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The Clarion-Ledger reports that scientists at NIDA's marijuana research facility in Mississippi are working on a marijuana suppository:

[Dr. Mahmoud] ElSohly and his staff used the plant to create a marijuana suppository. On the market in five years, it could be used to treat neuropathic pain, nausea and vomiting experienced by chemotherapy patients.

It's unclear why the National Institute on Drug Abuse is making marijuana medicines, but anyone familiar with NIDA's notoriously bad product can't help but laugh at its new destination.

Many have suggested that NIDA's contempt for marijuana itself has contributed to their decades-long failure to grow it properly. Coupled with NIDA's ongoing blockade against medical marijuana research in general, their suggestion that patients medicate anally certainly adds insult to injury.

At last, I think we've stumbled on the federal government's secret and hilarious medical marijuana strategy. After years of bitter debate, the feds will seek to placate us all with a take-it-or-leave-it offer of perfectly legal marijuana-laced butt medicine.

It's a brilliant plan, but everything will fall apart at the press conference when John Walters laughs for the first time ever, setting off a chain reaction that turns Nora Volkow into a hippy and generally disorients the drug war establishment.

One of the fun things about being a drug warrior is that you can always propose crazy new drug laws, even when they overlap with existing legislation. The temptation to single out and stigmatize perpetrators of every remote subcategory of drug activity has been known to keep drug-obsessed legislators off the golf course.

This week, Nevada State Sen. Joe Heck (R-Las Vegas) is championing unnecessary marijuana laws in a state where 44% of voters want to legalize the stuff. From the Reno Gazette-Journal:

Nevada parents who grow a single marijuana plant in their home where children live could be subject to a prison term of up to 15 years, according to a bill that was debated Monday at the Nevada Legislature.

Senate Bill 5, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Heck, R-Las Vegas, would subject parents who grow or sell marijuana in the presence of children to the same penalties as adults who operate methamphetamine labs in front of children.

Of course meth labs frequently explode and spew toxic chemicals, eventually producing methamphetamine. Marijuana plants just sit around smelling nice and getting larger, and eventually you get marijuana. Different drugs, different process, different people, same draconian punishment?

"The very behavior of small children puts them at risk around these materials, including marijuana," Heck said. "As any parent knows, the first place a toddler places anything they find is in their mouth. What if this object is a marijuana plant?"

I'm skeptical. A lot of kids won’t eat vegetables unless you withhold dessert. And unheated marijuana is basically non-psychoactive. I'm not saying people should grow marijuana with kids around, but the bill's proponents have cited no evidence of small children being injured by live marijuana plants. I doubt they'll find any.

At best, a 15-year mandatory minimum for small-time marijuana cultivation is an imprecise reaction to the general concern that children put random things in their mouths. At worst, one might call it shameless drug war posturing, hastily drafted without evidence of any particular urgency, to the detriment of a thousand better ways to spend money on Nevada's children.

Actually, that's exactly what it is.

I´m in Puno, Peru, on the shores of Lake Titicaca in heavy downpour. There is already massive flooding in Bolivia (I saw it on CNN en espanol tonight and heard about it from Kathryn Ledebur of the Andean Information Network a couple of days ago), so the rain here is not a good sign. Kathryn said her husband was lucky to get back from the Chapare a couple of days ago, and it´s only gotten worse. What does this mean? It means it may be impossible to get to either of the major coca regions in the next few days. I don´t know that for sure, but that road to Las Yungas (the world´s deadliest highway) is dirt, and with heavy rains, it sounds very iffy. And the Chapare is where the deadly flooding is (36 dead so far), so that sounds pretty iffy, too. I had hoped to be in Bolivia tonight, but it was not to be. By the time my rain-delayed bus from Cusco got here to Puno, it was late afternoon, and the Bolivians close the border crossing at 6:30 local time, and given that it´s another two or three hours to the border, I stopped here rather than face the prospect of getting trapped overnight in the middle of nowhere. I will arrive in La Paz tomorrow afternoon, God willin´ and the creek don´t rise (as my old man used to say, and it seems appropriate in these circumstances) and will probably meet up with Annie Murphy from the Bolivian embassy in Washington. She is in La Paz. Since Kathryn and the AIN are in Cochabamba, on the way to the Chapare, with the roads doubtful, and since the Drug War Chronicle deadline looms, I think I will just stay in La Paz Thursday and write from there. Of course, the Coca Museum is there, too. My return flight is a week from Friday, but it´s next Friday at 12:30am, which means I´m effectively gone as of Thursday since I will have to travel back to Lima to catch that flight. Maybe it´s worth investigating what it would cost to switch tickets and postpone my return for another week. I think I can afford the extra days of food and cheap hotels...Something to ponder. Otherwise, I will effectively have only six days in Bolivia, and I may not be able to go where we need to go. In other news, I managed to interview the owner of the Coca Shop in Cusco last night. Very interesting fellow and a nice little place he has. I took some photos, too, so I´ll blog about that one of these days.