As anyone who has been reading my blogs will know,I have a spinal condition that leaves me in considerable pain and have a 40 year history of large scale heroin trafficking and use or abuse,as it were

An awesome presentation from Judge Jim Gray. He really nails a lot of important points in a few short minutes:

I will make one comment on Judge Gray's discussion here with regards to his statement that politicians are benefiting from the war on drugs. This has certainly been true in the past, but we're witnessing a palpable shift in the way these issues are approached in mainstream politics.

The drug war has become so deeply unpopular among a sizable segment of the population that the White House felt it necessary to publicly reject the "war" metaphor. It was a shrewd and arguably disingenuous political maneuver, but it illustrates vividly how far removed we are from the days when politicians went out of their way to impress the public with tough lock 'em up rhetoric. You don't hear many mainstream politicians bragging about their drug war credentials these days. Heck, Obama's most popular drug policy decision since taking office was his effort to curtail DEA raids in medical marijuana states.

We need to stop selling the idea that supporting the drug war is good for politicians. We don't want them thinking that, and it isn’t really even true anymore.

Some legislators in Vermont aren't thrilled about a bill to create 5 medical marijuana dispensaries in the state:

The bill has drawn opposition from the Department of Public Safety, where officials say they worry that dispensaries would fuel increased illegal drug use.

Well, I certainly understand your concerns, ladies and gentlemen, and I thank you for sharing them. Allow me to clarify one thing though, if I may; this is legal drug use we're talking about here. This is for sick people using marijuana legally with a doctor's recommendation.

You see, Vermont's patients can only obtain their medicine from illegal sources currently, so this is actually about creating a legal option and reducing illegal activity. If anyone is still anticipating problems here, I would refer you to the fact that you live in Vermont. Your neighbor grows marijuana. Vermont's epic pre-existing marijuana supply will not be substantially impacted by 5 little dispensaries that only sell to sick people. If your happy life in Vermont hasn’t already been ruined by hippies, then you have nothing to worry about with this, I assure you.

Cliff Kincaid, kingpin of paranoid prohibitionists, blames last week's Pentagon shooting on the attacker's use of medical marijuana. That's right folks, marijuana makes you kill people. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, where they have more medical marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks, the murder rate is at its lowest level since 1957.