LA JEMM announces … OC JEMM

… a monthly medical marijuana magazine for Orange County! Available for free at all medical marijuana dispensaries and clinics throughout the O.C., Long Beach, and South East L.A. Ad deadline: Tuesday, March 9.

I once heard there’s a traditional Italian saying translated as: “Watch the hands, don’t listen to the mouth.” That absolutely applies to our nation’s leaders’ approach to medical marijuana policy.

The White House consistently issues such statements as, “President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana”; Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel both claim to oppose drug law reform.

But if anyone has been wondering why marijuana is suddenly kind-of-legal, it’s because (despite his administration’s anti-legalization rhetoric) Barack Obama ended federal raids on weed dispensaries in states where medical marijuana has been legalized. Well, officially it was Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced that the U.S. government will no longer bust medical marijuana users or dispensaries unless they violate federal AND state laws. So if you live in a state where medical marijuana is legal, and you abide by state laws, the feds can’t touch you.

Medical marijuana currently dwells in a gray area, where a growing number of states are legalizing use of the herb, although under federal law it remains illegal. This is an unusual situation where state and federal laws conflict, and that is not supposed to happen. So either the state or the federal law must fall. This time federal law is bending to the will of the states. (Also, any anti-legalization lawsuit automatically goes to the U.S. Supreme Court – a much faster and easier route than legislation.)

This is more important than you may think, and is a somewhat genius move by the Democratic administration. As some have noted, Obama is relying on a state sovereignty approach to overturn marijuana laws.

By leaving it for the states to decide, the administration avoids seeming pro-pot AND manages to evade Republican accusations that the administration favors big government. Since the conservative platform so often rests on state sovereignty, Republicans are not eager to argue for big government powers and federal intervention. So the President keeps his hands clean, and we get to smoke weed! It’s the best of both worlds.

The moral of this story is: PRESSURE YOUR STATE GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES TO LEGALIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA. It’s by using the state-by-state approach that – like dominos falling – we can eventually succeed in overturning the national government’s draconian and outdated drug laws. You can find the names, contact info, and other details about your state legislators by visiting congress.org and typing in your zip code. Do it! Write letters! 

POTHEADS!!!!!!!!

According to the New York Daily News, these dudes are both POTHEADS! Duh … it explains why they’re smiling. But — and this is for the sake of the kiddies — they don’t smoke while they’re working on the set. Right. Or at least, if they do, they don’t inhale, I suppose.

Whatever. I love both of these guys, and I just hope they keep on smokin’.