The classic 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness revolved around very melodramatic events where high school students, lured by pushers to try marijuana, descended into a sensational multitude of drug-induced depravities. In decades hence, this cautionary tale of a drug menace gone mad has been rightfully seen as an extremely exaggerated take on the use of marijuana.

Today the pendulum has swung to quite another extreme.

Recently a Gas & Grass (combination gas station and marijuana dispensary) has opened in Colorado Springs so customers can get a variety of errands done in the same place for their unprecedented convenience - including the purchase of lottery tickets, beverages and cigarettes. The March 2014 issue of Psychology Today published an article titled, "It's Time to Address the Marijuana Issue: To put it simply, What are we thinking?" In it, the author, Dr. Robert Berezin, writes that "the substance abuse epidemic is so incredibly destructive to the well-being of our society ... it's problematic enough to deal with the hard drugs and prescription pharmaceuticals." He furthers that marijuana is a psychoactive drug, and while not physically addictive, it is powerfully habituating. Dr. Berezin says that he has treated all the addictions and that marijuana usage has gotten a "pass" - a substance whose habitual use negatively affects the brain and can be distorting and destructive to the personality and optimum functioning in life.

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Man Says in Lawsuit They Were Unlawfully Seized

AZTEC - A local man is demanding the San Juan County Sheriff's Office reimburse him for dozens of marijuana plants seized from his property in a raid in May 2014.

Gilbert Oldfield claims in a lawsuit filed in District Court on Dec. 1 that a sheriff's deputy unlawfully seized 43 marijuana plants last year from his residence on County Road 3950.

The deputy, Nima Babadi, seized the marijuana plants, despite knowing Oldfield possessed a New Mexico marijuana grower's license, according to the complaint.

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In theory, law enforcement should be implemented in a fair, across-the-board manner. In practice in southern New Mexico, it has made state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients legal victims of their geography.

Get your medical pot prescription filled in Albuquerque or Santa Fe and, unless you are a very bad and very unlucky driver, you won't encounter a police officer. And if you do, it's highly unlikely you would be charged with drug possession over your prescription bottle with the bud in it. Get it filled in Las Cruces and head home via Interstates 10 or 25 to your smaller city or town that lacks a dispensary and your route home likely takes you through a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint.

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Governor Vetoed Prior Measure to Legalize Crop, Cited Federal Law

(AP) - A Democratic New Mexico senator wants the state Department of Agriculture to adopt rules for researching and growing an industrial version of marijuana's non-intoxicating cousin.

Sen. Cisco McSorley, D-Albuquerque, introduced legislation Wednesday that could create the opportunity for farmers to grow hemp after a state study.

McSorley last year sponsored a bill aimed at legalizing the selling of hemp and licensing of farmers to grow the crop. That proposal would have established fees and set up state regulations for the distribution of hemp.

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Deming Man Says He Fears Federal Charges

LAS CRUCES - A Deming man is asking a federal court to bar the U.S. Border Patrol from seizing medical marijuana at highway checkpoints near the southern border.

Raymundo Marrufo, a 50-year-old medical marijuana patient, is seeking a permanent injunction against the Border Patrol in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces that would order border agents to "cease questioning U.S. citizens regarding medical cannabis in any states where the use of medical cannabis has been approved."

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A Santa Fe County jail corrections officer was arrested for bringing drugs into the jail to sell to an inmate, and the drugs were allegedly provided by the inmate's wife.

Brandon Valdez, 19, was booked into the jail he worked at on Nov. 19 and charged with distributing a controlled substance and bringing contraband into a place of imprisonment after a routine search of four guards resulted in 20 suboxone strips, 10 Xanax pills, two unidentified pills and a small amount of marijuana found on Valdez.

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Profit Motivates Albuquerque to Ignore New Legislation Passed in the 2015 Session

The city of Albuquerque is violating the law. Under state law, cities are prohibited from taking the property of its citizens unless the person has been convicted of a crime.

Yet, the city of Albuquerque continues to take cash, cars and other property from people who are innocent. What the city is doing is illegal.

That is why we have partnered with the Institute for Justice, a nonpartisan, public interest law firm, and filed a lawsuit to end Albuquerque's unjust civil forfeiture ordinance.

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Latest Supreme Court Ruling Could Radically Reshape Nature of Illicit Drug Trade With U.S.

The United States has a very sensitive relationship with Mexico pertaining to illegal drugs.

It is constantly claiming that Mexico has been lax in assisting in the interdiction of illegal drugs that are produced or staged in Mexico and shipped to destinations within the U.S. American policymakers and would-be presidential candidates point to the corruption within the Mexican government that is fueled by the billions in revenues of illegal drugs that Mexico's cartels send to the U.S.

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If Substance Abuse Is Not Treated, the Criminal Behavior Will Continue

What is my responsibility as a judge when a criminal defendant is suffering from alcohol or drug addiction?

In April 2003, I swore to uphold the United States Constitution, and to enforce the constitution and laws of New Mexico. How and when does court-ordered treatment for addiction fit into my judicial duties?

Addiction and crime are related. The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence reports that, every day, 36 people die and approximately 700 are injured in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver.

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Stun Grenades Used in 2013 Drug Bust

A lawsuit filed in federal court this week alleges FBI agents used excessive force in a southern New Mexico drug raid two years ago when they tossed stun grenades into a trailer where three children slept.

The 9- and 10-year-old sons and 12-year-old daughter of Abel Romero Sr. - the target of a predawn sweep that would net 22 suspected dealers of drugs and guns in Anthony, N.M. - were sleeping with their father in the living room of a single-wide trailer when federal agents allegedly blew open the front door with a stun grenade that sent shrapnel and broken glass flying.

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Patients in Rural Areas Have to Pick Up Weed in Parking Lots

Medical marijuana patients in Albuquerque and Santa Fe can go to a nearby dispensary to obtain their marijuana.

But patients in rural New Mexico - many of them ill - often are forced to meet with delivery drivers in parking lots of businesses such as McDonald's and Walmart to purchase their pot.

That puts them at risk of violating federal drug laws, violates their privacy and puts them in danger because they have to carry cash, according to a lawsuit filed against the state Department of Health.

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ALMOST EVERY DAY or two in our local paper or the one in Las Cruces, there are articles about how many backpacks full of marijuana have been brought across the border in southwest New Mexico. One week, the paper said it was almost 1 million dollars' worth. Where did it go when it was picked up? I can make a bet that much of it was sold to others, some by our own DEA agents.

Why in the world don't we legalize all drugs and sell them in stores? The money wasted on enforcement might then do some good. It could help to fund our dismal education system, which has the lowest graduation rate in the nation.

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As reported by The Washington Post and reprinted in The New Mexican ("Justice Department about to free 6,000 prisoners," Oct. 6), the Justice Department is prepared to release 6,000 prisoners. That started on Oct. 30 and is the largest one-time release by the feds ever. The U.S. Sentencing Commission retroactively reduced the sentence for drug offenses, which precipitated this response.

Everyone from Obama, the American Civil Liberties Union to Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina are in support of further reducing the mandatory-minimum sentences that were set for drug offenses during the sweeping "war on drugs" campaign of the 1980s and 1990s.

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Looser PTSD Rules Boost Prescriptions

The number of New Mexicans licensed to buy medical marijuana surged by almost 50 percent this year, in part because of a court ruling in April that eased some qualifications required to get a license, a state official said.

About 18,780 people are now licensed by the state Department of Health to buy medical pot, up 48 percent from 12,647 on Jan. 1, said Andrea Sundberg, director of the agency's medical cannabis program. An advocate for the state's medical cannabis law said the spike in licensed patients also reflects a growing acceptance of medical marijuana among patients and physicians.

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Lieutenant Who Shot Undercover Officer Says He Was at Briefing

The city of Albuquerque and the police lieutenant who shot and seriously injured a fellow undercover officer in a drug sting gone awry early this year have denied in court filings that the lieutenant missed a briefing prior to the operation.

That contradicts Albuquerque police reports on the shooting and officer Jacob Grant's lawsuit, which both said Lt. Grag Brachle wasn't present at the meeting to discuss details such as where the police officers would be sitting when they purchased drugs from the suspects.

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SANTA FE - New Mexico Health Secretary Retta Ward says New Mexico has seen a significant jump in the number of patients participating in the state's medical marijuana program over the past year.

Ward testified Tuesday before the Legislative Finance Committee in Santa Fe. She told lawmakers about 18,000 people are enrolled in the program, an increase of about 7,000 since the beginning of the year.

Ward attributed the increase to changes made earlier this year.

There are currently more than 20 qualifying conditions, including chronic pain and posttraumatic stress disorder.

The state has been petitioned to add attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to the list. That petition will be discussed during a public meeting later this week.

The state also is in the process of licensing a dozen more nonprofit producers.

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Groups Work to End Harsh Sentences for Addicted, Mentally Ill and Non-Violent Offenders

WASHINGTON - You would have been hard-pressed to find a police chief in his office in the past few days.

Dozens of them were in Washington, lobbying to get more people out of prison. They want to end the mandatory jail terms judges are forced to bestow for what are seen less as criminal acts than cries of desperation.

America's prisons are overflowing. The United States has more people in jail than any other country, including some of the harshest, most backward nations.

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The New Mexico Supreme Court, taking up a controversial 2006 marijuana raid for a second time, ruled Monday that a warrantless aerial search was unconstitutional because a low-flying helicopter - said to have damaged property, kicked up dust and raised a panic - was too intrusive.

The court didn't rule out all aerial searches, citing case law supporting searches using aircraft flying at "navigable" altitudes of 400 feet or higher and with little impact on the ground.

The 2006 raid, part of a State Police operation, netted 14 pot plants from Norman Davis' rural Taos County home.

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Reversal Cites Damage Caused by Low-Flying Helicopters in Raid

SANTA FE - The New Mexico Supreme Court, taking up a controversial 2006 marijuana raid for a second time, ruled Monday that a warrantless aerial search was unconstitutional because a low-flying helicopter - said to have damaged property, kicked up dust and raised a panic - was too intrusive.

Justice Richard Bosson wrote that "when low-flying aerial activity leads to more than just observation and actually causes an unreasonable intrusion on the ground - most commonly from an unreasonable amount of wind, dust, broken objects, noise and sheer panic - then at some point courts are compelled to step in and require a warrant before law enforcement engages in such activity."

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In N.M. and a number of other states, cannabis manages to be legal, illegal all at the same time

When I was growing up in Albuquerque in the 1970s, every teen knew two things about marijuana: it was illegal, and it was everywhere. That should have been a contradiction, but wasn't. Pot was easier for kids to acquire than beer. Cheaper, too.

Forty years later, weed remains ubiquitous. It provides one of the characteristic fragrances of Albuquerque's summer streets. But it's no longer entirely accurate to say it's illegal. Like nothing else in our society, cannabis manages to be legal and illegal at the same time.

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