The latest on the medical marijuana front -- Chronicle story here.

The US Supreme Court has upheld drug dog sniffs of vehicles, luggage at airports, and packages in transit. Now, the state of Florida wants it to uphold a drug dog sniff at your front door. Chronicle story here.

Proponents of a Colorado marijuana legalization initiative turned in more than 159,000 signatures to the secretary of state's office Wednesday, nearly twice as many as the 86,500 required for the measure to be approved for the November ballot. The state has 30 days to verify the signatures and approve the measure for the ballot. Chronicle story here.

Washington state marijuana legalization initiative supporters turned in enough signatures last week to almost guarantee that the measure will be on the ballot in November. Now, we wait for the state to make it official. Chronicle story here.

The new year is almost upon us and 2011 will soon be a year for the history books. But we can't let it go without recognizing the biggest global drug policy stories of the year. From the horrors of the Mexican drug wars to the growing clamor over the failures of prohibition, from the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the Golden Triangle to the coca fields of the Andes, from European parliaments to Iranian gallows, drug prohibition and its consequences were big news this year. Chronicle yearly feature story here.

Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past. Chronicle story here.

My friend and colleague Siobhan Reynolds, founder of the Pain Relief Network (PRN), died in a plane crash this weekend outside Columbus, Ohio. The pilot of the plane, her partner Kp Byers, was also a pain activist, an attorney whose practice had focused since 1992 on defending medical professionals caught in the crosshairs of the drug war. Radley Balko has written an extensive tribute to Siobhan, online here. So does Jacob Sullum at Reason.

As Radley has noted and as many others will doubtless note, Siobhan's work organizing media and legal support for patients, doctors, pharmacists and nurses was a courageous one. An article in the New York Times last year by Adam Liptak shows the degree to which prosecutors and even some judges felt threatened by the scrutiny Siobhan and PRN had drawn to their handling of certain cases, and the lengths to which they were willing to abuse legal process to shut her down. Perhaps the daring of riding in a small plane is a mirror of the daring she showed in her career taking on the government.

PRN did shut down last year, the organization's financial resources and Siobhan's own resources depleted by the struggle. But Siobhan was working on forming a new patient advocacy organization, Radley noted. I hope that others will take up that torch in her name. The under-prescribing of opiates to many patients who need them, and the injustice of lengthy mandatory minimum drug sentences being leveled at doctors and others over prescribing practices that at worst are debatable, is one of the most challenging problems in the drug war to take on. There is far too little help -- medical, advocacy, or otherwise -- for the people most deeply affected. Among those people were her husband, the late Sean Greenwood.

The Pain Relief Network still has an online presence, and its home page provides Siobhan's reasons for the organization's closure and her hopes of what could happen in the future. Our own web site has an archive devoted to the pain under-treatment issue, much of the material in it about Siobhan's work.  Also, Siobhan wrote several articles this year on prohibition and the drug war's impact on the doctor-patient relationship, the articles linked to from her web site.

Last but not least, in the YouTube video posted below, "Being Unable to Help," Siobhan talks about what was impossible to do for her husband in the current medical and legal environment. Share it widely.

 

That's what Sue Rusche wants to know, and someone better give her an answer, because Sue Rusche is one of the nation's leading experts at being afraid of drugs.

In many state legislatures around the country, or by ballot (direct voter) referendum, important decisions are or will be made as to legalization of marijuana in some form. Before voters cast their ballots, or their elected officials decide, think about what will happen to children if marijuana becomes accessible to adults, much like alcohol. [drugfree.org]

Well, I'll tell you exactly what I think will happen: marijuana will be as easy for kids to obtain as alcohol currently is.

But before Sue Rusche runs screaming for the hills, she might be interested to know that marijuana is currently easier to buy than beer if you're underage. It has something to do, I think, with the fact that alcohol retailers are regulated and subject to inspection to ensure compliance with age restrictions. It's a great system, the best anyone's ever come up with for distributing stuff that can mess people up pretty bad.

So yeah, if legalizing marijuana makes it as available to our children as alcohol, that will mean we've reduced underage access and achieved the biggest victory in the history of parental anti-pot paranoia. 

More restrictions on medical marijuana, more California dispensaries close, more Montana dispensary operators head for federal prison, and California activists file an initiative to regulate and tax the industry at the state level. Chronicle story here.

There's big problems in the Nassau County, Florida, sheriff's office, and more drug prohibition-related police misconduct as well. Chronicle story here.

Montreal wants four safe injection sites for hard drug users. The city's public health agency and mayor have given the okay, but now they need provincial funding and federal approval. Chronicle story here.

Last week's NYT editorial from fanatical anti-pot crusader David Evans generated some powerful responses from readers. Here's my favorite.

Mr. Evans, who is not a doctor and doesn’t specialize in any of the illnesses he cites, overextends his expertise when he advises me and other readers that medical marijuana does not help me and others like me.

I have Parkinson’s disease, and I have used marijuana on occasion to relieve the uncomfortable stiffness that I suffer from time to time. It works.

Mr. Evans insists that “numerous safe and effective F.D.A.-approved medications are available for these conditions.” He’s right; I’m on several of them. But these drugs have unpleasant and, in one case, potentially debilitating side effects when used on a long-term basis. How easy it is for an anti-marijuana crusader to dismiss its medical benefits; how wrong he is to advocate denying me something that eases my suffering.

ED SIKOV
New York, Dec. 14, 2011

For me, this point really cuts directly through all the distracting nonsense people like David Evans keep peddling. Leaving aside the disingenuous arguments that the science doesn't confirm marijuana's medical efficacy (it does), that prominent medical associations don't support it (they do), that the drug's availability will cause crime (it doesn't), or that compassionate laws send the wrong message to children (they don't), the medical marijuana debate really comes down to a decision about how to deal with sick people who choose this drug as part of their treatment.

Does anyone think that this Parkinson's patient, Ed Sikov, should be put in handcuffs, dragged down to the police station and charged with a crime because he finds marijuana helpful for mitigating his stiffness?