical marijuana laws with local officials' blessing, prosecutors even tried to bar "sick looking" witnesses from testifying on his behalf.

Makes sense: It's much more difficult to convict an innocent man if the jury has evidence establishing his innocence, right?

A little while back, we held our third annual Party at the Playboy Mansion. During the party, a film crew produced a short documentary, which we're proud to present. See what celebrities think about marijuana policy reform, MPP, and our mission.

On July 30, 2008, MPP's Rob Kampia joined Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to discuss the benefits of HR5843, the “Personal Use of Marijuana By Responsible Adults Act." If you'd like to encourage your legislator to support this bill, visit https://www.mpp.org/federal-action/.

Music is courtesy of His Boy Elroy.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/nc-sampling+/1.0/

Okay, "must" may be a bit strong, but before heading off on vacation for two weeks (and leaving you in the capable hands of my fellow bloggers), I want to mention two new books that deserve attention from anyone interested in marijuana and marijuana policy.

Despite the awful title, "Dying to Get High"  is one of the most interesting books yet written about medical marijuana. Authors Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb focus on the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a patient-run collective in Santa Cruz, Calif., that was the subject of a notorious federal raid in 2002. But they also take a broader look at the issue, including how modern medicine evolved its current distaste for "crude plant products," as medical marijuana is sometimes termed.

Also worth a serious look is "The Science of Marijuana" (second edition) by Leslie L. Iversen. Iversen, an Oxford University professor of pharmacology and member of the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, gives a thorough and thoughtful overview of what science knows about marijuana and cannabinoids -- not a brief for any side in marijuana policy debates but a solid, straightforward review of the data, in reasonably non-technical terms. If you're attracted to the idea that policy should be based on actual facts, "The Science of Marijuana" belongs on your shelf.

Good news for people who don't like their local governments wasting time and money challenging laws they don't like in futile court battles: For the second time, a California court -- in this case, the Fourth District Court of Appeals -- has tossed challenges to the state's medical marijuana laws by the counties of San Diego and San Bernardino.

San Bernardino taxpayers had already footed the bill for about $60,000 in salaries alone for this misguided legal adventure when it got tossed the first time way back in December 2006.

San Diego has refused to offer any idea how much they've spent on this boondoggle, but according to a January 2006 Evans/McDonough random poll of 500 likely San Diegan voters MPP commissioned, 80% of telephone respondents agreed the Board of Supervisors was wasting money on the lawsuit.

Theoretically, they could take the case to the state Supreme Court, but wouldn't be nice if they just obeyed the law, issued the required medical marijuana I.D. cards to qualifying patients, and stopped throwing tax dollars down the sewer?

This is the exclusive second part to our Profiles in Marijuana Reform interview with Milton Friedman, available only on tv.mpp.org.

Part 1 of our sit-down interview with Nobel Prize winning economist, Milton Friedman. Click here for the second part of our interview available exclusively at tv.mpp.org.

So police discover a package of marijuana apparently shipped to the mayor of a small town in Prince George's County and respond by sending a SWAT team to pounce on the unarmed man as he returns from work, killing his two Labradors for good measure. The police then handcuff him and his mother-in-law next to their pets and interrogate them for hours as blood pools on the floor. And a PG police spokesman says the raid was carried out properly according to their policies.

I'm sure it was. Does anybody else see anything wrong with our policies?