mericans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, is challenging the U.S. government to stop its actions against California's medical pot laws or arrest everyone involved in the state, the San Francisco Weekly reports.

It's a ballsy move, but it's one the group thinks will prevail if their lawsuit is argued in front of a court. Their suit states that the 10th amendment in the Constitution — "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." — forbids the government form employing selective tactics when enforcing the law.

"Under the 10th Amendment, the government may not commandeer the law-making functions of the state or its subdivisions directly or indirectly through the selective enforcement of its drug laws," the suit states.

The Americans for Safe Access' thinking is this: by enforcing the Controlled Substances Act (the law making marijuana illegal) against some cities because their dispensaries are violating the law and the growing operations of others, the feds are dictating the laws of those cities.

Is the government overstepping its bounds? Is this ultimately a state's rights issue? More importantly — is this harassment of collectives, growers and patients the last gasp of a failing policy?

Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the author of the memo stating that state medical marijuana laws do not protect growers, collectives and patients from federal prosecution did not comment if the crackdown in California would be continued in other states that OK'd marijuana for medical purposes.

To be fair, the 2009 memo agreed that patients and caregivers complying with state laws should not be investigated. The memo takes issue with the size of marijuana growing facilities approved by the states.

Cole, who appeared in an unrelated matter at the Colorado U.S. Attorney's office, is quoted as saying to the Associated Press, "I think it says what needs to be said."

However, the current crackdown on those involved with California's medical marijuana laws does not leave Colorado — another state that's voted in pot for medicinal purposes — on solid legal ground. Those involved are worried about the precedent set by California's "landlord letters" and asset seizures.

Are the feds being arbitrary in their definition of growing operations that deserve scrutiny and investigation? Will any state medical marijuana law receive the blessing of Washington?

While most California lawmakers are strangely quiet about recent federal actions criminalizing medicinal marijuana growers, dispensaries and patients, Tom Ammiano, San Francisco Democrat Assemblyman, is mad as hell and won't take it anymore.

The California Progress Report quotes Ammiano as saying he's "pretty pissed off about this unwarranted attack."

He characterized the actions by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency as "thuggery" and "un-democratic." Ammiano is issuing a call to action by the state's congressmen and women as well as citizens of the state to demand the feds back off from the laws they voted in.

They assemblyman also says the federal government is compelling banks not to finance  dispensaries and threatening to fine financial institutions that do not fall in line.

What will it take for others in Sacramento to demand answers from the government about the raids?

NPR covered the expanding war against medical marijuana in California's Central Valley, where the US Attorneys are using the tactic of "landlord letters" to force land owners to evict pot growers.

If they aren't kicked out? Seizure of the land and assets. For those that operate collectives and own buildings collectives operate out of, it all sounds painfully familiar.

All of which makes no sense considering how there's a potential for huge tax revenues. Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, admits a few marijuana plants does better as a crop on a per-acre basis when compared to the more conventional crops of almonds and grapes.

Also of note is the overwhelming support in the comments of the story that medical use and legalization has. The feds are often cited as spending resources on a crime with no victim during a time when budgets are stretched thin, and it's pointed out that the Wall Street investment banks that caused the recession are not facing the same scrutiny as medical marijuana growers, dispensaries or patients.

Are the actions of federal law enforcement generating sympathy for the medical marijuana and legalization cause? In the face of rising deficits and public outcry over the maleficence of financial institutions, can the federal government continue its war on drugs with eroding public support?

President Barak Obama's presidency is not making any friends at a time when support for medical pot is more popular than he is, StopTheDrugWar.org's Scott Morgan opines in The Huffington Post.

Morgan lists the flip-flops the administration's taken since Obama promised to take the heat off dispensaries. As a candidate and newly minted president, Obama said he felt it was time to rethink drug laws. But now, it seems he's collapsed under the pressure of those who would like to keep drug laws as they are, no matter how little sense they make.

The list of the moves the administration's made against medical use doesn't just include the offenses we've detailed in this blog, such as the threats to seize the property of landlords who rent to collectives, feds seizing the money of those landlords, the ATF issuing a statement that patients cannot buy guns and the IRS acting against dispensaries using regulations drafted for drug kingpins. Morgan also reveals more nuggets that demonstrates why the current president may not receive the pro-pot vote the next time around. For example, federal law enforcement is also threatening to move against newspapers that take advertisements for dispensaries and arrest state employees who carry out their states' mandates regarding medical pot.

All of this flies in the face of public sentiment. Over 80 percent of the public support access for patients, according to an ABC news poll. Morgan notes that the news media, which once ignored legalization issues, are now reporting the raids and seizures the government is undertaking.

"The situation is spiraling as we speak into new depths of absurdity," Morgan writes, "and many of the people who've made things this bad are busy brainstorming ways to make it worse."

Why do you think the president changed course? Was he just trying to get votes by attaching himself to a popular idea or are there larger powers at work to keep the current drug laws in place?

Despite plans to hold the event on private property, police in Detroit told a medical marijuana convention that laws against pot consumption in public would be enforced, UPI reports.

The convention planned to feature an open air medication section, as well as High Times magazine's Cannabis Cup. Representatives from the magazine emphasized the section and event was going to be held on private property and only legal, card carrying medical marijuana users would be allowed admittance.

However, police issued a statement warning against the use of pot in public places, even for medical uses.

Do prohibitions on the open use of marijuana place a burden on medical users? If patients are using their medicine, how is it any different than others using opiate-derived pain killers in the open?

For proponents of medical marijuana and legalization, the tide of change could not be stronger. More and more states voted to make access for patients the law of their land and with each new poll, more and more people see the futility in continuing the war on drugs.

However, on the cusp of this sea change in America's thinking, the status quo of the current prohibitionist drug policy is taking an absolutist stand. The United States Attorneys in four federal districts set down new policies requiring collectives shut down within 45 days on the basis of federal marijuana laws.

Even more interesting is that the federal law enforcement agencies' renewed interest in marijuana flies in the face of statements originally made by the Obama administration that actions against collectives would be a low priority.

This reversal is a return to the bad old days of the George W. Bush administration's stance on drugs in a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." It's important to note that federal law enforcement, under Bush, openly criticized states for OKing medical marijuana laws but never moved against the dispensaries.

The current state of federal intervention into state marijuana laws is this: land owners and building owners are receiving letters from the feds threatening seizure of their properties if they do not evict the collectives. This tactic was used in the past, although no property was ever seized based on those letters. However, this time they are acting on them with the Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement jointly raiding clubs across California.

The ultimate push for these closures seems to be from somewhere closer than Washington D.C. — they are a direct result of local cities and counties requesting help in enforcing marijuana laws. Most raids are taking place in Orange County and the Inland Empire. The pattern developing in these cases are stores fighting the cities in court, followed by raids and arrests by local and federal assets.

October has brought a trick of the worst kind, with little chance of treats. More cities are working on complete and total marijuana bans, ignoring the wishes of the voters, than any month to date.

The DEA also stepped into the strongly pro-marijuana fray of greater Los Angeles, serving warrants and making arrests on the allegations of marijuana being shipped across the U.S., or conspiracy to distribute controlled substances (21 USC 841). However, Los Angeles courts ruled in favor of the city, lifting injunctions against 29 clubs.

While this seems like a victory, it could be short-lived as the Los Angeles Police and Sheriffs Departments could move on the collectives, with the blessing of the DEA. The dispensaries have traditionally been not been the target of L.A. law enforcement. But they may now find themselves under the eye of the agencies' officers and detectives as swarms of cases involving the storefronts hits the civil courts.

Despite the strong public sentiment supporting the clubs in Los Angeles, they should be wary of the fact that clouds gathering over the rest of California's medical marijuana interests are amassing over them as well.

The California Medical Association is calling for the complete legalization of marijuana.

Though the organization has no power to end the federal ban on cannabis, it does cite its reasoning that more research needs to be done regarding its effectiveness as a medicine. This can only be done once it is no longer illegal.

Currently, doctors in California must decide when prescribing marijuana if it will be useful and if it's worth placing themselves in a precarious legal position because of its legality under state law and illegality under federal law.

"When I write a recommendation for cannabis, I have no idea what the stuff is that the patient will buy," Dr. Donald Lyman, author of the CMA's marijuana policy, told Pasadena-based National Public Radio affiliate KPCC. "It is not been passed through any kind of regulatory process that guarantees purity, strength and safety."

The association recognizes marijuana's health risks, but proposes that it be regulated in the same manner as alcohol and tobacco. It added that current laws and efforts in criminalization have failed.

Predictably, law enforcement agencies are up in arms over any deviation from "Just say no."

A spokesman for the California Police Chiefs' Association unsurprisingly made a pun of the issue, telling Los Angeles' Fox 11, "I don't know what they're smoking," when commenting on the CMA's policy statement.

Is it high time for professional organizations to call for the end of current federal drug policy?

The landlord of eight medical marijuana dispensaries located on 24602 Raymond Way in Orange County gave three days to vacate its premises on Oct. 13, The Orange County, Register reports.

The shops include Lake Forest Patients Group at #201, Pharmers' Choice at #202, Cannabis Permanente at #203, Evergreen Holistic at #206, Cooperative 207 at #207, Florentina Organic at #208, Independent Collective of Orange County at #209 and The Health Collective at #210.

The notice was posted after the landlord, Youssef Ibrahim, found over $100,000 confiscated by the federal government.

The eviction notice and monetary seizure is the latest turn in the federal government's slew of "Landlord letters," sent to operators of medical marijuana shops and their landlords, threatening forfeiture of assets if they did not cease operations or if they were not evicted.

In the case of the collectives on 24602 Raymond Way, efforts by the city of Lake Forest to close them down were bogged down in legal battles. The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California pursued the Lake Forest dispensaries after the city spent $600,000 to shut down the establishments, under the authority of zoning ordinances.

The lawyer for the dispensaries, Damian Nassiri, says, "We're not in breach of the lease, we've paid the rent, the landlord knows what the use is, and we're operating in compliance of state law. The federal government has not sent letters to the dispensaries to close down.”

The Santa Monica-based Rand Corporation writes policy papers on everything from the education system in post-Katrina New Orleans to the likelihood of war with China. Most recently, they focused their steely, academic gaze on the medical marijuana laws of Los Angeles and how collectives affect their surroundings.

Surprisingly, the study found collectives reduced crime in the areas they were in. The researchers believe that private security guards, video cameras, late night foot traffic and heightened police patrols contributed to the safer environment.

Unsurprisingly, the L.A. City Attorney blasted the report and forced the Rand Corporation to retract it — those findings wouldn't square with 40 years of anti-drug rhetoric, after all.

According to the L.A. Times, the city attorney's office criticized the study as "highly suspect and unreliable," and that it was based on "faulty assumptions, conjecture, irrelevant data, untested measurements and incomplete results."

They also wrote, "Until you publicly retract your work, we expect the Rand publication to be referenced nationwide, at incalculable avoidable harm to public health and safety."

So maintaining the status quo is more important than the possibility that the dogma of "Just say no," might have been wrong?

The politicization of policy studies is not new. In the adult entertainment industry, groups that oppose new adult book stores and video stores often cite the "secondary effects" those establishments bring, such as increased loitering, sex crimes and decreased property values. However, the methodology and the findings of secondary effects studies are often disputed.

Do you think the Rand study was flawed, or did it rattle the cages of too many assumptions of what medical marijuana shops would bring to their surroundings? How can unpopular groups operating within the law fight the stigma their businesses have, even when the forces of conventional wisdom would like to sweep findings to the contrary under the rug?