A new poll show support for marijuana legalization below 50% in California and suggests some demographic groups that need some attention if it is to receive majority support. Chronicle story here.

It's been a pretty quiet week on the medical marijuana front. Heck, it looks like even the DEA took a break -- no raids to report. Chronicle story here.

Don't give joints to snitches you're having an affair with -- that's the lesson one California cop learned last week. There are more crooked cops for us this week, too. Chronicle story here.

Marijuana decriminalization is just a pair of floor votes away from passage in the Rhode Island General Assembly after companion bills were approved by respective judiciary committees Tuesday. Chronicle story here.

If you want welfare benefits in Tennessee, you will have to submit to drug screening that could include a drug test under a bill just signed into law. Chronicle story here.

One of the most common questions we get at Flex Your Rights is how to handle a situation in which police claim to smell marijuana. This can happen whether or not you actually have marijuana and police actually smell it, so it's a situation everyone should be prepared for. 

My latest YouTube video takes a look at this tricky question.

Last week, New York Times published one of the most powerful editorials about medical marijuana that I've ever seen. It was a moving personal appeal from Gustin L. Reichbach, a Justice of the NY State Supreme Court, who began treatment with marijuana after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.

It's a story so moving you would have to be insane not to feel compassion for Justice Reichbach and patients like him. Unfortunately, long-time drug war defender David G. Evans is insane. In a calmly-worded, yet viciously dismissive letter to the editor, Evans suggests that the judge might be lying about his cancer treatment.

Anecdotal reports may…be inaccurate because of the emotional expectations of the person using marijuana and the placebo effect. In some cases, there may be deliberate exaggeration for ideological reasons.

To even suggest such a thing is offensive beyond words. We're talking about a man who is fighting for his life, a man who dedicated that life to upholding the law, and who turned to marijuana only after being handed a death sentence. From what twisted perspective would one even arrive at the idea that such a person was speaking dishonestly?

Even leaving aside what we already know about marijuana's medical benefits, what kind of monster would question a dying man's account of how he finds comfort? Evans's sickening insinuations are an exhibit in the inhumanity required to judge those who only seek relief from their suffering. Worse, he even attempts to disguise his coldness and cynicism as a form of genuine concern:

It is true compassion to make sure that medicines are safe and effective and that the claims about them are true.

It's an incredible thing to say, premised entirely on the absurd notion that David Evans is entitled to an opinion about another man's cancer treatment. As often as we've seen critics of marijuana's medical use endeavor to embarrass themselves, I can scarcely recall an episode so disgraceful, so pure and vile in its arrogance.

It's awful to think that Justice Reichbach and other patients like him might read the cruel words of people like David Evans. But let's not miss the true meaning behind Evans's senseless message. If you look back at what he wrote, it reveals a great deal about the desperation of anti-drug ideologues like Evans as they angle for attention in a debate that's increasingly been decided already in the hearts and minds of most Americans.

Faced with a powerful story from a credible and sympathetic voice, Evans saw no option other than to call him a liar. He can't even accept the basic fact that sick people find relief from medical marijuana, because even that simple and obvious truth would, by itself, overwhelm every idiotic thing he's ever said on the subject. As hurtful as his words may be, Evans's horrendous example is exactly the reason we're winning this debate.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past, in Drug War Chronicle.

As calls for legalizing marijuana and ending the drug war become increasingly commonplace in the press, so too do the inevitable shocked responses from frightened individuals who aren't always up to speed on the subject.

At their best, these people sound like they just found out about drugs yesterday.

Perhaps we should consider educating our children about the harms of all drugs to discourage their use.

Maybe the answer lies in discouraging consumption as a means of putting the narco-trafficking organizations out of business thereby reducing the mayhem in Mexico, Central and South America, the U.S. and Canada. 

Maybe instead of whining like babies for candy, drug users, and those sympathetic to them, should consider healthier forms of recreation. [Canada.com]

Okaaay…and if that doesn't work, maybe we should ask police officers to look in people's bags and take their drugs away from them. People who refuse to cooperate could perhaps be sent to special buildings and put on "timeout" to think about what they've done.

Seriously though, what kind of numbskull just walks up and starts suggesting the same stupid crap we've been doing for decades? A few too many I'm afraid, and this idiotic obsession with silver-bullet prevention strategies never quite dies despite the incalculable sums we've pissed away on counterproductive anti-drug propaganda.

It may sound supremely stupid to someone like me, but there remain many among us who still can't bring themselves to envision a post-prohibition world because they insist it's easier to just ask everyone to stop getting stoned. If anyone would like to demonstrate this to me, for example by standing outside a head-shop and convincing customers not to go inside, I'd be willing to tag along and make sure nobody punches you in the face.

Here's one hell of an indignant rant against the drug war. No disagreement here.

US backing for and involvement in Honduras' war against drug trafficking is under increasing scrutiny after a DEA-involved raid that left four innocent people dead. Chronicle story here.