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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.

Our friends at MPP just caught the drug czar literally editing out the most important part of the American Medical Association's new position on medical marijuana. According to a new ONDCP "factsheet":

The American Medical Association: "To help facilitate scientific research and the development of cannabionoid-based medicines, the AMA adopted (a) new policy … This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product."

Notice how it doesn't say what the "new policy…" actually is? That's because the original quote says, "the AMA adopted new policy urging the federal government to review marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance." Leaving that part out isn't just confusing and dishonest; it looks ridiculous.

If it's now ok to use ellipses to pervert policy positions, maybe I'll just take AMA's statement and do this with it:

"This should…be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, [and] that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product."

Yeah, I like the sound of that. But I'm not going to print it on a "factsheet," because it's not true.

As accustomed as I am to seeing the drug czar's office routinely deploying these sorts of sleazy semantic deceptions, I'm genuinely awed by this one. They buried the lead so blatantly that anyone who reads it ought to just end up wondering what the hell AMA's "new policy" on medical marijuana actually is. And once Google answers that question in a half-second, you might as well have just told the truth or scrubbed AMA off the site altogether like I suggested weeks ago.

Prosecutors in the trial of multiple sclerosis patient John Wilson probably aren’t too happy about this:

A judge reversed course today, allowing a man on trial for possession of 17 marijuana plants that he was growing during the summer of 2008 to testify about his medical condition.

Judge Robert Reed had earlier ruled that defendant John Ray Wilson could not present a defense based on this medical condition.

But then, after taking the stand in his own defense today, and after multiple conferences among the lawyers and the judge, Wilson was allowed to say "I told them(the arresting officers) I was not a drug dealer and I was using the marijuana for my MS(Multiple Sclerosis)." [NBC]

Unfortunately, that's all the judge would allow. Since New Jersey currently has no medical marijuana law, discussion of the defendant's medical use is considered prejudicial to the jury. We can only hope they got the message. John Wilson is a patient, not a criminal.

Regardless of the outcome here, this whole shameful episode powerfully illustrates the urgency of New Jersey's pending medical marijuana legislation. This trial should never have happened in the first place, but the least we can do is make sure it never happens again.