The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) will put a hold on the nomination of Michele Leonhart to be the next administrator of the DEA.

Kohl's beef with Leonhart has nothing to do with her views on marijuana issues, but rather the DEA's work in restricting access to certain prescription pain medications in nursing homes. Still, this represents the strongest opposition to date against Leonhart, who is currently interim DEA head and has played a crucial role in overseeing raids on state-legal medical marijuana collectives and denying applications to do FDA-level research on marijuana.

In recent months, MPP and many of our allies have protested Leonhart's nomination to head the DEA based on concerns over those above-mentioned actions and some less-than-thoughtful comments she has made about the worsening prohibition-fueled violence in Mexico. At her confirmation hearing, Leonhart, a Bush administration holdover, promised Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) that, “If confirmed as administrator, we would continue to enforce the federal drug laws” -- which directly contradicts last year's Department of Justice directive to respect state medical marijuana laws.

Despite those concerns, Leonhart's confirmation seemed all but certain, but Sen. Kohl now has the power to draw the process out for some time. Stay tuned for updates.

Back in May, the Associated Press published the first piece in a groundbreaking series concluding that, after 40 years and more than $1 trillion spent, America’s war on drugs “has failed to meet any of its goals.” Today, as part of the same series, the AP looks specifically at U.S. enforcement strategy toward drug cartels in Mexico, and concludes that even record-level arrests and seizures have failed absolutely to curb the power of the violent gangs that control vast swaths of northern Mexico and make billions by selling drugs, particularly marijuana, to the illicit U.S. market.

Boiled down, it’s a damning indictment of prohibition – and more importantly, the assumption that if we just arrest enough people, and seize enough drugs, then these bloodthirsty, increasingly powerful cartels will somehow just go away.

Citing just one example, a major DEA operation that arrested 761 members of the Sinaloa drug cartel and seized 23 tons of narcotics, the AP quotes acting Drug Enforcement Administration chief Michele Leonhart, as declaring: "Today we have dealt the Sinaloa drug cartel a crushing blow."

But just how crushing was it? An Associated Press investigation casts doubt on whether the crackdown caused any significant setback for the cartel. It still ranks near the top of Mexico's drug gangs, and most of those arrested were underlings who had little connection to the cartel and were swiftly replaced. The cartel leader remains free, along with his top commanders.

The findings confirm what many critics of the drug war have said for years: The government is quick to boast about large arrests or drug seizures, but many of its most-publicized efforts result in little, if any, slowdown in the drug trade.

When confronted by the AP with the fact that the current U.S. enforcement strategy is futile, DEA Deputy Director David Gaddas insisted such tactics work, reportedly arguing, “it’s disruptive for cartels to lose their drivers, their accountants, and their money launderers.”

Yes, but aren't the drugs they seize a fraction of those on the street, and the criminals arrested replaced or released?

Gaddas dropped his head into his hands for a moment, thinking.

"You know, we're doing God's work," he replied.

I never realized that was who told the DEA how to go about its business.

All kidding aside, that’s an unbelievably lame excuse. Hardly a week goes by now without a mainstream media report of the increasing carnage in Mexico, the discovery of yet another elaborate tunnel they cartels have used to smuggle marijuana into the United States, or the political and social tension that Mexican instability and violence are causing along our southern border. If you read the entire AP article, it cites one frustrating example after another.

And the DEA sits there and claims – despite mountains of evidence to the contrary – that its strategy is working.

Thankfully, a major news organization like the AP has now – finally – read the writing on the wall and spelled it out with meticulous detail: current U.S. drug policy does not work. It does not reduce crime, does not reduce use, does not reduce availability, does not weaken major drug traffickers.

So what should we do instead? How else can we strike a blow against these murderous cartel thugs?

Well, according to former Mexico presidents, leading Mexican intellectuals, a sitting U.S. federal judge, a former U.S. border governor, and many others, the single most effective thing the U.S. could do would be to remove marijuana from the criminal market, and tax and regulate it like alcohol. Deny the cartels their most lucrative product, and make border cops spend their time on more worthwhile activities than arresting Willie Nelson.

First, the good news: California attorney general candidate Steve Cooley conceded the election to his opponent, Kamala Harris. While Harris may not be the most outspoken supporter of Prop 215 or medical marijuana patients, she is sure to be a better option. Cooley's history of antagonism toward the medical marijuana field and complicity with federal law enforcement as district attorney of Los Angeles would have meant trouble for the state's more than 350K registered patients. Disaster averted!

Unfortunately, the marijuana-hostile legal and civic environment that Cooley helped create in Southern California resulted in Los Angeles and Orange County supervisors voting to ban medical marijuana dispensaries in all unincorporated areas. Rather than use the tools at their disposal to deal with illegal dispensaries, the supervisors elected to effectively deny patients in those areas access to their medicine unless they feel like a nice long drive (assuming they are able to travel, or even get out of bed).

L.A. County patients can take one small comfort, though. It appears that higher politics has left Cooley feeling a little burned out, judging from a statement he released suggesting that this is his last term in office:

"I will complete my third term and finish my career as a professional prosecutor in the office where it began over 37 years ago," he said.

Good riddance.

The DEA announced today that it will temporarily classify five synthetic chemicals that mimic the effects of marijuana as Schedule 1 drugs, meaning they have no medical value, a high potential for abuse, and will be illegal to sell, purchase, or use. (Marijuana itself, as many of us are already well aware, is also classified as a Schedule 1 drug).

The move comes after more than a dozen states nationwide have passed bans on the herbal blends, which go by names such as "Spice" and "K2," and -- while advertised as "not for human consumption" -- were sold in smoke shops around the country and used by customers as a legal alternative to marijuana. The products generally do not show up on drug tests, but there have been various reports of them causing adverse health effects, including accelerated heart rates, increased blood pressure, and several documented trips to the emergency room.

As I have argued before, the prevalence of these substances is simply another unintended consequence of the government's irrational prohibition on natural, whole-plant marijuana, which comes with none of the side effects attributed to these chemical knock-offs. The DEA's ban on the five synthetic versions could take effect in 30 days and last for at least a year, but as I've said before, the bans on fake marijuana will ultimately be as ineffective as the ban on real marijuana (used by 17 million Americans monthly, despite its Schedule 1 status) and could lead users and suppliers to begin experimenting with other, possibly more dangerous synthetic variants that mimic marijuana's effects.

In September, I wrote a more detailed article for the Huffington Post explaining my thoughts on K2 bans. Here's an excerpt:

All this K2 nonsense is simply one more reason — alongside more important issues like sensible law enforcement, personal liberty, racial justice, and potential tax revenue — why America needs a legal, regulated marijuana market. Whereas the full health effects of K2 are largely unknown because they haven’t been studied, marijuana is perhaps the most studied plant in history — one that a former DEA judge once called “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.” In a regulated market, consumers would know exactly what they’re purchasing and putting into their bodies. This is not the case when somebody buys K2 — or one of its various knockoffs — that’s been sprayed onto some mystery plant matter.

I don’t have a solid opinion one way or the other as to whether K2 should be banned or regulated like other drugs. But I do know this: The only reason anyone uses K2 and not marijuana is because K2 is legal and marijuana is not. It’s as simple as that. Make marijuana legal, and few, if any, consumers will waste their time seeking out K2.

It’s for this reason that K2 bans are misguided, because they don’t address the core issue: millions of Americans want to use marijuana, or something that will mimic its effects, and if they’re afraid about illegal means of doing so, they will continue to seek out legal alternatives. In fact, the Associated Press has reported that in states where K2 has been banned, merchants have simply changed its name, altered its chemical makeup slightly, and continued to sell it to customers. That’s right: people in those states are now seeking legal alternatives to the legal alternative to marijuana. And round and round we go.

In the latest sign of the growing legitimacy and political clout of America’s emerging marijuana industry, medical marijuana business leaders and others have announced the creation of the National Cannabis Industry Association, an organization founded with the express purpose of improving business conditions for the burgeoning marijuana industry. From today’s New York Times:

Based in Washington, the group, the National Cannabis Industry Association, will focus primarily on lobbying, but will also help medical marijuana businesses navigate a patchwork of laws that differ depending on location.

“This is an industry that is emerging — from the dispensaries to the ancillary businesses that are now coming out of the shadows,” said Aaron Smith, a medical marijuana advocate in Phoenix and the group’s executive director. “While there is good work being done, there isn’t anyone out there representing the industry’s interests directly.”

The group’s board members, which include some of the more prominent names in the medical marijuana industry, say the need for a national association has become increasingly apparent with the explosion of the legal marijuana business. Such businesses include dispensaries, growing facilities and equipment suppliers.

According to a press release the group sent out this morning, "In addition to working to repeal the federal prohibition of marijuana, NCIA is already focusing on more immediate policy goals for the industry such as ensuring that the nation’s revenue and banking policies are not out of step with state laws allowing medical cannabis sales."

Readers may remember Aaron Smith from his past work as MPP’s California state policy director, where he helped advance marijuana law reform legislation in the California state legislature by working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle (and was also a frequent contributor to this blog!). We wish him all the best in his new role at NCIA.

You can learn more about the group at TheCannabisIndustry.org.

In Steve Fox's third appearance on Fox & Friends, he discusses the passage of Arizona's Proposition 203. At the end of this "fair and balanced" debate, Mr. Fox is cut off before he can respond to some extremely dubious statements. Read Mr. Fox's rebuttal after the video.

From Steve Fox:

The closing argument by Paul Charlton about MPP's disinterest in seeing marijuana go through the FDA approval process was both inaccurate and uninformed. Since 2002, MPP has engaged in a wide range of lobbying efforts in an attempt to pressure the DEA into granting a license to the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for FDA-approved research. Currently, anyone who wants to conduct research on the therapeutic benefits of marijuana must seek permission from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to acquire marijuana from the only federally-approved marijuana farm in the country at the University of Mississippi. But no corporation or organization would be able to use this marijuana for testing purposes and then bring the product to market, since they would not have control of the substance nor would they be able to prove that they could reproduce it.

A separate marijuana cultivation facility, which could effectively work with a private company or organization to develop and test a specific strain of marijuana, is needed in order to navigate the FDA process and bring a marijuana-based product to market. Yet the DEA has intentionally blocked the University of Massachusetts application for eight years, despite the fact that an administrative law judge within the DEA ruled in 2007 that granting the license would be "in the public interest."

If Mr. Charlton is truly interested in allowing science to determine whether marijuana is a medicine, he should join MPP in calling on the DEA to award the cultivation license to the University of Massachusetts. If he isn't willing to do that, he needs to find a new -- and accurate -- talking point.

There are now 15 states with medical marijuana laws, but at a Senate committee hearing yesterday to confirm the next head of the DEA, not a single person asked nominee Michele Leonhart how she would address this growing divide between state and federal marijuana policy. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R - AL) did, however, take the opportunity to make sure Leonhart will remain a loyal, unquestioning, die-hard drug warrior.

Mike Riggs has the story in today’s Daily Caller:

Perhaps due to the failure of Prop 19 in California (and despite the passage of medical marijuana in Arizona), Kohl, along with Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Al Franken of Minnesota, made no mention of medical marijuana. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, however, made it his prime focus.

“I’m a big fan of the DEA,” said Sessions, before asking Leonhart point blank if she would fight medical marijuana legalization.

“I have seen what marijuana use has done to young people, I have seen the abuse, I have seen what it’s done to families. It’s bad,” Leonhart said. “If confirmed as administrator, we would continue to enforce the federal drug laws.”

“These legalization efforts sound good to people,” Sessions quipped. “They say, ‘We could just end the problem of drugs if we could just make it legal.’ But any country that’s tried that, Alaska and other places have tried it, have failed. It does not work,” Sessions said.

“We need people who are willing to say that. Are you willing to say that?” Sessions asked Leonhart.

“Yes, I’ve said that, senator. You’re absolutely correct [about] the social costs from drug abuse, especially from marijuana,” Leonhart said. “Legalizers say it will help the Mexican cartel situation; it won’t. It will allow states to balance budgets; it won’t. No one is looking [at] the social costs of legalizing drugs.”

Actually, Ms. Leonhart, there is a vast academic literature exploring the social cost of liberalizing drug laws, and the overwhelming conclusion most studies reach is that prohibition does far more harm than most of the substances themselves ever could, especially marijuana. Riggs cites just one example, a 2009 Cato Institute white paper released eight years after Portgual decriminalized illegal drugs, which concludes: “None of the nightmare scenarios touted by preenactment decriminalization opponents — from rampant increases in drug usage among the young to the transformation of Lisbon into a haven for ‘drug tourists’ — has occurred.” He could have also cited another Cato study from this year showing that the U.S. could improve its national budget by nearly $18 billion a year if marijuana were taxed and regulated like alcohol, a legal substance that has eight times the health care costs of marijuana, and is – according to one California study – responsible for 403 times more emergency room admissions than marijuana.

But in the twisted fantasyland where people like Sessions and Leonhart spend most of their time, things like “facts” and “studies” don’t seem to carry as much weight as the unshakeable notion that drugs are bad and so, in positions of authority, “we need people who are willing to say that,” as Sessions put it.

The disgraceful exchange between Leonhart and Sessions is just another example of how the American public is far ahead of politicians when it comes to marijuana policy reform issues, and why our movement will continue to look to individual states – and not the federal government – to drive change.

After serving two years as interim DEA administrator, where she oversaw continued raids on medical marijuana providers and personally rejected an application for FDA-level research on marijuana, Michele Leonhart is scheduled for a confirmation hearing tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

While her nomination has been widely opposed by drug policy reform groups – including MPP – it appears all but certain that Leonhart will be confirmed by the Senate.

President Bush first nominated Leonhart for this position in 2007. The Obama administration re-nominated her in February, even though she has overseen actions that contradict Obama administration directives and made comments that clearly counter reality. The most egregious:

• Despite last year’s Justice Department directive to respect state medical marijuana laws, the DEA under Leonhart’s leadership has repeatedly raided medical marijuana patients and providers who operate under state law. In July, for example, the DEA blatantly ignored a Mendocino County (CA) ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff. Joy Greenfield, 68, had paid more than $1,000 for a permit to cultivate 99 plants in a collective garden that had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff. Informed that Ms. Greenfield had the support of the sheriff, the DEA agent in charge responded by saying, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.”
• In January 2009, Leonhart rejected an application from University of Massachusetts professor Lyle Craker to conduct FDA-level research on marijuana in the hopes of getting it rescheduled. In doing so, she opposed recommendations from both a DEA administrative law judge and the American Medical Association.
• Last year Leonhart heralded increased drug violence in Mexico – which has claimed about 30,000 lives in four years – as a sign of success: "Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having,” she said. “The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”

Sources say Leonhart’s confirmation is virtually guaranteed, so our best hope is to make sure senators on the Judiciary Committee ask her tough questions. If your senator sits on the Judiciary Committee, you can urge them to press Leonhart on her plans for the future by clicking here.

After a final tally of late provisional ballots, the Associated Press is reporting that Arizona voters have approved Proposition 203, a state ballot measure that will allow patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, and other life-threatening illnesses to use medical marijuana with a recommendation from their doctor. The measure passed by just 4,341 votes out of more than 1.67 million cast.

Arizona now joins the list of 14 other states, along with the District of Columbia, that have passed medical marijuana laws since 1996.

“Voters in Arizona have sided with science and compassion while dealing yet another blow to our nation’s cruel and irrational prohibition on marijuana,” said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which provided significant funding and support to the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, the local group that ran the Proposition 203 campaign. “Arizona’s law now reflects the mainstream public opinion that seriously ill people should not be treated like criminals if marijuana can provide them relief, and that doctors should be able to recommend marijuana to patients if they believe it can help alleviate their suffering.”

Seventy percent of Americans favor making marijuana legally available for doctors to recommend in order to reduce pain and suffering, according to a recent Gallup poll.

“Sadly, patients in 35 states still have no legal protection if marijuana is the medicine that works best for them,” Kampia said. “We will continue working in the years ahead to ensure that others are awarded the respect and compassionate care that seriously ill patients in Arizona will now enjoy, thanks to this law.”

Proposition 203 allows for the establishment of about 120 tightly run, state-regulated clinics that will dispense marijuana to qualified patients in Arizona. Patients who live more than 25 miles from a clinic will be allowed to grow their own medicine.