OXFORD, Miss. - The only reason 73-year-old Elvy Musikka still has her sight, she says, is she's been smoking pot for 30 years.

"In 1975, my doctor told me if I didn't start using marijuana, I'd go blind," said Musikka. "Shortly thereafter I found out that, indeed, it was the only thing that would help me with my glaucoma."

Musikka is one of four people still enrolled in the federal government's Investigational New Drug program, which allows a small number of patients to use medical marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi. The program stopped accepting new participants in 1992. Those already in the program are allowed to continue receiving their prescriptions. At its peak, the program provided pot for 30 patients.

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STARKVILLE - After a recent column on the election results that made marijuana use and possession legal in two U. S. states, a thoughtful reader responded with a dissenting view.

My column pointed out that now that voters in the states of Colorado and Washington have approved legalizing the sale of marijuana in their states, there is the inevitable showdown between these new state laws and current federal law that makes marijuana sales illegal in all states.

The laws passed in Colorado and Washington allow the recreational use of marijuana and require that the states set up a bureaucracy to license, regulate and tax those sales. That regulatory system is expected to be very similar to the bureaucracies that exist in states to license, regulate and tax the sales of liquor, wine and beer. The reader wrote: "The federal government has no authority to regulate marijuana, and certainly none to ban it. It occurred to me recently that it took an amendment to the Constitution to ban alcohol, and the stroke of a pen to ban marijuana. What changed in the Constitution in the meantime? Nothing.

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Circuit Judge Marcus Gordon criticized the Department of Corrections as "more than any other agency detrimental to circuit courts" during his speech Wednesday at The Neshoba County Fair.

He lamented the Legislature had given the department "unbridled authority" over inmates.

Gordon said that while he and Circuit Judge Vernon Cotten have over the past decade sentenced drug and burglary offenders to 587 years in prison, only 180 years of those sentences have been served.

He said Corrections claims judges cannot revoke probation for the commission of another crime and sentencing rules apply to judges, but Corrections can release prisoners as it determines best.

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YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Marc Emery has 10 suggestions for improving life in British Columbia:

1. Eliminate the provincial income tax, lowering it to zero in thirds over three years.

2. Abolish the RCMP in the province. Establish a modest-sized provincial police force answerable to the provincial solicitor-general and attorney-general. B.C. will need far fewer cops and jails once you eliminate the illegal drug markets.

3. Base MLA selection based on a combination of preferential voting (first, second and third choices, etc., on each ballot) or a first-past-the-post system combined with proportional representation.

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Prefers Ron Paul: Jailed activist is a fan of Ayn Rand and rational capitalism

YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Jailed marijuana activist Marc Emery is all over the map politically. A founding member of the Marijuana Party of Canada, he's moved his support between the B.C. and federal NDP, the federal and provincial Greens and federal Liberals over the years.

But Emery says that's because so few of our leaders, including Premier Christy Clark, NDP Leader Adrian Dix or Green Party Leader Jane Sterk, are inspirational in any way.

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A Province Exclusive - Vancouver Marijuana Activist Marc Emery Still Has Two Years To Serve In A U.S. Jail, But He Isn't Singing The Prison Blues Because He Believes He's Fast Being Vindicated For His Stand On Marijuana

YAZOO CITY, Miss. - Vancouver cannabis crusader Marc Emery may be facing two more frustrating years behind bars in the Deep South of the United States. But he's more confident than ever he's winning the war on drug prohibition.

The Prince of Pot believes the drug legalization campaign he's waged for more than 30 years is already over at the "intellectual" level. And it's only a matter of time before marijuana and other recreational drugs are sold in stores in Canada and the U.S. - and taxed and regulated just like liquor and cigarettes.

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If President Obama had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. So the president famously said. And the president's son would thereby find himself at significantly greater risk of running afoul of the so-called "War on Drugs" than, say, a son of George W. Bush. Depending on what state he lived in, a Trayvon Obama might be 57 times more likely than a Trayvon Bush to be imprisoned on drug charges.

This is not because he would be 57 times more likely to commit a drug crime. To the contrary, white men commit the vast majority of the nation's drug crimes, but black men do the vast majority of the nation's drug time. It is a nakedly racial disparity that should leave the "Justice" Department embarrassed to call itself by that name.

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A big ditto to Wayne Parker's Letter to the Editor on Wednesday about the ludicrousness of imprisoning people for using medical marijuana. Jerry Withem is serving time for this offense. My sister takes prescription marijuana to treat her chemosymptom of nausea -- she is not incarcerated. This is the epitome of hypocrisy and an egregiously unjust scenario. But to take this one step further, why not just legalize all marijuana -- period?

It's been said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Case in point: Prohibition was declared a monumental failure, yet here we are repeating history. You can walk into a store and buy alcohol or cigarettes (either of which can cause of death or disability, but if you buy marijuana you are a criminal. Studies show pot to be less addictive and less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. (Sure, the drug companies wouldn't like the loss of revenue due to Marinol being off the market, but too bad.)

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A Mississippi legislator recently introduced a bill that would legalize the use of medical marijuana in the state. The bill was introduced by Democratic Senator Deborah Dawkins from Harrison County in January and has managed to stay afloat despite heavy opposition.

Medical marijuana is currently prohibited by federal law, and it's classified as a schedule I drug. Despite this, the Drug Enforcement Administration, charged with enforcing federal drug laws, usually does not interfere with medical marijuana patients and their caregivers, according to Americans for Safe Access.

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JACKSON COUNTY -- A Jackson County judge Tuesday signed off on an order dismissing drug-related charges against Dr. David Bruce Allen, a retired heart surgeon who was jailed 14 months before a mistrial was declared at his trial last year.

Allen was arrested in 2009 on charges accusing him of growing marijuana on his 50-acre farm on Mississippi 63 in the Escatawpa community, also known as "The Blue Hole."

Allen, who had been a medical marijuana doctor in California, was released from the Jackson County jail in February after the mistrial was declared on charges of manufacturing and transporting a controlled substance. Circuit Court Judge Robert Krebs dismissed four other charge against Allen, 55, because of a lack of evidence.

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JACKSON COUNTY -- A store owner was arrested after undercover narcotics agents went into her business and purchased spice, a synthetic form of marijuana outlawed in the state, Sheriff Mike Byrd said.

Agents with the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County seized three brands of spice Tuesday at Jr.'s Discount Cigarette and Beer on Government Street, Byrd said.

The store's owner, Son Thi Nguyen, 48, of Linda Circle, Ocean Springs, was charged with sale of a controlled substance and possession with intent to distribute.

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HATTIESBURG - The Lamar County School District is expanding its random drug testing program to include more than 1,000 of its nearly 9,250 students this year.

In the past few years, the district has randomly drug tested only about 350 students annually.

"My overall goal is to get to 2,000 to 3,000 drug tests a year, especially with our district growing," Superintendent Ben Burnett said.

The district randomly drug tests students in the eighth through 12th grades who are involved in extracurricular activities.

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