Now that her case is settled against the D.C. government over the 2004 death of her quadriplegic son while in prison for marijuana possession, I hope Mary Scott can find at least some comfort. However, the D.C. prison system's incompetence and neglect are not the only culprits in Jonathan Magbie's tragic death. If it weren't for Congress continually blocking the implementation of the medical marijuana initiative 69% of D.C. voters passed in 1998, Magbie would probably be alive today.

Every time I think the murder of 22-year-old Rachel Hoffman couldn't get more repulsive, new details emerge suggesting there's no end to the incompetence, recklessness, and misplaced values of the officers who caused her death. The young woman – whom the Tallahassee Police Department recruited as a confidential informant after threatening her with a marijuana charge – was murdered by the drug dealers she'd been sent to ensnare in a sting operation. One of the many confounding aspects of the case…

The last of three Atlanta police officers pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the shooting death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston nearly two years ago, thus concluding the federal investigation of that tragic incident. It appears likely the investigation report will fault shortcuts taken by Atlanta narcotics officers to secure illegal search warrants, which, if you'll read our summary of the incident, you'll see is a grotesque understatement in Ms. Johnston's case. These officers arbitrarily targeted…

I don't know how much attention this is going to get in the press, but this strikes me as an extraordinary – and as far as I know, unique – instance of cowardice and cruelty: SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — A woman was told to move out of her apartment when the landlord discovered she has marijuana for medical use. Bobbie Wooten, 47, uses a wheelchair because she was paralyzed from the waist down in a car crash several years ago and suffers severe spasms. She joined the state's medical marijuana program…

Reading this Atlanta Journal Constitution story revealing that more than half of the city's police academy graduates used marijuana, and a third of them have criminal records, two thoughts occur to me. First is the hypocrisy of a situation in which some people use marijuana and get arrested while others use marijuana but go on to lead productive lives – as police officers for heavens sake. Who decides which fate befalls a particular marijuana user? If marijuana use isn't terrible enough to disqualify…

I've written before about the death of Rachel Hoffman, a recent Florida State graduate who was murdered in a botched drug sting after Tallahassee police used a petty marijuana charge to pressure her into acting as an informant. It's at least a little comforting to see that there's now some accountability for some of the principals involved in this tragic event. But I can't help wondering what would have happened had Rachel, through luck and grace, avoided her awful fate. What if she had safely purchased…

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…

Drug czar John Walters is back in California this week, flying around the Central Valley in a Blackhawk helicopter surveying the progress of the latest marijuana "eradication" adventure.Bruce Mirken has already written about these gaudy publicity stunts, but since Walters and his ilk like to play soldier so much, let's see how their war on marijuana users is going elsewhere today ... Federal prosecutors won their case against Morro Bay medical marijuana dispensary owner Charles Lynch. Having successfully…

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…

So police discover a package of marijuana apparently shipped to the mayor of a small town in Prince George's County and respond by sending a SWAT team to pounce on the unarmed man as he returns from work, killing his two Labradors for good measure. The police then handcuff him and his mother-in-law next to their pets and interrogate them for hours as blood pools on the floor. And a PG police spokesman says the raid was carried out properly according to their policies. I'm sure it was. Does anybody…