"In"

Couldn't avoid pointing out the heinous writing and editing in this Forbes story on the employment law conflicts of federal and employer drug-free workplace policies and patchy state-level innovations in marijuana policy.

My favorite sentence from the article:

But in those states, employed medical marijuana card holders are not “impaired” simply because marijuana components or metabolites are “in” their systems. 

 Nice quoting, Tex.

Marijuana Sensitization, a Media Hypothesis

Editors at the Seattle Times bothced this headline about a Rhode Island state legislator losing his leadership position. The headline reads "RI GOP lawmaker in Conn. pot bust loses top job." This is the first two paragraphs of the story:

The top Republican in the Rhode Island House has lost his leadership position over a recent arrest in Connecticut on charges of driving drunk and possessing marijuana.

Republican lawmakers Tuesday decided Rep. Robert Watson will be replaced as minority leader by Rep. Brian Newberry.

The Seattle Times apparently think the more sensational story here is for a legislator to possess marijuana, not to stupidly endanger lives by driving drunk. Why might the Seattle Times push the pot angle? It appears that the legislator has cover from the Rhode Island medical marijuana law:

>Police say they found marijuana in his pocket. He says he wasn't drunk and he uses pot to treat pain related to his inflamed pancreas.

No word yet on whether Rep. Robert Watson is actually a registered medical marijuana patient. my guess is that it has something to do with the Medical Marijuana Dispensary bill that was just stomped by Washington Governor Christine Gregoire.
Seattle Times editors saw an opportunity to put "Marijuana" in more than one headline today, and they took it, regardless of the underlying story. It's an interesting, if bald-faced, example of how newspapers attempt to create coherent narratives within their coverage of disparate events. In this case, it does appear to be inartful at best and inappropriate at worst.

Talk About Socialized Medicine

The Republican legislature in Montana is attempting to replace the medical marijuana regime that was enacted by popular referrendum in 2004. Here's the key paragraph from the story:

Senators and representatives on the compromise committee indicated they would work off of the House's version of the overhaul, a model that entirely removes payment from the marijuana trade and reduces the ratio of patients to providers to one, in most cases.

So much for the myth of Montana conservatives as more libertarian than puritanical. The 'overhaul' bill is an effort by conservative Republicans a week after their wholesale repeal bill was vetoed by the Governor. The Governor's statement resoundingly emphasized the will of the people of Montana in establishing the medical marijuana law through referrendum. Abolishing it via legislative act is a constitutionally dubious practice in a representative democracy (although, of course, technically legitimate). Massive cuts in the law's ability to function should be held to the same standard, and democrats everywhere should be rooting for a second Schweitzer veto.

Pragmatism > Legality

Washington State is in the middle of a massive budget crisis, which prompted Governor Christine Gregoire to announce big cuts in education, medical care, and various programs in the state. The Washington State Department of Revenue, on the other hand, is looking to fill in some loopholes. They have sent a letter to 90 medical marijuana dispensaries that they identified in internet searches which demanded that they pay state sales, business, and occupation taxes. There's no estimate given for the amount that Washington State expects to raise from the 90 patently illegal (even under state law) businesses. Medical marijuana law exists in Washington state, but it requires that either a patient or a designated caregiver grow the medicine. The law did not provide for the sale of marijuana.

The revenue-collecting agency just happens to be ahead of the legislature on this issue. Some former medical marijuana advocates are against the move, but really, any move which normalizes marijuana sales is a positive step towards ending prohibition. Of course, as was true for the proposed tax-marijuana-when-prop-19-passes stance, this taxation could expose distributors to federal (or even state) criminal penalty. The legislature needs to follow the tax agency's lead here if it wants to support the Department of Revenue in plugging the budget hole from every conceivable source.