With ‘marijuana’ already one of the most popular topics on the Internet, NORML proudly announces that the ‘Reefer Revolution’ has now found its way into the smart phone technology tsunami that is sweeping the world up into instant access and connectivity to important information and like-minded community.

Available for a .99 cent download from the iTunes webpage, the NORML app for iPhones now empowers NORML members and supporters to read the daily news, cannabis-related headlines and blogs; get educated on pending federal or state cannabis-related legislation and lobby their elected policymakers via pre-written email; listen to NORML’s popular daily podcast on-the-run; check out NORML’s active Twitter feed, Flicker photos and the organization’s YouTube channel of videos.

All of this from one application, located on one’s phone, for under $1 and in support of America’s oldest and largest pro-cannabis law reform organization!

Another NORML iPhone app is already in development that will feature the organization’s copyrighted list of state/federal cannabis laws, drug testing information, listing of criminal defense lawyers and NORML chapters nationwide. Additions to the current NORML app on iPhone, as well as creating similar programs for Google and Droid phones is currently underway.

NORML is also developing cannabis-centric games for mobile phone and Internet play.

I ascribe substantial credit for bringing about the rapid decrease in public support for cannabis prohibition to the advent and popularity of the Internet. Pre-Internet, both cannabis consumers and the general public had little-to-no access to verifiable and credible scientific or academic information regarding cannabis. Once NORML (and numerous other pro-reform organizations) could place large amounts of information online circa 1995, that anyone could read and download from the privacy of home, the opinion polls started to demonstrate a strong increase in the public’s discontent with cannabis prohibition laws.

Now that tens of thousands of scientific studies and medical reports can be read on mobile devices, pro-cannabis radio shows can be listened to on the bus or train and citizens fed up with prohibition laws can now contact their elected representatives anytime, from just about anywhere, smart phone technology is only going to 1) increase the number of citizen-advocates lobbying for cannabis law reforms, and 2) these ease-of-use mobile technologies also enhance the abilities of citizens to be more active in the ever-growing cannabis law reform movement, online community and commerce.

Many thanks to Red Aphid and Vincil Bishop for their tireless efforts to code and work through the labyrinth of regulations and requirements at Apple to bring NORML’s first smart phone application to fruition.

John J. Dilulio, Jr., the man who once co-authored a book with two former drug czars that described America’s drug war as “the most successful attack on a serious social problem in the last quarter-century,” has now reversed course, writing in the journal Democracy that it is “insane” to “expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging ‘war’ against [marijuana] users.”

Specifically, Dilulio, who served for eight months in 2001 as director of President George W. Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, listed making medical marijuana legal as one of “six steps to zero prison growth,” along with removing all federal mandatory-minimum drug sentencing policies. He also said the United States should “seriously consider decriminalizing [marijuana] altogether” because marijuana arrests have “close to zero” effect on crime rates and there is “almost no scientific evidence” showing marijuana to be more harmful than alcohol or legal narcotics.

This is coming from the same guy who in 1996 co-authored a (now out-of-print) book that was subtitled “How to Win America’s War Against Crime and Drugs,” with former directors of the Office of National Control Policy Bill Bennett and John Walters.

I would love to know what got Dilulio to change his views of drug policy—and how we could make other former prohibitionists see the light as well.

Here is the complete excerpt of Dilulio’s article that discusses marijuana policy:

“Sixth, legalize marijuana for medically prescribed uses, and seriously consider decriminalizing it altogether. Last year there were more than 800,000 marijuana-related arrests. The impact of these arrests on crime rates was likely close to zero. There is almost no scientific evidence showing that pot is more harmful to its users’ health, more of a “gateway drug,” or more crime-causing in its effects than alcohol or other legal narcotic or mind-altering substances. Our post-2000 legal drug culture has untold millions of Americans, from the very young to the very old, consuming drugs in unprecedented and untested combinations and quantities. Prime-time commercial television is now a virtual medicine cabinet (“just ask your doctor if this drug is right for you”). Big pharmaceutical companies function as all-purpose drug pushers. And yet we expend scarce federal, state, and local law enforcement resources waging “war” against pot users. That is insane.”

• There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
• As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
• A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
• If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently are at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs. Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.

The drug war has been brutal — complete with SWAT teams, tanks, bazookas, grenade launchers, and sweeps of entire neighborhoods — but those who live in white communities have little clue to the devastation wrought. This war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies consistently show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. In fact, some studies indicate that white youth are significantly more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youth. Any notion that drug use among African Americans is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data. White youth, for example, have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African American counterparts.

That is not what you would guess, though, when entering our nation’s prisons and jails, overflowing as they are with black and brown drug offenders. In some states, African Americans comprise 80%-90% of all drug offenders sent to prison.

The only thing more shocking to me than the new Jim Crow of the drug war is how few African-Americans are involved in ending it.

• The board of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) is composed of 14 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Latina (Full disclosure: this board is my employer)
• Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has no African-Americans or Latinos on their board as far as I’m aware (MPP does not publish this information on their website, as far as I can tell)
• Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) boasts three African-American men on their board of directors
• Americans for Safe Access (to medical marijuana, or ASA) has no African-Americans or Latinos on their board
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) has one African-American on their board

Medical Marijuana march in Madison, Wisconsin (I know Madison, Seattle, and Albuquerque aren't exactly Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago, but there has to be SOME black people there, right?)

This sort of racial homogeneity is also found at the grassroots activist level as well. I coordinate NORML’s 95 active state, local, and college chapters and off the top of my head I can think of only one chapter not run by a white person (Oregon NORML’s Madeline Martinez, who, coincidentally, is that sole Latina on the National NORML Board).

When I speak at conferences and festivals to crowds ranging from 50 to 50,000, it is always a nearly unbroken sea of white faces looking back at me. When I participate in the marches and protests against the drug war, I rarely see black or Latino people carrying a sign.

My view from the stage before speaking at last year's Seattle Hempfest, the largest marijuana reform rally in the world.

The War on Drugs is primarily a War on Marijuana, which makes up 49.8% of all drug war arrests, 89% of those arrests for simple possession. In New York City, a black man is nine times more likely to be busted for pot than a white man and three times more likely to get a custodial sentence out of that arrest. Yet when we look at the cannabis community, the only place we find many African-American faces is in rap videos extolling the virtues of “the chronic”.

Where is the Martin Luther King Jr. of the movement to end the War on Drugs? Why is he or she not responding to the efforts to end the single greatest cause of racial inequality in this nation?

Is he or she dissuaded by the culture of the black church, which demonizes drugs and drug use to the point where those who support sensible drug policies are shamed into silence?

Drug Policy Alliance's Int'l Reform Conference in Albuquerque, 2009

Is he or she turned away by looking at the leadership of drug law reform and seeing no faces like theirs?

Is he or she already feeling like they wear a target for law enforcement on their back already based on skin color and don’t feel like exacerbating that by publicly standing for drug law reform?

Whatever it is, this white man who’s used cannabis for twenty years and never once had an interaction with police is urgently calling out to my black and Latino brothers and sisters to get involved with your own liberation!

Quoting numerous voices from within the marijuana policy reform movement, including MPP’s Kurt Gardinier, the piece highlights the growing public support for ending marijuana prohibition, paying particular attention to the many states that have passed or proposed legislation to allow medical marijuana, eliminate criminal penalties for possession, and even tax and regulate the nation’s largest cash crop like alcohol.

Years ago, such a huge splash in the mainstream media would have been hard to fathom. Hopefully it will serve to further sway public opinion in favor of much-needed reform.

Opponents of such liberalization proposals inevitably argue that any efforts toward decriminalizing or legalizing cannabis will adversely impact the public’s use of marijuana and/or young people’s attitudes toward it. Yet regional data gleaned from around the word consistently demonstrates that the imposition and enforcement of harsh criminal marijuana penalties do not dissuade cannabis use, and moreover, that criminalization is an objectively ineffective public policy.

To better educate lawmakers, opinion leaders, and our own constituents of this consistent, comprehensive, and growing body of scientific literature, NORML has authored the following white paper, Real World Ramifications of Cannabis Legalization and Decriminalization. This paper reviews dozens studies that have examined this issue in regions that have either:

a) regulated marijuana use and sales for all adults;

b) decriminalized the possession of small quantities of marijuana for adults;

c) medicalized the use of marijuana to certain authorized individuals; or

d) deprioritized the enforcement of marijuana laws.

NORML’s paper also proposes general guidelines to govern marijuana use, production, and distribution in a legal, regulated manner.

Based on the multi-decade experiences of various states and nations that have enacted various versions of marijuana decriminalization and/or legalization, NORML maintains that:

1. Strict government legalization/regulation of marijuana is unlikely to increase the public’s use of marijuana or significantly influence attitudes.

2. Decriminalization is unlikely to increase the public’s use of marijuana or significantly influence attitudes.

3. Free market legalization of marijuana without strict government restrictions on commercialization and marketing is likely to increase marijuana use among the public; however, given that the United States already has the highest per capita marijuana use rates in the world, this increase is likely to be marginal relative to other nation’s experiences.

You can read the entire paper online here.

Spread the word…

When trying to answer inquiries from reporters, columnists, policymakers and medical cannabis patients regarding as to ‘why specifically has Bryan Epis been compelled to return to federal prison–at great taxpayer expense during a steep recession–when there are thousands of cannabusinesses operating at the retail level in states like California, Colorado and Montana?’, there are no satisfactory (or logical) answers to provide them.

Suffice of to say, Bryan Epis’ case is both a dinosaur of sorts as well as a badge of shame for the current, and somewhat medical cannabis-supportive Obama administration in that his was one of the first federal arrests in 1997, and after a hotly contested legal battle, Bryan was one of the first medical cannabis primary caregivers to be sentenced under federal law, to ten years. After serving 24 months in prison from 2002-2004, with the greater social and political acceptance of medical cannabis blossoming around Bryan’s prison cell, he was able to procure an appeal bond, leave prison, argue his case in the appeals court again, re-start his successful business, pay taxes, take care of his mother, be a parent to his child, develop a loving relationship–all with the notion that he’d unlikely have to return to federal prison.

What, in the era of 24/7 medical cannabis vending machines, law enforcement having to return back hundreds of pounds of seized medical cannabis to patient-growers and caregivers, insurance companies paying on medical cannabis crop failure and insuring  dispensaries with standard business liability coverage and President Obama implementing the first steps of recognizing medical cannabis’ safety, utility and need to change its legal status specifically-tailored for medical use?

Could the federal government be so arbitrary and capricious so as to seek his re-incarceration for eight more years to be served in prison, for the ‘crime’ of growing over one hundred medical cannabis plants?

Yes. On April 08, 2009, a three panel judge on the 9th Circuit ruled against Epis and ordered him back to prison.

Bryan may have been arrested under the Clinton administration, prosecuted and incarcerated under the Bush 2.0 administration, but the Obama administration’s Department of Justice can ‘do the right thing’: stop wasting taxpayer’s money, stop being subjective in the application of the law and reason, and stop making the average person seriously question the priorities of government institutions and bureaucracies by immediately reducing his sentence, freeing him from a cage, and allow him to return to his family–and the tax rolls.

Below is a communication from Bryan’s partner regarding the two primary things citizens can do to support Bryan and help end this kind of insanity in the war against cannabis consumers:

1) Sign and distribute the petition necessary to appeal to the federal government to reduce Bryan’s sentence;

2) When booking lodging online, please use a search engine called LodgingSite, which not only benefits its owner (Bryan Epis!), but the company will donate 10% of their profit to public interest groups like NORML.

March 4, 2010

Dear Allen,

My name is Monica and I am writing you on behalf of Bryan Epis. As you know they recently took him back in to serve the remainder of a ten year prison sentence.  He wanted me to contact you in hope that you can help us. I have attached a printable petition. Our goal is to come up with 100k signatures within 4 months.  The lawyer he has is filing a 2255 to try to get his sentence reduced. Bryan is hoping you will put this petition on your website, anyone can print it. It holds 25 signatures per page, once a page is complete, at the bottom of the page is our address. We ask that they send them back to me and I will take them to his lawyer.

We have found a way to raise money for your non-profit organization as well as help Bryan.

We have a website called lodgingsite.com powered by Priceline.  It is a hotel reservation web site.  I would assume that all of your members, book at least one hotel a year, if they go to lodgingsite.com and book a hotel room under the “special rates” section.  We offer 10% cash back to any non profit organization of their choice (as long as when they get their confirmation info and send it to cashback@lodgingsite.com along with a designated non profit organization of their choice. They must include the name of the organization of their choice, plus their confirmation number, their name address, the hotel name and city). BTW, 10% equates to about $20 per reservation. If you multiply that by how many members and supporters NORML has it is potentially a lot of money NORML could get for the cause, as well as to help and promote Bryan’s defense.

If you have any questions please contact me at: monica@lodgingsite.com

Sincerely,
Monica Focht
(in care of Bryan Epis)

** To first time readers: NORML can not introduce legislation in your state. Nor can any other non-profit advocacy organization. Only your state representatives, or in some cases an individual constituent (by way of their representative; this is known as introducing legislation ‘by request’) can do so. NORML can — and does — work closely with like-minded politicians and citizens to reform marijuana laws, and lobbies on behalf of these efforts. But ultimately the most effective way — and the only way — to successfully achieve statewide marijuana law reform is for local stakeholders and citizens to become involved in the political process and make the changes they want to see. We can’t do it without you.

Hawaii: Senate lawmakers approved a series of bills last week that seek to reform the state’s marijuana laws. Senators voted unopposed in favor of SB 2450, which seeks to reduce penalties for the adult possession of up to one ounce of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine to a civil offense. You can read NORML’s recent commentary and testimony in favor of this measure here and here. You can voice your support for the measure here.

Senators this week also approved Senate Bill 2141, an act to increase the quantities of medical marijuana that a patient may legally possess under state law to ten plants and five ounces at any given time. Lawmakers approved the proposal by a 24 to 1 vote. Lawmakers also voted in favor of SB 2213, which would establish ‘compassion centers’ to provide medical marijuana to authorized patients. All three measures are now before the House for consideration. You can learn more about these proposals here.

Washington: House lawmakers on Wednesday, March 3, voted 58 – 40 in favor of an amended version of Senate Bill 5798, which would expand the state’s nearly twelve-year-old medical marijuana law. Because the House made minor amendments to the bill, it now must be re-approved by the Senate — who previously had 37 to 11 in favor of the bill in February. If enacted, SB 5798 will allow additional health care professionals – including naturopaths, physician’s assistants, osteopathic physicians, and advanced registered nurse practitioners – to legally recommend marijuana therapy to their patients. Under present law, only licensed physicians may legally recommend medicinal cannabis. To learn more about this measure, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action’ Center here.

Rhode Island: House lawmakers this week for the first time introduced legislation to legalize the production, distribution, and personal use of marijuana for adults age 21 and older. As introduced, House Bill 7838: The Taxation and Regulation of Marijuana Act, would exempt adults from any statewide criminal or civil penalty for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, engaging in the not-for-profit transfer of small amounts of marijuana, and/or the cultivation of up to three marijuana plants. The proposal also establishes licensing requirements for the commercial cultivation and distribution of marijuana via retail facilities. The measure states that “at least one” marijuana retailer shall exist per county within one year following the passage of this act. To learn how you can support this act, please visit here.

New Hampshire: Next Wednesday, March 10, House lawmakers are scheduled to vote on House Bill 1653, which would amend penalties for possession of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine, to a civil offense punishable by no more than $200.00. Members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee previously voted 16 to 2 in favor of passing the bill, and NORML anticipates that House lawmakers will do the same. However, Democrat Gov. John Lynch has threatened to veto the measure. Contact information and talking points for Gov. Lynch may be found at NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.

Massachusetts: The Joint Committee on Judiciary held a hearing on Tuesday to debate SB 1801, which seeks to “regulate and tax the cannabis industry” in Massachusetts. You can watch video from the hearing here, and you can contact your state elected officials in support of the measure here.

For information on additional state and federal marijuana law reform legislation, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.

For the second year in a row we have an opportunity to let the Obama administration know what ideas are most important to us. Last year ending marijuana prohibition was the number one idea on change.org’s top 10 “ideas for change in America” list, but it currently sits out of the money in fourth place. Let your voice be heard and vote to end marijuana prohibition once and for all (voting ends March 12).

Marijuana Law Reform in 2010 (March Update)

With New Jersey recently becoming the 14th medical marijuana state, activists in marijuana law reform have been celebrating. After all, over 82 million Americans now live in states where medical use of marijuana is legal – that’s 27% of the US population! Last election, Massachusetts became the 13th decriminalization state, which means over 107 million Americans live in a state where possession of small personal amounts of marijuana no longer merit an arrest – that’s 35% of the US population.

Population of States with Medical Marijuana Laws

Population of States that have Decriminalized Marijuana

However, after watching fourteen years of marijuana activism focused solely on those who use cannabis for medicine, I must warn activists that medical marijuana is not getting any better and the time for re-legalization of cannabis for all adults – even the healthy ones – is now.

Comparison of five core rights found in existing medical marijuana law

Medical marijuana was a great 20th century strategy to get the sick and dying off the battlefield in the war on drugs. It was the perfect vehicle to enlighten the public, who for so long have been indoctrinated into the reefer madness that classifies cannabis like LSD and heroin. But in the 21st century the idea that marijuana is only a medicine is beginning to take hold and governments and voters are crafting ever-more-restrictive medical marijuana laws. For the vast majority of cannabis consumers this threatens to move us from the category of “illegal drug users” to “possessors of medicine without a prescription” – a step up, perhaps, but still left facing criminal prosecution.

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996. That initiative, Prop-215, established what is clearly the most liberal medical marijuana statute to date:

• A doctor can recommend for any condition;
• You needn’t have a “bona fide” doctor/patient relationship;
• Dispensaries are allowed;
• Self cultivation is allowed;
• Patients are protected from arrest.

Comparison of plant and possession limits and qualifying conditions in medical marijuana law

If we consider these five attributes of the law the baseline, then in the past fourteen years, all thirteen medical marijuana states that have followed have failed to achieve all five. Eight states only offer three or four of those liberties and the rest offer two or only one. Most disturbingly, the right of patients to grow their own medicine (or have a caregiver do it for them), which has been a bedrock principle in medical marijuana law, was taken away from patients in the most recent medical marijuana state, New Jersey. Bills that were considered but vetoed in 2009 in Minnesota and New Hampshire, and those moving forward in New York, Pennsylvania, as well as an initiative in Arizona, all sacrifice this core right.

New Jersey - The (No Medical Marijuana) Garden State

A comparison of plant and possession limits also shows the decline from the original starting point in California, where 12 plants and 8 ounces are allowed. Oregon and Washington passed their laws next and have the highest statutory limits: 24 plants and 24 ounces in Oregon and 15 plants and 24 ounces in Washington. (To be fair, all the West Coast states started with lower limits or more vague limits that were modified by the legislature.) But since then, only one state has allowed more than 3 ounces (New Mexico with 6 ounces) and average number of plants allowed is a little less than ten.

The "Big 8" Conditions for which marijuana is recommended in the states

Another decline in medical marijuana freedom appears when we look at the conditions for which medical marijuana protection is afforded in the various states. There are eight conditions which could be considered the “standard” ones: cancer; HIV/AIDS; seizure disorders, like epilepsy; spastic disorders, like multiple sclerosis; glaucoma; chronic nausea; cachexia; and chronic pain. Most medical marijuana states recognize all eight conditions; a couple (Vermont and Rhode Island) recognize seven of eight.

Other conditions recognized in state medical marijuana laws (not a complete list)

The latest law in New Jersey, however, eliminated chronic pain, chronic nausea, and cachexia, making it the most restrictive list in the nation. The bill proposed but vetoed in New Hampshire required one to try all other remedies for chronic pain before trying medical marijuana. The vetoed Minnesota bill wouldn’t even allow cancer and HIV/AIDS patients to use medical marijuana unless they could show they were terminal (about to die). The lists in the latest proposed bills continue to become more restricted.

Until we do have legalization for all, every medical marijuana law is going to fail to adequately serve all medical users and subject them to increasing restriction and scrutiny. Additionally, medical marijuana laws make patients an attractive target for criminals because prohibition maintains huge profits for stolen medical cannabis, as well as becoming targets for overzealous anti-marijuana cops and prosecutors.

The reason the recent medical marijuana laws are losing ground is not a failure of the medical marijuana strategy, but rather due to its success. Medical marijuana has portrayed the herb as “powerful and effective medicine”. Well, what do we do with powerful and effective medicines? We keep them under lock and key. We require people to visit doctors. We strictly monitor prescription pads. We bust people who have them without proper papers.

Rather than justifying the prohibitionists’ shibboleth of medical marijuana as “the camel’s nose under the tent” for legalization, I’m arguing it’s the opposite: that continuing the medical marijuana strategy further cements the “powerful and effective medicine” frame and takes us farther away from treating cannabis as a personal choice of relaxant. We’ll get to a point where the public accepts “powerful and effective cannabis medicine” and looks upon personal use like we look at someone getting fraudulent scrips for painkillers.

If one of the West Coast states doesn’t pull off legalization soon, the pendulum is going to swing back the other way on marijuana. The economic incentives may fade if the economy recovers and then the tax & regulate argument fizzles. And if we are going to continue working on medical marijuana, the bills and initiatives need to get better, not worse. The way it’s looking now is that the Northeast and upper Midwest are going to institute chronic conditions-only, 2 oz limit, strict registry, only personal doctor, no home grow, state-run dispensary medical marijuana for $15/gram in the next six years. How then do we approach those people and say, “Hey, you know that powerful and effective medical marijuana that you only let a few hundred really sick people use after jumping though a mile of hoops? We think everybody should have it and jump through no hoops!”

Medical marijuana would never have passed in any state if it were not for the votes of non-medical users of marijuana. I do believe it is time for medical marijuana patients in the states that have programs to “repay the favor” and fight as hard for legalization as social tokers fought for medical. Only patients can best make the argument that while prohibition exists, they will always face job discrimination, loss of child custody, high black market prices, housing discrimination, and the sneers of the Bill O’Reillys who think 99% of medical marijuana patients are faking. So long as the prohibition profit exists, there will always be these CBS Undercover investigations casting a pall on all legitimate medical marijuana because of the irresponsible acts of a few.

Maybe I’m just too much of a dreamer. I imagine acres and acres of hemp fields, huge indoor hydroponic cannabis warehouses, thriving cafes and coffeehouses, some folks growing their own in a garage or closet, regular outdoor festivals and special indoor events where cannabis smoking is permitted, buying and selling all varieties of cannabis from ounces at a farmer’s market to bulk bales at CostCo… and none of that is done with “powerful and effective medicines”.

I don’t think that it is reformer’s job to pass medical marijuana in all fifty states first and then worry about legalization in one. I think states that have medical should be moving forward on legalization, states without should focus on better medical laws by calling prohibitionists’ bluff on “marijuana outta control!” in the Western states with liberal medical laws.

The shift in federal policy was indeed a breakthrough for the medical marijuana movement, but did little good for Bryan Epis of Chico, California.

Last week, a federal judge ordered Bryan to prison for a 2002 conviction involving 100 marijuana plants he maintained for several state-legal patients. Under the current administration’s policy, Bryan would likely be left alone by the feds, but the problem is that his arrest and conviction occurred well before the new policy was implemented.

Bryan was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and has already served two years behind bars, but has been out on various appeals since 2004. Today he’s sitting in the Sacramento County jail awaiting transfer back to a federal penitentiary.

Friends and family are hoping President Obama pardons Bryan so that he isn’t forced to waste more of his life locked in a cage because of his compassion towards sick and suffering patients.

Bryan’s partner is circulating a petition urging President Obama to grant a pardon and she requests your help. A printable petition form can be downloaded here. Please help Bryan by collecting as many signatures as you can and mailing the petition back to the address at the bottom of the page.