President Obama campaigned yesterday for U.S. Senator Michael Bennet at the Fillmore Theater in Denver, but the real excitement occurred outside the theater, where dozens of medical marijuana patients and supporters gathered to express their frustration with the recent DEA activity in their state. Many held signs that read “Stop Arresting Patients” and “Stop Rogue DEA Raids,” referring to the DEA blatantly ignoring the change in policy made by the Obama administration this past October.

Over the past few weeks the DEA has entered and confiscated thousands of dollars worth of medical marijuana from two Colorado medical marijuana labs (Denver’s Full Spectrum Laboratories and Colorado Springs’ Genovations). Most recently the DEA arrested licensed medical marijuana grower Chris Bartkowicz, who was conducting a medical marijuana growing operation in the basement of his suburban Denver home. Bartkowicz now sits in jail facing five to forty years in prison and fines of up to $2 million.

Yesterday’s protest was organized and led by Sensible Colorado’s executive director Brian Vicente, who aptly points out that “at the most fundamental level, it's just a blatant and ridiculous waste of resources to go after an individual who was absolutely growing for medical purposes.” Vicente went on to say that the “U.S. Attorney needs to get out of the dark ages," and that “his comments are representative of decades past.” They sure are. Right on, Mr. Vicente.

The second episode of MPP Insider, funneling all the latest developments in the marijuana policy reform movement, straight to you from across the Internet.

A landmark bill to tax and regulate marijuana, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), was reintroduced in the California legislature today. The proposal would make personal possession and cultivation of marijuana legal for adults over 21 and would institute a regulatory system for marijuana sales modeled after the one that already exists for alcoholic beverages.

Asm. Ammiano’s 2009 marijuana reform bill, A.B. 390, was approved in the Assembly Public Safety Committee last month but did not advance further due to legislative calendar constraints. This year’s bill, A.B. 2254, is expected to receive hearings in the next couple of months.

Stay tuned as this bill progresses. We’ll definitely have our plates full out here in California, as we work on this legislation and build public support for reform in a year when the state’s electorate will be voting on the Tax Cannabis 2010 initiative.

The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR), based at the University of California, San Diego, published a report today summarizing the results of clinical trials studying medical marijuana’s efficacy in treating pain. The studies, funded by CMCR under the mandate of a 1999 legislative action, found that marijuana is particularly helpful in relieving pain associated with nerve damage and in treating the muscle spasticity from multiple sclerosis.

The summary CMCR presented to the California legislature today brings together data from 15 clinical studies – six of which have been published in respected medical journals.

In 2002, then-drug czar and rabid medical marijuana opponent, John Walters said, “The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research is currently conducting scientific studies to determine the efficacy of marijuana in treating various ailments. Until that research is concluded, however, most of what the public hears from marijuana activists is little more than a compilation of anecdotes.”

Well, the proof is in. Now it’s time for Congress to bring federal medical marijuana policy into line with the science.

The full CMCR publication can be downloaded, here.

Great news from the great state of Iowa: Today the state’s Board of Pharmacy voted 6-0 to recommend to lawmakers that the state reclassify marijuana as a Schedule II drug and create a task force to study the possible implementation of medical marijuana in the state.

This recommendation puts Iowa one step closer to enacting a medical marijuana law, as its own officials have now definitively recognized marijuana as a medicine. The Iowa House and Senate are each considering bills that would protect from arrest chronically ill patients who use marijuana to alleviate their conditions, but the bills missed deadlines that would have allowed them to be enacted this year. Fortunately, this recommendation from the Board of Pharmacy will put increased pressure on lawmakers to pass a law in the next session.

A Des Moines Register poll released yesterday found that 64% of Iowans support patients’ use of medical marijuana with a doctor’s recommendation.

Keep checking MPP’s blog and our Iowa state page for the latest developments.

Chris Bartkowicz was conducting a medical marijuana growing operation in his suburban Denver basement and was so confident that he was complying with state law that he decided to talk to the media, boasting to Denver’s NBC affiliate about the size and success of his operation, saying that he’s “living the dream.”

The next day his dream ended when DEA agents entered his home, placed him under arrest and carried off dozens of black bags full of marijuana plants and growing lights. While some details of this case remain unclear, Jeffrey Sweetin, the DEA special agent in charge of the Denver office, left little ambiguity as to his position. "It's not medicine,” Sweetin said. "It's still a violation of federal law [and] we're still going to continue to investigate and arrest people."

Sweetin went on to tell the Denver Post that “the time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody.” Sweetin’s comments come just months after a recently announced change in policy by the Obama administration, which said in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing for the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use.

Sweetin’s stance on the issue has seemed to soften a bit. He told the Denver Westword yesterday that the DEA is “not declaring war on dispensaries.” He went on to say, with an apparent laugh, "If we were declaring war on dispensaries, they would not be hard to find. You can't swing a dead cat around here without hitting thirty of them." Apparently someone with the Obama administration has updated Mr. Sweetin with its new policy.

Meanwhile, Chris Bartkowicz has been formally charged with "possession with intent to manufacture, distribute or dispense 224 marijuana plants " -- a crime that could put him behind bars for five to forty years and cost him up to $2 million in fines.

Authorities around the nation are expressing concern over the rising popularity of a legal marijuana knockoff called “Spice,” also known as K2. Spice is a mixture of organic and synthetic ingredients and apparently, when smoked, it produces a euphoria similar to marijuana.

Spice is sold legally as a marijuana alternative in stores across the country but some are suggesting that it's more dangerous that the real thing. We’ve known for a long time that our marijuana laws are leading people to use more dangerous drugs like alcohol. Now, Spice might be added to the list of dangerous concoctions marijuana prohibition is encouraging people to use in order to stay out of jail.

I suppose there could be stranger ways to achieve a legal high.

Utah’s lawmakers are getting a little desperate in their search to alleviate the state’s $700 million budget shortfall. One in particular, state Sen. Chris Buttars, is now proposing that Utah cut costs by eliminating the 12^th grade, or at least giving students the option of skipping their senior year of high school.

Well, I have a better idea for how Utah could bring in new revenue and keep kids in the classroom at the same time.

If Utah really wants to rake in the big bucks, the state should tax and regulate marijuana, the nation’s largest cash crop. Doing so would produce untold millions in new tax revenue and save millions more in reduced law enforcement costs. Marijuana is already pervasive in our society, and right now the only people making a profit from it are criminal drug dealers.

Sure, the idea might seem extreme for some in Utah, but is it any more crazy than sacrificing the education of the state’s young people?

California has had legal medical marijuana for over 13 years, and more than 80% of Americans support patients' rights to use it. But none of that mattered to Christian Hughes’ employer, who fired him for testing positive for marijuana that he uses under his doctor’s recommendation to treat injuries related to an auto accident.

Hughes, 33, was the on-site manager for a senior apartment complex in Anderson, California until his recent termination by MCA Housing Partners.

The resident senior citizens are up in arms over the unfair firing of their beloved manager. Norene Faidley, 68, told the Redding Record Searchlight that “Christian is our brother, our son, our grandson, and we love him.”

“He cares about us and our concerns,” she added. “No problem is too large or small, whether repairing an earring or eyeglasses to handling the unexpected illness or death of a resident.”

Some residents have even organized a petition and have gathered about 60 signatures from the 80-unit apartment complex in order to try to have Hughes reinstated.

Unfortunately, California law does not explicitly protect patients from sanctions in the workplace even when they are using marijuana in accordance with state law. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation that would have changed that in 2008.

You can read Christian Hughes’ whole story and view a video about the reaction, here.

I posted the story a couple weeks ago about a medical marijuana lab in Denver being raided by the DEA, but it turns out the lab inadvertently led agents to their doors.

According to Betty Aldworth, the lab’s director of outreach, employees were caught off guard by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s visit because they did everything they could to be in compliance with DEA requirements, even formally applying for an analytical lab license.

"We didn't need to do that, but we thought it was the right thing to do,” Aldworth told the Denver Westword. But as it turns out, doing the right thing isn’t always the best solution, at least not with the DEA. Since the lab did in fact apply for a license through the DEA, the law requires the DEA to follow up on the suitability of applicants for permits, including investigating whether the applicant is in violation of any federal laws.

So, technically the lab was not raided. But should it really be a priority of the DEA to investigate an organization whose sole purpose is to test the potency of a legitimate medicine to help legitimate patients?