Colorado made history last November when it became one of the first states in the country to legalize marijuana for adults. Support was exceptionally strong in Denver, where 66% of city voters cast their ballots in favor of Amendment 64. [caption id="attachment_7006" align="alignright" width="270"] Mayor Hancock[/caption] Mayor Michael Hancock and his allies on the Denver City Council are now attempting to roll back that progress with a blatantly unconstitutional measure that would criminalize adults’…

If you’ve been following news in the drug policy world, you know that Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) is sponsoring the National Criminal Justice Commission Act. The bill would create a blue-ribbon panel that, according to Webb, would “take the long-overdue step of undertaking a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, producing recommendations for changes in oversight, policies, practices, and laws designed to prevent, deter, and reduce crime and violence, improve cost-effectiveness, and ensure…

In the latest move of the Obama Administration’s incomprehensible attack on medical marijuana, U.S. attorneys announced today that they will begin to prosecute media outlets that publish advertisements for medical marijuana! It seems that when it comes to medical marijuana users, or the states in which they live for that matter, the Bill of Rights means practically nothing. First, there was the memo released by the ATF this month warning firearms dealers that it was against the law to sell guns or…

We are all used to the federal government offering only limited deference to states when it comes to medical marijuana. And we are certainly used to it refusing to admit that patients have a legal right to use marijuana for medical purposes, or even that marijuana has medical value at all. Apparently, it also thinks that those who are abiding by state law and using medical marijuana do not have certain constitutional rights, either. In a memo issued last week by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms,…

Back in January, this blog mentioned a case in which an anti-marijuana sheriff in Jackson County, Oregon, was trying to deny the renewal of a concealed handgun permit for Cynthia Willis, a licensed medical marijuana patient. The sheriff was so adamant about the case that he took it all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court. His primary argument was that granting a concealed handgun license to a patient (or in his terms, drug user) would be a violation of the Federal Gun Control Act. This law makes…

Two cases involving medical marijuana patients have reached the supreme courts of their respective states, and their results could have far-reaching implications for medical marijuana in the future. In Washington, the state Supreme Court announced it will hear the appeal of a woman who was fired from her job at a telephone call center for testing positive for marijuana on a workplace drug test, despite being a registered medical marijuana patient. While the medical marijuana law in Washington does…