Four years ago at FDL, Dickfest was immensely popular, inspiring art, a t-shirt line, and even imitators. Since that time, we haven’t felt that there has been a moment quite so poignantly appropriate to display the poetic prowess of our readers til now: We need a great name for our marijuana campaign. Submit your entries here — and remember, 5 words or less.

Marijuana has become mainstream. Breathless stories about it in TIME, Newsweek, and all major media outlets proclaim that it is either a potential savior of the economy, the scourge of teen development, or just a plant that happens to have a bad rap.

Ryan Grim’s new book, This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, is a smart and sophisticated telling of the complex interaction between two opposed forces: Americans trying to alter their moods and mental states with chemicals and Americans trying to stop them.

It is a book that tries, and largely succeeds, in making sense of the apparently senseless mix of prohibition, regulation, and permissiveness

Via Jeralyn this morning, I learned that the United States Attorney for Los Angeles spun his wheels, and confused his staff, with a contradictory set of memos about medical marijuana busts.The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles sent a confidential memo to prosecutors last week ordering them to stop filing charges against medical marijuana dispensaries, then abruptly lifted the ban on Friday, according to sources familiar with the developments.

(Jello Biafra’s 1979 mayoral campaign against Diane Feinstein was the first I ever worked on, which probably says a lot. We’re proud to publish his open letter to Barack Obama — jh)

My Friends (couldn’t resist, I had to say it),

Here, by semi-popular demand, are the suggestions I sent to Obama’s Change.gov site for citizen input.

A man I respect a great deal once said that there were only about twenty honorable judges in the United States – those who refused to preside over mandatory sentencing cases. There is always one case that outrages the public, because someone they think deserves worse gets a light punishment at the hands of a judge.