August 10, 2010 – Sometimes a cartoon can be worth a thousand words. … or even more than 100,000. Haik Hoisington’s ‘Flower’ video has hit a nerve and has gone viral on the internet. The Flower was released by the online news service AlterNet on July 29 – and in just five days has been viewed more than 175,000 times.

This fall Californians will go the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.

Whether it’s calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.

“The Flower” contrasts a utopian society that freely farms and consumes a pleasure giving flower with a society where the same flower is illegal and its consumption is prohibited. The animation is a meditation on the social and economic costs of marijuana prohibition.

August 9, 2010 – Airport security used to be the end of the line for travelers holding medical marijuana. Now some passengers report airports and TSA looking the other way.

Medical marijuana patients reported no problems as they boarded with carry on luggage and cannabis plants through airports in states that were both medical marijuana friendly and not.

However, officials with TSA say it isn’t in their jurisdiction. TSA leaves it up to local law enforcement, and officials say they call local authorities to handle all known cases involving individuals in airports carrying medical marijuana or cannabis plants.

One TSA spokesperson, Dwayne Baird, commented “State laws supersede what we would do in the aviation sector, and it would be up to the local law enforcement officials to determine the action they would take based on whatever the person was trying to bring on board an aircraft.”

Jason Christ with Cannabiscare says, “People don’t know where to get seeds. They don’t know where to get clones. They are afraid to drive through states. To go through California to Montana, say to get a good strain from California, I would have to drive through Oregon and through Idaho, which don’t recognize medical marijuana. They’ll take you to jail.”

Many medical marijuana patients view the ability to pass through airports with their cannabis plants as part of new regulations. TSA says there are no new regulations. However, medical marijuana patients claim airports, TSA, and local authorities never would have allowed them in the past to pass through airports with their plants. Now, the culmination of local authorities and other airport authorities have allowed it at multiple destinations.

Medical marijuana carriers noted a common theme amongst the local law enforcement response. It is a response that deemed it okay to carry the cannabis plants through airports as long as the starting and final destinations were medical marijuana friendly.