Last week, we told you how prominent pot advocate Mason Tvert, head of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), wanted the mayor-appointed Denver Marijuana Policy Review Panel, on which he sits, to expel one of its members: Lieutenant Ernie Martinez, head of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association (CDIA). Tvert called for the ouster of Martinez, a longtime rival, because of a 2006 letter the investigator had written that compared marijuana legalization advocates to cancer.

However, Mayor John Hickenlooper's office isn't going along with the request, according to a prepared statement from communications director Eric Brown:

The Marijuana Policy Review Panel (MPRP) intentionally represents a variety of viewpoints, including those of Lt. Martinez. The MPRP has 11 appointed positions (the appointment of the District Attorney was declined) and there are 10 voting panelists in practice.

Lt. Martinez is one voice on the panel. Police officers and recreational users of marijuana may, understandably, have very different perspectives on the phrases "lowest law enforcement priority" and "greatest extent possible." The role of the MPRP is to determine what this ordinance means, in practice, after incorporating all viewpoints -- not just those on one side of the debate. The MPRP's upcoming report to City Council should shed more light on this matter.

It will be interesting to see how the flare-up impacts the panel's report to City Council, as well as the MPRP's meeting tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. to go over 2009 marijuana arrest statistics. After all, knowing Tvert, he likely won't be accepting the mayor's decision quietly.

A thought-provoking piece from NORML Outreach Director Russ Bellville has been published on the Huffington Post. The title really says it all -- "If 'Cops Don't Make Laws, They Just Enforce Them,' Why Are Police Opposing Marijuana Legalization?"

The following is an excerpt, or you can CLICK HERE to read the entire piece:

Since fourteen states have legalized the use of cannabis for sick and disabled people we here at NORML have reported on numerous stories of medical users harassed, arrested, and jailed by police. We have also reported on healthy adults in all fifty states whose lives are turned upside down by an arrest, sometimes losing student loans, jobs, children, pets, dignity, property, and freedom over a single joint, seed, or even a cannabis stem. When we and others bring up these insane injustices to the police who are making these arrests, we often hear the platitude that "cops don't make the laws, we just enforce the laws."

So why do we consistently see representatives of law enforcement opposing medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, and marijuana legalization efforts in state legislatures?

Today, Mason Tvert, founder of SAFER (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation), called for a boycott of Starbucks, saying the coffee chain supported the Colorado Drug Investigators Association, a lobbying group that has opposed to medical marijuana.

The CDIA, which listed Starbucks as a sponsor on its website alongside such vendors as Glock handguns and Point Blank Body Armor, is a group that is seeking to overturn Colorado's constitutional amendment allowing cannabis for medical use.