Even when medical marijuana patients are protected from arrest and provided safe access under their state’s law, they may still face forms of discrimination, as we are unfortunately reminded time and time again.

Perhaps the most tragic and emotionally charged instance is when parents lose custody of their children because a court or judge rules that their marijuana use, even if it’s medicinal, constitutes child endangerment.

Luckily, a ruling last week by the Colorado Court of Appeals may help prevent future instances, at least in that state. In a 2-1 decision, the three-judge court ruled that a parent’s use of medical marijuana does not necessarily lead to child endangerment, and that the impact of a parent’s medical marijuana use on a child should be determined on a case-by-case basis. In this case, a father had agreed to undergo drug screenings as part of the custody plan made with his divorced wife, but then asked a judge to waive that requirement after he received a license to use medical marijuana for knee and back pain resulting from a motorcycle accident.

The court found that the father’s medical marijuana use in no way “represented a threat to the physical and emotional health and safety of the child, or otherwise suggested any risk of harm.”

The ruling was clear, however, that the court was not expressing an opinion on whether medical marijuana use constituted endangerment; “rather, we conclude only that endangerment was not shown here,” the opinion stated. “We also express no view on father’s constitutional right to use medical marijuana.”

In a related development, Noah Kirkman, the 12-year-old Canadian boy who has been in an American foster home since 2008, was ordered back to Canada and into the custody of his grandparents this weekend. As I wrote previously on the blog, his mother, Lisa, had been deprived custody of her son because of her use of and activism for medical marijuana.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said this week that he has no plans to try to make the state’s recently passed medical marijuana law more restrictive—as he had suggested he might do while on the campaign trail—but that he wants to delay implementation of the law by at least six months.

“I think the public would agree it has to be done correctly,’’ he told local outlets.

Christie’s actions are causing concern among some lawmakers and advocates, who say the process shouldn’t be unnecessarily prolonged. The state legislature has already passed the law, and there are seriously ill patients in New Jersey who are being forced to go without access or protection until it takes effect.

Stay tuned for updates.

Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak has recently taken to Minnesota’s airwaves in a misguided attempt to blame violence at the hands of criminal gangs on consumers of marijuana. “When you pay for marijuana, you are paying for the bullet that goes into the head of someone on the streets,” he told the Star Tribune, in one instance.

Today, MPP called upon Mayor Rybak to get honest about what actually fuels violence in the marijuana trade: prohibition. Here’s the statement by MPP’s Steve Fox:

“Like alcohol prohibition in the last century, marijuana prohibition has helped to fuel violent crime in Minnesota and across the country. Mayor Rybak is out of touch with reality if he does not recognize that prohibition—and any elected official who supports it—is to blame for giving criminals a virtual monopoly on marijuana’s lucrative trade. It is unrealistic to assume we can somehow magically remove the demand for marijuana. The only true solution is to regulate marijuana, and bring its sale under the rule of law, the same way we ended the criminal violence that stemmed from alcohol prohibition.

“If the mayor wants to end violence associated with marijuana, he too needs to be honest, and join the growing ranks of those calling for an end to prohibition and the failed policies that drive money into the hands of criminals, and yes, bullets into people’s heads.”

Well, as it turns out, the first call I got back about our release was from Mayor Rybak himself. He was not too pleased, to say the least. To his credit, the mayor seemed more nuanced and open-minded about the issue than some of the Minnesota headline writers have made him out to be. He reiterated that this is a complicated subject, but that he is open to a debate on solutions. “I’m telling people that we need to talk about this,” he told me.

If you’re in the Minneapolis area and want to tell Mayor Rybak what you think about this, he responds regularly to comments made on his Facebook page.

Two high-school teachers in Norfolk, Virginia have been placed on paid administrative leave because a parent objected to them handing out a one-page flier and showing a film, both about constitutional rights, to a 12^th grade government class.

The handout, “When Dealing With Police …”, tells students what to do if they get stopped by police officers, if they see someone stopped by police officers, or if they get arrested (example: “Ask, ‘AM I FREE TO GO?’ If not, you are being detained. If yes, walk away.”)

And the film, “Busted: The Citizen’s Guide to Surviving Police Encounters,” should be familiar to many readers of this blog. It was produced a few years back by Flex Your Rights, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes education on constitutional rights in police situations and recently put out another film, “10 Rules for Dealing With Police,” to more than respectable reviews. Both films received funding from MPP.

Anyone who has ever watched “Busted” knows it’s an entertaining presentation of Constitutional Rights 101. Featuring commentary from Ira Glasser, former head of the American Civil Liberties Union, the film depicts people in everyday police encounters and explains to viewers what rights they have at every step along the way. It’s been endorsed by Nobel Prize Winner Milton Friedman and former ACLU president Nadine Strossen, among others.

Not exactly the kind of product that should lead to teachers being removed from the classroom.

The parent who made the initial complaint (and courageously chooses to remain anonymous) told the Virginian Pilot that her daughter came home after viewing the materials, and said, “You won't believe what we are learning in Government. They are teaching us how to hide our drugs.” I’d be curious to know if the parent even bothered to watch the film or read the flier herself before filing the complaint. Obviously her daughter missed the point, and now, unfortunately, her teachers aren’t there to explain it to her.

Here’s what Steve Silverman, the executive director of Flex Your Rights, had to say about the ordeal:

“It's certainly disturbing that civics teachers are being punished for teaching students about how constitutional protections apply during police encounters. The Bill of Rights is not some abstract concept that ought to be forgotten after finals, nor is it a trick designed to protect evil-doers.

The Bill of Rights was deliberately designed by the Founders to protect the innocent against abuses by government power. The fact that some lawbreakers might use constitutional protections to avoid punishment is a poor excuse for abetting constitutional illiteracy.

Flex Your Rights materials embody this principle. Our videos are regularly screened in hundreds of college and high school classrooms and embraced by an array of professional and civic groups – including police instructors, lawyers and concerned parents. Never to my knowledge has any institution taken such measures against educators using our materials.”

I just hope the student whose parent complained never finds herself in an unfortunate encounter with police. She’ll probably wish she paid more attention to what her teachers had to say.

According to a local news station, a New Mexico man who is registered with the state’s medical marijuana program was denied access to his medical marijuana, as well as any temporary replacement medication, while being held in the Dona Ana County Detention Center. The explanations offered by the detention center were confusing to say the least.

"[M]arijuana at this time is not approved to go into that facility,” said a spokesperson. “One of the reasons is when you smoke, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, everyone around you is smoking it, too.”

Ignoring the fact that there are multiple delivery methods for medical marijuana other than smoking, such as vaporization or ingestion, this argument makes no sense. Scientific studies have shown that second-hand contact with marijuana smoke has little to no effect on the body. (Anecdotally, probation and parole officers have long rejected the “I was at a party where people were smoking” defense for failed drug tests.)

Even if this were not the case, concessions for certain types of medication are made daily in the corrections system. For example, it could be dangerous to allow diabetic inmates to use hypodermic needles when in the company of other prisoners, but they are not denied access to their medicine. Instead, they are allowed to take their medication in a more secure and private location that does not present a danger to others.

The Dona Ana County Detention Center surely could have taken steps to make this happen. The staff must disagree with the voters of the state of New Mexico that marijuana is a legitimate medicine, since the policy of the detention center is that “if someone is detained and needs medications, we will make sure that they are properly medicated.”

According to the detainee, they did not. Even though they had his medicine in their possession, which they returned to him upon his release! Can someone please explain this?

Dona Ana County Detention Center (not to mention the detainee) is very lucky that the consequences of this incident were not worse. They very easily could have been, as they were for Jonathan Magbie, a paralyzed medical marijuana patient who died in a Washington, D.C. jail after being denied adequate medical attention.

Every once in a while, there is room for humor at the expense of America’s war on marijuana and this is a story that I couldn’t help but share:

In their unyielding pursuit to rid the world of all of its marijuana plants, police in Corpus Christi, Texas arrived at a city park last week to pull up hundreds of weeds. The only problem with their gardening project is that these weeds were not marijuana at all but a type of wild mint that grows in the area.

Corpus Christi’s KRIS TV news reports that police…

…spent an hour pulling up about 400 plants and filling several garbage bags with the weeds. But, when they got back to the police station and ran some tests it turned out the suspected pot plants were just a fairly common type of weed called 'horse mint.'

This is clearly an embarrassing waste of public safety resources. However, I can’t help but think about how much more useful an activity like clearing weeds out of a park is compared to chasing down adults for growing marijuana plants on their own property.

What do you think?

Andrew Myers discusses the ballot initiative that would allow seriously ill patients in Arizona to use medical marijuana without fear of arrest. With him his cancer patient Heather Torgerson, who uses marijuana to ease the effects of chemotherapy. Part 1 of 3. 03/28/2010

We’ve written previously about the U.S. Veterans Administration’s disgraceful policy of not allowing its doctors to recommend medical marijuana to military veterans, even if they live in a state where medical marijuana is legal or suffer from a condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects one in five vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and studies have shown can be relieved through marijuana.

Yesterday, former Nebraska senator and governor and Vietnam veteran Bob Kerrey joined the growing call for the VA to change its stance and work to give veterans the care they deserve. In this very thoughtful piece in the Huffington Post, Kerrey and co-author Jason Flom call the VA’s policy “counterproductive and harmful.”

“The ban means that—despite their service to our country—veterans who reside in the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana are denied the same rights as every other resident of these states,” they continue. “At minimum, the VA should be actively studying whether cannabis and its unique chemical ingredients can be used to reduce post-combat trauma without contributing to drug dependency. Ample research and anecdote strongly suggest this is the case.”

The HuffPo piece includes comments from talk show host Montel Williams, himself a Marine and Navy veteran, as well as Army veteran Paul Culkin from New Mexico, who was recently interviewed on NPR’s “Morning Edition” about the issue.

Culkin’s New Mexico has added PTSD to its list of qualifying conditions for patients, while an effort to do so in neighboring Colorado fell short this year.

But the real outrage here is that the VA’s policy is being directed by the DEA, which has made threats to prosecute VA doctors who recommend medical marijuana in defiance of federal law, even if they are complying with state law. And by not letting vets use marijuana, many are being steered toward more dangerous prescription drugs, or alcohol.

As more veterans like Kerrey, Williams, and Culkin speak out against this double standard (civilian doctors in medical marijuana states are not arrested for recommending medical marijuana), hopefully they can increase pressure on officials and bring about some sort of policy change.

Last Friday, Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) sent a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department urging the Obama administration to address a problem affecting numerous medical marijuana providers in states like California and Colorado. Specifically, due to existing federal law, these providers are having difficulty establishing accounts with banking institutions. “Legitimate state-legal businesses are being denied access to banking services, which does not serve the public interest,” the letter stated.

The Marijuana Policy Project recognized this growing problem and worked diligently behind the scenes with Rep. Polis's office to devise an effective lobbying strategy. The letter issued on Friday and signed by 15 members of Congress, including House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA), House Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano (D-NY), was a result of those efforts.

With medical marijuana providers now operating in numerous states, this issue must be resolved. These are taxpaying entities and they must have access to secure and reliable banking institutions in order to operate efficiently and properly. We are proud of our role in helping to resolve this issue and we thank Congressman Polis and other stalwart supporters in Congress for their incredible and lasting commitment to protecting medical marijuana patients and their caregivers.

Sensible Washington, a group gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would end marijuana prohibition in Washington state, reported last week that members of West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet), a federally-funded drug task force, seized about 200 signatures during a raid on a medical marijuana club.

From Sensible Washington’s site:

“We have made repeated calls to WestNet’s office, but have yet to receive any assurance that the task force’s personnel have secured the signed petitions and that they plan to promptly return them to Sensible Washington.”

As if stealing signatures for a law-abiding ballot initiative doesn’t seem contemptible enough, Seattle Weekly reports that the same group made another raid on a provider’s home, in which they “handcuffed [the family’s] 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head. They also told the kid to say good-bye to his dad […]  because the dispensary owner was going to prison.”

And then it gets worse:

“And as the detectives looked for cash to prove that the dispensary was illegally profiting from pot sales, Casey says, they confiscated $80 that her 9-year-old daughter had received from her family for a straight-A report card. Where did they find it?

In the girl's Mickey Mouse wallet, according to Casey. She also claims that the cops dumped out all her silverware, busted a hole in the wall, and broke appliances."

Our friends at FireDogLake have organized a petition demanding that WestNet end these despicable raids and return the signatures. You can check it out here.