The Los Angeles City Council decided unanimously on Tuesday to ban all storefront medical marijuana shops, in a blow to a industry that operates in violation of federal law but has become the largest collection of pot dispensaries in California. The 14-0 vote by the council comes after conflicting court decisions on how far local jurisdictions in California can go in cracking down on the cannabis shops. Some observers say the issue could end up before the state's Supreme Court.

The Funniest Comic Bits That Skewer the Drug War by Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart et al

While the drug war is not a laughing matter, comedians are often able to capture the absurdity and insanity better than policy papers and traditional journalism.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) has become the latest leader to condemn the now 40-year-old war on drugs. "The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure," Christie said Monday during a speech at The Brookings Institution. "We're warehousing addicted people everyday in state prisons in New Jersey, giving them no treatment." Christie stressed the merits of legislation recently passed by New Jersey state lawmakers that institutes a year of mandatory treatment for first-time, nonviolent drug offenders instead of jail time.

In a recent Open Neurology Journal article, four University of California at San Diego researchers review the evidence concerning marijuana's medical utility and conclude that its continued classification as a Schedule I drug is "not tenable." But the DEA's classification of marijuana has been destroyed many times in the past. Twenty-four years ago, an administrative law judge, responding to a legal challenge initiated in 1972, recommended that marijuana be taken off Schedule I, calling it "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

Florida inmates convicted of non-violent drug crimes spent 194 percent more time behind bars in 2009 than they did in 1990, costing the state billions of dollars but providing little public safety benefit, a new study found. The study, by the Pew Center on the States, examined trends in 35 states that provided data on incarceration for inmates convicted of violent crimes, property crimes and drug offenses. It found that nationally, state inmates across all categories of offenses served an average of nine additional months in custody, a rise of 36 percent since 1990.

Marijuana Decriminalization: Efforts To Relax Pot Rules Gaining Momentum In U.S. - Catharine Leach is married and has two boys, age 2 and 8. She has a good job with a federal contractor and smokes pot most every day. While she worries that her public support for marijuana decriminalization and legalization could cost her a job or bring the police to her door, the 30-year-old Warwick resident said she was tired of feeling like a criminal for using a drug that she said is far less harmful than the glass or wine or can of beer enjoyed by so many others after a long day's work.

Stacy was a member of Students for Liberty, the Drexel Student Liberty Front, Center for a Stateless Society, and presumably numerous other activist outlets. She has been to Porcfest. Lot's of people know and (used to) trust her, as a well liked member of the liberty community. Late last year, she was ratted out as a drug dealer and she, in turn, informed on several of her friends and other people in the liberty movement.

Medical Marijuana Irrelevant To Romney

http://youtu.be/8GRLD0pz0bo

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China. The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly ``cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

Americans make up just 5 percent of the world's population but account for 25 percent of the population behind bars. Why? Because prisons are a big business and the WAR on Drugs, CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria says. The total number of Americans under correctional supervision (prison, parole, etc.) is 7.1 million, more than the entire state of Massachusetts. Prisons are a big business. Most are privately run, have powerful lobbyists and have bought most state politicians.