Latest

An Open Letter From A Fresno, CA Medical Marijuana Patient by Tommy Hawkins Jr. From the Fresno, CA KMPH (FOX) website's community bulletin board:

Police,responding to a report of a possible home invasion arrived to find the front door open.Inside they found two men who had nothing much to say and they also spotted a quantity of ecstasy pills an

The jury has returned its verdict in the case of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson, who was brought up on serious marijuana charges for growing his medicine:

Somerville- The jury returned a not guilty verdict to John Wilson on the first-degree felony charges against him. But the MS patient could still face time in prison after being found guilty of second-degree charges of ‘Manufacturing’ marijuana and third-degree possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms.  

If he had been convicted of "operating and maintaining a marijuana production facility" John would have faced a minimum of 15 years in state prison. That could have amounted to a death sentence for the 37 year old because of the degenerative nature of the disease. [Examiner]

So it could've been worse, but it's awfully hard to get excited about a result that could still send a seriously ill patient to prison. I guess the mushroom possession didn’t help, but shrooms should be legal anyway and I'm sure he found them helpful or he wouldn't have had them.

Let's hope this less-than-worst-case scenario doesn’t suck any momentum from the effort to get Wilson pardoned and pass medical marijuana legislation in New Jersey to prevent such injustices in the future.

No matter how many people are captured, killed, or incarcerated, the drugs just keep flowing. You could fill a room with academics who take turns explaining how complex the problem is, but it's actually really, really simple:

Though estimates vary, many federal law enforcement agencies and analysts believe that $25 billion in drug proceeds are smuggled out of the U.S. each year.

This compares to just $61 million seized over the past year — the $3 million blocked in banks through the Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act and another $58 million seized by border inspectors. That means authorities are halting just 25 cents of every $100 in cartel profits. [AP]

It's hard to believe that anyone is still confused about why the drug war isn’t getting us anywhere. And no, the solution is not to tell police to take more money from people's cars or pass new laws making it easier to do that. Innocent people have already suffered enough for our failure contain this mess.

The solution is to appoint more responsible people to distribute the drugs.