This little brouhaha is generating a lot of attention. Now Wired News weighs in with an amusing item. But it's important to remember that this is serious stuff. While ONDCP continues to denounce medical marijuana as a "fraud," here's what the city of San Francisco's health director, Dr. Mitchell Katz, had to say about federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in a letter to the U.S. Senate a few years ago: ""Patients who use medical cannabis are persons with immune disorders, glaucoma, multiple…

Yesterday, the San Francisco Chronicle’s “City Insider” blog picked up my last post about ONDCP’s spurious claims that San Francisco houses more medical marijuana facilities than Starbucks shops. A senior health inspector for the city told The Chronicle that ONDCP's claim that nearly 100 medical marijuana facilities are operating downtown was “extremely incorrect.” The city official confirmed that there are actually 24 medical marijuana facilities in the entire city. The Chronicle further pointed…

Use of marijuana and other illicit drugs by women who are pregnant is a cause of great controversy and some political grandstanding. In a few cases, this has led to draconian actions, including felony prosecutions of women in Texas. Such actions are justified by studies that show that use of drugs such as marijuana or cocaine while pregnant may lead to low birth weight and other adverse effects. But most of these studies have not controlled for all the other factors potentially affecting these women,…

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Just one day before Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved their state’s medical marijuana ballot measure, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) falsely claimed that there are currently 98 medical marijuana dispensaries operating in downtown San Francisco. After drawing attention to the ONDCP’s boldface lie here on our blog, I decided to check in with San Francisco’s Health Department – the agency responsible for licensing medical marijuana facilities within the city. Sure…

A news story from a Bend, Oregon TV station bears the alarming headline, "Medical Marijuana's Link to Crime." As this is becoming a recurring subgenre of local news stories, it bears some comment. The gist of this and similar stories is that sometimes people who possess or grow medical marijuana get robbed. Well, sure. So do people who possess other items of value -- jewelry, cars, high-end electronics, etc. For example, 1995 Honda Civics were the most-stolen vehicle in 2007 according to the National…

Yesterday we told you about a bizarre new anti-marijuana ad campaign from the increasingly beleaguered shop of White House drug czar John Walters. Well, to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, things just get curiouser and curiouser. It turns out the ad agency that put the new ads together is an outfit called McKinney. And according to McKinney's Web site, one of the agency's clients is Southern Comfort, a brand of liquor -- a drug that's not only more addictive than marijuana, it's vastly more toxic…

On Nov. 4, voters spectacularly rejected eight years of the most intense government war on marijuana since the days of "Reefer Madness," led by outgoing White House drug czar John Walters -- voting overwhelmingly for a variety of reform proposals, including marijuana decriminalization in Massachusetts and medical marijuana in Michigan. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has reacted with eerie silence, making no statements and issuing no press releases. But today on ONDCP's blog, the drug…

Yesterday marked the 12th anniversary of the passage of the first state law that effectively lifted criminal sanctions on the medical use of marijuana, California’s Proposition 215. In the years since 56% of California voters decided to stop criminalizing the ill, and public support for legal access to medical marijuana has grown to nearly 80%. That public sentiment has translated into policy reforms in at least 12 other states. One would think that California’s law enforcement officials would do…

Not only did Tuesday's election produce two major marijuana policy victories, but we also saw signs of progress in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama has consistently said that he does not support the federal government arresting medical marijuana patients in states where medical marijuana is legal. He also affirmed to MPP that he would not use federal resources to raid medical marijuana dispensaries in California, something his predecessor’s administration has done countless times. And the Politico reported…