Via McClatchy:

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But as the San Jose crackdown, among others, suggests, the Justice Department will not be backing down. In January, Southern California medical marijuana dispensary operator Aaron Sandusky was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running a business deemed legal in his state since California legalized marijuana for qualified patients, caregivers and collectives in 1996 and 2003. Now, as the East Bay Express reported, "a new round of actions against lawful medical cannabis dispensaries in the South Bay" has begun following crackdowns in 2011:

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Meanwhile, the U.S. boasts the highest incarceration rates in the entire world -- 2.2 million prisoners. Staggeringly more than half of all federal inmates are incarcerated for drug crimes. Via HuffPo:

Despite more relaxed attitudes among the public at large toward non-violent offenses like marijuana use, the number of people in federal prison for drug offenses spiked from 74,276 in 2000 to 97,472 in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The punishment falls disproportionately on people of color. Blacks make up 50 percent of the state and local prisoners incarcerated for drug crimes. Black kids are 10 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes than white ones -- even though white kids are more likely to abuse drugs.

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In a tweet, Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, wrote:

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Evangelical Pat Robertson also recently came out for changing marijuana policy: “I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” he told the New York Times. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”

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Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Paul said that even the last two presidents used drugs at some point. "Look, the last two presidents could have conceivably been put in jail for their drug use and I really think - look what would've happened, it would've ruined their lives," he said. "They got lucky. But a lot of poor kids, particularly in the inner city, don't get lucky and they don't have good attorneys and they go to jail for some of these things and I think it's a big mistake."

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Helen Clark, the head of the United Nations Development Program, has publicly slammed global strategies to combat drugs, claiming there is increasing evidence that "the war on drugs" has failed. The former prime minister of New Zealand urged Latin American leaders to develop new policies to tackle drugs, which she says should be addressed as a public health problem rather than criminalized. "I've been a health minister in my past and there's no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalized issue," she told Reuters. "Once you criminalize, you put very big stakes around. Of course, our world has proceeded on the basis that criminalization is the approach. To deal with drugs as a one-dimensional, law-and-order issue is to miss the point." Although she did not directly comment on US involvement in the drug war, her words have been widely interpreted as a criticism of US drug policy, which she later denied. "She was speaking about the negative effects the drug trade has had on development in some Latin American countries in the context of the Human Development Report," said UNDP spokeswoman Christina LoNigro in a statement.

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Sergeant Gary Wiegert has been a city cop for 32 years. He’s twice been president of the St. Louis Police Officer’s Association. His other part-time job is as a lobbyist in Jefferson City. One of his clients is the St. Louis Tea Party. Another, is a group called Show-Me Cannibis Regulation, which is trying to decriminalize marijuana in Missouri.

Wiegart's police department have not reacted well to his position on pot. "Sergeant Wiegert is not representing the department. His comments are his own and not what is expected of our officers,” the department chief said in a statement, explaining why the department was blocking Wiegart speaking to the media. Now, according to St. Louis Today, Wiegart has filed suit against the department for "allegedly stifling his pro-pot politicking."

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Criminal justice systems are largely a reflection of economic systems. It is no coincidence that their practices are the most humane in Scandinavian countries, known for their high degree of economic solidarity. In a society marked by sharp wealth inequality, such as modern-day America, the criminal justice system can come to negate solidarity and embody the notion that those at the bottom rungs of society are little more than a nuisance. Thus, the U.S. criminal justice system emphasizes harsh retribution, disfavors rehabilitation and tends to ignore social factors behind crime, such as poverty, failing public schools or lax gun control.

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ATLANTA — Senator Chuck Schumer called it "a certifiable one-stop shop" for meth, heroin and cocaine, "the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen."

That was in June 2011, just days after Gawker writer Adrian Chen outed the site, known as Silk Road.

Schumer's outrage was palpable. He commanded Attorney General Eric Holder to shut down the clandestine marketplace.

But in the nearly two years that have passed, that apparently hasn't happened.

The site mysteriously disappeared for two weeks in November 2012, and its proprietor, alias Dread Pirate Roberts, went incommunicado from online forums. That led some to speculate that law enforcement had shut it down.

But the opposite now appears to be true.

Due to an explosion in popularity, Silk Road's infrastructure had to be rebuilt to accommodate new customers and security, Dread Pirate Roberts said in a post following his return. And performance measures were added to better protect users.

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Think Progress cited passages from Schwartz's pointed remarks:

The most blatant example of this behavior [from the government] came last year, when NIDA blocked an FDA-approved clinical trial testing marijuana as a remedy for post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. It’s especially sad to note that the study participants were veterans, with PTSD deemed untreatable by other means. After 12 years of war, this is how we treat them.

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When your love hands you a gorgeous bouquet of large, red, long-stemmed roses this Valentine’s Day, as any botanist will tell you, you’re getting a bunch of sex organs. Although the roses are more beautiful, fragrant and socially acceptable than other methods that might get the same point across (just ask former Congressman Anthony Weiner), there’s a lot more to those roses than meets the eye.

Unfortunately, the romancing of women in the United States often means the exploitation of women in countries like Colombia and Ecuador.

The preference the U.S. gives Colombian and Ecuadorian flower exports has a lot to do with another export from those nations: cocaine. By 1990, South American imports already accounted for more than 40 percent of roses sold in the United States. Then, in 1991, Congress passed the Andean Trade Preference Act. The idea was simple: maybe if we help cocaine-producing nations sell us other things, like roses, they’ll be less interested in selling us cocaine.

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But that didn't stop dozens of people from turning out Wednesday — in flannel and suits, ponytails and hemp necklaces — to find out more about becoming Washington state's official marijuana consultant.

As officials figure out how to regulate the state's newly legal marijuana, they're hiring an adviser to fill in the gaps of the typical bureaucrat's education: how cannabis is best grown, dried, tested, labeled, packaged, regulated and cooked into brownies.

The Liquor Control Board, the agency charged with developing rules for the marijuana industry, reserved a convention center hall for a state bidding expert to take questions about the position and the hiring process.

"Since it's not unlikely with this audience, would a felony conviction preclude you from this contract?" asked Rose Habib, an analytical chemist from a marijuana testing lab in Missoula, Mont.

The answer: It depends. A pot-related conviction is probably fine, but a "heinous felony," not so much, responded John Farley, a procurement coordinator with the Liquor Control Board.

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“In the now nearly fifty-year-old effort to end cannabis prohibition laws led by non-profit citizen advocacy groups, 2012 must be viewed as a watershed year for cannabis law reformers,” said Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of NORML, a leading marijuana reform group.

Tom Angell, the chairman of Marijuana Majority, agreed. "This was the year that we broke through and succeeded in getting prominent political observers and the media to pay attention to the fact that this is quickly becoming a mainstream issue.”

The biggest victories for advocates, of course, came in Washington and Colorado, where voters approved ballot measures to legalize cannabis for private recreational use. Washington’s law has already gone into effect, while Colorado’s will soon. Advocates hope that if all goes according to plan, other states will see there’s nothing to be afraid of and follow the example.

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Right Wing Watch first reported on Black's remarks, which were made at a Grassroots America We the People "Call to Action" meeting shortly before the election.

For starters, Adams argued that Obama is a Marxist, but no one is talking about it because it is hidden by his "green agenda," or something:

Who is a Marxist in our White House?  Of course, it's Barack Hussein Obama.  And I don't know why we're not calling him what he is as a Marxist.  It's as if, when the wall fell that communism died; it didn't.  Today, it is green on the outside and red on the inside. It is as red as ever and Barack Obama is implementing his green agenda, which is Marxism, and that is exactly why our economy is hurting as badly as it is and why twenty three million people are still out of work. That is exactly what is happening.

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Colorado became the second state after Washington to allow pot use without a doctor's recommendation. Both states prohibit public use of the drug, and commercial sales in Colorado and Washington won't be permitted until after regulations are written next year.

Hickenlooper, a Democrat, opposed the measure but had no veto power over the voter-approved amendment to the state constitution. He tweeted his declaration Monday and sent an executive order to reporters by email after the fact. That prevented a countdown to legalization as seen in Washington, where the law's supporters gathered to smoke in public.

"Voters were loud and clear on Election Day," Hickenlooper said in his statement. The law allowed him until Jan. 5 to declare marijuana legal.

Adults over 21 in Colorado may now possess up to an ounce of marijuana, or six plants. Public use and sale of the drug remain illegal.

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Instead the feds are either looking to have a judge declare the state regulations invalid, or are out to browbeat states into recriminalizing the demon weed by withholding federal money. (A similar strategy got the drinking age raised to 21 in every state, though it required legislation.)

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The answer is simple as it is depressing: because that’s the way it’s always been. Addicts are scorned by communities and celebrities with addictions are exploited or hounded by paparazzi. And while the government purports to view addiction as a disease, it often works in opposition to that position through the “War on Drugs,” which counts most drug users as criminals. Even those of us in the treatment community still—consciously or unconsciously—employ stigmatizing programming and language—such as when we focus on “dirty” urine.

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Last month, voters in Washington and Colorado chose to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana to adults aged over 21. In both states licenses will be granted to pot growers and sellers to legally distribute the product, which, like alcohol and tobacco, will be taxed. Colorado's legalization measure is set to go into effect early next month. Smoking pot in public remains illegal in both states but, as the AP noted, there was "nary a police officer in sight" during the celebration early Thursday morning -- the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers that until further notice they were not to issue citations for public marijuana use.

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The problem, of course, is that the Obama administration may cite the 1970 Controlled Substances Act as statutory rationale to try to force states to continue an expensive and inhumane war on weed that unnecessarily arrests and incarcerates thousands of Americans each year.

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“Although the effective date of I-502 [the legalization bill] is not until December 6, there is no point in continuing to seek criminal penalties for conduct that will be legal next month,” King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg told the Seattle Times, adding “I think when the people voted to change the policy, they weren’t focused on when the effective date of the new policy would be. They spoke loudly and clearly that we should not treat small amounts of marijuana as an offense."

According to the Seattle Times, "Satterberg is the first prosecutor to change charging policy after I-502, but other prosecutors are also considering these cases. Tom McBride of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys said his office 'just starting to work through those issues.'"

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