The anti-drunk driving campaign is drawing a crowd at the Roundhouse. The anti-weed campaign, not so much.

Show us what has left the back of your eyelids burning. Send pictures of visual trespass and peculiarities to copyeditor [at] sfreporter.com, subject “eyedropper.”

On my journey to work this morning, the dreamy, familiar voice of Steve Inskeep was replaced by another, almost-as-familiar one: that of former New Mexico Gov Gary Johnson. He was talking to KUNM’s Arcie Chapa about legalizing marijuana, among other things. A couple of pithy quotes from Johnson:

“Ninety percent of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related.”

“All of the thousands, if not millions of entrepreneurs, business people, doctors, lawyers and scientists who would move to New Mexico [if] marijuana was legal…maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing!”

And no, I was not reporting while driving. You can access the KUNM archive here; set your times for 8am – 9am today to hear Johnson. Oh, and…don’t forget: If you’re bored with Obama-ism, you could join the 1,848 Facebookers who plan to elect this guy for president.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

Coming soon: Big Buddha’s Cheese. But in the meantime, New Mexico’s sole licensed nonprofit medical cannabis producer is all out of product.

Marjorie Childress at the New Mexico Independent is reporting that the Santa Fe Institute for Natural Medicine has already sold out. Childress cites an unnamed medical cannabis patient who provided an alert from the SFINM Web site:

8/28/09 PRODUCT UPDATE

We are currently sold out of our inventory. Not knowing what members would like, our first crop was 50/50 indica dominant/sativa dominant. And although we are so sorry to run out, we now know that members prefer sativa dominant. We will try and adjust our proportions accordingly so this does not happen again. Also, please keep in mind that it takes 12-18 months for a smooth running ongoing production. This is especially tricky when it is a pilot project and mother nature is involved. We very much appreciate your patience.

Come October, we hope to introduce Big Buddha’s Cheese, Chocolope, and Kandy Kush to the menu. More details will come in September.

Everyone from Tennessee-grower Bernie Ellis to former state medical cannabis program coordinator Melissa Milam have complained that the 95-plant limit the DOH has imposed on nonprofit growers is far too small to handle the statewide patient demand. What compounds the problem is DOH Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil could not tell SFR when he thinks a second nonprofit grower/distributor will be granted a license.

To date there are 20 outstanding applications filed by nonprofit entities wishing to offer legal medical cannabis to patients. There are 540 patients registered with the program, only about a fifth are licensed to grow for themselves.

NMI’s glimpse into the private SFINM web site confirms that New Mexico patients are paying street prices for cannabis: “The top grade is $378 an ounce, the middle grade is $336, and the bottom grade…is $182 an ounce.”

Four years ago, Dr. Eve Elting was approached to take part in a medical cannabis company not unlike Canntechs (which SFR reported on last week) in California. She was a skeptic at first, but did her due diligence and found that, yes, it can help patients with a long list of conditions. Now, Elting has expanded her practice to Truth or Consequences and is evaluating patients from all over the state as one of the few self-identified medical cannabis specialists. She is also a member of the state advisory board for the Department of Health’s medical marijuana program–and would like to see marijuana just plain legalized.

Q&A after the jump.

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