The California Supreme Court rejected San Diego and San Bernardino counties' challenge of a state law requiring a medical marijuana patient identification card system Thursday, but San Diego supervisors vowed to appeal for a fourth time – this time to the U.S. Supreme Court. The counties' argument rests on the disingenuous notion that federal law prevents them from establishing the I.D. card program in accordance with a 2003 state law designed to make it easier for law enforcement to verify legitimate…

Scott Day, a friend of MPP and a Montana medical marijuana patient who suffered from a rare, painful degenerative disease, died Tuesday at 34. Scott and his wife Summer were raided in February and charged with possession, manufacturing, and distributing marijuana. Summer believes the stress of prosecution had a great deal to do with the deterioration of Scott's health this year. Legally, prosecutors may have been justified in pursuing the couple under state law. The two were not registered medical…

Fresno County's Board of Supervisors yesterday voted to become the 41st county to implement the medical marijuana I.D. card system required by a 2003 state law, making it easier for police to verify valid medical marijuana patients. The board was waiting for the results of San Diego and San Bernardino counties' second legal challenge to the program, which the 4th District Court of Appeals tossed in a unanimous decision last month. In contrast to the Fresno boards' sensible acknowledgement of the…

It looks like the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors will make taxpayers foot the bill for their lesson in constitutionality yet again, voting yesterday to continue their futile lawsuit against state medical marijuana laws. Although it hasn't been a problem for 40 other California counties, the board maintains that federal law prevents them from obeying a state law requiring a county identification card system for medical marijuana patients. The board – along with their counterparts in San…

CNN just picked up on federal prosecutors' attempts to hamstring the defense of San Luis Obispo medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch, which went to a jury yesterday. As we've mentioned before, not only is Lynch forbidden from testifying that he operated within state medical marijuana laws with local officials' blessing, prosecutors even tried to bar "sick looking" witnesses from testifying on his behalf. Makes sense: It's much more difficult to convict an innocent man if the jury has…

Saturday's Los Angeles Times does a pretty good story on this unfolding medical marijuana case, focusing on the bizarre dance defense attorneys must do to help the jury understand what's really going on, having been barred from using the phrase "medical marijuana" -- which is, of course, a nonexistent concept under federal law. 

We struggled a little bit with what to make of this very long, very comprehensive New Yorker feature by David Samuels on the murkier aspects of California's medical marijuana business. The piece is well reported and provocative, but it comes nowhere near presenting a full picture of the situation. Samuels focuses on what to many represents the worst abuses of California's medical marijuana laws, and demonstrates that the results aren't that horrible: adults purchasing a drug that's magnitudes safer…

Medical marijuana patients in Washington state are allowed to have a 60-day supply of medicine. A process to define what that means in practical terms, overseen by the state Health Department and based on expert input from doctors, researchers, and patients, was going just fine until Gov. Christine Gregoire stepped in, apparently trying to override science with politics. Having tossed out science-based recommendations in favor of a political compromise, it now seems the mess is only worsening and…

Whenever people find out that I work for the Marijuana Policy Project the first question I'm asked is...well, forget the first question, it's usually pretty inane.  The second question I'm generally asked is, "How did you get into that?" or "Why'd you decide to work there?" I have a few reasons.  One of them is social justice.  Rarely do I find myself getting fired up so much as when I talk about the outrages suffered by people of color in the name of the War on Drugs.  Though most of us will never…

The New York Senate adjourned yesterday, effectively ending this year's legislative session, but that will come as no relief to seriously ill New Yorkers who rely on medical marijuana to ease their suffering. The senators went home without considering a bill that would have allowed people like Burton Aldrich, a Kingston quadriplegic who needs medical marijuana to control his spasms and constant pain, to use the drug with a doctor's recommendation without fear of arrest. It's difficult to explain…