We're actually going to miss John Walters when he finally leaves his post as drug czar. He and his minions keep making our points for us -- and apparently don't even know they're doing it. Take, for example, this post from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's blog, reproduced here in full: In Case You Missed It: Leno and O'Reilly on Medical Pot in San Francisco Our recent post on the large and undocumented number of medical pot clubs in California gained a national audience last…

Folks, it's official: Opposition to safe, legal access to medical marijuana for seriously ill patients has dwindled to the point where only the most obnoxious blowhards like Bill O'Reilly even bother stoking it. Here he is spouting off on the latest lie from the White House drug czar's office that medical marijuana dispensaries outnumber Starbucks coffee shops in San Francisco. My colleague Aaron Smith has already exposed this nonsense as a complete fabrication, and it's already been reported in…

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…