WEED WATCH

Drug Enforcement Administration narcos picked up where they left off
just before Christmas, descending upon the small medi-pot growers
collective run by Palm Desert, Calif., medi-mari patient Gary Silva
in a March 14, early morning raid, seizing 80 pot plants and a cache
of patient records, and sending Silva to the hospital with a
dislocated shoulder. The feds reportedly burst through the door
before Silva could get it open, knocking the medi-pot patient, who
suffers from a degenerative disc disorder, tumbling to the ground.

According to the Drug Reform Coordination Network, Silva's wife and
daughter were held at gunpoint as the narcos raided the facility; no
one was arrested, but narcos reportedly told Silva he would face
arrest if he dared to grow any more pot. This was just the latest in
a chain of federal raids, mainly in California, that the DEA has
undertaken with new zeal since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last
summer (in a case originally brought by medi-pot patient Angel Raich)
that state-sanctioned medi-pot laws do not exempt patients (and their
caregivers and/or growers) from federal enforcement of pot prohibition.

Nonetheless, 11 states (including California, where voters passed a
"compassionate use" law in 1996) have passed laws allowing registered
patients to grow, possess, and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.
And Silva said that his operation was conducted within the boundaries
of state law. "I grew for myself and a few other patients, and
donated the excess to a nearby dispensing collective," he said.
"There was no need for our California sheriffs to call in federal
agents to injure me and harass my family."

The Silva raid sparked a new round of protests outside federal
buildings across the country by medi-pot advocates -- including a
downtown Austin protest organized by Texans for Medical Marijuana,
and one in Oakland where medi-pot patient and activist Angel Raich
was arrested, reportedly for talking back to a security guard who
told her she was using a megaphone too close to the building.

In other pot news, NORML reports that a new poll conducted by Zogby
International reveals that nearly 50% of likely voters support
amending federal law to allow states to "legally regulate and tax
marijuana" in the same way that liquor and gambling are regulated.

The measure polled favorably among young voters -- nearly 66% of
voters 18-29 -- and middle-aged voters -- 50% of those ages 50-64.
Interestingly, 58% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 52% of seniors said
they'd oppose the change. "Public support for replacing the illicit
marijuana market with a legally regulated, controlled market
continues to grow," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre in
a press release. "NORML's challenge is to convert this growing public
support into a tangible public policy that no longer criminalizes
those adults who use marijuana responsibly."

Of course, if federal drug czar John Walters has his
prohibition-loving way, no drugs -- aside from tobacco, alcohol, and
the cornucopia of pharmaceuticals, of course -- would be
decriminalized, let alone legalized. Indeed, responding to an
editorial critical of the ongoing drug war that appeared on the
notoriously conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal
last month, Walters penned an op/ed piece for the March 16 WSJ,
insisting that there is "no realistic alternative to the fight" against drugs.

Illegal drugs are "inherently dangerous," he wrote, and thinking
there would be some way to regulate drug use is nothing but a "cruel
delusion." There's nothing new in Walters' thinking so it's no
surprise that the czar skates around the irony of his position by
trying to argue a negative -- specifically, that the war on drugs has
"staved off a worse circumstance, with many more drug users, and more
damage to the social fabric." (To read Walter's latest missive, check
out the archives of the Media Awareness Project at www.mapinc.org.)