Bright and sunny this afternoon, here on this little bit of space on California’s north coast — and really, really warm, considering the last few days. So warm, in fact, windows were opened for apartment-wide cross-ventilation, fresh air flowed for awhile.

This an item I saw last week, and pissed me off then and now (from SFGate): ‘Two weeks after President Obama signed legislation prohibiting federal interference with state medical marijuana laws, his administration has told a federal judge in Sacramento that pot is still a dangerous drug with no medical value.’

(Illustration found here).

Background to this mess:

The written arguments come two months after a hearing ordered by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller over prosecutors’ objections.
She said defense lawyers had presented expert declarations showing “new scientific and medical information” raising questions about the continued classification of marijuana in Schedule One, which effectively outlaws its possession nationwide.
At the hearing, the defendants called doctors and researchers who asserted marijuana’s medical benefits and relative safety.
The administration presented its own expert, a Harvard professor and former drug official in the George W. Bush administration who said pot is both addictive and dangerous.

Last month, the $1.1 trillion federal spending bill passed by the US Senate included an amendment blocking funds for prosecution of medical marijuana state-legal shit. An attempt like the Obama administration’s two-sided bullshit is cruel. In just the last few years, there’s been such a shitload of research, and actual health-results to medical marijuana that it’s really astounding, and to block/halt such an endeavor is near-about immoral.
A good nutshell-piece, and a rundown on the widening medical benefits of at least parts of the marijuana plant came from BusinessInsider last April — a few notes:

States around the country — more than 20 in total — have been legalizing medical marijuana.
Recently, CNN’s chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta reversed his opinion on medical marijuana.
While recreational marijuana is controversial, many people agree with Gupta’s new stance, and believe that the drug should be legal for medical uses.
…
Currently only 6 percent of studies on marijuana analyze its medicinal properties.

And a small-sampling of the ailments aided:

— glaucoma: ‘These effects of the drug may slow the progression of the disease, preventing blindness.’
— epileptic seizures: The findings were published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics;
— Dravet Syndrome, which which causes seizures and severe developmental delays;
— cancers, and prevent cancers from spreading;
— Alzheimer’s: slow the progression of the disease;
— multiple sclerosis: ‘The THC in the pot binds to receptors in the nerves and muscles to relieve pain. Other studies suggest that the chemical also helps control the muscle spasms.’

And the list goes on and on…apparently, not to the feds, though.