The Marijuana Policy Project’s campaign to pressure the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana just hit a new level.

Check out this CNN footage of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) avoiding Clayton Holton, a muscular dystrophy patient in New Hampshire who has used medical marijuana illegally.

And you can see a fuller video clip of the encounter here.

CNN ran its coverage of the encounter over and over again on Monday, in addition to putting it on the front of its Web site, which led to the video clip becoming one of the most watched news stories of the day on Digg.com.

This led to ABC News putting the video on its Web site, as well as a raft of critical blog coverage, including this from Andrew Sullivan and this on Boston Magazine's blog, which starts with this ...

Don’t you hate it when reality comes barging into your ideological Neverland and mucks everything up? That’s what happened to Mitt Romney last weekend. At a campaign stop in Dover, NH on Saturday, the Mittster found himself confronted by Clayton Holton, an 80-pound man stricken with muscular dystrophy who says he is “living proof medical marijuana works.” Romney wasn’t having any of it ...

Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana is MPP's nine-month campaign to pressure the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to take strong, public, positive positions on medical marijuana in advance of the New Hampshire primary — the first in the nation — expected to be no later than January 8, 2008.

Would you please consider funding our pressure tactics in New Hampshire?

And the fallout from our confrontation with U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) keeps getting worse for him. On September 30, he rudely dismissed Linda Macia, a New Hampshire resident with multiple sclerosis, by arguing that the government isn’t arresting “the dead” for medical marijuana.

We featured the video coverage of this encounter in an e-mail alert to you on October 4. But check out this column in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, which blasts McCain for his heartlessness.

We have awarded McCain, Romney, and four other Republican presidential candidates a grade of “F” for their inhumane stances on medical marijuana. On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve awarded two Republican candidates — Congressmen Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) — “A+” grades.

And, of course, our campaign has already succeeded in getting all eight Democratic presidential candidates to speak out in favor of ending the federal arrests of medical marijuana patients in the 12 states where medical marijuana is legal under state law.

Please visit www.GraniteStaters.com/candidates for our complete voting guide. You'll find statements from each of the candidates, as well as a grade for each.

MPP is the only drug policy reform organization that’s systematically influencing the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana — and punishing those who don’t. Would you please consider making a donation in support of our work today?

Thank you,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2007. This means that your donation today will be doubled.