We've been over this before, but apparently it still hasn’t sunk in. This time, we have the Attorney General of Arkansas trying to claim that federal law prevents his state from protecting medical marijuana patients:

LITTLE ROCK — The state attorney general today rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana for medical use.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel cited numerous problems with the proposal submitted by Little Rock attorney John Wesley Hall, Jr., including that federal law would supersede a state drug amendment.

"I note as an initial matter that this description fails to acknowledge that your proposed measure cannot completely legalize marijuana in Arkansas for medical purposes because the drug remains illegal under federal law," the opinion said. [Arkansas News]

Really? Then what's all this I keep hearing about 13 states having these laws and the President telling DOJ not to raid the dispensaries? I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this works by now.

What a waste of breath it is to continue insisting that there's some sort of impregnable federal barrier that makes medical marijuana impossible. It's plainly wrong, and not even worthy of being debated. Anyone who says that is just a stubborn and desperate obstructionist who can't even come up with a single real reason to continue criminalizing patients.

I wonder how long it will take to bury this nonsense once and for all. What if Arkansas was the last state in the country with no legal protection for patients? Would their top prosecutor still insist that it can't be done? Come on. At some point you're gonna have to learn to live with medical marijuana, and fighting back against it is both cruel and pointless.

The death of Rachel Hoffman in a botched drug sting was one of the most disturbing drug war outrages of 2008, and apparently the person most directly responsible for what happened thinks everyone's forgotten about it by now.

Former Tallahassee Police Officer Ryan Pender is fighting to get his job back after a botched drug sting cost a young police informant her life.
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Pender's attorney claims there was a lack of policy in the buy/bust operations at TPD and Pender did what he was trained to do.
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Pender - who recruited Hoffman and arranged the drug sting that evening - was fired in September, 2008 after an internal affairs review found that he violated nine department policies. [WCTV]

So Pender says he "did what he was trained to do," and internal affairs says he "violated nine department policies." Perhaps he was trained to violate those policies? Actually, that wouldn’t entirely surprise me, but it's still no excuse for Pender's participation in one of the most ridiculously ill-conceived drug operations that's ever been brought to light.

The great injustice here is not that Ryan Pender got fired for his role in this fatally flawed fiasco, but rather that he was the only person held accountable for it.

There are many ways for drug warriors to sound heartless and cruel in the drug policy debate, but one of the worst is certainly the objection to life-saving harm reduction programs. Just watch this DEA spokesman complain about efforts to reduce HIV infection in New York:



Harm reduction is a matter of public health for everyone, not just drug users. To frame this as a simple question of whether we should be "teaching people how to do drugs" is powerfully shortsighted and oblivious to the actual risks that drug policy should seek to address.

It's incredible that these drug warriors spend so much time warring against imaginary and exaggerated drug threats, while simultaneously opposing sensible approaches in those areas where legitimate health concerns do exist.

Imagine you're in court quietly observing someone else's trial, when suddenly, the judge starts pointing at you:

NASHVILLE (CN) - A judge in Dickson County, Tenn., had officers pull a spectator out of his courtroom "on a hunch," held him in custody and made him submit to a urinalysis for drugs, the man claims in Federal Court. Benjamin Marchant claims that General Sessions Judge Durwood Moore admitted that he "routinely drug-screens 'spectators' in his courtroom if he 'thinks' they may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol." Moore allegedly called it the "routine policy of the court."

The whole thing is so flagrantly unconstitutional and illegal that Moore's fellow judges were forced to throw him under the bus:

Moore acknowledged he had violated Marchant's rights and was censured by the Tennessee Supreme Court's Judiciary Court on May 1, 2009, the highest form of punishment short of seeking a judge's removal from the bench, according to the complaint.

Marchant tested negative for drugs, which was probably helpful in illustrating the absurdity of pulling random people aside with no justification and making them pee in a cup. I shudder to think that the outcome may have been different if he'd come up positive. Would Judge Moore have been hailed as a skilled professional who can pick potheads out of a crowd, instead of an out-of-control jerk who doesn't understand the most basic laws he's sworn to uphold?

It's seriously creepy to think that this guy's job is to interpret the law. Pete Guither asks:

How does this guy get to be a judge? You have to be better informed to get a cosmetology license.

Which is why I can't get excited about any form of punishment that falls short of permanently stopping this guy from deciding the legal fate of anyone ever again. Sure, no one was killed, falsely imprisoned, or otherwise substantially harmed by the incident, but it just reveals such a fundamental contempt for the Constitution that I refuse to believe it was a misunderstanding.

The problem is not that this judge was ignorant of the law, but rather that he deemed himself to be above it.

A plan to make Dutch border town cannabis cafes members only in a bid to thwart "drug tourism" is on indefinite hold, a Dutch official said Monday. The plan, which was supposed to go into effect January 1, needs further study, the official said. "We need to finalize our preparations before we can put the project into operation," said Petro Hermans, a project officer for the southeastern city of Maastricht. "We are studying the legal feasibility of the project," he said, adding the date of January 1 "was not practicable". Maastricht is one of eight municipalities in southern Limburg province that announced jointly last May they would make the 30 coffee shops in their jurisdictions members only. The plan would also reduce the daily limit on marijuana purchases from five grams to three and require that payment be made with a Dutch debit card. The measures are a bid to reduce the estimated four million visitors to Limburg each year who come from more repressive neighboring countries—France, Germany, and Belgium—to buy marijuana. Limburgers have complained that the drug tourists cause problems ranging from traffic congestion to public urination to hard drug dealing. The Dutch government decriminalized the possession of up to five grams of marijuana in 1976 and allows for retail sales through licensed coffee shops. There are about 700 coffee shops throughout the country. Back in Limburg, Hermans said that a report on the feasibility of the members only plan was due by mid-month. "We will then decide how to proceed," he said.