Washington medical marijuana advocates have been trying to pass a bill to allow marijuana dispensaries. Last month, Governor Chris Gregoire vetoed large parts of their bill. She said it would’ve put state workers in the position of violating federal law. Gregoire says she wants all the states that allow medical marijuana to petition the federal government to reclassify cannabis as a schedule II drug. She scheduled a conference call among those states Thursday. (Link to Story)

Peter B. Lewis -- the billionaire chairman of Progressive Corp. and well-known medical marijuana advocate -- is seeking proposals to run a campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Ohio. The issue would go on the ballot in 2012. While Democratic lawmakers have tried and failed in recent years to pass medical a marijuana law in Ohio, Lewis' latest inquiry represents a different tack. By going directly to voters through a ballot initiative, Lewis and his supporters could circumvent a GOP-controlled legislature and a Republican governor who likely would oppose such a law. (Link to Story)

An annual report by an independent advocacy group said that Mexico can no longer be considered to have a free press due to drug prohibition violence. According to Freedom House, Mexico was listed aside countries from North Africa and the Middle East as "not free" due to attacks on journalists, self-censorship and a climate of fear that persists in the nation. Reporting on the drug prohibition war is a tough situation for Mexican journalists, with some media outlets setting coverage guidelines and others declaring a blackout on coverage. (Link to Story)

The United States has spent over $1 trillion promoting democracy in far-flung Iraq and Afghanistan while friendly neighbor Mexico gets a fraction of that in its prohibitionist fight against drug trafficking organizations. Mexico's frustration with Washington's priorities has plunged ties between the two allies to their lowest ebb in years. Last year alone, the U.S.-backed campaign claimed the lives of over 15,000 people in Mexico -- that is more than double the combined civilian deaths reported in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States has spent over $1.2 trillion in the past decade. (Link to Story)

Colorado Rep. Jared Polis and Denver attorney Robert Corry spoke out this week against federal scare tactics they said were being used to create uncertainty in Colorado’s medical marijuana community. "I hope the Justice Department will respect the laws passed by the voters of Colorado and the rules propagated by our General Assembly...The Department should follow the principles it outlined in the Ogden memo: that those who are in clear compliance with state laws will not be raided. Colorado has the most robust regulatory structure in the country and our dispensaries are clearly operating under state law," said Rep. Polis. Robert Corry added, "This campaign of fear on the part of the Obama Administration is reprehensible, even more so given our own Colorado Attorney General (former U.S. Attorney)'s apparent alliance with the Obama Administration against Colorado’s citizens...The U.S. government should begin with prosecuting itself, specifically the Food and Drug Administration. Since 1978, the FDA has distributed medical marijuana to patients through the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program." (Link to Story)

Calling the newly passed bill overhauling the state's medical marijuana law "unconstitutional on its face," Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he wants to issue an amendatory veto to fix the parts he considers legally defective. Schweitzer criticized the House for tabling in committee House Bill 68 by Sen. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, proposed by a bipartisan interim committee after much study and many hearings last year. "They threw that in the garbage and now they're going to send bring me this (SB)423, which everybody's whose read it says, 'Oh yeah, it's unconstitutional.' " (Link to Story)

At 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 10, supporters of legalized marijuana in Maine will crowd into a hearing room in Augusta to support a Portland legislator's bill to decriminalize pot. Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, sponsor of LD 1453, "An Act To Legalize and Tax Marijuana," said she was thrilled to learn about the hearing that has been scheduled before the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. (Link to Story)

In a televised speech on the House floor about his arrest in Connecticut last Friday on driving-under-the-influence and marijuana-possession charges, House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson admitted to using marijuana to treat flare-ups of the pancreatitis that landed him in the hospital last November. Watson, R-East Greenwich, said he took a small amount of the drug with him when he went to Connecticut that day to help a friend move because he had had a pancreatic attack the day before, and wanted the drug handy if he had another severe one. (Link to Story)

While much of Mexico's mainstream media, especially television stations and local newspapers, has shied away from covering killings and naming the drug trafficking organizations involved, a blog and its anonymous curator publish graphic details of spiraling prohibition violence. At Mexico's "blog del Narco" the images are gruesome and unedited: a dead man in a sports jersey with his face covered in dried red blood and grey sand; a woman hanging from a rope above a busy urban over-pass and naked bodies lined up on the ground displaying clear, uncensored, signs of torture. Some recent headlines from the site include: "Entire town taken hostage by Gunmen in Chihuahua"; "Eleven year old arrested in Acapulco with AK 47"; "Sinaloa cartel welcomes new police chief with tortured body"; and "Mass narco grave, 60 bodies found, total 148 corpses". (Link to Story)