These just in -- two dispatches from the front of the war on drugs:

"U.S. fails to catch two-thirds of drug boats, general says," and "Man charged with smuggling 40,000 erectile dysfunction pills."

One is about being stupid. The other is about being caught.

I'll let you decide which is which.

First, Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters Wednesday that military efforts to stem drug smuggling from Latin America are being hampered because planes and ships have been diverted to combat operations elsewhere.

It's certainly not a problem of funding, though. As The Times' story says:

The military has spent $6.1 billion since 2005 to help detect drug payloads heading to the U.S., as well as on surveillance and other intelligence operations, according to a report last year by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

At prices like that, it might be cheaper for the government to just buy the cocaine from the cartels.

And, of course, there's this little Catch-22:

"Any drug interdiction strategy is a Band-Aid, a temporary fix," said Bruce Bagley, who studies U.S. counter-narcotics efforts at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, Fla. "It may reduce the supply for a short time, but what does get in is worth more."

Well, yeah, there's that. Otherwise known as the 800-lb. gorilla of the whole war-on-drugs policy. Drugs are illegal, but people still want them.  So someone supplies them. So we spend a fortune to try to stop them. And whatever we catch just makes the stuff we don't catch more valuable, which makes the guys who supply it richer. 

Legalization, anyone?

Naw, then people might use more drugs, and that would mean more addicts, and that would mean we would have to spend money on treatment. Instead of, uh, spending a large fortune trying to fight cartels that corrupt governments and kill people and -- well, OK, it's a mess.

Honestly, I don't know if legalization would work. But I'm pretty sure that what we're doing now isn't working.

Still, I'll admit that the current system did manage to get its man, one Kil Jun Lee, 71, of Westlake, Calif. 

Lee allegedly tried to slip 29,827 counterfeit Viagra tablets, 8,993 counterfeit Cialis pills and 793 counterfeit Levitra tablets past authorities at LAX by hiding them in his golf bag and luggage. (Which, of course, was his first mistake, because as any wife who's been abandoned for five hours on a Sunday by her golf-addict husband can tell you, golf and sex never mix.)

And it's not as though the law enforcement guys didn't have a sense of humor:

According to the criminal complaint, Lee concealed the tablets in aluminum-foil-wrapped packets, and was questioned by authorities about whether the pills were all for personal use. He responded that he had a heart condition, and using all the pills would kill him.

Oh, ha ha -- "all for your personal use."

Also, Lee didn't come across as your typical hardened drug smuggler:

He also said he "did not believe the pills were genuine," adding that "he was sorry" for bringing the pills and "will not do it again."

Which, really, is good enough for me. A sincere apology and a promise not to be a repeat offender for what is, in a sense, a victimless crime. (Unless, of course, you paid good money for the counterfeit stuff -- but then again, caveat emptor!)

So the Navy and Coast Guard will continue their futile efforts to stop Latin America's cartels. 

And the good folks at LAX will continue to protect us from the evils of phony Viagra.

And we taxpayers will keep paying for it all.

And that's no joke.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Colombian police at a cocaine production laboratory in the jungle. Credit: Mauricio Duenas / EPA

Really, you have to wonder what these judges were smoking.

Here, read for yourself (quick version for those with short attention spans), courtesy of Times staff writer Maura Dolan:

California cities may not ban medical marijuana dispensaries, but the operations may sell only weed that is grown on site, an appeals court ruled in an Orange County case.

The unanimous decision by a three-judge Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana was the first in the state to prohibit cities from enacting zoning restrictions that effectively ban all marijuana dispensaries. The court was also the first to rule that dispensaries must grow the marijuana they sell, a requirement that would force most of them out of business.

To which I say: Dudes, what?

You can't bar dispensaries but you can require them to grow their own, right at the store?

Will this also mean that pharmacies can only sell Viagra if they make it on site? That markets have to become wineries or breweries to sell Chardonnay and Bud Light? Is Trader Joe's going to have to slaughter the cows and pigs right there in the store? What about Starbucks?  It’s gonna be tough growing all that coffee in the little shops.

OK, not perfect analogies perhaps. But really, how does this ruling bring clarity to an issue that seriously needs some? As the story says:

The Lake Forest decision added to a stack of rulings that have befuddled local governments and was unlikely to add much clarity.

One appeals court upheld the right of cities to use zoning laws to prohibit dispensaries. Another said city regulations that allow any medical marijuana violate federal law. A federal judge this week threw out a lawsuit to prevent the federal government from shutting down dispensaries.

And it's not even about political ideology. Two of the three judges were Republican appointees, the other a Democratic appointee. 

The real problem here is -- to paraphrase Jack Nicholson's famous line in "A Few Good Men" -- "We can't handle the truth."

Both sides on this issue are trying to achieve something without actually admitting it. Many supporters of medical marijuana, for example, are really advocates for legalizing marijuana, period. And cities that enact ordinances such as Lake Forest's may say they're trying to regulate the industry, but in fact they're trying to shut down legal businesses that they don't want.

For example, from Dolan's story:

Jeffrey Dunn, a lawyer who represented Lake Forest, said the court's requirement that dispensaries sell pot grown only on site would shut down most storefront operations.

"I don't see how you can grow in a tiny, rented space enough pot for over 1,000 customers," Dunn said.

Exactly. You can't. 

Except, the sale of medical marijuana is legal. Californians voted for it. Californians want it. Laws restricting it won't change that.

[For the record: OK, yes, that is incorrect.  The sale of marijuana is not legal in California.  Rather, I should have said that Proposition 215, which Californians passed in 1996, allows people, with a doctor's permission, to grow, possess and use marijuana for medical purposes.]

The real solution, of course, is simple: Just legalize marijuana. 

But if we can't do that, we should at least stop with these silly ordinances, which only spawn equally silly court rulings.

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The vernacular landscape of medical marijuana

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Los Angeles Times

Geographer Peirce Lewis once called the vernacular landscape our "unwitting autobiography." That got me thinking about one aspect of Southern California's vernacular landscape: the medical marijuana dispensaries that have proliferated in recent years.

Over the last several years, my students at Cal State Northridge and I have built a large photographic database of medical marijuana dispensaries. We documented the buildings and their signs and parking lots. Then, working from a list of licensed medical marijuana dispensaries compiled by The Times, we performed a content analysis of trends and patterns among dispensaries.

In the end, we identified four main dispensary types: ones that project the image of mainstream medical providers; ones that project a holistic "granola" vibe; ones that look like bunkers and appear to want to go unnoticed; and ones that make a clear appeal to "stoners," casting themselves as dispensing recreation rather than medicine.

You can see them for yourself in this collection of photos from our database taken between 2009 and now, with most of the photos snapped in spring 2010. They capture a moment in time when there was a proliferation of dispensaries.

PHOTO GALLERY: L.A.'s marijuana dispensaries by type

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--Steven M. Graves

Dr. Steven M. Graves is a professor at Cal State Northridge in the Department of Geography. He is also president of the California Geographical Society.

Photo: Various marijuana dispensaries. Credit: Steven M. Graves / For The Times

Daniel Robelo, a research associate for the Drug Policy Alliance, responds to The Times' Jan. 11 article, "Mexico government sought to withhold drug war death statistics." If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed, here are our FAQs and submission policy. 

The Mexican government's reluctant release of updated homicide statistics reveals the grim costs of the failed drug war -- and the growing need for an exit strategy.

As The Times notes, at least 50,000 people have been killed because of the drug war in the last five years -- nearly as many casualties as the U.S. suffered in Vietnam. Many of these victims had no connection to the drug trade.  

Though the Mexican government announced a slightly lower figure (47,515 people as of September), experts and advocates suggest the actual death toll may already be much higher, as only 2% of crimes in Mexico even get investigated. Further, the government has shown a total lack of transparency, exemplified by its drawn-out refusal to make these damning data public.

Regardless of the exact figure, the death toll is incomprehensible and unacceptable. And to this toll must be added the thousands of people disappeared, the hundreds of thousands displaced and the hundreds of thousands of children left orphaned during this same five-year period.

This crisis will only continue unless the U.S. works with Mexico to address the root cause: drug prohibition.

These murders are not drug-related, they are prohibition-related -- committed by cartels that were spawned by drug prohibition, that derive their power from the inflated profits of prohibited but highly demanded commodities, and that operate in an underground economy in which violence is routinely employed to resolve disputes or remove business opponents. It's similar to what occurred in the U.S. during alcohol prohibition, but on a far more horrific scale.

Meanwhile, Mexico's U.S.-backed military response, rather than reducing violence, has resulted in systematic and documented violations of human rights, including rape, extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture. Abuses have been so grave and widespread that human rights attorneys have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate President Felipe Calderon for crimes against humanity.

What are Mexicans getting in return for this unthinkable price? Not much. Cartels show no signs of weakening, while drugs remain as widely consumed and available in the U.S. as ever before.

The numbers, of course, cannot tell the true story of what this violence means for Mexico. Each person killed was, after all, a son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother. The Times' article highlights one such person, Juan Francisco Sicilia, a 24-year-old student killed last March, whose father, Javier, has become a leader of the national popular movement against the war on drugs.  United with family members of other victims, along with everyday citizens fed up with being afraid, the elder Sicilia's movement seeks to humanize each victim. Drawing inspiration from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, this growing movement has been commemorating each victim by nailing a plaque with his or her name to the walls of public buildings across Mexico. 

Sicilia has also proposed the regulation of drugs as a way to reduce the devastation that prohibition has inflicted on Mexico.

Regional leaders agree that many of these deaths could have been prevented -- not by hitting the cartels harder but by being smarter about U.S. and global drug policy. In late December, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Chile and all of Central America issued a joint declaration urging the U.S. to rein in its demand for drugs or, if it cannot do so, "explore the possible alternatives to eliminate the exorbitant profits of the criminals, including regulatory or market oriented options to this end."

The American public is ready for such a change. According to a Gallup poll in October, 50% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana like alcohol -- a modest step that could deprive cartels of their leading source of revenue, diminishing their ability to buy weapons, hire recruits, corrupt officials and terrorize the Mexican people.

These U.S. citizens, no longer the minority, wait impatiently for their government to join the rest of the hemisphere in rethinking the failed drug war.  Our southern neighbors cannot afford to wait any longer. 

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--Daniel Robelo

Photo: A Mexican soldier stands near the bodies of two men found slain in Acapulco in February. Credit: Pedro Pardo / AFP/Getty Images

Drug legalization supporters shouldn't compare their plight to Prohibition, writes Kevin A. Sabet in Wednesday's Op-Ed pages. The former senior adviser to President Obama's drug czar says it's too nuanced a situation -- legally, historically and culturally --  to compare alcohol to drugs. He writes:

Still, a favorite argument of drug legalization supporters is that because "we all know" alcohol prohibition failed, drug prohibition is destined to fail too. Given modern America's thirst for liquor, it is a clever political maneuver to link the two policies in this way. But notwithstanding one's position on the success or failure of alcohol prohibition, there are key differences between that policy and modern-day drug enforcement that render a comparison almost useless for serious policy analysis.

Sabet follows this with a list of differences, including:

[I]t should be remembered that unlike illegal drugs today, alcohol was never prohibited altogether. Laws forbade the sale and distribution of liquor, but personal use was not against the law.

Reader "vesaldini" writes on our discussion board: "This is a wonderful example of clear-headed analysis." And "Socorro V" asks: "Are not alcohol and tobacco problems enough? Must we increase the list of substances that kill our citizens?"

But the majority of readers take issue with Sabet's Op-Ed. Some support drug legalization for economic reasons, while others argue that government shouldn't be in the business of telling Americans what we can and can't consume. There are also readers who claim alcohol is more hazardous than marijuana. Here they are in their own words.

Prohibition is not the solution

I am totally against the Drug Prohibition Regime and can't wait to see it thrown away into the dustbin of history greatest inequities humankind has inflicted on itself. I would have thought that any rational, responsible and caring individual could see that drug abuse and its profoundly disruptive consequences calls for enlightened policies where education, health and regulation would play central roles; that it calls for policies where no room is left for the Victorian values Prohibitionists seem so keen on: abstinence or punishment.

One can only assume that something deeply ideological, prejudicial or irrational prevents people from understanding that the problem is prohibition, and not the drugs themselves; that no matter what drug one is considering, prohibition is not the solution … far from it. If anything, what decades of pursuing and enforcing the prohibition regime and its dastardly offshoot, the so-called War on Drugs, have taught us is that it can only make things worse! […]

--GartValenc

The government's hypocrisy 

It is a stretch to assume that the social and health problems associated with alcohol abuse can in any way be compared to those caused by the use of cannabis.  Alcohol destroys the internal organs of abusers.  Marijuana has no known long-term effects.  Alcohol is highly addictive.  Alcohol withdrawal can be fatal.  Cannabis is less addictive than caffeine and withdrawal, at worst, amounts to a few restless nights and a few days of low appetite.  Alcohol is the fuel of all kinds of violence.  Marijuana users tend to be quiet and communal.

What is amazing to me is that our government supports and collects taxes on the two deadliest drugs in our society, alcohol and tobacco, but wants to send people to jail for making the much more rational choice to use marijuana recreationally instead.

-- herbalmagick

What would Thomas Jefferson do?

The cruelest irony of this issue is that many far right goons, the so called champions of getting the government out of our lives and expanding freedom, have always been the biggest advocates of this outdated, morally wrong,  government intrusion into our lives and denying us our "right to happiness", which Thomas Jefferson, the hard drug alcohol drinker, so correctly protected us with.  George Washington gave his troops rum every day to keep them happy.

--shndlr

My life, my decision

The overriding question that the Mr Sabet clearly misses is this: Should the government be in the business of telling responsible adults what they can and cannot ingest? Many of us say "no" to that, while many folks who call themselves conservative and say they want less government in their lives nonetheless accept that nanny-state role. What I believe government should do is offer factual education regarding what drugs of all kinds can do to people, regulate the purity of drugs, continue to punish irresponsible behavior that endangers innocent people (such as driving under the influence, etc), and then trust the rest of us grown ups to enjoy life responsibly in whatever way we choose.

--Username99

Nothing will change

This article is a laugher for many reasons:

1. Part of the human condition is to seek mood-altering substances, aka get "buzzed." Been going on for about 100,000 years or so, live with it.

2. In spite of all the laws that prohibit it, Americans continue to pursue an artificial high, regardless of the consequences. Laws DO NOT have a deterrent effect on consumption.

3. The cost of drug laws on society has been astounding.  We have incarcerated generations of minorities, forced the status of "convicted felon" on hundreds of thousands of people with the attendant impact on society - with no impact on drug consumption.

4. The war on drugs has been an epic failure in every measurable category except one: a growth industry for the criminal justice system.

5. The public is already saturated with the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol.  A change of legalization will not change consumption patterns that much.  Those inclined to use will continue to, those that do not want the risk will refuse.

6. The odds of getting busted for drug possession, unless you are a minority in a gang neighborhood, is virtually non-existent.  Therefore, in practical terms, it's already available on demand.

7. The impact of alcohol and tobacco dwarfs the impact of drugs, legal or not.  We lose over 400,000 to nicotine addiction, and another 50,000 or so to booze EVERY YEAR.

Secret: nothing will change.

--zgonina1

*Spelling errors in the above comments have been corrected.

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-- Alexandra Le Tellier

Photo: Women led the first campaigns for temperance, but later men, spurred by the Anti-Saloon League, rallied for dry laws in states throughout the country. Credit: John Binder Collection / PBS

Maybe medical marijuana dispensaries aren't crime magnets after all. That's the conclusion the Rand Corp. came up with after completing a study that found that crime rates went up in neighborhoods after nearby dispensaries were ordered to shut down.

The Times editorial board argues, however, that the study is inconclusive:

Does this mean that dispensaries decrease neighborhood crime rather than increasing it? Unfortunately, despite Rand's analysis, we still don't know the answer. There are so many obvious problems with Rand's study that it's impossible to come to solid conclusions about crime either way.

After pointing out that the study is based on "unwarranted assumption" and poking holes in the analysis, the board concludes:

Whether or not these rogue dispensaries attract crime, they are a nuisance. A lack of oversight means they could be selling anything, including marijuana laced with dangerous drugs or chemicals. California voters intended them to operate as nonprofit collectives, yet it's not clear they're all doing so. Also unclear is the extent to which they're selling to minors or people with no legitimate medical need. L.A. is right to try to crack down; now its lawyers just need to figure out a way of doing so that passes court muster.

Predictably, the "legalize it" crowd has come out en masse to rebut the editorial. Here are a few of the arguments they're making on our discussion board.  

Dispensaries should operate under the same rules as a grocery store

The real issue is whether the operators who played by the rules and applied for licenses deserve to stay open.  All the other "regulations" about location, hours of operation, and management are window dressing for the sake of trying to do something, with or without purpose.

The Times opinion reflects a bias toward regulation.  I pose that we need less laws.  Ronald Reagan fans and the Tea Party should unite to get all Marijuana laws off the books.  Existing tax and DUI laws should suffice to cover any real issues.  Why should marijuana businesses be taxed or licensed differently than grocery stores or pharmacies?

This is America, and as long as alcohol and tobacco are legal, all marijuana laws are arbitrary and hypocritical.  As long as opiates and aspirin are available at pharmacies 24 hours a day, Medical Marijuana users are not getting fair and equal protection under the law.   As long as fried chicken and Coca-Cola are legal, the health risks of marijuana are given disproportional unscientific weight in our laws and attitudes.   People have the right to overeat, but the health and social consequences are enormous.

If the true mandate of local regulation is to benefit the community, then Medical Marijuana dispensaries should operate under the same rules as a grocery store.   

--jhtobin

Comparing dispensaries to liquor stores

The collectives may be a "nuisance" to that reporter but to many, the numerous drug liquor stores are the bigger nuisance! Drug stores and liquor stores are much more abundant and both attract more crime.  Most of these family owned medical marijuana outlets are providing jobs, paying rent and taxes (full taxes, not getting any tax break for being a new corporate outlet) and helping people treat illnesses in a safe, non-toxic way.  The medical studies about the benefits of cannabis are published almost daily, not that this slanted outlet reports on them.  Wake up and educate ourselves as to what the real agenda is here -- prohibition plain and simple... not saving lives or preventing crime.  If that were the case -- let's re-evaluate alcohol and the pharmaceutical impact on society! Those are actual addicting drugs and really kill people -- unlike cannabis.

--MaryjaneStarbudz

Marijuana is safer than alcohol

I have lost my patience with the ignorant anti pot crowd and am now resorting to what I call my psychic 2x4 mode.  I am going to continue verbally attacking them at every opportunity possible.  Too many good people have been needlessly screwed because of their deeply flawed thinking.  I will also offer rational reasoning to show them the light.  We simply have too many real problems to deal with instead of perpetrating this social cannibalism for a drug that is infinitely safer than the legal drug alcohol.

--shndlr

Legalize marijuana, watch crime drop

It seems patently absurd to blame the storefronts for an increase in crime; on the contrary, because there is a demand, there is traffic engaged in legal commerce.  This is good for us as a society, unless you are the police force, and then you start worrying about job security.  Because if pot is wholly legalized-- and here the problem is the law not the dispensaries -- crime will drop.

If your business concern gives you the right to seize assets and have its owners forfeit their right to such highway robbery practices, you will have some business worries about legalization. 

Prohibition is a racket perpetrated on the people through the collusion of police, prosecutors, prisons, prison gangs, politicians, ad nauseam to pretend that marijuana is a narcotic (it is not), and to maintain federal intervention in state laws (in violation of states' rights granted in the Bill of Rights) in order to seize legal assets owned by citizens who are guilty of nothing other than marijuana possession and or cultivation. 

We have a Congress owned by drug companies.  Our nightly news program is on those drugs, as well.  And yet I find OxyContin and Vicodin more worrying drugs than marijuana and hash.

Prohibition did not work then, and it does not work now. Blaming the businesses that are trying to straighten out this mess is exactly wrong.

End the hysteria.  Legalize the pot.

--pahartnett

Legalize marijuana, watch the economy improve

"Don't bogart that joint, my friend, pass it over to me" C'mon, enough already, lift the prohibition supported by the alcohol distributors, and let marijuana find its way into America's capitalism mainstream.

--1Swami

*Spelling errors in the above comments have been corrected.

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-- Alexandra Le Tellier

Photo:  A bicyclist rides past Zen Healing, a medical marijuana dispensary on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood on Oct 29, 2009. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Just what are those folks over at the Rand Corp. smoking?

In case you missed it, The Times' John Hoeffel reported Wednesday:

Medical marijuana dispensaries -- with storerooms of high-priced weed, registers brimming with cash and some clientele more interested in getting high than getting well -- are often seen as magnets for crime, a perception deepened by a few high-profile murders.

But a report from the Rand Corp. reaches a startling conclusion: The opposite appears to be true.

In a study of crime near Los Angeles dispensaries -- which the investigators call the most rigorous independent examination of its kind -- the Santa Monica-based think tank found that crime actually increased near hundreds of pot shops after they were required to close last summer.

Wow. You mean those folks at NORML could be right -– that the best way to win the war on drugs is to legalize marijuana?

In Tuesday's paper, there was a story about 35 bodies being dumped  under an overpass on the outskirts of the Mexican port city of Veracruz; police said the victims were associated with organized crime and drug sales.

Do you suppose that maybe, just maybe, if marijuana were legal in the U.S., it would cut down on at least some of the drug-related violence in Mexico?   

Of course, some L.A. law enforcement officials reacted to the Rand study like, well, like you would expect law enforcement officials to react:

The city attorney's office, which has argued in court proceedings that the number of dispensaries needs to be reduced to deal with "well-documented crime," called the report's conclusions "highly suspect and unreliable," saying that they were based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results."

Not that the office offered any competing data, of course.

Then there was this:

Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, strenuously disagreed with the report's conclusions.

"Every time we shut down a dispensary, the crime and the disorder decrease," he said.

Though again, there were no data. Plus, as the story said:

The report looks at such crimes as thefts and assaults, but not "disorder," nuisances such as loitering, double parking, loud noises and graffiti that sparked anger among neighborhood activists. Whitmore said those complaints are often what causes the department to act.

Finally, there was this Catch-22 angle:

Eagle Rock, which has about a dozen dispensaries, has long been one of the city's pot hot spots.

Michael Larsen, president of the neighborhood council, said he only knows of one dispensary-related crime -- an armed robbery -- but has heard countless complaints from irritated neighbors.

He said most of the dispensaries that initially closed last summer have reopened, defying the city.

"Our main concern is the crime of illegal dispensaries illegally selling marijuana," Larsen said. "That's the crime that we're concerned about."

So, there's a lot of crime around the Eagle Rock dispensaries -- if you mean by crime, the dispensaries are selling marijuana.

C'mon, folks, let's quit pretending -- and legalize marijuana. Yes, there would be problems. But really, after decades of trying and billions of dollars spent in the war on drugs, isn't it time for another way?

Plus, it's not like we couldn't use the tax money right now.

And if we can't legalize it, we can at least heed the words of Mireille Jacobson, a health economist who was the Rand study's lead researcher:

"What I would take away from it is maybe there should just be a little bit less fear about  having dispensaries. Hopefully, this injects a little bit of science into the discussion."

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: An employee sorts merchandise at a Southern California medical marijuana dispensary. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Teens who use social media are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to drink alcohol and twice as likely to try marijuana, says Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse after conducting a survey of 12- to 17-year-olds. The authors try mightily to tie this to the images youngsters see of others misbehaving on such sites.

It could be true, but nothing in the study as printed actually shows as much, or even that social networking produces miscreant teens.

It's another correlational study in which the reader is obviously supposed to assume causality, a no-no in the world of studies. In other words, just because two things seem to occur together doesn't mean one caused the other. It could be the second thing that caused the first. Or maybe a third factor caused both. At one time, public health experts thought that eating ice cream might cause polio; they noticed that the number of polio cases was higher in places with greater ice cream consumption. It took awhile to figure out that polio increased in hot months, when children played together in often unsanitary conditions. And guess what people ate more of during hot weather?

But back to Columbia in the summer of 2011. The study compared teens who used any sort of social media at all, even for a couple of minutes a day, with those who abstained.

It's unusual for young people not to use social media; in fact, only 30% of the respondents never let their face look upon the likes of Facebook or Twitter. And perhaps it was that very behavior that kept them away from smoking, drinking and drugs. But is it possible other factors were involved?

The study doesn't tell us which of the respondents stayed off social media. It seems quite possible, though, that they were more likely to be 12 (which we'll include as teens, since the study does) than, say, 16. Could it be that younger adolescents, the middle-school crowd, are also less likely to drink and the like?

What other differences might there be? I don't really know, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the non-tweeters come from more protective families, or that they are less likely to follow the group fads. They might be more serious students who don't take time for such frivolity; they might tend to be more religious. Any of these might make a teen less likely to engage in troublesome behavior, and a combination might be a pretty potent group.

In other words, it could be that teens who use social media are pulled more into drinking, smoking and toking. But it also is possible that teens who are less likely to engage in those behaviors are also less likely to use social media.

Or there could be another, outside factor. The ice cream?

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Stephen Gutwillig and Bill Piper respond to The Times' July 9 article "U.S. decrees that marijuana has no accepted medical use." Gutwillig is the Drug Policy Alliance's California state director; Piper is the group's national affairs director.

President Obama came into office promising to reverse George W. Bush administration practices and elevate science over politics. He explicitly applied that principle to drug policy, an area long driven by ideology and prejudice. He quickly began to make good on the pledge by promoting three evidence-based drug policies: eliminating the ban on states using federal funding for syringe exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis; reforming the racially unjust crack-cocaine sentencing disparity that punished crack offenses more harshly than powder offenses; and vowing to end years of federal interference in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

But as The Times' July 9 article makes dismayingly clear, the White House is putting the "science-free zone" sign back up.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice issued medical marijuana guidelines to U.S. attorneys that are at best confusing and at worst a flip-flop on administration policy. The department’s much-heralded 2009 memo on the subject fulfilled candidate Obama’s campaign promise and established a principle that federal resources would not be wasted prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers who are in "clear and unambiguous compliance" with state medical marijuana laws. The department's update reiterates that the feds won't target individual medical marijuana patients but might bust large-scale, commercial medical marijuana providers. The memo unequivocally threatens federal prosecution of large-scale medical marijuana providers even if they are in compliance with state law, a significant step away from the principle at the heart of the 2009 policy. Disturbingly, the new "clarification" doesn't explain what the federal government considers to be the line between small and large-scale production -- likely an attempt to slow state-sponsored medical marijuana distribution programs while sowing anxiety and confusion for patients.

Most recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration rejected a formal citizen petition filed nine years ago to reschedule marijuana to make it available for medical use. When the DEA considered a similar petition during the Reagan administration, the agency's administrative law judge concluded, "Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people." The Obama administration’s rejection of the petition claims marijuana "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States … lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision… [and] has a high potential for abuse." Lest one think the DEA's ruling is just law enforcement run amok, the White House released its 2011 National Drug Control Strategy earlier this week, calling marijuana "addictive and unsafe." That document devotes five pages attacking marijuana legalization and medical marijuana.

The administration's disconnect from science is shocking. A federally commissioned study by the Institute of Medicine more than a decade ago determined that nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety "all can be mitigated by marijuana." The esteemed medical journal the Lancet Neurology reports that marijuana's active components "inhibit pain in virtually every experimental pain paradigm." The National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, notes that marijuana may help with nausea, loss of appetite, pain and insomnia. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, home to 90 million Americans, have adopted laws allowing the medical use of marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other ailments. The federal government itself cultivates and supplies marijuana to a handful of patients through its "compassionate-use investigative new drug program," which was established in 1978 but closed to new patients in 1992.

Marijuana use, like any drug, certainly carries risks. When it comes to policy, however, these risks should be weighed against the harms associated with current marijuana laws. It is notable that every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined marijuana throughout the past 100 years has concluded that criminalization of adult marijuana use does more harm than marijuana use itself. Moreover, the risks associated with marijuana use are demonstrably far less than those associated with Oxycontin, methamphetamine, morphine and other drugs currently available for medical use. It defies not just science but common sense for the Obama administration to be so aggressively anti-marijuana, especially for medical use.

It is not too late to reverse this science-phobic trend. The Department of Justice's recent medical marijuana guidance is vague enough that the administration can clarify it intends to scrutinize only  massive, rogue medical marijuana operations and that the DEA won't waste resources going after most providers in most states. The administration should clearly support responsible state and local regulations designed to make marijuana legally available to patients while enhancing public safety and health. If the federal government is unable to provide leadership in this area, then the very least it can do is get out of the way and allow local governments to determine the policies that best serve their interests. The president who promised change rooted in rational reflection shouldn't stand in the way of it.

-- Stephen Gutwillig and Bill Piper

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Photo: An unidentified man smokes medical marijuana at the Cannabis Cafe in Portland. Credit: Rick Bowmer / Associated Press.

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It was the famous 20th century philosopher Mick Jagger who wrote: "You can't always get what you want; but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need."

Three stories in The Times on Sunday illustrate the Stones songbird's point.

First, California's budget gap: Gov. Jerry Brown, who delivers his State of the State address Monday, wants voters to approve keeping certain taxes in place -- or else, he warns, even more drastic budget cuts will be necessary. Like what?  Brown isn't saying. Apparently, he doesn't think it works to scare voters.

But Californians know what they want: fiscal sanity.  

And they know what they need: to sacrifice. 

And they're prepared to sacrifice. Republican legislators, for example, are prepared to sacrifice the jobs of most government workers, along with those workers' pensions. And they'll sacrifice the environment. They just won't sacrifice big business, which has already sacrificed enough by firing a bunch of us workers.

Democratic legislators, of course, will sacrifice too: by having taxpayers keep paying more taxes. But they won't sacrifice their union supporters, because otherwise the legislators would have to sacrifice by losing their jobs in the next election.

Which brings us to our second story on Sunday, and possible help for the budget mess: legalizing marijuana.

The last attempt, Proposition 19, lost in November. But The Times reported on a weekend meeting of marijuana-legalization advocates who hope to get another, better measure on the ballot in 2012. Do Californians want legal pot?  Duh. Do Californians need the tax revenue it would bring? Duh again.

The most interesting aspect of this story, though, is that the potheads (OK, I don't know they are, but they do want it legalized) are seemingly better organized than our legislators. The potheads' moment of decision isn't until 2012, but they're already hard at work. The state's fiscal mess is ongoing, but the legislators keep acting more like, well, Cheech and Chong.

So, OK, the state needs more revenue. And Californians want to tweet. In fact, they need to tweet.

Which brings us to Twitter. 

It's based in California. And it's booming.

Or is it?

The Times' Business section reported that Twitter  is "at a crossroads, where it will finally have to answer the question: Can it make money?"

Call me old-fashioned, but somehow I can't picture Henry Ford saying: "I have this great idea. I'm going to build auto-mo-biles, and I'm going to give them away. And if they get really popular, then I'll see if I can figure out a way to make money."

But I think I know what Twitter's problem is: How can anyone build a business plan in 140-character chunks?

Insiders tell me this is what happened at its last strategy session:

"OK, everyone settle down. We don't have much time, or characters. I'm here today to present our plan for profitability. Basically, what we have to do make money is to bu ... "

So, in the spirit of Twitter, here's my two cents (in under 50 characters): Keep the taxes. Legalize the pot. And keep tweeting.

RELATED:

A state budget reality check

Facing the budget music

Redevelopment debate: California mayors duke it out with Gov. Brown

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Mick Jagger performing in 2002. Credit: Joe Cavaretta  / Associated Press