While the U.S. government was busily denouncing medical marijuana as some sort of  "drug legalizer" conspiracy, one of America's closest allies in the world quietly set up a medical marijuana program. Israel's medical marijuana program has gotten virtually no press in the U.S., but this Jerusalem Post article from a few months ago has some of the basics.

Medical marijuana access is restricted to a handful of indications such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, and Crohn's disease, and to patients for whom conventional medicines have failed. This week, Dr. Yehuda Baruch, who runs the program, told me that a total of 222 patients have gotten government approval to use medical marijuana, with 113 actively in the program at present.

Israel, of course, is one of America's closest allies, with both President Bush and Democratic candidate Barack Obama regularly speaking of America's "special relationship" with that small nation. But perhaps Drug Czar John Walters thinks that Israel, too, is part of the conspiracy to "fool" the public into thinking marijuana is medicine.

The trial of Charles Lynch, originally scheduled to start Tuesday, now is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, July 23. Lynch operated a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, Calif. -- legal under state law and with permission from the city. But the county sheriff, vehemently opposed to medical marijuana dispensaries, called in the Drug Enforcement Administration, which raided the dispensary and filed drug charges against Lynch.

Check out this Reason TV video for details about the case, including a 17-year-old cancer patient Lynch helped, with his parents' full support. Partly because a few of the dispensary's patients were under 21, Lynch faces a potential 100 years in federal prison. And because this is a federal trial, the jury won't be allowed to hear evidence that the marijuana Lynch provided was for medical purposes.

Dr. John Newmeyer is an epidemiologist and author of "Mother of All Gateway Drugs: Parables for Our Time." He sits down with us to discuss his views on marijuana and the drug war in general.

An editorial in the July 18 New York Times worries about rising drug overdose deaths among young people, but misleadingly brings marijuana into the picture, for no good reason. 

While the Times is right to raise alarm over rising drug overdose deaths among youth, references to marijuana in that context are both puzzling and misleading.

Marijuana has never caused a medically documented fatal overdose. Because THC does not suppress vital functions such as breathing, the consensus among researchers is that it is literally impossible to fatally overdose by smoking marijuana. So why does the Times even bring up marijuana in the context of overdose deaths?

The editorial sounds the alarm over increased marijuana potency, but government scare stories about potency are red herrings. There is no evidence that higher-THC marijuana is more addictive or in any way more dangerous. There is, however, considerable evidence that when potency increases, marijuana users smoke less, just as drinkers drink less vodka than they would beer -- thereby minimizing their risk of bronchitis or other lung issues related to smoking. 

A new article in the European Journal of Cancer Care answers medical marijuana opponents who claim that cancer patients don't need marijuana to relieve the nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy. Opponents claim that while studies in the past showed THC to be roughly comparable to other anti-nausea drugs, it wasn't substantially better. Since those studies, they argue, better anti-nausea drugs have come into use, making medical marijuana irrelevant. In any case, they add, THC is available in pill form as Marinol.

Researchers at the University of Sao Paulo conducted a systematic review of studies of cannabinoid drugs for relief of chemo-induced nausea. Alas, the studies all involved oral THC or other cannabinoids, not whole marijuana, so the pill-vs.-plant issue isn't addressed, but many of the other distortions put out by opponents are firmly debunked.

First, the analysis found clear advantages for cannabinoids over the other tested. In some cases there were statistically significant differences in efficacy, and with amazing consistency, patients preferred the cannabinoids.

Most important, the Sao Paulo researchers demolish the claim that we don't need marijuana because we  now have better anti-nausea drugs. They note that these newer drugs still fail some patients, and "this cannot be corrected by an increase in dosage or frequency of administration," adding that when the nausea hits a day or more after chemo treatment, the "gold standard" drug combination "rarely obtains 50% of the desired effect."

And the coup de grace: "Cannabinoids seem to act through different mechanisms [than standard drugs] and can be effective for people who respond in an unsatisfactory way to the antiemetic drugs used today."

That's what some of us have been saying for years.

In the second part of this video documenting the real world impact of marijuana prohibition, we hear from medical marijuana patient Bernie Ellis about the potential loss of his home. Then, we speak with Ronnie and Anisha Naulls, California medical marijuana patients and dispensary owners whose family has been dramatically affected by the government’s war on marijuana.

In this first part of "The Human Cost of Marijuana Prohibition," we hear from Marisa Garcia, a student whose experience with a drug misdemeanor has left her without financial aid, and from MPP's own Rob Kampia, who tells us not only about his own experiences in jail, but also about those of several others who were not so fortunate. Click here for part 2.

According to the New York Times, Cindy McCain, wife of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, drives a car with vanity license plates reading, "MS BUD." "Bud," of course, is common slang for marijuana, so where are the howls of outrage from the Drug Free America Foundation and ONDCP? How dare the wife of a presidential candidate promote drug use?!?!?

Oh wait. Mrs. McCain owns a beer distributorship. The "Bud" involved is Budweiser, and that's a "good" drug, so all we get are amused chuckles, if anyone notices at all. That alcohol is more addictive, massively more toxic, and orders of magnitude more likely to cause violence or aggression than marijuana is doesn't matter.

The marijuana "eradication" season is now well underway, as highlighted by this breathless Drug Enforcement Administration press release touting a raid in the San Diego area. "Thus far this year," the DEA says, "marijuana has been eradicated in more than 60 sites." 

This is, of course, utter nonsense. The word "eradication" implies permanence, but there is no evidence of any long-term impairment in marijuana availability or use. The complete failure of the DEA to accomplish its supposed job in 35 years of existence is discussed perceptively in a column by Bill Steigerwald in the generally conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

In California, the Marysville Appeal-Democrat raises an interesting question in an editorial marking the DEA's 35^th birthday: Could it be that "the entire point of the drug war is to give people jobs"?

The paper was thinking of DEA agents and drug war bureaucrats, but let's not forget who else benefits from our war on marijuana: Just as Al Capone made a mint off of booze during Prohibition, marijuana prohibition is enriching criminal gangs and all manner of unsavory characters, who effectively get a monopoly on a popular product without such inconveniences as taxes, environmental or labor laws, etc. In that respect, our marijuana laws are a roaring success.

California Congressman Jerry McNerney says he will now support an amendment to bar the U.S. Department of Justice from attacking state medical marijuana laws, according to a report in the Oakland Tribune. Last year, McNerney opposed the measure, known as the Hinchey-Rohrabacher amendment, but hearing the real-world stories of medical marijuana patients in his district changed his mind.

McNerney's Republican opponent, Dean Andal, promptly went on the attack, calling medical marijuana "a red herring," and saying federal anti-drug efforts shouldn't be curtailed when "we are facing a drug crisis with meth and other drug use on the rise."

Memo to Andal: Meth is already a legal medicine under federal law, classified in Schedule II of the Controlled Substances Act. No one seriously believes that medical use of methamphetamine by a limited number of patients has anything at all to do with meth abuse.

And let's not even ask what happened to the notion that Republicans were the party favoring local control and limited federal intervention.