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Legal medical marijuana has been around for more than a decade now, but that certainly hasn't stopped bitter law-enforcement spokespeople from conjuring horrific doomsday fantasies about it. Police in Rhode Island are still struggling to understand the issue, it seems:

State police Lt. Col. Steven G. O’Donnell said there is nothing prohibiting caregivers from lacing their marijuana with phencyclidine (PCP) or other powerful drugs. [Providence Journal]

No, no, no, you misunderstand, sir. It's medical marijuana that's legal in Rhode Island, not PCP. Got it? Medical m-a-r-i-j-u-a-n-a. You can still arrest people for PCP.  I doubt this will be an issue though, because for some reason, medical marijuana laws don't seem to result in increased use of PCP. It's awesome.

But O'Donnell still doesn't get it. There's something bothering him about marijuana policy, but he can't quite figure out what it is:

"It’s very unregulated," he said. "It makes no sense to us. We regulate hamburger and food, but we do not regulate medical marijuana. There are no checks and balances."

Here, lets try that line again, but this time without the word "medical." I think we're onto something here. If we could all just agree that marijuana – medical and otherwise – needs to be monitored for quality and sold by licensed professionals, maybe we can finally put this whole mess behind us.

Last month, Obama's drug czar raised eyebrows by claiming that "marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit."  Though not an unusual remark for a drug czar to make, the comment came as a surprise given the new administration's stated policy of respecting state medical marijuana laws.

Well, it looks like someone in the administration had a little talk with the drug czar, because he's already backtracking:

Asked if he regretted what he said, Kerlikowske said, "Sometimes you make a mistake and you work very hard to correct it. That happens. I should've clearly said 'smoked' marijuana and then gone on to say that this is clearly a question that should be answered by the medical community." [KOMO News]

Of course, this is still utter nonsense given the abundance of scientific evidence that medical marijuana works. But it's remarkable to hear the drug czar acknowledge making "a mistake." As false and obnoxious as his corrected statement may be, it's nice to know that the word "mistake" is in his vocabulary.