Excellent analysis of the situation. And I like your title. Dugg, by the way.

Are you the Brinna of Brinna's Broadsides? You haven't shared your Blogger profile, so I can't tell. In any case, thanks!

Yes, Evan, I am. I heard about the patent at the Patients Out of Time conference at Asilomar last April (http://www.medicalcannabis.com/). I've made it a personal mission of mine to get that information out there in as many ways as possible. I mentioned the patent in a comment on an article by Paul Armentano on Cancer and Cannabis for Huffington post. It got a boost when he picked it up and mentioned it in an article for alternet last July, about Big Pharma. As you can see, the power is in networking. I am delighted that you picked it up,too, and added your own twist to the issue. Keep up the good writing and good work.

Thanks, Brinna. Now here's a sleeper of a story for you: Sen. Mike Gravel (remember, the old angry guy who ran for the Dem nomination?) hardly got a chance to tell the main reason he sacrificed his retirement to run: The National Initiative for Democracy, a project for better and national ballot initiatives. It's the ultimate check and balance to a Congress for sale. I started the first "direct" democracy website, http:Vote.org in 1995 and it now promotes Gravel's project -and there's something everyone can do about it.