Any mainstream media exposure our movement can get is generally a good thing. A lot of people who may be drawn to our cause for one reason or another may not surf the marijuana websites on a daily basis. So when a story appears on a website like Time.com, we should take notice, and promote it.

An article briefly describing the history of medical marijuana was posted on Time recently, and it is worth sharing with your friends. With the lead paragraph making the obligatory re-cap of recent events in Los Angeles, the article then goes into the diverse and long history of medical cannabis.

Around 2000 B.C., the Egyptians used cannabis to treat sore eyes. A millennium later, doctors in India could be found mixing the weed with milk to use as an anesthetic. In 200 B.C., the Greeks used marijuana to remedy earaches. Pot even enjoyed its freedom in America’s early days. Farmers in colonial Jamestown were urged to grow hemp, and 19th century medical journals praised the plant’s medical effectiveness.

Then of course comes the gap between marijuana’s prohibition in 1937 and California passing Proposition 215 in 1996. Medical marijuana is now making a big comeback.

Today 60% of Americans support legalizing it for medical use, according to an April 2010 AP-CNBC poll. As a result, states are increasingly having to grapple with whether to take this course and, if they do, how to go about prescribing and dispensing the goods.

State by state medical marijuana continues our march toward some kind of sanity in our drug policy. But the thing about momentum is that it doesn’t last on its own. We must capitalize on our gains to make even more.

- Joe Klare