WASHINGTON - Attorney David West can't pinpoint precisely when he started to sour on the rapid expansion of drug courts - but the karate episode stands out.

West, a criminal defense lawyer in the Atlanta area, was representing a client busted in a town north of the city for possession of pot. Faced with the prospect of losing his driver's license and being haunted by a criminal record, the client opted for treatment.

The intensive, costly therapy was more appropriate for a heroin addict, West said. What he found particularly absurd was the requirement that his client enroll in and pay for three months of martial-arts training.

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THE vexed question of legalising medical marijuana is gaining momentum in Australia. Only recently NSW Premier Mike Baird said he wouldn't completely rule it out.

Now, Brisbane mum Sally White tells 60 Minutes tonight that her 16-month-old daughter is dying and she wants to put her child on weed. A young cancer sufferer in Tamworth in NSW, his father a policeman, is waging a campaign to have medical marijuana made legal. It is legal in Colorado in the US and other states are investigating.

Properly regulated and with rigorous eligibility criteria, surely if it gives the dying relief, legalising medical marijuana must be investigated in this country.

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For Michele Leonhart, the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, there is no difference between the health effects of marijuana and those of any other illegal drug.

"All illegal drugs are bad for people," she told Congress in 2012, refusing to say whether crack, methamphetamines or prescription painkillers are more addictive or physically harmful than marijuana.

Her testimony neatly illustrates the vast gap between antiquated federal law enforcement policies and the clear consensus of science that marijuana is far less harmful to human health than most other banned drugs and is less dangerous than the highly addictive but perfectly legal substances known as alcohol and tobacco. Marijuana cannot lead to a fatal overdose. There is little evidence that it causes cancer. Its addictive properties, while present, are low, and the myth that it leads users to more powerful drugs has long since been disproved.

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Michigan's 27th District House seat is turning out to be a hotly-contested primary race with five Democratic candidates and two Republicans aiming for victory.

The district covers areas of Berkley, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge and Royal Oak Township.

Marijuana seems to be one of the hottest topics for the voters in the district in recent months as civil right groups have managed to put the pot legalization on the ballot in these communities.

Andrew Robert Cissell, a Democrat, has been personally involved in submitting the required petitions for the ballot.

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Chuck Ream knows that a few cities in mid-Michigan can't change the world, or the country.

But he and others hope that ballot initiatives in Mt. Pleasant and Harrison in the November election to legalize small amounts of marijuana will at the very least get people thinking about decriminalizing cannabis on a larger scale.

Ream is part of an effort in to legalize the use, possession or transfer of less than 2.5 ounces of marijuana on private property among people 21 and older.

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The Ferndale City Council has given its unanimous approval to a medical marijuana center similar to one that county authorities raided with a SWAT team and padlocked in 2010.

But city officials said the Meridian Wellness Center, which is to occupy a former liquor store on East 9 Mile near I-75, will operate within state law as it provides medical marijuana to state-approved patients.

"I'd like there to be more state guidelines for us to follow," but the city found no reason to block the center from opening after those who proposed it met a list of conditions, Ferndale Mayor Dave Coulter said.

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As voters and lawmakers in more states decide to legalize marijuana, policy makers will have to answer a fresh and difficult question: How should governments regulate the production and sale of the drug?

Beyond keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors, a good regulatory system has to limit the increase in drug abuse that is likely to accompany lower prices and greater availability after legalization. It should protect consumers from both dangerous and counterfeit products, reducing the physical risk from a psychoactive substance. And a well-regulated system should undermine and eventually eliminate the black market for marijuana, which has done great damage to society.

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In a Los Angeles Times article appearing in The Columbian on July 29, "Pot: U.S. sees profound cultural shift," Stuart Gitlow, president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, is quoted thusly: "When you look back at Prohibition, what you see is that per-capita use of alcohol dropped by more than 50 percent; as a result of that, alcohol-related deaths dropped considerably as well. Prohibition was an enormous public health success." This is where the adage about not believing everything you read fits.

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Denver - A Colorado task force charged with tightening controls on marijuana edibles unveiled proposed rules Friday to limit potency levels, require clearer labeling and ensure that children cannot get their hands on pot-infused confections.

Under the guidelines released by the Colorado Department of Revenue, serving sizes of edible pot products would be restricted to 10 milligrams of THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana, down from 100 milligrams.

Packaging would also have to alert consumers that the items contain cannabis. Child-proof packages and health warning labels would need to be affixed to the products before they are shipped to pot stores.

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When The New York Times editorial board recently called for an end to the federal ban on marijuana, you could hear a collective gasp from law enforcement agencies that have been hauling in pot smokers for more than four decades.

James Anthony, former Oakland deputy attorney, had a different reaction.

"It's about time," he said. "It makes a lot of sense."

Ten years ago, Anthony was prosecuting drug crimes. He now is in private practice and a spokesman for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nationwide association of former cops, prosecutors and judges who have seen the folly of perpetuating President Richard Nixon's so-called war on drugs.

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