By Dave Stancliff

California Attorney General Jerry Brown recently handed state police and marijuana activists his latest directive towards fulfilling the voter's will, but it's just another hopeful stab at getting the feds to stop busting anyone, and everyone, that grows marijuana, and the clinics that distribute it.

Since California voters said they wanted marijuana to be legal for medicinal purposes in 1996, the feds have brazenly ignored the people's will and have continued to hunt down medical marijuana growers, and bust pot clinics sanctioned by cities and counties.

The feds are so enthralled with their war on marijuana that they happily ignore state's rights. The wrongheadedness of this warfare is apparent when marijuana is classified as a Class One narcotic. Putting the pungent herb in with heroin, cocaine, meth, and other serious drugs just displays the feds ignorance from the top down.

Anybody that has had the opportunity to research how marijuana became illegal knows that it was a racist and elitist law passed to run Mexicans out of American towns. The propaganda that resulted was legendary and hopelessly inaccurate. It was another way to go after African-Americans and put them behind bars. The stereotyping that took place without challenge was a sad note in our history.

Once we grew hemp for victory, during WWII, and now we find that it can make a lot more than just great rope. The clothing, oil, and other applications that come from marijuana are becoming more known and seeping into the mainstream.

The fact that marijuana has medical applications should give it more respect, but as long as there are feds that trample state's rights, it's going to be viewed as being on the wrong side of the law.

With this being a presidential election year there is the opportunity to ask all political parties to put in their two-cents on the issue of medical marijuana and state's rights. Now there's some discussions I'd like to see.

McCain would probably have a stroke during a debate about pot legalization, and Obama would mention that he tried it in his youth. When it came to the VP's, Palin would prosecute anyone that defended pot, and Biden would just smile mysteriously. I think it's one of those hot-button topics that Americans need to hear the candidates weigh in on.

While we're at it, let's get them to talk about states rights. The feds contempt for them have become too pervasive these days, and it's time to start acting like we live in a Republic, and we're not minions of some faceless central government.

Some medical marijuana activists are happily hailing the new guidelines by the state's top law dog, and if reports are true, some police agencies are happy with the new guidelines for whose been naughty and whose been nice.

Humboldt County, the un-official pot capital of California and the USA- already had some pretty liberal medical marijuana laws going, and it's district attorney had no problem going along with the new directives.

After all of these years of sparring between state and federal authorities, the new rule book is supposed to really be an improvement and will respect the legal patient's right to puff pot. The whole idea is supposed to make it easy to go after the bad guys while not hassling the good guys.

As It Stands, since when have the feds honored anything since the state's new law was enacted a dozen years ago?