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.

In the aftermath of the recently release video showing a family terrorized and their pets shot by a SWAT team in Columbia, Missouri, that city's police chief is now saying he supports efforts to change marijuana laws so officers will no longer need to spend time and resources enforcing them.

During a press conference yesterday, Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton went out of his way to state his support for ending marijuana prohibition.

"I applaud your efforts," he told a reporter who asked about campaigns to change marijuana laws. "If we could get out of the business [of going after marijuana offenders], I think there would be a lot of police officers that would be happy to do that."

After reviewing the results of a four-month internal investigation, the chief announced that his officers acted appropriately during the February SWAT raid that resulted in the death of a dog and endangered a young child.

Columbia police are currently updating their policies to hopefully prevent further incidents, but the decision to use extreme force in executing a warrant for marijuana possession has been widely criticized as being contrary to city law. Columbia passed a law in 2004 making marijuana violations the lowest law enforcement priority. Unfortunately, as the chief points out, state laws can still interfere with officers' abilities to go after real criminals.

Chief Burton also acknowledged that violence surrounding marijuana is often associated with the illegal market created by prohibition, and not the drug itself. "Crimes do occur because of marijuana," he said. "And you may make the argument that it's because it's not legal, and you may be right."

And if there was any lingering doubt about the sincerity of his remarks, the chief even gave a big thumbs up to the cameras.

Well, a big thumbs up to you too, chief. Hopefully, you won't have to worry about enforcing irrational marijuana laws for much longer.

While states across the country are discussing positive reform of marijuana laws, there have recently been some bizarre exceptions, as other states have renewed attacks against one of the most recognizable icons of marijuana use: the water bong.

Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would close a loophole in state law that makes it possible to prosecute people for the contents of their bong water. Under the bill, which passed the Minnesota legislature in a nearly unanimous vote, prosecutors would no longer be able to use bong water to calculate the weight of controlled substances in drug cases.

We've previously discussed the court ruling that allowed Minnesota residents to be charged with drug possession for the drug residue dissolved in the water used to filter the smoke from pipes or bongs. While the case in question involved methamphetamine residue, policy analysts worried that the same ruling could easily be applied to marijuana residue.

Last year, Pawlenty - a Republican who is widely expected to run for president in 2012 - vetoed a medical marijuana bill that would have permitted seriously ill patients to use marijuana without fear of arrest.

Meanwhile, a bill in Florida was recently passed that basically outlaws the sale of water pipes in commercial establishments.  Some stores would be exempt from this, but most "head-shops" will likely be forced out of business.

It seems a sure sign that prohibitionists are grasping at straws when these types of policies are invoked.  In an act of desperation, drug warriors are ramping up the attack on a symbolic tool used by marijuana users, and the people that do business with them. Does anyone think this will stop anyone from using marijuana? Or will it simply tie up more money in prosecuting and punishing otherwise law-abiding citizens?

The absurdity of marijuana prohibition in the United States is on full display today in The New York Times. On the one hand, we have the national “newspaper of record” publishing a long, mouth-watering and entirely non-critical article about “haute stoner cuisine” in the restaurant industry. On the other hand, we have an article on their Web site reporting that a professional basketball player for the NBA’s New York Knicks was arrested last night for marijuana possession.

Beneath a headline, “Marijuana Fuels a New Kitchen Culture,” the Times explains that marijuana use is rampant throughout the restaurant industry – but that isn’t a bad thing.

“Everybody smokes dope after work,” said Anthony Bourdain, the author and chef who made his name chronicling drugs and debauchery in professional kitchens. “People you would never imagine…

“There has been an entire strata of restaurants created by chefs to feed other chefs,” Mr. Bourdain said. “These are restaurants created specially for the tastes of the slightly stoned, slightly drunk chef after work.”

But what is apparently a bad thing is someone actually using marijuana outside of this exclusive restaurant culture. This is the message sent by the screaming headlines in the Times and elsewhere about the arrest of Knicks star Wilson Chandler. Ironically, he was arrested at almost the exact time the restaurant article appeared online.

We are at a crazy time in history in which marijuana’s popularity in an ever-expanding segment of the populace has advanced far ahead of more traditional segments of our society’s acceptance of it. We look forward to the day when traditional society -- and our lawmakers -- catch up. Fortunately, that day is being forced upon them whether they like it or not.