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The Hinchey results are in, losing by a vote of 165-262. This is only a very slight improvement over last year, when we lost 163-259. I'm disappointed. On the bright side, at least it increased by two. Suppose we had gotten fewer votes than last year? That would have really sucked. Here's a summary of the key stats:

• 165 members of Congress voted for the Hinchey medical marijuana amendment this year (150 of them Democrats), but 262 members of Congress voted against it. Ten members did not have votes recorded (plus Pelosi, for some technical reason as Speaker).
• 78 Democrats voted against the amendment, while 15 Republicans voted for it.
• Nine members who voted Yes on the amendment last year switched their votes to No this time (hiss), and three who voted No last year switched to Yes.
• 27 members of Congress who are either newly-elected or did not have a vote recorded on the Hinchey amendment last year, voted Yes, only one of them Republican.
• 45 members of Congress who are either newly-elected, or did not vote on the amendment last year, voted No, including 24 Democrats and 21 Republicans.
• Two members of Congress who voted Yes last year did not vote on the amendment this year, and seven members who voted No last year also didn't vote this year.

I guess a lot of Democrats are spooked about 2008 (but will they ever not be spooked?), and most Republicans are... just Republicans. (Sorry, Republican drug reformers, but those are the numbers. Be proud for at least getting the 15.) I have one more request to make of our members on this, which is to not get discouraged but to get angry instead. There will be more opportunities to take action, very soon. Following is a detailed compilation covering all the stats listed above, below the fold (meaning that if you don't already see it, you have to click the Read Full Post link appearing just below, or click through to this post's permanent web page here). Also, check back (maybe tomorrow, definitely by Friday for the Chronicle) for a report on which members of Congress spoke for or against the amendment on the Floor, and what they said. (We know already that Rep. Stephen Cohen, a freshmen Rep. from Tennessee, played a prominent role speaking in favor.)

Meanwhile, the DEA raided at least six medical marijuana dispensaries in LA. Nice timing, DEA, on behalf of patients everywhere (especially in Los Angeles), thank you for your blind obedience to cruel authority. I'm going to put in another link to the letter I received from a medical marijuana patient this week. It's been pushed down by the flurry of posts tonight, but it deserves to be read.

[UPDATE: I've learned by email the vote was 165-262. Don't look to the Democratically-controlled Congress to protect you, patients!] Didn't make it this time, according to the House Clerk web site. The Roll Call vote results will appear here. We are anxiously awaiting the numbers -- perhaps someone will post it here in the comments, if we haven't already done so first. Last year the amendment lost on a vote of 163-259. The reason we are waiting "anxiously" is that we want to see if there was improvement. It might be several hours, though, or tomorrow.

I just saw the following on the House Clerk's web site, posted at 8:31pm:

POSTPONED PROCEEDINGS - At the conclusion of debate on the Hinchey amendment, the Chair put the question on adoption of the amendment and by voice vote, announced that the noes had prevailed. Mr. Hinchey demanded a recorded vote and the Chair postponed further proceedings on the question of adoption of the amendment until later in the legislative day.

In plain English, this means that the amendment did not pass this time around. The question now is how many members of Congress voted for it and how many voted against, and which ones. Hopefully we will see an improvement over last year's totals. However, it is going to have to wait until later tonight, as they are continuing with to debate other amendments, before taking the time to record individual Representatives' votes on all of the amendments later. We are also awaiting reports on which members of Congress took part in the debate and what they said. Read the blog post I made just a few minutes ago for one good reason Congress really should have passed this amendment.

This week, the drug czar's office has tricked several newspapers into reporting on a so-called "cocaine shortage":

EL PASO — White House drug czar John Walters said wholesale prices of cocaine have risen in more than a dozen major U.S. cities as supplies of the powerful drug have shrunk, including in high-volume markets like Los Angeles and New York. [AP]

The irony, of course, is that there's no such thing as a cocaine shortage. Really, cocaine is probably the last thing we'll ever run out of in America, and if you think otherwise, maybe it's because people aren't telling you how much cocaine they've got.

Fortunately, Associated Press at least had the commonsense to ask an actual expert about the supposed shortage:

Peter Reuter, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland who studies illicit drugs and organized crime, said prices of cocaine have long been declining and that brief price surges are not uncommon. He said gauging the future of the cocaine trade after just a few months is difficult.

"We see short term (price) increases that go on for three, or six months even," Reuter said. "They don't tend to be too long, and then the downward trend continues."

One could praise AP for including Reuter's comments, but I won't. If AP's Alicia Caldwell actually listened to what he said, she'd understand that the story isn’t accurate enough to be worth writing. Moreover, Reuter's revealing analysis -- which renders the entire report meaningless –- is relegated to the bowels of the article. The fact that cocaine prices have continually gone down for decades is treated as an afterthought, a mere side note, in a story that otherwise regurgitates ONDCP's claims about the effectiveness of its own work.

Distinguished members of the press, I beg you once again: whenever the Office of National Drug Control Policy approaches you and offers to describe how well the drug war is going, just look around. Has anything changed? It shouldn’t even be necessary to ask Peter Reuter if their claims make sense. The idea that we're experiencing a cocaine shortage is so plainly ridiculous, I don't see how anyone could report such a thing with a straight face.

I'm reminded of real journalist Ken Silverstein's recent comment about his colleagues in the press:

As a class, they honor politeness over honesty and believe that being "balanced" means giving the same weight to a lie as you give to the truth.

How true -- and depressing – that is.

Following is one of the many emails we got from people since beginning our Hinchey amendment medical marijuana effort last week. It speaks for itself -- actually, it speaks volumes:

I am one of thousands of people who need the medicine marijuana. In short, I had an accident in 1983 and fell 20 feet from a ladder. I went through 10 operations and now I have no ankles, my joints do not fuse or mend. Since I have joint arthritis, everything I do is painful. This is just a sample of the problems I have had. All the doctors I have seen tell me I would benefit from the use of marijuana. It won't replace the medicines I am taking now, but it would make life worth living. Some days I ask God to take me from this hell. I have tried the medicine marijuana once before, but just tried. My wife and I have too much to lose if somehow I were arrested for possession. So for now I say to myself, I wish and hope they would legalize the medicine marijuana before I die.